Kyle Hepp

June 2, 2008

When I was just a little girl, waaaaay back in the day, my mom shipped me off to Chile to study abroad. Almost 10 years ago, I came here for 3 months, and since I didn’t actually speak any Spanish at the time, I actually didn’t do much studying. Don’t get me wrong, I went to classes at a local high school in Puente Alto here, but since I didn’t understand anything and the teachers already had dozens of rowdy kids on their hands, nobody even tried to make me do homework or take tests or anything like that. I basically sat in the room with the kids, listened the professors lecturing, and took down notes of anything I understood. By the end of the three months I had like 4 whole pages of notes.

I think I’ve mentioned this before but when I arrived I had only had one year of Spanish so my speech was severely limited. I knew how to say, “Where’s the bathroom. My name is Kyle. I like blue.”

Even though I could barely communicate with my classmates at the colegio I went to that didn’t stop me from having a great time! I have a horrible long term memory so I really don’t remember a lot of specific people or moments, but I do know that in retrospect, that trip was definitely one of the funnest years of high school for me. Contrary to my feelings about Chile now (sometimes hot and sometimes cold) my time in high school here was nothing but good.

I’m not sure if it’s that I was more adaptable as a kid, or if I had less expectations. Maybe kids at that age are more open to making friends or less judgmental about things like the social and political stigmas that come attached to being a gringa. The most likely scenario is that it was a combination of both those things that made my time in Chile the first go around so totally enjoyable.

Somehow, one of the kids found my blog and then contacted me! Now I’m facebook friends with a bunch of people who only knew me once for three months so many years ago. It’s so weird, but really freaking cool! I’m pretty excited to be back in contact with some of them. I always wondered if I would ever bump into anyone on the street here that I knew, and a couple of times I even though I had seen someone that I recognized, but wasn’t sure enough to go up and say hi.

Talking to everyone again has brought back so many memories! At this point in my life, the faces, names and events of that time were starting to fade. I’m glad to have been reunited with people who take me back to that time.

A few things I specifically remember about going to school here is that I felt so much younger than everyone in my class, even though I was actually only a grade behind them. I went to school with the older kids because my host sister was a year ahead of me in school so our parents thought it would be best if I stayed in her same class, since I wasn’t actually going to learn any material anyways.

But, it wasn’t the age that made me feel different, it was just their experiences. Coming from a really conservative town, I didn’t drink or smoke or anything and then I arrive and here are all these kids, babies in my eyes, just like me, were boozing it up like adults and smoking like chimneys! There were also a lot of kids who were seriously long term dating at the time too, which was nearly incomprehensible to me. I just couldn’t fathom it. Why would you spend 5 years of your life with someone in high school? And they had sex! Not all of them, obviously, but back home I didn’t know a single girl who had lost her virginity so I had a hard time wrapping my mind around that too.

Everyone was so nice, though. They invited me to their parties, we hung out after school and did projects at their houses. And by did projects, I mean, they worked while I watched, goofed around and distracted them. I remember playing soccer with the boys at recess. I remember that they had a big party for me during class right before I left. It was a surprise, during a math teacher’s class. He had massive furry facial hair and they called him Chuck Norris. All the girls were wildly in love with him. I also remember the English teacher. They called her, “The Miss,” pronounced Meese, which I thought was hilarious.

A couple times I’ve driven around in Puente Alto wondering where my old colegio was and where I used to live. I could never find it, because that damn neighborhood is huge. I also went back to my host aunt and uncle’s house like three times, but twice they weren’t home and once the maid answered the door. She remembered me, but the whole family was gone at the beach. Those were the only attempts at contact that I ever made. I always wished I could find the kids from colegio and hang out but my only way would have been through my host sister whom I’m pretty sure never liked me.

Anyways, so it’s really cool to be back in touch with some people. I’m still waiting for some of them to accept me as a friend so I can Facebook stalk them.