En fin.

The flight tracker in front of me tells me I have one hour and three minutes left until I land back in San Francisco, in a land where vegetarianism will once again be a feasible possibility. I’ve switched my watch to Pacific time; I’ve changed the default language on Microsoft Word back to English; I’ve said “bye” instead of “chau” with only a slight hesitation. Christmas music played on the plane as I boarded, and the snowy Colorado landscape below me reminds me that I’m no longer in the Southern hemisphere. I’m going home.

The last week has been spent in a lazy, post-final-paper haze: last-minute gift shopping, trekking one last time in the cordillera above Las Condes (and thankfully living through a mistaken wrong turn down the mountainside), “preparing” for my final oral presentation, grabbing last glasses of cheap wine at the bar on the southwest corner of Plaza Ñuñoa, soaking up the Santiago sun at friends’ pools. Ignoring the obvious fact that everything was drawing to a close. We spent our last three days in Algarrobo, the beach town where we began, with the orientation that taught us all the various ways we could die in Chile. (Luckily, we all made it through, and not a single araña de rincón was spotted.) After presenting the final results of our ISP projects, we spent our nights sipping pisco in the hotel’s Salón Inglés, huddled together on couches as we tearfully reflected on the program’s end. I don’t need to explain this part in detail—an intense experience like study abroad, similar to your first sleep-away summer camp, or any backpacking trip ever, just can’t be expressed to those who weren’t involved. Attempts to explain are filled with inside jokes, nostalgic sighs when saying seemingly inconsequential words like “empanadas” or “Valparaíso” or “syrah” or “bread,” the use of many a nickname, and statements like “You just needed to be there.” So I’ll spare you the annoyance that I experienced upon meeting people who went on PWILD before freshman year, and I won’t try to explain.

I will, however, attempt to reflect here on my own personal journey over the past 105 days. 105 days, all culminating in one final project, the project that SIT states is the “most challenging academic experience” its students have ever faced. I personally disagree. For one month, I ate alfajor cookies and manjar-filled panqueques after going on a morning run and before laying out at the beach in Viña del Mar. Work was minimal, as were lessons learned from this project. I learned, for example, that the national strikes (paros) in Chile should not be as common as they are, not only because they impeded my own attempts to research, but because they cause students who don’t eat at home to lose the few meals they receive each day at school. My final results essentially showed me that teachers at Laguna Verde are able to overcome Maslow’s hierarchy of needs simply through their dedication to social change through public education. In other words, because these teachers work hard to reach out individually to students, to give them hugs when they’re down, to give them the freedom they need to let out energy at the beach, even the students coming from the worst home situations are able to achieve immense progress, both academically and in their own personal formation. Which is great for the students at Laguna Verde. However, my results failed to explain what happens in other communities, where the teachers do not have an unusual penchant for social change in the world’s most vulnerable communities, where average class sizes are larger than 12, where a competitive school choice model requires staff to focus more on raising test scores than on students’ education. I spent a month observing a miracle, and yet it doesn’t seem to be replicable.

I don’t mean to say that I learned little during this experience. My knowledge of the Chilean education system is more multifaceted than that of many other native Chileans’: I could talk at length about the Mapuche struggle for rights, or the effects of the Pinochet dictatorship on Chile’s current education policies, or the reasons behind (and hope for) the students movements that picked up speed at the beginning at the millennium. My language ability has increased immensely, and I can finally understand all the po’s and the bacan’s and the cachai’s that only Chile seems to use, and proudly so. I have mastered the Transantiago metro system, and can confidently get off a Valpo bus even before it fully stops. Looking back, I probably learned more this semester in this sense than I ever have at Duke—study abroad is a learning experience that simply can’t be replicated in a classroom.

But the greatest lesson I learned has to do with my bucket list. I had never really written one before this year, but I felt like all this travel created the perfect opportunity—plus, turning 21 reminded me of how quickly time is passing, and how I need to take advantage of every minute rather than continuing to waste it. (The typical quarter-life crisis.) And so, I made mugs on a pottery wheel. I ran my first 10K and am planning on a half-marathon in the spring. I learned to surf (unsuccessfully—also, happy that I can finally admit to this without getting kicked out of my study abroad program). I visited all the places on my Santiago “to-do” list. In general, I did things. And I don’t regret that—I feel that, because I was so intentional with the ways in which I spent my free afternoons and Saturdays, I got the most I could out of my study abroad experience. However, what I do regret is that this new habit has taught me a mindset of capitalistic efficiency and individualism. The list came first: it was inflexible. If I was not “doing” anything on a Saturday, I viewed myself as a failure, and could not find a mindset that would allow me to create alternatives to this predefined sense of “productivity.” I valued crossing off items on my list more than I did the relationships I had the opportunity to form. And yet, looking back, my most precious memories from study abroad are those in which I’m surrounded by those in my program: making ourselves sick with maple-walnut pies at Thanksgiving, scrambling up boulders on our way into the Andes, reflecting on our rural experience around a smoky bonfire in a rukka, taking over a karaoke bar after our very first terremotos, racing to the microwaves every day at lunch at Casa SIT. I was lucky to have found 18 other gringos to share this experience with—otherwise, it would have been a waste. For, yes, I did learn a new form of independence; yes, I improved my Spanish; yes, I did my first independent research project. But the lessons I learned from these other gringos are worth a lot more: generosity, intentionality, laughter, selfless love, confidence, humility, childish innocence, a sense of welcoming, listening, hope, critical thinking, trust. Once again, I come back to Chris McCandless.

