hola a todos! i’ve been in valparaíso for a week now, and here are some of the things i’ve discovered/accomplished.
- harry potter bridges all cultural and language borders. mi prima and i had a wonderful conversation about our favorite books and the new movie. i might not be able to give correct or understandable directions to my own apartment, but i can animatedly discuss hp without stuttering once.
- chileans don’t run. and the don’t wear shorts and t-shirts in the middle of winter. people literally stop what they’re doing to stare when i run past. politically correct also has no place in chilean culture. claro.
- i learned how to navigate the public transportation system! quite an important accomplishment seeing as i’ll have to use it multiple times a day. the two types i’ll be using most are the micros (buses) and the metro. the metro is pretty self explanatory. get a card, load some dinero on it, and swipe away. there is a stop just outside of my apartment that goes straight to the university. micros, however, are an entirely different story. they are little death traps on wheels that dart through traffic at death defying speeds. they don’t actually stop at set places, so you have to be ready to catch whenever it gets close enough to the sidewalk. on the side of each micro are the names of the streets it travels to, and you have to have finely honed speed reading skills to catch the correct one. always an adventure.
- chile doesn’t have centralized heat. it’s cold. all the time.
- it also don’t have automatic water heaters. may i introduce you to the calefont. located in the kitchen, it heats (kinda) the water and must be turned on and off whenever you shower. turn on the gas, light the match, turn up the heat, and wait for water to heat to a tolerable temperature. you might be scalded and also flash frozen during the course of the same shower.
- chileans love to drink tea. in fact, i’m having some right now…there isn’t a time during the day that i don’t have to use the restroom.
- it’s normal for children to live with their parents until they marry. mi mamá washes, dries and irons all my clothes, including my sports bras. you wouldn’t want wrinkled underwear. god forbid. and when i’m reading in bed under the covers (see 4), she brings me a tray of tea and goodies. i wouldn’t move out either.
- the Lord is with me wherever i go. not just when i’m surrounded by community in denver, or at church with my family in chico, or sharing a quiet time at bidwell perk with my mom. even when i’m far from home, jesus remains unchanged. my dear friend megan, who is studying in spain, passed along the following quote from john piper. “if you give up the sense of at-homeness you had in your house, you get back one hundred times the comfort and security of knowing that your Lord owns every house and land and stream and tree on earth.” regardless of where i am geographically, the Father remains the same. yesterday i was running back home along the coast when the sun began to set. and it was nearly exactly the same as the sunsets i’ve seen thousands of miles north, on the coast of california. the breathtaking beauty of watching the ocean and sky turn gold and pink and purple is just a glimpse of the majesty of the Lord who is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens. your faithfulness to the sky. your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the great deep. O Lord you preserve both man and beast. How priceless is your unfailing love. Psalm 36 i might be worshipping in a different building and breaking bread with a completely different community, but God is with me and blesses me immensely wherever i go.
