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 :(