Home and still thinking in Spanish

I've been home for one week now and it still seems unreal. I may have just added the last two blog entries while being home...but it was only because I wanted to include my last memories and did not have any time during my last few weeks in Chile. There were about 6 other CIEE people on my flight to Dallas and then we said our last good-byes in the Dallas airport before heading our own ways. My dad picked me up from the airport and we went straight to have pancakes. Naturally, I was so excited to have breakfast food again that it was the first thing I wanted to have back in the US.

Being summer there and winter here, my mind is confused not only with what day it is (normal for vacation mode) but also with the month of the year. My skin is definitely more tan and my hair more blond than someone who would normally be returning home from a semester in rainy Portland. It was wonderful to sleep in my own room and not be woken up with my host family fighting over the telephone. Yet I really do miss some of them and I especially miss the wonderful public transportation and all my new friends. When I woke up in the morning after my first night here, I looked out of our kitchen window, and fittingly enough, saw a squirrel run across the lawn. Since my 11 year old brother called me his little ardillita (squirrel) it made me smile, but it was also a reality check that yes, I really am back.

It's wonderful being home with my whole family, but yet it still seems strange. Being away in another country for 5 months does not feel like a vacation, but rather a new life. I feel like I started a new life for myself in Chile and it's hard to accept that it really was just temporary. Probably the strangest thing about being home is the drastic change in language usage. It wasn't strange to start speaking in English because I always spoke in English with my CIEE friends, but it is strange to hear English being spoken all around me. I still think in Spanish and find that I think of words in Spanish and have to remember what they are in English. When I'm about to make a phone call or talk to someone more formally, I find that I start preparing (in Spanish) in my mind what I'm going to say. I then realize that this is not necessary...but I guess I've come a long way.

Another hard part about being back is answering the question "How was your semester in Chile?" I understand that people don't really know what else to ask, but it really is impossible to answer that question. There is no way to sum up everything that happened, my memories, or my emotions. I'm thankful for the opportunity that I had to go spend a semester there, but I just wish the five months didn't fly by so quickly. I'll never forget all the wonderful people I met, each one unique and interesting in their own ways. I'm most grateful for all the Chileans that accepted me into their life and were willing to show me their culture and be friends, knowing all along that I was going to leave after 5 months.

*Un mensaje especial para todos mis amigos chilenos*

Quiero agradecerles a todos por aceptarme en su cultura y sus vidas, y también por su paciencia y ayuda con mi español. Ser extranjera es difícil a veces, y con tus amistades tuve una experiencia buenísima. Estoy muy feliz que pudimos compartir tantos momentos buenos. Si vienes a los estados unidos, por favor, avisame! Normalmente, estoy en Los Angeles o Portland, pero tengo amigos en todos lados y quiero verles otra vez y reciprocar lo que puedo. Si necesitan ayuda con trabajos en inglés, envialos a mi correo porque yo sería muy feliz ayudarles con cualquier cosa. O quizás un día nos volvemos a ver cuando estoy enseñando inglés...¿quién sabe?

Para mantener contacto podemos usar email-- mi dirección es adubchansky@earthlink.net. Pero también me gusta recibir y enviar cartas porque creo que es más entretenido. Si quieres, escribame en mi universidad y les prometo que responderé.

Alison Dubchansky
MSC 763
Lewis & Clark College
0615 SW Palatine Hill Road
Portland, OR 97219 USA

¡Gracias por todo y ya les extraño! Buena suerte con todo y les mando muchos cariños de este lado del mundo.
Con amor, Alison

La patagonia Chilena!

On Monday December 7th, Allison B, Abby, Madeline, and I headed to the airport for a redeye flight to Punta Arenas. We were about to spend 5 days in the chilean Patagonia, but we didn't really know what to expect. We had all just finished finals and so little research was put into details of the actual time spent there. When we arrived at the airport in Punta Arenas, it was only 3:30am so we slept on the floor until the first bus left for Puerto Natales at 8am. Luckily, we were able to leave around 6am because there was a bus of bicyclists that was about to head for Puerto Natales and their driver offered for us to go with them. When we got to Puerto Natales, we rented two two-person tents and four sleeping bags and strapped everything to our backpacks. We had lunch and wandered around the town until the bus left for Torres del Paine National Park. When we finally got to the park, we paid to enter and then took a catamaran across Lago Pehoé to our first campsite.

