What to (not) say to a person experiencing grief

Our society likes to have things ordered, packaged, and controlled. This bleeds into our understanding and analysis of the grieving process. Most people are probably familiar with the “5 stages of grief” model (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance) and think that people pass through these stages like clockwork within a year-long time frame. Only during this period does the grieving person have permission to feel the loss. After a year, the person has a societal obligation to return to the normal, compartmentalized life of a non-grieving person. From my experience, I have never denied the loss of my mother, nor have I tried to “bargain” her way back into my life. And I certainly never felt anger about it until a few months ago, way after the immediate acceptance and depression I experienced after the loss that happened four years ago. I think it’s safe to say that most people who have experienced a deeply personal loss would agree that trying to process their grief through a 5-stage process is, for lack of a better word, crap.

Grieving is a lifelong journey that affects people in different ways and appears during different stages of life. Every person's context and situation surrounding the loss of their loved one is completely unique. We should never generalize, summarize, stereotype, or otherwise reduce someone's experience to a 5-step process. At the same time, it is important to recognize that people DO grieve in this pattern. Some people may not even feel any of the stages, and may not grieve in any sense that we understand. The point I’m trying to make is that ALL types of grieving are real and legitimate reactions to a traumatic event.

Unfortunately, because our culture fears death and prefers to avoid confronting the deep, ugly, raw emotions of complete defeat, hopelessness, fear, loneliness, and chaos that come from experiencing the death of a loved one, this 5-step process emerged as a way of managing the discomfort of confronting those emotions. As a result, many people who have not directly experienced this type of pain are, forgive me, a bit clueless when it comes to knowing how to comfort and support those who want it.

       When the time comes for you to support a loved one, friend, etc., below are some suggestions for what to avoid and ideas for what you could say instead. These examples are often the "go-to” phrases that most people use in a conversation about a lost loved one. While they come from a good place, I don’t believe they are the most effective ways of offering support. Sometimes they can even do more harm than good. Please take these ideas with a grain of salt. No one is the same: people respond in different ways to diverse approaches of support. These “tips” stem from my experience. As you read along, I hope you understand why the alternative options may be better. Maybe you can use them the next time you need to offer support.

Don't say...

"You are so strong."

        This is probably the most common phrase I heard come out of people's mouths, especially when I was crying uncontrollably. When a person is feeling so weak, defeated, and helpless that they are crying in front of another, probably the last thing they want to hear is a reminder of what they have to do every single day. For me, I feel like I have to be strong all the time, everyday. Frankly, it's a relief when I can breakdown and cry and ignore the constant expectation to be strong so that other people don’t have to deal with confronting the reality of grief and sadness. Telling someone they are strong when clearly in that moment they are not, can be annoying, and worse, damaging. If someone is being fed the message that they are not allowed to be weak, it pushes vulnerability aside, which then results in pushing emotions aside and thinking that their friends don't want to see them in any state but the "strong" one. It is okay for people to cry and show emotion. Strength is one of many traits people may gain from experiencing loss.

Instead, say...

"When [X] happened, how did you feel?"

This allows the person to explain their feelings instead of you telling them what it is they should feel. The best thing you can do is try to help the other person articulate the feelings they have. A lot of times, there simply are no words to describe the emotions! Sometimes they just need to feel them and the only way to express them is through crying, laughter, silence, or anger (but never let a grieving person take their anger out on you). Give the other person a chance to articulate their own experience for themselves. It is difficult! Be there and listen actively.

Don't say...

"God/Life has a reason for everything."

"God never gives you more than you can handle."

At the risk of being controversial, I’m putting this out there. These two spiritual phrases can be iffy for 3 reasons: 1) Are you God? Do you have such a connection with the almighty, omniscient being that you can actually tell normal people what God actually thinks and why God acts? I didn't think so! So please stop acting as if you know what God is doing. (Sorry not sorry if that offends) 2) If someone has a strong sense of faith or spirituality, the repetitive use of the first phrase may start to make the grieving person think that God did this to them on purpose as a punishment. I shouldn't have to go in depth as to why this is a toxic way of thinking. 3) The 2nd phrase has similar effects to the "You are so strong" phrase. If God gave you what you can handle, why are you feeling this way? People need to feel pain and hit rock bottom. It has nothing to do with their character or the strength of their faith. Feelings are a gift from God (or biology, however you want to think about it) whether we like it or not, and it’s important to validate them as real and legitimate.

Instead, say...

"Does going to church/prayer help you?"

"Do you want me to come with you to church/a concert/the park?"

"Would you like to do [activity]?"

Ask them what specific things help. If they do not know what helps, which may well be the case, be the person who is willing to try things out with them and if they feel the need to leave, leave with them. Asking for what specific things you can do to help, and not dismissing their feelings to God, is a concrete and tangible way a grieving person can feel comforted and supported.

Don't say...

"I remember when my [dog/fish/3rd-cousin-twice-removed] died. It was awful."

This phrase is probably meant to connect your experience with theirs and comfort them, knowing that they are not the only ones who have felt loss. I'm sorry, I know losing pets and distant relatives is awful, and even losing parents in their 90's is awful. But it simply is not the same as losing a parent or a sibling or a child when they are young or middle aged. Every grief is different. This phrase merely turns the focus of the conversation from the grieving person to you. This sometimes prompts the other person to comfort YOU instead, when in this moment it clearly should be the other way around.

However!! If you have lived through a similar situation, someone's dad died at 15 and your dad died when you were around the same age, it can be an IMMENSE comfort knowing someone has gone through a similar situation. It just takes some tact to know when to tell them, so that again they don't feel the need to comfort you.

Instead, say...

"I don't know how you feel, but I want to try to understand and be there for you."

It’s perfectly okay to admit your own ignorance. It shows the person that you are humble. The second part, “I want to try to understand and be there for you”, again places the focus back on the person you are comforting and gives them the chance to tell you how they feel and what they might need. It lets them know you are truly invested in helping them throughout the journey in the months and years to come.

Don't say...

"I'm sure they're watching over you right now."

"They're always with you."

This one may seem surprising. This phrase does absolutely nothing for me. The usual response I want to say is "Yeah, she's always with me even when I shower and pee and spend time with my friends getting drunk at a bar," but I hold my tongue so I don't sound sarcastic and dismissive of their attempt to comfort me. The whole point of grieving and feeling loss is processing the fact that the lost loved one IS NOT THERE. They are NOT HERE. Any attempt to lessen that fact of the matter is, to me, dismissive to the immense feeling of loss that the grieving person is feeling.

Instead, say...

"I always remember your [lost loved one] when I [insert activity or memory here]."

This phrase is immensely comforting. It reminds the grieving person that other people do still think about the lost loved one and that the memory of the lost person won't fade out instantly. One of the only ways dead people exist in life is through memories, and that is one of the hardest thing to come to terms with. Having an idea about how others remember the lost person allows the grieving person to remember them in more ways than their own, often complex, memories. Never try to tell the grieving person how they should remember their lost loved one. This brings me to the…dun dun dun…worst thing you could say:

Please never say this...

