An email home...

This is an email I wrote home to my parents today...it pretty much describes what I´m thinking about this whole thing...

Hola hola hola!!!!

It´s great to hear from you!! It sounds like there are indeed a MILLION things going on at home! I kind of miss that, to be honest. Well, I don´t know how true that is, really. I don´t know if it´s Chileans in general, or just my family, but there is absolutely no rush in anything. It could be partly because Felipe and Maggie are on their winter break right now, but we all wake up pretty late, sit around and slowly enjoy tea together a few times a day, and don´t really get around to doing anything until what seems like hours after we first decided to do it. However, that´s probably perfect for me, because otherwise I´d probably feel completely and utterly LOST! I already get that feeling pretty regularly, so it´s probably good that we sit around and discuss the same thing forever because I get a few chances to understand it! (Not that that always even helps...) I know the whole idea of coming down here is to learn Spanish, but I don´t think there´s any way in the world to explain how it feel to be surrounded by it and not able to a) always understand what´s going on or b) express your thoughts and ideas about something in a coherent manner. For example, in that last sentence I just wrote, I don´t know how to say coherent or surrounded, which are pretty essential to understanding why I even wrote the sentence! It´s pretty frustrating, to be honest, because I feel like people are probably dumbing things down for me, which is something I´ve ABSOLUTELY DETESTED since I was a little kid---I can remember thinking that in first grade, honestly. Also, I have to talk to them at the same level they´re talking to me (because that´s where I´m at, duh!) and I don´t think at the level of a six year old!

However, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that I have learned more in the past five days than I learned in probably an entire semester of college Spanish-no joke. I am enjoying it here, but I´m pretty scared about my gringa guide Maggie leaving this week. She´s quite the indispensable resource right now. It seems strange, but one of the coolest parts about having her here is that we´ve been spending time with her other friends from California who are in the same program, who´ve been here for a semester and are all still speaking Spanish--and they obviously don´t have a thick Chilean accent nor do they speak super fast, so I can understand and converse with them! Hooray! They really have all told me that I´m doing way better than they were doing when they arrived here, and that I have nothing to worry about, and I´ve heard that from Chileans, as well, but I can´t ignore the fact that I still can hardly understand a word my Chilean father says.

Speaking of him (his name is Hernan), I should let you know that my family here is awesome. They are very loving and caring, ask me regularly if I´ve spoken to you guys and questions about you (what do you do...what our family is like...etc.) What´s funny to me is that more than amazement at the fact that you let me come here, they can´t believe that I go to school in Montana---´That´s so far away from home!! Why did you want to do that?´ (Speaking of...I just told Maggie why I was writing such a long email, and she said to send you my congratulations on the new job, as well!) Anyhow, they are very very nice and caring and loving, and it reminds me exactly of being with Megan´s family in Montana.

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Right before leaving home to come here-- the day before-- I went innertubing for the last time with, well, the innertubing team, (duh!) and got sunburnt. Today, I noticed that it´s just now starting to peel...it seems like now the last indication of the fact that in my other life, it´s summer, is now disapearing. I packed sunscreen before I came down here, and it looks sunny outside, but dammit it´s the middle of winter! Que lata. (Bummer.) Of course, just after thinking that I went out with Maggie and picked fresh lemons off the lemon tree in the yard, then came in the house and made lemonaide to drink with lunch. So I guess I can´t complain too much.