Life unexpected: La vida inesperada

I planned to spend my final week in Chile's elegant capital Santiago exploring the Museo de Artes Visuales, the ritzy outlying neighborhoods, and the Parque Forestal, the last sites on my to-see list. I mentally prepared to leave my leafy and sunny Providencia neighborhood and the comfort of my bustling host family for a new city -- Viña del Mar.

I'd made finding an apartment my mission, having arrived to a foreign continent with only four weeks to locate housing in a city two hours away with no prior knowledge of price ranges, neighborhoods, transportation or lease contracts. After weeks of frantically searching through Internet postings and interrogating professors that culminated in a rushed visit to the resort city of Viña, I'd found an apartment in a new tower (by an artificial lake!) half a block away from the beach. With a pool, a gym and sweeping ocean view from two generous patios, everything about it was luxe.

The Feb. 27 earthquake didn't severely affect anyone I know -- I only heard stories about co-workers and cousins whose families had lost everything in the South. However, after the natural disaster I soon realized that my year in Chile wouldn't go as planned. My host family insisted I remain hunkered in the house during the following days. Even though that seismic night passed without any panic or tears on my part, I've felt like I'm carrying a heavy backpack ever since. I'm grateful rather than fearful, but living with a family dealing with post traumatic stress and the constant flow of damning news reports took its toll.

Four days before my planned move to the coast of Viña del Mar to start classes at the Universidad Católica de Valparaiso I got the news that I'd have to look for another place to live. I felt so incredibly alone. I now had to find a room in an apartment with strangers, in a hectic period when shaken-up residents in apartment towers were scramming to move into solid houses and residents of older houses were quickly renting modern apartments; when the few students who hadn't solidified their housing plans months earlier had returned home to be with their families rather than staying in their university city to show their apartments to potential roommates.

But I made it my life's goal to move myself to school on time, spending my days staring at the computer screen and making bus trips back and forth between the two cities. I visited some houses that should have been condemned, with putrid, horror-movie worthy rooms, but I also met some of the most hospitable people I've ever encountered. They'd offer me a bed in their house until I found a place. After I told them I wasn't interested in their apartment they'd still insist in showing me around the city to the other rooms on my list. And they all gave me their phone numbers in case I ever needed anything.

Monday (only two days late) I moved into an apartment, not in the modern beach city of Viña del Mar as planned, but in the gritty neighboring historic port city of Valparaíso. The apartment is small but comfortable and modern. The terrace with the bay view and the familiar American kitchenette sold me. I'm eagerly waiting for my Chilean roommate to move back in next week. The surrounding neighborhood is not a place I should ever be walking through alone at night, and that's disconcerting. But the main highway connecting Valparaíso to its sister city Viña is right outside my front door, with transportation at all hours. I'm hoping that the earthquake repairs in the building happen soon because I miss hot water and more than one functioning elevator would be convenient. But I can't complain when half of the city went without any water the past three days, and further south people are homeless.

I'm still soaking up Valparaíso. The surrounding hills I've explored (so far I've opted to climb up the impossible staircases and vertical streets instead of paying for the antique elevators, an indication of masochistic tendencies, perhaps?) have confirmed the adjective 'breathtaking' that I've read in every guidebook. The spectacular views of the bay and the ramshackle city built on the surrounding hillsides are bewitching. The quirky and colorful neighborhoods spilling on the hilltops are World Heritage sites, and besides their official historic value they have a bohemian charm and energy like no other place I've traveled. These are streets with proper multi-colored British mansions with flower boxes lined near hippie-ish cafes. Streets with elegant restaurants on steep slopes that end in a flamboyant graffiti wall murals leading to 19th century Anglican churches or eccentric castle-mansions turned museums. And did I mention the views?

