Universidad De Los Andes – My Impression So Far

 

So, a little bit more information on my scholarship.

For my remaining two weeks, I am staying with the University of the Andes, or Universidad de Los Andes, or Uniandes. During this time, I am doing Spanish and Theatre. Having now attended Uniandes for about 2 weeks, I have certainly developed some opinions.

My first impression of Uniandes was “wow, this place is beautiful.” Walking across the campus felt like walking through a botanical garden. The Andes were right there, with a gorgeous view of them with Monserrate sitting right at the top. Although the buildings varied in architecture, many had that traditional, beautiful Spanish look. Others tended to have a bit of a mall-ish feel, but still retained spectacular views of Bogotá.

In terms of queerness, Uniandes gets a big tick from me. I have met many openly queer people, seen signs on bathroom doors encouraging students to use the bathroom which best aligns with their gender identity, and even queer couples doing couple things [1]. As a queer person, I feel like I could casually bring up my girlfriend in conversation with an 80% chance of no strange looks and a 99.9% chance of not being hate crimed. I have also seen promotions of queer students' achievements, so go Uniandes.

Although Uniandes is slaying in the queer department, I have found chronic pain has added some difficulty. The campus tends to feel like one big staircase. Our first few theatre classes were in the gym, which is a steep, uphill climb at the very top of the university, and was practically a workout within itself. As much as I liked the fancy dance room, the effort it required to get there was not worth it. Although there were elevators, the queues were so long your class would probably be over by the time you reached your floor. I strongly believe that Uniandes would be inaccessible to a wheelchair user. It’s barely accessible to me.

Although the building of Uniandes couldn’t be further from accommodating, the people have been fantastic. Everyone has been really accepting, no-questions-asked towards my pain. If I need an accommodation such as a seat to sit down on every now and then or to be not touched in a pain spot, it will happen. We have somehow managed to end up doing the most movement-based theatre imaginable, which also adds an extra slice of challenge. 

Even though Uniandes has been challenging physically, I am absolutely loving it; even the ridiculously physical theatre. The experience so far has been amazing, and although challenging, I would recommend it to anyone.

 

Hasta luego,

Milly

1.    1. You know, like hand holding and cuddling. Why, what were you thinking of?