(many of these photos have been unashamedly stolen from the talented Caroline Bybee. she’s also a pretty great writer.) 

It’s 21 minutes now until I land. My year began on the third story of a half-built church watching fireworks light up the Costa Rican sky over Alajuela and San Jose, continued to the clearest blue waters and empty concert halls of Bermuda, drove me through the rain of the Pacific Northwest towards the misty ocean valleys of Vancouver, flew me to the dust and confusion and constant frustrations of India, took me down to the asados and machismo and passion of Chile, dropped me briefly into the Parisian haven of Argentina, and will eventually lead me back to a New Year’s Eve watching the Avett Brothers in North Carolina with old friends. It’s been a journey. And it ends here. Thanks for listening.

(Costa Rica photos: credit to Christine Delp)

(Bermuda photos: credit to Phoenica Zhang)

Immersion in Vibrancy, Nescafe Mornings, and Lessons from Chris McCandless: Valparaíso Reflections

I really just don’t know where to begin on this one. It’s my last night in Valparaíso, and trying to reflect on this past month when I still have a little over a week left in Chile is…well, I don’t feel quite ready to look back on an experience that I feel like I’m still having. I’ve been here, essentially on my own, for a month now, and, being alone, not much has really happened. I spend my time wandering hills, or laying on a beach, or searching for Christmas gifts in one of the many over-priced tourist boutiques near my apartment, or, well, writing my final research paper. When people ask what exactly I’ve been up to, it’s hard to put my finger on it. And yet I know that this month has been a time of incredible growth.

Because Valpo is not an environment conducive to boredom. Rather, its foggy mornings encourage a couple of hours spent in bed curled around a mug of Nescafé and the New York Times (and, let’s be honest, Facebook), a couple of extra hours that maybe weren’t “productive” but which left me feeling relaxed and ready to face a world that I knew a little more about. Its seemingly never-ending winding hills leading up to I-never-discovered-where give opportunities for new discoveries every afternoon, from a homemade alfajor shop in a heavily-graffitied purple stairwell, to an abandoned prison now reconverted into a cultural center and art museum, to an unexpected live flamenco show in a bar by the port over a meal of chorrillana and pisco sours. And there is color everywhere. In comparison to the fairly utilitarian architecture of Santiago, the brightly painted homes practically built on top of one another that line the cerros here provide constant aesthetic satisfaction. But it’s not just the homes–the street art still manages to take my breath away. Yes, there is heavily-political graffiti here as there is in Santiago: and yet there are also reproductions of Van Gogh’s starry night as seen by a Chilean farmworker, or representations of Valpo’s skyline pieced together with cobblestones. People pass by without a second thought, for the art seems to cover almost every open piece of wall in the city. It’s hard to feel stagnant and unstimulated when surrounded by such vibrancy, such creativity–and support for such creativity, as the majority of these pieces were painted with legal permission.

The principal at the elementary school in Laguna Verde reminded me last week that “The world is filled with Viña del Mars, but people spend their whole lives searching for a Valparaíso without finding it.” (Side note: Viña del Mar is the beach town about a five-minute bus ride away, a beach town in which there are few stray dogs, even less dog poop on the sidewalks, little trash strewn about on the streets, and a Starbucks.) It’s true, though. While I can make numerous comparisons of Valparaíso to San Francisco, or to Monterey, or to Portland, the porteño lifestyle  is just difficult to replicate anywhere else. Viña is pristine, a nice getaway from the fishy smell of the puerto, but…it’s Starbucks and Gap and overpriced bars. The dirtiness and antiquity and decay of Valpo are what make it so captivating. There are stories behind these abandoned buildings that I still don’t know, houses hidden in the hills that I’ll never find. It’s a city of mystery, of secrecy, of artistry, of rough edges, of winding pathways, of artisan ice creams and pots of seafood and red wine.

(Except sometimes, you really do need to go to Viña when it’s almost December and you need that first peppermint mocha of the season.)

And so, Valpo has stolen my heart. Someone asked me the past week where in the world I plan on traveling next. Of course, I’ve mostly been thinking about the many paychecks I’ll need before I can even start thinking about future travel plans. Even so, the answer is pretty clear: Chile. I haven’t yet had enough of this place: I’ve lived in Valparaíso for a month, and yet I still haven’t truly learned its nuances or intricacies. I can’t even begin to think about star gazing in the San Pedro de Atacama in the north, or trekking at Parque Nacional Torres del Paine in Patagonia, or eating roasted potatoes on the island of Chiloe. There’s still so much left unfinished here, and I don’t feel ready to venture into other countries when I feel that I don’t yet know this one.

I’m going to stop the Chile discourse there, though, because that took an unexpected turn towards end-of-trip, slash end-of-year, reflections, which I’m not ready for yet. I still can’t fathom the fact that we were just sent our final week itinerary. This post has been briefer than usual, but there has been less to discuss. Because traveling alone, while incredibly freeing, is also incredibly lonely. The highlight of this week was, in fact, leaving Valparaíso for the day to eat Thanksgiving dinner with the rest of my SIT “family” in Santiago, sitting around a wine-soaked table in a patio en el Centro, feasting on turkey breast and chipa and warm apple pie and discussing how thankful we were that we had managed to find each other, a group of people so invested in education, so loving, so passionate, so inspirational, a group that we could have never dreamed of finding abroad. Valparaíso as a city has stolen my heart, but Valparaíso was too temporary for me to form any lasting relationships here. And when it comes down to it, the words of  Chris McCandless always come back to me: happiness is only real when shared. It is incredibly difficult to find true satisfaction in temporary encounters, in brief conversations with strangers in cafes, in that one dinner with a friend of a friend, in the realization that you’re both visiting from the United States. And so I am ready to go back to the crazy homestay family in Santiago, to the hour-long commutes from the 505 to the red line metro, to the smog and the heat of the valley in early summer, to the lack of color, because all of that means that I’ll once again be a part of something a little more permanent: the relationships that begin almost 4 months ago on a beach in Algarrobo, the friendships that mange to keep me laughing through Facebook posts of Spanish puns to loud Thanksgiving dinner renditions of “Color Esperanza,” the people who encourage me through kind words and brownies and hand-written notes.