"You should start seeing the positive of this situation."

This is completely, utterly, and frankly rude. This may seem like you are trying to tell the grieving person that you have their best interests at heart and hate to see them in pain, but it does nothing of the sort. It completely dismisses their pain and signals to the grieving person that they should never feel pain associated with grieving from here on out. It also reveals that you really do not care about the person's feelings and that you do not want to be around them when they are not happy and positive. If you do not want to "deal with" a grieving person, this is a tactless and insensitive phrase to use to signal to them that you don't care.

Instead, say...

Nothing.

If you cannot promise to the person that you can be there for them, don't! People grieving need to know who they can count on. If you know that you do not want to support this person, then don't give false hope and tell them you will. If you still want to be a good person, refer them to people who know them better. It's not a bad thing to admit that you don't feel equipped to help, just like it’s perfectly okay to admit your own ignorance. Humility is a good thing.

Three more things I want to say:

My blog post is not the only article about ways to help a grieving person. Do your research online. If you know the person really well, you should be a bit familiar with what could work and what wouldn't work.

To the grieving person: don’t be afraid to let your close friends know what does and doesn’t work for you! It’s really hard to ask for specifically what you need. It’s tempting to accept any and all help, even if it’s not the help you need. Instead, think about ways you can let others know what you need to hear and feel from your friends.

Finally, please remember that not everyone is the same, and therefore everyone’s grieving journeys will differ. Empathy, time, and patience are what you truly need.

Living Museums

          Oftentimes we learn about horrifying things that happen in the world, go to a museum or monument to learn about it, try to make it more accessible to our personal lives, and maybe gain a shred of sympathy. We return to our comfortable lives and maintain a separation: a mentality that whatever story being told "belongs" in a museum and doesn't exist in the real world. But the stories of Chile are not locked in a museum, they live and breathe in the streets everyday.
          I had the opportunity to talk with some individuals about their experiences before, during, and after the dictatorship in Chile. Here are two anecdotes I remember clearly:
           Someone who was a child during during the dictatorship lived in a house with pillars in front of it. The military would use them for cover if there was gunfire in the streets. Her mother would put her in the bathtub to ensure that no stray bullets would hit her through the walls. It sounded like this happened on more than one occasion.
          I spoke with someone else, an adult during the dictatorship, who told me that she was making her way home from a party with a friend. They were in the street after the toque de queda (curfew), and they ran into a truck full of the military. They were stopped, and she was accompanied home by a soldier. She never saw her friend again and, to this day, has no idea what happened to him.
          The conversations were never planned, the stories would rise up in conversation and drift away as the topic was changed. I have no way of empathizing or relating to what they were saying; I had no idea how to respond, if I even should respond, and I would wonder how many more stories are told everyday or waiting to be discovered. I think the best thing to do with situations you can't understand is just listen and try in whatever way to place yourself in their shoes, in their life, in that moment.
          Parents of children who lived this reality desperately want a better future for their children, and want to ensure that their lives are easier than their own. I noticed that in the classroom, students were extremely insecure and did not trust their own decisions. I talked with the teacher I helped about this, wondering if there was more to this issue than what I saw on the surface (lack of motivation to learn English). She responded immediately that a lot of it has to do with the way parents are raising their children in the aftermath of their experiences living through the dictatorship. They want their children to have easier lives, and ensure they never have to live anything close to what they experienced. In my school, one way this appeared was through ensuring their children had an "easy" time through high school. It's not my place to answer these questions (is it even my place to ask them in this context?): to what extent can you shelter your children from the world? Do children learn best from their own experiences, or from stories told? How can we ensure that our children live comfortable lives, but maintain work ethic, empathy, and the desire to help others?
          In my place in life, I'm just starting to consider these questions, and maybe I'll have a tiny answer in 10 or so years. Until then, I can only ponder...

A few of my students!

Sprawling City, Limited Connection

          It's hard to talk to a Chilean on the street, especially in Santiago. The teacher I was assisting said that this is because Chileans like having a low-profile, since they are naturally isolated from the rest of the world with mountains and ocean. It's comfortable to be used to your own people and not open up to strangers easily, and being in a huge city makes it that much easier: you can be anonymous. That anonymity puts up a wall and makes it harder to see those walking down the street as people just like yourself, wandering around wondering what to do with their lives.
          This is mainly why I became much more critical of Santiago during my second round in Chile. It also may have been because I was there during the winter, when the skies are a constant, suffocating, polluted gray. That environment would make anyone exhausted. Whenever I would get on the metro, I would mostly see detached, angry faces avoiding eye contact. I learned that few people are here because they actually love the city. Santiago is where all the opportunities are: the jobs with money, the best universities, and semi-accessible quality healthcare. I've never heard of a country that is so centralized: all of the government and institutions that offer a shred of social mobility are trapped in one place. For example, university students hoping to move upward in social class are often those who already have the means to do so; travel expenses, living expenses, and tuition at the highest quality universities make it nearly impossible for the lower class to get an elite education. So Santiago is the most attractive for those looking to move up but repellent to those who have been there for a long time, and it creates a weird dynamic that I couldn't wrap my head around in the limited time I was living as a semi-real person this time around. There's always more to learn, and it makes me sad I wasn't there longer to understand this dynamic better.
          One thing I learned about myself: I love to strike up conversations with strangers in line, smile and make eye contact with people I walk by, and laugh on the street for no reason. That, to me, is home and how I truly want to live.

Santiago as viewed from the Saltos de Apoquindo trail

Family and Independence

          When people think about Latin American culture, three things tend to dominate people's perception of the place:  "they dance salsa, eat spicy food, and think family is important." I was guilty of thinking that stereotype was true myself several years ago as well (you know what I'm gonna say... you can't really know something until you experience it blah blah blah). Here's my contribution to the efforts to mythbust some stereotypes and contribute my own perspective:

• Myth #1: "They dance salsa!" There are several more Latin American music beats/dances than salsa (merengue, reggaeton, cumbia, cueca...) and not everyone goes salsa dancing on Tuesdays at Famous Dave's. Although I would say that it is true that most Latin Americans dance better than most people from the US. Grinding and twerking are stupid.
• Myth #2: "They eat spicy food!" Mexican food is spicy. Mexico is not the entirety of Latin America. Mexico borders the US... but there are dozens of very different countries south of their border! Traditional Chilean food is the least spiciest food ever (it's great for this midwesterner!) and from what I ate in Bolivia, their food doesn't seem spicy either.
• Myth #3: "Family is important!" This one is a lot more complicated to explain. It's true! But the phrasing leaves much to be desired. "Family is important." But what does that mean? Does that mean that in the US we don't care about our families? I know that's complete b.s. Most don't understand why, and on what basis, we make that claim.

          I feel like this time around I'm gaining a better understanding of what the whole "family is important" idea consists of. The teacher I assist helped me understand that in a nutshell, it's much more advantageous to spend more time with your family because you receive support from those who really love you, and equally as important, those who really know you. Your siblings and parents are the longest friends you'll ever have, so why not reap all the benefits for as long as possible? This is in stark contrast with the US; where we're taught to prize independence above all else and that if you work hard as an individual you can get what you want (American dream, anyone?)

