Whirlwind Week

I've been with my host family for almost a week now, but it feels like no time has gone by at all! This has been a pretty low-key week in terms of actual activity. But there's been a lot going on in terms of figuring out all the new stuff here.

I went to one and a half classes this week. The one was a class about Neruda and Mistral, and it looks like it's going to be good. The other is supposed to be about the social history of Chile, but the professor didn't show up. Apparently that's pretty common for professors during the first week of classes here. Their idea of school is a little more low key than ours. I think I've figured out how to get to all my campuses, which is no small feat considering the micros (or busses) are notoriously unreliable and aren't super convenient. But I think I got it? I was definitely frustrated for awhile there, but I'm slowly getting a better handle on what the main streets are and how they connect to each other.

In terms of other highlights, I've had a nice time exploring our various neighborhoods with people in the group. The other night a few of us checked out bars at Plaza Ñuñoa, which is best described as the Harvard Square of Chile. Some of us also got together at a friend's house close by and had a really nice time chatting with her host siblings. My host family's still super nice. My host brother is in school and works pretty much all the time. I feel like a serious slacker in comparison since I'm only going to have class for like 8 hours or so a week. I don't see my family a ton because we all have pretty diverse schedules. But tonight I had dinner and got to watch tv with my host mom, which was really nice. They have amazing telenovela-like shows here. Tonight I watched one called "Donde está Eliza?" about a girl who was kidnapped. The show follows the lives of everyone who is looking for her. It's fantastically dramatic and amusing.

Other than that, I've mostly been hanging out with people on the program, trying to get better at spanish (which I think is gradually happening), and trying to figure out the crazily confusing public transportation they have in this country. It's been a little challenging to settle into this new life, especially because I've been here for almost 3 weeks now and the normal homesick feeling that comes with travel is settling in. But luckily I have great people around me who are helping to make the transition easier.

A New Home

I'm finally at my host house! So far, everything here's great. My host mom, Veronica, is unbelievably sweet. Yesterday I had lunch with her and her good friend. Then for dinner she called a few of the kids from the program who live near me and invited them over for dinner. We had pizza and soda. It was so sweet and made the whole brand new experience much more comfortable. I live with her and her 25 year old son, Rafa. He's on vacation right now, but I'll be meeting him later tonight or tomorrow. If he's as nice as his mom, I'm going to have a great time.

I have a bedroom with a bed, desk, night table, and closet. I also get my own bathroom, which is great. I had a small hot water issue this morning in the shower, but that's getting fixed. I'm in between the kitchen and my host brother's room. There's also a living/dining room and my host mom's bedroom. There's a nice terrace with a barbeque, and I'm told when the weather gets nicer we'll have lots of meals asado (on the grill). We're in a really great neighborhood, and are really close to a lot of other people in the program.

Today we went to the supermarket, which proved to be quite an experience. Apparently every Chilean and his brother goes shopping on Sundays. We went to Jumbo, which is like Costco but the food is sold normally, not in bulk. I have never seen somewhere so crowded. And the Chileans are not exactly patient with their shopping carts. I got rear ended more than a few times. There were literally lanes of shopping carts like there are for cars. It was pretty amusing. So now I've learned not to shop on Sunday. But I did finally manage to get money from an ATM that works. However I got a little confused about the decimal point, comma difference and so took out a lot more than i meant to. Oh well, I guess it'll last me a while.

Speaking the language 24/7 is proving to be quite challenging. My "mom" speaks very quickly and quietly. When I met her yesterday, she slowed down a lot once she saw I couldn't understand her. But while she was talking to her friend yesterday, she picked it up again. I can understand a lot of it, but not all. Luckily, it seems to be getting better pretty quickly. After being here for a little over 24 hours, I'm already starting to figure out how to grasp the main concept without hearing all the words. And I'm definitely not alone in this...everyone I've talked to has the same experience.

