local celebrities

Rebecca and I went to the beach on Saturday and just happened to meet a nice photographer working for the local paper... needless to say, now we're in the local paper!

click here!

Now I'd like to say that I've been super busy with my project but I haven't. The plus side of that is that I've had time to go to the beach!!! and fully enjoy living close to the ocean (something I've never been able to experience before)  here's a snapshot of my life the past 2 weeks...

my family has bikes! so this is my transport

and this is my view...

One of the craziest days I've ever had

So yesterday I pretty much had a breakdown...

I'm in the independent study part of my program and I'm living in Arica which has been a cool experience. I'm about halfway through my time up here in the north and I haven't really gotten much done on my independent study.  I'm researching peruvian and bolivian immigration and it has the potential to be really cool but for a number of reasons I haven't done a single interview.  One problem is that my advisor doesn't seem to be the best at communicating with me and hasn't been super helpful with providing me with contacts.  While I'm pretty fed up with her I realize that the situation I'm in right now is partly my fault because I could have been more proactive in asking for and setting up my own interviews and meetings.

Anyways yesterday was my breaking point as far as stress about my project goes and then my chilean mama came home from work at about 5 puking and obviously REALLY sick.  Luckily my sister was home and they went to the clinic to get her help.  I worked on my project for the rest of the night; talked to my academic director and cried a lot.  At about 10 my sister called to see how I was doing and I was like dude, I'm pretty sure I'm the one who should be asking that question.  She said they were still waiting but that it shouldn't be too much longer.  I went to bed at about 11:55 only to be shaken awake - literally rattled by a "temblor" of rather large size 6.5 on the richter scale at 12:05.  My sister called me in the middle of the earthquake to ask me if I felt it, i was like ummm YEAH! Then she told me that I should go out into the street when an earthquake that big happened, and I was like well I was on my way but then you called and I ran back to get my phone... I got another phone call an hour later, 1am - that's late for me! to see if I could wait up for them cause they had forgotten keys.  They got home from the clinic at about 1:45 am (it makes me realize that our "health care crisis" isn't anything compared to a 9 hour wait in a clinic just to get diagnosed with a urinary tract infection... and have to pay for it yourself because the wait at the place where they have insurance would have been even longer!)

Anyways, I'm doing much better today.  I got some work done on my project and actually have a plan (no thanks to my advisor)!  I only wish that I'd been more proactive and less cautious about going over my advisor's head to make contacts. Pictures to come as soon as I start taking some!

#6 through #10

6. PUTRE!! we spent almost a week in this little town and I loved it! If I've learned nothing else during my study abroad experience it's that no matter how cool cities are, I'm a country girl at heart.  It was with a weird sense of relief that I settled into the routine of classes and community service up here.  People said hi to us on the street, and things got reallly quiet after about 9:30 or 10 most nights.  The views and open spaces were definitely a relief after nothing but city views for a couple of months.  On one of our last days we visited 7 murals spread throughout the pueblo that depict some of the local history and legends. They were created by kids and painted by the community... very cool.

7. Lago Chungara. We were told that this is something like the highest unnavigable lake in the world which while it kinda sounds cool also doesn't sound that impressive/I'm sure there are ponds that are higher so I'm not even sure if it's true.  Anyways the trip up there was really cool, we met a couple of angry alpacos and a really cute llama!! The lake was gorgeous, it's situated between two giant volcanoes.

8. Finding out that there are flamingoes at 14,000 feet!  So this is more about Lago Chungara but also I never would have believed it if I hadn't seen it so here are some pictures...

I had to take the picture through a pair of binoculars because they were kinda far away!

9. My homestay in Belen.  The last 5 days of our excursion to the north were spent in rural homestays.  I lived in Belen, which is a town of between 35 and 40 people depending on who you talk to.  It's kinda eerie walking through the streets because it seems a lot bigger, but most of the houses are deserted because most of the people from Belen have moved to Arica, the city on the coast to find work.  I got to tend the goats with my mama and little 3 year old brother.

My mama makes goat cheese, and it's won all sorts of prizes! Even though it was super fun and interesting, I was definitely ready to get back to a bigger town because while I like small towns there was NOTHING happening in this one... 5 days were enough to get a feel for the town but living there would definitely be tough and although I think it's super sad, I can understand why so many people have moved to the city.