          The balance between family and independence is one that I've never really considered before. I always knew one system, and didn't understand the other until I really lived it. There's good and bad in each extreme, the Latin American family and the US independence.  Each way of life has its advantages and consequences, which I'll try to hash out in terms of observations I've had in Chile with my students, friends and myself.
          Chileans understand that you can't go it alone, and need to depend on others for support and guidance. "Chile solidario" is a phrase Chileans like to use to describe their country, and although sometimes I disagree with that statement (no one talks to strangers or smiles at each other on the street... maybe that's just my definition of solidarity), it is clear that familiar ties help form a strong, interconnected people. This is one advantage I see in the family system: maintaining close ties and acting on them helps people to know they are never alone and can trust others. It allows people to feel vulnerable because they know they have a support system to fall back on. In the US, on the other hand, people are very individualistic and feel like they only need to depend on themselves. Instead of feeling really connected with each other, we're very competitive and don't appreciate the need for a familiar system as much as in other places. As a result, we often feel lonely, reject help, and don't allow ourselves to open up to others in a way that's more rewarding than just seeing how they can help us along our selfish paths.
          While the familiar system helps people trust and open up, it also creates (from my perspective) an undesirable influence on the development of youth. It's one thing to depend on others for help when you need it, but it becomes a problem when you depend on others so much that you can't trust yourself. And this isn't just a critique on Latin American culture, it's a comment for anyone involved in helping kids realize their abilities. My students are incredibly insecure and constantly ask me if they're doing it right and rarely assertively make their own decisions. Parents desperately want to keep their children safe and create an easier life for them, and it's easy in the bubble of the family unit. But it's incredibly important that children learn to depend on themselves, trust themselves, know their limits, and most importantly recognize their own potential. If they are taught that life is more difficult when they go it alone, it's almost like teaching them to be scared of their own potential. That won't help change anything for the future. But this is all coming from the perspective of la gringa, which might have no place in this conversation or context.
          Time to cue the cheesy quotes! :) These two stood out to me when I was growing up, and have since returned to the front of my mind while writing this post.

"Don't ask what the world needs; ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what this world needs is more people who have come alive." -Howard Thurman

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." -Marianne Williamson (You can ignore the religious-ness of this quote and it's still pretty darn cool)

It's important to keep a healthy balance between independence and family ties. In the end, family is the largest and longest collection of weirdos you get to spend your life with!

How to Turn Culture Shock into a Learning Experience

          They always say that no amount of reading, discussion, and listening to other’s experiences can truly prepare you for an intercultural experience. Actually, I’m starting to think the opposite. Yes, it’s impossible to equate a story you hear to a story you can tell, but there is something to be said about preparing and educating yourself about intercultural dialogue before it actually happens. Preparing yourself for miscommunications and misunderstandings are essential to an experience abroad: otherwise, you would continually walk away from uncomfortable situations without any idea about what was going on, why people felt that way, and why you felt uncomfortable. You would have no idea how to turn that culture-shock moment into a real learning experience.

My personal guide to processing culture exchange, with an example of what happened in class one day:

1. Identify what factually happened. At the end of a discussion about civil rights and racism in the US, and student asked about the n-word.
2. Turn the fact into a story to identify what about it made you feel weird. My most recent learning experience (of many more subtle and significant ones this time around in Santiago) happened on Wednesday in the 1a media class when they had a reading about Rosa Parks. It was a great class! The students seemed interested and for the first time they were directly asking me questions and I could see their curiosity. Near the end of class, one student raised their hand and asked nonchalantly “So, is n***** considered an insult or something?”. Half the class didn’t hear what was said, and when I wouldn’t repeat the word for them, they started chanting and shouting “say it, say it, say it!”. I was completely caught off guard, but fortunately I had the situation under control: I firmly established I wouldn’t say the word, and subsequently explained how it carries the weight of hundreds of years of horrifying repression and history.
3. Third, consider that story from every possible perspective and ask questions. On the walk home from school and for hours after, I was turning this event over and over in my head, asking questions, replaying it from various perspectives, considering details, big picture, etc. What can I take away from this? Does this reveal anything about myself? About Chile? About the way foreigners view the US? Did I learn any new skills? Did the students learn anything? Did I represent myself the way I would want? How can I use this experience to help me in the future?
4. Answer those questions. This step takes much longer and I still haven't gotten around to thinking, discussing, and writing down my tentative answers.
5. Return to the story a few months later and see how your interpretation of it has changed.

          Unsurprisingly, coming from someone who considers education to be one of the most fundamental learning tools, these real-life strategies are taken directly from the theory taught in school. Critically looking at an event or object in a text for its symbolic significance, logically working through a math problem, analyzing the results of an experiment and coming up with every possible explanation, explaining people's motivations for acting in historic events, and breaking apart people's arguments in writing. All those strategies from different classes are applied in the real world at some point or another.
          So, reading and discussing and listening DO help you prepare for an intercultural experience. It's classroom practice where you can make mistakes and learn in a safe environment. Taking different subjects in school isn't just about learning the facts that exist in that subject area. It's learning the strategies involved in creating math, history, literature, philosophy, etc. that you learn to apply in real life.
          In my mind, preparing yourself for an intercultural experience means understanding how to ask questions based on strategies you learned in the classroom. Cultural miscommunications and misunderstandings are real and tangible, but you can soften the blow with some preparation and self-forgiveness.

Learning about learning... the beginning!

          Now that I have a clearer idea of what’s expected of me and what kind of students and teachers I’ll be working with, I’ve started to form a routine and the logistical learning curve is starting to come to an end, and the real learning can start!

Here's a typical day:
6am: wake up
645: leave my house
745/8: Enter the school! It's several buildings in one general area: the enseñanza básica (elementary school, grades 1-8) are split in two different buildings, 1-4 básica and 5-8 básica. The 1-4 media (9th-12th grade) are in another building across the street. Sometimes when I come in later around 9:30 I ring the doorbell so someone can let me in the gates.

The enseñanza básica building, 1-8th grade.

The front of the building that houses the "enseñanza media", or high school.

8-9:30: 10th grade english! each grade is split into two classes, each with about 35 students. That's a big number for any class, especially in a class where the students should be doing lots of discussion to learn a new language.
9:30-9:45: Break. The students will plug in their ipods or phones to the speakers some of the classrooms have, and reggaeton or US pop music will fill the classrooms and spill outside. Some students bring in cakes, panqueques (basically crepes, rolled around manjar), or other food to sell so they can raise money to travel as a class at the end of the school year. The teachers (myself included, haha!) go to the teacher's break room and talk over a cup of tea.
9:45-11:15: 9th grade English! It usually takes about a half hour to get the students settled: the teacher will check homework for "décimas" (decimals, points they can add to their test grades), take attendance and fill in the summary of material to be covered that day in big brown books that the government will review, and try to get the students to pay attention. So, the students really only get about an hour of teaching for what's supposed to be an hour and a half.
11:15-11:30: Another break! The students hang out and teachers converse. It's fascinating to listen to their conversations, they know who's dating who, who does their homework everyday, etc. It's weird thinking about what my teachers may have been saying about my classmates when we're not around. Teachers notice way more than I ever thought they did. :)
11:30-1: The other 10th grade English class. I really need to work on memorizing names!
1-2: Lunch! They get a whole hour for lunch here. I remember getting 20 minutes in high school!

