BVC Week III, Fiestas Patrias

As I said, had last week off for the Fiestas Patrias (Independence Holiday), basically the biggest holiday in Chile... yes, even bigger than Christmas. The celebrating started on Friday of the previous week as the school made the transition from celebrating the Semana del Colegio (week of the school) to the festivities of the Fiestas Patrias. After the student competitions were finished for the Semana del Colegio, there was a Mass held at the school with all of the students and staff. Afterwards, in the same outdoor court where the Mass was held, some of the teachers danced the Cueca. The Cueca (pronounced kway-ka) is a traditional folkloric Chilean dance that is about as symbolic of the Fiestas Patrias in Chile as apple pie is of Thanksgiving in the US. Interested readers could go to You Tube and search the terms “Chile” and “Cueca” and I’m sure you could see what it’s all about. The dancers were dressed in full Huaso and Huasa regalia (traditional Chilean cowboy/girl) and it was quite entertaining to watch. After the students left, there was a party for the staff in the cafeteria where we ate Empanadas and drank Chicha, a very sweet alcoholic drink somewhat like apple cider perhaps. We then got to see more Cueca dancing. David actually danced in front of everyone…they tried to get me to try out my Cueca dance moves too, but I stayed firmly glued to my chair.

The following day, Saturday, is when we left for our 5-day get away at the beach. The parents of one of the Oblates from the other Oblate house are both well-respected heart doctors and own a beautiful house on top of a hill that overlooks the ocean and they let us stay there. I learned that when Chileans go on vacation they take relaxing seriously. The Oblates mostly sat around and watched the tennis playoffs. I can handle sitting around for about a day or two but then I get itchy to do something, so I might have gotten a little bored, but I was on vacation in a beautiful house with an awesome view of the sea, so I won’t complain too much.

We came back in time to celebrate the 18^th ,the independence day, in Santiago. We went to Parque O’Higgins, a big park where there were a bunch of stands and tents set up selling Empanadas and shishkobobs and barbequed meat. Then on the 19^th we had our own barbeque at the Oblates’ house.

This week we’ve been back at the school working, helping in the English classes and working on developing a recycling program for the school, a concept that is lacking in Chilean society it seems.

I’m glad to be back in Santiago though. I missed the housemaid’s cooking while we were gone. Seriously, she makes all of our dinners from scratch and they’re awesome! Her name’s Maria and I’ve only met her twice because she comes during the day and I’m always at the school, but I’ve decided I want to smuggle her back to Minnesota.

click for photos

Week II Semana del Colegio

So, Chile ended up tying the game with Venezuela and then lost to Brazil this Wednesday 2-4. On Saturday, Dave and I went to the Vega with Anthony, an Oblate who’s from England who lives at the house with us. The Vega is basically a giant farmer’s market in Santiago where a bunch of vendors set up shop. It’s very South American…people everywhere, buyers and sellers shouting prices back and forth, the smell of fresh fish, meat and fruits and vegetables. I wish we had one in Minnesota; everything’s fresh and reasonably priced. We bought a bunch or fruit, bread and fish for about $80. Not dirt cheap, but less than the supermarket.

On Sunday, Dave and I went for a walk up Cerro San Cristobal, a big hill just a few blocks behind our house, with two other Oblates, Anthony and Tote. The view of Santiago was spectacular, even though it was cloudy and a little rainy. It’s been rainy and cold this week, but it’s been sunny and warm the past couple of days. I actually got a little sun burnt.

Work at San Lorenzo is going fairly well. This week has been kind of screwy because it is the annual school celebration, so there were only classes on Mon and Tuesday. We helped in some of the English classes. I was surprised how many of the students have only a very basic understanding of English even though they are graduating soon. We have also been doing some monotonous work in the library. The Library just updated their computer system and all the books have to be recoded, so we’ve been spending a couple of long hours there every morning helping with that. We’ve also been doing Tutoria with the students…basically hanging out during the breaks between classes. I’ve been trying my best to remember the kids’ names, but it’s impossible and they like to taunt me by asking me what their names are in large groups all at once. There is one kindergarten girl, Valentina, who has taken a special liking to me and always finds me in between classes and follows me everywhere. The kids are great and very affectionate. Many of them come from very poor families. I didn’t quite realize how true this was until I went on a walk with one of the tutors from Tutoria and some other students to visit two homes of two San Lorenzo students in the neighborhood that needed their roofs repaired for rain. The purpose was to survey the houses in order to organize a group of volunteers to come and make the necessary repairs. Both houses were very small shacks with cardboard walls and bare bulbs hanging from the styrofoam ceilings. The one house was home to 4 kids and their mother and the other to a young girl and her grandparents. Students who attend San Lorenzo do not have to pay. The school is financed by donations and contributions from the Manquehue movement and the two other schools, San Benito and San Anselmo.

