Hi guys!!!!
Okay I really
should post more often because I go through like a million emotions in one
week, but it’s so hard to post every week. Maybe I’ll put myself on a rewards
system, one post = one empanada for Wendy! As a result this post might be long.
(Just finished it’s long, sorry!)
Okay so I’ve
been hesitant to post because most of your programs just started and you are in
this initial high stage of being away, experiencing the world, feeling grown up,
independent, and frankly just filling
your lives with all these experiences where in that moment you feel infinite. I
on the other hand am now going into my third month abroad and I still love it
but my emotions have started to fluctuate like a woman going through menopause.
So two weeks ago I was convinced I was going to move out of my host mom’s
apartment because I spent the weekend being fed raw cabbage and liver pâté. I
was so hungry and so ready to pack my bags! And then there was the incident
that I went clubbing and lost my house keys. When I realized I had lost them I
spent about 20 minutes outside crying and then rolled up my skirt, pushed my
way back in, got on my hands and knees and crawled on a dirty grimy alcohol
filled floor- through crowds of people- to look for those damn keys. It was a
huge low point especially because I got all these cuts and bruises from
crawling on that club floor. And now to top it off I drank tap water this week
(which before you all go judging me and saying… YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO DRINK
THE TAP WATER. THAT’S THE FIRST THING THEY TELL YOU AT DICKINSON ORIENTATION. I’ve
been drinking from the tap since day one and nothing has happened) but this
time I got sick and I’ve been in bed for 4 days now. It sucks!!! I’ve had a 102
degree fever, nausea, dizziness, body aches and I can’t keep any food down. So
as a result I’ve gotten really home sick by this point, and I still have two
and a half months to go. There are times where I really wish I could just be at
home or at Dickinson with all of you guys sharing some of Christopher’s “kick
the cold out of you” chicken soup while watching the proud family. I think it’s
a combo of a bunch of things that are making me home sick.
Also
classes here, SO BORING!!!! Okay that’s a lie I really enjoy one of my classes
called “ideas politicas y sociales de America.” it’s taught by this older woman
who is so nice and she incorporates feminist ideas, indigenous ideas, mestizaje
all into political movements of Latin-American!!! But besides that class most
classes here are very “practical” which makes sense because the structure of
education is much more rigid and it is a large university so the whole liberal
arts learning is not a thing. So you’re not going to find a class called “globalization’s
effects on marginalized communities and sustainability” (although that isn’t a
real class and has little meaning to it, you have to admit that title would
probably appear in the course catalog at Dickinson and be cross listed with
like 5 different departments), yea that doesn’t exist here. You pick a “Carrera”
(literal translation is career, but it’s like a major) and you don’t take
classes outside of that major.
But I’m
done complaining. One thing I do find very cool here is the level of awareness students
have, the level of passion… every 20 minutes an activist group will come
barging in to promote their cause, hand out flyers and leave. Last week, one of
the groups that came into my class started a debate and the whole class became
this huge debate, the professor ended up leaving, granted we only had 30
minutes left of a 5 hour class, but still I was shocked! So that’s been my
experience so far in class, it’s pretty entertaining since the topics
themselves can be a little dry at times. On Tuesday, the group that came in to
distribute flyers was to remember 9/11, not our 9/11 but Chile’s, which was the
day Salvador Allende (democratically elected president of Chile) died after
being overthrown by a Us backed military coup that brought Pinochet into power;
a dictatorship that was responsible for the torturing of about 40,000 people,
over 3,000 deaths and still 1,000 people who disappeared. It was interesting to
spend this 9/11 thinking not only of the American lives that were lost, but
also thinking of the lives lost due to other tragic events in history that of
course have had US involvement.
Moving on…
sometimes my conversations with my host mom get a little intense. She is a very
sassy opinionated woman and for the most part we agree, like the USA’s “American
Dream” is this gilded image propagated by so many and to so many people around
the world and how in reality the amount of discrimination in the US is unbelievable.
