Primer Dia de Escuelita

We were the first customers at the Nextel store. 9:01 and not even the salesperson was in the shop. 

But, my SIM card wasn’t connecting and like I were his own child, Sandy wasn’t going to send me to school without a working phone – just in case. Unfortunately, not only cell service but also customer service is mediocre at best when it comes to pay-as-you-go phones, so we left, with a vague promise that, in 15 minutes the phone would work.

It didn’t, but 15 minutes later, I was at school, with the back-up phone in my pocket and getting tiny little butterflies like a kindergartener with a backpack, a big grin, and no idea what’s about to hit her.

I walked into the school lobby, crowded with about 30 students, ages from 16 to 60s. Of course, many spoke Spanish, but due to the overwhelming number of people who move to Chile without any past language studies, most of the students communicated in English. However, almost nobody is from America.

I managed to meet a girl from Chicago with a master’s in Journalism and an intermediate Spanish level within about 5 minutes and because we had plenty in common, it wasn’t hard to talk. By the time the class bell rang, I had made a grand total of one friend. Cool.

In class, I was greeted by Mauricio, 40, Italian, flight attendant and Rebeca, 24, from Brazil. Our teacher, Sebastian brought me quickly up to speed, as the three others had spent the entire previous week together. Who doesn’t love being the new kid? Oh right, everyone. So after they grilled me for a few minutes, I was inducted into the club largely because I already can speak okay but make just as many mistakes as they do. Everyone has their own hiccup – past tenses, accented pronunciations, inserts words from native tongue …. Mine is probably a combination of D. All the Above.

At the break between classes, 11:30 – 12, I was just eating some cookies in peace when I was accosted by a random guy in a hat who didn’t tell me his name or where he was from but asked lots of questions about me. He was also standing with an awkward skinny blonde expat 19 year old who proclaimed, “America’s the worst” which is just a blatantly untrue statement – I’m no crazed patriot, but have a little love for your homeland, would you? Then, a teacher hugged and kissed me while asking my name, which is normal here, and then she went on down the hall.

Estoy confundida, to say the least. 

The second class hour was nothing short of a mild waste of time – we met with Lidia, an older woman who was truly vivacious and perhaps too eager to share with us a laundry list of top sushi restaurants and salsa bars that would’ve been study abroad city girl’s dream come true. But, I live with a family in the suburbs and going out at night is kind of complicated. If I weren’t so intent on just learning Spanish this time around, it would have been a much more welcome hour.

After school, the tour I was planning to go on was cancelled, so I offered to take these two bewildered girls on a tour. Not that I know the area or anything about Santiago. So, I took them wandering. Sophie, 18 just finished high school in Hamburg and Adineh, 31, just left Malaysia but she’s from Iran. I totally won with the diverse and international friend-making, ultimately. I made them walk through a park, down an avenue, into a church construction site (closed), around a Providencia church (closed), and then a pit-stop at a liquor shop. Where else would you buy your empanadas? I opted for mushroom and cheese while Adineh went for chicken and onion. We dangerously jaywalked to an enormous obelisk and plopped down on a shady park bench. Language barriers and differences and questions about life dominated the getting-to-know-you conversation. 

No one had plans, no one had a real friend in town yet, and no one was in a hurry. I really don’t think there’s a better way to go about an afternoon than wander through colorful streets with strangers becoming your friends.

Let’s stop here and not complain about the part where it took me an over an hour on a hot and sweaty bus to get home because at the end of the day, Chile is beautiful, life is beautiful, and I am in love with both.