Fried eggs, fried brain.

We spent this past weekend in beautiful Valparaíso, Chile, and let’s just say that if I didn’t have to get back to the States pronto, I would spend my summer there. It’s just undeniably gorgeous, or “magical” as my mother says. It really is. Something about the colorful houses built on these steep hills, right on the water—it kind of reminds me of Cinque Terre, Italy.

We ate some wonderful seafood and made a special effort to eat “chorillana,” a traditional Chilean dish which deserves a special explanation. If I weren’t already to die of a heart attack, I will now. Picture this (slash look at the picture): steak on top of fried onions on top of fried eggs on top of french fries. Yes, it is possible to eat that many fried things on one plate and still live to tell the story. Too good. Deadly, even. (FYI: each plate is for two people to share. Does that make it any better?)

The weekend wasn’t all for exploration and relaxation, however. We visited an all-girls technical school in the city, a small rural school 30 minutes away, and had a panel discussion with Valparaíso branch of the Teacher’s Association—all very interesting and a nice break from the sometimes monotonous class schedule in Santiago. At the rural school I made friends with two very adorable sisters named Javiera and Belen, which reminded me so much of my time in Peru. I knew them for all but two hours, yet still felt sad leaving them behind. I mean, really, how could you not instantly fall in love with these faces?

We returned to Santiago early Sunday afternoon in order to avoid any danger on the streets. As I mentioned in my last post, March 29th is the “Día del Joven Combatiente,” a day of remembrance for the Vergara Toledo brothers who were killed in 1985 after a confrontation with the police (during the Pinochet dictatorship, of course—they were leftists). This day, however, represents much more than the death of these two young brothers; it has turned into a day to express anger toward the many human rights violations during the dictatorship years. Every year this day moves farther and farther away from being a silent vigil: protests, looting, police confrontations, bomb threats, small fires, etc. This year, so I’ve heard, wasn’t as lively as in years past—some say because of the soccer game versus Peru that everybody was watching—but I was still able to hear more sirens than usual throughout the night. It’s kind of an ironic day, I think. That is, protesting the violence of the Pinochet dictatorship with…..more violence. I guess I didn’t live the dictatorship years; I can’t even begin to comprehend how people choose to react. Some, like the young people on March 29th, choose violence, while others prefer to ignore the subject completely. From my experience, however, most people talk about the years between 1973 and 1990 as “uncharacteristically Chilean.” They acknowledge the dictatorship as a dark and weak time in Chilean history, yet they’re sure of the fact that it won’t happen again, that they’ve moved on, that they’re once again embracing democracy.

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Tomorrow, Thursday, is a significant day for many reasons: it's the second-to-last day of Spanish class, our last school observation, and also the day of the national teachers' strike. The school I'm observing assured me that they will still have school despite the strike, but there's no guarantee that I won't arrive in the afternoon only to find empty classrooms. That's actually what happened to me on Tuesday this week, and that wasn't even a strike day. I walked 30 minutes to the school, found out that the children were sent home early for some strange reason, then turned around and walked right back. When class happens to be in session, though, observing can be quite the experience. The school seriously lacks resources, just like most municipal schools in Chile.


From my mere four days of observation, it seems to me that the teachers have all but given up on being creative or taking advantage of the time to teach lessons. Classrooms act more like holding cells than learning environments. Boys in seventh and eighth grade whistle and say very inappropriate things to me and my partner without any sort of punishment. Teachers often struggle to gain control of their students. It's a very physical example of what we're learning about in our seminars: the privatization of the educational system during the dictatorship, the huge disparity between public and private education, the necessity to have money to receive a good education, etc. Basically, combine all these things, add a bit of politics, and there you have the reason for the teachers' strikes and the ongoing fight for educational reform in Chile. It's such an ironic situation, actually, because the law that changed the educational system so drastically for the worse was passed on the LAST day of Pinochet's dictatorship. His LAST day in power! Nineteen years later, and they're still trying to untangle this stubborn knot. Unfortunately, there are people from the Pinochet's government who still hold powerful positions (and some would say a very conservative right) who impede this untangling process. It's all very complicated; we've only begun to scratch the surface of some very big questions. But really, with a program name like "Education and Social Change," what better time to be in Chile?

Well friends, I don't know about you, but my brain is fried. It could be all this writing, or maybe playing translator all day......or the chorillana. Mmmm.....chorillana.....
Ciao,
Jenna

Shoutout for the week: thank you, Katelin French, for your letter! I miss you too!

OH! And a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBdYMeyDJgI
I took it while ascending one of the Valparaiso hills in the famous "ascensores."