          Sometimes a big chunk of students don't come to class. If it's raining really hard often students will stay home because their parents are worried they'll get sick. A few days ago, there was a student march against the "ley tributaria", (from what I gathered: a reform that will increase taxes on the rich to help finance education reform, which won't work because the rich avoid paying full taxes. The students want the government to be in charge of education to eliminate profit) and 2/3 of all the students were gone! I found it hilarious, because something like that would NEVER happen in the US. I've personally never heard of students skipping school to go to a protest about the education system (or any protest for that matter). In 2011, the school was shut down for about 5 months because of the "toma": students took over the school and demanded better education and classrooms.

The mural that commemorates the Toma.
"It will be the people who create a very different Chile. Toma 2011: restoration in April 2013." 

          I recognized that I was coming into this experience with virtually ZERO teaching or classroom experience, and I knew that my inexperience was going to be magnified by the fact that it’s a different education system, country, and language. Fortunately, I’m not actually teaching! I’m just learning from an experienced teacher and stepping in when she asks. I’ve learned a lot during these first two weeks, mainly about all the ways it's impossible to teach a group of 35 students English for an hour and a half. I've had many really cool conversations with the teacher I'm assisting about how integrated teaching is: you have to account for the student's family life, health, habits, and mentalities. Educating young people is SO complex and difficult, but I think it will be one of the most satisfying challenges I undertake in the future!

There and back again... a "teacher's" tale by "Atina" Carlson

Sorry-not-sorry for The Hobbit reference in the title.
Also, "Th" doesn't exist in Spanish. So my people kind of call me "atina." Which apparently sounds like the verb "atinar", which I couldn't really gather the meaning for... cue the communication mishaps. :)
          I'm writing from my room in CHILE!! Ever since coming back in mid-December from study abroad last year, I was considering coming back to Santiago sometime within the next year to visit my host family and immerse myself in the Spanish language and Latin American culture again. Typical post-study-abroad-high-longing-to-go-back type of thing. I didn't really actively think about going back until the beginning of March, when I started tentatively sending emails to Grinnell alumni in Chile and the rest of Latin America, seeing if there were any schools open to having a gringa (person from the US) with very little education experience be an intern at their school. My hopes were pretty low, and I didn't expect much to actually happen. But IT HAPPENED!! When I got the email that my internship got funding, I was in shock and couldn't believe my plan was actually going to pull through. I jumped up an down, skipped around my building, and smiled like a crazy person the rest of the day. :D teehee
          So, I'm back in Santiago, Chile for my next great adventure: being an assistant English teacher at the Colegio Raimapu in La Florida, Santiago, Chile. I'll be helping out in a classroom for high schoolers (9-12 grade US, 1-4 media in Chilean terms). I visited the school for the first time today, got a tour, met a few teachers (and of course I don't remember any of their names... I need to work on that...), and observed and helped out a tiny bit in an English class. I had some cool conversations about the school's founding (a few parents banded together during the dictatorship), some of the struggles of educating young people in Chile, and maintaining a school. I still have no idea what to expect: I have a little experience working with high schoolers through camps, and I have a tiny bit of tutoring experience with the Spanish Lab... but I have NO idea how this is actually going to play out. And I am perfectly okay with that!
          So I'm sure you're all thinking... what happened to brain-obsessed-pre-med Athena? I realized that I was extremely tentative of that plan from the beginning, and after the clinical observations, I realized that being a doctor or surgeon or researcher for the nervous system really wouldn't make me happy. Originally I wanted to pursue that as a way of remembering my mother because of her quadriplegia, but that's not the aspect of my mother I would want to highlight every single day in my work. She was passionate about exposing her kids to all different kinds of things and ensuring that we learned as much as we could about anything at all. Education has done amazing things in my life, and I owe of lot of my own "success" to the teachers and people I met through school. So, education might be what I do with the rest of my life. We'll see how this summer goes. :)
          I have mandatory blogging to do for the funding requirements, so there might some of those posts up here as well as my pensieve-like musings.
Thanks for reading, and thank a teacher today!
Athena

2 years later

          Two years have passed since my mother passed away from a spinal cord injury received in 2004. I won’t extrapolate on the pointlessness I feel of marking time; my brother Justin did that beautifully when he wrote a year after the day. And I won't go on and on about how much I love her and miss her and appreciate all she's done. That's just a given. Grief is an extremely personal journey, and I'm choosing to share part of that experience today:

          People often mark the day a parent or loved one died as the monumental life-changing moment: the gateway between one world where that person exists and the other where they don’t. I don't mark Thursday, February 2^nd, 2012 at 6:25 am as the monumental moment that changed my life. Yes, many things were different after that day. I cried a lot, couldn’t sleep very much, grades went down, I kept to my room like a hermit, and came home a few months later to the wheelchair sitting eerily empty in the middle of the living room. But some things were the same: I returned to track practice 4 days after she died, and to classes and work a week after that. I did homework, partied, did track, competed in meets, did laundry, showered, ate, and laughed like any other student at Grinnell College. I was put together to get good grades and be kind. I did all that before my mother died. Why make my mother dying change the way I lived my life for the previous 19 years? It worked for me: externally I got good grades, got into Grinnell, improved at track, and made new friends.
          But internally it clearly wasn't working. I felt completely shoved to the ground and unable to think clearly. I couldn't concentrate, it hurt to cry, I couldn't relate to people or empathize. I said some very hurtful and horrid things to myself and just ended up damaging the person my mom tried her best to raise whole.

          2^nd year in fall 2012 was different. I started talking. I started to unload everything I never talked about before onto my best friends and roommates. In December 2012, they helped me admit to myself that something was wrong in my life that needed to be processed. The system I previously held myself to wasn’t working anymore. But a body in motion stays in motion until some external forces come in and bang it around, jumble its system, and poke around at the bruises.

          So, in December 2012, I started the reconstructive processes of forgiveness, self-realization, and understanding with a counselor. By April 2013, I finally understood that I was allowed to cry without feeling weak, scream without being scared, and ask for help without feeling guilt or shame. Since then, I've put those concepts into practice and they are continually reinforcing themselves: my summer, study abroad, and start of 2014 have been truly enriching and full of life.