This week was San Lorenzo’s annual school celebration, so Wed thru Friday was all just fun and games and no classes. The students and staff were divided into three alliances, blue, yellow and red, and there were competitions between them ranging from everything from juggling to math to soccer, jump rope, singing songs in English, trivia and a bunch of other stuff. I was in the yellow alliance; Dave was in the red. I helped my group with the song in English (not singing, thank God) and I played soccer, reluctantly. I was the goalie and I spent the whole time playing in fear envisioning a 90 mph soccer ball blow to the face. Chileans, just like all South Americans and much of the rest of the world, are diehard soccer fans. Playing soccer seems to run in their blood. I’ve never been a soccer player and the last game I played was probably in middle school. Apparently I impressed them though, saving 3 goals and only allowing one to get by. It was all quite fun and seemed to promote good school spirit. The red alliance ended up winning, but yellow came in a close second.

Everyone gets this next week off for the Chilean Independence day celebration on the 18^th, so later today (Saturday) Dave and I and two or three Oblates are heading west to the coast for about 5 days for vacation. Sunday is my birthday, my second birthday spent in Chile. I’m excited to spend it near the ocean on vacation!

That’s all I got for now. ‘Till next time.

BVC week 1

Well, Dave and I made it to Santiago sin problemas. Had to fly to Chicago then to Toronto where we had a 5 hour layover and then fly 10.5 hours to Santiago. I won the coach-class lottery on the overnight flight to Santiago…A young Argentine couple asked me if I would mind switching seats so they could sit together. I was reluctant because I had specifically chosen an aisle seat, but they convinced me when they said there was a pretty young lady in the seat adjacent to the one they wanted me to move to. She was quite gorgeous, but she was from Argentina and I’ll probably never see her again. But, even better, the seat was in the very front of the coach section and had about twice as much legroom. Good start to this 10-month journey!

Some are probably wondering why I am back in Chile…wasn’t I just here? So, I should probably explain a little of what I am doing. After graduating from St. John’s I signed up for the Benedictine Volunteer Corps (BVC), a volunteer program that is sponsored by St. John’s Abbey, a Benedictine monastery that runs the university. The BVC has various sites throughout the world where they send SJU grads to live and work in Benedictine monasteries for 9 or 10 months. One of these sites is here in Santiago with a Benedictine lay group called the Manquehue Movement. Manquehue is the only BVC site that isn’t a monastery. Rather, it is a lay community of about 1,600 members that follows the rule of St. Benedict and runs three Catholic, Benedictine schools in Santiago (San Lorenzo, San Benito and San Anselmo). Instead of monks and nuns, they have oblates, some celibate and some married, who work within the community and get together a few times a day to pray the liturgy of the hours and lectio divina. I am volunteering with David Allen, a fellow Johnnie grad who is also in the BVC and we are staying in a house in Santiago with other Oblates who work at the schools.

The first week has been hectic. On Monday, the day we arrived, we went to the house and unpacked our stuff and then one of the Oblates took us on a tour of San Benito school, where we met more people than my brain can process in one day. Tuesday and Wednesday we spent at San Lorenzo and San Anselmo and on Wednesday night we also volunteered in a women’s shelter. That was quite the experience. We talked with some of the women and served food. The place was full to capacity with women who otherwise would have spent the night on the street. One woman had three young kids and was pregnant. Dave and I hadn’t eaten and were starving, but didn’t eat there because we were afraid more women would show up throughout the night and that they would run out of food. Thursday and Friday we’ve been at San Lorenzo. All three schools are pretty big and nice. San Benito and San Anselmo students are generally upper-middle class. San Lorenzo is more inner city whose students mostly come from rather poor families. San Lorenzo is where we will be volunteering mostly, helping with English classes and a mentoring program called Tutoria. We are kind of confused about exactly what our role is at San Lorenzo and spend a lot of time hanging out and talking with the kids. The school has internet and that’s the only time that I have access to it until I find an internet café near the house.

The days have been long so far leaving the house at about 7am and getting home at 7pm. I hope the weekend is a little less intense. This weekend there is a big soccer game between Chile and Venezuela…if Chile wins this they go to the World Cup. Some people our age from the Tutoria program at San Lorenzo invited us watch the game with them. I am hoping the Oblates will let us go.

It’s been cold and cloudy but I have lots of warm cloths. Everyone has been very accommodating and it’s been great to practice Spanish daily again. Will write another update soon. click for photos

Farewell Chile!

It’s time to say goodbye to Chile.  It’s about 11:30pm Sunday night as I write this.  Tomorrow at about 4pm I’ll be boarding a bus with my entire luggage to head to the airport in Santiago.  My plane leaves at 9 pm.  It’s about an 11-hour flight to Toronto, where we have about a 3-hour layover before flying for 2 hours to Minneapolis.  If all goes as planned I’ll land in Minneapolis at 10:30am Tuesday. 

