Weekend adventures

June 27, 2011
3:41 PM

Fun weekend. Friday was spent exploring Santiago and going to various outdoor and indoor markets. Finally found some postcards that I like, so people might actually be hearing from me somewhat soon. Saturday, Winnie and I went to Cajón de Maipo along with Shay, another guy from our program. Cajón de Maipo is about an hour away from Santiago and very pretty, super close to the mountains. I really wanted to go on a hike, but when we asked at the tourist center, we were told that the only hike nearby would cost us $15,000 pesos (about $30). Needless to say, we weren’t too excited about that, so we instead decided to follow the road up the nearby mountains to the ski resort 16 km away. We walked part of the way, but got a lot of rides from people as well – my first time hitchhiking! We bushwhacked off the road for a while as well, although it ended up being a bit more of an adventure than we were looking for, what with cliffs, fences, and lots of prickly bushes and loose rock. Shay and I were fine, but Winnie (who is scared of heights), was not a huge fan of some parts. We got out of it all right however, and it was definitely an experience! We caught a ride back down the mountain and got a ride back to Santiago from Shay’s host mom, who happened to be there for a party. Shay was particularly happy not to have to take the bus back, as he was not a fan of the speed and bumpiness of the ride over. (I, however, liked the bus – it was like an amusement park ride :P)

Sunday, Winnie and I went to Pomaire, a pueblo about 45 minutes away that is pretty much dedicated to creating pottery. It was interesting, but I enjoyed Cajón de Maipo more. Plus there were tons of tourists in Pomaire – although very few Americans, which was good. The day ended up being a little longer than expected after we realized that a lot of the buses going back to Santiago were already full, but we got back eventually. And spent the extra time flirting with several Pomaire guys, so it wasn’t too bad :P

Today was a día feriado, state holiday, so no work. Back to the normal routine tomorrow though. I’m not really looking forward to it – the office is so so cold, and I don’t actually enjoy teaching English that much. It also makes me sad learning about the state of education here, as it’s pretty horrible. Right now a lot of the schools are “en toma,” meaning that students have taken over the school buildings and aren’t allowing anyone in. You can tell when a school is en toma because chairs are stuck into the fences surrounding the schools. There are student guards who determine who can pass, and there are students in the building at all times (many sleep and eat there). Some schools have been en toma for a couple weeks now, and I’m not sure when it’s going to let up. The tomas were initiated in order to protest for better quality education, and some people in my program see the tomas as being a good example of citizens protesting for their rights, but I think the whole idea of a toma is very contradictory. Quality of education may be bad, but it can’t be worse than nothing at all. Those defending the tomas claim that the only way to initiate governmental action here is to do something drastic, but taking over school buildings and destroying school property can’t be the best way. Not to mention that some of the problem lies within the students themselves – at one of the schools I go to to teach, many of the students spend most of their time sitting around outside instead of in class, and students regularly miss their lessons at the office I work at. And Chile isn’t yet a completely developed country, so I have my doubts about whether the tomas will be able to instigate any change even if the government recognizes the problems in quality of education (which they do). I wasn’t set on writing my thesis on education in Latin America/Chile before I came here, but now I think I’m even less likely to. But we shall see! And for those interested, I’ll try to put up a picture of one of the schools currently en toma soon; I haven’t had the chance to take one yet. But if you search “en toma” on google images, some images of schools in Santiago come up.

Okay, well I’m exhausted now, so I’m going to take a nap before going to a plaza with my host family to walk around and get a coffee later tonight. Hope everyone is doing well! I’ve recently had my first tinges of homesickness this week, and I miss the ease of being home (used loosely). But I knew that would happen, and I think it’s good for me in various ways. One of which is that visiting other places has been super useful to me in terms of helping me figure out exactly how I want to live. Not in terms of what I want to study or do for a career so much, but in terms of what kind of living situation I want: house, food, eating and sleeping schedule, social life, etc. Hasn’t changed my opinion about where I want to live though: Montana still on my mind ☺

Cajón de Maipo in the background

Shay, me, and Winnie

Internship: Day One

June 20, 2011 (Monday)
7:40 PM

First day of my internship, and I’m exhausted. Not a good sign, as my day went like this:

