By Alejandra Jimenez
In my last week interning for International IDEA, I had the opportunity to meet with Dr. Fabricio Franco, a professor and director of the Chile office of the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences. During this meeting, the other interns and I got to learn more about Chile’s current sociopolitical dynamics from a perspective I had not heard before. This made a fulfilling closing to my internship with IDEA that further motivated me to remain informed about Chile’s journey towards a potential new constitution.
One of my most outstanding memories from my last weeks in Chile was having the pleasure of staying over at my friend’s parents’ home in Viña del Mar with the rest of the interns and getting to experience the city he grew up in. Of all the beaches I have visited, Viña’s takes the number one place in my heart, and I only wish I had been able to stay longer.
As a group, we also explored Valparaíso, a city adjoining Viña, and tried the delicious seafood for which both cities are known. As someone who is not the biggest fan of seafood, I was surprised at how fresh each meal was and how much I enjoyed them. This was a pleasant experience that made me more open to trying foods I may not be as acquainted with back home.
After concluding my internship with IDEA, I spent a little over a week traveling around the different regions of Chilean and Argentinian Patagonia with my friend, Tien, who was also one of the four interns in Chile. We were able to visit the cities of Puerto Natales, El Calafate, Punta Arenas, Ushuaia, and the village of El Chaltén. Although we were told multiple times that we had arrived in Patagonia during the ‘low season,’ the beauty of the winter landscape was undeniably astonishing and filled us with awe. One of the highlights from my trip to Patagonia with Tien was constantly seeing her stop in her tracks, the biggest smile on her face as she stared off into the mountains stunned and amazed.
We spent the week jumping from hostel to hostel, traveling by plane, ferry, bus, and foot—sometimes for up to nine hours on bus rides. We certainly didn’t eat lavishly and often made it through the days with instant ramen, free tea from the hostels, and pasta that Tien and I would cook a day prior to a tour that we would then store in an old peach jam container and eat cold the next day. The tours we took, the people we met, and the scenery we got to witness are memories I would not change for anything and will take with me everywhere I go.
The last week before concluding our experience abroad was spent in the city of Buenos Aires in Argentina. There, we got to eat the greatest quantities of milanesa and fries a human could possibly ingest, went to the opera, explored the city, and took a one-day detour to Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, to eat kebab. Watch the sunsets by the sea anywhere we went always made for a lovely time.
When it was finally time to head back home and I found myself sitting at the airport waiting to board my flight, I thought about how quickly it felt time had passed since leaving for Chile in late May. However, when thinking about Santiago, Patagonia, Buenos Aires, and Montevideo as a whole, it feels as though I spent a minimum of six months away. I reflected on how intimidated I used to feel about taking on the opportunity of an internship outside of the United States, and how worried I was about not being able to fulfill the standards I set for the work I am tasked with. I am grateful to International IDEA for providing me with a summer full of learning and professional development, as well as experiences that helped me tackle my fears. These have left me feeling much more at ease about soon departing for my academic year abroad at the University College London in England.