I have done my fair share of learning languages. I have spent weeks of my life studying subjects and pronouns and indirect object pronouns. I shudder to think of the quantity of trees that died to make it possible for me to have conjugated so many verbs in so many tenses on so many charts during my time in language classrooms.
Studying language has been fundamental to my development as a person. Studying language (not just Spanish, but all the other languages that I've touched on in between, too) has changed the way that I view the world, and the words that I use to describe the world. It has altered my perceptions of big ideas like "culture" and "individualism." I think it's more than fair to say that if I hadn't spent so much of my life studying language, I would not be the same person I am today. If I hadn't spent so much of my life studying language, I'm certain I wouldn't be where I am today, trying to impart the language learning experience to Chilean students. I really, really believe that understanding somebody's native words is a huge part of understanding them, and this, for me, makes language learning more than important; it makes learning a language fundamental to learning about and understanding our fellow human beings.
Perhaps because I spend a large chunk of my time in front of whiteboards, writing definitions and verb schemas over and over again and deciphering my students' facial expressions (is that confusion or boredom?), I've been thinking a lot lately about the process of learning a language, and how different it is from teaching a language.
We all owe a lot to our teachers. Everybody has some teacher (formal or not) from some point in their life who inspired them to work just a little bit harder, or dream just a little bit bigger.
When I remember learning Spanish, there's one teacher I always remember: Señora Jespersen. Mrs. Jespersen did not inspire me. She did not particularly encourage me, either. She was not a coddler, and did not appreciate whining. She was straightforward and strict; I dreaded going to her class, because I knew it would be difficult and exhausting. But I went. Somehow, this little Colombian woman made me feel so incapable and stupid that I fought back by learning.
In retrospect, Sra. Jespersen was never mean. She never told me that I was incapable or stupid; she was actually a very nice lady. But it was her mission to make us learn Spanish and learn it well.
When people ask now where I learned my Spanish, I usually say Chile, because studying abroad here taught me to express myself fluidly, without particular mental strain. But this isnt entirely fair: the teacher who really taught me how to manuever in the language, which tenses should be used when, how to read a paragraph without a dictionary, and where those damn accent marks went, was Sra. Jespersen. Her class laid a foundation that I didn't really build on until I got here in 2007, but which served me extremely well until then, and which continues to serve me well today.
Sra. Jespersen recently had her leg amputated; she had cancer that had sunk into her marrow. So it goes.
I am no Sra. Jespersen. I do not make my students repeat verb conjugations endlessly on pieces of lined and labelled paper, and I certainly don't test their spelling unless the curriculum calls for it. My students will never love me the same way I love Sra Jespersen--with a grudging, grateful admiration--because I don't make their brains hurt the same way she made mine hurt. I wasn't hired to teach the same way she did.
When I stand in front of the whiteboard, repeating iterations of the verbs "to sing" and "to dance," I can't help thinking about her, though. Did the words melt together into nonsense for her like they do for me? After the third person singular, I stop believing that "sing" is actually a word; it starts to look like garbled nonsense script on the board, rather than a series of words. I start to lose track of the parts of speech and their meanings. My own language becomes disjointed and nonsensical.
I don't remember this when I was learning language. I remember conjugating the verb "hablar" in all sixteen forms and being acutely aware that the word I was conjugating meant "to talk". I wasn't just writing disjointed letters, I was writing and learning meaning.
It's just so very, very odd, feeling like you're losing your grip on your own native tongue through the endless, mindless repetition of... your native tongue.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Monday, August 17, 2009
Santiago: city of _______
Big cities are loud, smelly, and crowded. All big cities. It doesn't matter if you're European, North American, South African or Chilean; if you come from a capital-c City, you come from a place that emits sizeable quantities of stench and clamor ("flavor" and "life" when you're feeling more poetically inclined) into the atmosphere.
Santiago is, naturally, no exception. Like all big cities, it is seething with people (6.5 million people live in Santiago, proper; its population density is 8463.7 persons/kilometer^2), which means it's also seething with smells (both delicious and disgusting: today, I was walking down the block and caught a whiff of freshly baked empanada so delicious it nearly stopped me in my tracks; a few feet later, I nearly stopped again, this time affronted by the noisome mixture of marijuana and human urine) and sounds (traffic horns blare non-stop; dogs bark at passing breezes; babies cry; car alarms shriek).
Just like people from other big cities, Santiaguinos walk down the streets in the city center guardedly. Women hold their purses firmly, one hand covering the zipper, while men walk with their hands in their pockets. People look down at the ground, or straight ahead; they rarely make eye contact. It's winter, so everybody is dressed for work in their warm formal wear. In the morning, they bury their noses in their scarves, and walk hurriedly down the sidewalk, not paying attention to (or trying to draw attention from) their fellow walkers. Just like any other business people in any other big city in the world.
In a lot of ways, Santiago is like any other big city. Not in every way.
Writing a blog about Santiago's quirks would be somewhat akin to writing a blog about the quirks of humanity, both in terms of the actual project (cities, built by people and populated by people, are a lot like individuals themselves, I think), and in terms of pointlessness. It is impossible to chronicle a city in a blog, just as it would be impossible to encapsulate humankind in a blog (except by way of pithy axioms that say everything by saying nothing at all). So I'm not going to try.
