University Life

We are already about three weeks into the semester and classes are in full swing in Santiago. Today is the first day of autumn but the weather still feels as hot as ever. All of us in the Council exchange program are studying at the University of Chile, or the Catholic University here. I had wanted to take classes at both since the experience at each is quite different, but the schedules didn't work out. I am taking all of my classes at La Católica, the private Catholic University here. The University of Chile is known to be very liberal, open, creative, and political. For example, there are many murals on campus painted by students and classes are frequently canceled due to protests and strikes. However it is also known to be fairly disorganized. But I wanted to try it out becuase the students are known to be friendly and easy-going. Generally speaking, if one comes from a family with money he or she goes to La Católica, otherwise, they go to La Universidad de Chile.


But La Católica is a great instition as well. It is organized and demanding in its classes. But the students are a little colder, each having groups of friends from the same private high schools. The campus is beautiful and carefully maintained as it is funded by a large part through the church. I am taking six classes, two of them being sports classes that I am taking without credit.





Poesía Chilena y Hispanoamerica
Narrativa Chilena
Pobreza y Desarrollo en Chile y Latinoamerica (Poverty and Development in Chile and L.A.)
Español Intermedio
Atletismo I (Track and Field)
Montanismo I (Mountaneering)

For the poverty and development class we are required to have an 6hr/week internship with a non-profit organization. I start this Saturday working with a community about an hour out of the city. I am also going to be a teaching assistant in the English program at the University of Chile which starts at the beginning of April. In addition, most of us have found language partners, Chilean students who want to learn English. We get together about once a week and talk half the time in English and the other half in Spanish.

The class that has been the most fun so far is mountaineering. In the classes during the week we have a little bit of theory (proper equipment, history . . .) but we also do physical training (running, sit-ups, drills . . .) to get us in shape for the excursions to the mountain. In the class we have four trips outside of class. Two of them are one-day events and the last two are for the entire weekend. Last Saturday was our first event and it was a blast. All of the classes of montanismo (I, II, III) met at a park and we spent the day in fun competitions in teams. With our teams we had to complete a series of trials. Most of them involved a lot of teamwork, problem solving, and ropes and harnesses. After the competition we had a relaxing lunch of soda and empanadas (baked bread filled with meat, vegetables, and cheese). It was a tiring but fun day where we also got to know a lot of other people as well.

La Presidenta Nueva

These past couple of weeks in Santiago have been filled with many big political and cultural events such as the musical tours of U2 and Santana as well as a speech given by Bolivian president, Evo Morales. But the event that has caused the most commotion, and rightly so, is the inauguration of the first woman president in Chile as well as in all of South America. This past weekend was the official 'change of command' and the streets, buses, and subways were filled with people anxious to witness some important Chilean history.

The official inauguration was held in Valparaiso, a few hours away from Santiago, on Saturday afternoon. But thousands gathered in Santiago around La Moneda (the presidential palace) in central Santiago on Saturday evening to witness Michelle Bachelet's return to the capital city. The atmosphere was electric and people waved flags, shouted patriotic chants and bought political buttons, sashes, hats and balloons to show their support of Bachelet.



When the motorcade finally arrived, loads of confetti and balloons were released from tops of buildings and everyone scrambled for a glimpse of the president. Bachelet entered La Moneda and gave a speech from one of the balconies. The political atmosphere was very personal - it felt like there was barely any security and it was hard to believe that not far from me, speaking from a balcony, was the new president of Chile.

Overall, it seems the people support Bachelet. And it is exciting to see the women of the country step forward and stand tall in a very masculine-dominated society. It is very interesting to note the differences in the presidencies as well. For example, to refer to the previous male president, Chileans use the last name, "Lagos." But to refer to the current president everyone uses the first name, "Michelle." In addition, this is the first time that the word 'president' in Spanish has the form of the feminine gender such that "presidente" changes to "presidenta."

After the ceremony the group of exchange students and I were sitting and waiting for the crowd to clear when a television cameraman stopped to ask us where we were from. When we told him we were from the United States he wondered what we were doing at such a Chilean event. He then asked us if he could interview us on our opinions on some of the United States foreign policies with Chile for a PBS documentary. I didn’t have much to say, but the rest of the students did as they came to Chile to specifically study international relations and political science.

On Sunday night the city hosted a huge musical celebration in honor of the new president. A group of students and I went to enjoy the festivities and watch as over 200,000 Chileans met to wave flags, shout and sing political chants, and dance to many different kinds of South American music. It has been a privilege as well as an entertaining opportunity to participate in a country’s history along with the rest of its population.

Amazing Weekend in the South of Chile

It was Thursday morning and I was sitting in a long orientation for exchange students at the Catholic University. During the snack break I listened to a group of students from my program talk about possibly going south that weekend to go camping and backpacking. The south of Chile is known for being beautiful with lots of lakes and national parks and not having a lot of people. One of the guys, Mark, said to me, " you should come with us, I remember you said that you like hiking and the outdoors." But I replied with a no, because being the adventurous and spontaneous group that they were, they wanted to leave that evening, giving us all about six hours to prepare. There was a lot of logistical stuff that we as foreigners with student visas still had to work on and there was much that had to be finished before the weekend.