Tomorrow we're meeting up again as a group to take a tour of the main campus where our classes will be. Then we're taking an oral spanish test so that our teacher knows what level to put our class at. Being all alone in a house has been really nice, but it makes me reappreciate the group I'm with. It'll be nice to see them again. And I'm hoping to see some of them tonight as well. It's odd being in college but living at home, or a home. But at least I'm in a really nice home, and my host mom has done this a lot of times before so she's being really great about helping me figure out what I need to know.

Welcome back, wireless

So it turns out the only thing they had to do to fix the wireless at the hostel was to turn it off and turn it back on again. Thank you, random english speaking tourists, for figuring that out.

Yesterday we went to La Moneda, the presidential palace. While we didn't get to see Michelle Bachelet (their awesome female president), we got to see a lot of amazing things. My favorite room was the one were Allende's office used to be. They've recreated the layout of the room with some of his original furniture and paintings. They've also recreated his sistting room, and in it they've put the couch where his body was found the morning of September 11, 1973. It's an amazing thought to think you're looking at the same things that such an important man saw everyday. Then after the official tour, we talked for a long time with our professor, Peter Winn. He's a historian and has been studying and writing about Chile for many years. He was standing 100 feet or so from La Moneda when the coup started. He told us an amazing story about how he moved around to see everything that was going on, who he talked to, how he narrowly avoided being taken to the Estadio Nacional (where they rounded up the first large group of political prisoners), and how he eventually had to run as the military began opening fire on the plaza. It was unbelievable to see where we were standing through the eyes of someone who'd been there to witness so much terror and fear.

After our tour we had a big group dinner at a restaurant called Las Vacas Gordas, where we all ate the first night. It was nice to have a group closing as orientation wraps up. Today we have a few more charlas ("talks," which are a nice way of saying lecture) and then a big group dinner with all of us, our professor, and our resident director. It should be a nice way to officially close orientation. Then tomorrow (god, I can't believe it's that soon), we all get picked up by our different host families. I'm still scared but excited! And it'll definitely be nice to get out of this hostel. We just got two more random roommates, who are staying for no one knows how long. And there's a REALLY loud group of teenagers who got dropped off two days ago. So even if my host house doesn't go totally smoothly, at least I'll be living with one person and not gazillions of strangers!

Almost the end of orientation

So I haven't posted for a few days since nothing much has been happening. Yesterday was one of the more interesting orientation days we had. In the morning we went to register our visas and apply for our Chilean ID cards. We get to pick those up in a week or so and then we'll be almost like real Chileans...at least on paper. After the immigration proceedings, we went to the studio of Mario Toral, who's a pretty famous artist in Chile. He painted a public mural at the Universidad de Chile metro stop. He was a good friend of Neruda and was a very interesting man. He's one of those people I'd love to talk to about pretty much whenever. He has an interesting perspective on everything. We also got to see a few of the things he's working on now, which are very interesting. He lives in a huge house right near the neighborhood I'm going to be in with my host family. And he has three huge dogs who are adorable. So I secretly wish I'll somehow run into him walking those dogs, but unfortunately it's immensely unlikely.

After Mario Toral, we went back to the Tufts office/classroom and heard from the editor of a magazine called The Clinic. It's name comes from the clinic that Pinochet was detained in after he was extradited to London. The magazine is a combination humor and serious news source (think The Onion meets The New Yorker). And apparently it's really the only publication that younger people in this country read. The editor had lots of interesting things to say about how the democracy they have in Chile isn't totally functional because it doesn't actually support the majority of the people. He also discussed how, in a very conserative Catholic country, it's hard for the younger generation to find their voices. The Clinic is a place for them to express themselves in an environment where they've otherwise lost hope (basically no young people vote because they have no faith in the fractured political system).

Internet here is getting spotty becaues the wireless has gone out, and a TON more people just got to our hostel. So I'm not sure how much I'll be able to post in my last 2 days here. I'm headed to my host family on Saturday. I'm both excited and nervous. Hopefully my spanish is as good as I think? This could get interesting.