I have loved traveling alone. Coming to Valparaíso was the best decision I could have made. Because it has taught me how much I value the people in my life over the places life takes me.

Giving thanks for cheap bus tickets to Santiago, even cheaper wine, and the greatest family I could ask for on my first Thanksgiving away from home.

And so the final countdown begins.

Five days in Santiago + 3 days of final presentations in Algarrobo + 1 day of preparation before my flight home = disbelief.

Chau, Valparaíso. Que te vayas bien.

Big Moves to Valparaíso: Strikes, Ceramics, and “Research” at the Beach

In case you didn’t know, I’m currently a part of SIT: Comparative Education and Social Change. It’s really difficult to explain what exactly this program is (let alone in Spanish, but that’s another story). But, after studying abroad for over 3 months now, it’s time to clarify what exactly I’ve been up to and am up to currently. In comparison to a traditional university education (like, for example, Duke), it probably seems like…well, a joke. Our “classes” only lasted about 6-8 weeks depending on how you look at it, and included no tests and very little homework–almost everything was based on participation. To expand on the wide variety of topics we looked at in our classes, we visited schools around Santiago, in Valparaíso, in Temuco, and in Buenos Aires. And yet, as “easy” as it was, with such little tangible work outside of class, this has been one of the most intense educational experiences I’ve been through. It’s incredibly self-guided: we get out of the program what we make of it, and this tests both our power to avoid procrastination and our own passion for the subjects we’re learning. We have time outside of class to do our own research, unlike at Duke, where I’m so busy doing readings for class that I can’t take time to learn about the things I’m really passionate about. And now, to expand on our personal interests, we have 4 weeks to complete a 25-page research paper (ISP, or Independent Study Project) about pretty much anything in the Chilean education system, in any of the locations we’ve visited.

While making the final decision for where to live was difficult, my heart has been set on living in Valparaíso essentially since I got to Chile. I enjoyed exploring Santiago, learning how to use the Metro without looking at a map, discovering coffee shops like Leerté in hidden corners near Parque Forestal, or choosing my favorite hot nuts stand (if you ever are in Santiago, go to the Irrarrazaval metro station on a weekday in the early or late afternoon and order the mani confitado–trust me). But there’s a reason Santiago is called fome (that means boring in Chile-speak), and being away from the ocean for long amounts of time always makes me feel uneasy. Besides, I’m here for adventures, and what better way to go on an adventure than to leave the 18 other gringos you’re here with and set out on your own for a month? (Well, partially on my own–one other boy from my program is also here for his ISP.)

And so, here I am, in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, living just a few blocks from the water with loving, activist, left-leaning host parents and a 25-year-old host sister who watches New Girl with me.

My ISP: The focus of my ISP is based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which I believe I mentioned during my India blogging. You can read more about Maslow and his needs here, but essentially what it comes down to is this: humans have basic needs that need to be fulfilled before you can go about more complex tasks, such as building self-esteem or forming a positive self-concept. From his theories, one could theoretically conclude that a child who didn’t eat breakfast can’t comprehend a story he reads in English class, or a child abused at home will not be able to really understand double-digit multiplication. Perhaps this child could memorize something or another in school, but complex thought and true construction of knowledge, according to Maslow, only occur after the basic necessities have been met. The problem is that, in our world today, students do come to school hungry, and are expected to learn. They bring more than just books in their backpacks, and teachers need to somehow reach these students even though psychological theory says they can’t do so. And yet…they do. Teachers manage to create true education by reaching out to students individually, by giving them enrichment opportunities; schools can provide psychological services, free lunch and breakfast, art classes, means of expression that can help a student learn outside of the traditional classroom setting. The question is how specifically schools and teachers can reach these students, and whether the Chilean state, with its strong focus on state testing (the SIMCE), supports or restricts schools and teachers in their ability to do so.

My project takes place in the primary school in Laguna Verde, about 30 minutes south of Valparaíso by public bus, but with a view that rivals the drive to Big Sur and makes the 30 minutes seem to fly by. The community includes a strange mixture of vacation homes and beach houses, next to a high rate of poverty for those who live there year-round. Many students moved to Laguna Verde from other parts of Chile (most from Santiago) due to economic or legal problems. The majority of students (about 60-70%) are considered “vulnerable” by the Chilean state–in other words, at a high risk of failing within the school system due to poverty or other problems in the home. And yet the school has some of the highest standardized test results in the region, and they expect all of their 8th grade class to continue on to high school next year. With 158 students total, the teachers there have managed to build one of the most loving and open environments I’ve yet seen in a school, with teachers referring to students as “mi amor” and students to teachers as “tíos y tías,” creating a family-like environment in which all can speak up at any point in time and be listened to with respect. The school also uses the unique natural resources it has to teach students: on our first school visit, we went to the beach with a 5th-grade science class; the students are also currently helping construct a marine ecosystem in a manmade pond in the school’s native plant garden. I still haven’t figured out how they do it. But Laguna Verde has something figured out. They provide love, care, and enrichment to those who simply don’t have it in the home.

