¡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