Last Pucón trip, Clarita won a few days free stay in the cabins that we stayed at with the group. Her, Jo, and I went back down a few weeks ago, conveniently skipping Montañismo class. We weren´t very hopeful about getting to climb the volcano because the forecast was rainy and cloudy but the one day of the month with a possibility of clear skies was during our stay, so we decided to go for it. We read, watched movies, walked around town, and studied (for an art history test that actually never happened, surprise surprise). One of the days we bussed out to Parque Nacional Huerquehue and did a hike. We hiked in the rain to a raging waterfall and then up through the snow to some pretty lakes. After arriving at the cabin soaked and freezing, we decided not to go back into town to sign up to climb the volcano the next day...it´d probably be rainy again anyways.
Of course, we slept in and woke up to a gorgeous day with the volcano clearly visible through our bathroom window. Thank you nature. Even though we didn´t get to climb the volcano, we had a really good time aaaand, by being lazy and not going into town the day before we ended up saving money :) Definitely a fun and worthwhile trip. Especially because Jo and Clare are awesome people...don´t think I mentioned that before, but they are and it would´ve been impossible to not have a good time with both of them around.
By the afternoon it was windy and cloudy again. We hopped on an overnight bus and headed back to Viña. Jo has photos so I´ll post them after she posts them to facebook and I get a chance to steal em! TTFN...
11 July 2008
29 June 2008
art is la raja
translation: the shit. Last Saturday I was in Santiago and went to el Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende run by la Fundación Salvador Allende. It was eleven a.m. on a Saturday morning, so I was the only person in the building and the guard outside had to turn on a video exhibit and open some rooms just for me. The video exhibit wasn't very neat, it was a 'piece' by some woman who had linked together clips of explosions from lots of different wars. Everything else was really neat though. Some cool pieces were a giant fiberglass piece in the shape of half of Allende's glasses that you had to duck under and walk around and some really cool paintings. They had a really powerful exhibit up called "ausencias" by an Argentinean photographer named Gustavo Germano, about the dictatorship there between 1976 and 1983. He had taken old photographs of families, friends, couples, etc. and then in 2006 set up photos in the same spot/pose minus the people who had been assassinated/disappeared. Seeing the new photos with everyone grown older without their friends and family was really powerful.
As I was leaving the two guys working gave me some posters, probably because they were so excited to have someone actually come to the museum early on a Saturday and then I heading to the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, just a short metro ride away. I love the Santiago metro, by the way. The trick is to never ride it during rush hour or else you'll end up hating it. Not during rush hour, it's the easiest, cleanest, nicest metro ever, even if Bachelet got way criticized for the entire TranSantiago project. I like it, so there. Anyways...before going to the second museum I took a long walk to and then through the Plaza de Armas. They have a new exhibit up below La Moneda about Salvador Allende but I didn't go in.
The contemporary art museum was cool. Not very big, which is nice because I don't have the greatest attention span. I recognized a few statues (Juan Egenau and Sergio Castillo) from that one time I studied for my History of Chilean Art class :P But the coolest part was the exhibit of art from Japanese artists, especially Nobuyuki Takahashi (above) and Satoshi Hirose.
As I was leaving the two guys working gave me some posters, probably because they were so excited to have someone actually come to the museum early on a Saturday and then I heading to the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, just a short metro ride away. I love the Santiago metro, by the way. The trick is to never ride it during rush hour or else you'll end up hating it. Not during rush hour, it's the easiest, cleanest, nicest metro ever, even if Bachelet got way criticized for the entire TranSantiago project. I like it, so there. Anyways...before going to the second museum I took a long walk to and then through the Plaza de Armas. They have a new exhibit up below La Moneda about Salvador Allende but I didn't go in.
The contemporary art museum was cool. Not very big, which is nice because I don't have the greatest attention span. I recognized a few statues (Juan Egenau and Sergio Castillo) from that one time I studied for my History of Chilean Art class :P But the coolest part was the exhibit of art from Japanese artists, especially Nobuyuki Takahashi (above) and Satoshi Hirose.
