If you would like to read an article about my abroad experience on the Scripps College website, just click upon this link and enjoy!
http://www.scrippscollege.edu/news/feature-stories/the-value-of-a-culture
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Those last few days: Thank you, Chile.
Today was a wonderful rainy day. With my classes all finished and the wind whistling against my window, I stayed warm inside all day -while studying for that fateful public health final. I’m in this cozy homebody mode that makes me think of fuzzy hats and steaming tea. Mmmmmm. This comfort comes, in large part, from absolutely adoring my host family and feeling quite at home amongst their soft comings and goings. I can drift into my host mother’s room to sit at the side of her bed as she reclines, knitting a nice café colored sweater. Brown is the only color she will wear this year, having promised this token of thanks to the Almighty for having helped her eldest son through the pains of cancer. I admire her strength. We sit, chatting aimlessly as my mind decompresses from the hours of endless studying: estudios de caso y control, factores protectores psicosociales, tasas crudos y naturals…I’m working on putting neat little mental labels onto this torrent of information.
I am here, and yet I am gone. I’m blissfully comfortable, and yet I have my frustrations. I will return to this home of mine, but I don’t know when. I am here, but my mind is already moving onward to my travels, excited for Robert’s arrival to this lovely country. I’m so comfy with my host family and Chilean customs, and yet the bureaucracy and inflexible educational system have given me enough end-of-semester stress to last a lifetime and make me long for Scripps College. The difficulties that have come with my public health class are certainly part of why my mind has already left Chile to reside in, perhaps, Bolivia or Peru; since I’m toiling to complete my school work and have dropped nearly all other activities to do so, it feels like I have already left the life I created for myself here and entered into a new one. Or, rather than a new one, a transitional phase –that gray waiting room that leads to an expansive patio of brilliant colors; it’s no wonder that my mind keeps skipping on ahead to that vibrant expectancy! But as I say, the gray waiting room is tinged with a rosy hue thanks to the love I have for my host family and the endearing reprieves that they provide for me around mealtimes and study breaks.
Yes, I love this place. I love its colors and I love its people. I adore the joking and playfulness that permeate the climbing gym atmosphere. I appreciate the spectacular oceanic views that arise around those golden sunsets and after all nightlights have been lit, like a starry blanket draped over undulating land and water. I am tickled pink by my cute little room and the greenery that garnishes my wide-window view. And I can’t help but feel quite at home with another neat-freak in the house; me and my host mom get along very well in this regard! I’ve loved the children who I’ve taught and learned from through my internship, and I just might sell my soul for a lifetime supply of pan amasada. The people are quirky and unique –nothing like Spain or Senegal, Thailand or the USA- and I really enjoy coming to understand their tendencies and their perceptions of themselves. And, of course, I’m head over heels for Spanish. *sigh *
But what would I change about Valparaíso, Chile if I could? They are few. I would: 1) Instill flexibility in the educational system. 2) Give every stray dog on the street a loving home. (This goes beyond benevolence and straight into the realm of public health.) 3) Put a smile on every bus driver’s troubled face. And 4) Replace every cigarette with a potted plant and every smoker with a tree-hugger.
Yes, Chile will always hold a piece of my heart, just as Spain can claim my love and California will always be my home. Thank you for the creative space you have given me, Chile. Thank you for your disregard to time and your strong pride. Thank you for your graffiti-smattered allies and your hills of children-blocks primary colors. You have instilled your colors in my heart and your delicious fresh produce in my appreciative stomach. I would that I could contain My Chile and My California all in one country, but alas, they are both too full and beautiful to collide and loose themselves within one another. At the very least, I can let them meld together within me and let my eyes reflect the loving sustenance that each has to offer.
The next time you see me, give me a hug –and that hug will be, in part, from Chile.
Love,
Jocelyn
I am here, and yet I am gone. I’m blissfully comfortable, and yet I have my frustrations. I will return to this home of mine, but I don’t know when. I am here, but my mind is already moving onward to my travels, excited for Robert’s arrival to this lovely country. I’m so comfy with my host family and Chilean customs, and yet the bureaucracy and inflexible educational system have given me enough end-of-semester stress to last a lifetime and make me long for Scripps College. The difficulties that have come with my public health class are certainly part of why my mind has already left Chile to reside in, perhaps, Bolivia or Peru; since I’m toiling to complete my school work and have dropped nearly all other activities to do so, it feels like I have already left the life I created for myself here and entered into a new one. Or, rather than a new one, a transitional phase –that gray waiting room that leads to an expansive patio of brilliant colors; it’s no wonder that my mind keeps skipping on ahead to that vibrant expectancy! But as I say, the gray waiting room is tinged with a rosy hue thanks to the love I have for my host family and the endearing reprieves that they provide for me around mealtimes and study breaks.
