Friday night, I tell Jacqui that I think I may be coming down with a cold (GASP!). I refuse the 10 different magical pills she tries to force down my throat, offering instead to drink an extra cup of tea for dinner. The next morning, I wake up to find that breakfast has been left for me on my desk…my sniffles apparently have me bed-ridden.

The comfort food? Tea, toast, cheese and (of course) a serving of cake:

Chilean comfort food

Though I was a bit embarrassed by so much concern, it was nevertheless very sweet. Especially since, because I wasn’t on my death bed, I was able to appreciate the fact that I was getting to eat cake for breakfast!

Nothing too crazy to report for Easter weekend…I slept in every day, and usually didn’t leave my bed until it was time for lunch. The Easter Bunny made a brief cameo appearance Sunday morning, leaving little bags of chocolate eggs in front of each of our doors. It is also possible that there was an easter egg hunt that I slept through…but I’m not sure. We had beautiful fall weather and a nice lunch to celebrate.

In the afternoon, I got a sudden craving for Chocolate Kiss Cookies, something that my family usually only makes for Christmas. However, I figured I’d make an exception. After all, both Christmas and Easter are holidays about Christ…one celebrating his birth, the other celebrating his rebirth (in a sense). So, according to my stunning logic, if Chrismas = Easter, and Christmas = cookies, we can mathematically deduce that Easter = cookies. Simple.

Here is a picture of Manolla helping me with the cookies. We had a minor tiff because she was tired of coating the dough in sugar and demanded being promoted to actually rolling the balls of dough. I don’t like taking orders from a seven-year-old, so we had a brief power struggle…I told her that she could do it for the next batch, but that I was going to finish the first tray of cookies, and patience isn’t exactly Manolla’s forte. Here she is, finally allowed to roll the dough, and quite pleased with herself.

Manolla baking cookies

Here’s a picture of our final product. Chocolate kisses had to be replaced in the recipe by chocolate easter eggs cut in half. They were a hit.

Cookies!

Home again, home again, jiggity jig. Here are some of the bullet points of my month back in my home away from home.

THE FAMILY: Upon my arrival in Valdivia, Jacqui (my host mother) asked me whether I liked dogs. When I said yes, she told me, “Good, because we’re thinking of getting a puppy for Manolla.” The idea sounded great but, knowing Jacqui’s tendency to speak of distant plans as if they were to take place tomorrow, I didn’t put much stock in the comment. Imagine my surprise when, 3 hours later, a fluffy ball of white fur that looked more like a large mouse than a dog was rolling around Manolla’s feet. At first I didn’t know whether the little guy was going to make it. Manolla isn’t the gentlest of 7-year-olds, Jacqui doesn’t like dogs, and I , the person who has never owned a dog, was somehow the one who seemed to know most about caring for a puppy. It was a recipe for disaster. However, I’m happy to report that, rather than kicking the bucket, Copito (Snowflake) is still alive and kicking. He spent the majority of his first weeks sleeping, but his energy level is increasing as quickly as his size, and I think in another week or two he might be able to keep up with Manolla.

A delighted Manolla and a slightly terrified Copito in his first minutes in his new home.

THE UNIVERSITY: I’ve been learning from the mistakes I made last semester and, having figured out how to navigate the system (or lack of system), I was able to spend the first few weeks shopping for my ideal four classes. Several potentially interesting classes were nixed for long lists of reading or too many quizzes, in favor of classes like “Film Appreciation.” Always the perfectionist, I am determined to appreciate those movies more than anyone else in the class. Though my courses aren’t homework-free, they are a huge improvement on last semester. Aside from the film class, I’m also taking Contemporary History of Chile, Contemporary Latin American Literature, and Chilean Theater. The majority of my classes only meet once a week, which leaves me plenty of free time to sleep in and hopefully do some volunteer work (which I’ve yet to organize). Fellow gringa Catherine and I are also playing with the women’s soccer team at the university (very fun, though not quite as impressive as it sounds). Unfortunately, I had class the day that Catherine attended the try-outs for the Chilean National Soccer Team.

WEATHER: March was an unbelievable month, with warm, beautiful weather. I spent as much time as possible outside, well aware of the impending doom that was fast approaching. With arrival of April has come the first of the rains…it’s going to be a long winter. Fortunately, I recently purchased an entire sheep’s-worth of wool, and Jacqui has promised to teach me to knit a sweater.