22 June 2008
I take that back, SNOWBOARDING es la raja...
I've now been snowboarding twice here and am totally hooked :) The first time I went to Portillo with Gustavo, my host sisters' cousin and his friends. We spent the weekend in Los Andes, a town about an hour away from here, north of Santiago. We brought the grandparents along and stayed with my host mom's sister and her husband and kids. We watched Enzo play rugby, had an asado (barbeque), and chilled at the house. On Sunday I woke up early and headed out with Gustavo and his friends for the drive up to Portillo. One friend had a truck, the other was a military guy with military friends with season passes, and I borrowed basically all my stuff from them, Jo, and the uncle. Luckily all I had to pay for was renting equipment, pretty sweet. I was the only one snowboarding which was kind of lame because I didn't have anyone to help me pick it back up but I still handled pretty well and had loads of fun. Portillo is beautiful. To get to it you take las curvas, the road that crosses the mountains between Argentina and Chile and is really sketchy and terrifying because people drive as if their cars were like, safety bubble forcefields instead of the flimsy metal boxes they actually are. On the way up we saw a truck that had smashed into the side of the mountain. It was carting a bunch of paper and on the way down there was a mini traffic jam because people had stopped to steal reams of paper and wooden flats from the truck which had been abandoned by that time. There were families hanging around, some guys standing on their piles of paper drinking mate, etc. Of course the guys in our truck had to get in there too so we arrived back home loaded down with brand new printer paper. While they were out stealing from a guy who'd been stealing for way longer and had a huge stash all to himself, I was trying to find out where the cab of the crashed truck was. After a while I realized that the big blue square flat against the wall of the mountain used to be the cab and wasn't just a random piece of the vehicle. Craziness...poor driver.
So now that my random, kind of morbid tangent is over...Portillo is beautiful. The lagoon in the middle is gorgeous and when the sun sets it lights up the mountains. Sunsets in the Andes rival ones back home (sorry Polihale...). It has one run that takes you over the tunnels on the highway and a bunch of harder runs with these pole-lift things called button lifts I think off to the sides. Apparently it's a really good, famous spot. One weird thing is that the ski resorts here are above the tree line so there are no trees anywhere. They're also high up so you can get altitude sickness....definitely not fun.
Last week we went in a huge group to spend the night in Santiago and then head to Valle Nevado for the day. I was originally planning on coming back to Viña that night to take a test early the next day and get my classes over with but I decided to stay for an extra day with Jo and Claire, that's how much fun I had. The views from the mountain is breathtaking, especially from the top of the highest lift because you're surrounded by amazing views on all sides. It was really fun and helpful to go with other snowboarders because I went on harder runs then I did at Portillo and they taught me how to turn better and in general just helped out. There was a really cool ravine thing you could drop into and ride kind of like a halfpipe or even a wave. Snowboarding is like surfing but constantly -- no waiting for sets, you can just do what you want the entire way down the run. Soooo fun :D
The next day my entire body hurt...bad, but in a good way because I haven't done anything really physical in a while. We headed out again bright and early. Turns out it was two for one day so after shoving our way through a gigantic mob of people we finally got lift tickets and were off. The second day was more difficult, I was definitely woozy/probably had a bit of altitude sickness almost the entire day and by the end I was kind of zombieing my way down the runs, trying not to fall too hard. We made it back to Viña safe, sound, and sore.
I'm hopping on a bus to Pucón in two hours so I'll have to put fotos of Valle Nevado up later! I'm getting excited to come home and see everyone. Hope you're all enjoying your summers wherever you all are...I love having such a scattered, adventuring group of friends/family :) cuidense todos, chau!
