"It's study abroad, live a little!"
- Our very own Ellie Ryan. We go crazy here in Chile.
We made it through day two of orientation yesterday and met our fabulous student coordinator, María Carmen, one of the funniest people any of us have ever met, she's just delightful. And we all went out to dinner together, and it's one of my favorite parts of the trip so far. We went around and we all told the group something we've told very few to no people before, which is tricky because you don't want to tell a real secret. So tricky tricky. María Carmen told us about the time she skinny-dipped in Santiago. And it was delicious food too, and they gave us pisco sours (kind of like a Chilean margarita) and then - surprise! - refilled them and then throughout dinner just KEPT refilling our wine glasses and I haven't a clue how much I drank, but it was more than I thought I drank for sure. Whoops. It was all so good though. And I couldn't finish my hazelnut torte. I came home (pretty smoothly I must say), and madre was trying to explain something to me, that she wanted me to go somewhere or meet someone with her tomorrow (today) and I didn't understand but I agreed and that was that.
This morning was slightly rough. I had to go all the way to the university for our morning class (which I have to do a few times a week) which is about a one hour commute and I had never done in morning rush hour or from home. So madre explains that I should take a bus all the way around to a transfer point for the metra, and then switch onto the metra (the bus follows the metra line anyway, so I could get on at any point). I go to do that but I don't know when to stop the bus and then I press the stop button but it's too late and we're turning the corner into this disgusting intersection with approximately 20 different crosswalks and 7 different strets all converging and 10 different guys with whistles trying to control it and we get through and I get off and I have to go back through it, but by foot. Meanwhile I'm wearing tights and flats and it's maybe 40 degrees, and I overestimated my Chicago toughness to cold weather. AND THE DRESS. It won't remain where it's supposed to be and my coat keeps encouraging it to ride up and then I'm just that dumb American tramp waltzing across all 20 crosswalks and everyone's staring at me and it's just rough. And then I got in the Metra and it was warm and I found Ellie and Kathryn and everything was better and I actually had a good day. Although the being cold thing has been pretty consistent. I'm cold right now. Apparently now I'm using my blog to vent. #sorry
So I go home and madre and I go on our mystery adventure. And we walk and we walk. You know when you walk and someone else is leading and you have no idea where you're going or how long it will take, and how frustrating that is? Story of my week. Anyway it was a long walk but it was a pretty part of Las Condes (I don't know maybe we walked all the way to Providencia, it was far), so I enjoyed it. And we come to her nephew's apartment. And he and his wife have this 3-year old daughter and she's beautiful and precious and I loved her. I wonder if I'm alone in thinking this, but I think Chilean complexion and facial composition is really really pretty, I'm kind of rather jealous. And this little girl is great and she jabbered in Spanish at me and I would make a face back, because who knows what she was saying. And madre and I watch her and the nanny/housekeeper (who was Peruvian, which we learned a lot of housekeepers are just yesterday! I get a secret nerdy thrill when things you learn in class apply to real life) and then her mama comes home and she's youngish and makes us pisco sours and brings out guacamole (which, for a country that loves avocados, was the most tomatoey guac I've ever had, but maybe it was just her recipe) and crackers with pate. And her name and she was so nice and spoke broken English and invited me to go out to the wine country with her and her husband some weekend.
And she told me something. Madre may have tried to tell me this before, but I hadn't caught it. Chile has had quite some shuffling of governmental power. From 1970-1973 Salvador Allende was in control, running a socialist state, which, after a military coup, Pinochet took over and ran a corrupt dictatorship. The kind with lots of human rights violations (2,115 killed, 27,265 tortured). Madre's brother was a socialist leader at this time and was actually a victim of the Caravan of Death. This in one of the more famous examples of human rights violations. Right when the coup was completed, Pinochet sent out a death squad by helicopter to travel from the south to the north of Chile. They are said to have killed at 75 (estimated at 97) people. In madre's brother's case, he was first "missing" for seventeen years, until they found his body in 1990. And even to this day, Chile is split. About 50% of Chileans recognize Pinochet for his crimes and corruption, and 50% continue to deny that it ever happened and maintain that he was a good leader.
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| Madre's brother |
Kind of... unimaginable. I'm here to learn about more than food and nightclubs.
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