Sipo, I'm in Chile!

The first week of living in Chile is coming to its end. The view of sunrise over a city park that I used to have from my room in Madrid has now changed to a view of sunset over Pacific Ocean and two kisses on the cheek has reduced to only one. Almost everything that I used to know has been left behind for now and I’m little by little getting the grasp of the way of living here.

To start with, Chile is the long strip of land on the west coast of South America. The official language is Spanish (or better said Chilean) and the population is about 17 000 000 people. The city I’m living in, Antofagasta, is located in the second region of Chile which means that it’s closer to Peru and Bolivia than the capital of Chile, Santiago. There is a lot of mining industry in Antofagasta and – well – nothing else. Most of the area around is desert and mountains as you can see below.

Maybe many of the Europeans or at least Finns don’t know a lot about Chile but I bet that the knowledge is better than the Chileans have of Finland. First of all, the locals here don’t have a clue where Finland is located even though each and every one of them can praise the Finnish education system. Also, about 90 % of the Chileans who I’ve talked with, have thought that English is the official language in Finland and they sometimes almost start to debate with me when I tell that it’s not. Moreover, I have needed to convince quite many people of the fact that we are not living in eternal winter. Maybe Finland should finally start branding and marketing itself in order to stay on the world map.

Learning to live everyday life here has brought a lot of surprises and moments of confusion. First of all, I’m studying in a catholic university but still it didn’t even cross my mind (literally) that all the lecture halls would have a cross on their walls. Furthermore, there is no toilet paper even in the toilets of the university – which is by the way private and the students pay for studying there – not to even mention the possibility of locking the door. Not only the streets but also the school yard is full of wild dogs that sometimes get too chatty. I’ve also experienced my first time, when there is no possibility to have milk for the coffee when having a breakfast in a restaurant. The mail arrives to the slit of the gate and the garbage is left on the street – without a garbage can – to be picked up by the bin man if he makes it before the dogs.

To my experience so far, Chileans seem to be friendly but a bit more reserved than for example Mexicans. The country is not one of the best developed ones but it clearly is doing well in something because the unemployment rate is relatively low (less than 6%) and it’s rather safe to live here compared to the other countries around. However, Chileans seem to have a bit of a slimming diet syndrome since they are all the time telling excuses why the society isn’t doing better and how it’s not their fault that they have problems. One of the excuses I’ve heard a lot is that because they don’t have the Finnish education system they cannot develop. It might be through that the education system needs to be renewed but it should be developed to fit the local context with the local rules, I think. 

What is more, according to the locals, the security problems are caused only by the Colombians and Chile doesn’t have anything to do with that. However, I guess Chile is not an exception in this because all the states seem to have the tendency of blaming the immigrants in this issue, not for example the poor integration of the incoming people to the rest of the society. Sipo, Chile has gone through difficult times in recent history but I’d say that the biggest obstacle on the way of development is underestimating themselves and not believing that they can change things. In this sense the Finns and Chileans seem to be really similar. Nevertheless, Chile has potential but Chileans just don't seem to know that yet.

First impressions are just first impressions and probably I'll further develop my view of the country after digging in a bit deeper to the culture and society and other parts of Chile too. Anyway, I have a feeling that it’s gonna be a good last semester of my studies! There are a lot of new adventures waiting outside and the first one will be tomorrow when participating to The Color run...