Kyle Hepp

June 8, 2009

Here are other people who have done this group blog, feel free to join in!

Margaret at Cachando Chile: First Impressions of Santiago Chile (Santiago, 1991)

Clare at Clare Says: First Impressions (of Chile) (Rancagua, 1996)

Vicki at Futalandia: Chile September 2006- First Impressions (Santiago and Chile’s deep south, 2006)

Lydia at Just Smile and Nod: First Impressions of Chile (Santiago and Valparaíso)

Abby at Abby’s Line: Thoughts on my First Day in Chile (Santiago, January 2007)

Eileen at bearshapedsphere: Pucha I don’t speak Cellphone! (Santiago, April 2004)

Emily.

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I came to Chile the summer in between 8th and 9th grade, so I was maybe 13 or 14 years old. That would have made the first time I stepped foot on Chilean soil to be more or less in the year of 1997 or 1998 (Mom, can you confirm?). Don’t quote me on that because I’m not totally sure.

My first thoughts upon arriving to Chile, were very similar to my first thoughts upon being ran over by a car the other day.

“No way!!! Is this really happening?”

I was overwhelmed by the fact just that my mom had, indeed, made me get on the plane. We always spoke so half haphazardly of me studying abroad that I didn’t think it would actually happen. But, sure enough, I got on the plane, smiled kindly at the flight attendants who spoke to me in English and then got off the plane on the Chilean end where my host family, and future First Daughter of Chile, Natalia Compagnon, were waiting for me. They had a sign that said, “Kyle Hepp?” and once we had confirmed that I was indeed Kyle Hepp, they ushered me to their car where we sat in silence for the entire drive back to, not their house in Puente Alto, but the tia’s house in Nunoa. The drive felt like an eternity after my all-night flight, combined with totally cliche teenage angst about the language barrier. This was also pre-Costanera highway days, so the drive probably did take a good hour from the airport.

As seems to be a common trend with these gringa First Impressions of Chile, somehow I didn’t quite grasp what was being said and failed to realize that the house we were staying at for the weekend wasn’t where I’d be living full time. We arrived in Nunoa and I unpacked. And then someone told me to repack but I didn’t understand. So she started doing it for me. I grasped that she wanted me to put all my things back in my suitcase but I had no clue why. I did as told and didn’t ask any questions — not that I could have if I wanted to!

After that I realized that I was in deeper than I had thought. I got scared and just decided to hide in my room to try out a little theory — if I slept long enough eventually I’d wake back up in an English-speaking country with my mom and brother where nobody tried to invade my personal space with a slobbery kiss on the cheek. Clearly that idea failed, you know, since teleporting hadn’t yet been invented.

Other first impression descriptions that don’t flow coherently in a blog post.

~They offered me torta. I got very excited, because I knew that vocab word — torta means cake! EEHHH, not so much. Torta meant flaky pastry type stuff, filled with dulce de leche, which I hated upon first bite.

~WTF is an alcachofa?!? Quick, run to Spanish-English dictionary, look up that word. Yeaaaaah, I didn’t even know what an artichoke was in English. I was in for a looooooooooong couple of months.

~Little kids don’t know what “Speak clearly and slowly” really means.  As Doctor Cox from Scrubs would say, “They’re loud, you can’t understand them… They’re like tiny cab drivers.” Taking to tiny little people under the age of 5 is detrimental to one’s confidence in language skills.