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House phone number, Beach in Reñaca, Old Prison in Valparaíso

Published
by
hannah
on March 16, 2008
in Chile
. 0 Comments

Announcing my home phone number: (011) (56) (32) 221-9305

Saturday was Beach Day. I didn’t bring my digital camera, but I took a lot of pictures with a small plastic 35 mm camera I brought. I am anxious to see what effect the camera gives to the pictures. I went with Matthieu by bus to Reñaca, which is about a 30 minute ride away from Valparaíso. Despite the beautiful waves and invitingly warm sun, the water here is freezing! Matthieu went surfing, but I just sunbathed and hung out on the beach.
Afterward we ate some delicious empanadas and pastel de choclo from a nearby store/restaurant. Empanadas are pastry turnovers filled with a variety of different ingredients; they are either baked or fried. We had the baked kind, mine was filled with what I believe were mussels, and Matthieu’s was filled with ground meat, olive and egg. Pastel de choclo is more or less a corn and meat casserole. The bottom is filled with ground meat or chicken, egg and olive, but the top is a semi sweet layer of baked yellow corn. Yum! It is a very typical Chilean dish.

My friend from the U.S., Loreto, came back to Chile after almost 6 years this past Wednesday. Last night I spent time with her and her sister Isabel, along with Isabel’s friend Cata (short for Catalina). We went to the ex-carcel, an old prison turned art and cultural center.

They were having something called a puertazo, in response to recent legislation which favors industrial fishers and ignores the needs of local fisherman, or pescadores artesanales. One of the people we met there happened to be an ex political inmate in the prison. He along with 15 other inmates escaped by tunneling underground to refuge.

Apparently a film was made about the prison, called El 25 de Mayo a las 9 en punto, which I am told can be purchased at the apartment next to the Municipalidad (Town Hall) of Valparaiso, on the second floor, where there is a sign hanging that says: Evangelical Church of St. Juan.

Pedro stars as one of the prison guards.

More pictures of the ex-carcel can be found here.

puertazo performance 1

One of the performances

carcel2

Me with Pedro Donoso Acevedo, tunneler and escapee of the Valparaiso Prison

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Trains, Boats, Buses, ID’s, Empanadas and the like

Published
by
hannah
on March 16, 2008
in Chile
. 0 Comments

I have taken most of my classes by now. I added another class, “Formulation of Latin American Culture” which meets on Thursday nights. The professor is an endearing older gentleman with curly hair and a penchant for “sh” sounds.
He described South America and Latin America as a grand painting of Indigenous peoples, Africans, Europeans and Mestizos.
The Americas

Board drawing from my new class on Latin American culture

I also made a new friend, Sole. She sheepishly told me that I was one of the only foreigners she had ever met. Sole must be at least 19–how different from the United States, where every city boasts its own ethnic group, replete with corresponding nightclubs, fine dining, and religious centers.

Since this new class and two of my other classes are in Viña (del Mar), I have been taking the train. There is a stop called Bellavista which is 3 blocks from my apartment, and it goes directly to Miramar station, which is about 3 blocks from the history department.

tren1tren2tren3

Train/Metro

I recently received a paper from the university called a comprobante, which entitles me to a reduced bus fare. This wonderful little piece of paper is substituting for my pase escolar, or university ID which won’t be given to me until May or so.
Since it is just a piece of paper, I had to go to one of the ubiquitous photocopy stores to get it laminated.
What a situation! I was telling a good Belgian friend here, Matthieu, that the entire concept of having to go get a piece of paper laminated to serve in lieu of a university ID is totally foreign. At Wayne State, not only are ID’s served up instantaneously, I would never worry about using it for a reduced gasoline price.

On the topic of documents and identification, I also went to the Registro Civil with another scholar, Paul Goldberg, on Thursday morning to apply for my carnét. The Registro Civil serves the public much in the same way the Secretary of State does in the United States. I was warned several times that it fills up early and always has long lines (sound familiar?). I had to pay a fee equivalent to about $8. They took my picture, finger printed me, and gave me a piece of paper with the date of when I will be able to come and pick up the carnét. A carnét is the equivalent of a drivers license in the U.S., except that almost no one my age here drives, so it is more like a state ID. It is used to buy alcohol and tobacco, get into night clubs, and in case you are stopped by the carabineros (or in more colloquial terms, pacos).

Lancha!

On Friday I went with some friends on a small boat or lancha. It was about $20 for the six of us to go zipping around the port for half and hour. We were able to see all of the cargo ships, navy ships, as well as have a great view of all the cerros or hills of Valparaiso.

See more pictures from this here.

Boat trip with some friends

Also on Friday, everyone at school was walking around with bouquets of green branches for Palm Sunday, Domingo de Ramos.

domingo de ramos

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Mechones

Published
by
hannah
on March 11, 2008
in Chile
. 1 Comment

These poor guys are mechones, freshman.

As a welcome to their new life as university students, upperclassmen dress them in dirty clothes and paint them colors–only to make them go beg for money on the street. Once they have enough money, I think they have to do something else that is just as humiliating!