As seen on my daily commute.

The only issue is that, in order to figure out how Laguna Verde functions, I need to be able to visit the school and talk with teachers. But I’m in Chile. Which means that, on Wednesday, we arrived at the school to discover that teachers were on a strike nationally until Thursday; and, with elections on Sunday, the school would be closed Friday and Monday to prepare for voting and to clean up afterwards. This means that I’ll have 4 days next week to attempt to finish my research. To relieve the stress that this roadblock cuases, you’ve got to do something, right? So…

What I’ve Actually Been Up To: Yes, I’ve been researching. But with a school closed and only so many scholarly articles to read for my paper, I’ve also taken advantage of all that Valparaíso and the surrounding region have to offer.

The view from Pablo Neruda’s home on Cerro Florida. I’ve now visited all 3 of his homes, and am surprised every time at how quirky and incredible a person he is. Por ejemplo: On his living room wall hangs a painting of a queen wearing a ruff. Neruda then purchased a painting of a king also wearing a ruff to hang opposite the queen so that she would not feel lonely.

Lobos del mar (, as seen on my daily run. 

Finally learning how to use a pottery wheel at Taller Lican in nearby Viña del Mar. It involved a lot of mess, a lot of wasted clay, and in the end resulted in two small mugs, a large shot glass (unintended, but that’s life sometimes), and a folded over…vase?

Wine tasting at Emiliana Vineyards in Casablanca Valley. Andrea, who’s mother and family friend were visiting Santiago, came with Albert and I to visit this organic winery, which has an emphasis on sustainability and biodiversity. To that end, they do things like raise alpacas and use their manure for fertilizer, or let guinea hens run loose on the property (I’m struggling to remember why, but it sounded legitimate at the time). They also have job training programs and a community garden for their employees so that they can supplement their income, such as by learning how to make crafts out of the alpaca wool to sell in the winery gift shop. And, of course, the wine itself:

Thanks to our guide, Josué, for allowing us to taste not just the promised 4, but 6 delicious wines, paired with organic Ecuadorian chocolates. Needless to say, a pleasant Friday afternoon was spent in this Napa-esque valley 45 minutes from Valpo.

To sum up: We’re trying to do this research…

But we can’t necessarily do that, due to the fact that a) we’re in a beach town and b) Chile likes to stop functioning sometimes. Therefore…this happens instead. And I’m not complaining in the least. 

Bread, Cheese, and Indigenous Rights: A Week in Temuco

(note: written Friday afternoon, published now for lack of internet)

Hey there. It’s been awhile.

I’m currently in a paradise called Chapod, a 7-hour bus ride south from Santiago. My host mom, Clorinda, is washing dishes. My host father, Octavio, just put on his Yankees hat to go outside and check on the piglets and chickens and lambs that roam free on their small property. In an hour or so, the Chile-Colombia World Cup selection game will start, meaning that the entire family—Clorinda, Octavio, daughter Gemima (Gemi), and son Patricio (Pato)—will gather around the rabbit-eared television and probably drink some mate and eat a little pancito. I don’t know how this sounds to you, but, to me, this is the best way I could ask to spend a Friday night. I wish that I could begin to explain the lifestyle that I’ve learned over the past week here in Chapod, but I could probably write for hours—and nobody wants that. So here is a brief summary:

1. Mapuche: The largest indigenous group in Chile. The Mapuche people put up the longest resistance to Spanish rule (hundreds of years), and actually succeeded in gaining recognition for its borders from los conquistadores. But then independence happened, and also Pinochet, meaning that the Mapuches have been oppressed and repressed for hundreds of years under the Chilean government. They have been stripped of their land, the right to their own language, the right to their own nation and identity. They live in poverty in discrimination, and their culture is in great danger of extinction due to the loss of language and the spread of Evangelical Christianity. The Mapuches live in harmony with the land, believing themselves to be a part of this Earth, rather than its rulers. And yet, they are losing the nature that surrounds them due to the tree farms and hydroelectric plants that have flocked to the region.

Palin, the Mapuche version of field hockey. 

2. Mate: Dad, this is not pronounced like the Australian term for friend. Mah-tay is a kind of tea, and I’m sure it has a long history and a long explanation about what it really is made out of, but all I know is that you pack it into a large mug and drink from a metal straw that filters out the leaves. Each time you’d like to take a drink, you fill the mug to the brim with just-boiling water (about 4 sips worth), then refill to pass it to the next person. This requires sitting together, probably in a circle around a table, until you’ve gone through an entire teapot full of water: which means that you really get to know the people you’re with. My host parents are in their 60s and 70s, and participate in this mate ritual 2 to 3 times per day: it’s adorable watching them sit together around the wood-fired stove (the only source of heat in the house) and pass the cup to each other in silence. There is a familial closeness here in el campo (the countryside) that is irreproducible in the hectic, competitive world of the United States.

3. Pan: In other words, bread. There is literally always pan available, and it is always fresh-baked in a wood-fired oven. The only incentive for me to climb out of my warm bed every morning is to eat pan slathered in homemade strawberry preserves and cheese; every evening, my roommate and I walk home quickly in hopes that it will be waiting for us on the table. That being said, a favorite topic of conversation this week has revolved around how much weight we’ve all gained since arriving to Chile. Other foods that have to do with this topic:

Calzones rotos –My host mother takes the same dough she uses to make pan, forms pretzel-like shapes, and pops them             into boiling oil. Essentially, we eat funnel cake for breakfast and dinner.