That said, there are some things that I would be remiss in not mentioning, even in passing. They're mostly small things, easily overlooked things, things that take a while to notice. But things that, when you do notice them, make you stop, cock your head like a confused dog, and think to yourself, "...really?"
There's no way that I can talk about all of these things in one blog, so any discussion of them is going to be random and episodic. There might be repeats--after all, I'm going to be here for a while, and some things take time to really see and wrap your head around. But just so anybody reading this knows: more about the quirks is, indeed, forthcoming.
Today's small thing: bureaucracy.
I know that it might seem a little like the pot calling the kettle black, an American criticizing the universal implementation of the most Rube Goldbergian bureaucratic policies in Chile. I know, I know--we're not so great at cutting down on paperwork ourselves. To get things done in the States, you have to call five people, wait on hold for three hours, and fill out half a dozen forms with your Social Security Number, your birthdate, and your mother's maiden name, then cross your fingers and wait a month for "processing." I know.
Here's the difference: our bureaucratic tendencies are, by and large, confined to social services and moneylending. If you want to get insurance or pay off a loan, you can expect to spend several days filling out forms. HOWEVER, we are actually very good at cutting down the amount of time it takes to perform day to day tasks, like withdrawing money from the bank, mailing a letter, or going to the grocery store.
Chileans are not, so much.
Allow me to illustrate. On Monday, I wanted to mail a letter to a friend of mine in the States. There was one small problem: I didn't have an envelope. So, on my way home from work, I stopped by a bookstore (where you buy envelopes here) to buy a box of envelopes. I shoved my way through the crowd of people milling around in circles in the middle of the store and asked a sales clerk where I could find envelopes. He pointed across the store, to a different counter, where I was to go wait for another clerk.
I waded back through the crowd of people to wait at the other counter, where a sales clerk eventually came up to me and asked, "What can I do for you?"
Me: (Motioning moronically with my hands, to signal right away that I'm an idiot) "I'd like to buy some envelopes."
Sales Clerk: (Pulls out some small envelopes from the shelf behind him) "Like this?"
Me: "Sure."
Him: "How many?"
Me: You mean I can't just buy a box? "Uhm... I guess three?"
Him: (Looking at me as though I were insane) "...Three?"
Me: (Uncertain now, and feeling like I must be committing some huge faux pas) "Yes... three."
Him: "...Right."
He proceeded to ring up a receipt for my purchase of three envelopes--sixty pesos, which is something like 8 cents American--and then point me to the cajero (cash register) at the back of the store. I took the receipt (but left the envelopes) and went to wait in line behind a woman who, for some reason, decided to pay with a credit card (never pay with a credit card if you are in a libreria in Chile. It takes forever because the stores really aren't set up to perform credit transactions in a short time frame--this particular transaction took, no exaggeration, ten minutes to complete.)
When it was finally my turn, the old lady at the register took my receipt, and grumpily read out "sesenta pesos." I handed over the necessary cash, and she printed out a new receipt, which she then stapled to the old receipt and a third piece of receipt paper (a proof of purchase, perhaps) before handing me the whole bundle and grunting at the next person in line. I took my new triple receipt back to the sales clerk who sold me the three envelopes, who walked me (with the envelopes) to the front of the store, where there was another man waiting in another booth to check my triple receipt and hand me the envelopes so I could go.
Let's review: it is a four step process to buy envelopes (or anything else, for that matter) from bookstores in Chile.
The economic crisis has only recently begun to make Chilean unemployment levels rise; I'm convinced that this is due, in large part, to the huge number of people who are hired to perform mostly unnecessary tasks. At the supermarket, there is a person whose job is to weigh fruits and vegetables and label their prices; there is an equivalent in the bakery who weighs bread. At the pharmacy, you have to request your aspirin and pregnancy test (as well as your antibiotics) from the pharmacist behind the counter, instead of grabbing it off the shelf. Then you take your receipt to the cajero, before a third party walks your medicine out to the front so you may go.
There are any number of potential explanations for the multi-step process involved in purchasing just about anything. Petty theft and pickpocketing are the two most frequently committed types of crime in Santiago; by keeping all merchandise behind counters with sales clerks standing watch, posting security guards by all the doors, and involving so many verifying steps in the simplest of purchases, stores make it more difficult for would-be criminals to come in, grab something off a shelf, tuck it in a shirtsleeve, and sneak out unnoticed. Also, there's the employment explanation: the more people you have working in extraneous positions, the fewer people are unemployed nationally, and the less discontent you have to fend against. Keeping people employed, even in pointless jobs, keeps people fed and mostly happy and quiets protestors and malcontents.
But enough about the why. Just be aware: if you come to Chile and go to a pharmacy, don't forget to take a number and wait in line to see the pharmacist to buy your aspirin. If you want to mail a letter, expect to run a few loops around the store to get your envelopes. And if you want a job, bring photos of yourself, and photocopies of your diplomas (all of them), any teaching certificates, and any other paperwork you can think of that they might possibly want to see ever, because chances are that they'll want to see it all.
...Bureaucracy.
Santiago is, naturally, no exception. Like all big cities, it is seething with people (6.5 million people live in Santiago, proper; its population density is 8463.7 persons/kilometer^2), which means it's also seething with smells (both delicious and disgusting: today, I was walking down the block and caught a whiff of freshly baked empanada so delicious it nearly stopped me in my tracks; a few feet later, I nearly stopped again, this time affronted by the noisome mixture of marijuana and human urine) and sounds (traffic horns blare non-stop; dogs bark at passing breezes; babies cry; car alarms shriek).