10.  This was actually kinda sucky as well, but last Sunday me and one other girl from the program, Rebecca, went to the airport with the rest of the group and waved goodbye as they all went back to Valpo without us!  Now we're alone in Arica for about 3 weeks to work on our independent studies.  I'm  studying illegal immigration and the racial and social problems associated with that issue.  The work is really interesting and I'm super excited to start talking to immigrants early next week!  The one major bummer is that the homestays are awkward and uncomfortable and REALLY expensive (relative to other options) but we're required to stay in a homestay because of safety and so that SIT can keep and eye on us.

More to come later! I've been pretty bored so the posts should start coming more frequently...

Not about school! (sort of)

So once again it's been a long time since I last wrote so I'm going to do a super lame list of the 10 most awesome-est things that I've done or had happen to me in the past 3 weeks (in no particular order... or maybe chronological order depending on how they come to me).

My friend Teshika and Pablo

1. Visiting Pablo's house - We went to Isla Negra a couple days before I started my excursion to the north and it was cloudy and cold but still super cool.  The house was described in the guide book as being Pablo Neruda's favorite house and I can totally see why, it's probably one of the coolest places I've visited in a while.  We couldn't take pictures in the house, which was totally lame but here are a couple from outside.  After visiting his house we had really yummmy empanadas and ice cream!

The house...

2. Saying goodbye to cerro Alegre/Concepcion - Although technically I was living in Viña del Mar during the last 8 weeks this was one of my favorite neighborhoods to explore in Valparaiso and a couple weeks previously I had seen a bag that stuck in my memory... Needless to say I really wanted to find is so when we were wandering around a couple days before leaving I was super excited to find it!! I ended up buying the bag, and getting driven to the bank by the owner to take out money to buy it! Definitely a memorable experience.

The store

"Yes we take credit cards... now get in my car"

3. Saying goodbye to my familia -  This one is a little sadder, I love my Viña family. They're great (I expecially realize that now that I am living with a family that I'm less than thrilled with) and even though I still have a week and a half left with them when I go back to Valparaiso before the end of the program, I'm super bummed that we didn't have more time together.  On the night before I left to go north they took me to "the best chorrillana place in valpo"which was literally down an alley/one of the greasiest places I've been in a while.

this wasn't taken the night I left but it's a pic of my sis, dad and bro

4. Landing in Iquique - It was surreal, I mean I knew we were going to the desert but I hadn't planned on the foggy moon-scape that we encountered.  It was super cool and I don't think picture do it justice but check them out...

the view leaving Iquique

on the "pampa" the desert out of the coastal fog

5. One of the coolest places I've ever peed... Maybe I shouldn't brag about this but I've peed in some pretty cool places.  On our drive from Arica up to Putre (sea level to about 11, 700 feet) we made a couple of stops.  One of these was at an old Aymara ruin site.  I really had to pee and after we walked around for a while I wasn't sure I could hold it until we got back to the bus.  So I ran, calmly (you can't do anything to fast at 10,000 feet when you're used to 0) to the top of the hill and well.... it was super dry so I'm betting my pee lasted all of 10 seconds before evaporating/absorbing.  I'm sure it's considered totally bad form to pee on ancient indigenous ruins but it was still really pretty and really cool!

Here's what's happened in the last month...

Sorry it's been so long since I last wrote anything!
I'm going to do two posts, one about school and another one about the things that I've done outside of school (the school one will probs be longer because I've been in school like 24/7 for the past couple weeks) Enjoy...

cute street dog in Valpo

The last month has been pretty busy with school work. The way that the SIT program works is that we have classes for the first half of the semester and get more or less 3 courses done in 7 weeks and then the second half of the time we spend traveling and working on our independent study.  Because of this I've had spanish class monday-thursday for 4 hours and 2 hour seminars every afternoon, with excursions to Santiago and beyond on fridays and saturdays.

