I’ve been here for almost a week now and am growing more comfortable in my Santiago surroundings by the day. I’ve also gained a whole new respect for Molly not only for her fluency in Spanish, but in her confidence in meeting and conversing with new people that is inherent to her personality. Without her, this experience would be considerably more confusing and personally withdrawn, and so much of my comfort in this new social climate is due directly to her. To have Molly with me is the confidence to break any barrier, be they cultural or imagined.
My Spanish is limited at best, but I am learning. Molly, of course, fills in the gaps and allows me to be in conversation with Chileans by acting as interpreter. But it’s through her speaking with them that I’m learning the most of what phrases to use and how to get across thoughts when translation is seemingly impossible. I’m confident by a few weeks through this constant everyday involvement with another language, I’ll be best able to speak Spanish passably and grow my knowledge base by the day towards some sort of fluency. This is exciting to me, because language classes have thus far have proven largely useless. Immersion is the key and it has always been my want. And in Chile, where Spanish is spoke incredibly fast (the fastest in the Spanish-speaking world, and is a sort of cultural pride that the Chileans hold), my trial by fire will be more advantageous for me in understanding the complexity of the language and be able to reproduce it myself. But currently, I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that it’s overwhelming, however optimism and openness is the key.
Our living arrangement is very nice, to say the least. Search “0151 Manuel Antonio Prieto” in google maps to see our exact location. Generally speaking, we’re on the border of the Centro and Providencia districts and live beside the fantastic Parque Bustamente that reaffirms my love for large and meticulously maintained public parks and spaces sorely missing from American cities (central park in NYC being one rather obvious exception). To our north is Parque metropolitano with the statue of the virgin Mary perched atop which is visible from any open space in the city; to our east are the enormous Andes, with snow-capped mountains further visible when the smog is less dense; the west some smaller mountains/hills; and the south some Andean cliffs and foothills that disappear in the smoggy distance. Orientation is thus pretty easy, we have yet to get lost, and it is, of course, very, very beautiful to be in and around despite the omnipresent smog.
We live in a large home with our landlord Susana on the third floor; the kitchen, office, balcony, and some rented rooms on the second; and Susana’s mother, her living space, some other rented rooms, and our room on the first. The house is very lively with people coming and going throughout the day, either from those living in the rooms or working for the business that occupies the second floor office. Hyper-fast Chilean Spanish permeate the walls by day and the city sounds by night. And then there’s Robertina, our housekeeper who keeps it all organized. She’s an incredibly sweet older woman that absolutely adores Molly (to which she has given the name “María” instead of her harshly unfamiliar “MO-lee”). She’s a very interesting, knowledgeable person with a complex past that will further shed light on our knowledge of Chilean history through her own personal history. I will, of course, thank Molly for being able to hear her stories through her translations until I get my Spanish-speaking legs considerably less wobbly.
I will post more as I become further acquainted with this city and its culture, but with this being my first-week basis of understanding I will wait to venture further. This place is exhilarating for me and for Molly and a welcome change to the Grand Rapids life we had become familiar with (but which we do not want to separate ourselves from – it will always be home, of course). I hope to share the everyday excitement we have once I start to accumulate the stories of a period of time lived in the unfamiliar: the vast and inspiring Santiago.
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