Tortilla – The same dough used to make pan, but baked over an open fire.

Sopaipilla – The same dough used to make pan, but made into small flat pancakes…and popped into boiling                               oil. Essentially, we eat doughnuts for breakfast and dinner.

Sopaipilla in process. 

 

Learning from the expert. 

 

Our finished product–actually, I’ve got to admit, it was better than our host mom’s, and she’s been doing this for 60 years now.

4. Machetes: Yes, mom, I used one. Our group helped to build a ruka behind the local elementary school (in other words, the traditional home of los Mapuches, now used mainly for cultural education and tourist purposes). This required cutting bamboo (coligüe) on our host family’s property using machetes and handsaws. Also, I’m proud to be one of the only members of our group who could successfully hammer in a nail (thank you, Daddy).

 

5. Culture: At a school visit yesterday, a high school student asked me, “Is there culture in your country?” I had no idea how to respond. In my mind, the United States does not have a single, unified culture: life on the East Coast is different from life on the Best Coast, just as life in Northern California is distinctly different from life in Southern California, just as Carmel is different from Monterey. Culture is constantly changing, influenced by other cultures and global events and general generational change: it is not static or immutable or, in my mind, definable. And yet, one of our cultural guides for this week gave us a list of four key parts of Mapuche culture: religion/spirituality, Mapuche history, the Mapudungun language, and the sense of connection to the land. Without these, according to Don Juan, one cannot continue to be Mapuche. But, if that is the case, how can the community of Chapod, which is almost entirely Evangelical Christian, also be Mapuche? Can those who move to Santiago still call themselves Mapuche? And who, really, has the right to say that certain parts of a culture can change, whereas others cannot? What is “good” or “bad” within a culture? The Mapuche culture is in danger of being lost forever, or at the very least falling into the trap of folkloricized tourism. We’ve visited school after school attempting to come to the rescue through various intercultural education programs. But time passes. How can we stop the world from turning? Who has the authority to stop it? I don’t have the answers. I’ve never really paused to think about the importance of culture before. But, food for thought.

6. Bucket showers: I took one. And while I took one, the largest spider I’ve ever seen stared at me from behind a hose. Living in el campo is not glamorous. Our bathroom is essentially an outhouse without a light, meaning that I can’t see what bugs or spiders are hiding behind the toilet. Sometimes, the power shuts off. Every morning, I brush aside chickens and roosters to walk out the front door. I don’t want to be “that girl” who says that living with less finally taught me some lesson about humility or nature or something like that, but…it happens. When I took a shower, my host mother filled a single bucket with warm water, and I felt as though it wouldn’t be nearly enough—it would fill maybe a fifth of a bathtub. And yet, I used about a fifth of the bucket. I’ll probably get back to Santiago and take a lengthy hot shower after this week is over, but still: we can all make do with less.

 And, as I write this, I want to make sure to not stereotype life in el campo as bucket showers, or outdoor bathrooms, or bugs, or farm animals. Because life in el campo is much more than that. It is family values. It is vast expanses of land, a perfect blend of California eucalyptus and North Carolina forested hills. It is church on Sundays and no alcohol and learning how to make Mapuche ceramics in indigenous language class. It is hot tea and coffee, and a struggle to blend the life of the city of Temuco with the tranquility of pastures and rivers. And it is changing, rapidly, as the world continues to globalize.

Host family from left: Patricio (Pato), Octavio, Andrea, me, Clorinda, Belen, Gemi, Dalary, y Lloli. 

I realize that this is the longest blog post I’ve posted thus far, and it does not even mention my weekend in Valparaiso (picture San Francisco + European cobblestone streets), or my week observing classes in El Colegio de Niñas Benjamin Vicuña MacKenna. Apologies for my inability to be concise.

But get ready for another long one once I get back from Buenos Aires.

Democracy and Apathy and Rose-Honey Ice Cream: Una Semana Más

I’ve mentioned before that Chile really enjoys its right to assemble. Protests happen constantly—just before I arrived, a postal service strike prevented mail delivery for weeks, I still haven’t been able to get my student ID because of a strike at the national registry, police have had to use tear gas and water cannons multiple times at protests since I first arrived…it’s just something I’m not used to. It’s especially strange comparing my experience as a student to the radical teens here, who seem to have complete faith that, by continuing to rise up against a government that has given them close to nothing for the past twenty years, they will achieve their dream of a quality, free education for all. This morning, we met with a group of high school students from the Liceo Cervantes, a public school known for its “tomas,” or school takeovers. Essentially, when the students decide that their situation needs to change, immediately, they take a vote and, if the majority agrees, invade the school, placing their list of demands in the windows of classrooms. It’s kind of like when Recess was turned into a movie—no teachers, no classes, no textbooks, just sitting in the school waiting for their needs to be met. And these tomas don’t just last for one or two days. Last year, the students protested from June until August (and are now paying for the missed class time with Saturday classes and one month less of summer vacation). Their demands? Teachers who showed up to class (they didn’t do that) and safe facilities. Apparently, the roof was so old that it was literally falling in on top of students, and yet the administration did nothing—until the students took more drastic measures.

