Chile: The Antic Arrival

It wasn’t until I woke up in my friend Mike’s apartment about twenty stories off the ground in Santiago de Chile, shivering in my sleep that I realized what an adventure I’d experienced the day before.  

“Mike,” I thought, “he’s in Chile. Why is he here?”  It hit me like the café instantáneo I drank that morning, like the chilling air of the Chilean winter, it hit me like the sun rays rushing over los Andes and darting between the skyscrapers of the modern Latin American city, Santiago de Chile. 

                Rewinding one week, I was checking my student email as often as possible, hoping for information on a Chilean host family or an itinerary for getting picked up from the airport and plugged into orientation week at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (PUCV).  A week after the deadline promised by the university, I received an email claiming that the information would arrive at the latest the following week.  However, as I nervously talked with people the night before flying to a country unknown to me I chose to be optimistic instead of assertive and did not make the extra phone call.

                Arriving in Chile with no way to reach the university wasn’t my initial plan.  When no one from the school came to pick me up from the airport I sat down and focused on deep breaths.  Although traveling makes one more flexible as a person, it never hurts to practice controlled breathing.  Being alone at the airport wouldn’t have been so difficult if I 1) had taken pesos chilenos out of the bank, 2) had a cell phone, and 3) could access WiFi without paying for it.  I had never considered sleeping on a suitcase so intensely before.  It could be comfortable, right?  After borrowing two cell phones and trying to sneak Wifi access I was able to reach my friend Mike who is originally from the U.S., but works in Santiago.

Forty minutes later, he showed up at the Aeropuerto de Santiago to take care of both a friend who hadn’t planned ahead well and a study abroad student whose organization had not communicated with him.  

                The next morning on the way to the Valparaíso bus, we walked through the business district of downtown Santiago and it became clear that Santiago de Chile is a much different city than San Rafael, Costa Rica.  I saw people bundled in scarves rushing to catch a subway, their attaché cases bobbing back and forth.  I smelled the famous pollution of Chile’s biggest city, which holds an estimated 40-60% of the nation’s entire population.  I heard a Spanish dialect very different from that of Costa Rica.  It’s true that Chilean Spanish is very mentally stimulating, but also beautiful in my opinion.  It was a whirl of European architecture and New York City pacing, and then I was on a bus with a sign that read “Valparaíso.”

                By 10:30 I hopped off the bus with my luggage and found a bench in the station.  Mike had called a friend of his in who agreed to pick up the gringo stranger.  After finding each other, we walked to the office of international student affairs and did things in person.  Two hours later I was in my casa nueva in Chile.

If it wasn’t for the renowned Chilean hospitality I’m not sure what would’ve happened.  But for now the news is as follows:  I made it to Chile and through orientation week, my broken computer is now fixed (another story altogether), and I’m falling in love with the port city of Valparaíso.  Clearly being in a second transition period is difficult, but “difficult” or “uncomfortable” only becomes a problem when in the wrong mindset.  When one is in the right mindset you never know what aventuras will find you.  That was my first lesson in Chile.

Visas: Entrance and Acceptance

               As some of you read in the first blog, I planned an eleven month trip hoping to study in Chile starting July 21^st.  I felt confident in my chances of receiving a visa estudiantil, but the unease of requesting this student visa while in Costa Rica kept me unsure of months ahead.  

                My heart sank deep into the leather armchair I was seated in as I realized it was the middle of junio and the Chilean consulate was asking me for more paperwork—paperwork I believed was correct, but wasn’t.  I left the impressive consulado chileno in San José, Costa Rica downhearted and feeling defeated by a piece of paper.  However, thanks to helpful program coordinators and fax machines, I’m now pleased to announce that on July 1^st I was handed a student visa for five months in Valparaíso, Chile.

                What cost around $300, nine months, and countless second guesses of my español formal finally ended in the anticipated visa.  This, however, is nothing compared to the seemingly lifetime it takes many prospective United States immigrants to achieve citizenship, if they ever do.  

I think of my own grandparents, refugees I’ve worked with, and immigrant friends and the difficult processes they’ve all endured in order to obtain U.S. citizenship.  In fact, it seems absurd that some U.S. citizens, from a nation whose very life is owed to immigrants, still act as if immigration reform were an itch to deal with when nothing else pressing distracts them.  My small brush with the bureaucratic nature of visas and the many vulnerable conversations I’ve had with friends—some hushed and in Spanish for fear of discriminación—have shown me the importance of reforming immigration in the U.S. both politically and socially.  Along with political action, we as a nation are accountable to the daily struggle of internal reform.  That is, accepting that most of us have immigration in our past and will undoubtedly see its effects in our future.  We are accountable to remember that immigration reform is not a new hot topic in the news, but rather the essence of our national identity.

As I reflect on the visa process and the Fourth of July from outside the U.S., I would like to couple a wish of a happy Independence Day with the challenge of remembering that immigration is the blood running through our veins, keeping our nation alive.  El cuerpo que descuida su propia sangre pronto se muere.  