So now that my random, kind of morbid tangent is over...Portillo is beautiful. The lagoon in the middle is gorgeous and when the sun sets it lights up the mountains. Sunsets in the Andes rival ones back home (sorry Polihale...). It has one run that takes you over the tunnels on the highway and a bunch of harder runs with these pole-lift things called button lifts I think off to the sides. Apparently it's a really good, famous spot. One weird thing is that the ski resorts here are above the tree line so there are no trees anywhere. They're also high up so you can get altitude sickness....definitely not fun.
Last week we went in a huge group to spend the night in Santiago and then head to Valle Nevado for the day. I was originally planning on coming back to Viña that night to take a test early the next day and get my classes over with but I decided to stay for an extra day with Jo and Claire, that's how much fun I had. The views from the mountain is breathtaking, especially from the top of the highest lift because you're surrounded by amazing views on all sides. It was really fun and helpful to go with other snowboarders because I went on harder runs then I did at Portillo and they taught me how to turn better and in general just helped out. There was a really cool ravine thing you could drop into and ride kind of like a halfpipe or even a wave. Snowboarding is like surfing but constantly -- no waiting for sets, you can just do what you want the entire way down the run. Soooo fun :D
The next day my entire body hurt...bad, but in a good way because I haven't done anything really physical in a while. We headed out again bright and early. Turns out it was two for one day so after shoving our way through a gigantic mob of people we finally got lift tickets and were off. The second day was more difficult, I was definitely woozy/probably had a bit of altitude sickness almost the entire day and by the end I was kind of zombieing my way down the runs, trying not to fall too hard. We made it back to Viña safe, sound, and sore.
I'm hopping on a bus to Pucón in two hours so I'll have to put fotos of Valle Nevado up later! I'm getting excited to come home and see everyone. Hope you're all enjoying your summers wherever you all are...I love having such a scattered, adventuring group of friends/family :) cuidense todos, chau!
Conciertos
Concierto Número Uno:
One Dancehall Festival 2008, el 7 de junio, con Tego Calderón, Sean Paul, Mala Rodriguez, DJ Raff, but not in that order. Olivia, Victoria, Betsy (fellow obie, yeah!), me, and Dani (Daniela, Olivia's host sister) bussed out in the morning and met up with her dad, sister, and stepmom in santiago, went to the concert and then stayed at their nice apartment in Providenca (una comuna de Santiago). The concert was great. Mala Rodriguez is from Spain and weird, but I liked her. Tego Calderón (reggaeton artist from Puerto Rico) was probably my favorite...guilty pleasure all the way. And Sean Paul was Sean Paul...I'm not a fanatic but it was pretty cool to hear the classics live. He came complete with four girls in like, spankies and tops that danced (kind of) which was awkward and this one awesome guy whose job it was to appear randomly and stomp his foot while twirling a shirt helicopter style over his head and hyping up the crowd. I want his job.
The next day we went to Cerro San Cristobal which is a famous hill/sporting area/park in Santiago. Rich santiaguinos go there to exercise and hang out. They also have these cool gondola type things called teleféricos (I think) that take you from cerro to cerro. Then we had an asado (barbeque) and bussed back to Viña.
Concierto Número Dos:
Three days later...I was back in Santiago to see Joss Stone with Pablo, Claire, and Jo. We chipped in for gas and all went in Pablo´s car which was nice. The concert was absolutely amazing. She was great, the band was great, her back up singers were great. Espectacular, fantástico, etc. and she´s only 20 years old!!! Everyone go buy her album...right now. Afterwards we hung out with some of Pablo´s friends in his house in Las Condes (the business/upperclass comuna of Santiago). His parents were traveling somewhere so we had the house to ourself (minus the nana, who´s probably almost always there) and got our own beds which was sweeeeet.
Then it was back to Viña to take a history test on: The History of Chilean Art (the entire history of chilean art), which never happened because after the profe arrived (late because he couldn´t find a parking space) he realized the copies of the text that the chileans got and the copies that the gringos got were both missing pages, but missing different pages...so the test was postponed to last week during a class period in which he didn´t even come AND it turned out to be easy. That basically sums up the education bit of my life right now which (thank goodness) is ending after July 7th because I told all my profes that I´m leaving to travel.