Yes, I love this place. I love its colors and I love its people. I adore the joking and playfulness that permeate the climbing gym atmosphere. I appreciate the spectacular oceanic views that arise around those golden sunsets and after all nightlights have been lit, like a starry blanket draped over undulating land and water. I am tickled pink by my cute little room and the greenery that garnishes my wide-window view. And I can’t help but feel quite at home with another neat-freak in the house; me and my host mom get along very well in this regard! I’ve loved the children who I’ve taught and learned from through my internship, and I just might sell my soul for a lifetime supply of pan amasada. The people are quirky and unique –nothing like Spain or Senegal, Thailand or the USA- and I really enjoy coming to understand their tendencies and their perceptions of themselves. And, of course, I’m head over heels for Spanish. *sigh *
But what would I change about Valparaíso, Chile if I could? They are few. I would: 1) Instill flexibility in the educational system. 2) Give every stray dog on the street a loving home. (This goes beyond benevolence and straight into the realm of public health.) 3) Put a smile on every bus driver’s troubled face. And 4) Replace every cigarette with a potted plant and every smoker with a tree-hugger.
Yes, Chile will always hold a piece of my heart, just as Spain can claim my love and California will always be my home. Thank you for the creative space you have given me, Chile. Thank you for your disregard to time and your strong pride. Thank you for your graffiti-smattered allies and your hills of children-blocks primary colors. You have instilled your colors in my heart and your delicious fresh produce in my appreciative stomach. I would that I could contain My Chile and My California all in one country, but alas, they are both too full and beautiful to collide and loose themselves within one another. At the very least, I can let them meld together within me and let my eyes reflect the loving sustenance that each has to offer.
The next time you see me, give me a hug –and that hug will be, in part, from Chile.
Love,
Jocelyn
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Rain Adventures
Coming home through the rain is a marvelous adventure. It may be as close as I ever come to living within a video game; making my way through an obstacle course of reflective surfaces, my lunges and impeccably timed twists and turns make me a Mario in my own right. And then I’m one of the Tap Dogs, performing a spectacular routine as I dance my way down the clippety-clap pavement. The intersections bring out the primadona in me and I make a majestic ballet leap across the breadth of the rain-filled gutter. I’m a child, playing connect the dots with all the dry patches and then even more of a child, playing connect the dots with the wet spots. And finally, I am a salmon, swimming my way up the mighty waterfall that whishes down our driveway, finally embracing the warmth of our home after the many feats that brought me here. Yes, coming home through the rain is a marvelous adventure; you just have to know how to create it!
Friday, June 18, 2010
Raindrop relaxation meditation
I call it raindrop relaxation meditation. You should try it sometime! Just turn your face up to the sky and feel your breathing deepen as the droplets kiss your skin. Let each drop draw your attention to the muscles it touches, relaxing them. As those ripples of relaxation smooth your face, your mind clears and your face shines. Therein lies the brightness of a rainy day.
It occurs to me that all of you won’t necessarily have the chance to try this out in the next few days. But come October or November, let that umbrella swing from your arm unopened and meditate to the open skies!
It occurs to me that all of you won’t necessarily have the chance to try this out in the next few days. But come October or November, let that umbrella swing from your arm unopened and meditate to the open skies!
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
¡Video y fotos! Chilean football Triumph.
Chile wins against Honduras! 1:0. Everyone celebrates in the streets at 9:30am. As you may imagine, the workday started a little later than usual today...
Happy Chileans welcoming in the buses with triumphant bugles. :) And yes, they may be made of plastic, but they can be heard from blocks away!
A young man skipping down the street with the Chilean flag.
A brief clip illustrating the Chilean soccer spirit. :)
The best thing is that classes are canceled for during the times of the upcoming matches. I would say that this definitely goes above and beyond the Superbowl.
Hugs,
Jocelyn
Happy Chileans welcoming in the buses with triumphant bugles. :) And yes, they may be made of plastic, but they can be heard from blocks away!
A young man skipping down the street with the Chilean flag.A brief clip illustrating the Chilean soccer spirit. :)
The best thing is that classes are canceled for during the times of the upcoming matches. I would say that this definitely goes above and beyond the Superbowl.