9 AM: wake up
10:30 AM: leave house
11:30 AM: get to where I’m supposed to meet one of my supervisors, 45 minutes early. Go shopping while I wait. Buy boots.
12:20 PM: meet my supervisor, and walk to the Fundación office
1 PM: yummy lunch for everyone in the office, thanks to it being a special birthday celebration day
~2 PM: eat cake
~3 PM: play a group game
5:30 PM: head home

Doesn’t sound that tiring… but it was! And starting tomorrow, I actually have to work… and get there in the morning… I don’t think I’m cut out for the real world :P

Also, not liking the whole being-winter thing. Hardly anywhere has indoor heating so it kinda sucks. My house actually DOES have indoor heating and I supposedly have the warmest room in the house, but I'm currently lying on my bed with leggings AND pants on, a blanket over me, and wearing a jacket and a sweatshirt.

Not much else exciting has happened since I last wrote. Shabbat dinners with my host family (learning about Jewish culture while in Chile was not something I was expecting!), exploring Santiago with my friend Winnie, taking advantage of free Sundays at various museums, and tasting various different desserts and candies is pretty much it. Next weekend a lot of the students from the program are going to Atacama or Valparaiso, but Winnie and I are opting for some much less expensive day trips – Pomaire, Cajon de Maipó, and possibly Viña del Mar. Decided I didn’t really need to spend $300+ when I’m already somewhere cool!

Brianna

PS Including a couple more photos – it rained all day Saturday, so the smog was temporarily cleared away and could actually see the mountains. If Santiago can get their pollution problem taken care of, the city will really be spectacular.

my friend Winnie in La Plaza de Armas

a glimpse of some of the mountains around Santiago -- normally these are completely covered by smog :(

5th day in Chile, already feels like much longer :)

June 15, 2011
5:47 PM

Mid-week update on mi vida: I met with the directors of my program last night, Claudia and Andrea, and they’re great – both are young and very nice. We ended up talking about things like which countries have the most attractive guys (they think Italy and Argentina), and they offered to take me out with their friends on the weekends if I want. I also learned more about my job: I will be helping to teach English to kids from ages 8 to 18, all of whom live in poverty and have had trouble in school. I’ll also get the chance to tour the other programs of the foundation and possibly help out with those as well (technical classes, classes for adults who never finished high school, and I forget the other). It looks like my schedule will be a little less rigorous than some of the others (some internships go from 8:30 am to 6 pm at night), but they still haven’t decided exactly how long I will be working each day. I’m excited to start, and I hope I like it!

Other than that, this week has been full of visiting sites around Santiago: El Palacio de la Moneda (main government building), La Chascona (one of the houses of Chilean poet and diplomat Pablo Neruda), and the Museum of Human Rights, among others.

That’s all for now, but I finally put up some pictures as well!

Brianna

Me in front of El Palacio de la Moneda

A view of Santiago - note all the smog

Some of the mountains!

First Impressions

June 12, 2011
12:24 PM

Second day in Santiago… right now I’m sitting waiting for my host mom and sister to get ready to go on a grocery shopping trip, so I’ll try to make a little headway on another entry.

My flights and everything went well, although it was a long 24 hours of traveling! One of my friends from the program ended up being on my flight from Dallas to Santiago. It didn’t mean much because we were far apart on the plane and separated shortly after getting our bags in Santiago, but it was nice to have one familiar face in a strange airport.

We arrived in Santiago on time, the flight was even a bit early, but we had to sit on the runway for an hour due to over-crowding because of a volcanic eruption in Chile earlier that week. The Santiago airport was fine, but a lot of the planes from Buenos Aires had to land in Santiago instead, so things were a little crazy. We eventually got off the plane, however, and things went smoothly after that. Well, with a couple minor exceptions:

• They wouldn’t take my $100 bill for the reciprocity fee because it was “too dirty” (it was not too dirty!)
• A dog attacked me because I was carrying fruit, which I had forgotten to declare, because I didn’t think a little baggy of grapes, apples, and dried bananas was a big deal. I offered to just throw them away, but instead had to fill out a new declaration form, get a big pink sticker, and draw the attention of several other dogs before the food was eventually taken away from me anyway. Oops.

