Chaucito a Chilito

We started off our time here marking off every Wednesday. I arrived Wednesday, February 17, and after that every Wednesday someone would usually take note and say, "Hey, we've been here __ weeks." The first week I remember thinking I had learned more in a week than in a month at home. I remember thinking how much had changed in just a short week. We stopped keeping track after about a month, and then time took off running and now I find myself attending goodbye dinners and taking final exams. It's been something like 18 or 19 weeks, but we stopped keeping track long ago. I have 16 days left in South America and only 9 in Santiago. The picture below is the view I see of the mountains every morning when I step out of my front door-breathtaking! How could I leave?!



The combination of finals week stress and the emotional stress of leaving my home is wiping me out (although-surprise, Chilean school has finals for two weeks!). I cry at the drop of a hat, and have spent a lot of time trying to put my finger on what it is that makes leaving so emotional. I knew this day would come didn't I? And how could I have made such strong relationships in five fast months?

The truth is that studying in a foreign country changes you. It changes the way you see the world, but even more profound than that, it changes the way you see yourself. I told my friend Meagan today that I think I'm having an identity crisis. I have learned, grown, and changed so much over the last five months. I am sad to leave Santiago because it is my home! I have created a life for myself here: I go to school, have a house, a family, a boyfriend, friends, a routine, etc. Switching schools is hard, or leaving friends is hard, but I am leaving my whole life. Granted, it is a new life, but my life all the same.

Also, I am going back to a life that is familiar but foreign. I have realized that the reason the frienships I have made here are so strong is because we went through a really tough and intense experience together, and that has bonded us so closely faster than I can believe. I am going back to you guys, to friends and family that know me very well, and on one level I am excited. At the same time though, I feel like I am going back to friends and family that have an incomplete understanding of who I am. My heart has a little Chilean part to it now, and it makes me scared to think that no one will understand that part of me.

Te quiero Chilito: The Chilean flag waving proudly as we crossed the border back into Chile from Argentina.



Bueno, maybe this all sounds dramatic. A few years ago, I realized the following: You are alone in your head your whole life. That is not supposed to be as depressing as it sounds. I'm not sure what caused it to dawn on me, but at some point I saw this so clearly. I think when I was little I used to think I would meet my future husband, and he would know just everything about me. He would always understand what I was feeling, and there would be no part of me that he wouldn't know. I think as people we all really yearn for that--to be truly and deeply known (something that makes being truly known by God so rich, no?). Anyway, I realize now that even my closest family and friends will never be able to completely know and understand every part of who I am. So I guess it's like that for everyone in some dimension, my emotions are just heightened because Chile is a part of me that rushed into my life all at once and will end all at once too.

Anyway, I will be wrapping up this chapter of my life pretty quickly here. I am now done with going to classes, and have to write 2 papers for Wednesday and then I am DONE! I can see the end of the tunnel now, and as far as classes go that feels good! We joke here that taking classes in English next fall is going to be super easy compared to the experience of the last semester. My friend Justin said something along the lines of "I can't imagine walking out of class and having understood everything the prof said, or getting a syllabus and not having to translate parts of it!" Bascially its going to be awesome.

After I hand in those papers on Wednesday (one has to be 15 pages single spaced, and the other 5--all in Spanish of course!), I am heading to PERU early Thursday morning to see Machu Picchu and make sure I come home completely broke instad of just almost broke. After returning from Peru on July 8, I have just six short days to soak as much Santiago into my skin before flying home. I want you all to know I love you (even if you will never fully understand my Santiaguino side), and hope this blog hasn't left anybody doubting my love for the good 'ole US of A. I've just gotta lotta conflicting emotions bopping around in myself!

Be well,
Amy

P.S. Who scheduled the World Cup for finals week(s)?!?! I LOVE living in a country where people care about soccer. It's been so fun and I'm really getting into it. Unfortunately the USA was disqualified, but tomorrow CHILE plays Brasil. Its going to be rough...but all of Santiago comes even more alive and takes to the streets when Chile plays, so I'll be face-painted and rioting with the best of 'em. Here are a few pics from the last game. There are huge screens set up all over the city, and people stand and watch together. The energy in the crowd is amazing!

