Misadventures in My Own Island of Gringa-ness

Laundry, round two.

amak — Wed, 10 Jul 2013 13:04:00 GMT

And at this point, the laundry is winning. Most decidedly.

Ignacio told us that the dryer was installed, so we would be able to do our laundry at the B&B to save money. Wonderful, but it didn't turn out that simple. He told us to just leave the clothes in our room, and the cleaning lady would take care of it. We did that for three days and it wasn't done. Okay, but that's three less pair of underwear that I have (this is how you count things when you're running out of clothes).

So we did one load of laundry, and gasp, put it in the new dryer. The load included jackets and jeans, so there was the usual noise with zippers and buttons hitting the side of the dryer. Ignacio was super worried, and kept asking about "all the noise" that the dryer was making. After removing several items that apparently had too big of zippers, they were only in the dryer for half an hour. After that, we had to put them on a drying rack at the top of the stairs, right outside of two male guests rooms. Perfect. Well, at least there was no underwear in that batch.

At that point, I decided that we just needed to go to the laundromat to do our other launrdy, I didn't want to freak anyone out with noise in the dryer, and the thought of drying all my underwear in front of the B&B wasn't too appealing either. But Ignacio ran into my roommate trying to take the laundry to the lavanderia, and seemed so disappointed. Back to the drawing board...

We decided to do one load, our load of clothes and things that should not be dried. After dancing around a schedule for that, trying to find a time when no one was using the washer/not showering, we got it in the washer. I figured since it was such a big deal to dry things, no one would put it in the dryer. By the time I got back from the gym, I went ot go check on the laundry. Not only had it been moved to the dryer, the cycle was done. God, wouldn't you know, the one load that we didn't want to dry.

Even though paying for someone else to do my laundry kills me, and I don't especially enjoy that complete strangers are folding my underwear into perfect little squares, I think that's going to be the route to go while staying in the country. Dios mios, I never thought I would have to sneak in and out of doors with laundry, but that's what I ended up doing.

"And this pair of gringas..."

amak — Fri, 5 Jul 2013 12:59:00 GMT

So, while I fondly refer to myself and my roommate as "gringas," most Chileans don't actually use that term. They snicker when I use it, they certainly know what it means, but it's not that big of a thing here.

I went to court again today, but this time with my roommate's collegue, one of the public defenders. We were at the courthouse, and the defender was introducing us to some other lawyers. She literally opened her introduction with, "And this pair of gringas is from the United States." I almost burst out into a very unprofessional, very inappropriate GUUUFAAWWWWW fit of laughter in the middle of the stuffy courthouse. I wonder if she knew how close she was to instigating gringa laughter?

Fourth of July in the winter

amak — Thu, 4 Jul 2013 02:45:00 GMT

Happy independence day ´Murica.

Since it´s definitely not a holiday here, we had to kind of make our own holiday. My roommate and I went to an American style bar here in Santiago, and ordered burgers. Don´t get much more ´Murican than that. There really is no difference between American and Chilean hamburgers, but these were definitely American sized portions. I got a chicken burger, and it seriously was about as big as my face.

It was also super messy, I had juice and veggies sliding all over myself for the entire time. I gave up on using a napkin after about three minutes, and just waited until the end. I felt absolutely gross by the end, but I guess it was worth it.

As it is the middle of winter here in Chile, it was the first 4th of July I´ve ever had where I had to wear a scarf and multiple layers. My roommate and I went to get some ice cream afterwards, probably not the best choice for the chilly evening. After we stood in line like silent waddling gooslings in the ice cream shop (we didn´t know that you had to take a number before they would take your order), the gringas had to scuttle home quickly so that the ice cream cup didn´t freeze my hand off.

Denmark, England - same thing, right?

amak — Tue, 2 Jul 2013 12:54:00 GMT

It has been really cool to meet all the strangers that come through the B&B here. Some are more social than others, and some are more willing to engange the gringas in conversation than others. But it's been a very interesting mix.

I walked into breakfast the other morning, and there was a couple there that I had not met before. They were talking in English with another man, and so I later slipped into their conversation. The woman's accent was decidedly British, and I thought her husband's accent was British as well, but I hadn't heard him talk very much.

Later on in the conversation, I asked her, "What part of England are you from?" She blinked at me for a minute, and explained that they were from Denmark.

Oh...

Well, I felt a little better when she explained that she is an high-school English teacher. She most definitely talks with a British accent, so I regained a little bit of my self-respect back after that.

Conversing with a 14 year old

amak — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 12:47:00 GMT

I got back late from work today, one of the presentations went longer than we were expecting. By the time I got home from that, I was starving and didn't really want to go through the fight it is to use the shared common kitchen that is about the size of a bathtub. My roommate and I headed out and bought some empandas from a little shop down the street.

