interning abroad, a retrospective
Aug. 3rd, 2023 09:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
praetoriumOn August 1st, 2023, I returned home after spending 2 months abroad in Santiago, Chile. The overall experience was an incredibly mixed bag of the highest of highs followed by the lowest of lows.
Overview
I stayed with a host family consisting of a middle aged couple, their 24 yr old daughter, and their dog and cat, and my internship was at a Catholic school for Kindergarten through 8th grade in one of Santiago's lower-income neighborhoods. Many of these students were immigrants from neighboring countries like Venezuela and Bolivia. In the meantime, I also took a course about intercultural skills provided by my program.
The Good
My first month in Santiago - June - was incredible. I got along tremendously with my host family, especially the daughter. We would watch Inuyasha every night together, and she took me to get a tattoo done. We spent a good amount of time together during this first month
While on break from my internship, I went on a 5-day trip to the San Pedro de Atacama desert in, during which I climbed Cerro Toco, a dormant stratovolcano at 18,386 ft of elevation. It was freezing, I was wearing three pairs of pants, three tops and a winter coat, a hat, sunglasses (the sun in the southern hemisphere is really no joke), a scarf, two pairs of gloves, and two pairs of wool socks. The hike itself required poles, coated my boots in sulfur, and had to be taken slow due to high elevation. Reaching the summit of that volcano was one of the happiest moment of my life. Everyone else in my small group was struggling (someone threw up, someone couldn't breathe, etc. etc.) but for whatever reason I was feeling fantastic. There's a picture of me that was taken at the top where I look happier than I've ever seen myself in a photo before. In fact, the photos from the entire San Pedro trip are something I'll treasure forever.
Aside from Cerro Toco, I hiked some locations close to Santiago, which were also very enjoyable.
While I wasn't close with anyone in my program, I got along with everyone well and was always invited along on trips or nights out, whether I opted to come along or not.
I had been nervous about getting around a city in a Spanish-speaking country on my own, but the public transit system was amazing, and I was able to navigate it without ever getting lost. One way I explored the city of Santiago was by cafe-hopping, where I'd try to visit a new cafe as often as possible, and in a different part of the city each time. I'd do most of this on my own, but never got in an unsafe situation.
My grandmother actually has a friend who lives in Santiago. I met up with him and his wife several times, and they were really very lovely. Took me out to eat at several very nice restaurants and had enough proficiency with English that we could actually have long, below-surface-level conversations. I liked them a lot.
The Bad
During the month of July, things took a turn for the worse. Much worse. While this problem actually started in June, my computer broke due to an electrical surge while it was plugged in, and because of this, I couldn't do any work for my class. I first tried to borrow a computer from my program, but it was at least 15 years old and while it could turn on, it couldn't open any applications (including settings) or connect to the internet. After about a week and a half, I got my computer fixed, but four days later it wouldn't turn on again and this time, the computer place said it couldn't be fixed, so I was out of a computer again. I finally was able to borrow a different computer from a woman working at my program that had at one point been a personal laptop, but since it was only about a decade old at most I was able to use it. But at that point it was the last week of my trip, so I had to get 8 weeks worth of homework done in one week along with a final project. I was able to do it, if you're wondering, but at the cost of my sanity and sleep schedule. Not having a computer also served as a handicap when it came to calling my friends over discord and watching movies/TV with them over hyperbeam.
As an aside - the woman who let me borrow her computer really took me under her wing during July when things started to get bad. She would take me out to eat and even took me to get acupuncture done (a fascinating if painful experience itself) and tried to support me however she could. I don't know if I would have made it to the end of that trip without her.
At some point leading into July, tensions started to build between my host mom and I. She would get frustrated when I couldn't understand something she was saying, which I found to be very hurtful considering that I am in the process of learning Spanish, and am not a native speaker / someone who speaks Spanish at home by any means. This language barrier also resulted in several misunderstandings, such as not realizing that I was meant to leave my bedroom window open every day when I left for work, or doing my laundry on a day where she had planned on doing hers. I was trying my best. She also took offense how much time I liked to spend by myself in my room, which had nothing to do with her (at least at first, over time it started to be so I could avoid her) and more with my introverted personality / how tired I was after work. I did make an effort to stay out of my bedroom after she expressed her feelings, not going inside until after dinner, but it took a toll on me to not be allowed sufficient time to myself to decompress. I also seemed to always be breaking house rules I didn't know were there until I broke them. There was always something I was doing wrong, or some reason my host mom was displeased with me, and it took a toll. I cried every day in July and dreaded dinners, where I would often be reprimanded for something in front of everyone.
