The best of Temuco.

Our SIT group spent the past week in a rural village near Temuco, about 8 hours south of Santiago by bus. We stayed in pairs with indigenous Mapuche families and immursed ourselves as much as possible in the culture. The following is a series of highlights from one of the best weeks of my life, in no particular order:

1) We realized within the first 5 minutes of our visit that "indigenous" didn't necessarily mean living with thatched roofs and dirt floors, like many of us had anticipated (see picture below). Most of our families had electricity, running water, and a television. We did, however, lack hot running water, so I only managed to give myself one cold bucket bath during the week. For those of you who are familiar with my hygiene habits, though, that wasn't too out of the ordinary.

2) Rachel, the other SIT student, and I went to church with our family, and somehow I ended up giving a speech in Spanish to the entire congregation. I managed to produce a few cohesive sentences, and for that I was very thankful. I said something like, "Thank you for having us...we're very excited to be here and to share this experience with you..." Booya! This happened just a few hours after arriving Sunday morning. Talk about first impressions.

3) The food was heavenly yet deadly at the same time. We basically ate an entire cow for lunch and dinner. And lots of sopaipillas (fried dough would be the best way to describe them). We knew we were in for a week of hearty eating on the first day when we asked for "just a little bit of food, something small," and got this:

4) We had a class of Mapudungun, the indigenous language of the Mapuche people. I'm sure you can guess just by the name of the language itself that it's rather difficult. We all struggled with the pronunciation but had a great time trying nonetheless.

5) I taught Rachel and my host siblings (Raul and Mabel) how to play Dutch Blitz, only the best card game ever (and it just so happens to originate in Pennsylvania). They absolutely loved it and were thrilled to receive their own set as a gift.

6) We learned how to play palín, the Mapuche sport. It's very similar to field hockey, only with a much longer and narrower field. We were actually pretty bad in terms of skill but made up for it in aggressiveness. We all came away with a few battle wounds.

7) Perhaps one of my favorite aspects of the week was the music. Raul, my host brother, plays multiple instruments and is currently studying to be a music teacher. He and his four younger cousins formed a music group in 2006 (with Raul as their teacher) that plays a lot of traditional music from Peru and Northern Chile. Rachel and I were lucky enough to see them perform a few times during the week. Even if just a practice or an impromptu performance at a family gathering, they gave me the chills. Did I mention they have a CD? It's incredible. Also, every once in a while after dinner, my host father (whose name also happens to be Raul) and I would sing hymns from the Spanish hymnal. Harmony is a beautiful thing. I can think of very few things I enjoy more than harmonizing with a fellow singer.

THIS IS A VIDEO OF THE MUSIC GROUP

8) I prayed for the first time in Spanish. Out loud. For a large group of people. My host father liked to volunteer me for things like that and catch me off guard. It was like the church speech all over again. Again, I survived, and managed to put together a few sentences that I assume made a bit of sense judging by the intermittent "amens."

9) Every night after dinner, and sometimes more often, we would drink mate (pronounced MAH-tay). It's a huge cultural thing here, almost as popular as in Argentina. It's comparable to tea in taste, but it involves so much more community. There's only one mug for the table, filled with loose herbs and hot water. You drink out of a silver straw that has a filter at the bottom, and once you've finished, the server wipes the straw clean, fills the mug up again, and passes it on to the next person. We would spend at least an hour every night talking over mate. I plan to bring a few mate mugs and straws back home with me and start a new tradition with my friends.

10) Our wonderful family: Raul (father), Lucy (mother), Mabel (sister), and Raul (brother, nicknamed Ruly). They welcomed me and Rachel into their lives with open arms and showed us hospitality like we've never seen before. There wasn't a dry eye in the house on the night of our departure. And to think, we were only there for a week. It's hard to believe.


I think I can speak for the majority of the group when I say that we didn't want to return to Santiago, partly because we knew there was a lot of work (and noise and pollution) waiting for us, but mostly because the week with the Mapuche people was so peaceful. Getting attached to our host families was a contributor, too. It really was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for us. I'm currently trying to figure out what I can study during the research period in May in order to return to the community, or at least be nearby.

This week we are trying to soak up the last few days in Santiago before flying to Buenos Aires, Argentina on Saturday. We'll be there for two weeks, again staying with host families in pairs. And then before you know it, it will be May, when we conduct our individual research projects. EEK. It's going too fast.

I hope all is well with you! Keep the updates coming :-)

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.

________________________________________

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."

Quickie.

Hi everyone. I just wanted to post a short update since I noticed it's been over a week since my last post. Our group travels to Valparaíso for the weekend (it is nicknamed the "Jewel of the Pacific" for good reason) and we're all quite excited to travel and see more of the country. Next week I should have lots to write about because a) there's a teacher strike scheduled for Thursday, b) Sunday is the anniversary of the death of two young brothers who were killed during the dictatorship ("Dia del Joven Combatiente" is the name of the day; aka Day of the Combatant Youth---lots of protests and vandelism occur), and c) we finish up our school observations, which have certainly been eye-opening.