We brought them back to the B&B, and we sat down at the dining room table. The step-daughter of the owner was also eating her dinner, and she came in later and sat at the table.

I've been trying to find someone to talk more Spanish to lately, but I think it's pretty apparent that it will not be with her. I can remember myself at fourteen, and I don't think I would be thrilled to live in a house where there is a constant fluctuation of strangers. But conversation was not happening.

I tried to talk about anything, weather, what level of school she's in, and names of fruits. Okay, those aren't great conversation starters, but my Spanish vocabulary is pretty limited. But sheesh, SHUT DOWN by a teenager. As usual... I seem to be drawn to that!

Cucharas

amak — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 12:39:00 GMT

At our little bed and breakfast, we get served free breakfast. And before any of you snarky people start on your sarcasm, just remember that not all things translate over into other languages, which includes concepts included in the title. I digress...

At breakfast, my roommate needed a spoon (cuchara) to eat her yogurt. Ignacio, the owner of the bed and breakfast, had given her a TINY spoon, and when another one became clean, he asked her if she wanted another spoon. She said sure, and so he went back into the kitchen. I was taking my dishes back at that moment, and I saw him coming back to the dining room with a huge ladle. He signalled for me to be quiet. The rest of the story I only heard from the kitchen.

He told Whitney to close her eyes, and that when she opened them, the spoon was going to grow when immersed in hot water. I just heard my roommate go, "OOOOOHHHHHH" when she apparently opened her eyes.

And such is my life in this city, getting what kicks I can when I struggle to understand any type of conversation or interaction. Yes, this is pretty infantile humor. But sometimes it's about the only humor I can understand at this point.

Quest for laundry and a trailhead

amak — Sun, 23 Jun 2013 12:28:00 GMT

Laundry time...

In the words of Scooby Doo, "Ruh roh." What to do when you have about ten days worth of clothes, and you live in a bed and breakfast with no functioning dryer? I opened the dryer and found papers sitting in it. Including the owner's manual. It was ridiculously easy to do laundry in Guatemala, all we did was leave a pile of laundry and money on the bed, and when we came back at the end of the day, the pile was washed and folded. Ahhhhh, and this is what it is to be an American capitalist...

Different story here. I'm down to about three pairs of underwear here, so I had to go on a "lavanderia" hunt. Highly successful. I found one less than a block from our bed and breakfast. I figure less space to travel is less of a chance that this girl will scatter her underwear on the streets of Santiago.

Yesterday, Saturday, we wanted to hike up the hill that overlooks Santiago. There's a lot of pollution here in the city, and my roomate's collegue told her that the best time to see Santiago is a day after it rains. The smog isn't bad, so we trooped off in the general direction of the hill and figured we'd scale the mountain/hill.

I should know by now that anytime I use the phrase, "I figured," this means I have no idea what I'm doing and it will turn out to be infinitetessimally times more complicated than I anticipated. My roommate and I walked around for at least 45 minutes at the base of the hill, watching bikers going pass on a trail, but it was completely fenced off. After we skirted around the edges of a freeway (yeah, imagine how graceful this one was while doing that), we finally made it into something that resembled a park, and that had a road running through it. But by this time, it was getting dark, I had work to do, so we decided to leave the hike for another day.

Can this day be described as anything but a win?

This is a trash-can, right?

amak — Sat, 22 Jun 2013 12:21:00 GMT

It was a particularly trying day at the office. Not because there was too much going on and I became overwhelmed; on the contrary, I sat around for about two hours and felt incredibly useless. And it didn't help that when someone did speak to me, I could not understand what they said and had to ask them to repeat it about twice.

I got back to my neighberhood and decided that I needed an afternoon pick-me-up. I went into this little mini-market type thing to buy a diet Pepsi, and paid for it. Just like in the US, they print out a receipt for EVERYTHING. I didn't want a receipt for a 75 cent bottle of soda, so I threw the receipt out in what I thought was a garbage can. And then I looked over and saw the actual garbage can. And it was definitely NOT where I put my trash. The guy behind the counter was giving me the look. You know, the "Oh my god, that gringa just put her trash into the mailbox."

Needless to say, I made a hasty exit.

What a day...

amak — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 18:59:00 GMT

So Monday turned out to be quite the bust. I had thought that we were starting on Tuesday (well, we were), but when I got back into wi-fi mode on Monday after all our errands, I had a message from the other student working at our office. It said, "Hey, where are you? I've already gotten my security credentials and sat through like three presentations." It was something out of a nightmare that you wake up, sweating profusely and glad that it's not true - I forgot to go to work on the first day of my job. My roommate asked me what I was going to do and I responded, "Well, I guess I'm going to have to change my pants." Not that I soiled myself or anything, but I had to get out of jeans.