Other than that, everything was very easy, and I even got asked for directions by another American guy. He told me I looked like a “seasoned traveler,” so he figured he’d ask. Of course, I had no idea where we were supposed to be going, but I was flattered that it at least appeared like I did ☺

I was met at the airport by my host mom, Elizabeth, and her brother Carlos. I felt really bad for keeping them waiting almost two hours, but they were very nice about it and extremely welcoming. Carlos commented on how heavy my suitcase was, but I had to correct him – 50.4 pounds is one of the lightest bags I have ever packed! You cannot call that heavy.

I got running commentary on buildings, sites, religion, and politics as we drove through Santiago, although most of it took place in English. Elizabeth and Carlos both speak English pretty well, as they lived in Los Angeles for a while when they were younger. [As a side note: Elizabeth’s partner Elias also speaks decent English, and having so many English speakers around has been kind of frustrating for me. My host sister Romi (short for Romina) doesn’t speak English hardly at all, and every time I ask her what a word means (or even if I don’t), she will ask Elizabeth to translate to English, when really all I want is an explanation in Spanish. Elizabeth especially is also very eager to speak in English, and I hate to disappoint her by only speaking in Spanish. But Carlos and Elias make a point of speaking almost exclusively in Spanish, and they both keep telling Elizabeth that she needs to let me have my immersion experience. She said she will stop speaking in English entirely after this week, but it’s clear that she really likes practicing her English skills so I think I’ll suggest having one conversation entirely in English per day, or something like that. Right now, I’m mainly replying in Spanish to her comments in English, so I don’t think either of us is getting too much out of it.] I saw some of the cool sites of Santiago, and learned interesting facts about my host family, such as that they are all Jewish. My host mom’s parents are from Hungary and Israel, and she was born in Bolivia and lived in Uruguay before coming to Chile (At least, I’m pretty sure that’s what she said, I’m getting it all confused in my head now. At least part of that statement is correct though.) Them being Jewish is great, because it means that I won’t be having fish and seafood every day like I was worried about.

After we got to the apartment, which is very nice (I’ll try to post some pictures later, I haven’t taken any yet), Elizabeth left to go to Synagogue and I took a quick shower and unpacked. I also met Elias, her live-in boyfriend, when he got up. Elias is 72 or 73 years old and hilarious. Some of the stuff he does really reminds me of what my grandpa on my mom’s side used to do – he told the doorman I was his new sweetheart, and told me to tell everyone at lunch that he was my boyfriend (which I completely forgot about when prompted, disappointing him immensely). I really like Elias, and he is easy to have conversations with.

Later that day, we went to Carlos’ house for lunch with all the extended family. It was hard to keep them all straight, but they were all very nice! I was inundated with questions the entire time, and had a great time with all of them. One of the boys, Benjamin, especially liked tricking me with Spanish wordplay jokes, which is extremely easy to do. Example: Oro no es, plata no es, cuando abras las cortinas, miras que es.” (“It’s not gold, it’s not silver, when you open the curtains you see what it is.”) I said the window, but the correct answer was banana – platano – because the sentence says “plata no es,” or put together “platano es” (it’s a banana). I in turn, translated some of my favorite English jokes, like “Why did the monkey fall out of the tree? – Because he was dead.” The same boy also regaled me with lines from Fiddler on the Roof, which his school is performing in English. He’s the butcher and doesn’t really know English, so listening to him pronounce his lines as he has written them phonetically is quite funny. I actually might record a couple of the scenes for him so he can hear the English pronunciation, because right now he is sometimes hardly intelligible.

I also have had to retell a misunderstanding from the car ride through Santiago about a million times, because Elizabeth and Carlos think it’s hilarious. As I said, the conversation included a lot of English, so when they asked me if I had a notebook, I assumed they meant an English notebook, with paper and everything (cuaderno). I told them no, but I could always buy one if I needed to. They looked surprised, and told me that a notebook was too expensive for me to just go buy one, at which point I was very confused. Turns out that here they call laptops notebooks… whoops.

After lunch, we came back and I took a much-needed nap. Around nine, I went to a birthday party with my host sister. She is in her thirties, but still lives at home (and doesn’t really act her age, I don’t think). The party was fun – I was somewhat of a spectacle, and I got to try a lot of Chilean drinks – pisco sour, pisco cola (pisco with Coke), a white sangria like thing, and this sweet mango drink. It was interesting hanging out with a bunch of people ten years older than me… it made me realize how little people change/mature as they get older. One of the girls there was telling me how she liked this guy across the room, but wouldn’t go talk to him, etc. All in all, the party was fun and I’m glad I went.