Just like people from other big cities, Santiaguinos walk down the streets in the city center guardedly. Women hold their purses firmly, one hand covering the zipper, while men walk with their hands in their pockets. People look down at the ground, or straight ahead; they rarely make eye contact. It's winter, so everybody is dressed for work in their warm formal wear. In the morning, they bury their noses in their scarves, and walk hurriedly down the sidewalk, not paying attention to (or trying to draw attention from) their fellow walkers. Just like any other business people in any other big city in the world.
In a lot of ways, Santiago is like any other big city. Not in every way.
Writing a blog about Santiago's quirks would be somewhat akin to writing a blog about the quirks of humanity, both in terms of the actual project (cities, built by people and populated by people, are a lot like individuals themselves, I think), and in terms of pointlessness. It is impossible to chronicle a city in a blog, just as it would be impossible to encapsulate humankind in a blog (except by way of pithy axioms that say everything by saying nothing at all). So I'm not going to try.
That said, there are some things that I would be remiss in not mentioning, even in passing. They're mostly small things, easily overlooked things, things that take a while to notice. But things that, when you do notice them, make you stop, cock your head like a confused dog, and think to yourself, "...really?"
There's no way that I can talk about all of these things in one blog, so any discussion of them is going to be random and episodic. There might be repeats--after all, I'm going to be here for a while, and some things take time to really see and wrap your head around. But just so anybody reading this knows: more about the quirks is, indeed, forthcoming.
Today's small thing: bureaucracy.
I know that it might seem a little like the pot calling the kettle black, an American criticizing the universal implementation of the most Rube Goldbergian bureaucratic policies in Chile. I know, I know--we're not so great at cutting down on paperwork ourselves. To get things done in the States, you have to call five people, wait on hold for three hours, and fill out half a dozen forms with your Social Security Number, your birthdate, and your mother's maiden name, then cross your fingers and wait a month for "processing." I know.
Here's the difference: our bureaucratic tendencies are, by and large, confined to social services and moneylending. If you want to get insurance or pay off a loan, you can expect to spend several days filling out forms. HOWEVER, we are actually very good at cutting down the amount of time it takes to perform day to day tasks, like withdrawing money from the bank, mailing a letter, or going to the grocery store.
Chileans are not, so much.
Allow me to illustrate. On Monday, I wanted to mail a letter to a friend of mine in the States. There was one small problem: I didn't have an envelope. So, on my way home from work, I stopped by a bookstore (where you buy envelopes here) to buy a box of envelopes. I shoved my way through the crowd of people milling around in circles in the middle of the store and asked a sales clerk where I could find envelopes. He pointed across the store, to a different counter, where I was to go wait for another clerk.
I waded back through the crowd of people to wait at the other counter, where a sales clerk eventually came up to me and asked, "What can I do for you?"
Me: (Motioning moronically with my hands, to signal right away that I'm an idiot) "I'd like to buy some envelopes."
Sales Clerk: (Pulls out some small envelopes from the shelf behind him) "Like this?"
Me: "Sure."
Him: "How many?"
Me: You mean I can't just buy a box? "Uhm... I guess three?"
Him: (Looking at me as though I were insane) "...Three?"
Me: (Uncertain now, and feeling like I must be committing some huge faux pas) "Yes... three."
Him: "...Right."
He proceeded to ring up a receipt for my purchase of three envelopes--sixty pesos, which is something like 8 cents American--and then point me to the cajero (cash register) at the back of the store. I took the receipt (but left the envelopes) and went to wait in line behind a woman who, for some reason, decided to pay with a credit card (never pay with a credit card if you are in a libreria in Chile. It takes forever because the stores really aren't set up to perform credit transactions in a short time frame--this particular transaction took, no exaggeration, ten minutes to complete.)
When it was finally my turn, the old lady at the register took my receipt, and grumpily read out "sesenta pesos." I handed over the necessary cash, and she printed out a new receipt, which she then stapled to the old receipt and a third piece of receipt paper (a proof of purchase, perhaps) before handing me the whole bundle and grunting at the next person in line. I took my new triple receipt back to the sales clerk who sold me the three envelopes, who walked me (with the envelopes) to the front of the store, where there was another man waiting in another booth to check my triple receipt and hand me the envelopes so I could go.
Let's review: it is a four step process to buy envelopes (or anything else, for that matter) from bookstores in Chile.
The economic crisis has only recently begun to make Chilean unemployment levels rise; I'm convinced that this is due, in large part, to the huge number of people who are hired to perform mostly unnecessary tasks. At the supermarket, there is a person whose job is to weigh fruits and vegetables and label their prices; there is an equivalent in the bakery who weighs bread. At the pharmacy, you have to request your aspirin and pregnancy test (as well as your antibiotics) from the pharmacist behind the counter, instead of grabbing it off the shelf. Then you take your receipt to the cajero, before a third party walks your medicine out to the front so you may go.