One Dancehall Festival 2008, el 7 de junio, con Tego Calderón, Sean Paul, Mala Rodriguez, DJ Raff, but not in that order. Olivia, Victoria, Betsy (fellow obie, yeah!), me, and Dani (Daniela, Olivia's host sister) bussed out in the morning and met up with her dad, sister, and stepmom in santiago, went to the concert and then stayed at their nice apartment in Providenca (una comuna de Santiago). The concert was great. Mala Rodriguez is from Spain and weird, but I liked her. Tego Calderón (reggaeton artist from Puerto Rico) was probably my favorite...guilty pleasure all the way. And Sean Paul was Sean Paul...I'm not a fanatic but it was pretty cool to hear the classics live. He came complete with four girls in like, spankies and tops that danced (kind of) which was awkward and this one awesome guy whose job it was to appear randomly and stomp his foot while twirling a shirt helicopter style over his head and hyping up the crowd. I want his job.
The next day we went to Cerro San Cristobal which is a famous hill/sporting area/park in Santiago. Rich santiaguinos go there to exercise and hang out. They also have these cool gondola type things called teleféricos (I think) that take you from cerro to cerro. Then we had an asado (barbeque) and bussed back to Viña.
Concierto Número Dos:
Three days later...I was back in Santiago to see Joss Stone with Pablo, Claire, and Jo. We chipped in for gas and all went in Pablo´s car which was nice. The concert was absolutely amazing. She was great, the band was great, her back up singers were great. Espectacular, fantástico, etc. and she´s only 20 years old!!! Everyone go buy her album...right now. Afterwards we hung out with some of Pablo´s friends in his house in Las Condes (the business/upperclass comuna of Santiago). His parents were traveling somewhere so we had the house to ourself (minus the nana, who´s probably almost always there) and got our own beds which was sweeeeet.
Then it was back to Viña to take a history test on: The History of Chilean Art (the entire history of chilean art), which never happened because after the profe arrived (late because he couldn´t find a parking space) he realized the copies of the text that the chileans got and the copies that the gringos got were both missing pages, but missing different pages...so the test was postponed to last week during a class period in which he didn´t even come AND it turned out to be easy. That basically sums up the education bit of my life right now which (thank goodness) is ending after July 7th because I told all my profes that I´m leaving to travel.
19 May 2008
La Serena, PICHILEMU, and Laguna Verde/Las Docas
The day after my birthday the entire CIEE group hopped on a bus for a field trip to La Serena, which is quite a ways north of Viña del Mar IV Región. Once there, we went to the Observatorio Cerro Mamalluca, which is a small observatory 45 minutes away up in the mountains. We learned about la cosmovisión Andina (the Andean´s understanding of the stars as compared to our current one), got to see Saturn through a telescope, which was pretty awesome, and also listened to a live band playing música andina. The next day we hung out and went to the market in town. This is the beach by our cabins:
Then, two weekends ago, we went to Pichilemu, famous surf town (surf report here ... you can also check surf for Ritoque which is about 30 mins from Viña and is also really good) with really good waves. My friend Tamma´s best-friend from back home has a little brother named Geordie (17) who came down for a surf trip and ended up moving out there. He has a nice set up: room/apartment in the hostel connected to the Pin Pon, the restaurant where he eats (and once met the Malloy brothers, somehow). The town is adorable, small and dusty and deserted minus a small community of surfers from all over the world (Ohio, Australia, Cornwall, England, Brazil). It gets really busy and crowded during the summer but right now it´s really mellow.
