Many people have been asking me lately, "Why Chile?" "What made you want to go back?" "What's Chile like?" "Do they have internet there?" "Can you drink the water/do you eat real food?"
Now rather than answer these questions in a manner that is uninteresting or boring, my dear readers, I am going to tell you how Chile has changed my life. How Chile has helped me to find ME.
Its not that I love Chile or are completely in love with the country. There are oh so many things I dislike and oh so many things I really love.
I don't know if I chose Chile, or if Chile chose me. Back in November of last year (give or take) I played the "Where am I going to study abroad so that I can finish my Spanish major" game. At that time, I debated long and hard between Ecuador and Spain. Both great options. Ecuador gave me a new adventure and Spain opened the doors to Europe. Ecuador was winning, and really it actually won in my mind. However, God had a different plan. Ecuador was taken out of the playing field by Messiah for safety reasons. So I was left with Spain because Mexico was not an option for us poor majors. This sat ok with me for awhile. I loved Spain, but I found myself lost in the mass of students who were unhappy with this decision to limit the majors to Spain. Spain is expensive and I realized that in my future, the likelihood that I would be working with European children was much less than the likelihood of me working with Central/South American children.
I became a fighter in this battle and lost in a sea of emails and paperwork. And the next thing I knew, I found myself sitting in the BWI airport and had a plane ticket to Chile in my hand. The group of fighters dwindled down to Hillary and I, the guinea pigs from Messiah College sent out to test out International Studies Abroad's Chile Program. Talk about being afraid of the unknown. Those very questions, many of you have asked me, flooded my thoughts. I savored every last bite of my last meal in Texas, I didn't know what was coming next.
The little group of ISA (which I found to be the abbreviation of the long named organization I was now a student of) students huddled together in Texas, sharing brief introductions, gaining trust fast, and starting to form some sort of friendships. Its funny how the fear/the sense of uncertainty can bring people together so fast. But just as we were starting to feel comfortable as a group, it was time to board the plane. Its funny how the nice, "pretend to speak Spanish" flight attendants look when you are on the plane getting ready to leave the country for six months. They were only flying down with us and only staying in the country for probably a couple of hours, a few days max. "Good bye home, good bye US," I thought.
At the time, I did not realize that this was the greatest part of the adventure. The sense of not knowing. Stepping into the unknown...Literally. Getting off the plane, trying to make it through customs with what little Spanish we knew. If this was what Chile was going to be like, man I got on the wrong plane.
However, things changed fast. As we made it past the scariness, that is customs, we were quickly whisked away into hugs and kisses from the ISA staff. They were more than just the leaders of the organization, they became like family. At that instant, we were no longer just faces on a page, lost in a foreign world. People cared for us. They knew our names. And they put up with our horrible Spanish and made us feel like we had a place there.
And just like that Chile became home.
Home, is such a relative term. Its where our heart is. For me, my heart is spread between Chile and Pennsylvania. To some, studying abroad is just a cool sounding thing to do. You get to travel, be a tourist, live independently, and see things in a new light. This is wonderful. But I did more than this. I didn't just live in Chile as an international student, I became a Chilean student. I lived with my family, didn't travel much, took classes with Chileans, went to church with Chileans, hung out with Chileans, basically as I like to put it, I took my life that I have here in the US and transplanted it there into Chile. But the coolest part about my experience there was learning who I was.
I became more than the daughter of my parents, the old drum major, the good friend...I became Shaina. I became more of my own than I ever could have imagined. Being abroad really changes you. I am a testament of that. It is sometimes hard to really show your friends and family from home the changes that you have made from being abroad because they expect that you are coming back the way you left. It really is an issue.
So why Chile? Why go back?
I like who I am there. I like who I am becoming there. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that I would be spending another semester in the long, skinny country where they speak probably the hardest dialect of Spanish you will ever encounter. But I'm going back.
Something, somewhere, at sometime grabbed onto me...I believe that something was God telling me its time to slow down, time to break the pots (Jeremiah), time to stop resting, and time to change who you are. Its about growth. Studying abroad has opened my eyes to the world. Like I said, I no longer just see the US as my home. I see myself as a world citizen. Ready to go forward with whatever God has planned for my life. People tell me faith is great but you have to live in reality. Well, faith is my reality. I may not have the fanciest cars or the nicest house in the future, but material things don't matter so much when you are living a fulfilling life. I could be anything, but really I just want to be an advocate for the kids in this world to open their eyes to see what is waiting for them if they just take that first leap of faith.
It doesn't matter what language you speak or where you live, God is there and love abounds.
I am dropping my elementary education major and making time for me to grow. Life is not about the destination, its about the journey. I learned in Chile that I was spending too much time focusing on things I had no control over, my future. Chile taught me to take it one step at a time. Spanish taught me that for once in my life I want to perfect something I have started. And what better way to do it than to spend more time wandering through the colorful hills of Valpo, talking to the Artisans on the beach, worshipping God with all of my heart with a wonderful group of people in my church, or helping my little Chilean second graders pronunce "yellow" in English and then watching their smiles, feeling their hugs and kisses, and hearing their giggles as they leave their classroom dressed in their little uniforms.
Chile is more than a country on a map. It is more than Spanish speakers.
Yes, Chile has internet and food and good water. In fact, I can walk to a McDonalds, Starbucks, Pizza Hut, and Dominos within a 10 minute radius of my house.
Wake up world, there are other civilized countries out there. Full of promise. Full of hope. Full of people who deserve a chance.
That's why I chose Chile.
Why Chile?
Why not?