          I’m sure by now you’re bored of me talking about myself. I guess what I’m trying to tease out here is that my life didn’t change until I had the opportunity to change myself. Now I look back on February 2^nd, 2012 as the day that dumped all the words at my feet, December 2012 as the time I admitted they were there, and April 2013 as the time I finally decided that pouring them out to those I trust is ok. Since that day, I changed my mentality, my focus, my perceptions, my world view, my actions and reactions. These may be internal processes that don’t necessarily show themselves, but the way I feel is 180 degrees from where I was before. I still miss my mom so much it aches, but the anger and trauma and self-destructive hate are pretty much gone. I feel empowered: knowing that no matter what I’ve lived, I finally have the ability to choose how it shapes my experience. I’ve lived pain, but I experience relief.  I’ve lived loss, but I experience gains.
          I abandoned pre-med, a plan that wasn't making me happy, and am now pursuing education. I've never felt more motivated to help other people have choice and access when it comes to their future. I can empathize and smile and talk with people and learn from them in a way I never have before. I have so much energy and mental capacity to devote to work, people, track, school, and myself.
          Be open to processing everything that happens, be willing to accept events as facts but not as conditions, and grab the opportunities that alter your being. Once you recognize that facts are things that don't control you, you've created your own opportunity to change your experience. It's beyond challenging and difficult, but it's the best thing that can happen. Think about it: you have the ability to shape your own experiences! Learn, love, free yourself, be dynamic, do whatever makes you happy.
Paz, bendiciones, abrazos,
Athena
PS: Call your mother. :)

In her smile here I see the drive to always learn and experience the things right in front of us.
Love you and miss you always, Mommy.

Second impressions: 3 things I can't stand

While being home is great so far, there are things that linger in the background and news stories that remind me of some of the ridiculous and frustrating aspects of my home.

1.) Cub Foods. The local grocery store a few blocks from my house was a bit of a shocker. WHY does it need an entire aisle dedicated to showcasing the 50+ brands of breakfast cereal, each with its own selection of flavors? All except a small minority are dedicated to arranging simple sugar molecules in different colors and shapes. After that, all I wanted to do was buy some crackers so I could put manjar on them. What I found was another aisle dedicated to round, rectangle, square, rippled, woven, white, wheat, wheat berry, multigrain, ground flour, seedy-flour, sugar, no sugar, salt, no salt, fat, low fat, size-specifically-for-a-block-of-cheese and technologically-engineered-to-not-crumble-in-the-bag crackers. Okay, maybe not the last two. Am I being unappreciative of the option to choose the exact cracker that meets my specific needs? I feel like there are more important jobs that need to be done than engineering the perfect cracker...

2.) Gun control. In Uruguay, the president came up with a program to exchange guns in people's homes for bicycles. In Chile, you have to go through an intense series of background checks to get a gun. In the US? We let school shootings happen almost a year after the Sandy Hook massacre because some people thing it's their "right" to own a gun, preventing necessary legislation from passing that could help reduce violence for the rest of US citizens.
Here's the exact text of the bill of rights amendment:
"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
Yes, it may be your right to own a gun if you choose to interpret these words as: the people have the right to "bear" (should that REALLY mean own?) arms for whatever reason you want.
In my opinion, people have the right to bear and use arms if their government is attacking them and controlling them like a dictatorship would, so they can defend themselves. Do we have that situation right now in the US? Absolutely not.
In general, the people  who are adamant about implementing drug tests for welfare qualifications (In MN, it hasn't been very successful) and voter ID laws to prevent people from abusing these systems are the same people preventing gun control legislation from passing. Why are you against abusing one system, but totally fine with letting people abuse another system that undoubtedly causes much more damage?

3.) Drunk driving. In Chile, there's a zero tolerance policy for drunk driving. It seems to be very effective; my Spanish teacher in Chile said that people are now insisting on passing the keys instead of the other way around. In the US, I keep hearing about the cases of repeat offenders STILL being allowed to drive and getting away with hurting and killing people with mere fines. The most recent case of 16-year-old Ethan Couch who killed 4 people and injured 9 while driving drunk is a reflection of our problem. Yes, there are a multitude of reasons for why he got off (affluenza? really?), but I think a significant reason is that we have created a culture that tolerates drunk driving WAY too much. Even if he didn't care about the consequences that might result for others, maybe if we had stricter laws he may have thought twice about his actions.

Second impressions: 5 things I love

Ya, you betcha I love my hot-dish producing tropical Minnesooota, dontcha know?

The things that came to mind in the first few days back:

1.) Workout culture. I joined a gym. IT FEELS SO GOOD. The US is a bit obsessed with working out, but after being in a country where people will tell you to take the bus instead of walking 2 blocks, it's refreshing. Almost every kid is part of a sport here (maybe it's just a reflection of the extreme competitiveness of our culture). Almost all of my muscles are sore; is it sick to say that I'm not sore enough?

2.) Minnesota Nice. I love being able to walk down the street and smile at people, strike up random conversations with the man helping me renew my license, and in general walk around and look people in the eye without feeling weird. Chileans are very nice people, once you poke a little and get to know them. It's a relief knowing I don't have to instigate all the time.

3.) Minnesota Snow. When we were about to land, I was almost overcome with emotion  because I was so happy to see the snow draping over pine tree branches and wide expanses of ice from lakes and snowplows getting the snow off the airport runway. Hearing the snow crunch beneath my boots, throwing snowballs, eating snow, feeling the snowflakes melt on my face and rest on my eyelashes, and being so bundled up I can barely move is HOME.

4.) Diversity. Chile didn't have as much racial or religious diversity as I had hoped. Granted, I'm so used to my high school/college communities that make an effort to increase diversity. In Chile, I maybe saw one or two people of "color" on my metro ride a month, one gay couple boldly holding hands and one religious institution that wasn't Christian. I appreciate the "melting pot" of the US more and more. One place I see diversity in its fullest is in my church community. I went to church for the first time in months, and felt so much love for the community that prides itself in its diversity and progressive values of inclusion, open-mindedness, and pure love for the stranger and less fortunate. We are in a building that houses three different denominations, and it's such a cool feeling knowing that even though we have different names for our belief systems, we still have the same foundations and the same purpose.

5.) Education. I went to elementary, junior, and high school for free. And the education was astounding: I had the opportunity to take AP and IB classes for free; allowing me to learn how to write and communicate my ideas. I understand that I was still extremely lucky and privileged with my situation, being a white girl in the suburbs with a supportive family and resources at my disposal. At least the colleges I applied to looked at more than just the ACT score I got. In Chile, the only way to get into respected colleges is to get a good score on the PSU exam at the end of high school. No essays, no extracurriculars, no recommendation letters, no opportunity to tell your story.

