The honeymoon is over

The past few (several) days have been rough. Our orientation leaders warned us that our initial euphoria of living in another country would morph into irritation and hostility as the reality of living in another country set in. I dutifully copied their advice into my notebook, but didn´t really believe them. Hello, I live in Chile. How could that be anything but exciting and awesome, right?!

Wrong. At this moment, I am solidly in the irritation and hostility phase.

Oh, boy ... where do I start?

Teaching It´s hard. Of course, I "knew" this before I came, but speaking a language does not qualify anyone to teach it. I wrote before about that difficult night class. Well, it did not magically transform into an easy night class. I still have people cuddling in the corner, a girl who likes to draw on her classmates, and a group with the collective attention span of a two year old. On the whole, I like my classes and my students ... but even still I´m having a hard time teaching multi-level classes. How do I simultaneously cater to students who can make sarcastic, ironic jokes in English AND ones who look like they´re about to puke and die when I slowly say, "My name´s Amanda. What´s your name?" Plus, the institute where I work is totally chaotic and communication of even the most important things is dumb luck word-of-mouth, i.e. did I randomly overhear other teachers say beginners have a quiz next week?

Transportation The Chilean government implemented a new bus system the same weekend I arrived in Chile. Frankly, it´s a mess. It´s no fun to be in a new city where the residents don´t know how to use the system. Who am I supposed to ask? The metro is awesome (clean, frequent, etc.) but the last train home passes at 10:50 pm and my last night class Tuesday and Thursday ends at 10:45. With the new system, I have to take two buses, neither of which seems to run with any reliable frequency. Sometimes, I get home at midnight. On Friday, I can sleep in because I don´t have class. On Wednesday, I have to be back at the school for an 8:30 am class. I´m beat. And I haven´t figured out going out on the weekend. If the buses aren´t reliable and the metro is closed, I´m stuck taking taxis that -- pun intended -- tax my limited budget. It´s not really the money, it´s the principle of the thing. In a city of 6 million people, the majority of whom don´t drive, transportation shouldn´t be this stressful!

Health I´d been feeling pretty cocky about health issues here. I´ve been drinking the tap water since my first day without any problems. (The only time I felt sick during orientation, it was because I was dehydrated.) I´ve eaten whatever I wanted, danced until 5 am, and generally taken my health for granted. The last few days, my stomach/digestive system has been getting progressively less happy to the point that I had to tell my host parents. They insisted that I should´ve told them sooner and my mom put me on the BRAT diet (bananas, rice, apples, toast). Fine, good, but my food and beverage consumption and my recent bathroom usage became a topic of family discussion. Theirs, too. Didn´t really want to know that eating grapes gives my host dad the runs, thanks.

Health 2 Then, yesterday, I had horrible cramps. My gut in a vice, I was sweating, feeling queasy, and alternatingly hot and cold. My first thought was to be pissed because we were told that a lot of last year´s volunteers lost their periods because of stress. Hello, I´m stressed. My second thought was to get off the metro a few stops early to throw up. But there was no bag in the trash can and I couldn´t bear the thought of some poor Chilean cleaning out my vom. So I crouched down and tried to think non-nauseating thoughts. I stumbled onto the next train and made it home without incident. I blazed past my family and locked myself in the bathroom. My host mom knocked and asked if everthing was okay (no) and if I wanted anything (no). She came back a while later to say it wasn´t good to stay in the bathroom forever. Thanks. When I finally emerged, I had to explain why I was so miserable. So then my period became a topic of family discussion. Talking about personal health problems with strangers in Spanish is not as fun as it sounds.

Impatience I came to Chile for many reasons, including personal development. I expected that in addition to learning how to teach and how to speak Spanish, I would also develop patience, improve my tolerance for uncertainty, and more readily reliquish control of what happens in my life. Ummm, yeah. It is great in theory and rough in practice. I´m not handling the nearly-constant frustration, confusion, embarrassment, annoyance, and disappointment very well. I want to have everything figured out right now: the city, transportation, teaching, outside activities, my family, the language, new friends, etc. I know that patience is key, and that time and effort (but mostly time) are all that´s required. But I´m so impatient and nothing is happening as fast as I want it to.

So, in short, I´m irritated and hostile.