Senior Laura Sullivan shares her study abroad experience in Chile.
Here I am at the Santiago airport, 21 hours into my study abroad. So where is the rest of the group? The eight-hour layover in Miami was nearly unbearable. My friend, Courtney, and I were not just on different flights but on different airlines. I was just being paranoid about my luggage being lost, but I am starting to realize that the language barrier is going to be a big problem. I have no idea what people are saying around me. Worse yet, I have no idea what the signs say.
OK, it has been 30 minutes. The plane that the rest of the group is on should have arrived by now. Where are they? OK, really now … it’s been an hour.
I hate traveling. I know that if you want to go anywhere, you have to deal with it, but still, I really hate traveling. I am such an awkward American right now, standing alone, looking uncomfortable. I am starting to mentally rehearse what I will say to a police officer if I can’t locate the group in another 15 minutes.
Sweet music
Finally, I have arrived in Con-Cón, and my host family is terrific. I have a host brother, Carlos, a host madre, Helga, and a host padre, also named Carlos, who speaks wonderful, wonderful English. It sounds like sweet music to my ears after the constant onslaught of Spanish. I don’t think my host family understands that I have never heard a word of Spanish other than on Dora the Explorer. Really, I took French. I keep telling them this, and it doesn’t seem to register.
I am sharing a room with Courtney, and we just had our first Chilean lunch. It is the main meal of the day here, stocked with beef, chicken, rice, beans and fruit. My host family is soooo nice, but the language barrier has taken a turn for the worse. The padre—the man who speaks wonderful English—does not live with the family.
I feel especially awkward at mealtimes. The conversation is one-sided, and I am self-conscious about my manners and movements. I don’t want to be rude by not eating all the food on my plate, but the lunches are enormous, and they include things like beef tongue!
Hmm … not bad … tastes a bit like pot roast.
The weekends are family days—grandma, older sisters, boyfriends and all the children. It’s really fun. We meet the oldest daughter, Marsella, who speaks fluent English after living and working in the United States for one year. She offers acute and accurate opinions about life in Chile versus life in the United States, noting the low murder and crime rates in Chile. People here are happier, she says, and I agree.
When Marsella leaves, the language barrier returns, but Courtney knows some Spanish, and we communicate by acting things out, which creates more laughter than comprehension. Our host family seems cheerful all the time. They are the happiest people I have ever met, always singing and laughing. It’s impossible to wake up in a bad mood in their home.
I knew nothing about Chile before I came here. It’s such a well-kept secret in the United States. One country, many climates: extremely hot and dry to the north, extremely cold and damp to the south; the Andes Mountains to the east, the Pacific Ocean to the west. It’s really incredible. No wonder they love life so much here.
Laura Sullivan, ’07, (left) and Courtney Kwiatkowski, ’07, leaned on each other for support during their South American adventure.
Survivor Chile
After an orientation session with our program directors, we tour Reñaca, Con-Cón, Viña del Mar and Valparaiso, where I am stunned by the amount of pollution in the air and trash on the ground.
We rename the trip “Survivor Chile.” We don’t eat for extended periods. We go on six-mile walks, eat weird things, jump creeks, meet new people and struggle to stay warm. There are wild, mangy dogs everywhere, and … oh yeah … I don’t speak the language. Did I mention that?
It’s difficult to focus on our environmental economics class. The professor speaks only Spanish, and our interpreter struggles to translate the finer points into simple English. We are missing a lot, and it takes twice as long. The class lasts four hours on four days, but it seems like forever.
Today we visit the Naval Academy for lessons on earthquakes, El Niño and tsunamis, followed by a tour of poet Pablo Neruda’s house in Valparaiso. People here are very friendly. They like to help you and talk to you, smiling in the streets and always saying hello. They are warm and welcoming, yet proud and dignified.
OK … so maybe all Chileans aren’t warm and welcoming. I flash back to the sixth grade as a group of Chilean students point at us and laugh in the cafeteria. We attract attention because we are blonde, red-headed and pale-skinned, but we aren’t that strange. Are we?
No importa. We meet some fun Americans studying in Chile, who take us to a place called El Huevo, literally “the egg,” which sizzles with nonstop dancing and entertainment. The club features American music, Latin pop and salsa dancing on each of four floors, including the roof deck. Courtney and I dance the night away with our new friends, and I can’t get those catchy Latin reggatone beats out of my head.
Time for a nature break, an 18-kilometer trek to the bottom of a glacier in the Andes Mountains, and I am sore. I am also bathing in hot springs with towering snow-capped mountains behind me. The weird, greenish-white water flows directly from the earth and cascades into four pools. I feel a bit like Goldilocks: The top pool is way too hot, the next pool is a little too hot, and the third pool is just right. I hope there are no bears around here.
We are staying in the last possible piece of civilization in the area, unheated cabins one hour off paved roads. The hike was strenuous, and the massive glacier, covered in dirt, blended in with the ground and tasted delicious.
