La lluvia

Buenas tardes,
It is really chilly here and it is raining. It is like a late October/early November rain, very cold. Yesterday I got soaked walking home from the CIEE office, not fun. We have had quite a bit of free time this week to select classes and to talk to people about the classes we plan to take. I am planning on taking quite a few literature classes, because they are the ones I think will transfer the best and will suite me the best as well. It was really hard to pick classes though because there were so many of them and none of them had course descriptions that were easily accessible, so it was difficult to know what the class was about, but I think I made some good decisions.

About the rain...Viña y Valparaiso are located on the beach and the cities are built on part of the beach until the hills, so when it rains, the streets flood. It was great fun walking, there was one street that was unwalkable (earlier in the day there was a man with waders and a shopping cart ferrying people across the street for a fee). I really hope it stops raining tomorrow because I am sick of being wet and cold, I guess it is part of the territory. Today I have had my coat on all day. I have been drinking a lot of tea. This kind of cold in the US is different because when it is this cold, people turn their heat on, but in Chile the buildings are not heated...we have a little stove that is used to heat the main parts of the house, but that is it. It is just going to take some getting used to.

I have started to have dreams in Spanish, which I guess is a good thing...although I don´t know if I am dreaming in Spanish or if I am just waking up and then thinking in Spanish...either way, it is good because it means I am getting better at Spanish. My head hurts when I go to bed at night and I am exhausted when I finally get into bed at night because thinking, talking, and living Spanish is a lot of mental work. I think I am to the point though that I am thinking in Spanish for the most part and not translating so much anymore, unless there is a word I don´t know or that I am not really sure how to say correctly. I still have a long way to go before I am "fluent" though, I can be understood when I speak, but I have to build up my confidence in speaking in front of and to strangers.

At our introductory breakfast on Monday, one of the speakers said that we came to probably the most difficult country possible for learning Spanish because the Chileans speak very poorly, they drop letters off of their words and add parts to other words and they speak extremely fast. For example: sí (yes) becomes sípoh. They add "poh" to almost every one consonant word, I am getting used to it, but it still kinda throws me. And ¿cómo estás? (how are you) becomes ¿cómo estai? There are whole books (dictionaries) of Chileanismos. I don´t think I am ever going to get to know all of them!

Also at breakfast we had the opportunity to listen to traditional Chilean music performed by individuals from La Catolica and watch dancers perform traditional dances. The dancers would do the dance and then go looking for gringos to dance with them. For one dance, el pavo, they asked for volunteers before the dance even started. I volunteered and so got to dance. I didn´t know what I was volunteering for, but being adventurous, it didn´t really matter. For El Pavo (the turkey), there is one more guy than girl. The girls form a circle on the inside and the guys on the outside. The girls skip one way and the guys the other. When el pavo claps, you switch directions and skip the other way. This goes on until El Pavo gobbles. When el pavo gobbles, the guys have to find a girl and grab her (it reminded me a lot of musical chairs and duck, duck, gray duck...for all you non-Minnesotians, duck, duck, goose). The guy without a girl becomes the new El Pavo and the dance continues. It was very fun and involved a lot of laughing.

I had my first class today, Globalización, it went well, and I think I am going to learn a lot about Chile in the class. I found it kinda difficult to take notes and listen at the same time in Spanish, but I think after a couple of classes, I will be in a groove!

Okay, that is enough for now.

Love,
Kathy