Machuca, Un Techo Para Chile
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Valparaíso,
Chile
Monday, October 3, 2005
Hello hello all!
Another week has passed in Chile. Its fascinating how time is flying, and its also rather scary. The end of this week was the halfway point of the program, believe it or not. Its rather bittersweet. I miss everyone back home, and I cannot wait until the family comes to visit me in December, but I also have really become accostomed to things here, and I know that I will not want to leave.
Speaking of leaving, we are really starting to think about the big trip after classes are out, and as such I am putting out a request to all of you. Any of you who are in, or have traveled to south america, I am taking suggestions for must see/ must do activities and places. Travelers secrets ect. Send me an email, it would really be useful! We have 2.5 months to do lots of stuff, so nothing is out of the picture. Plus, who doesnt love travel stories!
Many times I have just felt like a tourist here for extended periods of time, but lately I have been feeling more and more like I really live here, this is my home, these are my hangouts, I am really feeling connected. I am also starting to feel attached to the problems and the experiences and history of this country.
In my spanish grammar class we watched the movie Machuca, which takes place during the tumultous times surrounding Allende's socialist govt and the golpe de estado de Pinochet in '73. The movie was really powerful in showing what it meant to live in those times and about the friendship between a poor kid and a rich kid and how they touched each others lives for a short period before the coup. While watching I felt an amazing connection to the plight of these people. I have to say that I really care about Chilean history, not the way you read about dictatorships in Latin America, or human rights violations of the School of the Americas, but as if this was reading about Vietnam, the Civil War or September 11 (interestingly enough Allende's government was also overthrown on Sept. 11, 1973). This is the history of the country where I live, and Im finally feeling part of it.
This week I also had quite a bit of school work for the first time in a long time. Prueba on tues that I had to read a book for, and an essay test and a presentation on thursday in History and Globalization respectively. I think I did ok, but we'll see.
Tues night we went to a movie at an Alternative Theatre (cine arte) and saw the movie 'Mi Mejor Enemigo'. It was about the cold war between Argentina and Chile in the 70's. Very very interesting, funny, and cheap! I think I will be going here more often, as it is hard to find chilean movies playing at the big theatre. The spanish was a bit hard to understand, but hey I'm used to being a little lost and having to infer everything :-)
Wednesday in drawing class we drew quick figure drawings of this model. Oh yeah it was a nude model. Definately my first time drawing in this way, but also a very interesting and new way to see a subject of art. Im glad that I'm in this class. I feel like I am learning stuff, even if I am also learning that I really stink at drawing. Watercolor class went well as usual. Every wednesday when we go out to different places to do landscapes it always seems to be gorgeous outside.
I have sort of hit a wall with flute playing. I need to find a way to practice a lot more in order to get beyond this stage. I'm still at the point where it takes a minute or so to warm up, and find the proper place to blow to make the right sound. Of course once I get that theres a lot I can do, but then I tire quickly, because my mouth and everything is not used to playing the flute a lot yet. Practice practice practice!
Thursday night we go bowling at the mall. Wow..the mall here is just like right out of america. Wait no....its bigger and better. 5 floors of shops, food, bowling, movie theatre. Its really pretty insane. There was this singer guy there tonight that was a total like latino superstar wanna be. Haha he was singing like love songs and making funny dance moves wearing like the white button down shirt and all that look. He had a decent voice tho! At some point I need to get ahold of typical music that i hear all the time here, so that I can listen to it when i get back to the EEUU.
Friday I went downtown Valpo to buy my bus ticket to San Pedro de Atacama for next weekend. In the process we were standing on a street corner when these two carabineros on their dirt bikes like pulled up and surrounded this guy. They searched him and found a ladies watch. They questioned him for a long time and it was really weird and then just let him go. There are theives everywhere here so it wasnt that surprising, but just weird to watch.
We then took a micro ride up through this road that crosses all of the hills of valpo for like an hour. Afterwards we got off at the end of the route and walked up to the end of Valparaiso. Its really weird to think about the ocean as it goes south of valpo. Its uncharted territory for me, and it felt like the end of the world. We watched the sunset and walked back into town a ways to take a micro home. On the way we saw these guys, i think they were off duty firefighters burning stuff down below by the water. I took a picture of them, and then we continued walking. About 5 min later one of them drove up in his truck and like started talking to us, and asking us if we were filming. I guess they werent supposed to be doing that, and the guy was like dont do that, we have jobs and families. It was very strange, I dont know why they were so concerned that maybe I was going to show the fotos to the mayor of valpo or something. Hmm
Saturday morning I get up early to go volunteer with 'Un Techo para Chile' (A Roof for Chile) -think habitat for humanity. I met up with like a group of 25 people, about 10 of which were exchange kids. We went up into a real poor neighborhood up in the hills where they were building 4 houses. We split up into small groups and started with just a floor. We put the house together and i got to be a construction worker for a while. At lunch we all got together and the people we were building new houses for cooked us a big pasta lunch. It was fun...a lot of camraderie and lots of goofing around. Really nice group of people. After lunch and into the evening we put the roof on the house. It was the first time I have ever done anything like that, and we were so high up above the ground (30 ft?) We saw a fantastic sunset and a house that went up in flames a little distance away (the second time i have seen that happen here).
When I got home my hostmom said that the poor people (who live up on the hills) have the best view. On the way back down from up there we rode in the back of a pick up with like 12 people. We all had to get out at one point to lighten the truck. Lots of fun since all the other gringos left at like 6 pm, and I stayed with all the chileans until like 10. I provided the crackers cheese and salami para 'onces'.
Cool group of people and I got to see a totally different side of chile. The pueblo, as my hostmom called it, are really nice people and it was a wonderful experience. The people with techo were really awesome and they invited me to do more stuff with them hopefully sometime soon.
Sunday Lauren and Becca, two of my kalamazoo buddies who are studying in Santiago came to visit with a friend and to discuss our post-semester travel plans. We took a micro around Valpo, went up cerro concepcion, discussed travel plans in a little cafe, and then went to vina and had a delicious lunch. It was great to see them, and fun to work on travel plans ( we are starting to get really excited!) and it was good practice to be the tour guide for a while (sorta anyway). Showing the city to people is fun, I am proud of where I live, and its going to be fun to show it to the family when they get here in december.
Well thats about it for this week. Hopefully you made it through without falling asleep or being bored to death, I've started to realize that I am keeping these emails as a sort of travel diary. I was writing in a journal for the first few weeks, but I became lazy and so now i will be sort of relying on this. So, sometimes these emails are going to be a little long and boring. Please excuse that!!
I hope that you all are doing well wherever you are on the planet. It will be great to get back and share stories and pictures! Its been a little slow with the emails lately... if you have a free minute, drop me a line and let me know how things are going! I love to hear from you!!
Ive updated my pictures lately, check them out at the usual site! I miss you all and wish you the best!
Abrazos,