TRAVELS: After a summer of wandering, I’ve been mostly content to relax in Valdivia and live the bum life. I did make a return trip to Curinanco with Catherine and Victor, a small town on the coast near Valdivia that claims a stunning beach and is virtually untouched by tourists. Last weekend, Catherine and I headed to Pucon with the plan of climbing Volcan Villarrica. Our appearance in town made the campground owner’s month and we had our choice of any campsite we wanted. Poor weather conditions kept us off the mountain, and we had to settle for whitewater rafting and bicycling instead. It is a hard life we lead. With all the rain we had on the second day, it was hard to say whether we got more wet paddling down a river or peddling down rural roads.

Two of the new recruits: Catherine and Victor

Curinanco

It has been great getting to spend the past week and a half getting to know my new family here in Chile. The first few days were a bit uncomfortable for me, since I understood very little and felt more like a guest than a member of the household. Though I still haven’t talked much with some of the boys in the house, and there is a lot of conversation that still goes over my head, I feel much more comfortable and at home here. Everyone has been extremely friendly, welcoming, and patient with my Spanish. They have had several exchange students before me, so they are used to listening through all my grammar blunders and understanding the point I’m trying to get at. They are constantly scolding me for pretending to understand more than I actually do (something I do frequently when I don’t want to interrupt their conversations to ask for explanations), telling me that they are happy to help or explain things as much as necessary. It’s definitely a very comfortable environment for learning and making mistakes.

Our family is a bit of a non-traditional one. The majority of Chileans go to university in their home cities and live with their families until they finish school and/or marry. However, the southern regions don’t have the same number of universities (on account of the fairly sparse population), and Universidad Austral is the best school in the region. For this reason, it is much more common for students to travel to come to school here in Valdivia and, instead of living in dorms, they live in pensións. Jacqui owns a small complex of boarding options and rents them out to students and adults who are traveling to work or study in Valdivia. I live with Jacqui and her 6-yr-old daughter, Manolla, in the “casita” — a small house in the complex with a living room, bathroom, tiny kitchen, and two bedrooms. I have my own room, and Jacqui and Manolla share a room across the hall. Next to the casita is another house, which serves as the pensión and which is where we eat all of our meals. The house has a large kitchen, living room, and dining room…every other available room has been converted into bedrooms. Living in the pensión are Ryan (goes to Berkeley, and is another student from Middlebury´s exchange program, Jorge (26, working in Valdivia), Damaris (30s, working in Valdivia–arrived shortly after Ryan and I), and Mati, Luiz, and Diego (all students at the university). The compex also has a small cabaña (cabin) attached, which is rented by another girl who is a student at the university. However, the cabaña has it’s own kitchen and living space, so we don’t see much of her.

We eat all of our meals more-or-less together in the big house. The nana, Sra. Carmen, helps out with the household chores, and cooks amazing meals for almuerzo (lunch) and once (tea, but more like dinner). The meals are usually simple, but the taste is excellent! Getting used to the eating habits here has been a bit confusing. The traditional order of meals is breakfast, lunch, tea, and dinner, with lunch as the largest meal of the day. The first few days after Ryan and I arrived, we seemed to follow this four-meal schedule, but now we seem to only eat three meals a day. Breakfast usually consists of bread with different types of spreadings and a hot drink; lunch is the largest meal of the day with bread and salad always accompanying the main course; and once (tea) is served around 7 pm and is usually a smaller portion of what was served for lunch. Bread is definitely the staple food here–it is served in large quantities with every meal.

The boys of the house are all very different, but all very friendly. Luiz and Mati have been busy studying for their final exams at the university, so I haven’t seen much of them. Mati is a very quite, reserved person and doesn’t speak much…though Jacqui says he has been much more talkative since Ryan and I arrived. He must have said almost nothing before we arrived Jorge has been especially helpful to Ryan and I–showing us around Valdivia and spending countless hours explaining the definitions for new slang words that we pick up during the day. Ryan has a tendency to bring home numerous words of questionable decency from his internship, and part of the evening conversation is usually devoted to explaining the words’ definitions and the context in which they can or cannot be used.

Manolla has been a lot of fun as well. I only understand about half of what she says, but a smile and a nod is all the encouragement she needs to keep talking She has promised to teach me castellano (Spanish), and I have been given several homework assignments that include copying lines of gibberish words written by a six-year-old who doesn’t actually know how to spell. She loves to play Rock, Paper, Scissors and we play endless rounds of the game…though somehow, when Manolla keeps score, the numbers always seem to change to ensure that she emerges the winner