The metro stations have an annual competion -- write a short story in less than 100 words, and the winners get money as well as their stories posted all over the metro, read by millions of people. In my Spanish class today we read one of these stories as a lead-up into the situation of the indigenous Mapuche. I think it's a very impactful story, so I'm going to translate it for all of you!
"Passenger Intimacy"
She is called Juana Catrilqueo Peña. Sixty-three years ago she was born in Mantilhue, a rural location situated seventy kilometers from Osorno. At 15 she came to Santiago to work as a nana (housekeeper). She had a son who died, run over in the Alameda in the year 86. Since then she lives in a room she rents in Quilicura. She is silent, reserved, and often pases unnoticed. She travels every day to her patrons house and taking advantage of the tumult and squeezing of an obligatory intimacy, huddles her head on the shoulder of another passenger with out anyone realizing.
It's just such a touching account of one stranger shown to be an individual person, with her own loneliness and pains.
A quick recount of my weekend:
Friday we had a "Memory Tour" of Santiago. Our guide was kidnapped by the dictatorship and tortured for months, then exiled to the US upon his release. After he gave us an overview of human rights abuses in Chile at that time, we went to the Peace Park. Originally owned by a wealthy family, Villa Grimaldi became the headquarters of the DINA, which was Chile's version of the Gestapo. Political prisoners, men and women, teenagers and older, were brought there to be tortured. Almost none of the buildings remain since the government tried to remove any evidence of their activities, but there are markers where each of the torture rooms and cells were, describing what happened there. The stables, the garage, the pool, even the well tower were all turned into "creative" methods of inflicting pain.
Afterwards, we went to the General Cemetery, which was definitely the highlight of the day. It was absolutely beautiful, especially the first section. The cemetery is effectively divided into four sections based on economic class. The first, which has Chile's rich and powerful, is full of elaborate family tombs and monuments. Chile's civil war heroes are buried there, as well as President Allende-- who was overthrown in the coup in 1973. Our guide had maintained his composure at Villa Grimaldi and while talking about his own experience, but he started to cry here while recounting how only three students in his university came from working class or farming families. The second section -upper middle class- has large but rather boring tombs. Lower middle class looked like an apartment complex of graves, with lots of colorful flowers and ribbons. The fourth area, lower class, is graves in the ground, but looked liked a garden there were so many tents and flags and flowers (real and fake), etc. Because of earthquake damage we didn't see the lowest section, where people rent graves. It's there that Victor Jara, a folk singer whose hands were cut off and then he was killed in the early days of the dictatorship, is buried.
I know this is getting long, but we're almost to the pictures! Friday evening I saw two movies (for the price of one! yay movie hopping!). Then Saturday we drove into the Andes a bit and spent the day on horseback, with a shish-kabob barbecue in the middle. Pictures below :)
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Err, pictures not loading now. Either later, or check out facebook. Sorry.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
It's been too long!
I've had several interesting weekends since I last posted. And since I'm about to begin yet another activity-stuffed three days of no school, it's time for some updates!
A long, long time ago, in a neighborhood far away, a lone college student made her way up the impressively tall hill which God conveniently placed as a marker for the northern edge of Santiago. Friday, April 9, I visited Cerro San Cristobal (St. Cristopher Hill). The point is basically to go to the top and look at Santiago, or at least the part you can see through the trees. Fortunately for the one or two of you who actually read this and want to be entertained, I stopped half-way up to visit the zoo. Yay animals! Highlights of zoo: there were no penguins since they're breeding; a man tried to feed his child to the camel; condors have huge wingspans; llamas look quizzical; there were at least four different species of swan, my favorite was the Australian black swan; and I don't think it's ethical to stick forty parrots, or 15 eagles and two condors, into one enclosure. The pictures below are llamas and Chile's black-necked swans.
That afternoon I watched the Barcelona-Madrid game. Barca scored right after I sat down and everyone around me cheered, so I decided it would be a good idea to root for them. Which turned out well when the won :)
Then in the evening I went to an international student festival sort of thing. There was a band with Irish music, and I kept thinking they would play some Notre Dame favorite (they didn't). Also present: tons of really yummy food from China, Spain, Bolivia, Chile (surprise! Manjar!), UK, US, Mexico (guacamole!), and other countries.
On Sunday the 11th I went to a church festival called Cuasimodo--derived from the first words in the Latin Mass. The festival comes from the Church teaching that everyone should receive the Eucharist at least once a year during Easter season. But priests in the old Wild West days would be in danger of getting robbed for their valuable chalices and what have ye. So a group of jinetes, or men on horseback, would accompany them. The festival still takes place every year the week after Easter. I had to write a report on it for a class, so I went. I'll be putting up some pictures on Facebook, if I remember.
