It has been a little over a week that we have been here in Santiago, Chile, and I can’t believe how much has changed already.
Upon first arriving here, this city overwhelmed me. The heat made my head spin, the language barrier left me reeling, and the lack of proximity to any sort of natural body of wai made me feel like a fish out of water. I couldn’t find anything that felt familiar, or that I felt I could connect to–apart from the high price of groceries here. That was an unfortunately familiar feeling!
Yet, with each day that passes, a new connection unfurls between myself and another person, often in ways that takes me completely by surprise, and in ways that shape my understanding of what it means to feel at home, away from home. Already, so many rich and wonderful dialogues have opened up between us and the other students from our cohort (hailing from Switzerland, America, Singapore, China and Chile); relationships have formed fast and firm, and strangers have quickly turned into familiar faces. Each new encounter contributes to the strengthening of my sense of connection here, and to the opening of my heart to this country and its people. The more time that passes, the less difference I feel. The homesickness that gripped me so tightly upon arriving loosens its hold with every new Spanish word I learn. The disorientation I felt trying to make sense of which side of the Metro led to home has been replaced by a casual ease of navigation. The distance I feel from Aotearoa lessens with each indigenous person we meet, as home is reflected in the innately indigenous ties to te taiao that we both share, despite the thousands of kilometres which physically separate us.
The heat is still dizzyingly hot; the city is still very much a concrete jungle. But as the unfamiliar is made familiar, slowly but surely, I feel a sense of home take root within me here in Santiago.