Internet issues. This is to be expected when abroad, but wi-fi problems often prevented me from being able to call my friends, watch them play games and play games with them, and watch movies/TV with them. This often left me feeling very isolated, and those feelings really accumulated over time.
During the course of the trip, I had a cold for three weeks, and got my host dad and his daughter sick, which I felt incredibly guilty about.
After missing two days of birth control, I had my period for four weeks. My period typically gives me dysphoria and thoughts of suicide, so having it for that long was very much not good.
Both Good and Bad
My internship. My role at the school was to accompany the music teacher to all of her classes, and while I liked the teacher a lot, it was hard to be useful to her all the time due to the language barrier hindering my effectiveness.
With the older kids (7th and 8th grade) in particular, my Spanish level prevented me from being an effective authority figure. They spoke very quickly and with a lot of slang that I didn't know, and they had no desire to help me understand them. If anything, they tried to take advantage of my handicap to talk about inappropriate subjects or get away with things they knew were not allowed because I wouldn't always be able to make sense of exactly what was happening.
However, I did bond with a decent amount of younger children, especially in the Kindergarten and 3rd grade classes. One of my favorite memories is a girl from Kindergarten gently cupping my face in her hands and asking me, very seriously, "why are your eyes blue?" followed up with "what happens to them when you close them?" Excellent questions. I was also given several gifts from the kids, including sweets, snacks, pokemon cards, drawings of myself, and notes saying things like "te amo" (I love you) - very, very sweet, I treasure them all. Teaching them "row row row your boat" in English was a stand-out moment when it came to actually doing my job. So, so cute, and they did really well! There was also the time I got to pick three songs of my choice to play to a class of sixth graders for them to assign emotions to with an accompanying drawing. I chose Bad Romance by Lady Gaga and Chop Suey by System of a Down (the third being a piece of classical music, but that's less important) - which was fucking awesome. I mean, it isn't as if anyone knew what the lyrics were saying apart from me.
One of the most interesting parts of the whole experience was coming to understand what some of these children's perceptions of American culture were by virtue of the questions I was asked. "Have you ever been in a school shooting?" Honestly a valid question that I didn't feel was out of pocket. My answer to that was "not yet!" because when considering my future in the education system as a potential teacher, it's still a very real possibility. "Do you know Taylor Swift personally?" (she's actually incredibly popular in Chile). Once again, not yet, but only time will tell.
By the way... you might imagine that the food in Chile would be spicy. It's actually not. Not at all. Everyone in my program agreed that, if anything, the food could be pretty bland at times. Not what I expected, but I'm not necessarily bothered by a lack of strong flavor in my food. It was pretty hard on some people, though.
The Very Bad
The combination of the stresses of being abroad, computer problems, issues with my host family, and feelings of isolation induced a deep depressive episode that made the month of July almost unbearable. There wasn't a day that I didn't wish I could go home. I isolated myself even more from my host family and other people in my program until I was almost always alone, because I couldn't stand to be around anyone. At its worst, I considered suicide, and at least on two occasions came very close to attempting. There was a good period of time during those last two weeks in Santiago where I did not think I would ever make it home. I'm glad I was wrong.
Coming Home
Getting back to the U.S. has alleviated many immediate stresses. It's not perfect, of course. I'm living with my parents for a month before college starts up again, and they are difficult to live with. But at the very least, I no longer feel I'm an immediate danger to myself, and I'm in an environment that I know and understand. I ate my favorite pie (baked by my mother), and saw Barbie and Oppenheimer immediately upon getting back - I loved both movies a lot. Surprisingly, I would like to study or work abroad again, just in an English speaking country, since many of my problems came from my struggles with Spanish. I also wouldn't mind visiting Chile again, our family friend has invited me to stay with them at their cabin in the mountains and, considering how nice they always were, that sounds pretty good to me. In terms of conclusions... if you're going to study abroad in a country that speaks a foreign language, seriously consider if you have the skills necessary for complex conversations, not just simple ones. Additionally, while I had really been looking forward to the host family aspect, it ended up causing a lot of stress and angst - if you're considering staying with one, and you're an adult capable of taking care of yourself, I encourage you to think again. You might actually be better off being on your own.