Then last week I went to a friend's birthday party, which was on a rooftop overlooking the city. The view is so amazing, just seeing twinkling lights heading off until the horizon. And the warning lights on the tops of the tall buildings seemed to be in time with our techno music :) I know I did more during the weekend, but I don't remember right now. At one point we got Dominos pizza! Usually my favorite at home, it doesn't taste quite right here--I blame the new recipe.
Well, maybe I can remember to write up something at the end of this weekend. If so, you can expect an exhilirating insight into my (lack of) study habits and schoolwork! Oh, and I re-published pictures from Valparaiso on Facebook, with descriptions!
A long, long time ago, in a neighborhood far away, a lone college student made her way up the impressively tall hill which God conveniently placed as a marker for the northern edge of Santiago. Friday, April 9, I visited Cerro San Cristobal (St. Cristopher Hill). The point is basically to go to the top and look at Santiago, or at least the part you can see through the trees. Fortunately for the one or two of you who actually read this and want to be entertained, I stopped half-way up to visit the zoo. Yay animals! Highlights of zoo: there were no penguins since they're breeding; a man tried to feed his child to the camel; condors have huge wingspans; llamas look quizzical; there were at least four different species of swan, my favorite was the Australian black swan; and I don't think it's ethical to stick forty parrots, or 15 eagles and two condors, into one enclosure. The pictures below are llamas and Chile's black-necked swans.
That afternoon I watched the Barcelona-Madrid game. Barca scored right after I sat down and everyone around me cheered, so I decided it would be a good idea to root for them. Which turned out well when the won :)
Then in the evening I went to an international student festival sort of thing. There was a band with Irish music, and I kept thinking they would play some Notre Dame favorite (they didn't). Also present: tons of really yummy food from China, Spain, Bolivia, Chile (surprise! Manjar!), UK, US, Mexico (guacamole!), and other countries.
On Sunday the 11th I went to a church festival called Cuasimodo--derived from the first words in the Latin Mass. The festival comes from the Church teaching that everyone should receive the Eucharist at least once a year during Easter season. But priests in the old Wild West days would be in danger of getting robbed for their valuable chalices and what have ye. So a group of jinetes, or men on horseback, would accompany them. The festival still takes place every year the week after Easter. I had to write a report on it for a class, so I went. I'll be putting up some pictures on Facebook, if I remember.
Then last week I went to a friend's birthday party, which was on a rooftop overlooking the city. The view is so amazing, just seeing twinkling lights heading off until the horizon. And the warning lights on the tops of the tall buildings seemed to be in time with our techno music :) I know I did more during the weekend, but I don't remember right now. At one point we got Dominos pizza! Usually my favorite at home, it doesn't taste quite right here--I blame the new recipe.
Well, maybe I can remember to write up something at the end of this weekend. If so, you can expect an exhilirating insight into my (lack of) study habits and schoolwork! Oh, and I re-published pictures from Valparaiso on Facebook, with descriptions!
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Semana Santa Solidaria -- Tejas!
I had the chance to go on a service trip for holy week. We left on Wednesday after classes and spent four nights in San Javier, close to where I was for the pre-program, just me and 19 Chilean students. This is an annual event for students at the PUC, and usually they go and "mission", or talk with people. This year, because of the earthquake, the sites focused on helping with construction or demolition as well. Notre Dame's travel restriction on traveling south lifted that Wednesday, so I was barely allowed to go. One condition: that I don't go near dangerous buildings that might collapse and focus on the missioning rather than construction. In fact, I went to San Javier rather than one of the other forty sites because it was supposed to be one of the safest.
Even the best plans, and I'm not claiming that this weekend was one of them, get messed up. When we got to San Javier my site leader Maria Paz spoke with the priest about the mission aspect. He said that they really weren't prepared for that and we were all expected to help with demolition. Which I was fine with, but don't let ND find out! (JK, they already know)
So San Javier has two churches, and one of them was irreparably damaged in the quake. We were asked to help remove salvagable items--tiles, doors, wood--from the building before it was finally demolished. There was a trash-filled courtyard in the middle so I decided to clean it out, keeping as close as I could to ND's orders to not go inside dangerous buildings (although you do have to walk through the building to get there. Cleaning up the trash took half an hour, maybe. Leaving me with hmmm... two and a half more days of what? I was saved when some people came out and revealed that we should also try to get all the tejas, tiles, off the roof. Without breaking them, if you please, so that they can be reused in the new church.
Therefore, I spent the rest of the weekend having tejas thrown at me and stacking them in the courtyard. I know someone has some cool pictures of our masterpiece from the end of the weekend, but I don't have access to them yet. We caught them in blankets, then eventually developed "sophisticated" systems that worked better--like a slide made from a warped board or just tossing them onto four mattresses piled on top of each other. The dust and accumulated earth on the roof made it a messy job, and it made everyone's muscles ache, but the food was good and we sang Disney and pop music. I made some Chilean friends and attended outdoor mass, as well as a Via del Cruz. Oh, and I was also told that I look like Scarlett Johansson.
Best of all, I got chocolate Easter eggs! And some boiled eggs when I got home on Sunday. Easter at it's best :)
Even the best plans, and I'm not claiming that this weekend was one of them, get messed up. When we got to San Javier my site leader Maria Paz spoke with the priest about the mission aspect. He said that they really weren't prepared for that and we were all expected to help with demolition. Which I was fine with, but don't let ND find out! (JK, they already know)
So San Javier has two churches, and one of them was irreparably damaged in the quake. We were asked to help remove salvagable items--tiles, doors, wood--from the building before it was finally demolished. There was a trash-filled courtyard in the middle so I decided to clean it out, keeping as close as I could to ND's orders to not go inside dangerous buildings (although you do have to walk through the building to get there. Cleaning up the trash took half an hour, maybe. Leaving me with hmmm... two and a half more days of what? I was saved when some people came out and revealed that we should also try to get all the tejas, tiles, off the roof. Without breaking them, if you please, so that they can be reused in the new church.
Therefore, I spent the rest of the weekend having tejas thrown at me and stacking them in the courtyard. I know someone has some cool pictures of our masterpiece from the end of the weekend, but I don't have access to them yet. We caught them in blankets, then eventually developed "sophisticated" systems that worked better--like a slide made from a warped board or just tossing them onto four mattresses piled on top of each other. The dust and accumulated earth on the roof made it a messy job, and it made everyone's muscles ache, but the food was good and we sang Disney and pop music. I made some Chilean friends and attended outdoor mass, as well as a Via del Cruz. Oh, and I was also told that I look like Scarlett Johansson.
Best of all, I got chocolate Easter eggs! And some boiled eggs when I got home on Sunday. Easter at it's best :)
Friday, March 26, 2010
Update
I guess I haven't posted anything in a while, so here's a quick skim of what I've been up to.
For St. Patrick's day we went to a bar owned by Americans from California. They had green beer, Guinness and Irish Car Bombs-- I tried a Bailey's, which was very tasty. The next day a few of us went back because they have US sports channels, so we could watch ND get defeated in the NCAA. Although, I really only went because the menu looked so good. And it was, their nachos are wonderful.
Last weekend I spent a day wandering around one part of the city--the Plaza de Armas. It's very cool looking, with trees, Pope JPII statues, pigeons, and historic buildings. The surrounding area is full of ice cream shops and relatively cheap food, but the ice cream is just amazing. Since it was a Sunday, there were a lot of Chileans enjoying the park. Note: I didn't take the picture above, but since I didn't take any pictures, I decided it would be okay to copy.
I also visited the museum of Pre-Colombian art, a block away from the Plaza. The exhibits focus on Central and South America and the Caribbean, and have a pretty incredible collection of artifacts. My favorite part was the textile displays. The image below is actually from a temporary exhibit about Inca influence in Chile. I don't remember if this is the right tunic, but basically the Incan army didn't like the camo look. They used a brightly patterned cloth to shock their enemies with their "combined graphic power".
Tomorrow I'll be heading to Valparaiso, this time with my camera in tow. I'm hoping to go on a trip with the university's pastoral student group next week, but if I don't get the okay from Notre Dame I'll have to change my plans.
Oh, and yay for fall semester schedule planning!
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Isla Negra
Yesterday we had a paseo, basically a field trip, to the coastal town of Isla Negra. If anyone is planning on visiting Chile and doesn't know what to do for a day, I highly recommend this place, it was awesome.
The highlight of the trip was a visit to one of Pablo Neruda's three houses. He loved the ocean, but also got seasick easily, so his beach-front house was designed to be like a ship. Along with the cool architecture, Neruda collected things from all over the world and basically had a small museum in his house. There were African masks, pictures of famous writers he was friends with, instruments, maps, ships in bottles, shells, an insect collection, and one room just for a life-sized model horse with three tails. The living room was full of figureheads. In another room the entire wall was an undersea mosaic made of native Chilean rocks, including several fossils. Outside the house, overlooking the shoreline, is the place where Neruda and his third wife are buried.
