Hannah Kelley’s Blog

Last weekend I went to Mackinac Island for the Rotary District 6400 Conference. I was invited as a speaker, and also had the opportunity to spend time with another presenter - María José from Nicaragua. Larry and Sarah Wright were the wonderful hosts who drove me and María José to the island.

Highlights:

I was very moved by California Rotarian Deepa Willingham’s presentation on extreme poverty. Deepa, originally from Calcutta (Kolkata), has developed an organization called PACE (Promise of Assurance to Children Everywhere). More news on PACE can be found here. PACE focuses on educating girls in the communities where they do their work, because they have documented that girls will grow into women that give back to their community. A woman will teach others new skills that they have learned, especially children. PACE has a very comprehensive approach to target the roots of extreme poverty.

On PACE’s website, I found a link to The Girl Effect, which has ideas along the same lines as Deepa and PACE’s (or vice versa). On the website it states that a girl will reinvest 90% of her income in her family, whereas a man will reinvest only 30% - $40%. Another enlightening fact pointed out by The Girl Effect project: Girls will decide four of the ten Millenium Development Goals: universal primary education, gender equity, maternal health and the spread of HIV/AIDS and other diseases.  Please go check out this enlightening website, and then support those who understand this philosophy, like PACE.

The Rotary Clubs of Trenton and Plymouth spoke regarding major fundraisers that their clubs have successfully undertaken. Having some experience, however limited, with fundraising and working for community service initiatives, I appreciated these presentations very much. It is incredibly difficult to plan, organize and execute large-scale fundraisers — I’m always impressed by Rotarians who decide to take on and follow through with these activities.

On a related note, Trenton was awarded the prestigious Dick Hedke Award for outstanding performance for the second year in a row.

Sue Goldsen introduced some interesting presentations on Rotary Youth Exchange (RYE). In particular was one video interviewing District 6400 host parents. It is impossible to continue RYE without the help of Rotarian host parents. The rewarding experience that these particular interviewees had came across clearly in the video. The Rotarian participants noted that hosting an exchange student reminded them what was important about their own country; it is inevitable that a host family will be asked questions about their community and culture, and many host families take their exchange students on trips around their area or state/province. Several of the parents were in tears speaking about taking their exchange student to the airport at the end of the year.

María José was my roommate and buddy during the conference, and has become a friend since we met last Wednesday. District 6400 was active in supporting schools for children in her native Chinandega, Nicaragua, where many grow up as garbage pickers in the local dump. Thanks to Rotary and other caring individuals, she was able to finish her elementary and high school education. Recently she graduated from a well respected university in Nicaragua with a degree in Accounting. She now works for a shipping company in the capital city, Managua. I learned a lot about Nicaraguan Spanish from talking with Maché (María José). Yesterday I showed Maché around Detroit — Mexican town, the DIA, Wayne State’s campus, East Dearborn and some other spots. I really hope that we meet one day in Nicaragua.

Aside from from conference activities, It was nice to see a beautiful part of the state that I’d never seen before. Mackinac Island has large, dated whitewashed houses climbing it’s subtle hills. The island has beautiful views from nearly every location - especially of the lighthouses, minor islands and famous Mackinac bridge just off the coast.

See more of my pictures of the weekend here.

I left the long weekend inspired and with a lot of ideas and plans spinning around in my head — just what the conference was meant to do!

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The public service employees are on strike, and have been since about the 11th of this month. Unfortunately I don’t have any striking pictures of the street parades, piles of garbage (no collectors!), posters or blocked off public works buildings. Yesterday en route to class in the morning, the bus I was on had to take a completely different path because of the strikers on Pedro Montt (for the motivated googlers: he took Independencia instead of Yungay) which left me 20 minutes late to my English-Spanish Interpretation class. The class was canceled for some reason, but were it not I would have missed an important test, now scheduled for Tuesday.

Speaking of tests, I had one last night, I have one tomorrow (Portuguese), the DELE on Saturday, one next Tuesday (Traditional Dances), next Thursday (Basic Concepts in Cinematographic Language), and tests December 1st, 2nd, 3rd…and on and on it goes. I feel like whenever I open my agenda to see what is coming up I have a test the following day.

