Five months in Chile truly changed me |
I feel like I could write a novel about my escapade to South America. In fact, almost any imaginable adjective could be used to describe my foreign exchange.
Educational. Seeing life through the eyes of my small-town Chilean family has given me a new perspective on the world that I never could have glimpsed from Eugene.
I now have a clearer idea of the magnitude and differentness of the world that lays waiting to be discovered beyond my familiar borders.
Also, living in a Spanish speaking world forced me to use the language as my own. (No one I knew spoke English.) I learned new words and phrases every day and even had dreams in my adopted language.
advertisement Challenging. Sometimes I wonder: If I had known what I was getting into when I signed up for an intercultural exchange, would I have had the courage to go through with it?
It was just plain hard at times - figuring out what was expected of me in a foreign culture, being bored, arguing with my host family, missing home and all the while stumbling about in a foreign language to express myself.
I will admit that sometimes my days in South America seemed interminable. There were things that were difficult for me to accept. Emaciated dogs roamed the streets shivering. Many Chileans could be what I considered racist, sexist and closed-minded.
Fun. I created some great memories in Chile that always will stay with me. I marveled at flamingos thriving at the heart of the Atacama Desert, and I lighted candles and sang with my family by the wood stove when our tiny house was plunged into darkness by an all-too-common winter rainstorm.
I felt special in Chile. Everyone seemed to know me and greet me with an affectionate, ``Hola, Gringa!'' And they were all curious about where I came from and my bizarre habits (like carrying a water bottle, occasionally forgetting to cover my mouth when I yawned and actually studying during class, for example). I danced until daylight with my classmates and introduced everyone I knew to the miracle of peanut butter.
Eye-opening. I now truly realize how affluent and blessed with opportunity we are in America. The Chilean education system is decades behind what I am used to, and my classmates were awestruck when I told them that teenagers could find jobs in the United States.
My host uncle struggled to support his family with the equivalent of $8 a day. My heart broke a little when my host mom told me that my neighbors barely had bread to eat.
Still, everyone did their best to welcome me into their country. And I made the amazing discovery that no matter where they are or how they view the world, people are people.
Everyone has the same need for love and capacity for compassion. Living in a foreign culture helped me dissolve stereotypes I didn't know I had.
The next time someone asks me about Chile,I suppose I could say all Chileans seem to be better dancers than me and obsessed with their cell phones. Or I could say that families are close-knit, that scarfs and puffy jackets are "in," that there is a fierce national pride and that everyone uses way too much mayonnaise (which comes in weird little plastic bags).
I could recount the time I was convinced of my imminent death when an earthquake that registered 7.9 rattled a mall where I was shopping, sending wine displays crashing to the floor in a pungent burst and my fellow shoppers running and screaming in panic.
advertisement Yes, I could mention these things. But no one would fully understand what has happened to me the past five months.
No one but me will ever comprehend the experience forged out of all of the precious stories and observations that I've collected overseas. Because of that, I have a newfound independence and personal strength.
Being an exchange student was a bizarre experience that magnified life, confused and delighted me, and yanked the carpet of comfort and familiarity from beneath my feet.
It still doesn't seem quite
real when I wake up in my own bed without hearing the crow of a rooster, and walk downstairs to find that the cereals in my cabinet haven't varied during the past five months, and that I can eat them with milk, glorious milk.
I am very happy to be back home. But it is strange to observe that my friends and family are virtually unaltered, while I feel different in an inexplicable sort of way.
In all likelihood, it will take years for me to discover how I changed and what I learned, but for now, I have accepted it as an experience that has shaped who I am today.
I plow forward into my American world of late summer sunshine, a new school year and college applications, even as a small part of me lingers in the laid-back, poetic and paradoxical country of Chile, in midst of a cool winter drizzle.
Caitlin McKimmy is a senior at Sheldon High. She can be reached at 20Below@guardnet .com.
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