As far as the center of Valparaíso, well it's grungy, compatible with the disagreeable image the average North American has of a South American city. Ugly modern (Valpo was the epicenter of the devastating 1906 quake and before that victim of a Spanish naval attack) buildings stand beside decrepit Victorian palaces from the port's glory days. My favorite guidebook cliche, "crumbling grandeur" was written for this city. There's too many abandoned warehouses, stray dogs and litter for my taste, but maybe this jewel (in the rough) of the Pacific will win me over before the year's up. For now braving the streets isn't a pleasant stroll. My wrist is sore from clutching my bag so tightly. The maniacal buses, called micros, are a third-world experience. But on a brighter note, my daily routine now includes a trip to the intimidating  city market to stock up on the rainbow mountains of gleaming produce on sale for mere cents and a stop by the bakery for fresh bread.

Sometimes I wonder how I ended up here. I have the next nine months to figure out why.

On moving down south. Waaay down south.

Twenty-four days from today, this blog will get a lot more interesting. Because in just a little over three weeks I'm moving to Chile. So this will once again become a real travel blog instead of Rachel's online diary recounting her exile in West Virginia.

About a year and a half ago, with my college graduation approaching, I spent hours writing and polishing nearly 15 pages of essays. Then I spent a week locked in my room translating those essays into Spanish (with some help from South American friends via instant Messenger). I met with the director of my university's Hispanic Studies Department to get the scoop on South American universities, then I pored over his recommendations and their course offerings. I met with local high-society community leaders. The vice president of our college even took me out to lunch. (I wore flip flops. Her initial glance at my feet told me BIG MISTAKE. But they were classy flip flops!) Finally, I drove two hours to the state capital for impromptu written essays and interviews, in which I sat at the end of a long board room table and a dozen professional-types interrogated me.

And it was all worth it. (Somehow) I got the scholarship. I'm going to study for a year at the Pontificia Universidad Católica in Valparaíso, Chile (that long, skinny country on the west coast of South America. Yes, some people ask me where it is.). And Rotary International is paying for everything. I'll come back with a certificate in Latin American Studies from a respectable university on the rocky Chilean coast.

Now why would Rotary give me $24,000 to live and study abroad for a year, you ask. Well, their goal through this Ambassadorial Scholarship Program is to promote international peace and understanding by sending young people from all over the world to live and study outside their home country. The idea is that the students who receive these scholarships will be positive ambassadors for their own nations and develop friendly relationships in their host countries, and then they'll come home and share their enlightening cultural experiences, and that ultimately these "scholars will be tomorrow's community and world leaders," according the the Rotary International website.

So in addition to taking classes in Latin American literature, culture, and politics, I'll also be giving presentations on the U.S. to local Rotary clubs and co-heading a service project. I'm a teensy bit nervous about the (Spanish, of course) speaking engagements, but I've heard from other scholars that they're not all that bad -- low key with a sympathetic audience. And I'm really excited about the volunteer project. I won't know exactly what it will be until I get down there and see the needs, but right now it looks like it could involve a big sister-big brother type program with foster kids in an underprivileged mountain village.
When I'm not studying or volunteering I hope to be traveling. I'm dying to get down to Patagonia and maybe up to Brazil or back to Buenos Aires. I'll be flying into Santiago, the capital, where I'll spend a month reviewing Spanish at a language institute and living with a host family. Then I'll have to find my own apartment (eek!) in Valparaíso.

Valparaíso has been called the Little San Francisco of South America, as it's a colorful and shabby seaport city built on hillsides overlooking the Pacific. Antique elevators serve as transportation in some spots, and the historic quarter is a labyrinth of cobblestone streets and allies. The so-called Jewel of the Pacific has become a cultural mecca of late too. I read an Allende novel set in Valparaiso, La Hija de la Fortuna (turned out to be one of my all-time favorite reads) that painted the bohemian city as seedy and full of haughty European ex-pats. (But that was in the 1800s. Surely things have changed by now, right?) Today the university campus is divided between Valparaíso and its sister city, Viña del Mar, which is more polished and modern and popular for its beach resorts.

I've been waiting for this adventure for nearly TWO years. "Are you in Chile yet?" has become a sort of cruel joke. Since I returned from Barcelona in May I've felt like my life has been in limbo. But when very important people conclude that you're worthy of a very generous gift that allows you to see the world, educate yourself, and help others, you don't turn it down. Even if it involves a whole lot of waiting.

Now the waiting is about over, and I'm wondering ... am I ready?