 

We got back from Buenos Aires safely on Thursday.  Most of the others in our group have either gone home already or are still traveling, so it feels kind of weird to be back in Vina alone with no one to hang out with.  It’s been kind of nice to have a couple days to just do whatever without having to worry about classes or anything.

On Thursday, after I got back to Vina, there was a temblor (a tremor), but it was kind of strong and kind of freaked me out.  More continued during the afternoon and evening. There was another pretty strong one at about 5 am.  They don't last more than a minute usually, but they are strong enough to make the pictures on the wall sway back and forth and the whole house creaks and moans.  There were some more on Friday, but I haven't noticed any since then.  This whole time in Chile I only noticed a temblor on one other occasion when I was reading in my bed and it was pretty weak.  These ones were stronger.  At least if an earthquake is coming I won't need to worry about it!

On Friday I walked around town a little and went to the Feria Artesenal to look for some last minute gifts to bring back.  I packed up a good portion of my stuff so I would have an idea of how much room I have.  Surprisingly, it looks like everything is going to fit no problem, probably because I’m leaving some books behind and some clothes that didn’t survive the trip.  Saturday I was really lazy and didn’t do much of anything except do a little more packing and talk to a bunch of people on Skype.  Today I wandered around town some more.  Went to the beach and browsed for gifts at the little vendor huts that are along side of the beach, and got a little sun burnt in the process. 

 

Then I went to the mall.  I felt like I was back in the US doing last minute Christmas shopping.  It was busy as hell; there were Christmas decorations everywhere; there was Christmas music playing in the background; signs announcing Rebajas de Navidad or Christmas sales; kids waiting in line to see Santa (or El Viejito Pascuero as they say here).  Many of the stores in the mall are the same as in the US.  It’s very easy to forget you’re in South America when in the mall.  I went directly to the food court and got a personal pizza from Telepizza.  It took a long time to get and after that I just wanted to get the hell out of there because I knew what the rest of the day would entail—it was busy and I didn’t want to have to deal with lines and crowds of people.  But I also wanted to find a Chile shirt.  This whole time in Chile I have not come across any type of sweatshirt that says Chile—only soccer jerseys and lame t-shirts.  The mall wasn’t the place though; it’s so North Americanized that the only clothing stores they have are just like US clothing stores filled with overpriced brand name clothes that are made in Indonesia or India.  So I decided to go to the super huge supermarket that’s attached to the mall (this place is like sam’s club size!).  There I bought some Alfajores, a packaged South American dessert, to bring home.  I also bought a bottle of wine for the host family.  The checkout lines were really long.  Fortunately I was able to be in the express lane for 10 items or less, so that sped the process up a bit.  If there is one thing I don’t miss about Minnesota right now, besides the weather—that’s too obvious, it’s standing in lines and dealing with the crowds of people that I usually associate with Christmas shopping.  It’s funny how you can’t escape some things, even 7,000 miles away.  After that, I caught a collectivo, a shared (and cheap) cab, for my ride home. 

 

I brought my camera with me today so I could take some last photos of Vina.  I’ve realized how few pictures I have taken of the city that I’ve been living in for the past four months.

 

I’m not gonna lie, I feel like I could stay here another semester, probably because the weather is so beautiful and I feel comfortable living here by now.  That, and I know my next semester at school is going to be a pain in the a$$ with having to write a thesis in Spanish, having to teach two introductory psych. labs a week, and take 4 classes. I’m excited to see every one though and am glad I will be home for Christmas!  I just may complain a lot after the holidays about how I would rather be back in Chile! Just offering that as a fare warning to everyone.  Well, I’m off to get one last sold night’s sleep before home, since I probably won’t sleep very solidly on the overnight flight tomorrow.  See you all soon!      

 

 

 

Day 5 (Tuesday December 16, 2008)

Today we walked by the Ecological Center, a large section of the city that’s preserved and undeveloped.  Then we went to the immigration museum where we learned about BA’s immigration history (the two largest immigration groups here are the Spanish and Italians in that order). Actually the Argentinean accent kind of sounds like Italian, I think.  There is also some German, Celtic and other European groups, but a smaller number.  Most immigrants came during late 1800’s/early 1900’s—the last big wave of immigration was in 1914.  There was a hotel where immigrant families could stay for 5 days for free, and it included meals.  During that time they looked for work.  The stay was extended in cases of illness or if they were unable to find work.  Pretty generous immigration policy, huh! 

 

Then we went to the Holocaust museum.  The other big and more recent wave of immigration in Argentina was during and after World War II.  I’ve heard that many Nazis escaped to Argentina after the war, but the museum kind of downplayed that aspect and instead had a lot more information about the victims who came to Argentina after being persecuted and watching members of their families being killed and/or tortured.  It seemed like many came from Poland. 