This concept of la toma astounds me. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to not go to school for two months—to instead sleep in a classroom with my peers, play sports in an unsupervised gym, have incredibly mature conversations about equality and respect and autonomy and human rights. I think the most activist thing I did in high school was stand on the corner of Ocean Ave. and Highway 1 holding a sign protesting Prop 8—for all of thirty minutes. I also didn’t have to worry about the roof caving in during AP Lit, but even so, these are things that we just can’t fathom occurring on a fairly regular basis in the United States. So…why? Is it because we’re apathetic? Perhaps. Americans certainly love to live in ignorant, comfortable bliss if they have they opportunity to do so. Protests exist—Moral Mondays, Occupy—just not on this scale.

Or is it because we have faith in the democratic system as a whole, such that we’re willing to wait til the next election to see if things will improve? I personally tend to think this is more accurate. Yes, Americans lack faith in Congress to get anything done anymore (and rightly so—when the nation’s budget is hanging in the balance, we don’t really have time to discuss Green Eggs and Ham). So have we taken over D.C. en masse, picketing Congress until it gets its act together? No. We complain and move on with our lives. I’m sure that some U.S. public schools have leaking roofs and barely legible textbooks. We deal with school segregation and lack of equality in education, and could easily demand a more economically accessible university system, like Chileans do. But we don’t. And I can’t decide if it’s a good thing or not. Yes, our society is a little less chaotic. We learn to be good citizens, creating social change via orderly, governmental channels (and, yes, I’m generalizing a lot right now, but you get my point). We follow the Constitution because we believe that it works—and it does. It’s just that change is slow (as the Founders desired), and so we wait, more or less patiently. It’s just…how long are we going to wait?

I asked the students today why they still have hope that their protests will have success. These student movements have been taking place since 2001, with very little real change. One boy, who I’m sure will someday be a leftist candidate for the Chilean presidency, responded immediately that of course the protests would work, because “we are the future.” “Si la juventud no se mueve, el país no va a crecer.” This is their only method of ensuring change, and so they will use it. I still don’t really understand, but I’m glad that someone has hope.

Last week was las Fiestas de Patrias, which is essentially a week of partying for Chilean Independence Day on September 18^th (they put 4^th of July to shame–hot dogs have nothing on these asados, where you start out with chorizo and end with the biggest rare stake you’ve ever seen). I expected the city to be insane, but it turns out that everyone who can leaves Santiago to go to the beach or the South. Thus, I spent a very calm few days, enjoying asados in San Antonio, personal tours of Pablo Neruda’s home in Bellavista, my first Chilean Starbucks, and the best ice cream in the world (like, really though, voted to be one of the top 25 on Earth, and I was not disappointed). I spent my final day of “rest” climbing into the Andes, scrambling up rocks, past cacti and patches of fresh snow as condors soared overhead, until we finally had panoramic views of the mountains and the entire metropolitan region. I feel like that description was really frilly, but it is so difficult to explain how picturesque it was when we reached the top—not even photos can do it justice.

Kite flying at the beach on Independence Day. 

When I say the best ice cream, though, I mean the best ice cream. 

 Street art in Bellavista. 

Defining Truth and Cueca-ing in La Victoria

Last week, I finally finished reading The Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano. It was written in the early 1970s, before the Pinochet dictatorship even came to power, so I read it with a grain of salt, understanding that what came to pass thirty or forty years ago is not necessarily the case still today. So every time Galeano mentioned the Cuban Revolution in a positive light, I kind of chuckled to myself. “Silly Eduardo,” I thought, “you should see the Cuban economy now.” Because in every single one of my history classes, no teacher or textbook has ever, ever, talked about the Cuban Revolution as though it were a good thing. I learned about loss of freedom, hunger, inability to purchase imported necessities, embargoes placed on Cuba to “teach it a lesson” for its “misbehavior.” I learned about the evil Soviet Empire, the terrors of Communism, the “liberation” that American ideals could provide for struggling leftist governments. Even now, the New York Times reports on how much more successful the Cuban economy is becoming now that it is opening up to world markets. And, as I write this, I realize that I really know almost nothing about Cuba, its past or its present. For all I know, maybe this American textbook perspective is the appropriate way to view the Cuban situation. And yet, even now, Chilean community members continue to talk about Cuba as though it is a positive example for the rest of Latin America—Ché and Fidel allowed Cuba to finally break free of Western imperialism and natural resource exploitation in a way that the rest of the region has been unable to do. In my history classes, we never really connected the ideas of colonialism, imperialism, democracy, world powers, and international law, with the concepts of exploitation, poverty, lack of power, and dependency. Or, even if we did, we talked about it as though all of that had occurred in the past—in terms of the present, though, Western powers were nothing but altruistic and subservient to the needs of the rest of the world. Again, I’m not saying that I know everything about Cuba, or about the West’s role in Latin America. I am saying that we don’t get the whole story in America, and just as I have no right to label the Cuban Revolution as a good thing, I also have no right to label it as inherently bad.

I promise, all of that does have a connection to my study abroad experience. Last week, we had the opportunity to visit La Población La Victoria, a community on the outskirts of Santiago that is considered the first successful “toma,” or “takeover,” in Chilean history. About 50 years ago, a small group of people illegally moved to the area and began building—and it worked. Even though it was unauthorized, the community is now thriving. While clearly still one of the poorer areas of the metropolitan region, it has well-constructed adobe buildings, an incredible public school, community art and murals on almost every edifice, and its own television station. It also has solidarity, because it was built from nothing but unified force against government regulations.

The public elementary school in La Victoria has P.E., music, and computer classes, along with a well-stocked library, despite being in one of the poorest areas in Santiago. 

Cueca performances for las Fiestas de Patrias. 