Back in civilization, we buy tacky souvenirs and gifts at the artisans’ stands along the beach in Viña del Mar. Our Richmond group gathers at our favorite bar Café Journal, to celebrate my 21st birthday, and we go dancing in a place called Scratch. Chileans dance with very little contact between partners, which seems strange because otherwise they are so into public displays of affection. There’s even a Spanish verb that means “to kiss in public.”
Hey! My Spanish comprehension is getting better.
Tierra del Fuego or bust
Dr. Mike Harrison, assistant professor of geography and environmental studies, took a group of students to Chile last summer for five weeks of study, including two weeks on Easter Island.
In addition to Laura Sullivan, the group included junior Judie Block, sophomore Colleen Farrell, senior Courtney Kwiatkowski, junior Melissa Mullaney, sophomore Dan Muller, junior Greg Wadsworth and recent graduate Chris Wootten. Also, Dr. David Kitchen, a geologist in the School of Continuing Studies, spent 10 days with the group.
In addition to formal and informal instruction, the students produced research papers on topics ranging from health care and conservation to economic development and solid waste disposal.
Richmond is the first American university to offer a study abroad experience on Easter Island. Harrison plans to expand the program next year to include more students and additional travel. He wants to add a week or more in Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost tip of South America.
Easter Island
Arriving on Easter Island, 2,000 miles off the coast of mainland Chile, we encounter the incredible heads, volcanoes, craters and rainbows. Already I am in awe of the stone figures, the landscape and the culture. Courtney and I again share a room in Chez Maria Goretti, a primitive hotel.
We are now being taught by Jose Miguel Ramirez, a famous archaeologist and an expert on Easter Island and the Rapa Nui civilization. Courtney and I agree that he has the kindest eyes we’ve ever seen. He seems like a typical Chilean: mild-mannered, calm, and very loving in everything that he does. He takes us to numerous ahu, the ceremonial platforms and crematoriums upon which the moai (stone heads) stand. Some of the ahu have been restored and rebuilt, and we meet the Rapa Nui stone master. We even see some human bones beneath the ahu. The quarry, a large volcano and crater, contains hundreds of half-completed heads, but unless these heads have eye sockets or a designated spirit, they aren’t considered true moai. Island dancing at the Rapa Nui Ballet is the most fun I have had on the island. The boys wear hula skirts, and the girls shake it better than Shakira. Some of the female dancers invite Chris and Dan, boys in our group, to dance with them. This is pretty much the funniest thing I have seen in ages. Courtney and I laugh until our stomachs ache, and then we laugh some more.
This place is spectacular. On the surface, it’s just another subtropical paradise, but the undercurrent of mystery is spellbinding, and the dominating presence of the heads is almost disturbing. I want to scream at them, “Why! Why are you here? Why did they make you?” I understand the idea of memorializing the dead, but the fact that their entire society was based on the production and mobilization of these statues is mind-boggling. We are lucky to be here before more tourists discover Easter Island. We can explore the quarry, the volcanoes and the caves. We can touch the moai. It’s living, breathing archaeology overflowing with legends and mysteries.
We ride horses to the highest point on the island. My horse is lovely, but she runs too often and never on command. Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Someday I will be able to walk again. At the top of the volcano, we can see the entire triangle of the island, surrounded by the bluest ocean water I have ever seen. The Rapa Nui people could stand here and see literally their entire universe—amazing.
Today we meet the mayor, who answers many of our questions about current issues on the island. My research project centers on health care here, but inadequate medical facilities are just one challenge. The island’s 4,000 or so people are wrestling with other serious issues, such as power generation, waste disposal and economic development. The economy is based on tourism, but the islanders don’t want this industry to expand.
More mystery
I am on Anakena beach, but it’s so windy that our towels are covered with sand after only five minutes. There isn’t much left to do on the island, and I’m getting a little bored. It’s almost time to go home, and there are no more mysteries to ponder.
Or are there?
Just when we think we have learned everything, we meet Terry Hunt, a scientist who claims that his carbon-dating breakthroughs prove that the traditional history of Easter Island is completely wrong.
The island was colonized in 1200 not 600, he says. Contradicting everything Jose Miguel taught us during our first 10 days on the island, Hunt claims the island’s trees were not killed by people making the statues. Instead, the Rapa Nui inadvertently brought rats to the island from Polynesia, and the rats reproduced so quickly that they ate all the seeds of the trees. By preventing the reproduction of the trees, the rats stopped the Rapa Nui from building their moai (the trees were essential to move the moai from the quarry to their ahu destinations). They also took away the raw material for making shelters, boats and other necessities.
So maybe I learned less than I thought on Easter Island. Or maybe I learned more. Maybe next time I won’t be so quick to believe everything my teachers say. Even so, my love for other cultures only grows as I become more aware of how big the world is. Western civilization is not just Europe and the United States. There is a huge continent down here bursting with potential. I want to come back. I already miss it, and I haven’t even left yet.
Laura Sullivan is a senior majoring in biology with a minor in French (not Spanish). To learn more about her experiences in Chile, visit www.experience.richmond.edu/easterisland.
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