Thar' she blows!

Ok, ok, ok. I know its been a long time since the last post...but thats just the way it is, some things will never change. Anyway, first off a lot of you have been asking about the volcano thats erupting right now. No, I haven't been carried away in a mushroom cloud of ash. The volcano is about 100 miles south of me and I haven't noticed any differences. No tremors, earthquakes, and thankfully no rogue waves. But of course its been all over the news down here and its a pretty big deal.
So what have I been up to for the last month or so? Well I had a 2 week homestay with a family of Mapuche (the indigenous group in the south). During those two weeks we had classes and learned pretty much all about the Mapuche. My family was fantastic and I had a great time with them. This is a picture of my Mapuche father and Rich. We both lived with the same family.We also went on an excursion to a town called Curarrehue which is at the foot of a volcano....which is not erupting. But it is an amazing sight to see. The volcano is in the middle of a national park which is home to the second oldest living trees in the world (second to the Sequoia...G.B.A.) This is the dinosaur-like trunk of the tree. I also managed to take a me-day and go on a trip with a few friends into the hills .
This is a tripple-decker. Bottom to top: August, Brennan, Rich. Now I'm hanging in the city of Temuco doing field research for my independent project, which has to do with violence and repression during the dictatorship in and around Temuco. Its a pretty heavy topic and interviewing families about their loved-ones who were killed or disappeared is a tough process. Thankfully my adviser here is one of the most respected people in the area for human rights investigation and promotion...so he's more than helpful.

I'll be done with my program in a month from today (which is crazy to think about) and after that I'll be traveling for another month or so. I'll be coming back the 2nd of July just in time for all kinds of festivities. I leave you with this.....

¡Finally more pictures!

Hi everyone. Sorry its been so long since I´ve last put up some pictures and filled everyone in about my happenings. As most of you have guessed, I´ve been keeping quite busy down here. Classes have flown by and the first part of my program is coming to an end. That means that we are done with formal spanish classes and also lectures about general Chilean history (politics, society, economy, etc.) This past Friday, we took our last excursion to Santiago and it was a pretty heavy one. The week we had been studying about human rights violations and politics during the dictatorship and so we went to see the memorial for those killed because of their political beliefs and those who were simply "disappeared." The picture above is from that memorial. The words at the top are from Neruda and say "All of my love is here and has remained glued to the rocks of the sea and the mountains" On the left side of the was is everyone who was disappeared, and on the right side are "ejecutados politicos," or political executions. On either side of the wall, outside of the frame, are tombs for those whose remains were acutally recovered. Out of the 3,000 or so killed or disappeared, there are only about 150 tombs.We also went to, what is now a memorial park, but what had been a torture center. With us was a woman who had been tortured there for two weeks in 1974. It is a pretty crazy thing to think about because most of those who were tortured, killed, or disappeared were mostly men and women my age. Many people were detained for simply being a student in a university. The picture at the left is of photos of those tortured here. It is pretty hard to see, but the writing says, "The forgotten is full of memory"

The next part is a bit lighter. These are pictures of Valparaíso. Last Saturday a friend and I went on a walking tour of the city and snapped a whole bunch of photos. Valparaíso is known for its art sectors which are full of murals. Some are political based, some are historical, and all are very very creative.

This mural on the left is simply an artsy one as far as I can tell. (But I never was very good at art interpretation)

For those of you who know me can probably figure out pretty quickly why I took the picture of this mural... I like to call this one "Sugarloaf in the Andes"

This one is a political mural and also historical. The people represented on the left are Aymara and those on the right are Mapuche. Mapuche and the Aymara are the people who represent about 80% of the indigenous population in Chile. Like Native Americans, they got a pretty short end of the stick if they even got any stick at all.

This one is another cool one. On the left is a sweet boat and you can see its rope winding to the ´gull.

This is a picture of one of the acensors for which Valparaíso is famous. Valparaíso is essentially a bunch of steep hills and so in the 1900´s they built these ascensors to cart the rich up to the top of the hills. I´m not exactly sure how many there are but it is probably 10 or 15.

This is me under the entrance to another ascensor, "Ascensor Holy Spirit." The ascensors work essentially like a funicular railway.

Valparaíso is full of bright colors, including the houses. I was told that back when Valparaíso was in its heyday, thousands of sailors built homes here. Barely having enough money to build the house, they used whatever they could - including stolen paint off boats.





This is a picutre looking north up the bay. Obviously Valparaíso is still a hopping shipping port. There are always 4 or 5 cargo ships anchored waiting to be loaded or unloaded.







This final picture is of Valparaíso at night from the top of an ascensor looking south. I´m at the other end of the city than in the photo above (notice the sea is on the left of the first picture while it is on the right of this picture)





Well, there you have it. Photos galore! I´ll be leaving for the south to live with the Mapuche in a week and will probably be out of internet service for 2 weeks or so. Hopefully I´ll have some more pictures for everyone then. Also keep in touch, i´ll still be checking my email for the next week or so. Hope all is well up north! August

Easter Weekend

This past weekend obviously was Easter weekend. Surprisingly, for a predominantly Catholic country, things were relatively calm. Here they celebrate "Semana Santa" more than just the day of Easter. This "Holy Week" is the whole process of J.C. being judged, condemned, crucified, and resurrected. I actually found that Friday was more of a holiday than Sunday.

