Viva la Chile!
My Five Month Adventure Studying Abroad in Santiago, ChileHow My Love for Spanish began…
For those of you who don’t know:
I am currently a Junior at the University of Notre Dame, majoring in Spanish and minoring in Sociology. I am from Torrance, California and I plan to attend Graduate School for Sociology and/or participate in the Peace Corps. My passion is to make an impact on the world, to travel the world and see various cultures through their food and customs.
Ever since I began Spanish in high school as a Freshman, my love for the Spanish language and the Latin American culture grew. I learned about different places where Spanish was spoken and different aspects of their culture. I never would have expected to travel to Latin America five years later and to see the Andes, possibly travel to Tierra del Fuego, drink mate and dance the tango in Buenos Aires, walk the ancient Incan ruins of Macchu Picchu…all adventures that I have only read about and hope to actually live out.
The older team I coached in the Dominican Republic in the summer of 2008.
I decided to major in Spanish after volunteering for the non-profit organization called Basketball as a Mission (Basquetból como Misión). Led by one of my high school basketball coaches, I along with a group of a few other coaches travelled to the Dominican Republic to hold a one-week basketball camp for the local children (ages 6 to 16) of El Cruce de Arroyo Hondo. Now, I could go into many details about how the children touched my heart with their gracious attitudes mixed with very playful and content demeanors – no matter what their situation; this experience, which consists of helping out with this camp in both the summers of 2007 and 2008, thus could probably have a blog of its own. However, I will save that for another time. I simply wanted to note that after that first summer living among the Dominicans, I began to truly fall in love with not only the Dominican Republic, but also the Latin American culture in general.
That is when I decided to include Spanish as a part of my studies at Notre Dame.
I am so enjoying this blog. You are an inspiration to us all as well as a wonderful writer.
love,
aunt e.