A quick look into my Chilean life: our group is getting to know more and more Chilean students as the time passes. We're starting to feel a much deeper connection to Chile because of these new friendships (not to mention improving our Chilean slang and swear word vocabulary). Below is a picture of me with Rodrigo (left, the son of our academic director) and his friend José (right). I also met a group of really nice girls at the university who are studying to be English teachers. Needless to say, our conversations are quite interesting, as we switch back and forth between English and Spanish. All this is to say that I might need to come back and visit my new friends in the future (holla Lindsey!).


A shoutout to some very special people:


Thanks Aunt Kathy, Uncle Kevin, and Miss Kendall Paine for the love!
If you follow suit, you too could be featured on my blog. I'm just saying......

Cuídense,
Jenna

PS For those of you who are Spanish-inclined, here's a video from the birthday party of our academic director, Roberto. His speech is really quite beautiful. Our singing, not so much.
VIDEO!

Understanding "Anti-US"

First things first: a bit of business. I want to try and explain the Chilean attitude toward people from the United States. A word of warning: please understand that this is from my personal, very limited point of view, taken mostly from interactions with my host mother. So here it goes…

First of all, I’ve learned to identify as “Estadounidense,” one from the US, instead of “American” because South America is also part of America; people get slightly offended. ¿Cachai? But that’s only somewhat related to the issue at hand. I think a bit of historical context is needed to really understand the current Chilean mind-set. I’ll try to make it relatively short.

In 1970, Salvador Allende became the first democratically elected Marxist president in world history. I’m not much of a political analyst, but I do know that the US is not particularly fond of communism, especially in a rapidly-developing, influential country such as Chile. Needless to say, the CIA’s fingerprints are all over the 1973 coup against Allende’s government. What was to follow is Chile’s darkest moment in recent history: seventeen years of military dictatorship, lead by Augusto Pinochet. Thousands died, tens of thousands tortured, overall just a really painful time (economically speaking, too). I heard that in the first two years of the dictatorship alone, an estimated 1/10 of Chilean families experienced arrest, torture, and/or exile. My host mother’s father and grandfather were tortured, along with many other family friends. Can you imagine?

As a self-proclaimed “woman of the left,” (and I don’t mean Democrat…think way farther left) my host mother has very strong opinions of the Pinochet era, the US involvement in the situation, and the effects of it all that she still sees today. On the one hand, she offers a very, I mean very, interesting perspective to what I’m learning and my general experience in Chile. On the other hand, however, our relationship comes with a few expectations. She admitted to me that she has a very strong anti-US attitude (rightfully so), and that one of the reasons for hosting her first study abroad student was to break that prejudice. Talk about pressure, right? Well, you’ll be happy to know that so far I believe I’ve represented the US quite well; we’re forming a very strong relationship, my mother and me.

One can imagine that there are many people in Chile that have similar anti-US feelings (again, rightfully so), but it can be rather frustrating to encounter them and know that I won’t have the opportunity convince them otherwise. At the same time, though, I don’t feel like I have the right to convince them of anything. Does that make sense? It’s almost like I empathize with their opinions of the US and don’t even want to try to justify them—1) because I probably couldn’t articulate it in Spanish and 2) because I’m pretty sure I would feel the same way in their position.

Pictures of women who are still missing from the Pinochet dictatorship.

Me and Yarella, my host mother.

On a lighter note, here’s a story for you: I met a fellow Richmond Spider in Santiago a few days ago. It’s such a small world, isn’t it? Walking back from class, I hear “Hey, Spider!” coming from a nearby internet café. How did he know I go to UR, you ask? Well, I’d like to say it’s because we Spiders have a certain way of carrying ourselves, a certain air of intelligence…..but alas, it was the gigantic spider on the back of my t-shirt from the UR bookstore. Anyway, he graduated in 2007 and is teaching private English lessons in Santiago. It was a very strange experience but really fun to reminisce with someone about Richmond.

Here are a few pictures from our wine tasting tour this past Sunday:

Sad with empty glasses.

That's better.

Getting a tour of the second vineyard of the day.

And last but certainly not least, I have another video for your viewing pleasure.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE COOLEST VIDEO EVER!

Hasta luego!

A video...just for fun.

This is the "Casa SIT," where our group meets to eat lunch, do homework, and have afternoon classes. You can meet some of my group members and visualize a bit more where we're spending a lot of time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv_Awt-yXeI

Love,
Jenna

Story time.

I accidentally took a bus 35 minutes outside Santiago. How did I manage to do that, you ask? Well, it was actually quite easy. I took bus number 201e (“e” for express) instead of bus number 201. Careless mistake. Bus 201e apparently goes straight to the highway and doesn’t stop until it reaches its final destination...in the middle of nowhere! Obviously, I survived to tell the story—without any major physical injuries or emotional breakdowns—so that’s a plus. I opted not to tell my host mom the story; why worry her when I already learned from my experience, right? Instead, I decided to get her opinion of the 201e bus: “I almost got on the 201e bus today,” I said. “Where does it go?” To which she replied: “Oh, no, no, NO. Never get on that bus. That will take you halfway to Argentina.” I took a [fake] mental note of her advice. Ay, ay, ay, so much trouble over a little “e.”