Briefly...

This'll be a short one because I'm a little tired and honestly not much is new since my last post. Yesterday we went to the Aconcagua Valley an hour outside of Santiago. There we met with some temporary workers who work in different fruit exporting factories. They told us about their lives and very very poor working conditions. It was very hard to hear, especially when they were talking to us, a group of upper middle class college students, about how their children can't get educations or have educational opportunities taken away from them when their parents try to organize for more rights. A lot of their complaints are similar to those that California workers had when they fought with Cesar Chavez for fair labor conditions. It struck me that this country has only really had a functioning democracy for the past 20 years or so. So now they're trying to go through the reforms that other democratic countries have gone through in the past. But in Chile, all of these reforms are trying to happen at once, which makes for an incredibly difficult situation for both the politicians and the people affected by the political decisions.

I was very impressed with the attitude of all the workers we met. They were joking and laughing while they described their horrible working conditions. And they were so glad to see us and said they felt lucky to be able to teach us more about their lives first hand. They are unbelievably strong people, which made the tough information they were giving us a little easier to take. Then we got the opportunity to go out to lunch with them. We got to know a few of them a little better and practice our spanish, both of which were great opportunities. After lunch we went to see a beautiful view on one of the hills in the valley. Then we went to a chichería, which is a type of alcohol that's like wine which has been cooked before it's fermented. It tastes delicious.

We got back pretty late last night, so some of us got empanada takeout. Then we got a few bottles of wine and beer and hung out as a group on the patio of our hostel. A few people here are one the ballroom dance team, and know salsa. So I got to learn a few very basic salsa moves which was great.

Today we're off for another packed day. We're going to see the wide variety of neighborhoods in Santiago, from the richest to the poorest. It should make for a very interesting adventure.

Pensando

These past few days have been an emotional roller coaster to say the least. I’ll start with the good. Yesterday we went to a winery in Paine. We had a delicious three course lunch and got a tour of the winery. Both the appetizers before the meal and the meal came with multiple glasses of wine, so it’s safe to say that everyone (including our Tufts professor chaperone) had a very good time. The bus ride back became a giant sing-a-long (myself and a few others not included). Then we hunted for a restaurant that would be open. They were few and far between because yesterday was a catholic holiday, and Chile is very, very catholic. A small group of us finally found one and we had a very nice, inexpensive time. Then everyone turned in early because we had to be out of our hostel at 8:15, not an easy feat for 20 college students.

Now onto the not so good, or rather, the harder to take. Yesterday morning we visited a memorial to Los Desaparecidos in Paine, which is the town in Chile most affected by the coup, percentage wise. They’ve constructed an incredible memorial to the 70+ friends and family members who were taken by the military during the Pinochet government. We met the man who was in charge of the monument, and whose father was one of the disappeared. We also met a girl who represented the third generation of community members affected by the coup. Her grandfather was taken and now she works with the memorial.

Today we met a man who runs the abroad program in Chile for an American university, but who’s Chilean. He spent about an hour describing in pretty excruciating detail the torture and humiliation tactics that the Chilean military used in Villa Grimaldi. Villa Grimaldi was the primary torture camp constructed by the Pinochet administration, and it was built at the base of the foothills right outside Santiago. After the man described all of the horrible events that took place there, he told us a little about his own life. He was a prisoner at Villa Grimaldi, and two other torture camps, for 11 months. He explained how he experienced everything he’d taught us about and added a few very chilling personal anecdotes. With him, we then toured what remains of the Villa. Most of the buildings and structures in all the torture camps have been destroyed, but at Villa Grimaldi a few basic structures remain. The rest has become a park and memorial for Los Desaparecidos. It was scary, horrible, sad, and moving to walk through the area with someone who’d been there before as a prisoner experiencing indescribable torture. There were more than a few moments when our guide had to stop talking because he got so emotional recounting everything that had happened to him and his contemporaries. And there were many, many times I cried. There were too many things talked about and described to detail all of them here, but one story in particular summarizes what I think is the incredible balance Chileans have struck between remembering the atrocity and moving past it to create new lives. A few years ago, someone asked permission to be married at Villa Grimaldi. After shock and horror from many community members, the man explained himself. He is the son of a disappeared man and said that at his wedding, on the most important day of his life, he wanted his father to be present. I think it’s amazing that he could recognize the horror that occurred, and the terrible loss of his father, while simultaneously moving forward and creating something beautiful.