I threw on some dress pants and nicer shoes and ran to the metro. The whole ride there I was just panicked, thinking about what I was going to say. I show up, and the man at the reception needed to know who I was and where I was going. Fortunately, both of the numbers that I had for people to contact were out of their offices. Of course. And considering my state of mind at that point, my Spanish was not coming out so hot. Through some miracle, the director of security answered his phone, and they let me up. They snapped my picture, gave me a Power-Point presentation, and told me to show up to a course in another city in the morning. I literally did not know what hit me. And apparently we were supposed to start the next morning, they hadn't been expecting us until then. Oh god, and a hot mess of gringaness shows up, apologizing and sweating profusely, and asking where Vina del Mar is.

And that was my entrance into my new job in Chile.

What-E-C-S...

amak — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 13:59:00 GMT

Today was supposed to be our "orientation" day, we set out this morning to get phones, figure out the metro, and just figure a little of our shize out.

After a few hours of blindly running around, asking three different security guards where to find the public defender's office (we went to three because we didn't understand any of them), and searching for wi-fi zones to use Google Maps, we finished up our errands. On to buy phones...

I was determined to get this done, how hard could it be, right? I marched into the Claro store, and decided to get the cheapest phones possible. The guy sat us down and started filling out the paperwork. He asked for something, and I had no clue of what he even said, and so I figured, "Oh, maybe we need to pay at this point." He saw me reaching for my wallet, and repeated super slowly, "NO, I just need your names."

Anna's mind goes: "Oh, well, I can do that..." Apparently not. I hadn't practiced my Spanish alphabet in a while, because I started spelling my last name for him. K as pronounced in English just means what or which in Spanish, and there's two of them in my last name, so he kept looking at me expectantly. My roommate nudged me at that point and whispered the correct pronounciation of k.

He asked for my ID at that point, and toodled along his merry way with a written version of my last name. Oh, gringa moments continue...

Chilean Entrance

amak — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 13:49:00 GMT

Any confidence that I might have built up about my ability to speak Spanish during my time in Guatemala has been efficiently smashed to the ground and stomped on. Chile is a whole other animal just onto itself.

I got on the plane this morning with minor difficulty, nothing exciting to report. On the plane to Santiago, I would hear people talk, and literally not know what they were saying. I was hoping it was my airplane delirium setting in.

When I got in the airport, I knew I had to pay this stamp thing to get into the country, but I ended up standing in three different lines before I got to it. They all probably thought I was the idiot American, but I was so tired and grumpy I didn't care. By the time I got to customs, my disgruntled state must have been apparent. The guy started speaking in Spanish, then asked, "Do you have anyzing? Any sausage? Any dried fruit?"

Yes, I came all this way, and I want to smuggle dried fruit into your country.

Ice cream date

amak — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 13:45:00 GMT

Last day in Guatemala. Sorry to leave, but excited to see what new messes I can get myself into in Chile. Plenty I'm sure.

As a celebration type thing, I bought ice cream for our Spanish tutors. I went into the ice cream shop with Martha, and I was looking at the ice cream bars. I was looking for one with almonds in it, and thought I knew the word for almonds. I asked if they had one with almonds in it, and the woman gave me a really strange look. I realized that when trying to fudge the word, I had mispronounced it as Germans. What I ended up asking was, "Do you have any ice cream with Germans in it?"

Anna doesn't have _______

amak — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 13:40:00 GMT

I am going to miss my Spanish conversation partner/tutor so much. There is nothing that quite compares to the times that we have in our four-hour sessions.

So today we were playing basically Scattegories in Spanish. We would get a letter and a subject, and have to write as many words as we could think of. If I and my partner wrote the same word, we would get half points, just the same as in Scattegories.

For one category, my partner put down "member" but misspelled it. She was saying, "Oh, I don't think I should get full points. I only get 5 points, right?" Lili, the other Spanish tutor says, "Oh no, you get full points. Anna doesn't have a member."

At first I wasn't sure if it would translate to the same effect, but when I saw how much she was laughing, I realized it had the exact same effect.

"Carro"

amak — Sat, 8 Jun 2013 13:32:00 GMT

We got back from the beach today. It was so amazingly crazy how much difference in temperature we had from going from Antigua to Montericco. As I have never been anywhere tropical, the heat and the humidity that was going on was just astounding.

After our flat tire on Saturday, we got to the beach and I spent the afternoon getting pummeled by the waves. It is a huge difference from the Pacific Ocean that I know; the water is super warm, and the beach is steep, so the waves are crazy. I literally have sand in my hair, teeth, eyes and ears and probably will be digging it out for weeks. My swimming suit is completely ruined, somehow I got sand in between the liner and the suit.

