Two Americans in Chile

chocolate smog

Hey all. We are a bit behind in our blogging…sorry. I’m trying.

Here is a shot of a smoggy morning in Santiago. They have major smog issues because there are small hills on the west side of the city, and then of course the Andes on the east side and all the gray stuff just hangs out in the middle.

I don’t want to leave you with a bad taste in your mouth though, so here’s some chocolate milk:

Hope you are feeling fortified. You’re going to need it for what comes next.

Rinse and Repeat

it’s funny. One of the things I didn’t want to happen when I came to Santiago was to end up in just the same routine I had in Portland, but here. I didn’t want to spend the majority of my day on my computer, going out occasionally, and really not “experiencing” the city. I didn’t want to fill a vast and open space of time each day with little productivity. I wanted to actually accomplish things I would never be able to accomplish while working a full-time job. Like write a movie. Create a killer website. Learn a new city. Learn a new language.

Now that I’m here, I find that it’s pretty hard to do what you need to do to feel content. In some ways, I feel the pull of gravity to do the things I’m comfortable doing. Surfing the web, accomplishing small projects, but not really moving forward with anything GRAND. I find myself completely paralyzed by the options I have at my disposal, and as a result, tend to do less.

I am learning a new language, and spend 4 hours a day in class. I also try and spend a little time studying and doing homework each night. This is great, but it tends to sort of introduce a schedule into your life that feels very similar to a job. You’re paying to go, so you feel an obligation to be there, and you know you’ll never have another opportunity like this in the future, so you better take advantage and really learn spanish. But with that, it takes a good portion of your day, and then you start to get stingy with the rest of your time, afraid you’ll waste it.

Another issue comes from the fact that the expectations are so big, you get a little scared of doing something. With all of this time, I feel that I better really ACCOMPLISH something, but then that pressure makes the pull of inaction even greater. Fear of failure.

Now that I’ve been here three weeks, I find that I’m able to exercise with a bit of frequency, and that’s good. We’re cooking and hanging out with Steve and Sarilyn pretty much every night, which is awesome. We’re spending 2-3 hours a day at most on the computer, which is also awesome. We’re trying to travel or do something exciting on the weekends, which has been rewarding and entertaining. We’re focusing on our spanish as much as we can, which I think is paying off. I also have been working on my movie a little bit. I’ve spent a few afternoons setting up scenes and developing the characters. I have a lot left to do, but I think I’m moving forward fairly well.

In the end, I’m pretty happy with our trip so far, but I know that I need to be purposeful about our time here, and at the same time, be relaxed enough to enjoy it instead of worrying about what I think the trip should produce. I really feel that this is a special time in my life when I get to leave my job and country and experience another country. I’m not sure if I’ll get this chance again, and I’m petrified of having regrets. However, the biggest regret would probably be looking back at a nervous and worrisome attitude the whole time, instead of drinking the wine and loving life… which I do have a tendency to do… so I’m guessing it won’t be a problem.

A big day walking to the mall

So, being that Holly is a graphic designer, and I’m a web geek with way too much love for hardware, we decided to bring an extra monitor down to Chile. Trust me when I say that I’m not sure that was a great idea, but we got it down just the same. However, not long after we got here we realized that Holly didn’t have the adapter she needed to use the monitor. Sweeeeeeeet. So, we set out to find one here in Santiago. The only problem is that there isn’t exactly a Mac store just around the corner (and when we did find an Apple dealer, they didn’t have it in stock). But, we went to the mall to see if we could find one.

On the way back from the mall, we were walking through a park when we found one of those “exercise circuit” things with stations every hundred yards or so. Holly and I, being the athletic and sporty people we are, decided to take some photos. Here are a few that turned out. As I think you’ll be able to tell, I had to teach Holly a few things about fitness.

Foundations and Futbol

So, the last few days have been way more active than our normal days in Portland. On Saturday, we went to Casablanca, which is about an hour or so outside of Santiago to the West. 15 of us went and built/dug a foundation for two small additions to small houses. We split up into two groups, going to two sites. There, we each dug out a 20″ deep trench stretching about 60 feet in diameter. It certainly wasn’t easy work, but it was also somewhat fun. Afterwards, we filled the trench with cement we made in a cement mixer, then brought in using wheel barrows. All-in, we worked hard for about 7 hours, and at the end, left something that didn’t exist before. At both sites, to call the existing houses modest would be generous, and it’s kind of cool that we’re able to leave something permanent in our wake that will help families here. However, it’s also somewhat vain to consider ourselves “helpers” of the community, knowing we only helped build a small part of what will become a small impact on the lives of those drastically different than ours. As wealthy Americans, visiting a different country, to somehow imagine that we’ve “done our duty” just because we volunteered for a few hours is worse than ignorant. Yet, I am glad that we engaged with the community rather than simply exploited it. We’ll have photos in a day or so.

Jump ahead to today, and Holly and I played futbol for about two hours with people from our school. There were people there from all over the world: Chileans, Swiss, Germans, Canadians, Americans, and Brits. Needless to say, those from other countries than the U.S. definitely did the dominating, although there were a few Yanks that held there own. After 2 hours, I was spent. But it was a great way to meet people and we had a really good time. Did I mention, it was Holly’s FIRST soccer match! She did great, although, definitely didn’t catch the full scope of where to be and what to do from the beginning. She did have some great passes and was getting a bit more aggressive at the end of the match. Unfortunately, we don’t have any photos of the game, but I’ll try and get some next week if we play again.

Keep coming back folks, as there will be more soon, and lots more photos when I have time to go through all that we’ve taken.