There are any number of potential explanations for the multi-step process involved in purchasing just about anything. Petty theft and pickpocketing are the two most frequently committed types of crime in Santiago; by keeping all merchandise behind counters with sales clerks standing watch, posting security guards by all the doors, and involving so many verifying steps in the simplest of purchases, stores make it more difficult for would-be criminals to come in, grab something off a shelf, tuck it in a shirtsleeve, and sneak out unnoticed. Also, there's the employment explanation: the more people you have working in extraneous positions, the fewer people are unemployed nationally, and the less discontent you have to fend against. Keeping people employed, even in pointless jobs, keeps people fed and mostly happy and quiets protestors and malcontents.
But enough about the why. Just be aware: if you come to Chile and go to a pharmacy, don't forget to take a number and wait in line to see the pharmacist to buy your aspirin. If you want to mail a letter, expect to run a few loops around the store to get your envelopes. And if you want a job, bring photos of yourself, and photocopies of your diplomas (all of them), any teaching certificates, and any other paperwork you can think of that they might possibly want to see ever, because chances are that they'll want to see it all.
...Bureaucracy.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Santa Lucia on a Smoggy Day
After work this morning, I had nothing to do. It was a cloudy day, threatening rain, and I really wanted to get out of the house. So, I thought, what better than to go for a walk?
Jus over three miles away from my house is Cerro Santa Lucia, a municipal park on a cerro--hill--whose centerpiece is a flambouyant castle built with steep, slick rock stairs leading up to it. The walk there is loud and urban (Santiago is a metropolis, after all), through Providencia, into Santiago Centro, along streets full of bundled up Santiaguinos, walking briskly from wherever it is they've just left to wherever it is they have to be next.
(This is Santiago: I walked from the rightish side of the middle to the middle of the middle)
Along the way, I passed through the Parque Forestal, a park that stretches for blocks through downtown, and is filled with statues of national heroes and Greek gods, and with couples smooching intensely everywhere. On the benches, in the grass, against trees, on the statues: Santiaguinos are given to public displays of affection, and parks are prime affection-displaying real estate.
I got to the cerro around 4 in the afternoon, and walked around in the greenery at the bottom of the hill for a while, taking it in. Then, I gave the security guard my passport number (you have to if you want to go up to the vista point), and started climbing.
(The last set of stairs to get to the vista point--already most of the way up by now)
(Views of the city from halfway up the cerro. Already impressive.)
Cerro Santa Lucia is a surprisingly quiet place in the middle of a very loud city. From the hill, you can still see the city, the cars, the people walking too quickly. But the cerro is somehow totally separate from all of that, a little haven right in the middle of the ruckus. The path that leads up to the top of the Cerro was lined, of course, with smooching pinguinos (high school students, so called because of their black and white suitlike uniforms), out of school and with nowhere to go but home or the park. It must be terribly romantic to bring your pololo to the cerro to make out after school; I suppose that's why so many couples do it.
[as a sidenote: I recognize that I have no right to judge the pinguinos for making out in all the parks--after all, at home, high schoolers faced with the same dilemma used to trek down to the creek and hide in the bushes there. It's the total lack of shame about it that is different here--at home, when you heard someone coming down the path, you jumped apart as soon as possible, putting at least three feet of space between each other, and pretended that you were just, you know, chilling by the creek in the brush after school totally innocently. No funny business there. No hanky panky. Here, that's totally different--the couples are totally engrossed in one another; groups of friends go out together, and the couples lie around kissing while their single friends talk. This, for me, is totally confusing--have you no shame?!]
Aside from the smooching pinguinos (whose photos I did not take, because it would have been rude and more than a little creepy), there was the gorgeous view from the top. You can see the entire city up there, and the mountains. Even though the day was smoggy, the tops of the mountains peeked through--the smog actually gave the mountains a floating effect, like they were other-worldly, and floating in the clouds above this manmade monster of a city.
I stayed up top for a while, taking in the view and the peace, thinking about how big it all seems (and is) sometimes. Then I climbed down, perspective gained, and made my way back home.
Jus over three miles away from my house is Cerro Santa Lucia, a municipal park on a cerro--hill--whose centerpiece is a flambouyant castle built with steep, slick rock stairs leading up to it. The walk there is loud and urban (Santiago is a metropolis, after all), through Providencia, into Santiago Centro, along streets full of bundled up Santiaguinos, walking briskly from wherever it is they've just left to wherever it is they have to be next.
(This is Santiago: I walked from the rightish side of the middle to the middle of the middle)
Along the way, I passed through the Parque Forestal, a park that stretches for blocks through downtown, and is filled with statues of national heroes and Greek gods, and with couples smooching intensely everywhere. On the benches, in the grass, against trees, on the statues: Santiaguinos are given to public displays of affection, and parks are prime affection-displaying real estate.
I got to the cerro around 4 in the afternoon, and walked around in the greenery at the bottom of the hill for a while, taking it in. Then, I gave the security guard my passport number (you have to if you want to go up to the vista point), and started climbing.
(The last set of stairs to get to the vista point--already most of the way up by now)
(Views of the city from halfway up the cerro. Already impressive.)
Cerro Santa Lucia is a surprisingly quiet place in the middle of a very loud city. From the hill, you can still see the city, the cars, the people walking too quickly. But the cerro is somehow totally separate from all of that, a little haven right in the middle of the ruckus. The path that leads up to the top of the Cerro was lined, of course, with smooching pinguinos (high school students, so called because of their black and white suitlike uniforms), out of school and with nowhere to go but home or the park. It must be terribly romantic to bring your pololo to the cerro to make out after school; I suppose that's why so many couples do it.
