Hannah Kelley’s Blog

Synthesis of a week in my life, which isn’t over yet (the week nor my life):

- I am applying to new universities in the US

- deciding whether I should study Philosophy, Linguistics, Comparative Literature, Czech Studies, Native American Studies or Anthropology (there is a way I can do them all! [TBD])

- working with Scholars for Schools

- doing a research project on the Basque language

- learning Mapudungun

- studying for the DELE

- figuring out how/when to take the SAT (I reject the notion that this is relevant to transfer admissions, but some people [Columbia, Barnard, NYU, Stanford etc.] believe it to be a good weeder)

- writing postcards to people that I wish I had more time for

- sitting at my computer in disbelief that I have been in Chile for over 8 months

- thinking about the most important news in my life this week, Obama is president

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The Chilean fiestas patrias (independence holidays) are coming up on the 18th and 19th, which I am constantly reminded of as I pass by cueca dancers in the plaza, see the Chilean flag streaming and waving at me from window sills and telephone lines, or if nothing else the colectivos and taxis with red white and blue ribbons running from hood to dashboard.

I took an evening boat ride around the harbor Saturday night. It was beautiful to see the city lit up in a nearly complete circle. Today I took a stairwell to get to my house instead of the usual route I take up the main road. When I reached the top, looking out over the oxidized rooftops and curving streets into a distance of blue Pacific ocean and colorful boxy houses, I once again realized that I am living in one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

I am leaving for Puerto Montt on Tuesday to spend the holidays there, I hear it rains a lot, hopefully I will be able to get a little sunshine in whilst cueca-ing away and barbecuing!

boat at night video

Boat ride in the port at night

Banderas announcing the fiestas patrias

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My Chilean identity card was stolen from me today near my school. It was in the front pocket of my hoodie and inside of my coin purse that had about $8 in it. Somehow the card ended up back at my university, and I picked it up from the secretary of the international students office all within a couple of hours after it happened. Curious. I am lucky that something more important wasn’t stolen.

Most of my classes have started this week. I am really enjoying my Interpretation class, which is basically a class which trains in translation techniques (Spanish - English). I guess that this sort of class, in the US at least, would only be found at a special institute for language translation. I love having the opportunity to take it. We are listening to oral recordings and practicing synthesis (short summary) and simultaneous translation (you translate while you listen or read). My vocabulary in Spanish is increasing, given that a lot of the words are about things that I wouldn’t normally have the chance to talk about (medical situations, for example).

Yesterday I had my Ethnomusic class, which looks like it will be more of an anthropology class than an overview of Chilean indigenous music. We are going to be doing an overview of all of the major ethnic groups of Chile, and focusing on much more than music.

I changed my hair color to a dark brown, and all of a sudden a lot of people are asking me if I am Chilean! An Argentine girl is staying with me this weekend, and she said that when she first heard me on the phone she thought I was from Chile. I guess I am not Mexican anymore, ha ha.

A new development has come up with Scholars for Schools that I heard last night while I was at the meeting for the Rotary Club of Valparaíso Bellavista; one of the main newspapers here, La Tercera, publishes a series of juvenile paperback books for only 500 pesos each (about a dollar), and is going to help us buy them in bulk for the libraries we are supporting, given that one of the administrative employees is a Rotarian. Since books are so expensive in Chile, this is really great news. I look forward to hearing more about this connection through the Bellavista Club.

Speaking of Scholars for Schools, we now have a website in Spanish: http://scholarsforschools.cl.

In November I am going to take the DELE, which is a diploma certifying my level of Spanish. It is good for the rest of my life, more or less, and will be especially useful should I ever decide to work in a Spanish speaking country or for a company where Spanish is the official work language.

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I have one essay left for my Administrative Environmental Law class and then I am done with the semester. I passed (so far) the majority of my classes with flying colors. I have picked out ten classes that I want to take for the next term. Once the semester starts I will be able to drop and add to make the number more manageable.

Among them:

Ethnomusic: overview of Chilean ethnic dances and their respective regions and meaning

Fundamentals of Literary Lingüistics

Oratoria 1: speech giving in Spanish

Paul has been making significant progress building shelving for the library at Escuela David Ben Gurion; I was there yesterday helping him move around desks and sort through speakers and other cachureo. Our hope is that today an organization will be coming by the school to pick up all of the dysfunctional electronics to be recycled. Over the break I will be working on a video explaining Scholars for Schools. I am also working on getting scholarsforschools.cl up and running, but it is taking longer than expected.

I feel like I have been in Valparaíso for awhile now, more than ever because the majority of my amigos from last semester have already head home. My buddies from my trip to Siete Tazas are gone–Gretchen and Emily. Gretchen left late last month, and Emily left yesterday. Before Emily went we got together at her house with some other friends, and I had the chance to meet the owner of where she was living, Elena Gallegos.

Elena is a textile artist who lived in Australia for over 35 years. She has an enormous loom in the house, and she works with metals and fabrics to express different themes. It was really a pleasure to talk with her and see her art up close. I hope to keep in touch with her and hopefully pick up some new hobbies from the experience.

One of Elena’s pieces

Elena’s loom

For more photos of Elena’s weaving collections and artwork click here: http://gallery.hannahkelley.org/Chile/elenagallegos

On another note, a friend here, Meredith, is trying to put together a bilingual event listing for Valparaíso called Atenea. She is teaching English in the area. The future website is http://www.atenea-valparaiso.org.

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