We arrived Friday afternoon. Tamma surfed, I didn´t becasue it was freezing and getting dark. Saturday morning I rented gear and went out with Tamma and Geordie while Jo had a lesson with the surf school. She´s now hooked :) So...with a 5mm wetsuit and booties I paddled out to la puntilla. It was amazing to be in the water at a spot I´ve only heard about and seen in movies. But it was COLD. You get gnarly ice cream headaches duckdiving if your wetsuit doesn´t have a hood and after the first 1/2 hour or so, I could only think about how cold it was and it gets progressively harder to focus. Tamma went out again that day, I didn´t. I like surfing but think I´ll stick to warm water, chill, purely for fun surfing back home.
Since it was his last weekend there, they threw a goodbye fiesta Saturday night and everyone had dinner at the Pin Pon and then went to Disco127 (or just "the disco") which is basically the only disco in town. The next day we went to Punta de Lobos to watch the surf and then caught buses back to Santiago and Viña.
Here´s a satellite view of Pichilemu and Punta de Lobos (the two big bays) and some photos.
paddling out at Punta de Lobos...this is next to the two rocks (las tetas) in the foto below
Then, two weekends ago, we went to Pichilemu, famous surf town (surf report here ... you can also check surf for Ritoque which is about 30 mins from Viña and is also really good) with really good waves. My friend Tamma´s best-friend from back home has a little brother named Geordie (17) who came down for a surf trip and ended up moving out there. He has a nice set up: room/apartment in the hostel connected to the Pin Pon, the restaurant where he eats (and once met the Malloy brothers, somehow). The town is adorable, small and dusty and deserted minus a small community of surfers from all over the world (Ohio, Australia, Cornwall, England, Brazil). It gets really busy and crowded during the summer but right now it´s really mellow.
We arrived Friday afternoon. Tamma surfed, I didn´t becasue it was freezing and getting dark. Saturday morning I rented gear and went out with Tamma and Geordie while Jo had a lesson with the surf school. She´s now hooked :) So...with a 5mm wetsuit and booties I paddled out to la puntilla. It was amazing to be in the water at a spot I´ve only heard about and seen in movies. But it was COLD. You get gnarly ice cream headaches duckdiving if your wetsuit doesn´t have a hood and after the first 1/2 hour or so, I could only think about how cold it was and it gets progressively harder to focus. Tamma went out again that day, I didn´t. I like surfing but think I´ll stick to warm water, chill, purely for fun surfing back home.
Since it was his last weekend there, they threw a goodbye fiesta Saturday night and everyone had dinner at the Pin Pon and then went to Disco127 (or just "the disco") which is basically the only disco in town. The next day we went to Punta de Lobos to watch the surf and then caught buses back to Santiago and Viña.
Here´s a satellite view of Pichilemu and Punta de Lobos (the two big bays) and some photos.
paddling out at Punta de Lobos...this is next to the two rocks (las tetas) in the foto below
Finally, this past Saturday Chett, Tyler, his Chilean brother, Rodrigo, and I went on a day trip to Laguna Verde and hiked to a beach called Las Docas. It was fun and pretty, the end...
see that tiny house on the point? it belongs to a famous chilean painter and I want it
see that tiny house on the point? it belongs to a famous chilean painter and I want it
08 May 2008
cumpleaños :D
It's been a while, but I figured my birthday celebration still deserves a post because it was awesome! My chilean friends and sister got in touch with a few friends from the program and threw me a surprise party. I was completely surprised...had no idea. I thought we'd do something small the week after because the exchange program had planned a trip to La Serena leaving at 8:30am Friday, April 25th...not very convenient. Since birthdays are usually pretty anticlimactic, I was kind of relieved to not have to worry about it.