La Victoria’s television station, Señal 3, is technically broadcast illegally. It is also one of the most leftist organizations I’ve come into contact with during my stay here (and keep in mind that this program has an incredibly leftist bent). The station broadcasts soccer games for free to La Victoria’s citizens, gives its own news reports, and uses amateur footage to show the side of the news that Chileans don’t normally receive. For example, on September 11th of this year, Señal 3 broadcast videos of police shooting at La Victoria citizens as vehicles were set on fire. We did not hear about any of this violence from major news outlets—they simply talked about the various ways we could remember the 40th anniversary, leaving out any negative implications. The owner of Señal 3 reminded us that we need to keep searching for this untold side of every story. And yet, at the same time, we didn’t get the whole story from him, either. Who started the confrontation with the police on September 11th? Who fired the first shot? How does the history of the region tie into the relations between citizenry and the government?

In short, the concept of “truth” is a little more nebulous than it used to be in my mind.

Father Andre Jarlan, a French priest, used his home chapel as a hospital for those hurt in the resistance against Pinochet in the 1980s. During a protest in 1984, a stray bullet killed Jarlan as he sat in his room reading Psalms. His image is posted on almost every home in La Victoria as a reminder of the government’s violent oppression. 

Anyway, for those of you who are more interested in Chilean daily life as opposed to these little historical tidbits that I so happily dole out, here’s a brief list of things that I’ve done the past week and a half. At the school in La Victoria, I had my first chance to play some Chilean soccer, and was hopelessly defeated by an 11-year-old boy who then told me I just needed to concentrate more. I learned how to cueca (the national dance of Chile—or, at least, the one that’s most common in Santiago). I had the opportunity to cheer on Chile, in a Chilean sports bar, while watching a couple of World Cup qualifiers. I hiked to the top of Cerro San Cristobal, the hill overlooking Santiago with a large statue of the Virgin Mary at the top. I touched a llama. I drank “mote con huesillos,” kind of like peach sweet tea with whole peaches and some sort of soft oats at the bottom. I had the unfortunate experience of seeing my host mom in a tight blue shirt that read (in English) “I feel the rainbow” as she got ready to go out for drinks with a friend. I turned 21. I got a cold.

Had the opportunity to take a private tour of la Casa del Escritor, a literary workspace purchased by Pablo Neruda to inspire artistic discussion. 

And thus, I enter adulthood in a country where I have long been considered an adult.

Remembering September 11th: The 12th Anniversary…And the 40th

On September 11, 1973, democratically elected socialist president Salvador Allende committed suicide as his military bombarded El Palacio de la Moneda with airstrikes. Later that same day, General Augusto Pinochet took full control of the Chilean government, dismantling major news sources, establishing a national curfew (for 14 years), and arresting, torturing, exiling, and assassinating thousands of dissenters. Pinochet’s repressive regime lasted longer than the vast majority of Latin American military dictatorships, finally returning to a democratically elected president in 1990 (although Pinochet remained leader of the military until at least 1997). The kicker? The United States supported the coup. The reasoning? Well, there was the whole Cold War part of it. Nixon didn’t really feel comfortable having his southern hemisphere slowly shift to the left, especially after the disaster that was Cuba. But perhaps even more importantly, Allende was a president for his people–not for US interests. He nationalized key industries, particularly copper, which hurt major US corporations (which, before this reform, had been exploiting Chilean minerals essentially for free. For more information, read “The Open Veins of Latin America” by Galeano). And the results of this economic and political “solution?” 2,279 (acknowledged) killed; 40,018 (acknowledged) arrested and tortured; and thousands missing and exiled.

Perhaps, like me, you already knew all of this. I took a course on democratic development last fall, and wrote my final paper on the fall of the Pinochet regime. After reading hundreds of pages about the dictatorship, I had a pretty solid grasp on the basic statistics of the dictatorship. But you know how, even after you learn all about the Holocaust in AP World History, you don’t really get it until you visit the Holocaust Museum in D.C.? That’s how we felt on our “Jornada de Derechos Humanos” (literally, “day trip of human rights”) this week with SIT. We visited cemeteries and memorials and museums, watched horrific videos, heard personal stories of the era. You don’t really understand the numbers until you see a victim’s guitar hanging in the Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos, or learn that some of the victims were as young as 8 years old at the memorial in the general cemetery, or hear the president of La Agrupación de Familiares de los Detenidos Desaparecidos explain how her father was assassinated by Pinochet. And you can’t understand the controversy behind the reconciliation until you sit at a family barbecue and hear your host “grandmother” talking about how her brother was the personal chauffeur for Pinochet, and how the coup was a necessity due to problems with the Allende regime. The dictatorship is not necessarily “history” quite yet for Chileans. Most of the population lived through the dictatorship–I asked my host mom what she remembers, and all she told me was that everyone was afraid. And that they’re still afraid. This Wednesday marks the 40th anniversary of the military coup, and, just as we in the United States are fighting what seems like an endless war over our own September 11th, Chileans are continuing to fight for truth and justice over the horrors that occurred during the Pinochet regime. Because Pinochet is still very much a lasting remnant within Chilean governance and policy.

La Agrupación de Familiares de los Detenidos Desaparecidos continues to fight for the family members that remain missing. 

This plot was purchased at the Santiago General Cemetery for those who do not have a body to bury. 

“The museum is a school. The artist learns to communicate; the public learns to make connections.” 

“The forgetting is filled with memory.” The names of those tortured at the VIlla Grimaldi detention center.