[as a sidenote: I recognize that I have no right to judge the pinguinos for making out in all the parks--after all, at home, high schoolers faced with the same dilemma used to trek down to the creek and hide in the bushes there. It's the total lack of shame about it that is different here--at home, when you heard someone coming down the path, you jumped apart as soon as possible, putting at least three feet of space between each other, and pretended that you were just, you know, chilling by the creek in the brush after school totally innocently. No funny business there. No hanky panky. Here, that's totally different--the couples are totally engrossed in one another; groups of friends go out together, and the couples lie around kissing while their single friends talk. This, for me, is totally confusing--have you no shame?!]
Aside from the smooching pinguinos (whose photos I did not take, because it would have been rude and more than a little creepy), there was the gorgeous view from the top. You can see the entire city up there, and the mountains. Even though the day was smoggy, the tops of the mountains peeked through--the smog actually gave the mountains a floating effect, like they were other-worldly, and floating in the clouds above this manmade monster of a city.
I stayed up top for a while, taking in the view and the peace, thinking about how big it all seems (and is) sometimes. Then I climbed down, perspective gained, and made my way back home.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Did I mention I found a job?
I've been in Santiago for some eleven days. I've been doing so much during the days, though, that it feels like I've been here for several weeks. I'll try catch anybody who's reading up to speed now, though, so I can get the lack of updates off my conscience, and start updating tomorrow with a clean slate.
Episode the First: Mollie finds housing.
My initial plan was to come to Santiago and stay with Lucky and Ivan (the tios I lived with for the six months I studied here) for a couple of days while I looked for a job and an apartment, in that order. I thought this would be wise because, living close to work is convenient, and while you never know how long it will take to find a job, you can always be pretty certain that there will be rooms available for rent at the beginning of the month in most central locations.
I scratched that plan when I found out that they had a student living with them. No problem; I figured I would go to a hostel instead. This did not happen. My friend Pedro e-mailed and said that his family had a room that was empty for a few days, and I could stay there if I didn't have any other plans. I jumped at the offer, and a plan was made.
I didn't actually stay with Pedro's family my first night in town because, due to a series of stupid events, I missed Pedro at the airport. Instead, I wound up with Lucky and Ivan, who it turns out had written the night before I left to inform me that their student had decided to move out, and my old room was empty. The next night, I went to Pedro's where I stayed until Thursday, when his sister came back to Santiago from Spain and needed her room back. So it goes.
The good news: While there, I found a place to live. The bad news: I wouldn't be able to move in until the tenth. Which meant finding somewhere else to live for five days. Ivan had caught the flu, so I didn't go back to Lucky's; instead, I went to stay with the family Faundez--my friend's host family back in 2007. Sandra, the mother, has reformed; she gave up Catholicism to follow Christ through the Evangelical Church on Irrarrazaval, and spends almost every night there at prayer meetings. Her house is now the Lord's house. Everything that happens in it is a blessing, praise be to the Lord on high, blessed be his name. Sandra always lit candles in the evening for the saints, but I never once saw her pray before a meal, and I certainly never heard her utter thanks to the Lord on high, blessed be his name. Sandra always listened to the radio in the car and while she cooked, but it was usually cueca (Chilean folk music) or radio romantica, never religious music or sermons from the states, dubbed in Spanish. Sometimes, it's astonishing how much people change in relatively little time.
Of course, the Lord doesn't keep Sandra from charging rent, but $80 for five days of housing and food isn't particularly exorbitant, so I can't complain.
I'm moving out tonight, to Av. Holanda nº 14, Providencia, Santiago, Chile--conveniently located two blocks away from the English Institute where I'm working. It's an older apartment, but it's clean and bright, and the owner is friendly and a good human being. I'll be living with three people; the owner is Chilean, one roommate is Bolivian, and the other is French. I am stoked.
Episode the Second: Mollie finds a job
Sometimes, I wonder about karma. Since I got to Chile, things have mysteriously worked out favorably for me. Is this because I timed my trip well? Is this because I am well qualified and am reaping the benefits of my qualifications? Have I done enough penance in stress that the powers that be have decided to let things go my way easily? Is this the calm before some karmic maelstrom, or is this just dumb luck?
Whatever it is, I'm enjoying it. On the Tuesday after I got to town, I grouped together the addresses of the biggest English institutes in Chile and set out with several copies of my resume to paper the town. They say it's easiest to find work if you go in person to deliver your resume. They also say it will take at least a few weeks, possibly a few months, of walking around and leaving resumes and interviewing to get a job. Which is why I was confused when, on my first day of dropping of resumes, I was asked to come back for an interview the following morning.
Two institutes took my resume; two said they couldn't hire me until I had papers of some kind--either my visa or residency. The fifth institute sent me further downtown, where I found out that they have already filled their annual quota of teachers and wouldn't be able to hire me.
English First (http://www.englishfirst.cl/englishfirst/default.aspx) was my last stop of the day; I went in the afternoon after a cup of coffee, knocked a little timidly on the door and said in my best Castellano that I was looking for a job as an English teacher. Claudio, the Director of Education, pulled up a chair and took my resume.
"You have teaching experience," he said, skimming the page.
"Yes," I answered, "with children and teenagers."
He nodded. "And do you have your TEFL?"
"Yes," I answered, proffered the requested document so he could make a copy.
"Would you like to come in for an interview tomorrow? Around, say, eleven?"
