I never thought I'd get to this point. I only have 3 weeks left in Chile! I have no homework and no plans, I feel so free! I'm planning on going to yoga and running everyday (I have less than 2 months until the track season starts... SO out of shape), going to concerts, taking some day trips to areas a little outside Santiago, hopefully going to a soccer game, riding the metro and getting off at random stops to wander the city, hanging out with my Chilean friends, and doing as much as I can in the few weeks I have left. Granted, I'm getting off to a GREAT start today... I slept in until 6 pm because of a late-night salsa, merengue, and cumbia dance party. But Monday is a whole new day!
As far as current things that have happened...
I ran a 5k with the Color Run, visited a rural healthcare post outside Santiago and realized how important health is to a community as a whole, finished up all my classes, gone to a few farewell parties, and had some great conversations with my host family (like always) and with Maya and Natalie from my abroad program while we were trying to finish up a final project. I also learned how to dance cumbia! That's one thing I'm really going to miss about Chile: how people actually know how to dance socially instead of just twerking.
In my clinical observation this week, I observed a cardiac bypass surgery. I felt dizzy for the first 3 hours; so I definitely know that it's a trend associated with needles and doctory-things. It was SO intense and SO cool. I saw the actual heart beat, the lungs inflate and deflate with each breath, and the importance of working as a team. Every person in that surgery room had an equally important role; they all moved and conversed like it was a perfectly choreographed dance. My favorite person to watch was the woman in charge of laying out all the instruments and handing them to the surgeons. She knew the surgery so well she could hand them whatever tool they needed before they asked. Every observation I go to I think that it's my favorite. This experience has been incredible.
We had our last meeting with our program on Thursday, November 21st for a Thanksgiving dinner and farewell/cultural re-entry session. We received a pin from the program with the US and Chilean flags crossed, and I hate to admit it, but I almost started bawling right then and there. I realized how not ready I am to go back to the US. I've established a whole new way of life here, lived in a different reality, learned so much, formed a new family, new relationships, and a deep connection with this place. Chile holds many of my "firsts": first airplane ride, first catholic mass, first solo travel adventure and hopefully the first of many more times I learn about a new culture and deepen my understanding of Spanish. How do I just leave all those new experiences behind and go back to the routine of home? It will be an infuriating comfort, I'm sure. People have changed back home, life went on, and it'll be a process to adjust again. I'll have to keep the same open mind I came here with when I go back.
I'm sure the next 20 days will fly by; no matter how hard I try to control the passage of time it will always slip through my fingers like grains of sand. So much to see, feel, touch, taste, hear, remember, and understand. Live it up. :D
See you all in a few weeks,
Athena
PS: Now on to organizing a shopping list for the Thanksgiving dinner I'm going to try to cook. Hopefully I don't set any towels on fire like last week when I tried to help my host mother cook... :)