a.k.a. Four weeks.
a.k.a.Thirty days.
Part of me feels like it's been an eternity, and part of me feels like it's been a blink of an eye. But either way, I should probably let the world know that I still exist.
I'm deeply and truly sorry for not writing in a while. Every time I sat down and started jotting something down, my thoughts came faster than my words. Each page was filled with sections crossed out, phrases circled, arrows shooting from sentence to sentence, and the margins filled with random tidbits that I was planning on elaborating on later. It was brain barf in its purest form: messy, all over the place, and from the deepest part of my being. As of now, every facet of my life has been new, and even my habits have changed week in and week out. I didn't know what to write because I didn't actually know what was around me. Too much was shifting too quickly. I needed time to find some terra firma before starting to look around and reflect, and I think I'm at a place now to give it a shot.
When I started this blog, I said that I would tell my story piece by piece and that hopefully, each piece would be strung together to tell a coherent story. I still think that is largely true *fingers crossed*. So this post is not all-encompassing of the past month. It can't be.
Instead, this post focuses on the most prevalent part of my experience here thus far.
As many of you know, I applied to this job through an agency called CIEE. Well, CIEE has two programs: Teach in Chile and Teach in Chile Professional. This year, I happen to be the sole participant in the Professional program. When I found that out, I was slightly worried that would mean that I would spend my first months here as a lonely wandering gringo.
You can imagine my unadulterated joy when I found out that gringos of all shapes and sizes swarmed my hostel, courtesy of the sister Teach in Chile program. They had been here for about three weeks by the time I arrived, which meant that they were slightly more adjusted to chileno life but very much so new. I was quickly adopted, which included being roped into group chats on Whatsapp and Facebook. Every afternoon, when I finished my aimless wandering around the city, I had people to come home to and ask how my day was. All of us still had that lingering sense of being bright eyed and bushy tailed in this giant city.
We spent our weekends on the patio of the hostel, drinking cheap Chilean wine from a botilleria down the street. We would talk about our pasts, our futures, religion, philosophy, the meaning of life and love, and the other typical topics that come up after half a bottle of wine. Okay, fine. It was a whole bottle of wine.
One night, a friend and I bought a couple of beers and sat on the stoop outside of the hostel. We could have gone outside, but the night was warm, the beer was cold, and the girl working the counter had a broken foot. We didn't feel like there was a need to be anywhere else other than where we were. It was easily more than an hour before we went inside.
It's nice to move to a new place and have a support system right off the bat. I had a chance to vent about how run down and overpriced the apartment was that I saw that day. I got to laugh about how awkward it was when I realized I had gone the wrong way on the metro, and I knew the people laughing with me had probably done it a few times too.
But two weeks after I moved in, we all began to move out. Throughout my last few days there, the hostel had a newly free bed each day. Each night meant helping someone else haul their suitcase down the rickety staircase and wait for the cab to arrive. Eventually, it was my turn to leave. I moved out of the hostel on April 4th, and it had been about a week and a half after arriving in Chile.
Now, all of us are scattered throughout the city. We each have new roommates, new neighborhoods, new friends, and new lives. Weeks later, we have to go out of the way to see each other, which is a lot easier to do on the weekends than on a typical Tuesday. We don't come home to the hostel, and even when we meet up again, we part ways every night at a metro stop. I don't think I would have had it any other way.
Orientation was great: it gave me a cushion that I needed to land on before heading out on my own. It gave me a safe place and a group that would claim me. Part of why I went through CIEE is because I knew that I needed a safety net that would offer me a comfort and security as I transitioned into life here. I never intended to get tangled too much into it. Each of us came here with the intention of branching out and exploring the world. Although we haven't forgotten about one another, we have begun to connect to other people and take up other opportunities that are uniquely our own.
The great part about parting ways is that when our paths cross, we have stories to tell. We can invite each other to events and places that we wouldn't have gone to from inside our bubble. Case in point: in about fifteen minutes, I'm heading to a campo south of here because I am lucky enough to know my beer-on-the-stoop friend (hereafter known as "Emily").
One of the scariest parts of moving to a new place is feeling alone, isolated, and lost in a world that seems way too big and foreign. I would never look to be stuck in a gringo bubble, shut off from all that Santiago and Chile have to offer. But I am incredibly grateful to have been given a starting place. I needed a square one, and I found that in a hostel off of Roman Diaz.
I would write more, and probably edit more too, but I have a campo to go to!
Ciao,
Joe and the Gringos
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