When we got off the catamaran we were at the first campsite but it was pouring rain, so we went inside to make our peanut butter sandwiches which we planned to eat for the next four days. We then made friends with 3 Barcelonian guys who helped us set up our two tents. We woke up the next morning and began our hiking. We hiked for about 4 hours to get to Glacier Grey, had lunch, and then hiked back down. The glacier was so amazing to see that it seemed unreal. It rained and snowed on us that entire first day. We spent the second night at the same campsite and then packed up our stuff in the morning. The second day we camped at Los Cuernos. We met two girls from Maine and bonded with them over the food we had brought, the ridiculous costs associated with camping at these campsites, and foot pains.

The third day was my favorite because we hiked along Lago Nordenskold (we called it lake Nogin-shnogin) for the entire day. The water was turquoise and the views and reflections were amazing. We stopped at campamento Chileno for some hot chocolate and to buy some bread. Then we continued to campamento Torres so that we would be by the famous torres and go see them the next morning. All the friends that we made along the W-route were staying at the same place. It was fun to spend the evening with them since by the fourth day we felt like we knew them pretty well. The funniest part was that they were from Israel, New Zealand, Germany, France, United States, and England...but no Chileans! They all got a kick out of the fact that we were only eating peanut butter sandwiches so they offered us all of their left over pasta.

The next morning we woke up early, hiked up to the towers, and then hiked all the way down to the hotel to catch the bus back to Puerto Natales. When we got back to the hotel, we once again met up with all the friends we had made. It was so nice to sit on the lawn and rest our legs after the 66 kilometers (about 40 miles) that we had just hiked in 4 days!

Las últimas semanas...APROVECHANDO

So much has happened in my last few weeks in Chile that it's really hard to put into words...but it's definitely worth a try. I decided that the highlight of my time with my host family was definitely our Thanksgiving dinner. Allyson and Alice came over and we prepared dinner with my host family. Since my host sibilings were not too impressed by a traditional vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner (I don't blame them!), they decided we should make tacos. Since we wanted to add a traditional dish from the US, we decided on Mac 'n' cheese, tacos, and brownies. Obviously, not very traditional for Thanksgiving but fun and delicious nevertheless. We sat at the table talking for a long time, which was so fun since that never happened with my host family.

One of my most interesting moments of the semester was when I went with a few friends to a soccer game between La U and La Católica. It was the most intense sports game that I've ever seen that I was actually afraid. The fans of the different teams had to enter and sit on separate sides and couldn't exit until all fans of the other team has already exited the stadium. There were also tons of police throughout the stadium to

make sure that fights didn't start. Most of the people that go are insane fans and yell profanities during the entire game...even if they are 12 years old! It was really quite a scene but the stadium was beautiful, especially with the Andes behind it. It made me think about how different the games are between UCLA and USC!

CIEE hosted a cena de despedida (good-bye dinner) for all the people in my program. It was really nice to be able to see everyone and be together one last time before people started to leave the country. Everyone came with one of their host parents, but since my host mom couldn't come, I sat with Allyson's host dad and some of our cultural ambassadors.

Allyson and I went to Viña del Mar for a weekend because we had bought tickets to the Américo concert there. We had wanted to see him in concert all semester

, so when we found out he was going to be in Viña, we immediately bought tickets. He played at the Quinta Vergara which is an outdoor venue. He was really good but the best part was just being with all the crazy fans...most of which were 40 year old women! We then spent the entire next day on the beach in Viña. It was really similar to the beaches in Santa Monica...except with a lot less tourists!

