I warned you that I would be terrible at this, but even I didn't think I would be this bad. It's hard to believe that it has already been nearly 2 months since I arrived in Chile. I have less than four months before I return to the United States, and that thought makes me sad. I feel like there is still so much for me to do here and so much for me to learn. I don't know if I can fit everything in. Here is a summary of what I have been up to in the last month. I warn you - it will be long.
Classes
Bailes Folkloricos Nacionales: I walked into class on the first day and all of the students were standing in a circle. The professor saw me and told me to put down my stuff and join the circle. Then we started dancing the cueca. The one problem with this scenario is that I had no idea what the cueca was. Therefore, I proceeded to look like a fool for the next hour and a half. You know how everyone says that practice makes perfect? NOT TRUE. A month later, I still look like an idiot every time I try to do the cueca. Luckily I don't have issues with looking stupid, and the class doesn't appear to have a lot of homework, so I'm okay with it. A couple of notes about the cueca: it's the national dance of Chile, and there are apparently many different ways it is done, depending on the region. The dance is very free form, meaning that there aren't specific figures. There are a variety of steps, and you can pretty much go wherever you want with them. The woman leads, which is bad news for whoever is dancing with me because they have to shout out directions for me so we don't look exceptionally idiotic. Half the time I don't understand the directions since my dance vocabulary is pretty limited. The girls wear skirts, and The professor usually forces one of the guys to dance with the gringas, and I always feel sorry for them. There is one guy who is very intense, making it rather awkward to dance with him. He stares and doesn't say anything, and then while we dance, he puts his handkerchief around my neck. Awkward. Uncomfortable. But entertaining nevertheless.
Idioma y Cultura Mapuche: This class is about the language and culture of the indigenous people of Chile and Argentina, the Mapuche. It is interesting, but the professor tends to go off on random tangents which are sometimes difficult to understand. He is Mapuche, so to some extent, he talks about how the way in which the Mapuche have been treated is unjust. I like learning about the language - we are currently learning how to conjugate verbs.
Salud Intercultural: There is a lot of reading for this class, and I just had a test yesterday. Currently we are talking about the concept of culture and how sociological and anthropological perspectives can be useful in solving public health problems. It's all right, and it is supposed to become more interesting, so I am excited for that. There are not very many gringos in the class, so I get to talk to a lot of Chilean students, which is also great.
Identidad Chilena: In this class, we are talking about how the media affects and/or creates a national identity. It is interesting, but there appears to be quite a bit of work, which is a bummer. I know I am supposed to read at least four books. However, the only significant work will be two papers, and the class ends the second week of November.
August Travel
I took a couple of weekend trips in August and did a few day trips in and around Santiago.
Copiapo: A couple of friends and I bought tickets to a city in the middle of nowhere because they were cheap. We then did extensive research for about a week because we realized that there was pretty much nothing there. We left on a Thursday and returned on Sunday night. On Thursday morning, I left my house at 5am to go to the airport. Our flight got to Copiapo around 9:30, and we went into the town. The town was so small that we walked from end to end in about an hour. The next day, we ended up doing a day trip of a national park a few hours from the town, which was amazing. We lunched on a salt flat and saw a beautiful lake called Laguna Verde. The next day, we took a bus to another national park on the coast, called Pan de Azucar because of all of the bird poo on the rocks, and we saw penguins, a dolphin, sea lions, sea otters, pelicans, cormorants, and a bunch of other birds. The last day, we took a bus to Bahia Inglesa, a famous beach town and spent some time there before going to the airport to fly back to Santiago. When we got to the airport, there was nobody there and security was closed. So we found ourselves a place to relax in the airport until somebody showed up and did some trip planning.
San Pedro de Atacama: We go on two trips with our program during the semester, and we went on the first one last weekend to a city in the north. San Pedro de Atacama is part of an oasis in the middle of the Atacama desert, and it is close to a lot of tourist attractions. While we were there, we went to Salar de Atacama, the third biggest salt flat in the world. We saw lots of flamingos there, which was exciting. We also went to Valle de la Luna to watch the sunset. The last day we were there, we woke up at 4am to go to the Tatio Geysers, the highest geyser field in the world. It was -14 degrees Celsius when we got there. I wore all of the clothes I had brought to San Pedro with me. I will put pictures of that trip up on Facebook.