Final reflections (for now)

          Trying to think about everything I've learned and experienced is like trying to accurately portray my thoughts when I was 5. It just doesn't work. Your memories change over time, with the addition of other experiences that change your perception and analysis of the recordings in your brain. Your neuronal pathways may remain biologically the same, but your skills to analyze them grow and you constantly critically reflect on everything that's happened. We read a book called "Mi país inventada" (My Invented County) by Isabel Allende, which explores this idea in depth: how your perceptions about an event, or a whole country, depend completely on your emotions at the time of the experience and your emotions when you recall those memories. So, 9 days until Christmas, in my 3rd year of college, in the living room at my house in the US, here are my final (for now) reflections on my life in Chile.
          I'm not sure how to start other than the cheesy but classic lesson most people learn while abroad: "Live life, dude." I learned how to really live in the present. In a previous post, I talked about how my constant need to plan and control was hindering my full appreciation of the experience I was living in Chile. Now at the end, I know I can live in the moment without worrying about controlling the future. What will happen will happen. Relax, and enjoy. I wouldn't have been able to form the relationships with people in Chile if I was worried about what would happen once I got back.
          The ability to live in the moment depends on many things: being flexible and appreciating freedom. I would often ask my host mother what exact time we would leave to go somewhere, but I would never get a concrete answer. I would get frustrated and panic a little because I didn't have that structure that is so ingrained in my brain from the US. My home country is full of structures, institutions, and processes that create such an ordered society. But I became much more flexible and accepting of a little chaos and disorder, which ultimately gave me more freedom. Chile, although it attempts to mirror the US in many ways, has a different concept of time that helps create a more free society. You're not supposed to show up at a friend's house stressed or worried that you won't make it on time. Come when you're ready! It's not a big deal if you're half an hour late! It sounds like a superficial example, but it's hard to put into words the freedom I felt in Chile.
          I also learned how to give myself what I want. As I learned to live in the moment, to be flexible, and to be free, I gave myself permission to explore other career options. One reason why I wanted to be a doctor, now that I realize it, is because I would have the next 8 or so years of my life "planned" out. Graduate from Grinnell, go to med school, specialize, residency, blah blah blah blah blah.  But that's honestly just so stupid. I can't control my life that far ahead of me! So, I scrapped pre-med and will be taking classes in philosophy and history, along with my Spanish seminar on dialectology and neuroscience. I'm the most excited I've ever been for a semester at Grinnell. I gave myself permission to abandon a plan that wasn't making me happy, and permitted myself to explore something different. I'm thinking about maybe going into education, seminary, peace corps, Fulbrights... who knows where I'll be. And I love the mystery, there's so much more possibility.
          It's hard to give yourself what you want when you don't trust your own gut. That's another thing I learned. I went to the Atacama desert alone, because I felt it was the right thing to do: I met people from all over the world and could look off into the sunset without feeling the need to talk. I made a last-minute decision to go to an event for exchange students in September because it felt like it's what I should do that night: I met some amazing people that were a huge part of the rest of my experience in Chile. I opened up to my host mother and talked with her like I would a good friend because it felt right: I learned so much from her that helped me process and understand more about Chile and myself. Sometimes you just have to go with what the back of your mind is telling you. That's where the richest experiences come from.

Some things that were reinforced:
-Listening to all the things my host family talked about and experiencing the temazcal ceremony (look it up, if I start describing it this post will never end) made me realize that I need to respect the delicate soil, plants, air, and water that make up our survival rock.
-Family is important.
-I have an absolute obsession with a language. Learning a new language literally opens up a whole new world and changes the way you think.
-God is awesome.
-A variety of opinions and viewpoints is what enriches our experience.
-I never really idolized the US, because it has some really disgusting history with its indigenous populations and its involvement with the Chilean dictatorship and Latin America in general. But there are quite a few things we do pretty well, like education. Even though there are ways it can always be improved, I'm so lucky I learned how to communicate and think critically for free up until college, and that I have lots of help to finish my education.

But now, the biggest challenge is fighting the routine imposed from the countless structures surrounding me in the US to keep all these lessons alive. I don't want to exist in the US and have my abroad experience shrink to just another chapter of my life that came to a close. I want it to continue living through me.

Thanks for reading this messy "conclusion",
Athena

A Chilean Thanksgiving

I have way more reasons to be thankful than I can even begin to comprehend.

          Today in clinical observation we went a rather different route and went to Hogar de Santa Clara (Home of Santa Clara). This place houses up to 17 children living with HIV/AIDS who have been neglected the proper care from their parents. They live here for typically 6 months to a year, with ages ranging from 2 months to 15 years, while they work with the family to teach them proper care or to find a new family for the child. We played with 2-month-old babies, helped organize and clean the building, and ate lunch with some of the children. I'm so thankful for my family and their ability and willingness to take care of me when I was sick or injured. I'm so thankful that the worst health problems I've had to deal with are minor broken bones and asthma. I'm so thankful I could witness the children's instincts to show sheer joy with the simplest things in their lives.

          The day after, I celebrated thanksgiving with my host family and some friends. My host family had no idea what Thanksgiving meant and how it originated, so it was finally my turn to share a concrete piece of my home culture. We had a huge dinner, with food cooked from scratch from each person who came. So many salads (Chilean definition of salad: one or two vegetables mixed together with a mixture of oil, lemon juice, and salt as dressing), the cranberries I'm always able to successfully make (in whatever country now), coleslaw (the Chileans thought it was SO weird to put mayo, sugar, and apple cider vinegar on cabbage, but they still thought it was good) and my grandma's stuffing recipe, with rosemary instead of sage. Sage just didn't appear in any of the stores I ran to.
          I said goodbye to my host sister's boyfriend, David, who served as a wonderful guide to Chile's sights and offered so many unique perspectives on current events and Chilean youth culture. I didn't know that would be the start of a long string of many goodbyes I would go through in the last few weeks of my stay here. I'm so thankful for all the time I got to spend with the people I met here. I'm so thankful for the conversations we had around the Thanksgiving table. I'm so thankful that I could feel so much happiness and love from people who were complete strangers 4 months ago.

Prepping the final 3 weeks

          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... :)

A new reality: the public healthcare system in Chile

For those of you unfamiliar with the healthcare system in Chile, here's a brief overview:
          There are basically two options for insurance: FONASA, the public insurance that is funded by taxes which 75% of the population is signed up for, and the ISAPRES, the private insurance an individual can buy based on their own health needs. Because of this system, and this is a huge generalization, the insured population is divided between the young, healthy, and rich that can afford Isapres and the old, sick, and poor that sign up for Fonasa. If you have Fonasa, you can only go to public hospitals and clinics unless you can pay for private centers, which boast low wait times for surgeries and better quality healthcare overall. Public hospitals suffer from a lack of resources and are often understaffed, sometimes leaving people waiting days in the emergency room and months for surgeries.