After Villa Grimaldi, we went with our guide to the cemetery in Santiago. There we saw many graves, but what I found most moving was the tomb of Salvador Allende. After the Pinochet dictatorship, the first newly democratically elected Chilean congress financed the erection of a tomb for the Allende family. His remains were moved from were they were unceremoniously hid by the Pinochet administration and placed in the center of the richest part of the Santiago cemetery. The cemetery, like the city it serves, is clearly broken down by class. Our tour guide, amidst tears, explained to us that Salvador Allende himself would never have imagined that he would be buried amongst the city’s most upper crust elite. It’s truly a testament to the immense love so many people here still feel for this incredible man. We then travelled to the poorer part of the cemetery and there got to see Victor Jara’s grave. For those who don’t know, Jara was a very famous communist folk singer in Chile. He was one of the first taken by the military after the coup, and was brutally mutilated and executed in the national Chilean soccer stadium. Today, the stadium has been renamed to honor the man who remains a legend and role model in this country.

I’ve done a lot of thinking about the dictatorship, the torture, Los Desaparecidos, and the generations that remain over the last few days. Amidst all of the sadness and horror I’ve felt when thinking about those topics directly, I’ve also been reflecting a lot about how I personally connect to all of these atrocities. As I’ve said before, I realize that if my family had lived in Chile at that time, there’s a very good chance I would have lost lots of people that I love because they stood up for what they believe in. When we met the girl at the Paine memorial who represents the third generation affected by the dictatorship, I realized that could easily have been me. Many of my relatives were persecuted or otherwise faced resistance because they were fighting for something that wasn’t the political or social norm. Standing among the memorials to the various people who died in Paine, and walking the same path that so many prisoners walked before at Villa Grimaldi, I was proud that my family has something in common with those people. They were (and are) activists and fought (and fight) for what they believe in.

I also thought about what I, in my own personal everyday life, have in common with those who disappeared. And I realized, it’s not a lot. Many, many people who were taken and murdered during the Pinochet government were right around my age. They were all involved in political activities and social movements that caused people to take notice of their beliefs. They died for causes they believe in. I haven’t yet participated in, or felt that passionately about, any activity like that. I spent so much of my time growing up in Berkeley thinking about what I disagreed with that I didn’t spend a lot of time getting involved with things I really believe in. I think it’s unfortunate, to say the least, that I’ve been presented with opportunities to get involved and haven’t taken them. Walking around these places full of the spirits of passionate people my age makes me reevaluate how passionate I am myself. Especially coming from such a long line, on both sides, of people who treasure expressing their passion. I really want to take these next 5 months, while I’m in such a passionate place, to find my own personal passions and act on them. I learned so much from the memorials of the past few days that I can’t adequately summarize everything; but if I had to point to one thing specifically, I would say I’ve really seen how important it is to take a stand. I owe both the disappeared and my own family an immense debt because they’ve made me really look at myself and at this new culture I’m now living in. I want so badly to be able to adequately honor those who are no longer with us, and show those who are that their messages and causes are still going strong.