When I finished my finals, I had about a week before I left for Patagonia. It was really nice to be able to spend time with my CIEE and

Chilean friends and enjoy Santiago without having any classes or homework. Alice, Allyson, Danilo and I went to MIM, which is the interactive museum. It was full of chi

ldren on field trips, but we managed to share the exhibits with them and have lots of fun. I also went with Alice and Allyson to Viña Concha y Toro, which is a vineyard right outside of Santiago. It was beautiful and the tour was very entertaining since we hadn't done many tourist activities during our time in Santiago. I spent one day with Fernanda and Andrea, two friends from my so

ciology class. They took me to Parque Quinta Normal and the Museo de Ferrocarriles.

Also, Allyson wrote an entry in her blog which is only a preview of the book we are going to write and call "The Adventures of Allyson and Alison." We haven't decided if it should be children's book or a chapter book...and then Alfredo told us we should just make two versions! Here's the link to her blog entry: http://allysonenchile.blogspot.com/2010/11/adventures-of-alison-and-allyson.html

A Pumanque (no es el mall Apumanque!)

While I've been here, I've really wanted to do some earthquake relief volunteer work. There really isn't that much going on in Santiago since the earthquake did not affect that many people's houses here. However, in southern Chile many people lost their homes after the earthquake. I found this organization called Casa Básica which organizes volunteer house building trips during the long weekends. I thought it would just be a group of random Chileans that wanted to go to build. However, I was really surprised to find when I arrived that it was a group of about 20 Chilean high school seniors (5 girls and 15 guys) that all knew each other from school. There were 3 other college students that were running the trip and Theresa, another student on my program.

We were told to meet at a school at 6pm where the bus would take us to Pumanque. Pumanque is a town about 3 hours south of Santiago. It should really take less time but the drive was pretty slow since most of it was on normal roads since it is a very rural town of only about 3,000 people. In the chilean style, the bus left at 8pm and we stopped at a gas station with a food court for almost an hour.

We arrived in Pumanque at about midnight and we stayed in a school that has lots of bunk beds and the people that work there cooked all of our food. The organization is Christian, and therefore at the beginning they were very explicit about the rules: no alcohol and girls and guys sleep in different rooms. It was pretty funny that everyone shared one bathroom because I'm used to co-ed bathrooms at LC but everyone else thought it was the biggest deal. I told them what it is like at LC and they really could not believe me. It was funny to hang out with high scho

ol students that wanted to go to bed really late so that they could stay up to talk. They had a lot of questions about my life in the US and it was fun to get to know each of them even if they made fun of my inability to say certain things in Spanish. Every mornin

g, the blasted this reggeton song at 7am to wake us up and then would blast it in the evening and just start to dance. I heard it so many times that weekend that I know most of the words now! It really is quite good- here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zp1TbLFPp8

Theresa and I were placed in the same group with 6 high school guys. Our site was literally in the middle of nowhere. It was 15 minute drive from the town but the entire

ride was through pastures with hundreds of sheep. As the truck drove over the hills, the sheep fled from us.

The house we were building was for a family of six: mother, father, two kids (27 year old son and 11 year old daughter), and the parents of the father. Their land had absolutely beautiful views and was covered with sheep, chickens, turkeys, goats, dogs, cats, and birds. It was amazing to see how they all live peacefully togethe

r and especially cute to see these mother birds with tons of little chicks following them. The mother has domesticated one of their sheep and she even let me feed it with a bottle! They live in a media-agua which is wooden one-roomed house that people built around Chile right after the earthquake so that they could have a roof over them. They do not have any electricity or running water.

There were 3 worksites with about 8 people at each one. The houses that we built were pre-fabricated so it was quite a different experience than working with Habitat for Humanity. On the first day we leveled the ground and placed the cement blocks of the foundation in holes in the ground. I was quite confused because the cement blocks are really called apoyos (supports) but they all called them pollos for short so I thought they were talking about the chickens that were wandering around! The second day we finished the foundation and assembled the floor. On the third day, we we raised the walls and attached the roof.

For me it was really a challenge to work with the boys and not have someone that is fully in charge. They had all done this type of building project before so they knew what they were doing but did not want to think about giving Theresa and I certain jobs or how we could

all work together. I think that they were not very patient with explaining what things meant when the language made it difficult for us to understand, but I mostly think they treated us differently for being women. It is definitely a part of the culture difference because none of them thought that we could be doing exactly what they did. It was frustrating ask what to do every few minutes, so I eventually gave up because I could tell that Danisa, the 11 year old daughter, looked bored. Living so far from the town makes it really hard for her to see her friends outside of school. I could not believe when she told me that she rides her bike for an hour to get to school. We talked a lot and I made up games that we could play with rocks.