Spanish classes have been going well, while I still feel like an idiot about half the time when I'm speaking I think that the reality is that I've progressed a lot.  While most of our classes took place in Casa SIT (the home base of the program) we would often go out to coffee shops or markets to have class.  One of my favorite classes was when we went to the local fish market at the docks and had to talk to the fishermen about the problems they face in their industry.  It was really interesting to hear how the progression of big industry fishing has basically wrecked it for the individuals and to learn how rapidly over-fishing has changed the quality/size of the catches they're bringing in.  For our last real class we went over to my Spanish teacher's house and made french toast which we ate w/ manjar (dulce de leche), fruit and jelly it was super delicious and her house is actually AMAZING I want to live there!! Then on thursday we painted a mural on one of the walls in Casa SIT, this was a really interesting experience not only because we got to work with a relatively famous muralist called Pajaritos but also because he (or maybe our academic directors I'm not sure) chose to put Salvador Allende up on the wall.  If I have one major critique with this program it's its complete disregard for anything other than leftist, specifically socialist/communist, political ideology. It's very frustrating because even though I agree with most of what they say I know that there are some students that don't and that they have often felt very uncomfortable during classes and especially with the painting of Allende on the wall.

A ruca (Mapuche house) in Santiago

the youth center was in a train car...

The seminars have mostly been interesting but not too different from a seminar in the states except for the fact that they are in Spanish.  The excursions have been great for the most part.  Our first one was a total bust because we were supposed to visit migrant workers at a farm 3 hours away but the farm decided at the last minute not to let us onto their property to talk to their workers which meant that we had basically driven 3 hours for nothing.  Needless to say I was pretty skeptical about our second trip.  Luckily it was much better, we went to Santiago and visited a población, which is an community formed on unused land that was stolen from wealthy land owners in the 60's and early 70's.  The community is very well developed now, although there are still lots of problems with drugs and poverty.  We got to talk to an artistic youth group that puts on programs in an attempt to keep the kids out of trouble.  It was really interesting talking to these guys because they are our age but almost none of them have been to college or even have the chance to go but they recognize the fact that this doesn't have to keep them from doing what they want to do.

lots of good chill music... oh and we played musical chairs!! 

Our last excursion was yesterday, we went back to Santiago but this time it was to visit Villa Grimalde (Parque por la Paz) a detention/torture center during the dictatorship of Pinochet that was converted into a memorial.  We were guided by the lady who organizes our community service, but also happens to have spent 2 years being detained during the dictatorship at Villa Grimalde and other camps in Santiago.  It was super interesting and really sad but also inspiring to see how she has managed to accept the fact that what happened is a part of her life but not necessarily a defining factor.

So that's that, while I haven't totally enjoyed every minute of the program so far over all I know I've been learning a lot and I'm in Chile so I can't really complain too much!  The next part of the program is much more exciting for me, I've got one more week in Valparaíso and then I'm headed North to do a two week excursion with half of the group (the other half goes South) and then I'm on my own for a MONTH!! I'll be living in Arica, which is basically the northern most city in Chile, studying border issues and the situation with migrant workers in that region.  I'm pretty excited but also nervous, although I will miss my host family a lot, I'm definitely NOT ready to leave them yet :(

YAY my camera worked on the first try!!

so i went skiing last weekend, here are some pics from the trip...

view of the mountains from Santiago

getting closer,

and closer...

almost there!!

I think I could get used to this

SUPER BIEN

yay snow!!

the Andes are beautiful.

Skiing In September

This past weekend was awesome, I got to go skiing and visit a different part of Chile for the first time this semester!

Saturday I woke up really early, at about 4:30 to go to Santiago with a couple friends.  In Santiago we caught a shuttle bus up to a ski area called Valle Nevado (which is actually a sister ski area of Big Sky in Montana...) The skiing was absolutely amazing! It was super warm and probably some of the best spring skiing I've had in years.  It was textbook corn snow (I had trouble explaining how good it was to the chilean fam because corn snow doesn't sound nearly as cool if you don't know what it is) and the conditions only got better as the day went on.

The Andes are HUGE, way different from any mountains I've ever been around before.  Where as the Rockies are pointy and dynamic these things are just gigantic.  They rise up really fast from the coast, we were able to go from sea level in Valparaiso to over 9,500 feet in about 2.5 hours! But more importantly they are just plain big.  They stretch on for miles and miles and the snow covered peaks end impressively way above tree line.

