How much is actually different?

I had this conversation with Cristian two days ago, on our tour of Valpo, and I keep thinking about it as a reoccurring theme in my experience in Chile. The theme is differences. Or similarities. Or both. Yes, definitely both. It was a conversation that I consider to be of great significance. You know how you remember where you were when something significant happened? Because I am such a visual person (I often remember where in my notes the answer to a test question is, not what the content is, but the location on the page I will remember,) I think I always remember where I was when something worth remembering happened. Anyway, while walking, in a state of extreme hunger, through Bellavista, Valpo, he asked if I found Chile to be very different than my life at home. How profound this is. Profound and complex that question.

The answer is, of course that here is very different than home. And of course that it is the same. It is written correctly. I recalled my metro ride that morning to Casa Central. There were two little kids, a brother and sister, with their mom. The kids were roaming around, marveling at every passing object, "look, a bridge!! look at all the flags, all the people waiting to get on the train! another train, look how fast it went!" If you took a kid from the US and plopped them on that same metro, guess what would happen. The same thing, essentially. Give or take differences in background and personality, whether or not they are accustomed to such a place, etc. But the idea is the same, the fundamental human similarity that ties us together, proves we are all people, transcending the language barrier. The same, only in Spanish. I thought about this for a long time.

It is all different, living in a city, along the ocean, less safe than at home, and infinitely more interesting, haphazard obnoxiously brillant-hued houses, micros, metros, colectivos, spanish, a different flag, independence day in September, eating avocado, long beautiful black hair, showing more affection, eating lunch absurdly late (which oddly enough I don't mind), all of these things are new, different, fascinating differences. Not the same as home. But, people go to work, they study, they cook, they take care of their families, they have fun, they talk and laugh and play and fly kites with their kids and run around taking pictures like me. These things, fundamental things, are the same. How different are we? There are people here that work, people who stay at home with their kids, cliques of friends, ambitious hard-working people. The distribution may be different, the distribution as far as the numbers of each kind of people, the number of people who are salesmen and lawyers and hard-working or not so hard-working students, this may be different. The society is different, more open, kind, friendly in my experience anyway, but the differences are for history, for location, not so much for wanting different things. Lots of things are different, but dig deeper. We might not have mircos at home, we have no heladeros or people playing guitar or passing money or any part of that micro culture, but we have different equivalents, very different, but things that fill the same kind of niche, the void in human necessity, filled in a different way but still filled. This has got to sound insane. I am observing this all the time, in hopes that I can learn more and explain better explain my thinking, eventually.

When I return to the US I think I will be in for a rough culture shock. I experienced little in my adjustment to living in Chile. I think this is due to various factors, including the fact that I learned so much about the country ahead of time from previous exchange students, that I arrived with an open mind, that I have good friend and a great Chilean family and find everything new to be interesting and fun, for my personality. It is a friendly and loving culture. We kiss each other on the cheek to say hello or goodbye, or happy birthday, or thank you, or for whatever. I can enter a room full of people I don't know and people will stand up one at a time to greet me and introduce themselves, I mean they will get up from their seat to greet me, step over people to reach me. We will toast, salud!, for whatever reason, because there is always something good to toast to. I like this, and I don't want to imagine the violent culture shock of returning, because I fear that it really will be just that, violent. I want to eat palta and drink tea, kiss people and ride around on the speeding micros, I like that, all of it. I don't want to feel gringa anymore, I want to feel Chilean. I am immersed; I am not distanced from this culture at all. I am not meeting with all of the other gringos and talking in English and watching movies in English and doing other things that I can at home; that is lame, and you won't learn anything that way. I watch other people do that, and it makes me cringe. I want to live as chilena as possible for a gringa. And I don't want to think about leaving in a few months. No.