I took a bus home and the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to go. True, I didn't know the group very well and I wasn't sure I trusted their plans - or lack of plans, but I just had this feeling that they were going to have an incredible time. When I got home I explained the situation to my house mom after which she immediately called me crazy for not saying I would go. "Are you nuts?" she says to me in Spanish. "How many times do you find a group to go backpacking with in the South of Chile?!" "But I have so many things I have to get done before I go" I told her. The situation seemed impossible.

However my house mom is not easily dissuaded. She made me make a list and then practically grabbed my hand and marched me out of the house. She helped me out a lot getting ready for the trip, like moving me up in the line to get my Chilean ID, and also calling the bus companies to see if they had room for our group that was heading out that evening. I very nervously called Mark and asked if I could still come along and then got the plans for meeting at 9pm at the metro station.

Armed with tents, our packs, sleeping bags and snacks, seven of us, Josh, Ben, Mark, Wade, Brittany, Laura and I boarded the bus ready for the 10 hour overnight bus ride to Temuco, a city to the south of Santiago. The group of people I went with was amazing. Everyone was hilarious, laid-back and easy-going. We were all in good spirits - so much so in fact that nobody was too alarmed by the fact that upon arriving in Temuco at 6 in the morning, we had no plans, no idea where to go, and no reservations.


Sitting in the bus terminal and wondering about our next move, we picked by random lottery our route into the national park (Parque Nacional Lago Conguillo). Transport in Chile is not always easily accessible and it is never safe to assume that one can get anywhere at any hour. We took another three-hour bus ride, this time over gravel and dirt, to the town nearest the National Park Entrance, Melipeuco.

Upon arriving in the tiny town we asked around for the tourist office only to be answered with laughs and glances that resembled, "are you serious?" expressions. Tourist offices in Chile are not like those in the US. This particular one was closed for the day/season/year? And there were no maps to be had. Our group decided to have a huddle in the park and agreed that we needed some route of transport into the park. There were no buses that ran into the park becuase the roads were nearly impassable. This particular park is centered around a still active volcano and most of the roads are made in the lava.

We decided our options were hitchhike or give up. But what we really wished we had was a man with a truck. Just then, a man with a truck drove by and slowed down by the park. This was not unusual as Melipeuco is small and everyone was acutely aware of the seven clueless backpackers in the town center. Mark and I went over to talk to the man to see how much we could pay him to bring us to the camping sites near the lake. As luck would have it, Pascal, the driver of the truck, was happy to transport the seven of us and our gear to the center of the park for about six dollars each.

After another two hours in a truck driving across black, rough lava fields in view of an amazing snow-covered volcano, we made it to camp. Since the park is so difficult to get to, there were barely any people there and we were able to get an amazing campsite near the lake in view of the volcano. We set up camp and swam in the lake, explored the shore, and took naps on the beach.

So far, we thought, things on the trip were going smoothly even though there was a significant lack of preparation. But we would be faced with a few setbacks such as a two-man tent and a three-man tent and seven people (four of which were big guys) and a lack of food and water (none of us had thought to bring any real supplies). But being the problem-solving exchange students that we were we set out to solve the dilemmas. We bought some food from the ridiculously tiny camp store which included six sausages and some potatos and agreed to squeeze into the tents. Although everyone went to bed a little hungry and nobody got much sleep as we were stuck in tents like sardines, spirits were high thanks to some great guitar playing, singing, and some entertaining conversation by the fire.

The motto of the trip was, "Set the rations to meager and the pace to grueling." The next morning we set off on a long hike after dividing up what little food and water we had. After getting lost for about two hours, we managed to find the trail head and kept a sweaty pace until we reached a good altitude for lunch. The view was incredible and after spending some time lunching, Mark, Ben, and I decided to keep climbing while the others headed back. The rest of the hike was amazing and the three of us made it past the tree line and into snow. It was so much fun being up in the mountains with nobody else around enjoying the view of two volcanos and lots of plants and trees that I had never in my life seen before.

Later that night as we all laid on the beach looking up at the sky packed with stars we agreed that it had been quite an unforgettable trip, especially becuase of the way things just fell together in a way that couldn't have been planned. I had so much fun and feel blessed to have been able to spend such a fun weekend with a great group of people in a practically untouched paradise.

A Busy Week

The days are already going by too quickly and already we are finished with our Contemporary Chile class. We have taken a lot of cool field trips around the city and have gotten to know our small groups and tutors very well. The pictures above are of me and my small group tutor, Romané, as well as a picture of my small group. Romané is a professor of Chilean history at the University of Chile. I especially wanted a picture of her and I together to show the difference in height. I always ask my host family to tell me if I am doing something that would easily mark me as an American. But my host mom said to me the other day that even if my skin and hair were a little darker, my height would give my american-ness away. In spite of my added inches, I am doing my best to blend in.

It has been a tough week emotionally. Classes start next week and we are all hunting for classes that work in our schedules. We are allowed to take classes from La Universidad Católica, La Universidad de Chile, and La Universidad de Santiago. But each college is not focused in one particular area, they have several different campuses around the city. When picking classes one has to take into consideration travel time from campus to campus which can sometimes be 45 minutes or more. It has also been a little mentally stressful to figure out where I fit in in the big group of us exchange students. There are about 50 of us and we participate in all of the program activities together. But it feels like we are all horses and they threw us in a pen together to kick and bite our way into little groups. Everyone is a little over-anxious to make friends and attach themselves to other people, but at the same time, we all know that we should be trying to make Chilean friends instead of always hanging around Americans. It is a awkward situation to be in, but hopefully it will change soon when we will all be in separate classes next week.