A few days ago, I received a call from my lifting buddy who is studying abroad in Santiago this semester. While our call was brief, I could hear the excitement in her voice about her time there and her anticipation of my arrival, as our programs overlap by about a month. It feels a little strange that I will be arriving at an unfamiliar place while there’s other Notre Dame students already there that have gotten to immerse themselves in the area for so long. I guess it is possible to feel a little FOMO before an experience even begins, but I am ecstatic to go to Santiago in a few short weeks to immerse myself in the culture of the area with other Notre Dame students.
I’m not a stranger to international travel, so I feel quite prepared to be thrown into a foreign country; at least this time, I have a much stronger linguistic background in the primary local language. Nevertheless, I’m still a little worried about language barriers in terms of slang and accents. I’m still horrified when I remember my time in Córdoba – it took me way too long to realize that my host’s repetitive “echá” when he was walking through the apartment simply meant “está” and referred to where everything was. Each region has its own unique linguistic characteristics and I am looking forward to discovering them and becoming comfortable with the regional distinctiveness through conversations with locals. Despite this linguistic shyness, I am excited to learn more about the region’s history, art, cuisine, politics, and healthcare system directly from the people that live there, as this is the best way, and maybe the only true way, of learning about a people and a culture. Interaction with the culture is important because it is a more personal experience than classroom learning and establishes cultural connections that go beyond the intellectual and academic. A classroom may be like a picture that’s worth a thousand words, but an immersive experience like the one I will have in Chile is a video compiled of thousands of still shots, and is worth more than the sum of its parts.