The Real Santiago

Yesterday we went to La Legua, which is one of the many barrios in Santiago. It's called La Legua because it's one league (like the sea measurement) from the center of the city. It's Santiago's most infamous neighborhood because of it's immense poverty and large involvement in the drug trade in Chile. The trip was emotional, to say the least, and I'm frustrated, angry, sad, and confused all at the same time. Obviously, I'm sad because it's horrible to see people live in such poverty. We talked to several community leaders who run various youth centers and church groups, and they all mentioned that they were trying to do a little to help in the face of something so horrible. The women at the church were saying that they've lost several community members who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'm angry because it's unbelievable to me that the problems in this neighborhood, and the other neighborhoods like it in Santiago, aren't better known to the rest of the world. While La Legua is in the news constantly in Chile, I as a U.S. citizen had never heard anything specific about the community there. I also can't believe more isn't being done to help. The neighborhood was destroyed during the Pinochet dictatorship. There's a memorial to all the people of La Legua who disappeared in the the military attacks and raids. And the town lived in constant fear of being bombed, because the government threatened to attack it just like it did La Moneda during the actual military coup. It's amazing to me that a neighborhood that suffered so much wasn't offered more help when the Pinochet government ended. I'm frustrated because, while it was a great that the Tufts program allowed us to see this neighborhood, I believe they did it in an incredibly disrespectful way. We were bussed into the neighborhood on a giant tour bus, and were then shuttled around to the various community organizations in the same bus. The entire time it felt like we were on safari, gawking at the lives of these people. I also don't think we adequately discussed what we saw. As soon as we left, a bunch of people on the bus were making plans to see Harry Potter. While that's understandable, I think that if we were talked to more about the neighborhood, we would all have been a little more thoughtful when we left. I'm confused because I'm trying to figure out the best way to help. We went to go see the neighborhood with a company called ECO, which stands for Educación y Comunicación. It's lead by one of the foremost Chilean historians, Mario Garces. They offered us a chance to intern with them during the semester, and I think that would be an excellent opportunity to be more involved with the neighborhood. At the same time, I know one American helping for 5 months isn't actually going to make any huge impact on the area. Hopefully through the people I meet here and the time I spend, I'll get a better understanding of what I can actually do to help.

Today we're going to a memorial for "Los Desaparecidos," the disappeared. I think it will be incredibly interesting, but incredibly hard to deal with emotionally. Yesterday I realized that if my family had been Chilean, we would have been wiped out in the Pinochet government attacks. Given my family's rich history of being strongly involved in the political left, I know that had they been in the country during the coup, they would have continued to fight for everything they believe in. I have something in common, however small and removed it can be considering I didn't actually live through it, with the people the memorial is remembering. It's going to be an emotional day to say the least.

Then to continue the tradition of Tufts questionable handling of difficult situations, after the memorial we're going to a winery tour. I understand they're in the same neighborhood so it's convenient, but I still think it's taking away from a moving experience to put it right before a winery tour. Hopefully they'll handle it a little better than they did yesterday.

I've both loved and hated seeing this "other side" of Santiago. I think I now have a much better understanding of what the city's really like, and it'll keep getting better today. It's been incredibly hard to take, but I know it's a valuable experience to have and I just have to remember it always and try to do something so that the situation becomes easier to take for people in the future.

Everything otherwise is still good. Yesterday my friend and I felt sick, but we took it easy with a few other people on the trip and feel much better today. Last night the hostel put a random guy in my room because I'm only sharing it with one other girl. He came in when I was sleeping and my other roommate from the program was out. But one of my other friends here very nicely slept in the other free bed with me to make it a little more comfortable. I'm going to talk to the program director and maybe the hostel people today to try to sort it out. We (both Tufts girls in my room) feel like we would have no problem with a stranger who's a girl, or some boys we know. But considering that there's a room with two Tufts boys in it, we don't understand why they would have put a random man in with us. Last night I was a little more worried about it just because it woke me up and I was sick and tired. But today I realize it shouldn't be too hard to work out. Just another travel adventure in my life abroad!