This morning, I got up at 10:30 and was one of the first ones up. So far I’ve eaten breakfast, exercised, and done this. We were supposedly leaving for the grocery store at 12:15, but it’s now 1:30, so I’m not exactly sure what’s going on… We’re going to lunch at Elias’ brother’s house, so I’m guessing we might just go straight there at this point. Then I have my first meeting with my program at 6 PM.

That’s about it as far as my host family and experiences so far I think. The not drinking tap water thing is really getting to me though, as I knew it would. I got as much water on the plane as I could, and I have been rationing myself since. My host mom is going to buy me water, but I think I’ll get myself a ton of water sometime so I don’t have to feel bad about being a little water-drinking machine. I have also already messed up a couple times… I don’t think tea equals water being boiled for a minute straight, but I’ve had that, and I completely forgot to brush my teeth with bottled water like they told me to. Also pretty sure some of the drinks last night had at least some tap water in them. But so far I haven’t felt bad at all, so maybe my theory about my invincibility to bad water and typhoid is correct!

Alright, well still not looking like we’re leaving anytime soon, but I’m out of stuff to say. Later!

Note: I had to wait to post this until after I got back tonight, as we ended up leaving shortly after and the blog poster thing wasn't immediately working for me. We had empanadas for lunch, which were delicious, and I met lots more people! Including a sister of the daughter in law of Elias who lived in Vermont for a couple months, so could speak good English. Such a difference from León, where hardly anyone spoke English and those who did didn't really like to! After that, we went shopping for food (I had to taste all the cheese and meats to make sure I liked them and was so full after the empanadas!), then went on a driving tour of the richest parts of Santiago (beautiful), then went to the meeting with my program. The meeting was actually the most boring part of the day, but luckily it didn't last too long. We're about to have dinner now (it's 8:30) and then I think I'll go right to bed, because I have to be up early tomorrow morning for the first day of activities. Hopefully I'll be able to sleep through all the racket of honking horns to celebrate Católico winning the soccer game today...

Buenas noches a todos,

Brianna

Arrived in Santiago :)

June 11, 2011

11:11 AM

Santiago, Chile

I’m here! Super tired though, so I’m off to a nap. Below is my first entry, written in the Dallas airport. Everything has been good so far! I really like my host mom and the house and everything, and free wifi is definitely nice as well :)

More details later!

June 10, 2011

7:14 PM CST

Dallas International Airport

Hello!! Welcome back to my blog, 2011 edition!

My computer says 6:14 PM, my watch says 8:14 PM, and my phone says 7:14 PM. I have a personal paradigm of only changing times when the mental calculations become too difficult, or when the amount of time I will be in the time zone makes constant mental calculation a little ridiculous (I think I draw the line somewhere in the two week range, but that could just be personal preference). Hence my phone is often the only accurate piece of electronic equipment I own.

I’m currently sitting in Dallas International Airport. I was re-reading my blog from last summer last night and based on the descriptions and memories I have of JFK, I am thankful I am going through Dallas this time! Easy access to outlets (although I feel bad, I’m kind of hogging two outlets right now), cool, no overpowering smells, and relatively uncrowded; much better than New York! Also, it’s my first time in Texas, so that’s exciting... So many of my friends live in Texas, I guess I should probably come back sometime and actually venture outside the airport.

Last night, I obtained a bunch of movies from my brother (illegally, of course). My flight from Denver to Dallas I watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. In the process, I completely forgot who and where I was, and the landing of the plane was, needless to say, a very jarring experience.  This has happened before, most recently with Dr. Parnassus’ Imaginarium last week (or whatever it’s called, the last Heath Ledger movie). In that case, the small window to the outside in the basement where I was watching it was the only thing that kept me tethered to reality. Since I have such a problem with forgetting about reality while watching movies – especially strange ones –I decided it would probably be better to write my first blog entry while waiting for the international flight that would be really bad to miss rather than watching another movie :P

But Eternal Sunshine was great. I have discovered that I really love movies realistically portrayed and full of dysfunctional characters and families. Little Miss Sunshine, which I watched a couple weeks ago, fits the bill as well. They also both feature comedic actors in serious roles… hmm.

