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)

an exciting weekend

Hannah came from Santiago! So I woke up a few hours after arriving home saturday morning to meet her and her friend Ilana in Valparaiso. We went up to Cerros Concepción and Alegre (the touristy, picturesque ones) and walked around and drank real coffee (finally!). Then we met up with other friends back in Viña to go watch a soccer game (the article is in Spanish, but there's a picture). We went with a bunch of girls from CIE and Max(imiliano), Pablo, Alain, and some of their friends who showed up at the game.

We were rooting for O'Higgins (the away team from Rancagua) which was playing Viña's team, Everton. When we got to the field we bought tickets and had to go through security which was comparable to U.S. airport security but without the fancy machines -- no lighters, liquids, pat downs, everything. Then the fun started...soccer in Chile (and I'm pretty sure in almost all of Latin America) is so much more fun than soccer in North America. It was almost embarrassing how fome (boring) we are in comparison. We sit, drink beer, yell and stand up sometimes, and clap. But soccer fans here bring drums (snare and bass), yell, cheer, sing, clap, JUMP, dance, throw confetti, balloons, light flares (how they are allowed to have flares when they don't even let you bring in lighters, have liquids, or sell alcohol within the stadium is beyond me) etc. for the entire time...all two hours of it. There's a ten minute break at half time when some people stop for a bit to buy food or talk to friends but that's it. I heard the announcer once saying that it was "absolutely prohibited to launch projectiles" (ha!) but the rest of the time it was only O'Higgins cheers and yelling and swearing at the other fans and/or the players.

and sometimes it gets really interesting :) The game was tied for most of the time one to one but then O'Higgins started to win and the Everton fans got really mad. Like, throwing rocks at the O'Higgins fans mad and then beating back the riot police mad...beating them back...full plastic shields and helmets and billy clubs versus sticks, flags, jerseys, and rocks, and the fans managed to beat the poor poor men unlucky enough to be on duty into retreat formation behind their own little gate. Then...while the players are still playing (and I almost missed the best goal because I was watching for small boulders speeding toward my head) the O'Higgins fans started to rattle the bars in between the two sections. Then more people started doing it and the fans b r o k e d o w n t h e m e t a l b a r r i e r in between the two separate fan sections and flooded toward the Everton fans.

No one died, but the police and riot guys had to make them go back and then force almost all the Everton fans to leave the stadium (with more fighting and yelling and dogs). They fought them back all the way into the hill behind the bleachers, it was nuts... They arrested two guys and had to escort them out a different way along with one cop bleeding profusely from the head, poor guy. Then the game ended, O'Higgins won 3-1 and we waited because fans from different teams have to exit the stadium separately, which I now understand.

Apparently it doesn't always happen like that. Max explained that O'Higgins fans always go to watch the games and are super enthusiastic so the stands fill up and everyone is really excited for their team and then the home fans get more angry than usual...they actually canceled a game the next day because of what happened at the game we went to :( But I'm pretty sure that every game is two straight hours of yelling, jumping, singing, excitedness and am now a fan. Gringos are so fome (boring) when it comes to soccer...it's way more fun when everyone is amped up to watch the game!

Afterwards we met up with more friends in someone's apartment and I accompanied Hannah and Ilana to Valparaíso to check Ilana into a hostel and go dancing. Then on Sunday I made lunch for/with my host sisters and Emilio. I made tempura salmon to put inside sushi (with carrots, cucumber, green onion, avo, etc.) and they came out really really good. A perfect way to end the weekend, I must say. I miss food from back home! That's all, ta ta for now...

classes? ¿Qué clases?

Two weeks ago was semana mechona ("Freshman Week") at lots of the universities here which means that: 1. all classes are canceled after 11am and the ones that are supposed to happen before then usually don't because the professors know that not very many students will come and 2. the universities host outings (bonfires at night, trips to the beach, etc.), parties, and concerts during the entire week. The particulars depend on the university but it's a guaranteed good time...

Since it's an entire week off, almost all the gringos take advantage of the free time and go to Patagonia, Perú, whatever...some went to Uruguay, others to Buenos Aires, all over. My friend Tamma and I chose Mendoza, Argentina because it's beautiful, close, easy to get to, and there's lots to do.

We left Tuesday night at 10:30 and arrived around 5am, which includes going through customs. So the bus ride isn't really that long at all. We took a ginormous, double-decker bus that did 180 degree turns going through the mountains. I went downstairs once and it was really scary because the front of the bus is flat, so the driver would drive right up to the wall of the mountain almost stop, and then turn, turn, turn, turn and start up again (taking up the entire road in the process). I'm pretty sure it's way safer at night because you can probably see the headlights in advance...I don't even want to think about what would happen if you had to pass another car after one of those turns during the daytime. The car would get smooshed flat or knocked off the mountain, pobrecito.