Theresa and I then helped her with her English homework. The next day I brought my Bananagrams board game so

that we could play it together when there was nothing for us to do. She loved it so much that we played for the next two days and I let her keep it when it was time to leave. I also talked a lot with the mom and the grandmother. I was intregued about their live but they were even more ingtregued about mine. They are both illiterate and do not know much about the outside world. They wanted to hear me pronounce words and asked me lots of questions about what it is like to fly in an airplane and live in the United States. They made us delicious lunches every day and wanted to serve us each multiple plates!

After the second night, I told the boys in my group how I really felt. They were all extremely shocked at how up fron

t I was with them and said that they had no idea that we wanted to do so much. The third day was so much better because they gave us specific jobs and Danisa helped us to do them too. When the

house was finished and it was time to go, the mother gave me eggs from her chicken to take back to Santiago (and 4 of the 5 made it without breaking)! It was extremely hard to say good

bye to Danisa after bonding so much and knowing that there is really no way to stay in contact because they don't have computers or even mail. I'm going to try to send a letter to her school just in case it can get to her there.

Viaje a Temuco y Puerto Saavedra

So I recognize that this post is extremely late, but better late than never! About a month ago, we had our second weekend trip planned by CIEE. This time, we were off to Temuco in southern Chile. It is only about an hour flight from Santiago, but it is extremely different there than here. The focus of the trip was to learn about indigenous culture since the majority of indigenous people in Chile live in that area. On our first full day, we went to Feria Pinto which is an outdoor market that sells fruits, vegetables, giant cheeses, meat, seafood, spices, etc. As a group of 40 extranjeros, we definitely stood out there because Temuco is not a tourist destination. We spent the majority of the day at escuela Bicultural Mapuche San Juan De Makewe. Our day at the school was a combination of all my favorite things. We spent the day playing with the children that go to the school and painting the different buildings. We sang songs, played soccer, painted with them, and taught them how to play capture-the-flag. The students were so excited to have us there to play with them that they convinced their teachers to let them not have some of their classes. They all called us tía/tío which is basically a form of respect toward people older than them. I thought it is actually quite a good system since it would be impossible to remember all of our names.

We spent our sec

ond full day in Puerto Saavedra at comunidad Kom Che Ñi Ruka at Lago Budi. It is a community of Mapuche families that live on this huge piece of land that overlooks a lake. The views were stunning, but it was hard to imagine living so far from all civilization. We talked to the

different members of the community and they showed

us different aspects of their life: making wool clothing, raising animals, the farm, cooking, herbal medicine, and dance. They also taught us this game called palin which is really similar to field hockey. After they explained it to our whole group, they then said tha

t only men can play. It was pretty funny since my study abroad group has about 6 guys and 25 girls. We also learned some words in mapudungun, the Mapuche language (chai-el-tu-mai = thank you). They taught us all about Mapuche culture and how important the land is for them and the preservation of their culture. We thought it was funny that all the children were wearing clothes from the US (mostly with the names of sports teams)! That night we stayed in a hotel that was made up of individual cabins on the beach.

On Sunday we went back to Temuco to visit another market and to go on a hike. The hike was at cerro Ñielol which is literally impossible to say! At the top we could see all of Temuco. We then went to the airport and came back to Santiago.

Mi vida Chilena: ¿Una routina? ¡No sé!

This is Santiago after the rain!!!

So I know that it has been way too long since I last wrote a blog entry, but every time I sit down to write I get distracted by all the other things that I need to be doing. I am about to have finals next week (hard to believe, I know!) so I figured it would be a nice break from studying and writing papers. As for my life here, I've been doing lots of travelling on the weekends so I've only been in Santiago during the week.