On a lighter note, we watched our first “marcha estudiantil” last Wednesday morning. Although it is technically against SIT rules for us to participate in public demonstrations, especially due to the repressive tactics that the Chilean carabineros sometimes like to use against protestors, our director reminded us that we could certainly be “participatory observers.” We took full advantage of this loophole, and relished in the passion that is Chilean youth. (But actually, if the Chilean government is reading this, we didn’t participate, we really just watched.) Those who lived through the Pinochet dictatorship still have a reason to fear the government–but those who never knew Pinochet except for in their history textbooks have no qualms about showing their true feelings about government policies. The graffiti that covers ever edifice in Santiago is not necessarily gang-related–most of it expresses passionate political beliefs (often of an anarchist nature). There is passion here, and passion with a purpose. The purpose last Wednesday was to dismantle the current education system (set up during the Pinochet regime) which views education as an economic market. While competition between schools might sound like a viable option, here, it has turned into a tool for economic stratification, as those with money choose to go to the state-subsidized or completely private schools, as opposed to free public schools. Success comes to those who can afford it–and the youth crave change.

Takeoffs: Dog Sweaters and Daft Punk

There’s a fat pug in a Christmas sweater outside my window.

Oh, also, the Andes Mountains take up almost the entire view. But the dog is still a highlight.

My room in my casita in Ñuñoa, Santiago.

(dog not shown)

In fact, most of the stray dogs in Santiago have sweaters on—the good Chileans want to keep them warm during the wintertime. Unlike in India, where the many strays have essentially all mated with one another and now look like clones of the same yellow lab mutt, Santiago dogs have character. They are fluffy and fat, or what look like purebred German shepherds, or skinny salchichas (for people like my Dad and Kyle who can’t speak a lick of Spanish despite having lived in states like California and Texas with almost majority Latino populations, that means sausages). And the sweaters. It’s the first time I’ve ever not been annoyed by accessories for animals. (Although that excludes all of Waffles’ fashion statements.)

But I digress. This probably isn’t the most direct way to introduce you all to Santiago, but when I went to India, a professor asked us what was the first difference we noticed when we got off the plane. And this is the first element of Chilean society that I noticed when I stepped off the bus in front of la Casa SIT in el Centro de Santiago. Before actually meeting our homestay families and moving in, we spent two and a half days in Algarrobo, an empty beach town (“Meet me in Montauk”-esque), learning about all the different ways we could get robbed or raped or made fun of or killed during our stay here. (Speaking of, if I die here, it will probably be due to the araña de rincón. This reclusive spider lives in closets—like, in your clothes—and its poisonous, fatal bites leave large craters in your skin. I’m looking at my closet right now and I feel as though one is probably laying eggs in my winter coat as we speak.) Also, we were on a beach, so it was okay. We spent our free time taking short jogs along hidden trails to see the sunrise and sunset, tasting our first pisco sours, and beginning the short descent into obesity by eating empanadas and donuts and jamón y queso. One late afternoon, we visited the beach home of poet Pablo Neruda en la Isla Negra. To put the beauty of this home in perspective, we were essentially in Big Sur on a clear day at sunset. The wooden house, filled with ships in bottles, sea shells, poetry, childhood stuffed animals, and indigenous idols, overlooked gardens of succulents and ice plant and cypress trees, lazily strewn along the seaside cliffs. I wish I had the words to describe this pristine beauty more effectively—especially in Spanish, because “Que lindo” is really all I’ve got—but, if you can’t get all the way to Chile, just head out to Big Sur and you may understand it.

The calm of Algarrobo dissipated as soon as we arrived in Santiago. We were ushered into the living room at la Casa SIT (the headquarters of my study abroad program), where our host mothers greeted us with screams and kisses. (This is one of those countries where people kiss each other on the cheek just to say hello.) After struggling to fit my luggage into my host mother Gloria’s car, we walked from her small home in Ñuñoa to pick her two children, Bruno (8) and Elisa (6), up from school. Gloria separated from her husband about 5 and a half years ago, and now works lengthy hours in an architectural firm about 40 minutes outside of Santiago. In fact, this was the first day all year that Gloria has gone herself to pick up her kids from school—she normally doesn’t get home from work until after 7 pm every day. And her kids. Well, let’s just say that being an only child has not prepared me well for the experience of an 8-year-old boy with ADHD and a little sister who enjoys copying her brother’s behavior. I woke up this morning to quite a few tantrums, and have had trouble deciding whether I need to discipline them or not when they begin to physically attack each other in public. Hopefully I’ll get used to the craziness of this lifestyle soon. If not, I’ve got headphones. Plus, Gloria’s boyfriend of 4 years, Osvaldo, is one of the best cooks I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet, so I can always drown my sorrows in food.

And so my stay in Santiago begins. We started classes today–or, at least, we divided into our skill levels, and I think for the first time ever I was put in the slow kids’ group for Spanish class. I still haven’t started my homework, and I know that soon all of the assignments will start to pile up. For now, though, I’m enjoying learning how to use my Bip! card for the subway, and finding coffee that isn’t Nescafe, and slowly understanding this rapid Chilean Spanish that likes to ignore the letter “s.” I’ve already walked through a protest, talked to a carabinero, been to Walmart (Líder), survived my first temblor and terremoto, and sang karaoke to a group of Chileans.

To many more adventures over the next three and a half months.

P.S. Song that I hate the most right now: “Get Lucky” by Daft Punk. I thought it was cute when my host siblings woke up to it on my first morning. And then they proceeded to play it about twenty times a day.