          Today in my clinical observation, I had the opportunity to observe the emergency room at Hospital Sótero del Río. It's a public hospital in an area of Santiago with fewer resources than wealthy Providencia, where I live. It was an exhausting day, but I learned a lot about the realities of the public healthcare system in Chile.
          I arrived at 9:30 am in the waiting room, which was already packed with people, and got shown back to the actual room where patients are treated and met the doctor I was going to follow for the day. He was very friendly, outgoing, and upbeat. As the day went on, my respect for this man increased exponentially as I saw how he maintained his positive attitude in light of the circumstances he works in. The emergency room's main room has 15 beds, separated by curtains, with just a computer and an IV stand next to each. There are three rooms that open into the main room, each with different roles: the first is the waiting room where people wait hours to be treated, the second is for people waiting to take blood tests, x-rays, or other exams. The third one is reserved for people who were hospitalized. There aren't enough beds, so four to five different IV's hung in front of a row of patients sitting in waiting room chairs.
          To start the day, the doctor talked with a man who's liver was failing due to alcoholism. I could see the yellow eyes from jaundice; he was only 49. After that, the doctor spent a while filling out the patient's "ficha", the physical document that stays with the patient during their hospital stay that has all the medications, tests, medical history, and other relevant information, and organizing the ficha's of other patients. Although they have a computer system which logs the medical history, it's not available to every patient. The electronic system also serves as a mode of communication between different parts of the hospital, so the doctors can request different tests and send patients on their way. The system broke down twice, so the patients were stuck in limbo and the doctor's were unable to move on to other patients while the system got fixed.
         After that, I moved on to the "sala de reanimación", basically the room where the most vital attention is given. Although the room was technically outfitted for 3 beds, there were 5 in the room. The most attention was being given to an 83-year-old woman who was moaning in pain and not breathing well. The doctors were discussing what to do, and they came to the conclusion that they should perform an intubation on her. They explained to her what was going to happen, said "Usted va a dormir ahora" (you are going to sleep now), and she nodded her head. I didn't realize that that would be her last communication with the world; she passed away after more than an hour of chest compressions. I was surprised at how much it didn't affect me; I guess surviving my mother's passing really did make me stronger. While they put her under, it was fascinating seeing all the doctors and nurses working as a team. They communicated and trusted each other during the entire process.
          After those pleasant experiences, we went to lunch. It was really weird, transitioning from the enclosed emergency room with all the noise and movement, to going outside where a strange calm envelopes the rest of the hospital. While I was eating lunch with the doctor and the supervisor of the emergency room, it was hard for me to separate the ER environment from two normal people having a conversation about what they were going to do for the weekend. I guess that's something you learn on the job, separating your work from the rest of your life.
          After lunch, the activity in the ER picked up noticeably. Stretchers from ambulances were used as beds because of the shortage. People were standing in the hallways because their weren't enough chairs. Because of my white lab coat I need to wear for the observations, people came up to me thinking I was a doctor and telling me their symptoms and asking when they were going to be seen. I constantly repeated myself saying "no soy doctora; no trabajo aquí" (I'm not a doctor; I don't work here). I heard the phrase "hay que esperar" (you'll have to wait) more times than I could count.
          The second half of the day was WAY more exhausting than the first. I think it was because I started to feel trapped: I was in this place where clearly so many people needed help, but I couldn't do anything. I just sat and watched. I couldn't help the doctors organize the fichas, send requests for exams, listen to patients, I felt helpless because I didn't know anything. The doctor I was shadowing kept the same understanding and level of patience throughout the whole day, and didn't show any signs of exhaustion. I guess that's something else you get from the job, endurance.
           This observation was the most challenging (even though I didn't come close to fainting once!!) but by far the most valuable. I saw a new reality and learned some truths about the quality of public healthcare in Chile. Most of all though, it reinforced in my brain that some of the most important and valued work someone can do often goes unrecognized. The doctors who work in the public system don't get paid as much as in the private sector. But they stick with their jobs because they know these people need help and they know they're needed, even though they know they can get more of a monetary reward working in the private system.
          Now that I've seen Chile's public ER, I need to see one in the US to compare how bad the discrepancy is. The US has SO much and people never realize it and appreciate it enough. I wish there was a way we could balance out the quality of healthcare for everyone in the world. Such a Miss-Congeniality-world-peace-style desire, but one can dream, right?

It's a right, not a privilege, to have a functioning body that allows you to pursue happiness. And nothing should stand in your way of achieving that.

One day in Santiago

So I've been posting realllllllllllly long winded posts about what I've been thinking, but I haven't posted anything about what I do on a day-to-day basis. So, without further ado...

Monday 4/11/2013:
7:30: ALARM!!! snooze...snooze...snooze...
7:55: a car alarm goes off with its typical pattern of sirens, honks, and beeps. It's not just a simple "beep beep beep". Well, if the city's waking up, I guess I should too.
8:00: Breakfast! Usually oatmeal, but sometimes the Chilean tecito (tea) and hallulla or marrequeta (bread) with butter and jam hits the spot.
8:30: Do homework I haven't done yet or work out or write in my journal or blog.
10:30: Walk out my door!!
10:31: Walk back in the door. Forgot my keys. Forgetting your keys in your room here is definitely worse than on campus... I can't just call up my host mom and be like "hey... leave work and let me in".
I walk outside down Pedro de Valdivia, the street that runs through the municipalities of Providencia and Ñuñoa. It looks just like any street in the US, except there's probably some stray dogs laying in a sunbeam and TONS of posters of politicians' faces running for office (presidential elections are in mid-november).
10:35: Walk by the park maintenance workers who are... surprise surprise... literally flooding the grass with water. Everywhere in Santiago where there's grass, I always see people with a hose watering it or sprinklers on for hours drowning the blades until lakes of mud and dead grass form.
10:35: Arrive at the bus stop. I look around and see faces of typical Santiaguinos: women with gorgeous long brown hair and brown eyes, professionals with dark colored clothing on their smartphones, college-age guys with long hair/dreadlocks with sunglasses and their headphones in. But I definitely stick out as a gringa with my lighter eyes and general "aura". I miss the diversity of my college and the US.
10:45: The micro finally arrives!! I get on and pay with my blue bip! card that everyone needs to ride public transport. Sometimes a musician gets on and plays his guitar and sings classic Beatle's tunes with improvised English lyrics or classic Chilean songs. Towards the stop where everyone gets off for the metro, they go along the micro asking for tips and then leave to catch the next.
11:00: Get onto the metro. SO HOT. It's now summer here and there's no air conditioning in the subway system, so it gets pretty stuffy. I usually pull out my cell phone and play solitaire or sudoku (...look casual). About halfway through the metro ride the train goes above ground and I can see other parts of Santiago; the mountains always remain in view.
11:20: "Estación San Joaquin" buzzes over the loudspeaker and I get off with dozens of other students at the Pontificia Universidad Católica. I never see anyone wearing PUC sweatshirts or tshirts because college is a time where students can really express their personal style after years and years of school-logo emblazoned uniforms.
11:30: Religiones y Cristianismo (Religions and Christianity)! Today we started our final unit about Christianity. It's been a really interesting course about all the different kinds of religious beliefs around the world, and the professor often makes really interesting comments about Chilean and US culture. It's pretty clear to me that a Christian bias comes through his teachings, though, as he often makes some off-color comments that make me realize this is a VERY catholic university.
1:05: Once again, the professor lets us out late since he got carried away reading from a book.
1:10: Back on the metro! Ugh. There's a couple eating each other's faces right next to me. PDA is everywhere in Chile. I don't really understand what's so romantic about a metro-make-out-session, but to each their own I guess?
1:30: Back to the IES center where I'll heat up my lunch and eat frantically before class.
2:00: Español para Gringas! (haha, that's not the title of the course, just one my Chilean friend suggested. But that's pretty much what it is, a Spanish class to help us poor lost gring@s understand Chileans) Today we had a man called Eledin Parraguez come in and talk to us about his experience in the integration programs from the 1970's. The "integración" was an effort of the Allende presidency to have poor students study at the rich private schools, to prove that those with less resources could be just as successful as wealthy people if given the opportunity. He was the inspiration for the Chilean film "Machuca", which is about a poor boy who is integrated into a rich private school and makes friends with a wealthy peer just before the Pinochet dictatorship started. It shows the "golpe militar" (military coup) of September 11th through the children's perspective. I highly recommend watching it, it highlights many of the divisions within Chile that still are prevalent today.
4:00: Medical Spanish! Typical day; we talked about healthcare for the elderly and discussed how it differs in the US vs Chile. Chile's population is growing older, but there are only 30 geriatric doctors in the entirety of Chile for their aging population. Then we had our vocab test. The last one, YAY!!
5:30: I walk home from the IES center, down Manuel Montt, Francisco Bilbao, then Pedro de Valdivia again. This is my FAVORITE part of the day, just walking around the city and taking it all in. Hearing people talk on the phone in Spanish, reading Spanish street signs, the constant impatient honking, the occasional car blaring reggaetón or "Black and Yellow" (**see below), and the general sounds of the city make me SO happy (except when boys honk, whistle, make kissing noises, or yell things at you. The "piropos" are DEFINITELY things I could do without in Chile).
6:00: Arrive home!! Do some homework and chill before my host sister comes home. Then we'll have "once" (elevensies!! hee hee, more bread but with palta (avocado) or scrambled eggs with a tecito) and chat about the day or religion or education or some other interesting topic.
And then... write in my journal about the day and go to Sleeeeeeeeeeep.