The first day we checked into our hostel and slept a bit and then walked around and planned out what we wanted to do. We went to Parque San Martin which is almost as big as the city and really nice (picture below) and bought avocado, tomato, and crackers at the mercado central for lunch. Argentina is way cheaper than Chile and has better food (I don't think there's a Latin American country with worse food than Chile, actually...sorry chilean friends). Comparing Chilean food to Mexican food (real, not Tex-mex, U.S. style mexican) would be like comparing food in England to food in France or Italy. So we used fruit stands and supers for breakfast and lunch (breakfast for two = 4/5 pesos = $1.75 tops) and then got to go out for dinner every night :)

Other cool things about Argentina is that they have licuados (a blended fruit drink that's thinner than a smoothie, thicker than water, and super delicious every time) and you can get them with almost any fruit and with either water or milk.

70% of the male population has a mullet. I could write an entire blog about mullet varieties in Argentina...

Almost everyone drives really neat old cars.

Argentinean guys are really attractive.

They have REAL coffee. Not the instant Nescafé shit, which is fine, but gets old real quick when it's the only thing you drink.

Not so cool things about Argentina: people refuse to speak to you in Spanish. Even when we responded in Spanish or repeated what they were saying in broken English back to them in Spanish to verify what they were saying, they wouldn't switch over to Spanish. It was kind of frustrating because it makes communicating a lot more difficult and it makes no sense. One theory we have is that maybe they judge the amount they think we understand based on the fact that we looked like gringas and/or had different accents and just assumed that they were helping us out. At any rate, it was frustrating.

Nobody in Argentina has coin money...people literally laughed at me when I asked for change. They give you candy instead of monedas when you buy something and are supposed to get a few cents back. It's absurd. We finally figured out that 1. the machines on the buses don't give change back so that sucks them out of the system and 2. everyone hordes the monedas that they find to put into the coin-eating bus machines. No-one could explain where the coins went after the machines ate them until we met two random guys about our age who told us that they go the Buenos Aires to be processed and then are returned to banks so sometimes (only sometimes) the banks will have monedas. Very weird.

Other not so cool thing is that all guys ages 8 to 80 whistle or make noises or say irritating 'piropos' when you walk by. Piropos = compliments, but they're more irritating than flattering. It's super easy to ignore when it doesn't happen constantly, but it was almost constant in Mendoza. It's sometimes funny when a guy assumes you don't understand him but you do, but it's still irritating. We walked past a group of old men sitting in a group in the plaza and one was like "there go some pretty girls" and his friend was like "you're right, there go two pretty girls that don't want us (seeing as we're old and ugly and loitering in the plaza)" ... anyways, the point is that it happens a lot more in Argentina than in Chile.

All the big clubs are 20/30 minutes outside of the city in a line out in the middle of nowhere. We didn't go out but we drove past them on the way to hiking. I have no idea why it's set up that way...

So enough random facts...what'd we do?! The next day we took a bus to Maipu, a dusty flat town about 45 minutes outside of Mendoza, and rented bicycles for the afternoon. We got a map and rode to a family-owned liqueur and chocolate factory (the most delicious chocolate ever!) and to a few wineries. We did a tasting at one with the sample chocolate from the other store and then on the way back stopped at this guy's yard. He had converted his open-air garage into a kitchen, set up some tables, put on some classic 80s music, and had a full-blown super-cheap super-good restaurant going. It was a wonderful way to end the bike ride. Then I spent almost an hour begging for monedas to get back to Mendoza...but before that it was great :)

The day after that we went hiking in Aconcagua and then rapelled back down. There were three drops we got to rapel down: a baby one, a medium one, and one that was over 100 feet tall. It's pretty neat because you're basically walking/hopping down a vertical rock face and you can control your speed and go back and forth to explore and you're suspended in the air the entire time. Good fun. Finally we went to a hot springs for the afternoon to rest up and soak up some sun.

The final day we drank real coffeeeee and did some souvenir shopping in the plaza. They have really nice leather things in Argentina (belts, shoes, bags, bracelets, earrings even). Then we came back to Viña/Valpo... I really want to go back to do more hiking and to snowboard this winter, especially because it might be cheaper in Argentina than in Chile. There are lots of cool spots to go in Aconcagua, we just didn't have enough time or the right equipment. Also, it's probably two more bus rides of about the same length to Buenos Aires, which is totally doable from here (time and money permitting) so with some luck, I might end up going back...if not this semester then some day! Here are some photos: