After months of playing I find myself 100% inundated in school work. It is really a bummer. Nevertheless, I have a few exciting tales.
The protests: Last Monday was the 21 de Mayo, a national holiday in Chile commemerating the sinking of the battleship the Esmerelda during the War of the Pacific. Aside from glorifying military heroes of the past with fancy parades it is also a day for protests against the government. whoo hoo. Every year the president makes his or HER way to Valparaíso to make a speech akin to the state of the union, adressing promises for the upcoming year. Her visit is traditionally welcomed by masses of people waving communist party flags, union signs and other protest paraphanalia. I went along with some friends to check out the festitivites. Indeed, the protests were exciting, but seemed to lack any sense of direction. It seemed that most of the protesters were looking for a fight. They were ready for the tear gas and guanacos (water canons). However, I love seeing democracy in action and I respect the fact that Chileans are out making a scene.
Isla Negra
Last weekend we went to Isla Negra, the most of famous and picturesque of Pablo Neruda´s three homes. It is on the coast,a bit south of Valpo, and is a magnificant house in the shape of a boat. I don´t have much to say other than this was one sight that was worth it.
Running out Gas
Last night I went downstairs to turn on the gas to take a hot shower when my mother told me to enjoy the hot showers while they last. Aparently, Aregentina, Chile´s main source of natural gas, has halted the sale of gas to Chile. ahhh.
Okay, I am actually in a hurry...I´ll write more later!
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
brrr
It´s getting cold in Valpo...really really cold. During the day, the sun pokes through the clouds and it has the nice semi-overcast not too cold feel of the northwest. But at night...brrrr. I´ve been hearing "the rain is coming" for awhile now, but so far, no rain.
Two weeks ago, we went on our seocnd CIEE trip, this time we went about 5 hours north to La Serena. La Serena is pretty much the last real city before miles and miles of desert. It is the oldest city in Chile (after Santiago) and was build simply as a stopping point between Santiago and the north because it was the last place with potable water. The area is beautiful, but much dryer in the south of course. The city is a bit inland but we stayed in cabins right on the bay. While there we visited the childhood home of Chile´s most famous female poet, Nobel Winner Gabriela Mistral and also explored the nearby port city of Coquimbo. Yet, the highlight of the trip was SUPPOSED to be a visit to one of the world´s most famous observatories, Tololo. However, for the first time in years, it was cloudly that weekend and therefore we couldn´t go up. boo. I personally have no picts of La Serena and surrounding areas, but i will steal some from friend´s soon. However, we did throw a rockus costume party (the theme was "Chile") in the cabins and above is a picture of me dressed up as a traditional Chilean Huasa or Cueca dancer!
I think my travels are official over until I finish school. School is definitely speeding up and I am needing to save my money for my travels later. I still have plenty more to explore here anyway...more trips to the nearby sandunes, more wanderings through the hills, and a few more museums that I haven´t yet explored.
Indeed, I am still continuing my quest to learn as much as I can about Chile and per my personal interest, I am especially trying to understand the intersections of class, race, gender and of course politics. The other day we had a workshop on public health in Chile which was pretty interesting. I learned that there do exist a decent amount of social services for the poor, more than I had realized. What is complicated and perhaps resembles what happens in the U.S. too is the lower middle class often gets squeezed out of social benefits while still unable to afford others? I´m not sure, I am going to soon go visit some of these public health clinis which should be interesting.
Another issue regarding education in general that I´d like to address. I´m recognizing more and more how lucky I have been. While schools in Chile CAN be good, there is a key element lacking in education from kindergarden all the way to the university level...a high value placed on analyical thinking and group disussion. I find that most of my classes are structured around the professor talking and the students memorzing. While this can be helpful, it of course does not foster individual thought. I find that when I do group work with Chilean classmates, they often have little experience in discussion, of bringing an opinion to supplement the text. Of for example, a group project involves copying and pasting material from the internet, not researching facts and presenting them in a creative fashion. I know I am not speaking for all Chileans or all systems of education here, but this has been my strange and often frustrating experience so far.
