Arriving! (Saturday Week 1)

Twelve hours ago I was sitting at the gate waiting to board the plane...but it feels like ages ago. My flight left from Newark at 9 am, and I was very lucky to have about twelve other students from the program on the same flight. We started getting to know each other at the gate, and we got louder and more conspicuous as more and more people showed up. The flight was pretty short--about three hours and forty minutes. When we arrived, the first thing I noticed was the heat. 82 degrees here feels a lot warmer than 82 degrees in Pittsburgh, because there's more humidity and less AC. Also, we were able to go through customs and immigration as a group, which was wasn't hard but it was still nice to be with a group.

Once we had our baggage, we got in a big van and went straight to PUCMM (the university) to meet our host families. As the van was parking and we were gathering up our things, all of my nerves and anticipation peaked, and I could tell that the other students felt it too. To add to the stress, I was one of the last people to find my host mother, but eventually she found me and we went into an open air pavilion (out of the sun!) where we could sit down and get to know each other. They served us some snacks and we watched a few short videos introducing us to PCUMM and the DR. It took me a little while to warm up to speaking Spanish and get over my nerves, but eventually my Spanish started flowing well enough to hold a conversation.

The reception was pretty short, and afterwards we all split up to go to the homes of our host families and start settling in. My host mother's name is Anaida, and she has two daughters who live with her, Carolina, who is 24 and Melissa who is 18. Anaida's husband Miguel Angel usually lives in the US, but he is home now so I got to meet him too. Anaida also has a son, Carlos, who is married and lives with his wife and three-year-old son in an apartment around the corner from Anaida's house. Carlos and his son drove us home fromt he reception and he was very kind and helped break the ice by describing some of the city sights as we passed them.

I spent the rest of the afternoon chatting with Anaida and eating the food that she kept offering me. I had the most delicious mango from the tree in their backyard, so I'm looking forward to eating more of those in the mornings before class! My Spanish speaking is going way better than I could have hoped--I was able to keep up conversation with Anaida for most of the afternoon. Of course there were plenty of times where I trailed off in the middle of a sentences because my vocabulary failed me or where I had a deer-in-the-headlights look on my face because I lost the thread of the conversation. Overall though, I can make myself understood and I know I'm going to improve rapidly with so much practice.

Tomorrow we have a full day of orientation at a hotel/conference center/vacation club (not exactly sure which description is most appropriate) that supposedly has some beautiful waterfalls and a pool to swim in. The pool is our reward for sitting through three hours of presentations about diarrhea, Dengue fever, cultural adaptation and other fun topics. I'm excited to talk to everyone that I met on the plane to hear about their evenings with their host families. I'm also excited to meet the 20-ish other participants in the program whom I haven't met yet. (There were different host-family receptions for the people whose flights arrived at different times). I'm also excited to see more of the country and the city and start getting a feel for what everyday life is like here.

Side note: The house where I'm staying has wifi so it seems like Internet access won't be a problem. Feel free to email and send Facebook messages! Also, if you'd like to get a postcard, send me your address and I'll mail you one!

Our descent into Santiago. The city is right at the base of the mountains so it's really beautiful.

Flying directly over the city

On the ground!