Friday night, myself and two friends made "gringo tacos" for some of our Chilean friends. All in all it was a pretty good time with lots of food and lots of Pisco - the chilean drink of choice. After dinner we went to the beach and chilled. In the picture is Ulises (the host brother of a friend), Iris (my host cousin), me, and Sarah. The beaches here are pretty nice and relatively safe for South American standards. So we ran into no problems.


Saturday, I went with my host parents to my sister and her husband's house for lunch. Also my host brother and his wife came was well. Lunch here is the big meal of the day so we had a huge meal of empanadas, salad, rice, and chicken. After that we hung out, talked, and took siestas. In the picture is my host mom, named María Esther. She is a professor of Spanish and helps me out in speaking correctly and editing my written papers...its a pretty good deal.




This last picture is of my host father. He is currently renovating the first floor into a separate appartment. He is a Mr. Fix-It and can pretty much do anything in terms of hands on stuff. His family all calls him MacGuyver. In this picture he's doing the plumbing for the new place. I asked him how he learned to do it, he replied that he had a friend who was a plumber and he learned by watching his friend. Why not?





Hope all is well in the North and everyone had a happy easter. I love emails, so keep in touch!

Another week has passed and the city is gearing up for Easter. This week was full of more adventures and new experiences. Yesterday we headed to place on the outskirts of Santiago. We met with members of an organization that helps women craftspeople organize and sell their goods in competition within a society based on free trade. The first picture is the four guys on the program. They´re good people. After having breakfast, we headed to a snail farm where they harvest the slime of the snail for use in cosmetic products. Kind of a wierd process, but interesting to see none-the-less. We had to wear gloves, facemasks, and hair nets before we got to see the snails. Kinda felt like Michael Jackson.

After the snail-farm, we went to a farm where they grow all sorts of things. We had a lunch of fresh arugula, chicken, bread, and a lot more. Everything was cooked in a woodfired brick oven and had a sweet smokey taste. They also grow a lot of things hydroponically. We helped to switch some plants from one bed to the another and got to get our hands dirty. This last picture is from one of the fields looking out to the Andes. I have yet to make it to them, but hope to soon. Our weekends are pretty much free and I´m hoping to go for a weekend and play around in the snow. This weekend should be a good time with all the Easter festivities and such. I hope everyone has a happy easter and is doing well back in the States. Keep in touch.

some photos

So the within the first week of living here in Valparaiso, a huge forest fire broke out. It started others whose smoke enveloped the city and rained ash down on us. This is a picture from my patio looking out over the port of Valparaiso. you can just make out the water in the middle of the photo. Obviously the line of smoke is pretty clear. The little white flecks that were lit up by the flash are ash. I have never seen such surreal scenes. The sun when covered by the smoke looked like a giant blood red orb. Apparently the officals claimed it was the worse outbreak of fires in the last twenty years. My friend who goes to school in L.A. said that the fires this past fall there weren´t as bad as these ones. A nice welcome to the city!

The next picture is of me and some friends who did the Chilean version of Habitat for Humanity. We spent the whole day using huge ass prybars to dig holes for the posts of the house. It was no easy task and pretty much sucked...but we had fun and I got to represent the Advantaggeous Crew. Another thing is that Apparently the hole in the ozone layer is right above Chile. You have to wear sunscreen or you get burnt in less and an hour. On the right is a girl named Sara who actually took this course last semester. She decided to take this semseter off and do some volunteer work down here for a few months. To the right of her is a Chilean named Christian whose family hosts a student in the program. On his right is a kid named Brennan who´s from Glouscester. Next to me is the host brother of Brennan, his name is Ulises. Overall its a pretty good crew.

Twice a week we have lectures at a university. The university is perched about 50ft up on this hill that overlooks the city. You take a bus to the entrance of the univeristy and then climb up about 400 steps to the actual building. This is the view from the top. You can see the road below. In the afternoon the sun sets in the left of the picture and its an amazing view.

This last picture is of one of the fishmarkets. Here they are called caletas. This market, called Caleta Portales is where the local fisherman unload their catches or even sell them directly from their boat. Chilean sea bass anyone? We came here as part of our program. We had to go out and talk to the fisherman and talk to them about the problems of being a small artesenal fisherman in Chile today. Apparently there are quite a few. There are huge multinational companies that come with massive ships that catch all the fish and leave none for the local fisherman. There is a law that sets a line where the locals can fish and where the big businesses can fish, but the businesses pay no attention to that. I guess the fisherman are notoriously active about their livelyhood and a few years ago they barged into the congress with a boat and lit it on fire...hmmm.

Ok, I did it

After making fun of everyone who blogs, I caved. I have been in Chile for nearly 3 weeks now and have yet to send out a group message. I have been getting lazy and have been enjoying myself too much to sit in front of a computer. So I figure that by doing this, I can streamline things a bit.

With that said, my time on this compter is up and I must go. Check in soon for more posts._