Christina Travels: Chile: Mi Curso

There are 36 people in tercero medio Bernasconi (there are two cursos in tercero medio and each has it's own name) and we have almost all our classes together. The exceptions to that are the Humanista y Cientifico classes where we split up and combine with the other tercero medio in our respective tracks. Of my thirty-five, I know the names of around fifteen. Several of those names are not actual names. So, for example and I'm spelling this completely wrong, Chichu (chee-chew) is the nickname of one of the guys in my curso and I know who he is and I've even sort of had conversations with him, but it wasn't until he friended me on Facebook that I discovered his real name is Sergio. Nicolas is Chappa, Luis is Lucho, Tomas is Negro, Marcela is Machete (it has nothing to do with the English word machete), Gaby is Flaca, etc. Of course, there are also people whose nicknames are directly related to their actually names: Constanza is Cony and Natalia is Nattie. All these people have known each other forever and something like a third of the curso has been in this curso in this school for as long as they've been going to school. There are groups of people who kind of stand off from the core of the curso, but a solid twenty-five (if not more) are amazingly close. During breaks, we sit on the floor outside the classroom in big groups, talking or collectively playing on someone's phone or playing card games. But there's always at least people standing up, goofing off. More often than not, a guy is teasing a girl. He's probably got her backpack or her phone or is playing with her hair or tickling her or generally trying to get her attention in an annoying way. She's smiling and laughing at the same time she's telling him to quit it. And it's not flirting the way it would be in the US, it's more like the interaction between a brother and sister, though that's not exactly right either. This happens constantly with about half the boys and all the girls in the curso (there are some boys who are more shy or studious who don't do this). When everyone is sitting in class, well, first of all, when we walk into the classroom, everyone immediately finds a desk and drags it to where they want to sit. We have to be in three sections, two running along the walls on the side of the classroom and one down the middle and each section is three people wide, but other than that anything goes. Everyone has their desk close enough together that in order to get up you have to move your own desk and the desks of everyone around you. From your seat you can without stretching your arm out, touch at least five classmates. When the teacher isn't giving us notes to copy down (every single class we're copying down notes. Pages and pages of notes. Everyone here uses pens in three colors- black,blue, and red- simultaneously to write their notes), people get bored and start goofing off. Girls constantly braid other girls' hair with mini braids and there is always at least one pen fight going on somewhere in the room. By pen fight I don't mean someone stealing pens, I mean scribbling lines on someone else's skin or notebook back and forth. Despite the fact that it would be incredibly easy to exclude the exchange students in this atmosphere, we're included in everything. I've had to re-write my notes when I get home from school cause someone wrote song lyrics overtop the notes, I've had pen scribbles on my hand and even my cheeks, and I'm usually a part of the conversations even though I can't always understand what they're talking about. Generally, the best part of a day at school here is the atmosphere and the people.

That atmosphere isn't restricted to the students. The teachers, depending on the individual, are part of it too. Of course there are the stricter teachers who aren't included in the group but then there are the teachers who everyone loves and includes in everything. Here, you never call you teacher Mr. Lastname or Mrs. Surname. It's tio and tia which literally mean uncle and aunt. A perfect example of this relationship is the sweet thing my curso did for one of the teachers this week. Here, each curso has a profesor jefe who is in charge of the curso and is basically a second mother to everyone for the entire time they're at the school (usually the profe jefe is female). This year, my curso had a new profe jefe because their old profe jefe is eight months pregnant and moving to Punta Arenas. (We all think our new profe jefe is awesome as well.) So, the day before the old profe jefe was set to leave for Punta Arenas, my class had a baby shower for her. Friday afternoon after school got out at one, half the curso went to the cafe one girl's brother owns and which he had closed for us for the afternoon and prepared everything the best we could. The two days previously after school, a small group including the class president and officers (and their siblings- the other exchange student's sister is the president and my brother is something so the two of us tagged along) walked around town buying everything we would need with money we collected from everyone in the curso. We even ordered a cake and everyone bought presents for her and the baby. When the profe arrived, approximately three hours after we'd started getting ready (it actually only would have taken thirty minutes to get ready but because it's Chile we were having fun, taking our time, and socializing), she greeted everyone and we showed her the cake and she started crying. She gave a short speech like thing (which I understood!) about how sweet this is and how much she'll miss our curso and she wishes us all the best. By the end, the only people in the room of thirty (not everyone came) who weren't crying were the two exchange students. Then we say down at the table and ate cake and soda and chips and cheese puffs and whatnot. I tried helping serve the cake and was told by several of the boys that no, I should go sit with the rest of the girls, the boys would take care of it. This was followed by Lucho shouting that the rest of the boys needed to get up and come help, which they did without a single grumble. (Chilean chivalry is very much a part of everyday life. Por ejemplo, when my sister and my five year old brother were goofing off and playing some game that involves the winner hitting the loser, my father told my five year old brother it's not right to hurt a girl so he shouldn't actually hit my sister. Also, at lunch if the girls arrive to the cafeteria late and there aren't any more chairs the boys will actually stand up and offer the girls their chairs. Automatically. Like they don't even realize what they're doing.) After giving the profe her gifts, the baby shower stopped being such a baby shower and started being more of a group of teenager hanging out. Lots of karaoke was sung and people danced and everyone laughed and we were there for another four or so hours. I tried to help clear the table and was again told to sit down, it was fine, the boys had it under control. (The part of this that confuses me is that cooking and dishes are often considered the girls' chores at home. So for example, my sister is automatically assigned the job of cleaning up after meals while my brothers get other chores.) When we were eating the cake, I ended up sitting with the other exchange student at the end of the table where there were more boys than girls. Which was good, because that way Aim and I got to learn the names of our non-female classmates. Cristian (teachers often mix up our names, because in Chile Cristian is pronounced cris-ti-an instead of cris-chin) can repeat back everything I say in English with a near perfect American accent. Boris (I can't pronounce his name he Chilean way. Which is unfortunate 'cause the way Chileans say his name, it sounds really cool) is a skater. Dylan does karate (he's also really skinny. I'm not sure how with all the food Chileans eat). Chichu is a gaucho (Patagonian cowboy) and a bull rider. (To my horse crazy friends, his horses are beautiful. When I told him I have horses, he showed me a picture of his personal horse and it is the prettiest buckskin I have ever seen. I want that horse. I'll trade Ernie.) Of course, finding all this out was really hard since it was incredibly loud in the cafe and they all talk like Chilean teenage boys which is to say every sentence has at least one Chilean slang in addition to the standard weon and po.

It was a good night. And at the end, because Carlos and I were some of the last people there, we got to take home some of the leftover cake. It was delicious. Seriously, seriously delicious. Light and rich with perfect creamy, airy, not-too-sweet-or-dense frosting and sweet filling in-between the layers. I definitely ate way too much cake.

This is most of the people. Some are missing. From top to bottom, left to right. Javiera, Gaby, Cony, Me, Marcela, Gabriel, Tomas, Aim, Carlos, Kamii, Gaby, Cintia, Claudia, Boris, Chichu, Natalia, Cristian, Lucho, la profe