"Absolutely."
That was it. The next day, I came back for an interview; I smiled a lot and tried to explain why a political science major would ever want to teach English. I gave broad, inane answers to broad, inane questions. I incorrectly answered a question about the zero and first conditional (riddle me this: have you ever heard of the first conditional? Until Wednesday, I never had.) I smiled more and said I'd absolutely love to be trained to teach anything they would train me to teach. And then, for some reason or other, I was asked back for a second interview the following day.
The second interview wasn't an interview, it was a teaching demo. My "student" was an upper level beginner, and I was to try to teach him the names of foods, and some grammatical concepts. I made myself sick stressing over the lesson plan; in the end, it was unnecessary. I showed up, I smiled a lot, I let the "student" talk as much as he could, and when the half hour lesson was over, was complimented on my quick spotting and gentle correction of errors, and told to work on my board work. I was immediately offered a job; after the two hours of training that immediately followed my interview, Claudio assigned me classes. "We don't hire people just to have them around when we need them," he warned me during the interview. "We hire you to give you hours." He wasn't kidding; twenty minutes after getting hired, I had a 13 hour week ahead of me.
It's not a ton of hours, but 18 per week is considered full time at the institute, and they're not hesitant to give me more. The only thing that makes me nervous is the lack of actual training--even though I've "been trained," I haven't actually been exposed to the school's teaching method, and nobody has detailed correct use of their teaching materials. But I've taught three classes, and thus far, nobody has made any complaints, so at the very least, I'm not doing anything miserably wrong.
One last note about work and then I'll move on (expect more on this later): In an ironic twist, I'm violating the terms of my tourist visa by working for a salary as a teacher. I'm trying to get my papers arranged (if I get a letter of intent from the institute, it shouldn't be too big a problem), but the irony is ever present. I'm an undocumented immigrant. I'm an illegal worker. If I don't have my visa in 79 days, I have to cross the border in Argentina so that I'm not labelled an overstayer, and do not face the risk of deportation. How funny is that?
Episode the Third: Mollie feels better
When I left the country, I had a few explicit goals: I wanted to get away from the states. I wanted to get away from stress. I wanted to prove to myself that I am capable of doing anything I put my mind to--including packing up and going somewhere new and surviving, maybe even thriving, there. I wanted to take advantage of this time when I am so gloriously free, not tied down by a boyfriend, a mortgage, debt, or even a dog by going away and doing something that was purely for me
I also had a slightly less explicit goal: I wanted to prove to myself that I have it in me to be happy. I have always considered myself a basically happy person, generally pleasant and given to laughter. But I think that a lack of challenge, a lack of direction, and a lack of novelty in the past couple of years, coupled with stress and personal crises, has taken a lot of that basic happiness out of me. I haven't felt like myself, and I haven't liked the new self I've been becoming. I don't want to be unpleasant or given to melancholy; I want to enjoy life. I want to smile. I want to laugh. I don't want to dread things, I want to anticipate them. I don't want to cry over failures, I want to be strong enough to recognize them, learn from them, and move on following them.
I don't know if I'm happy yet, but I do know that being here, facing the frigid morning air by telling myself "yes, Mollie. You can do it. You can do whatever you want." is changing something inside me. The more I tell myself I can, the more I find I can. And the more I find I can, the more I want to try to do. I don't know if I'm really happy yet, but I know that, for now at least, I'm content. And that is worth the price of a million plane tickets to Chile.
Episode the First: Mollie finds housing.
My initial plan was to come to Santiago and stay with Lucky and Ivan (the tios I lived with for the six months I studied here) for a couple of days while I looked for a job and an apartment, in that order. I thought this would be wise because, living close to work is convenient, and while you never know how long it will take to find a job, you can always be pretty certain that there will be rooms available for rent at the beginning of the month in most central locations.
I scratched that plan when I found out that they had a student living with them. No problem; I figured I would go to a hostel instead. This did not happen. My friend Pedro e-mailed and said that his family had a room that was empty for a few days, and I could stay there if I didn't have any other plans. I jumped at the offer, and a plan was made.
I didn't actually stay with Pedro's family my first night in town because, due to a series of stupid events, I missed Pedro at the airport. Instead, I wound up with Lucky and Ivan, who it turns out had written the night before I left to inform me that their student had decided to move out, and my old room was empty. The next night, I went to Pedro's where I stayed until Thursday, when his sister came back to Santiago from Spain and needed her room back. So it goes.
The good news: While there, I found a place to live. The bad news: I wouldn't be able to move in until the tenth. Which meant finding somewhere else to live for five days. Ivan had caught the flu, so I didn't go back to Lucky's; instead, I went to stay with the family Faundez--my friend's host family back in 2007. Sandra, the mother, has reformed; she gave up Catholicism to follow Christ through the Evangelical Church on Irrarrazaval, and spends almost every night there at prayer meetings. Her house is now the Lord's house. Everything that happens in it is a blessing, praise be to the Lord on high, blessed be his name. Sandra always lit candles in the evening for the saints, but I never once saw her pray before a meal, and I certainly never heard her utter thanks to the Lord on high, blessed be his name. Sandra always listened to the radio in the car and while she cooked, but it was usually cueca (Chilean folk music) or radio romantica, never religious music or sermons from the states, dubbed in Spanish. Sometimes, it's astonishing how much people change in relatively little time.