Next we went to a restaurant called the Kaleuche, named after a legendary ghost ship. It was incredibly designed, with glass bottles in the walls, stained glass, shells, and a panoramic view of the ocean. Oh, and bread. I love bread. The main courses were pretty good as well. I ate caldillo de congrio, which is a kind of fish soup. Neruda wrote an ode to this dish, which was painted on a wall near his house.
When we finished eating we climbed around on the rocks for a while. It was really great seeing all of the sea-life in the tide pools. There were many-legged seastars, barnacles, snails, clams, bugs, and these weird things that looked like giant pill bugs. In one particular pool there were even red anemones! I was soaked by a very very large wave, and my pants were still damp when I got home in the evening.
The highlight of the trip was a visit to one of Pablo Neruda's three houses. He loved the ocean, but also got seasick easily, so his beach-front house was designed to be like a ship. Along with the cool architecture, Neruda collected things from all over the world and basically had a small museum in his house. There were African masks, pictures of famous writers he was friends with, instruments, maps, ships in bottles, shells, an insect collection, and one room just for a life-sized model horse with three tails. The living room was full of figureheads. In another room the entire wall was an undersea mosaic made of native Chilean rocks, including several fossils. Outside the house, overlooking the shoreline, is the place where Neruda and his third wife are buried.
Next we went to a restaurant called the Kaleuche, named after a legendary ghost ship. It was incredibly designed, with glass bottles in the walls, stained glass, shells, and a panoramic view of the ocean. Oh, and bread. I love bread. The main courses were pretty good as well. I ate caldillo de congrio, which is a kind of fish soup. Neruda wrote an ode to this dish, which was painted on a wall near his house.
When we finished eating we climbed around on the rocks for a while. It was really great seeing all of the sea-life in the tide pools. There were many-legged seastars, barnacles, snails, clams, bugs, and these weird things that looked like giant pill bugs. In one particular pool there were even red anemones! I was soaked by a very very large wave, and my pants were still damp when I got home in the evening.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Chile Ayuda a Chile
Since today is my last day of Christmas break, it seems like a good time for a blog post. Tomorrow I finally get to go to some classes!
One thing that has struck me during my stay here, especially in the last couple of days, is the level of national pride Chileans have. In every church, a Chilean flag hangs behind the altar, and flags are prominent on many houses. Today when I went shopping for school supplies, every Chilean flag I saw was at half-staff.
In response to the earthquake, one of the phrases that popped up is "Chile ayuda a Chile" or "Chile helps Chile". There has been so much support for those most affected by the earthquake. Every year Chile holds a Teleton, a one day television marathon for a cause, and this years marathon (which was yesterday) garnered 30 billion pesos, or about $60 million USD. In addition to monetary donations 40 trucks, donated by various companies, left Santiago at the end of the telethon heading south. It was quite impressive. I feel that, at least right now, Chileans have earned the title Campeones de la Solidaridad, Champions of Solidarity.
One thing that has struck me during my stay here, especially in the last couple of days, is the level of national pride Chileans have. In every church, a Chilean flag hangs behind the altar, and flags are prominent on many houses. Today when I went shopping for school supplies, every Chilean flag I saw was at half-staff.
In response to the earthquake, one of the phrases that popped up is "Chile ayuda a Chile" or "Chile helps Chile". There has been so much support for those most affected by the earthquake. Every year Chile holds a Teleton, a one day television marathon for a cause, and this years marathon (which was yesterday) garnered 30 billion pesos, or about $60 million USD. In addition to monetary donations 40 trucks, donated by various companies, left Santiago at the end of the telethon heading south. It was quite impressive. I feel that, at least right now, Chileans have earned the title Campeones de la Solidaridad, Champions of Solidarity.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Terremoto
I'm not really sure what to say about my experience with the earthquake. I was in my house. As soon as it was over my host parents started calling everyone they knew to make sure that they were okay, including some relatives in Japan (Laura, I thought of you!). Since my only previous experience with earthquakes was that little one in South Bend freshman year, I didn't realize how unusual this one was. I didn't know how destructive it was until days later, when we were able to watch the news on tv again. My part of Santiago is fine, we've been using the metro, shopping, and yesterday made a trip to Valparaiso. However, the epicenter was very near Linares, where we had our pre-program. A lot of the places we visited in February are the worst hit. The seaside town we visited my first day here was almost completely destroyed in the tsunami, and another small town we visited called Nirivilo was badly hit. My host family in San Dionisio is okay--they live in a newly built house, so it meets earthquake standards. It's strange that I was going to write about Constitucion and Nirivilo in this blog, but now the places I was going to write about don't exist anymore.
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