Empanadas and Mayonaise: March 2014

Hola hola!

I realized I hadn't written since I got back from Patagonia so here I am. There has been so much going on and so much change and transition it is crazy. School has started and I really love my classes, its just a huge transition because I don't know anyone in my classes and I don't really understand how the system works yet so quite frankly its just a little petrifying. I have a quiz tomorrow, but have no idea what its going to be like! Once I get started though I should be completely fine. I am taking three classes: Social Work and Human Rights, which walks through the history of human rights and the progression of how they have come about (legally). Then I am also taking a Social Work class about the human rights of children and the stages of development that they go through which as you know is right up my alley! My last class is spanish semantics, which is a linguistics class, and should be very interesting even though I'm not quite as passionate about that one ha. In both of my social work classes there is a large group of chileans that all take all their classes together because here your major is planned out for you before you enroll so you all end up taking the same track/classes. That being said it is a little intimidating to be the only foreigner when they are all such good friends but I have started getting to know some of them and also have made friends with the kids who are from other majors since they don't know them either. Overall, school is going well and should be great, I'm just still in the transition period!

This past weekend I went up into the Andes with Kathleen and Kelsey (my two friends from CAL who I met here) and also with Martin, Gonzalo and Fran (Gonzalo's girlfriend). Martin is the grandson of Grandma Bertie's 6th grade student when she was in Chile and it is so amazing to me that the one family that she put me in contact with produced my closest Chilean friends. Gonzalo is Martin's best friend since high school and we all went up to Gonzalo's family's house in the Andes in a little ski town (kind of like mammoth or tahoe but tiny). We spent the whole weekend just talking and sitting on the balcony and cooking and playing games and it was exactly what I needed. I feel so close to them and they are such incredible people! They are both 24 and I really think I just get along with guys that are a little older than me (it happened in Mexico too) because of Zach. We just instantly establish that kind of relationship and vioala! Good friends.

Lastly, yesterday I had the incredible experience of taking a field trip with my UCEAP (abroad) program to the Villa Grimaldi, one of the torture facilities during the Pinochet Dictatorship. We were guided through the facility by a chilean who had himself been detained during the dictatorship and had actually had to stay at this facility, among others. It was so moving and such an incredible gift to hear the explanation of it all and try to grasp the awful horror that occurred there from someone who had actually lived it. He had scares and broken fingers and yet here he was, talking very openly and vividly to us about it so that he could pass on the memory. He was exiled to the US in '76 after 13 months of being detained and tortured and when he finally returned to Chile in the '90s he devoted his life to researching what had happened and continuing the memory of it all. It was so moving and I was absolutely horrified that no one in the US knows about any of this, simply because the US doesn't want us to know because it was our fault. We are taught about the Holocaust because the US was the "saviors" but we aren't taught about the atrocities that occurred during this time in all of Latin America because we are ultimately the ones to blame. We then visited the general cemetery in Santiago where we paid tribute to many of the detained, disappeared and politically assassinated people. The cemetery has over 5 million people buried there and its HUGE! It was really gorgeous though and I am very glad we went.

Overall it was a super heavy day but a very very important one in my opinion! I have to do a lot of reading today but I'm thinking of you all and hope all is well!

Besos y abrazos,

Becca

Hola hola a todos!!

Boy has it been an incredible two weeks! They felt like they lasted for months because they were so full of new and exciting adventures. Two warnings:

1) this post is going to be very long because there is so much to tell

2) please excuse my writing: I am trying to fix mistakes/syntax but my brain is thinking half in spanish half in english and my sentences seem to come out as one big blog of them both.

I recently returned from a two week trip to the southern half of Chile, where I spent a week in Chiloe, an Island off of the chilean coast, and then spent a week in the very south, backpacking for 5 days in the National Park Torres del Paine (Blue Towers).

I took a bus from Santiago on Friday after taking my final for my intensive spanish program, and we drove for 15 hours (all night long so we just slept) until we arrived the next morning in Puerto Montt. From there, we had to take a 3 hour bus ride, which also included a 45 minute ferry, to the island of Chiloe, where we stayed in an amazing hostel called 13 Lunas that was located in Ancud, which is the northern city on the Island. In Ancud we just walked around the tiny town and visited a couple of churches and forts that have been there for hundreds of years. We then took a 3 hour bus ride to Castro, which is the largest port city on Chiloe, where we stayed in a hostel named Palafito Sur. The palafitos are houses built on stilts so that they sit above the water. Historically, they were created by the very poor people on the island so that they could avoid having to buy property. By building their houses on stilts above the water right off the beach, they avoided many governmental property fees. Today, however, many of the palafitos have been converted from poor run down building to beautiful houses, hostels and restaurants. There was a beautiful view of the water and I could have stayed there forever! We also took another hour bus ride for one of the days to the National Park in Cucao which was gorgeous and full of life. They had beautiful bogs, mini forests, and then on the opposite end there was an incredible, sprawling beach that easily could have been in southern california!

I absolutely loved Chiloe because it reminded me a lot of Ardnamurchan in Canada. The towns were exactly like Yartmouth or Halifax and the nature was beautiful.

From there we took a two hour flight further south to Punta Arenas, a 3 hour bus from there to Puerto Natales, and then ANOTHER 3 hour bus to finally reach the Parque Nacional del Torres del Paine. This entire trip was spent with 5 girls from my program: Kelsey, Kathleen, Kate, Tania and Robin. They all go to Berkeley but I didn't know any of them before coming to Chile! They are such amazing people and I couldn't have asked for a better group to travel with. We had been carrying around our backpacking equipment the entire trip and were finally ready to start using it after a 30 minute catamaran to the starting point of our trek. In the park, the most famous path to hike is the "W", which is a five day backpacking trail. It was one of the most challenging things I have done because not only had we brought too much food, making our packs extremely heavy, but I was carrying a tent, sleeping bag and pad the entire too as well. On top of this, we were hiking an average of 6-8 hours a day, and the trail was definitely not flat haha. There were times when we knew we were facing at least an hour of uphill and my body wanted to stop and just lay down and never move again. But we made it!

We had many physical issues that could not have been avoided or better prepared for including a girl re-injuring her hip that she had had surgery on, another girl breaking out in an incredibly bad rash from laundry detergent, constipation and the opposite..... This also made it EXTREMELY difficult to continue sometimes because our bodies were going through so much. However, the girls were all such troopers and we created some incredible memories. No bonding is stronger than sleeping in the smallest tent on the planet with someone who is having digestive problems... we got to know each other very well to say the least ha.

The park was so incredibly beautiful, however, that our spirits were usually pretty high despite all of the issues. It was dreamlike.... there were multiple times when I could turn 360 degrees and have a breathtaking view the entire time. Most places I have been, there is a main attraction or main "thing" you are supposed to be looking at. In this park, EVERYTHING was that breathtaking "thing". Every day was also completely different, we hiked from a glacier through a forest to a rocky mountain past snow covered mountains (we could hear/see avalanches happening in the distance as we hiked, it was incredible!), alongside a lake, to a pebble beach, through desertlike plains, and up to incredible rock formations. It was an experience that I will never forget!

On top of all of that, I start school on wednesday and have officially moved into my new house! I love the people I am living with and I love the feel that the house has. I am also very excited for school and will give another update at the end of the week when everything has started!

I hope you are all doing well and I love you very very much :)

I ate that entire bag of trail mix....