Toilets, Showers, and Bad Landings

February 25, 2011

It’s been five days since I arrived in Arica. Tonight, my Arican family, who I’ll be spending at least two months with brought me to an extended family gathering and encouraged the vino tinto con coke zero drink- also known as jote while playing a casual drinking game: la cultura sufisticado pide… “aka the sophisticated culture I order,” and finally at 12:50 am local time, we started eating dinner. The chicken and pork were grilled over an open flame fueled by wood that (if I understood correctly) the men chopped themselves on a disk grill. Served with rice, this salty, yummy meat melted in my mouth… but I was a bit too tired to really appreciate it.

Earlier today, my family picked me up from Hotel Arica, the lovely hotel where 26 SIT students and I have been hiding since Tuesday. We went straight to the fish market/port where they pushed me onto a boat and we went for a ride in the harbor. This wonderful, but smelly treat was followed by lunch out, with the family. It was a long day, and made up of three sisters (one 9, one 17, one 21 who lives separately with a baby, a boyfriend, and another baby on the way) and a mom and dad, the family that’s taken me in to call their own, really seems lovely.

February 28, 2011

Another evening without debriefing in this manner would be doing myself, and I suppose, the world an injustice. In the past week, I’ve reached my hand into the toilet countless times to fetch out the toilet paper that I’ve accidentally tossed in instead of putting it in its proper wastebasket, I’ve showered the Chilean way—without hot water, and eaten the typical dinner, toast with accompaniment to tide me over before bed. All of these surprises have come with great chaperoning. My family always knows where I am, who I’m with, when I’ll return home, how I’ll go to and fro, and I always know that they’ll be with me around the table at my next meal. All of these things accounted for, this has been one of the most exciting weeks of my life. There’s been so much change. So much—unexpected. Great new smells, great new sights, great new people, and of course, por supuesto, there are going to be negatives… por supuesto things are going to be tough sometimes. Por supuesto emails from mom before the first day of school with old time words of wisdom and encouragement are going to make me nostalgic and yearn to hug mama back in jersey, but also, que rico que todo está aqui lo es… que rico.

Tonight, the toilet didn’t flush well. Yesterday the toilet didn’t flush well. I guess tomorrow, I’ll have to just use a different toilet.

Tonight, one of my host sisters missed dinner, and it seemed OKAY. Last night I missed dinner and I felt extremely guilty. Tomorrow night, I might explain that I am going to miss dinner and assume it’s OKAY.

Today, I didn’t nap during the extra time during our lunch break and now I’m exhausted. Tomorrow, I’ll nap, as do the locals.

An exciting story goes like this:

Thursday, they let us out of the Hotel Arica “playpen” and brought us sightseeing around town. This was pretty great. We were finally allowed to roam around Arica past the confines of the hotel and the length of the nearby beach. Through some caves, a natural bird estuary, and to El Moro, a huge statue of Jesus on a big hill/cliff/land-thing that represents peace between Chile and Bolivia, we went, exploring what our new land has to offer when I saw my new “friend” Katie taking a jumping photo on the hill/cliff/land-thing and she just looked just, oh so cool through my camera lens doing so.

So I was inspired. I too would be the star of a jumping photo in this very momentous spot.
Well, I guess the excitement was mixed with hope: for an awesome photo for myself, and also doubt: that the photographer would fail to capture the moment.

So, as I jumped up to take this awesome-to-be photo, I failed at taking one important step: to factor in my landing into the equation. Forgetting about the fact that as soon as I decided to jump I’d have to figure out how to come back down to this steeply angled earth with two feet, my knee caught me from tumbling down the hilly, mountainous tierra on the dirt and gravel of el Morro, and my encounter with Jesus was short-lived and bloody- and not so photogenic, as you might imagine.

Needless to say, I’m pumped for Katie that she has a sweet jumping pic at El Morro, and will be eternally jealous.

Oh yeah, the next day, when I got a present from my host family, of course it included a fanny pack, stuffed with memorabilia from El Morro- a keychain, and change purse, embroidered with Jesus’ silhouette. I’d say our run-in ended pretty well though… let’s face it, it’s just a knee/entire leg scrape.

Here are a few activities from orientation, prior to moving in with my family, (in Chronological order) that I want so dearly to remember, but don’t have energy to explain in greater length:

1. Moving in with Erin, an awesome stranger who had just gotten back from traveling through Patagonia. I was nervous when she revealed that she goes to Tufts- where nearly a fifth of our program is from- because I wasn’t sure if she’d want to make new friends. Thankfully, she’s awesome.
2. Getting on the bus to pick everyone up at the airport on day 1 and Aida, the homestay coordinator being shocked to finally see my face—apparently, my photos were all lost in the mail and no one knew what I would look like (I was the only one this happened to, obviously)
3. Walking on the beach for the first time and crazy kids from our program running around on the rocks to disturb hundreds of pigeons and my thinking that they were all imminently going to get fecal-mattered-on.
4. My first pisco sour, courtesy of Hotel Arica.
5. Night walks on the beach during orientation with everyone.
6. THE DROP OFF! (They dropped us off in the middle of the city for the first time, a city I’d never been in before, and gave us a random place around town to go visit with a partner in order to observe, and once there to individually conduct brief interview style conversations with strangers on the street, asking about assigned local words and foods and what they mean and their chilenismo significance… what an experience)
7. Meeting my host sisters for the first time over pizza and ice cream.
8. Our campfire on the last night with cheap supermarket bebidas. How sweet of a last night.
   

For now, ciao! But more soon, from this land of constant sorpesas.