Thanks for reading; the next post is likely to be from Chile!

-Austin Vander Wel

Ninety Miles Away: Eight days in Havana, Cuba

I look around and see old houses.  Light shades of blues, green, and yellows are all stacked next to each other as if the color of the other only helped to show its uniqueness.  My North American gaze drifts from distinctive archways to Caribbean palms, adding to this urban scene.  A flash of color and a gust of wind awake me from a culture-induced stupor as a baby blue, 1950s Ford taxi zips through the street, temporarily disrupting the street music coming from around the corner.  All this to say, “Bienvenido a La Habana, Cuba.”  

                While stepping off the plane a short drive from Havana, I know immediately that I’ve entered into another world.  The first cubano I meet is a young man approximately my age, dressed in a military uniform, and working the customs section of the airport.  I’m prepared for harsh drilling on the purpose of our trip and have my official university letter of educational purpose on hand to combat any opposition.  What I am not prepared for is the warm smile and excitement of this officer after seeing my U.S. passport—the most pleasant customs officer I’ve ever met.

                The warm welcome into a politically and culturally restricted country catches me by surprise, and the car ride to our hostel only elevates the contradicting thoughts racing through my head.  As we leave the airport I notice a billboard denouncing my country, claiming it’s responsible for the biggest genocide in history, it depicts the island of Cuba with a noose around it.

                After settling into our hostel, we walk to the Malecón, a sidewalk where one can feel the ocean spray when waves crash against a large concrete barrage.  The Cuban experience then grows into an adventure as my friend Andrew and I are approached by a 23-year-old named Fernando.  Telling us how excited he was to meet Americans, he leads us through Havana on what could have easily been a professional tour.  Untrustingly, we follow.  

When we return to the Malecón, finally accepting our guide as trustworthy, our interests are sparked by the way he boisterously speaks of his country, explaining how Cuba has two monetary systems: el peso cubano, used by the citizens of Cuba, and the convertible peso, used by tourists.  He says that the government uses the convertible peso as a way to further the tourism industry, which is largely government owned, separating the people from economic growth.  Worried by stories I’ve heard about the lack of freedom of speech in Cuba, I cautiously approach the topic of politics.  I am the only one afraid of the subject, however, and our new friend burst out into a political testimony in high-speed Spanish of the lack of la democracia and the failure of el socialismo in Cuba.  Three hours later, Andrew and I bid farewell to a friend who was previously a stranger, baffled at our first day in Cuba. 

                Throughout the week, many Cubans speak fearlessly about politics and their government, but strangely I only hear one person speak well of socialism, and even she claims that the current economic system is not functioning well, pointing to the very clear poverty that one can see alongside beautiful people and a beautiful culture.

             

                Cuba, however, is not all politics.  I’m relieved to find small groups of friends singing and playing instruments in the middle of the street, enjoying the company of others freely and rambunctiously.  I’m reminded over and over again by strangers and friends that the Cuban people are not our enemies.  I’m asked on numerous occasions to forward this to my countrymen:  The Cuban people are not at war with the American people, no matter what governments might tell you.  

                We enjoy a variety of events during the trip, such as listening to one of Raúl Castro’s economists, attending a play about Havana, watching a Cuban baseball game, and visiting old Havana and the U.S. Interest Section (the functional equivalent of an embassy) all while flying by the seat of our pants as our bus driver, Miguel, blasts the Christian rap song “"Pao pao pao".

 Unfortunately, halfway through our visit I find myself bed-ridden and without vision, overtaken by a sickness that lasts the remaining three weeks of our spring semester (part of the reason this blog post is so late).  My sick conditions don’t matter to the hostels amazing kitchen staff and a group of Cubans in their twenties take the time to hang out with us and share about their lives.  This exchange of cultura only enriches my sliver of time in Cuba and shatters political boarders of fear and manipulation.

                Feeling the warm Caribbean breeze on my face, I stare out into the sea at the line where the sky kisses the waves.  If I follow that horizon my nation is a mere 90 miles away.  It seems strange to be in a neighboring country (and the closest I would be to the U.S. for another six months), but to have arrived in fear.  This fear was not based in personal experience, but rather passed down to me by society from a Cold War mentality.  These misconceptions painted Cuba as an old bearded man with nuclear tendencies rather than the students, the musicians, and the poets who shape a land I have been trained to ignore when looking at a map of the Americas.  But the truth is that no matter how much we’ve been trained to ignore this island and no matter how much los cubanos read anti-U.S. propaganda and no matter how much fear there is in our shared history, our neighbor to the south must be neither ignored nor feared if we are to learn from the past and continue in a future of reconciliation.  I saw this fear shattered by Cuban love and international friendship.  Although only a taste of something bigger I dream of, it was as sweet as agua de coco, as strong as la poesía of José Martí, and as true as the warm Caribbean breeze.

-Austin Vander Wel