After an awesome excursion to the south and to Bariloche, Argentina (Where the scenery was incredible and the chocolate was deliocious), I finally started my ISP period. I literally didn´t know anything about my host family before I got here, and we couldn´t even confirm that they were ready for a student until the night before I get here. But I made it here and am pretty much moved into my room. The majot thing I am working on now is starting to plan different observations in the hospitals and with Mapuche healers who work out of their homes...It´s gonna be a lot of work, but I have a lot of connections and am getting contacts that will be really healpful!
I´m living with a Machi, a spiritual Mapuche healer. She´s really spunky and is literally always cooking and telling me to eat more, in between the patients that come to the house to see her. I have 2 sisters, one 18 and another 22 who are really sweet and go to school in Temuco, the big city nearby. I also have a brother but haven´t really met him yet. My dad is a big guy who just hangs out watching TV and sleeping, and I literally can´t understand a word he says because of his accent. He gets really frustrated when he has to say something 5 times before I get it, while the rest of the family is dying laughing. Ánd there are 3 kida who I think are cousins, but they basically live here. They´re 2, 4, and 6-- 2 girls and a boy. They´re so cute and I literally just played with them all last night. Everyone is so sweet and carinosa --my mom calls me hija(daughter), mi amor (my love), or Hanni, and the little girls call me tia, auntie. We also have an adorable kitten that I´m in love with and fell alseep in my arms wrapped up in my scarf last night. (It´s freezing here and there isn´t really heat but everyone bundles up!)
My family also has property in el campo, the countryside. It´s about 20 minutes from here, and they have a ruka, a Mapuche hut, where they spend Sundays around the fire. They have 2 horses thast they say I can ride sometime, cows, cats, dogs, and I think a few chickens and sheep. Sometimes they spend the night there, sometimes here in town. It´s kind of random and I can´t figure out exactly why or how they use both houses, but it´s cool that they have that!
My mom works out of the house, but this weekend she´s going into el campo to do house visits for patients that live far away. She wants me to come along to observe her treatments and see el campo with her..It should be fun! We´re leaving Friday and should come back on Sunday.
So basically my family is amazing and I literally couldn´t be happier with my homestay. The house isn´t rundown but very basic and so I´m getting a very real experience! But it´s always busy with friends and relatives coming and going, there are lots of patients to observe, the food is more than enough, and everyone is so sweet.
I haven´t found wifi yet but I have a couple more places I´m going to search for it! I also know a lady who has a computer in her house and she says I can come use it. Until then I am going to stores where you pay to use a computer, and today I´m going into Temuco to maybe find some wifi. So Skyping may not be possible for the next few weeks....but if anything changes, I´ll let you all know so we chat!
Lots of love from Imperial!
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