Last Friday our SIT group visited a municipal school in Santiago and had a sort of cultural exchange with the students. In pairs, we ventured to different classrooms and had absolutely no idea what we were supposed to do once we arrived. (That seems to be the SIT trend.) About an hour later Estefania and I had gotten to know our 4th grade class very well—what they like about their school, their favorite subjects and after-school activities, etc. We learned some Spanish jokes, too, none of which I can reproduce. The students kept their end of the deal and asked us question after question, mostly in some form of “What is Pennsylvania like?” or “Which do you like better: Pennsylvania or Chile?” I talked about my small town called Ephrata—the farms, the cows, the Amish, the contrasts to Santiago. Somehow at the end of my explanation I had them thinking that everybody in Pennsylvania uses a horse and buggy for transportation. I’m not sure if that’s what they wanted to hear or if it was just lost in translation; either way, it was really cute.

Below is a video from our visit to the school. As a part of our very warm reception, a few students performed some traditional Chilean dances. It was so beautiful and reminded me so much of the children in Peru.

While University of Richmond is on Spring Break, we're just starting to get into the intense class schedule here in Santiago. Presentations, interviews, articles to read, Spanish to learn... I think I had forgotten what homework was. Wake up, Jenna. Study abroad isn't all travel and relaxation. In fact, from here on, there will be much less free time to just spend with our families or walk the streets of Santiago. It's a fine tradeoff, though, because instead we're investigating some some really profound questions that would challenge us even in English, I think. I will go into greater detail about the class material once I've had time to process another week or two, I promise.

Random facts: 1) At this moment, we are an hour ahead of the East Coast. HOWEVER, we turn our clocks back an hour this Saturday and will then be in the same time zone. 2) It is nearing the end of summer here, but temperatures have been stubborn, and don't seem to want to cool down. Most days have been in the upper 80's, sometimes into the 90's.

Hasta pronto!

¿Cachai?

Everyone says “cachai” in Chile about once every few sentences. It originates from the word “catch,” so it’s literally saying, “you catch?” like “you know?” Cachai was the first “Chilenismo” I learned, and every day I learn another two or three. They’re slang words and phrases, basically. But gosh, there are so many! I feel like I’m learning Spanish all over again.

When I return to the States, I will be fluent in Chilean slang. Spanish in general? We’ll see. And of course, Argentina will be a completely different story. New accent, new slang, new social behaviors. It would just be much too simple if every Latin American country spoke the same way. I mean, really, how boring would the US be without the southern twang, the slang of Philly and New York, or, my personal favorite, the Pennsylvania Dutch inflection? Is it pop, Coke, or soda? Awesome or wicked? Coffee or “cwafee?” Exactly.

Ok, so there’s the slang…and then there’s the accent. Oh, Chilean accent, how you confuse me so! Here are a few examples for the Spanish-inclined among you: when saying “mas o menos,” one will hear “mah o menoh.” Where did the “S’s” go, you ask? Beats me. “Pescado” (pess-kah-doh) sounds like “pescao” (pess-kow). “Me gusta” (may goo-stuh) becomes “me guta” (may goo-tuh). Okay, enough illustration for now; you get the idea. Long story short, in a conversation with a native Chilean who doesn’t tone down the accent or slow down at all, I understand just about 10%. At the end of the day, my brain is fried. Sometimes literally, I think. Talk about a great experience, though! It has definitely been a lesson in humility, having to ask so many questions and feeling out of place all day.

Moving on…



The transportation in Santiago is worth mentioning. It is absolutely wonderful for the most part: super efficient, relatively new, and best of all CHEAP, but nevertheless, it has been my main source of awkward encounters. I wish I had a picture to illustrate what I experience on the metro each day. Believe me, if I were to have sufficient room to move my arm to reach inside my bag, pull out my camera, and take a picture of this scene, I would. Actually, that’s a complete lie. Then I would look even more like a foreigner than I already do. Let’s just visualize for now, shall we? Picture this: it’s rush hour, which means wall to wall people on the metro. The man standing beside me holds on to a ceiling handle; my face comes entirely too close to his armpit. It’s summer here, so he’s wearing a tank top. In case you just recently finished eating, I’ll stop there.

I often find myself in the middle of the pack because the good spots around the handlebars have been taken, so there’s nothing around me to hold on to. Not that that really matters, though, because we’re so squished together that we all kind of lean on each other as the metro train sways back and forth, school-of-fish style. I have never been surfing, but “freestanding” on the metro is certainly a physical activity that comes close in my mind. As the train slows down for the oncoming station, I can’t possibly imagine another body fitting into the leftover space, but without fail, somebody always jumps on, almost losing a nose as the door closes. And then we all breathe a little less. It’s that simple.

Well, that’s enough cultural observation for today. I hope all is well with you; don’t forget to keep me updated on your lives, too. To my friends at UR: have a wonderful Spring Break! Enjoy what’s left of the snow!

Love to all,
Jenna

PS Just so you know, I do have classes and homework. More on that later.