Christine Cherry
Sports Editor
Senior psychology major, Matt Forgues, aspires to be a nurse practitioner. Although not a Spanish major or minor, he chose to spend the spring semester of his junior
Matt Forgues ‘14 hiking through the mountains of Chile (Photo: Matt Forgues)
year in Santiago, Chile, in order to immerse himself in the culture and become more fluent in the Spanish language. He also ended up running in the Santiago Marathon and volunteering at a psychiatric hospital for teens. For an energetic cross country runner, going somewhere as outdoorsy and beautiful as Santiago seemed like the perfect fit. “As someone who grew up in Maine and loves the outdoors and anything adventure related, I had heard great things about these opportunities in Chile,” Forgues reminisces.
Classes in Chile weren’t too different from Goucher, as Forgues took classes in Latin American economics and native Chilean cultures. However, there were courses with an emphasis placed highly on Spanish. “We did the equivalent of three semesters worth of Spanish classes at Goucher in just one, semester,” Forgues comments. Not only did he have to speak a different language, he also had to change his lifestyle. “I gave up my vegan diet before going abroad because I wanted my body to have time to adjust … I’m glad I did because I ended up eating some form of fish or seafood probably every three days,” as seafood is one of Chile’s biggest food sources. He also recalls eating a lot of avocados.
Matt Forgues in a farmers market in Chile. (Photo: Matt Forgues)
One of Forgues’ most treasured memories from Chile was meeting Alejandro, a child Forgues and his family had been sponsoring from abroad for the past five years. Meeting Alejandro and seeing the sunrise and sunset from a mountaintop are two of his most memorable experiences abroad.
Returning to Goucher has been a difficult transition for Forgues. He believes he has grown immensely as a result of his experiences, and “the only people that can relate to this are Hannah Moloney and Andrew Huff because they were the other Goucher students there. Even among the three of us, we had very different experiences.” Forgues had such a good time in Chile that he rented an apartment for an extra month after the semester’s end. Now, Forgues is still adjusting to life back in the U.S. “It’s hard coming back to a place where we take so much for granted. People complain about the smallest things when abroad, and sometimes we wouldn’t have water due to a landslide or a storm in which the water supply would be siphoned,” while he notes at Goucher students complain when the WiFi is down.
What advice does Forgues have for students traveling abroad? “Live it up!” Forgues exclaims. “Every night when you’re not sure if you should go out because you have class the next day or you ‘might be too tired’, still go out because you don’t want to miss anything. You blink and it’s over. This is what I did and I was tired several days, nights, and weekends that I traveled, but it was worth every lost hour of sleep.” Forgues’ time in Santiago displays that going abroad is an experience of a lifetime.
Categories: Global
The Quindecim 