Final note, I stil miss everyone to death. It was soooo hard to miss LC´s graduation! I´m loving Chile but will love to see my friends and family again too!
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
My camera is officially dead. Big bummer, soon soon soon i will a.) fix it b.) steal pics from friends c.) get another camera so that i can continue to show you all my life here.
Last entry I began the rant about social inequity in Chile. I believe I left off explaining the failure of the goverment to support social services. Poverty in Chile is not as glaringly depressing as say in Bolivia or Peru, but the cost of living here is higher too. When I try to sort out for example the education system, I get stuck. On one hand it is so obvious that the old system of decentralization and state-subsidized private schools had failed to adequately provide opportunities for everyone. On the other had, the amount that is needed to bring public schools even close to the quality of private schools is immense! Chile lacks an entire few generations of well trained teachers and the schools have had decades to slowly crumble. I recently began my volunteer work in a public school and it was hard to see the reality of it all. The schools lack so many resources, including teachers. Most classes have up to 45 kids in one class!
Another issue on my mind. I was surprised to learn this weekend that many of the other gringos in my program do not like chile at all. Their complaints conisist mainly of how mondern chile is and how they feel it lacks culture. Now, at first I too felt overwhelmed by the amount of modernity, commsumerism here, but in NO WAY does that signify a lack of cultural identity. These particular students perhaps are not reaching out to chileans, making friends, exploring chile. I don´t know what it is. But their sentiments really surprised me.
Last entry I began the rant about social inequity in Chile. I believe I left off explaining the failure of the goverment to support social services. Poverty in Chile is not as glaringly depressing as say in Bolivia or Peru, but the cost of living here is higher too. When I try to sort out for example the education system, I get stuck. On one hand it is so obvious that the old system of decentralization and state-subsidized private schools had failed to adequately provide opportunities for everyone. On the other had, the amount that is needed to bring public schools even close to the quality of private schools is immense! Chile lacks an entire few generations of well trained teachers and the schools have had decades to slowly crumble. I recently began my volunteer work in a public school and it was hard to see the reality of it all. The schools lack so many resources, including teachers. Most classes have up to 45 kids in one class!
Another issue on my mind. I was surprised to learn this weekend that many of the other gringos in my program do not like chile at all. Their complaints conisist mainly of how mondern chile is and how they feel it lacks culture. Now, at first I too felt overwhelmed by the amount of modernity, commsumerism here, but in NO WAY does that signify a lack of cultural identity. These particular students perhaps are not reaching out to chileans, making friends, exploring chile. I don´t know what it is. But their sentiments really surprised me.
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
a divided country
I apologize for the delay between blogs, I am going to try to write a bit more frequently. Lately have certainly fallen into a better routine, I feel quite at home here. Today, instead of writing about past events, I want to share some thoughts, observations that have been consuming me in the past few weeks regarding social issues here in Chile.
This mental process began the day I arrived. My very first exposure to Chile occured in an extremely wealthy neighborhood of Santiago called Providencia. Walking down the streets of Santiago these first few days gave me the sensation that I could be in any major city in the United States, I was surrounded by consumerism, high rise apartment buildings and men wearing business suits talking on their cell phones. Of course, simply driving down the highway outside the city one easilty spots evidence of poverty, of disequality that is so characteristic of Latin America. Also, a few days after arriving in Viña, Paloma took me on a drive up into the hills of Valpo and Viña to again put things in perspective. I only have to walk 4 blocks up the hill from my house to find houses pieced together with scraps of metal, wood and cardboard.
Yet, Chile has become a bit of a puzzle for me. I understand how economic liberalism of the past few decades has both aided in economic growth, new technology etc.. in Latin America while simultaneously fosted a huge gap between the rich and the poor. Chile, like all countries, has it's own story, and the story of Chile's recent history is considered both tragic or miraculous depending on who you talk you. Pinochet killed thousands and thousands of people. He used torture, he broke up families, and inflicted major pshycological trauma on the country. At the same time, his incredibly strong policies of economic liberalism brought development to Chile today unrivaled by any other country in Latin America. Chile has by far the strongest economy in Latin America. There is all the technology, medical resourses, and all luxury of the modern world. And instead of only a tiny percentage of the population having access, there is a decent sized middle class.