Of course, the Lord doesn't keep Sandra from charging rent, but $80 for five days of housing and food isn't particularly exorbitant, so I can't complain.
I'm moving out tonight, to Av. Holanda nº 14, Providencia, Santiago, Chile--conveniently located two blocks away from the English Institute where I'm working. It's an older apartment, but it's clean and bright, and the owner is friendly and a good human being. I'll be living with three people; the owner is Chilean, one roommate is Bolivian, and the other is French. I am stoked.
Episode the Second: Mollie finds a job
Sometimes, I wonder about karma. Since I got to Chile, things have mysteriously worked out favorably for me. Is this because I timed my trip well? Is this because I am well qualified and am reaping the benefits of my qualifications? Have I done enough penance in stress that the powers that be have decided to let things go my way easily? Is this the calm before some karmic maelstrom, or is this just dumb luck?
Whatever it is, I'm enjoying it. On the Tuesday after I got to town, I grouped together the addresses of the biggest English institutes in Chile and set out with several copies of my resume to paper the town. They say it's easiest to find work if you go in person to deliver your resume. They also say it will take at least a few weeks, possibly a few months, of walking around and leaving resumes and interviewing to get a job. Which is why I was confused when, on my first day of dropping of resumes, I was asked to come back for an interview the following morning.
Two institutes took my resume; two said they couldn't hire me until I had papers of some kind--either my visa or residency. The fifth institute sent me further downtown, where I found out that they have already filled their annual quota of teachers and wouldn't be able to hire me.
English First (http://www.englishfirst.cl/englishfirst/default.aspx) was my last stop of the day; I went in the afternoon after a cup of coffee, knocked a little timidly on the door and said in my best Castellano that I was looking for a job as an English teacher. Claudio, the Director of Education, pulled up a chair and took my resume.
"You have teaching experience," he said, skimming the page.
"Yes," I answered, "with children and teenagers."
He nodded. "And do you have your TEFL?"
"Yes," I answered, proffered the requested document so he could make a copy.
"Would you like to come in for an interview tomorrow? Around, say, eleven?"
"Absolutely."
That was it. The next day, I came back for an interview; I smiled a lot and tried to explain why a political science major would ever want to teach English. I gave broad, inane answers to broad, inane questions. I incorrectly answered a question about the zero and first conditional (riddle me this: have you ever heard of the first conditional? Until Wednesday, I never had.) I smiled more and said I'd absolutely love to be trained to teach anything they would train me to teach. And then, for some reason or other, I was asked back for a second interview the following day.
The second interview wasn't an interview, it was a teaching demo. My "student" was an upper level beginner, and I was to try to teach him the names of foods, and some grammatical concepts. I made myself sick stressing over the lesson plan; in the end, it was unnecessary. I showed up, I smiled a lot, I let the "student" talk as much as he could, and when the half hour lesson was over, was complimented on my quick spotting and gentle correction of errors, and told to work on my board work. I was immediately offered a job; after the two hours of training that immediately followed my interview, Claudio assigned me classes. "We don't hire people just to have them around when we need them," he warned me during the interview. "We hire you to give you hours." He wasn't kidding; twenty minutes after getting hired, I had a 13 hour week ahead of me.
It's not a ton of hours, but 18 per week is considered full time at the institute, and they're not hesitant to give me more. The only thing that makes me nervous is the lack of actual training--even though I've "been trained," I haven't actually been exposed to the school's teaching method, and nobody has detailed correct use of their teaching materials. But I've taught three classes, and thus far, nobody has made any complaints, so at the very least, I'm not doing anything miserably wrong.
One last note about work and then I'll move on (expect more on this later): In an ironic twist, I'm violating the terms of my tourist visa by working for a salary as a teacher. I'm trying to get my papers arranged (if I get a letter of intent from the institute, it shouldn't be too big a problem), but the irony is ever present. I'm an undocumented immigrant. I'm an illegal worker. If I don't have my visa in 79 days, I have to cross the border in Argentina so that I'm not labelled an overstayer, and do not face the risk of deportation. How funny is that?
Episode the Third: Mollie feels better
When I left the country, I had a few explicit goals: I wanted to get away from the states. I wanted to get away from stress. I wanted to prove to myself that I am capable of doing anything I put my mind to--including packing up and going somewhere new and surviving, maybe even thriving, there. I wanted to take advantage of this time when I am so gloriously free, not tied down by a boyfriend, a mortgage, debt, or even a dog by going away and doing something that was purely for me
I also had a slightly less explicit goal: I wanted to prove to myself that I have it in me to be happy. I have always considered myself a basically happy person, generally pleasant and given to laughter. But I think that a lack of challenge, a lack of direction, and a lack of novelty in the past couple of years, coupled with stress and personal crises, has taken a lot of that basic happiness out of me. I haven't felt like myself, and I haven't liked the new self I've been becoming. I don't want to be unpleasant or given to melancholy; I want to enjoy life. I want to smile. I want to laugh. I don't want to dread things, I want to anticipate them. I don't want to cry over failures, I want to be strong enough to recognize them, learn from them, and move on following them.