After a great day of skiing we met some new friends  on the bus ride back to Santiago, one guy was really friendly and we spent most of the ride talking about language and cultural differences.  He was pretty much fluent in Spanish and English so he gave us the low down on some more Chileanismos.  We learned that foreigners should probably never say hueon - a word that can mean both dude and asshole - because we'll probably use it wrong even if we can speak fluent spanish... it's something about cultural understanding).  We were all completely wiped when we got back to Santiago though and so we booked it to the hostel that our friend Laura recommended called La Chimba which was pretty sweet and definitely a nice place to finish our day.  For dinner we just went across the street to this Peruvian place that was recommended by the hostel.  While it was slightly lacking in atmosphere, there were lots of odd Chinese decorations and the waiter was a little overly attentive, the food was absolutely amazing.  Peru has a fair amount of Chinese/Asian influence we learned and this was definitely apparent in the dishes we ordered (lots of rice and some yummy sauces).

The next day some of the group stayed in Santiago to attend a human rights march with Danko (one of our program leaders), while Peter and I chose to go back to Valparaiso.  The march sounded really interesting but I was a little stressed about the amount of work I had to do for Monday and I was also pretty tired. Unfortunately when I got home instead of doing my homework I somehow ended up at a BBQ with my family and about 6 other families that lasted for most of the afternoon.  I'm not sure exactly when I agreed to go to this thing but my brother left specifically to come pick me up so I didn't really feel like I could say no... It was really fun though, much better than doing homework so I guess I can't complain too much!

That's all for now though, I'm tired and I'll post pictures as soon as I get a chance to download them from my camera...

Sept. 11th

September 11th has a completely different meaning here in Chile.  9/11/1973 is the day that a junta forced a military coup and placed General Pinochet in power.  This dictatorship lasted almost 20 years and affected every aspect of Chilean society.  During Pinochet's reign there were many human rights crimes committed and hundreds of thousands of people were detained or tortured under the excuse of 'state security', or for no apparent reason at all.  Because of this long history during which they were denied a voice Chileans now remember Sept. 11 with human rights demonstrations and other forms of protest.  It was very interesting to learn about and experience a completely different tragedy that just happened to occur on the same day.  It made me realize how different experiences and events can effect our perceptions of the world and what we consider to be important.  

On Friday to remember the coup we watched a really good movie about the friendship of two boys during the last months of Allende's reign and the coup.  It was called Machuca and I definitely recommend it if you can find it!  

Mi Familia

Well, I LOVE my family here. I'm sure that this is due in part to the "honeymoon" period of culture shock that we learned about during orientation, but it's also just because they are awesome. They are super caring and very welcoming.  My mom's name is Rosa, but everyone calls her Rosy (very similar to Roxy) and my dad's name is Ulises.  They have two kids but neither one lives at home any more.  The son, also named Ulises, is very nice though.  He lives in Santiago but comes home every weekend...   My mom makes me lunch every day which I usually eat at school or if it's nice out I take  it somewhere to eat. I'm extremely well fed here but the upside is that I live 4 blocks from the sea and it's a great place to run and they have a BIKE PATH, that's right a bike path. Chile is actually very advanced, they have bike paths all over Santiago too, but you have to be careful because lots of cars use them as an extra lane. 

This evening I went to yoga with my mama, it was kinda funny and not at all like the yoga classes I've been to in the states but it was really fun to do that with my mama.  There are tons of ways to be athletic if you want but that doesn't mean that I've been all that motivated, there are a couple of other people on the program who like working out too though so that helps a little!  

Classes started on Tuesday, I'm in a spanish class with 6 other kids from the program and we have classes with 2 different teachers, for 2 hours or so each with a break in between.  My teachers are really nice and so far the classes have gone pretty fast.  Today during the second spanish class we went on an excursión with our teacher and we had to talk to people in stores and on the streets to figure out about the history of the place we went, it was kind of scary at first but everyone is really nice and willing to help if you make an effort to talk in spanish.  The other day, for example, my homework was to talk to my family about Chilean perceptions of the US and also Chilean perceptions of other Chileans.  My papa and I had a huge discussion about the way in which the as a whole US is seen to be like a powerful bully who abuses its power, but he was also careful to qualify this by saying that it's interesting because all of the individuals from the states that he's met were really nice and helpful.  Our conversation ended with a long debate about the education systems of our two countries and while I'm not totally sure of all that was said, by me or him, it was really interesting. 