But...Max told me he was playing a soccer game at Santa Maria (my host sister and her friends' university) if I wanted to come watch Thursday. I went with my sister and Pablo (who left early to run to Max's apartment and meet up with everyone else). Then on the way back, Maca asked if I minded stopping by Max's apartment to pick up a notebook she'd left and surprise! everyone was there with the apartment decorated and music and drinks and delicious cake with candles, the whole shebang...they had planned out everything! everyone knew but me and lied like experts so I wouldn't find out :) We hung out in the apartment and then headed down to Scratch, a club in Viña to dance and meet up with Olivia and her friends because her birthday is also April 25th and they had had a separate, smaller gathering at her house earlier. We danced until really late, got home at 5ish, took a nap, and then hopped on the bus to La Serena at 8:30am the next morning. Fantastic :) Siguen algunas fotos (and a group shot off to the side):
Max y Pablo
Tamma y sus amigos
la Caroline y su hermano
22 April 2008
Voluntariado (and student protest)
I have two community service/working with children-oriented activities that I'll be doing here that I'm really excited about but haven't taken the time to let y'all know.
One is through my class called Geografía Social. Each year the class works with low-resource (not sure if that's the best word, I can't really speak English or Spanish at this point) primary schools in Valparaíso. The students are split into small groups and each group is assigned a class that they go to each week. The overall purpose of the course is to instill pride and appreciation in the children for their city because they don't have the chance to really get out and look around and also, it's not something that's actively taught, obviously. The goal is to have a culminating project at the end of the semester, such as an outing to a museum, to the beach, or do a big art project with the kids.
As a kind of pre-volunteer activity, the class went to the Museo Cielo Abierto in Cerro Bellavista, Valparaíso. There are 20 works done by really well-respected artists that are located on the buildings, walls, and sidewalks of the neighborhood and it's really cool. Unfortunately, I didn't go with the class group and tour guide because a Chilean student from the Facultad de Geografía told me that there wasn't class because of the paro (strike, boycott). However, I am planning to go with a few others who missed it sometime this week to see the works in person and take photos.
Not-so-brief side note on the strike: Starting last week students at a lot of the universities around here and I'm pretty sure in other municipalities (so not Santiago) decided to strike (boycotting classes while simultaneously organizing marches, demonstrations, making signs, etc.) because of the TNE. The TNE is a newly proposed national school-pass that students use on the micros (buses) for a lower fare. They always have one but the new one, from what I've gleaned from various tiny conversations, would make prices in the municipalities go up by a larger percentage than in Santiago, is offered by the gremio (guild, association?) of the micros instead of whoever normally runs it, and apparently normally, a part of students' tuition goes to the government who then pays the gremio to subsidize student fares but for some reason this year the government withheld that money. Whatever the combination of reasons, students are pissed.
The way it generally works is that the student association holds a vote (either every day or every few days) to decide whether or not they want to continue the boycott. But in my university, the voting takes place by departments so it's really difficult to figure out whether or not I'll have classes. Last week there was a march and the students took over a few main streets and I got to see tear gas and tanks. As far as I know, no one got hurt, it was more or a routine "get out of the road" type confrontation. But tear gas sucks...
Since then it's mellowed down. There's a national action on Thursday and no one is sure how long it'll last. Apparently it happens all the time: students get pissed, strike, and then they get at least a bit of what they want (mine workers and probably other sectors I don't know about do it too). It actually makes me a bit ashamed of the U.S. because that would never happen now. Even if the population wasn't scared shitless of the government or super apathetic, they wouldn't know how to go about demanding that the government pay attention and give them what they want because they've forgotten how...and that's aside from all the possible technical political reasons why U.S. citizens act the way they do. Anywho, I'll have plenty of time to write blogs now because I hardly ever have university class...