Why can’t half of the department classes have a heavily weighted final, and the other half a heavily weighted midterm? Maybe half of the classes could end a week earlier than the rest so that these exams don’t smother the students in a testy avalanche.

I ought to make mention that all of these nasty responsibilities: tests, exams and projects–are due at the nicest, sunniest, bluest-sky time of the year in Valparaíso. Today’s high is 81˚ and sunny. This is beach weather! Why I am I in computer labs reading research abstracts about the Rapa Nui language! I should be doing yoga on the seaside. My body and brain are in disaccord. One wants to take advantage of all of the educational opportunities available to me for the short time I have left at the Universidad Católica, and the other wants to enjoy the sunshine and pacific ambience of Reñaca, Caleta Portales and Viña del Mar.

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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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This past Tuesday, the 16th of September, I went to Puerto Montt and the island of Chiloé in the southern part of Chile. I was lucky enough to stay with locals that I met through friends.

Puerto Montt reminded me quite a lot of Alaska, many of the houses looked like cabins or wooden shacks, with wood shingles on the outside. When I went to Chiloé, my friend told me that on the island the shingles were traditionally made from the Alerce Cypress. This tree is now endangered. Almost everyone has a wood burning stove in their house for heating, which in turn created a quite interesting exterior landscape of small, shingled, misshapen houses with smokestacks billowing out of them. The town has a very frontier like feel to it.

left: the pier at Puerto Varas, sister city of Puerto Montt

right: Rotary Women’s Comittee of Puerto Varas

While there I went to the Saltos Río Petrohué, which are rapids near the Volcano Osorno. It was nice to spend some time outdoors breathing fresh air after being in the city for so long. I was struck by how similar landscapes can be…the saltos could easily have been in northern Michigan (save the volcano and Andean mountains in the background) or in the northwest United States.

Saltos Río Petrohué with Marta, in the background is Volcano Osorno

next to the river at Saltos Río Petrohué

Puerto Montt happens to be a main access point for traveling to Chiloé, a series of islands with one Isla Grande or Main Island. On the 18th I went to Ancud, Chiloé. Ancud is the first city reached by Puerto Montt in the northern part of the Main Island. I had to take a bus for an hour or so to get there, and part of the journey was spent aboard a ferryboat carrying the bus to the island. In Ancud I stayed with a former classmate of my friend Goyo, Sebastián. He was visiting his parents’ for the holidays and he and his parents were all nice enough to let me spend time with them. His mother Danitza makes excellent seafood!

Sebastián showed me around Ancud - former military canons from the Spanish invasion of the island, the dock and some other small sites of interest. Many things were closed because of the holidays, so the town was very quiet. In the evening we went to the town ramada or fonda, which is a type of shelter with eucalyptus branches with various Chilean dishes, desserts and drinks sold underneath. There were also games for about 100 pesos each.

Chilote landscape in Ancud

The 19th I went to Castro, the capital of Chiloé, to poke around before I had to catch my bus in Puerto Montt that evening. Castro was also a little low-key because of the holidays, I walked down on the river front, went to the artisan fair and looked at the woolen goods typical of the region. There I also found some smoked shellfish..I can’t wait to make stew with them!

left: the waterfront in Castro, Chiloé

right: the Cathedral in Castro

You can see more pictures of this trip here.

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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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I am extremely excited to announce that Scholars for Schools now has a 15 minute video describing the project. Please share this link and the news about our project!

Scholars for Schools from hannah kelley on Vimeo.

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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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This past Sunday I went to the Naval and Maritime Museum on the Aduana side of town near C˚ Artillería with my friend Emily. It was an amazingly warm beautiful day, and since she was leaving the next day, she asked me to take advantage of the weather with her by taking a walk.

We ended up at the museum, which luckily is free to the public the first Sunday of every Month. A few pictures of the day can be found here: http://gallery.hannahkelley.org/Chile/explore_emily

In the “pirate” room

Emily next to the manicured lawn anchor

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