I'll post more pics soon but my camera is kinda a pain so it's not going to happen tonight!

Ciao

some Photos

here are some photos...

el ascensor

un gato

sunset

(one of) my schools!

"seawolf"

Address

My address for this semester is:


Roxy Pierson

c/o SIT Study Abroad

Bellavista #1263, Recreo

Casilla Postal 8009, Viña 2 

Viña del Mar 

Chile

I'm not sure if this means that it will go to a PO box or the street address because I was kinda tuned out when Danko explained it but this is what they put in our handbook.  Cards/packages would be super fun to get and I'll try to write some post cards too!

Valpo and Vina

Just thought I'd let you know how things are going...  Orientation is fun so far but VERY thorough, I think we're all kinda wishing that we could be a little more independent and start a "normal" schedule.  Still I guess it's good to help us out and create a support network.  We've been staying in Vina del Mar at a neat little hotel pretty close to the downtown area.  Yesterday we went into Valparaiso for the first time and we took a boat tour through the harbor which was an awesome way to orient ourselves to the two cities.  

Valpo and Vina are much closer together than I thought they would be the dividing line is relatively ambiguous and la Casa SIT is right on the 'border' between the two which will be nice.  While I haven't met my host family yet I got the address and it looks like I'm living about 4 blocks from the beach in Vina, pretty close to where we've been spending our time during orientation.  It's a little disappointing not to be in Valpo, especially now that we've seen Valpo because Vina is definitely more modern and not anywhere near as pretty, but getting back and forth seems like it will be easy enough and they split the group pretty evenly between the two cities so it's not like I'm alone.

Today we had a drop off which was basically an assignment where we had to go and learn about a place, a food and a couple chilean words that they gave us.  We were split up into groups of two and I got to go with Laura (who is also my roommate for this first weeks which was fun).

We found the place really easily it was the Ascensor El Peral which is actually a funicular like the ones in Barcelona, only older. We got to ride it up to the top for 100 pesos which is about 20 cents which is really great because we got to feel totally touristy for almost no money.  Valpo is known for its Acensores (there are 15, but only 8 are currently in operation) and it's neat because they are definitely used for transportation as well as tourism. Some have been in operation since the beginning of the century and they still use basically the same technology although they run on electricity instead of being powered by animals. Valpo/Vina del Mar has a really good public transportation system and I'm excited to get more familiar with it. 

Chile? Chile!!

I made it to Chile!!! The flight went great, I love flying when there aren't any problems.  A ton of people were wearing masks in the Atlanta airport which was a bit surreal to see though.  Also, there was this one guy on my flight who was super ridiculous he was the most obnoxious OCDer I've seen in a while.  As I'm waiting to get to my seat someone goes to put a bag in the overhead and he's all... WATCH THE COAT MAN and I'm like seriously it's not even that cool and who do you think you are some posh dresser hello, you're flying coach buddy. He proceeded to drink lots of red wine and stay up really late laughing loudly at the movie 17 Again (definitely a super cool gentleman).

Anyways so now I'm in Chile, I met up with the group first thing this morning off of my redeye flight into Santiago, soooo tired. We drove from Santiago to Vina del Mar and the rest of the day was a mixture of trying to meet everyone, wandering around, and sleeping. The city is great but totally overwhelming. I'm hoping that after we finish orientation and settle into our homestays I'll start to feel a bit more confident about the whole living in a city thing, until then I get to feel like a fish out of water with a bunch of city folk for classmates. Good news though, my spanish isn't as bad as I previously thought and I might actually get better, also there are a couple of other people who have expressed interest in going SKIING!!!! not that that is what I'm here for but I figure when else will I get the chance to go skiing in August (ok so maybe it's possible in Colorado but I've never don it...) It's dinner time now and I'm still not sure how I feel about this whole blog thing so that's all for now, maybe next time I'll post pictures?!