Hugs,
Jocelyn
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Family
Having a loving family is a gift. You can imagine, then, what a veritable wonder it is to have three or even four! It is in the home that we develop our first understanding of love, responsibility, and reciprocity. It is there that we construct a foundation of values, principles and habits that facilitate our relationship with society, other individuals, ourselves, and our own health. We go to college and we question all of these principles and lifelong assumptions –or perhaps we begin to examine them upon leaving home and entering the workplace. But wherever our learning environment, we all come to a point when we take those childhood lessons and reincorporate them into a coherent whole: Ourselves. It is quite an experience, then, to return to the seat of childhood at this age by being placed -plop!- into the middle of a new family and a novel pool of values and ideas. And yet, one retains that former lifetime of learning, using this new environment as a means of reflecting upon the former.
But more than serving as a point of comparison, this familial nucleus bestows its own lessons, its own valuable ideas, its own handy habits. Through my integration into my loving Chilean family, my host parents have exposed me to a number of wonderful characteristics that build upon and strengthen my personal foundation. Through their patience and open-mindedness, they have communicated that which they hold dear.
For one, I may have had a wonderful example of a loving, committed pair in the form of my own parents, but my host parents have reinforced my understanding of what makes up a long-lasting, caring relationship. Patterns emerge; ah, yes! Both couples of parents are always there for each other, ready to share time and energy, and, above all, always looking to keep the other at their side in their many life pursuits. Now I know to look for this continual giving, sharing, and accompanying in my own relationships.
My own parents may have pointed me towards an acceptance of those who are different from me, but my host parents show me how this can be done through their own learning experiences; hosting a Jewish-American student as a Chilean of Palestinian heritage can provide a massive stereotype overhaul for everyone involved, for example. My host parents have shown me how to maintain a pristine house and a instructed me in a new, exceptional way of preparing an egg. My host mother has exemplified a profound love of cooking that I never grew up with and my host father has taught me new was of debating ideas.
The entire family has given me the tremendous gift of showing me just how close-knit a family can be and exactly what this life-long intimacy requires at a logistical level. My Senegalese host family and host culture may have opened my eyes to a valuing of family that I discovered I shared, but my Chilean family has helped that appreciation sink in more deeply, maturing with understanding and growing more committed as I see that is it, in fact, possible to maintain a unified extended family. I come from a family that, for the most part, unites around holidays and seldomly communes with the uncles and aunts otherwise. I view my parents, Grandmother, and siblings as paramount within my life, so the knowledge that we can build such a beautiful commitment to one another as that which I see here in my Chilean family is heartwarming. Ours is a culture of loving and leaving and making our way in life –intrepid travelers scattered around the states and pulled around my economic strings. Now I see with clarity that that is not the only way.
But more than serving as a point of comparison, this familial nucleus bestows its own lessons, its own valuable ideas, its own handy habits. Through my integration into my loving Chilean family, my host parents have exposed me to a number of wonderful characteristics that build upon and strengthen my personal foundation. Through their patience and open-mindedness, they have communicated that which they hold dear.
For one, I may have had a wonderful example of a loving, committed pair in the form of my own parents, but my host parents have reinforced my understanding of what makes up a long-lasting, caring relationship. Patterns emerge; ah, yes! Both couples of parents are always there for each other, ready to share time and energy, and, above all, always looking to keep the other at their side in their many life pursuits. Now I know to look for this continual giving, sharing, and accompanying in my own relationships.
My own parents may have pointed me towards an acceptance of those who are different from me, but my host parents show me how this can be done through their own learning experiences; hosting a Jewish-American student as a Chilean of Palestinian heritage can provide a massive stereotype overhaul for everyone involved, for example. My host parents have shown me how to maintain a pristine house and a instructed me in a new, exceptional way of preparing an egg. My host mother has exemplified a profound love of cooking that I never grew up with and my host father has taught me new was of debating ideas.
The entire family has given me the tremendous gift of showing me just how close-knit a family can be and exactly what this life-long intimacy requires at a logistical level. My Senegalese host family and host culture may have opened my eyes to a valuing of family that I discovered I shared, but my Chilean family has helped that appreciation sink in more deeply, maturing with understanding and growing more committed as I see that is it, in fact, possible to maintain a unified extended family. I come from a family that, for the most part, unites around holidays and seldomly communes with the uncles and aunts otherwise. I view my parents, Grandmother, and siblings as paramount within my life, so the knowledge that we can build such a beautiful commitment to one another as that which I see here in my Chilean family is heartwarming. Ours is a culture of loving and leaving and making our way in life –intrepid travelers scattered around the states and pulled around my economic strings. Now I see with clarity that that is not the only way.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
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