So we have very cool conversations, especially because it’s just me and her,
but yesterday we started talking about religion, which led to race, which led
to race being the only part of your identity because it’s found in your DNA
(AHHH), which led to race being a social construction, and I don’t know how
this happened because I got so tongue tied and tired of talking, but somehow we
ended up talking about the queer community. It was a very rough conversation to
have, but at the end of it I went to go take a shower and when I came back out
she told me there was a TV show talking about everything we had just discussed.
I told her “wow, they should give us a show and pay us” she laughed and all the
tensions dissolved.
On a
completely different note, I’m teaching English to Huarpe students. Well some
of them are Huarpe and some of them come from a similar rural area, but do not
identify as Huarpe. There is a program at the university here that gives
scholarships to students from rural areas. These areas are far out in the
desert and tend to have poorly funded schools and communities where the level
of literacy tends to be lower. The ones who get the scholarship to come have to
spend their first year taking intensive courses to prepare them for college
level work and it’s hard in several ways. One, they have to uproot and leave
home for a large city where they don’t know many people, and two they can get very discouraged by the
other students who have been to private schools their whole lives and had the
best of tutors. It almost reminds me of posse but reversed, instead of going from
urban to rural it’s the other way around and instead of spending 6 months in
pct (pre-collegiate training) plus with a writing tutor, they spend a year trying
to “catch-up”. So one of the classes they have to pass their first year is an English
class so I’m helping them in their pre-college year to prepare for that class. They
are all so energetic and damn do they work hard, they all have ganas (desire).
I’m so
sorry this post in annoyingly long, and I don’t even care if any of you read
it, but it has made me feel so much better writing it all out! I hope all of
you are having those infinite moments, abroad or not, I WANT TO HEAR ABOUT
THEM!!! You are all so selfish you keep your moments and thoughts to yourself :
p
Jk.
SENDING
SO MUCH LOVE TO ALL OF YOU!!
oh and i went rappelling last weekend before i got sick, it was awsome!! :)
Wendy don't despair, keep the long posts coming I love them and you! I miss everyone too but I'm not really the type to get homesick as much as the occasional person or moment sick (I have also managed to avoid the illness going around our group). I am going to try and fit my last 2 weeks of London into this post since I am leaving tomorrow for Norwich and so hopefully starting all new adventures (until i have to return here for 10 days of spring break). I love London but I am afraid I'm ready to go, everyone smokes everywhere here and drives very fast (the cyclists are the worst), I also am done living in a hotel and ready to have my own space (no matter how lovely my room and roommates are).
We have been moving almost constantly since we arrived here which is exciting but very tiring as well. This time spent here in London has mostly revolved around: 1. Tours (walking, double decker bus, and even boat) of different parts of the city, museums and important buildings and landmarks, and even Harry Potter. 
(this is my new best friend btw, nbd)
London hasn't been all fun and games, we have assignments every day, but for the most part it is just that, a lot of fun. I have seen Egyptian tombs and African modern art, illegitimately Aaron married on the London Eye, went to church twice in the 2 most famous churches in England, danced to a bagpipe cover band and the Beatles in concert, drank a lot legally, stalked Sherlock Holmes and saw real life famous people, was hit on by british people (too much), partied at a few gay bars and clubs consecutively, joined firefighters in laughing at the mayor during a city hall meeting, explored a torture chamber in the Tower of London, saw old friends, was saddened by a library of jailed books, had long discussions on feminism and racism and rape culture (so nothing new there), missed 2 jewish holidays in this christian country, bought more than i should for myself and family holiday gifts, finally went to Diagon Alley (i am a wizard), skyping what feels like the world, teaching my roommate to steal and executing other debauchery, and having tea time with a Tony award winning Lighting Designer from the West End and Dickinson College (im hoping to work with him if I can). So yea overall I am not sure UEA is ready for the ball of procrastination that I am bringing to campus, guess I just have to join lots of clubs and buy a cat =)
