lots of people in the south love watching tectonic plates

The language barrier can be really frustrating at times but having already moved to two countries without knowing the languages first, I've generally learned to stay relaxed and shrug off inabilities to communicate. It's especially comical now because I'm in a stage where I can understand enough to get the gist of some conversations, but a lot of times it's not quite the right gist and I end up chiming in with some kind of awkwardly composed, remotely-related answer. The Spanish is coming, but 80% of the time, I still have no idea what's going on. It doesn't help that Chileans speak a million miles an hour, slur/cut short their words, and have an entire dictionary full of chilenismos, only-used-in-Chile idioms.

Ayun was working on some kind of project with Styrofoam after once last night and I asked Charo what it was about. Charo can't speak any English but she's pretty good at explaining things in simpler Spanish until I can understand it for the most part. So she told me what Ayun was doing, and I couldn't make out the meaning on the first couple of tries. My comprehension of simple Spanish has soared compared to what it was (nothing) before I moved in, but it was more specialized language about the topic of the project.

On another try, I caught the word "Nascar" and was a little bewildered that she would be doing a project on race car driving in the US but hey, this is Chile so who knows. In Spanish, I said, "Nascar?? Why is she doing that topic? That's interesting. Nascar is very popular in the south of the United States and many people love watching it. Not in the north though."

Charo just looked at me a little confused, then just smiled and shrugged her shoulders. And that was that.

Today, Ayun was working on it again in the kitchen and preparing a map of the world to stick onto the styrofoam, which Norman was helping her cut into the shapes of countries with a hot butter knife. At first I thought, how is this related to Nascar, but then just decided to sit back and watch. Finally I asked Ayun what she was actually working on and she told me a history project on placas tectonicas (tectonic plates).

Ohhhhhhhhh...ok. Then why did Charo tell me Nascar?

Then Norman started talking about the plates under Chile that caused the 8.8 earthquake a few months ago and mentioned the name Placa de Nazca very quickly. Having just read about these plates under Chile when I posted on the geography a little while ago, it clicked.

So I had told my host mom that tectonic plates, specifically the Nazca, were very popular in the south of the US and people love to watch them.

She must have thought I was out of my mind and in a way, I guess I was.