But anyway, I’m supposed to be writing about my travel experiences, not about my cinematic tastes.

I set up this blog at the Denver airport earlier today. It was an extremely unproductive use of my time, as the free wifi really should have been used to finish the HMC [Harvard Model Congress, an organization that runs a conference for high school students each January in Boston] brief I wanted to finish before I left (for those of you who read my blog last summer, that situation might sound slightly familiar, although this year I also have an Hacia brief to complete as well (going for the double parentheses to explain Hacia – it’s a government simulation as well, but during Spring Break and in Latin America)), or ignored entirely as the connection speed was terrible. But a free wifi signal, no matter how weak, is always tempting to me. I’m almost glad there isn’t a free wifi signal here, although I did spend a good 10 minutes searching for one. In the hour and a half at Denver, I managed to get probably 15 minutes worth of blog set-up complete. After some contemplation, I decided to create a second blog for this summer, rather than just continuing my previous blog from Spain. I wanted to change the format and name, but didn’t want to get rid of my stuff from before. Only unfortunate thing is that creating a new blog means I currently have no followers for my adventures this summer. Two things alleviate my sadness over my lack of fans (actually three): 1) I only had 8 followers last summer, so I’m not missing out on much. 2) This blog is clearly so scintillating and exciting that I am sure to gain new followers like wildfire! And 3) I forget. I think it had something to do with the fact that I haven’t told anyone about the new blog yet, so my lack of followers does not equal lack of love.

Anyway, back to setting up the blog. I have tentatively entitled it “Summer in Santiago.” This is probably not ideal. For one, it sets up quite a precedent in blog titles – apparently titles need to have some sort of literary construct in order to be viable. So far I have pseudo-rhyming and whatever the thing is where the first letter is repeated. I’ll have to have some sort of metaphor or something next, and this could quickly escalate into difficult territory.

Also, it is not summer in Santiago; it is winter. The title, therefore, is a bit deceptive. It is summer for me though, so I dismiss this as a real problem. I do need to think of a title that is unrelated to my location though, so in the future I can continue with the same blog even as I physically change my locale, but that is perhaps too big of a project for me right now (although if I were my cousin Sasha, coming up with a name would be easy: Travel Blog --> Unravel Blog or Gravel Blog. Maybe even Gavel Blog or Javel(in) Blog).

Well. I still have 45 minutes until boarding, but I’m just about sick of writing anything more. I should maybe say something about what I’m doing this summer before I go though, right? So, in a nutshell: I am doing a Summer Internship Program (SIP) through the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard (DRCLAS, pronounced Dr. Clas). They have programs in Argentina, Peru, Bolivia, Uruguay, and Chile. I chose Chile because the dates allowed me to be home for my brother’s graduation (but not his June 18^th birthday) and because my grandparents lived in Santiago, Chile for a year in 1967, when my mom was two years old. I look forward to comparing notes with my grandma as I live in Santiago 44 years later – although I imagine it will be quite different with a couple kind of a little important changes of government in the time in between the two of us, not to mention the normal changes associated with large passages of time. The other reason for my decision to go to Chile rather than Bolivia or Uruguay is that the program is larger in Chile. We have programmatic support, and many more students participate in the Chilean program than either Uruguay or Bolivia. While it will be good for me to be more independent on my trips abroad eventually, I look forward to already having some friends and co-students down there. Plus, we will all be living and working separately, so this program is at least a baby-step up in independence from SIHS last summer, where we were all in class with each other all day.

I won’t, however, be traveling on my own after the official program ends as I did last year. While I appreciated and enjoyed my solo travels throughout Spain and France last summer, it was tough on my wallet and also hard to go straight back to school after being gone from home for most of the summer. So I will be returning on August 8^th at the end of the SIP program, to be home in Montana for a couple weeks before returning to Boston. I am definitely looking forward to my time at home, and am planning on doing as much hiking and backpacking as I can before returning to the east coast. I had less than a week home before Chile, and that was not enough “Montana time” for me!!

That was a big nutshell.

(Perhaps it was a walnut?)

Until later… which could quite possibly be during my flight, if I get too bored.

Besos,

Brianna