In the past month, I had to deal with group projects which is quite an experience with

Chilean students because they all want to work the day before it is due. Clearly not my style...but I've had to learn to deal with it! For my class at Universidad de Chile, we had to visit a drug rehabilitation center. I was supposed to meet my group at the metro, but when I got there, there were only people from a different group. So I joined their group and went to visit

the center. We were able to listen to people tell their stories which were all very inspirational and about halfway through, I realized that I had forgotten they were talking in Spanish because I was so engrossed and could understand everything! In our groups of 10, we then had to create a powerpoint presentation and a paper to turn in. I'm pretty sure that one person designed the presentation because I heard nothing about it until showing up in class. I was so nervous because not only was I going to talk in front of 100 people in Spanish, but I had no idea what I was going to say! Luckily, the professor said to pick three people to represent the group and I almost died of relief!

I've finished my volunteering in the school, but in the past month I've had a lot of good experiences with it. I helped twice in a classroom with 8-year-olds which was absolutely hilarious. Both times, I taught them basic songs in English like "If you're happy and you know it." They were so fascinated by me that when I walked in the classroom, all 30 students surrounded from all sides. When I said I was from California, they wanted to know if I was friends with Hannah Montana or the Jonas Brothers. I also helped the high school girls with their presentations and learning how to make resumes.

A few weekends ago, Allyson and I went on a hike to Yerba Loca with El Montañista (the hiking group). We left early in the morning to meet the group and then this lady who had a car took us to the base. She was born in the US but moved to Chile when she was 5 so she has a perfect accent in both Spanish and English

which freaked us out. She's also Jewish and has a daughter who studies Sociology who she wants me to meet. It took us about 3 hours to hike up, an hour for a lunch break, and then about two hours to get down. All the Chileans laughed at us for bringing entire raw vegetables and peanut butter sandwiches in our lunches, but then they admitted that it was probably a good idea.

In the past month I've also been invited over to 2 friends' houses. The first was Virginia, a girl from my salsa class, who invited me over to make sopaipillas paseras which are basically fried dough soaked in this wierd sugary substance. I didn't like them very much because they were soggy but she was so excited about the project that I had to eat them. The second was Alfredo, a friend from my swim class who invited me to have a typical once at his house which basically includes bread, cheese, avocado, tea, and lots of cookies. We talked with his mother for a long time and he also gave me

a tour of different parts of Santiago.

This past weekend, I had a trip to visit a Mapuche villiage with my human rights class. It was very interesting to be able to talk with them and see everything that they do there. Since it was just outside of Valparaíso, Allyson and I

decided to spend the night in Valparaíso. She stayed with her friend Anna who is spending the semester there. I stayed in a Hostel with Alice and Ben (Alice's friend from Pomona) who were spending the weekend there. On Saturday, Anna showed us around Valpo. We walked around the outdoor museum, visited La Sebastiana (one of Pablo Neruda's 3 houses), ate wonderful food, and then headed back to Santiago.

This past week Allyson, Alice, and I spent a lot of time with Ben since he decided to spend some time in Santiago before heading to his next destination. When we returned to Santiago, it was pouring rain and he didn't know where his hostel was, so I offered for him to stay on my floor at my house. The next morning, we ate breakfast with my host mom and younger brother. Unfortunately, Ben mentioned the tortilla that I was given by the Mapuche wo

men (literally a brick of bread) so then my host mom demanded that we eat after she warmed it even though it was still hard as a rock. When I returned home that evening she had some comment like "Oh how wonderful young romance is!" It took me a minute to realize that she was talking about me because she thought Ben was my boyfriend. I told her that he wasn't and when I told that story to Ben we both laughed.

Last week was Alice's birthday so Ben and I went to have once at her house with her family. I baked her some chocolate chip cookies and then I gave the rest to my friends in my swim and sociology classes since fresh cookies don't really exist here. They were so excited and all told me that I made the best cookies they've ever eaten! Alice and I went to see Que Pena Tu Vida

which is a Chilean movie. We were both so excited that we could understand it all becase we knew that if we had seen it upon arriving to Santiago we never would have understood any of the modismos.