The other volunteering I'm doing is once a week at El Hogar Teresa Cortés Brown (a girls' home), hanging out with a bunch of girls ages 7ish to 15 ish. There are 24 of them during the hours that I'm there in two tiny classrooms doing pretty much whatever they want, supervised (kind of) by one tía (aunty). For now, I'm just hanging out and talking to and playing with them but am planning an art project and am looking into setting up a penpal type deal so that they'll have something educational, interesting, and fun that actually lasts beyond the few months that I'm here. I was told to help them out with schoolwork if they need it, but it didn't seem like they had any homework and the school workbooks I did see didn't belong to anyone in particular, they were just being passed around like all the other pens, paper, and art supplies (scarce). It's really nice to hang out with kids at least once a week and interesting to watch how they interact with each other, the tía, and me (one realized I wasn't Chilean about 30 minutes in and then had me translate My Chemical Romance lyrics the entire time :P)
One is through my class called Geografía Social. Each year the class works with low-resource (not sure if that's the best word, I can't really speak English or Spanish at this point) primary schools in Valparaíso. The students are split into small groups and each group is assigned a class that they go to each week. The overall purpose of the course is to instill pride and appreciation in the children for their city because they don't have the chance to really get out and look around and also, it's not something that's actively taught, obviously. The goal is to have a culminating project at the end of the semester, such as an outing to a museum, to the beach, or do a big art project with the kids.
As a kind of pre-volunteer activity, the class went to the Museo Cielo Abierto in Cerro Bellavista, Valparaíso. There are 20 works done by really well-respected artists that are located on the buildings, walls, and sidewalks of the neighborhood and it's really cool. Unfortunately, I didn't go with the class group and tour guide because a Chilean student from the Facultad de Geografía told me that there wasn't class because of the paro (strike, boycott). However, I am planning to go with a few others who missed it sometime this week to see the works in person and take photos.
Not-so-brief side note on the strike: Starting last week students at a lot of the universities around here and I'm pretty sure in other municipalities (so not Santiago) decided to strike (boycotting classes while simultaneously organizing marches, demonstrations, making signs, etc.) because of the TNE. The TNE is a newly proposed national school-pass that students use on the micros (buses) for a lower fare. They always have one but the new one, from what I've gleaned from various tiny conversations, would make prices in the municipalities go up by a larger percentage than in Santiago, is offered by the gremio (guild, association?) of the micros instead of whoever normally runs it, and apparently normally, a part of students' tuition goes to the government who then pays the gremio to subsidize student fares but for some reason this year the government withheld that money. Whatever the combination of reasons, students are pissed.
The way it generally works is that the student association holds a vote (either every day or every few days) to decide whether or not they want to continue the boycott. But in my university, the voting takes place by departments so it's really difficult to figure out whether or not I'll have classes. Last week there was a march and the students took over a few main streets and I got to see tear gas and tanks. As far as I know, no one got hurt, it was more or a routine "get out of the road" type confrontation. But tear gas sucks...
Since then it's mellowed down. There's a national action on Thursday and no one is sure how long it'll last. Apparently it happens all the time: students get pissed, strike, and then they get at least a bit of what they want (mine workers and probably other sectors I don't know about do it too). It actually makes me a bit ashamed of the U.S. because that would never happen now. Even if the population wasn't scared shitless of the government or super apathetic, they wouldn't know how to go about demanding that the government pay attention and give them what they want because they've forgotten how...and that's aside from all the possible technical political reasons why U.S. citizens act the way they do. Anywho, I'll have plenty of time to write blogs now because I hardly ever have university class...
The other volunteering I'm doing is once a week at El Hogar Teresa Cortés Brown (a girls' home), hanging out with a bunch of girls ages 7ish to 15 ish. There are 24 of them during the hours that I'm there in two tiny classrooms doing pretty much whatever they want, supervised (kind of) by one tía (aunty). For now, I'm just hanging out and talking to and playing with them but am planning an art project and am looking into setting up a penpal type deal so that they'll have something educational, interesting, and fun that actually lasts beyond the few months that I'm here. I was told to help them out with schoolwork if they need it, but it didn't seem like they had any homework and the school workbooks I did see didn't belong to anyone in particular, they were just being passed around like all the other pens, paper, and art supplies (scarce). It's really nice to hang out with kids at least once a week and interesting to watch how they interact with each other, the tía, and me (one realized I wasn't Chilean about 30 minutes in and then had me translate My Chemical Romance lyrics the entire time :P)
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