Today, a scary 40% of the population still pledges allegiance to Pinochet. The allegiance seems to fall more or less along class lines, but not entirely (my liberal rich Chilean family is a perfect example.) But yeah, there are people who really believe that Pinochet's methods were the cost Chile had to pay to develop and restore order after the presidency of Allende (I will give my thoughts on this story in another blog). I personally will never be able to accept that murder of youth, just like me, is justified to bring economic development to a country. At the same time, I am aware that I am personally benefiting every day from this development. I have internet in my house, I attend a good university, I live in a beautiful big house and a comfortable, relatively safe neighborhood.
Then there is the other side of issues that is so glaringly obvious to me, Chile might have a middle class, but I see little class mobility. I think Chile is as divided as other Latin American countries, there just happens to be a bigger middle class in Chile than in say Peru. Pinochet privitized EVERYTHING and the country still runs pretty much like that. The government does not invest in education, health care, transportation. If you have the money you can get the best health care, the best education, but if not....well bummer.
Okay, so that no one gets to bored, I will pick up on this thought in another entry! Oh yeah and the camera is not working properly...not sure why, I will work on that to get you all more pics!
This mental process began the day I arrived. My very first exposure to Chile occured in an extremely wealthy neighborhood of Santiago called Providencia. Walking down the streets of Santiago these first few days gave me the sensation that I could be in any major city in the United States, I was surrounded by consumerism, high rise apartment buildings and men wearing business suits talking on their cell phones. Of course, simply driving down the highway outside the city one easilty spots evidence of poverty, of disequality that is so characteristic of Latin America. Also, a few days after arriving in Viña, Paloma took me on a drive up into the hills of Valpo and Viña to again put things in perspective. I only have to walk 4 blocks up the hill from my house to find houses pieced together with scraps of metal, wood and cardboard.
Yet, Chile has become a bit of a puzzle for me. I understand how economic liberalism of the past few decades has both aided in economic growth, new technology etc.. in Latin America while simultaneously fosted a huge gap between the rich and the poor. Chile, like all countries, has it's own story, and the story of Chile's recent history is considered both tragic or miraculous depending on who you talk you. Pinochet killed thousands and thousands of people. He used torture, he broke up families, and inflicted major pshycological trauma on the country. At the same time, his incredibly strong policies of economic liberalism brought development to Chile today unrivaled by any other country in Latin America. Chile has by far the strongest economy in Latin America. There is all the technology, medical resourses, and all luxury of the modern world. And instead of only a tiny percentage of the population having access, there is a decent sized middle class.
Today, a scary 40% of the population still pledges allegiance to Pinochet. The allegiance seems to fall more or less along class lines, but not entirely (my liberal rich Chilean family is a perfect example.) But yeah, there are people who really believe that Pinochet's methods were the cost Chile had to pay to develop and restore order after the presidency of Allende (I will give my thoughts on this story in another blog). I personally will never be able to accept that murder of youth, just like me, is justified to bring economic development to a country. At the same time, I am aware that I am personally benefiting every day from this development. I have internet in my house, I attend a good university, I live in a beautiful big house and a comfortable, relatively safe neighborhood.
Then there is the other side of issues that is so glaringly obvious to me, Chile might have a middle class, but I see little class mobility. I think Chile is as divided as other Latin American countries, there just happens to be a bigger middle class in Chile than in say Peru. Pinochet privitized EVERYTHING and the country still runs pretty much like that. The government does not invest in education, health care, transportation. If you have the money you can get the best health care, the best education, but if not....well bummer.
Okay, so that no one gets to bored, I will pick up on this thought in another entry! Oh yeah and the camera is not working properly...not sure why, I will work on that to get you all more pics!
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