 

Anyways, we got dinner at a barbecue place that was pretty good and relatively inexpensive and now we’re just chilling at the hostel.      

 

      

Day 4 (Monday December 15, 2008)

Yesterday we did a tour of the city on a bus.  It took kind of a long time but the tour guide had some good info.  The only annoying thing was that she did the tour in English and Spanish so she would say one thing in one language and then say the exact same thing in the other language trying to hurry because she was commenting on stuff as we drove by in the bus and having to explain in Spanish and English made it so that she was still explaining stuff after we drove by it and then would have to cut it short to give an explanation of the next sight.  I understood the Spanish just fine so the two languages thing was really annoying to listen to. 

 

During the evening for dinner we went to the Hard Rock Café.  It felt like I was back in the U.S.  We took a bus to the Hard Rock.  BA has a real problem with having coins in circulation, especially the dollar ones, which makes taking the bus kind of a pain in the ass because the buses only take coins.  When David and I took the bus to La Boca the other day we ended up having to buy unnecessary soft drinks so we could get change to use on the bus.  Luckily at the Hard Rock the employee at the gift store had two of her own personal dollar coins that she gave us in exchange for a 2 peso bill so we were also able to take the bus back to the hostel. 

 

On the bus we learned the importance of keeping the ticket that the machine gives you.  The bus was full and apparently someone didn’t pay, or the bus driver thought someone didn’t pay, because he stopped the bus and said, or rather, yelled, “we’re staying here, what do you prefer that you pay or that I call the police?”  Someone must have paid or got off because we started moving again.  

Day 2 (Sunday, December 14)

Slept in again today!  On Sundays there’s a big market not too far from our hostel that takes up a good number of blocks of this one street, so of course the girls were planning on shopping there in the afternoon.  David and I thought that it would be cool to check out a soccer game instead.

 

 The night before we had asked the person working at the front desk if there were any excursions to the soccer game in the neighborhood of town called La Boca.  I’ve heard that La Boca is the rough part of town and that it is better to go in groups to the games.  The dude at the desk told us to check back with him in the morning if we still wanted to go.  He told us that there are always tickets to the games and that, with this tour, we get to go and get some drinks before the game and then eat afterwards.  He also explained to us that this tour company buys their Boca game tickets from a gang and that it’s much safer because then apparently other gangs won’t mess with you.  “You are untouchable” is what he kept telling us.  This conversation was in Spanish, but David and I understood the same thing, which makes me confident that we did indeed understand him correctly.  When we went down in the morning to check to see if there were tickets left, however, we found that there were no spots left on that tour.  But they did have 2 tickets left for the game without the tour.  These tickets weren’t much less than the entire tour was so we decided not to do it.  We went back up to our room and within 10 minutes changed our minds and went back down to the main desk to buy them.  Apparently within that 10-minute time frame the 2 tickets had been sold.

 

The guy gave us some numbers of other places that sell tickets to Boca games, but they didn’t have any either (it was a championship game so they sold out quickly).  We were kind of frustrated at this point and we knew we didn’t want to spend the rest of the day walking around shopping.  So we decided that we would just take a bus to La Boca and see if we could buy some scalped tickets outside the stadium.  I was half expecting this strategy to fail, but figured it would be better than shopping. 

So we went to the stadium and walked around for a little bit until we were approached by a man asking if we were looking for something.  We nonchalantly said yes not saying exactly what it was we were looking for.  Then he said “tickets.”  Unfortunately he only had one, so we kept walking.  We encountered another man outside a store who seemed to be standing around for no good reason.  He also approached us asking if we were “looking for something.”  He brought us inside his store grabbing a shirt that was on display in the front and bringing it with him to the counter as if we were inquiring about it.  I thought he may have totally misunderstood us, but apparently it was just a cover-up so in case the police happened to be looking in or something they would think we were inquiring about a shirt instead of illegal tickets.  He showed them to us but we had no idea how to tell if they were actually real or not.  So we said we would come back shortly and went outside to try and get a glance of real tickets before buying them.  From what we could tell they looked the same and they were only 80 pesos anyways, which is about 22 dollars (compared to the 200 pesos the hostel was charging for their tickets) so we decided to go with them.

 

They ended up working, even though I was a little bit nervous with all the police at the entrance to the stadium.  Even though we were in an upper deck and had to stand and maneuver a lot to see the game, it was totally worth it!  Especially since we were able to rub it in to Hannah and Susan, since they thought we were crazy for going (Susan said they weren’t taking our stuff back with them if we didn’t make it out of La Boca).

 

In retrospect, the La Boca neighborhood didn’t even seem that bad.  There’s a section called El Camenito that is actually rather touristy. 

 

Tomorrow we’re going on a city tour.  I’m happy that it doesn’t start until 2pm so yep, again, get to sleep in.