I don't know if I'm happy yet, but I do know that being here, facing the frigid morning air by telling myself "yes, Mollie. You can do it. You can do whatever you want." is changing something inside me. The more I tell myself I can, the more I find I can. And the more I find I can, the more I want to try to do. I don't know if I'm really happy yet, but I know that, for now at least, I'm content. And that is worth the price of a million plane tickets to Chile.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
A California Girl's Guide to Surviving the Chilean Winter
Cold is relative. In San Diego, 55 degrees is freezing. We put on sweatshirts and pull up the hoods, shove our feet into socks and close-toed shoes, hunch up our shoulders, and walk quickly with our faces down to avoid any passing cool breeze.
Santiago winter is not the coldest weather I've survived in my life. The nearby mountains might be capped with snow, but that doesn't mean that we actually get snow in the city--as a matter of fact, Santiago hardly even sees rainfall during the winter. That doesn't mean it doesn't get cold: nights run between 2 and 4 degrees celsius (that's a high of 39 degrees, for our slow calculators), while daytime temperatures have been between 14 and 22 degrees celsius (between 57 and 72 degrees fahrenheit). Sometimes, daytime is actually quite pleasant; with long sleeves, a coat, an undershirt, and a scarf (and leggings under your pants just in case you should be out after dark), even California girls can find themselves comfortable--perhaps warm--during the day in the Santiaguino winter.
Nighttime, of course, is a different story. 2 degrees celsius is no laughing matter, especially in an apartment that is poorly insulated and does not have central heating. That is why I have compiled a list of things that should help other girls like me, California girls, survive the Chilean winter.
First, your bed must be appropriately equipped: You will need several wool blankets (2 shown), a comforter (1 shown), and sheets (1 set shown). You will also need a hot water bottle, called a "guatero" in Chile (this is exactly what it sounds like, girls: you fill a silicone bottle with almost boiling water, and cuddle it as though your life depended on it, because honestly, it's so cold that it just might.)
Next, you must have the proper heating equipment. There is generally not heating inside of Chilean homes; instead, Chileans use seemingly old fashioned gas-fueled space heaters, "estufas," to keep themselves warm. Don't worry, if you follow the instructions on the label and don't leave the estufa running while you sleep or in poorly ventilated areas, you won't suffocate.
Finally, of course, is your actual clothing. In San Diego, maybe you sleep top naked in the winter. Maybe you sleep all the way naked in the winter, if your blankets are heavy. Your nakedness in Californian winter is none of my business; however, your nakedness in the Santiago winter would be tantamount to wishing brutal death for yourself, which would, indeed, concern me.
Dress for bed can be simplified into several fundamental pieces of clothing: Booties (worn over socks, not over bare feet), long underwear (not pictured, worn beneath full pajamas), gloves (the thicker the better), a pañuelo (neckerchief, a scarf for bedtime), and a hat (preferably crocheted with thick wool.)
Follow these tips, California girls, and you just might survive the Chilean winter. Make sure you sleep with your nose under the covers so you don't breathe in the chill night air, and, if you can, try to get a pololo (Chilean boyfriend) as a bed partner--rumor has it they're warmer than any guatero.
Santiago winter is not the coldest weather I've survived in my life. The nearby mountains might be capped with snow, but that doesn't mean that we actually get snow in the city--as a matter of fact, Santiago hardly even sees rainfall during the winter. That doesn't mean it doesn't get cold: nights run between 2 and 4 degrees celsius (that's a high of 39 degrees, for our slow calculators), while daytime temperatures have been between 14 and 22 degrees celsius (between 57 and 72 degrees fahrenheit). Sometimes, daytime is actually quite pleasant; with long sleeves, a coat, an undershirt, and a scarf (and leggings under your pants just in case you should be out after dark), even California girls can find themselves comfortable--perhaps warm--during the day in the Santiaguino winter.
Nighttime, of course, is a different story. 2 degrees celsius is no laughing matter, especially in an apartment that is poorly insulated and does not have central heating. That is why I have compiled a list of things that should help other girls like me, California girls, survive the Chilean winter.
First, your bed must be appropriately equipped: You will need several wool blankets (2 shown), a comforter (1 shown), and sheets (1 set shown). You will also need a hot water bottle, called a "guatero" in Chile (this is exactly what it sounds like, girls: you fill a silicone bottle with almost boiling water, and cuddle it as though your life depended on it, because honestly, it's so cold that it just might.)
Next, you must have the proper heating equipment. There is generally not heating inside of Chilean homes; instead, Chileans use seemingly old fashioned gas-fueled space heaters, "estufas," to keep themselves warm. Don't worry, if you follow the instructions on the label and don't leave the estufa running while you sleep or in poorly ventilated areas, you won't suffocate.
Finally, of course, is your actual clothing. In San Diego, maybe you sleep top naked in the winter. Maybe you sleep all the way naked in the winter, if your blankets are heavy. Your nakedness in Californian winter is none of my business; however, your nakedness in the Santiago winter would be tantamount to wishing brutal death for yourself, which would, indeed, concern me.
Dress for bed can be simplified into several fundamental pieces of clothing: Booties (worn over socks, not over bare feet), long underwear (not pictured, worn beneath full pajamas), gloves (the thicker the better), a pañuelo (neckerchief, a scarf for bedtime), and a hat (preferably crocheted with thick wool.)
Follow these tips, California girls, and you just might survive the Chilean winter. Make sure you sleep with your nose under the covers so you don't breathe in the chill night air, and, if you can, try to get a pololo (Chilean boyfriend) as a bed partner--rumor has it they're warmer than any guatero.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