But above all else, it's just really, really good to be back.
Overview
I stayed with a host family consisting of a middle aged couple, their 24 yr old daughter, and their dog and cat, and my internship was at a Catholic school for Kindergarten through 8th grade in one of Santiago's lower-income neighborhoods. Many of these students were immigrants from neighboring countries like Venezuela and Bolivia. In the meantime, I also took a course about intercultural skills provided by my program.
The Good
My first month in Santiago - June - was incredible. I got along tremendously with my host family, especially the daughter. We would watch Inuyasha every night together, and she took me to get a tattoo done. We spent a good amount of time together during this first month
While on break from my internship, I went on a 5-day trip to the San Pedro de Atacama desert in, during which I climbed Cerro Toco, a dormant stratovolcano at 18,386 ft of elevation. It was freezing, I was wearing three pairs of pants, three tops and a winter coat, a hat, sunglasses (the sun in the southern hemisphere is really no joke), a scarf, two pairs of gloves, and two pairs of wool socks. The hike itself required poles, coated my boots in sulfur, and had to be taken slow due to high elevation. Reaching the summit of that volcano was one of the happiest moment of my life. Everyone else in my small group was struggling (someone threw up, someone couldn't breathe, etc. etc.) but for whatever reason I was feeling fantastic. There's a picture of me that was taken at the top where I look happier than I've ever seen myself in a photo before. In fact, the photos from the entire San Pedro trip are something I'll treasure forever.
Aside from Cerro Toco, I hiked some locations close to Santiago, which were also very enjoyable.
While I wasn't close with anyone in my program, I got along with everyone well and was always invited along on trips or nights out, whether I opted to come along or not.
I had been nervous about getting around a city in a Spanish-speaking country on my own, but the public transit system was amazing, and I was able to navigate it without ever getting lost. One way I explored the city of Santiago was by cafe-hopping, where I'd try to visit a new cafe as often as possible, and in a different part of the city each time. I'd do most of this on my own, but never got in an unsafe situation.
My grandmother actually has a friend who lives in Santiago. I met up with him and his wife several times, and they were really very lovely. Took me out to eat at several very nice restaurants and had enough proficiency with English that we could actually have long, below-surface-level conversations. I liked them a lot.
The Bad
During the month of July, things took a turn for the worse. Much worse. While this problem actually started in June, my computer broke due to an electrical surge while it was plugged in, and because of this, I couldn't do any work for my class. I first tried to borrow a computer from my program, but it was at least 15 years old and while it could turn on, it couldn't open any applications (including settings) or connect to the internet. After about a week and a half, I got my computer fixed, but four days later it wouldn't turn on again and this time, the computer place said it couldn't be fixed, so I was out of a computer again. I finally was able to borrow a different computer from a woman working at my program that had at one point been a personal laptop, but since it was only about a decade old at most I was able to use it. But at that point it was the last week of my trip, so I had to get 8 weeks worth of homework done in one week along with a final project. I was able to do it, if you're wondering, but at the cost of my sanity and sleep schedule. Not having a computer also served as a handicap when it came to calling my friends over discord and watching movies/TV with them over hyperbeam.
As an aside - the woman who let me borrow her computer really took me under her wing during July when things started to get bad. She would take me out to eat and even took me to get acupuncture done (a fascinating if painful experience itself) and tried to support me however she could. I don't know if I would have made it to the end of that trip without her.
At some point leading into July, tensions started to build between my host mom and I. She would get frustrated when I couldn't understand something she was saying, which I found to be very hurtful considering that I am in the process of learning Spanish, and am not a native speaker / someone who speaks Spanish at home by any means. This language barrier also resulted in several misunderstandings, such as not realizing that I was meant to leave my bedroom window open every day when I left for work, or doing my laundry on a day where she had planned on doing hers. I was trying my best. She also took offense how much time I liked to spend by myself in my room, which had nothing to do with her (at least at first, over time it started to be so I could avoid her) and more with my introverted personality / how tired I was after work. I did make an effort to stay out of my bedroom after she expressed her feelings, not going inside until after dinner, but it took a toll on me to not be allowed sufficient time to myself to decompress. I also seemed to always be breaking house rules I didn't know were there until I broke them. There was always something I was doing wrong, or some reason my host mom was displeased with me, and it took a toll. I cried every day in July and dreaded dinners, where I would often be reprimanded for something in front of everyone.
