Life in Chile

Finally, a moment to update you. Between my internship and various family outings, I haven’t had a moment to write another entry without sacrificing sleep…which wasn’t going to happen given my lingering sleep deprivation from last week’s exams. As expected, I am having a wonderful time in Chile. I am finally breaking into my Spanish and am adapting nicely to the Chilean accent which is relieving because during my first two days here, I understood nothing (and thought that I was totally screwed). It turns out that the Spanish in Latin America is in fact, completely different than the Spanish in Spain. Looks like my professors were right after all…interesting.

Just as it is on any trip to a foreign country, these last few days have been full of head nodding, laughing without any idea of what is going on, and broken sentences like “I want banana” and “I go sleep” and, “I no like sugar in my coffee. I mean salt. Wait, no, I mean sugar. Azucar means sugar in Spanish, right? Right, no sugar, thanks though.” Despite the overall rough start, I have made considerable headway in my language skills and am beginning to feel more and more comfortable here, one embarrassing moment at a time.

The family that I am living with is wonderful. They are incredibly welcoming and have taken me into their home as if I were their own daughter. Milka, the beautiful, fashionable, social mother of the family has three sons: Tomas, Nicolas and Benjamin, and one daughter out of the house, Domi. Ernesto, the easy going, intelligent, business-like father of the house, has two sons: Vicente and Raimundo. Given the ratio of boys to girls, Milka and I stick together. The house is beautiful, modern, full of exotic artwork, and is in a very nice part of town. Both Milka and Ernesto work during the day and Rosita, the Peruvian maid, tends to the house and prepares all meals and snacks (love them snacks). She has become one of my very best friends here. She even came running with me this morning. Hilarious experience, by the way.


Great couple.

The internship has proven to be a bit more difficult than I expected. I go to work every day in downtown Santiago at the IBM office and have a challenging project before me. Between learning Spanish and various work expectations (I may have created some of those expectations), I am usually overwhelmed and pretty spent by the end of the day. Ernesto is my boss. He has been with IBM for 27 years and is one of the coolest guys that I have ever met (at least in the 50+ age category). He’s slick, funny, well respected and a fairly big deal at the company, but totally down to earth. I follow him everywhere… in fear that if I were to be left alone somebody might speak to me and I might not be able to respond properly. Helpless, I know.


Ernesto and I at the IBM office.

Over the holidays, I will have time off to travel (mission accomplished). While I do enjoy following a superstar around everyday and supporting IBM with my insightful telecom findings, I have several other adventures to embark upon for my own selfish satisfaction before leaving Chile. Mountains to hike, penguins to meet, a dessert to see, boys to find for my roommates, sunsets, sunrises…you get the idea. Looking forward to it all, good thing I’m only on day four.

I will try my best to keep you updated. In the meantime, I am going to head to bed and thank God for this opportunity to be in Chile because at the moment, I am feeling incredibly blessed. God is good, don’t you think?

Buenas Noches,

Lindsay