**this one just happened once and it was an older guy listening to it in the car. I remember cruising through St. Louis Park with Ellyn and Jackie eating Arby's and trying to rap. We were SO COOL. So the combination made me lawl. :) Miss you guys!

Clinical Observations AKA Time reserved for Athena to almost faint (and other thoughts)

          The main reason why I came to Santiago was because my study abroad organization has a program called the Clinical Observation Seminar. Since I'm one of those "maybe-I'll-just-go-pre-med-because-I-have-no-idea-what-else-I'd-do-with-my-life" students, I decided it'd probably be a good idea to observe some doctors and interact with patients before I do a full-blown commitment to med school (aka... a commitment to taking biochem and physics at Grinnell). Although I haven't yet made a definitive decision one way or the other, I've learned a lot about Chile's healthcare system and my own limits when it comes to doctor-y things. Like needles. Apparently they're not my best friend.
          We started out the class with theory lectures about how private insurance and public healthcare works in Chile. There are basically two options: FONASA, the public insurance that is funded by taxes which 75% of the population is signed up for, and the ISAPRES, the private insurance an individual can buy based on their own health needs. Because of this system, and this is a huge generalization, the insured population is divided between the young, healthy, and rich that can afford Isapres and the old, sick, and poor that sign up for Fonasa. If you have Fonasa, you can only go to public hospitals and clinics unless you can pay for private centers, which boast low wait times for surgeries and better quality healthcare overall. Public hospitals suffer from a lack of resources and are often understaffed, sometimes leaving people waiting days in the emergency room and months for surgeries.
          For the practical part of the seminar, we go in pairs to spend Thursdays with different medical centers. First, my partner and I went to a dialysis center where we learned about how the blood is filtered when the kidneys no longer function.We talked to many patients about their experiences with the clinic and about life in general. The day was going splendidly until the time came for one of the nurses to stop the dialysis for one of the patients. Standing by the machine and realizing that soon the nurse would be pulling out the needles from the mass of scarred veins and arteries made me... just a tad dizzy and nauseous. I thought I was just suffering from lack of sleep and dehydration (excuses?).
          The next week, we visited the maternity ward. We changed out of street clothes and into scrubs (they are SO comfy!) so that we could observe some live births, an emergency surgery, and a C-section. We observed an anesthesiologist perform an epidural. Almost fainted. Then we observed some nurses working with a woman who was about to give birth. Almost fainted. At the end of the day, we observed a C-section. What happened? You guessed it. Almost fainted at the end of the surgery. I'm glad I know my body well enough so I can sit down as soon as I know it's getting bad... otherwise I would have become a patient instead of an observer! If this trend keeps up for my observations for a family clinic, emergency room, and a cardiac surgery, I think it'd be safe to say that I should pursue a career in medicine that doesn't involve being a doctor.
         Apart from learning my physical inabilities when it comes to clinical work, I've learned a surprising amount about the Mapuche culture from the seminar. The Mapuche are the largest remaining indigenous population in Chile; 85% of the indigenous people are Mapuche. I've been learning a lot about them in many of my classes; their religion in theology, their basic anthropological information in Native Cultures, and how intercultural exchange occurs with medicine in the seminar. We had the opportunity to visit a Mapuche "ruca", which is a hut in an area about the size of half a block in Santiago where the Mapuche can practice their culture, festivals, and traditional medicine. Anyone can consult a machi, the Mapuche healer, as an alternative to western medicine.
          Learning from a professor and a machi (the mapuche healer) about the benefits of intercultural dialogue and practices has made me realize how valuable this experience has been for me as an individual potentially entering the medical field. A lot of people study medicine because they love science. You study ochem, physics, biochem, and learn about all the metabolic pathways and which drugs are used to treat which illnesses and how analgesics work in the brain to stop pain. What about sociology, psychology, and anthropology? What about understanding the various social, economic, and religious reasons for why people will seek healthcare for certain occasions? Often times these are added on as an afterthought and differing perspectives aren't fully understood and therefore are less respected. But the necessity of recognizing that not every individual operates under the western, scientific medical paradigm that dominates society and suffocates the system is SO important. Reading The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down in high school introduced this topic to me, and now I actually can apply it and see it in action. Study abroad kind of rocks.

Kind of rotating to a different topic/afterthought that's still a little relevant...

          The discussion about the importance of intercultural dialogue and listening to other perspectives made me realize how much my internship this summer has prepared me for this trip. I spent the summer interning at the Christian Conference Center in Newton, IA, the place where I attended church camp for 10 summers. Being able to step back and grow in my faith and listen to other people's journeys was such a valuable experience looking back now.
          I got much more involved in and passionate for my denomination, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Being a disciple, to me, means being open-minded and recognizing the importance of listening to other perspectives on God and religion. Only through listening will you be able to expand your own knowledge about God and your role in the world. Reaffirming that my own point of view is one tiny sliver of the truth about God has been an important lesson I've learned and developed through this summer and this study abroad experience. I've learned more about how other people contribute to my life and how they add to my rich experience with God and the world around me. It's refreshing to understand that there is not one truth; rather, a messy but beautiful web of experiences and beliefs between people that form my faith in God.

Thanks for reading my hodge-podge thought pensieve. :)
Til later,
Chao!