Internet issues. This is to be expected when abroad, but wi-fi problems often prevented me from being able to call my friends, watch them play games and play games with them, and watch movies/TV with them. This often left me feeling very isolated, and those feelings really accumulated over time.
During the course of the trip, I had a cold for three weeks, and got my host dad and his daughter sick, which I felt incredibly guilty about.
After missing two days of birth control, I had my period for four weeks. My period typically gives me dysphoria and thoughts of suicide, so having it for that long was very much not good.
Both Good and Bad
My internship. My role at the school was to accompany the music teacher to all of her classes, and while I liked the teacher a lot, it was hard to be useful to her all the time due to the language barrier hindering my effectiveness.
With the older kids (7th and 8th grade) in particular, my Spanish level prevented me from being an effective authority figure. They spoke very quickly and with a lot of slang that I didn't know, and they had no desire to help me understand them. If anything, they tried to take advantage of my handicap to talk about inappropriate subjects or get away with things they knew were not allowed because I wouldn't always be able to make sense of exactly what was happening.
However, I did bond with a decent amount of younger children, especially in the Kindergarten and 3rd grade classes. One of my favorite memories is a girl from Kindergarten gently cupping my face in her hands and asking me, very seriously, "why are your eyes blue?" followed up with "what happens to them when you close them?" Excellent questions. I was also given several gifts from the kids, including sweets, snacks, pokemon cards, drawings of myself, and notes saying things like "te amo" (I love you) - very, very sweet, I treasure them all. Teaching them "row row row your boat" in English was a stand-out moment when it came to actually doing my job. So, so cute, and they did really well! There was also the time I got to pick three songs of my choice to play to a class of sixth graders for them to assign emotions to with an accompanying drawing. I chose Bad Romance by Lady Gaga and Chop Suey by System of a Down (the third being a piece of classical music, but that's less important) - which was fucking awesome. I mean, it isn't as if anyone knew what the lyrics were saying apart from me.
One of the most interesting parts of the whole experience was coming to understand what some of these children's perceptions of American culture were by virtue of the questions I was asked. "Have you ever been in a school shooting?" Honestly a valid question that I didn't feel was out of pocket. My answer to that was "not yet!" because when considering my future in the education system as a potential teacher, it's still a very real possibility. "Do you know Taylor Swift personally?" (she's actually incredibly popular in Chile). Once again, not yet, but only time will tell.
By the way... you might imagine that the food in Chile would be spicy. It's actually not. Not at all. Everyone in my program agreed that, if anything, the food could be pretty bland at times. Not what I expected, but I'm not necessarily bothered by a lack of strong flavor in my food. It was pretty hard on some people, though.
The Very Bad
The combination of the stresses of being abroad, computer problems, issues with my host family, and feelings of isolation induced a deep depressive episode that made the month of July almost unbearable. There wasn't a day that I didn't wish I could go home. I isolated myself even more from my host family and other people in my program until I was almost always alone, because I couldn't stand to be around anyone. At its worst, I considered suicide, and at least on two occasions came very close to attempting. There was a good period of time during those last two weeks in Santiago where I did not think I would ever make it home. I'm glad I was wrong.
Coming Home
Getting back to the U.S. has alleviated many immediate stresses. It's not perfect, of course. I'm living with my parents for a month before college starts up again, and they are difficult to live with. But at the very least, I no longer feel I'm an immediate danger to myself, and I'm in an environment that I know and understand. I ate my favorite pie (baked by my mother), and saw Barbie and Oppenheimer immediately upon getting back - I loved both movies a lot. Surprisingly, I would like to study or work abroad again, just in an English speaking country, since many of my problems came from my struggles with Spanish. I also wouldn't mind visiting Chile again, our family friend has invited me to stay with them at their cabin in the mountains and, considering how nice they always were, that sounds pretty good to me. In terms of conclusions... if you're going to study abroad in a country that speaks a foreign language, seriously consider if you have the skills necessary for complex conversations, not just simple ones. Additionally, while I had really been looking forward to the host family aspect, it ended up causing a lot of stress and angst - if you're considering staying with one, and you're an adult capable of taking care of yourself, I encourage you to think again. You might actually be better off being on your own.
But above all else, it's just really, really good to be back.