Watching in front of the "White House" of Chile, La Moneda:



Gringos show their Roja pride:

MRI Update

As some of you already know...I got the MRI results back and they are completely normal! This doesn't necessarily mean that there are no problems (my Mom's Multiple Sclerosis went undetected on MRIs for about 12 years) but for now the doctor here thinks we have no reason to worry. I will follow up with more doctors appts once back in the States, but for now I'm just going to focus on enjoying the rest of my time here in Chile. That starts this weekend--I'm going to Mendoza, Argentina for a few days with a few friends. Besides the excitement of adding another stamp to my passport, I am excited about the drive. We are taking a bus and to cross the border we will drive through the Andes (the mountain range creates the natural border between Chile and Argentina). Especially with all the recent snow on the mountains, it should prove to be a beautiful drive. Also the exchange rate in Argentina is a lot more forgiving than it is in Chile, gracias a Dios! Anyway, for now I'm just relieved the MRI was okay. Now just waiting for the feeling to come back in my leg...ha. Thank you all for your throughts, concerns, and prayers!
Love from South America,
Amy

Enamorada de Chile

Its been a crazy past couple of weeks. On May 16, my Mom, her sister Janet, and our family friend Natalie arrived to visit for a week. We had an awesome time, and I was hugely blessed to be able to share with them this place that is now my home, this place I have come to love so much. It is really true that I have come to love Chile. The other day I was talking to my friend Justin from my program, and he was saying that he did not love Santiago right away, that it was more of a process of Santiago generally growing on him. I agreed that I felt the same. In my first weeks and months I was certainly having an awesome time, and loving the experience of being here, but I cant say that I loved the city from the very beginning. But while I did not walk off the plane in love with Chile, a general love of Chile and of Santiago has slowly sunk into me, leaving me standing here today wondering at what point my perspective changed and how it can be that this is now my home.

While showing my Mom and the girls around the city, it was at first really shocking to me when they didn't "get" Chile. They kept seeing cultural differences and responding like, "Yes, but if you did it this way..." After the first few days with them I had to change my perspective. I had had over 3 months to get used to the differences, but to them everything had changed all at once. I think I got a little too excited for their visit, because before they came I planned an intinerary for each of the days they would be here so that we could be sure to fit in everything they needed to see. This kind of stressed them out, as I set an inhuman pace and kept yelling back at them that if they didn't hurry up we would not have time for __________ (insert interesting Santiaguino experience here). I dragged them, wheezing, up hills with sights of the city, and made sure they didn't linger too long at museum exhibits. Needless to say, we returned exhausted every night to the hotel, and I think they came to loathe the itinerary. What can I say? I've got Goldsmith blood in me, and we always say that in our family we don't "enjoy" vacation, we "accomplish" vacation. And accomplish we did.

I spend the weekend on the coast in Valparaíso with my Mom, Janet, and Natalie, and they left on Sunday morning. Last week I had much less homework since I had just finished like 1,000 exams, presentations, and papers (not to be dramatic or anything). I enjoyed the week and also really enjoyed being in the city all weekend. I hadn't been home for a weekend in about a month, since the two weekends before were with my mom, the one before that in San Pedro de Atacama, and the one before that doing Techo para Chile. I am now really feeling successful in my Spanish. I can now listen to two people talk at once and catch most of it, and can write notes in my classes while still listening to the prof say something different. I dream in Spanish, and it is now such a part of me that I'm convinced I will be infinitely depressed when I get back to the States. I never want my time here to end!

Many of you have probably heard that I have been having some medical problems recently. Sunday morning around 4a.m. my left thigh went to sleep and never woke up. Obviously it really freaked me out that I couldn't feel part of my leg, so finally Sunday night I went to the emergency room after my leg being all "pins and needles-ey" for more than 12 hours. The doctors said normally something like this would be attributed to a pinched nerve, but the numbness I am experiencing is in such a large area that it would have to be 5 or 6 pinched nerves, which is very unlikely. The pattern of my numbness does not follow a specific nerve or nerves. This leads them to think that there might be more serious issues, such as Multiple Sclerosis or other spinal/cerebral legions or demilanization. I am going in for an MRI today and hoping that if there are spinal or cerebral problems, they are hugely visible to the doctors, because as many of you probably know issues like MS can go undetected for years. Anyway, I'm in pretty good spirits and trying not to freak out prematurely. We should get the MRI results about 48 hours after the exam, so I will let you all know later this week what I hear. I would really appreciate your prayers.

Anyway, I guess that's all the latest news. I keep trying to put new pictures up on facebook and the program never works, so I'm not really sure what to do about that. I hope you are all well there in the States, and enjoying the warm weather! I am definitely jealous since Chile is now moving into winter. Bendiciones!

Amy