I had a spectacular gringa moment after we came back. My roommate and I hadn't eaten lunch, so we set off after the bus pulled in to get some lunch. Luis, the program director was at the door, and asked us where we were going. He was joking around, and had this really goofy look on his face. I thought I was being clever and asked, "What's up with your face?" He looked really confused.

It took me about thirty feet after we left him to realize that I got the gender of the word wrong. Instead of cara, I said carro, so I ended up asking him, "What's with your car?" while pointing at his face.

Almost gringa-moment

amak — Fri, 7 Jun 2013 00:57:00 GMT

Went into the city today to see the Congress and the Supreme Court. For lunch we went to a restaurant, and I saw a word on the menu that meant refill of your drink. As the waiter came back around later, he started refilling other people's drinks. I wasn't ready yet, so I told him I would want some later. Later, I was talking to my roommate and mentioned that I wanted my refill. She gave me a great look and asks, “What did you call it?” My immediate thought was “Shit. What did I say?” I just inserted a word that I thought sounded familiar and ended up saying“Refrito.” Thank god I only said it to Whitney, and not to the waiter. I would have been asking, “Can I have my drink re-FRIED?”

Crossword puzzle

amak — Thu, 6 Jun 2013 00:55:00 GMT

During Spanish tutoring today, we were playing a game where you have to make your own crossword puzzle, in Spanish. It was super hard, I am mind-numb when I get out of that activity. There was a word that Lili was explaining what it meant, and I thought I repeated it correctly. But of course I did not.

I said “nies,” and both Martha and Lili started laughing. I asked what it meant and both of them insisted that the other explain the word to me. Basically, it means balls or testicles. What can I say, my crossword puzzles are just exciting.

Pokemon - gotta catch them all

amak — Wed, 5 Jun 2013 00:54:00 GMT

So apparently my red face has not gone unnoticed here either. When I was chatting with the Spanish tutors before we began today, Lili asked me if there were other members of my family that had red cheeks like I do. I explained that I was the only member with them. Lili said that “Usually people in this country only have those cheeks if they live in a cold area.” Then Martha says, “Yeah, you know Pokemon? You look like Pikachu.”

Such a compliment, well, at least I know that my red face is kind of universally weird.

Anatomy lesson

amak — Mon, 3 Jun 2013 00:52:00 GMT

So, what better way to humiliate myself than discussing human anatomy? This was bound to happen at some point.

My Spanish tutor was telling me about a type of Mexican drink, a mixed drink that is made with tequilla and comes in a big, blue bottle. She was explaining the name, “Quitarpenas” which means to leave your penas (troubles or pains) behind. I repeated the name, or shall I say, I tried to repeat the name, but mispronounced it.

I got excited about the word quitar, and was trying to explain that it means almost the same thing in French. I unfortunately mispronounced the second word, and my Spanish tutor (Martha)'s face started twisting up. “No, don't say that.” I mispronounced the word and was saying “to leave your penises behind.”

Zip-lining

amak — Sun, 2 Jun 2013 00:51:00 GMT

And then, dun dun dun, we went zip-lining. I was a bit hesitant about doing it this morning, but when I found out that it was about $30 US dollars, I had to do it. And I am so glad that I did. At some points on the cables, we were about 20 meters ABOVE the tops of the trees. We could see the waterfall to one side, and then the lake on the other side. So gorgeous...

Zip-lining obviously requires wearing a harness. As the guides were strapping us in, the guy asked for permission to tighten the harness around my chest. I was pretty nervous with thinking about doing zip-lining at this point, and I didn't realize what he was asking. I did this “Huh? Como?” and made him repeat that he had to touch my chest in order to tighten the harness.

That's my specialty, making things awkward not only for myself, but I tend to spread the joy around to everyone I talk to as well.

I've never even been to Mexico!

amak — Fri, 31 May 2013 15:39:00 GMT

This morning, I was walking into class, and Raquel (the director of the program) was waiting at the door to the convent. Because the other Anna in the program and I are the only students who have a complicated schedule, we don't have time for lunch and we're rushing between classes most of the time at opposite ends of Antigua. So Raquel says, “Chicas, cuando caminan como este, van perder peso.” “Girls, you're going to lose peso with all this walking.” Peso means weight, but for some reason all I could think about was peso, the Mexican currency. I just stared at her, I'm sure looking like a moron, and all I could think about was it as the money. “But why would I lose pesos? I've never even BEEN to Mexico, I don't have pesos, how would I lose them?” Thank GOD or blind luck, I just happened to NOT speak, and did not voice these thoughts out loud. Raquel obviously saw that I was confused because she goes, “Peso – weight?” I'm pretty sure my mouth snapped shut at that point, and we just continued on inside.

Ahhhhh, and my education continues...