Two weeks ago I participated in Running UC which is a 5K/10K race around the University. I ran with five other friends and we got free tshirts for participating. It was lots of fun because they did a baile entretenido warm-up and played great music. One last bit of excitement...Last week I was in a construction store to buy gloves for my volunteer trip and this guy

who was helping me find what I needed asked me if I have a parent that is a native Spanish speaker because he thought my Spanish was so good!

Today was pretty typical in the life of Allyson and Alison. We went to study in Starbucks today...well I arrived around 2pm and she came about 3 hours later after getting lost on her way. We caught up on life for about the first hour and then actually did some work for the next two hours. We exchanged headphones and played each other music from our itunes libraries which made us realize that we listen to a lot of the same music. When it was finally dark and we accomplished something, we decided to head home after buying $2 individual pizzas from Telepizza. We laughed when the guy there asked for a name for the order, and then laughed more about how we could never show our host families what we had just bought.

More updates to come soon about my recent trips...

Buenos Aires

The adventures of the weekend began on Friday evening when Alice and Martin slept at my house because we had to leave at 4am the next morning for the airport. At about 9:30pm, I told my host mom we were going to bed because we needed to get up so early. She insisted that we stay up for a little while longer because she was going to the market to buy stuff to make empanadas. When I told her this was not necessary because we were going to bed, she said, don't worry you can go to bed and I'll bring them to the three of you. I'm not too sure what I thought would happen, but sure enough, at about 10:30 when we were all asleep, she came into my room and put the plates of empanadas by our heads. The next morning we laughed about the ridiculousness of the situation.

When we arrived in Buenos Aires, Alice's friend Rosa met us at the airport. She is studying in Buenos Aires for the semester so she knows a lot about the city. We spent the day with her walking around the city, and she pointed out all the important historical sites and buildings. It was like having a tour guide! Just a few of the places

we visited were the Plaza de Mayo, el congreso, and the

bookstore theatre. Rosa is studying at the University of Buenos Aires, so she took us to see a part of the campus. They have not had classes for a few weeks because the students are protesting the safety of the buildings. Recently, a glass window shattered and could have hurt students had it occurred during the day. She explained that

they don't have fire extinguishers, enough emergency exits, etc. It was interesting to see all the political signs and paintings that cover the indoor walls of the buildings. In the evening, we headed back to our hostel where we were staying in a room for 10 people. We talked with 2 guys who had just graduated from the University of Oregon and 2 people from England that drive tour

busses.

On Sunday we walked around the outdoor artisinal market in San Telmo which is probably 10 blocks long. We then met up with Rosa, Ben (Alice's other friend from Pomona that is travelling ar

ound South America), and Rosa's parents at the Recoleta Cemetary. This is a famous cemetary that is almost like a museum because the crypts are so large and elaborate.

The most famous one was the crypt for Eva Peron. Alice, Ben, Martin, and I spent the afternoon walking around Palermo and in the evening we went to a milonga, which is where people go to dance tango. It was very impressive since this is a dance that you have to be good at when you go to dance. It is not something that can be learned in the moment!

On Monday Alice, Martin, and I visited the major sports st

adium and then walked around the tourist areas. We saw restaurants that have stages for tango dancing that the tourists can watch while they eat! It was a

very lively area, with live bands that walk as they play, colorful buildings, and people following us to ask if we wanted to get drunk in their restaurants. In the evening, Alice went to eat with her friends. Two new British guys had just moved into our hostel room and they asked Martin and I if we wanted to join them for a

steak dinner. Martin was very

excited, as he had been waiting to have this famous Argentinian steak dinner the entire trip. Of course, I was not as excited as the three guys, but I was happy to find that the restaurant had an entree of grilled vegetables that I could enjoy while they all enjoyed their 17oz steaks! It was fun to get to know these two guys, one which is trying to be an actor (appropriately named Harry!) and the other that works in an IT department. They spoke no Spanish so they made us feel very confident about our level of Spanish!

On Tuesday morning, we headed to the airport in the madrugada (earliest part of the morning that it's really not morning yet), bought our last alfajores, and made it back to Santiago just in time to head to classes!

Here are some amazing pictures from flying over the Andes: the mountains and the blanket of clouds beneath the plane!