I gave each of them 50 pesos for the photo, about a dime each.

mechones

They asked me where I was from using Usted–the first time I think I have ever been addressed with Usted by a native speaker. I’m sure I’ll never use Ud. with anyone again, It made me feel so old! I immediately corrected them; “Ud. no, tratame de tú!”.

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Rotaract Club of Valparaiso activity with Hogar Los Sauces

Published
by
hannah
on March 9, 2008
in rotaract
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Saturday I went with the Rotaracters I had met on Thursday to an activity in Olmué, about 40 minutes north of the Viña/Valparaíso area. We went to a boarding house for special needs children called Hogar Los Sauces.

The home receives minimal funding from a government subsidy for youth.

We played with the children, danced, and distributed small snack packages with juice and other goodies. The packages were bought with an allowance given to Rotaract by their sponsor club. Due to the disabilities of many of the children, it was hard to play organized games with them. Most of the children are considered con riesgo social, or “social risk” children, meaning they were either abandoned or were taken from their families because of abuse or related reasons.

More pictures from this event may be found here.

One of the short videos I took at the event may be found here.

A video of the drive to Olmué can be found here.

At least for me, it has been almost 2 years since I last had the opportunity to work with special need children. Aside from being eye-opening I reflected on the type of impact I want to make on this area during my time here.

After leaving the hogar we went to a country house owned by the parents of one of the members, Mauricio.

Hogar1

This little guy lovvveedd being picked up!

Who knew there were Tiger fans in Chile?

Two girls from Valparaíso Rotaract’s sister club in Peru were visiting for the event. They were from the Lima area Rotaract Club of Monterrico Surco in District 4450.

Also a Rotaractor named José from the Rotaract Club of Azapa in Arica, Chile came for the event. The Azapa club is also in District 4320.

We spent some time near the pool and barbecued in the back yard of the house. Diego, who studies Multi-Media, was the resident DJ. The girls from Perú spoke and also gave everyone a pin so that we can show off our clubs sisterhood. The vice president of the Valparaíso club spoke, and I also said a few words.

asado

Barbecue time–with coal instead of charcoal.

The Rotaract Club in Valparaíso meets on Fridays, I can’t wait to start attending meetings and become an active member of the club.

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Grocery Shopping in Chile, International Students at the PUCV…

Published
by
hannah
on March 8, 2008
in Chile
. 0 Comments

Friday I signed up for my classes, which are as follows:

Advanced Spanish Grammar, 4 credits

Advanced Written Spanish, 3 credits

History of Modern Chile, 4 credits

Art and Society in Pre-Hispanic Chile, 3 credits

Environmental Law, 2 credits

These courses were the result of hours of drilling the “monitores”, students in charge of international students, on which classes would be the best for me. I am pleased with my selections and think they will help me not only to elevate my Spanish into an academic realm, but also improve my understanding of this rich country. Classes start Monday at 3:40.

After signing up for classes the PIIE, or Programa Internacional de Intercamio (International Students Office) organized some activities for the foreign students. We saw various types of Chilean dances while we enjoyed empanadas and juice. I hope to upload the videos from this event shortly.

After the event I went grocery shopping and notebook/school supplies shopping with a friend from my group, Matthieu, and my monitor Maria José. They have an escalator in the supermarket here that is magnetized to stick to the cart wheels so that you can bring your cart upstairs with you. I bought bread, cheese, yoghurt and some other breakfast essentials.

Maria José was great–I don’t know how I would have bought school supplies without her. For some reason in the university, students no longer write on notebooks with lines–only on graph paper. This was strange not only for me but also for Matthieu, who is Belgian. I kept trying to find ‘normal’ lined notebooks for my classes in different colors (a color for each class, of course!). It ended up that I bought lined notebooks intended for high school students. We’ll see if anyone laughs at me for not using graph paper. :)

In the evening all of the monitors threw a party for the international students in Viña. There was a lot Reggaeton, Salsa and maraca-drumbeat-latin music. I enjoyed myself.

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Apartment, Rotary

Published
by
hannah
on March 7, 2008
in Chile and Rotary
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Thursday I had the chance to attend a meeting with my host club, the Rotary Club of Valparaiso. I along with another scholar, Susan Owen, sat with some wonderful gentlemen and a few of the Rotaracters from the Rotaract Club of Valparaiso. On the agenda was a Bingo fund raiser that the club is planning in the nearby Casino del Mar (Viña), a Rotaract event with Hogar Los Sauces and celebration of World Rotaract Week, as well as songs, lunch and the type of conviviality I’ve come to expect from Rotary. The club meets in the Club Aleman or “German Club”, and reminds me a lot of the Rotary Club of Detroit that meets at the Detroit Athletic Club. It is located near Plaza Anibal Pinto, which brings me to my next topic–my apartment!

Rotary Club Valpo1

To see more pictures from the Rotary meeting, click here.

To see a video of Valparaisan Rotarians singing to their guests, click here.

I am living in front of Plaza Anibal Pinto in downtown Valparaíso. I live with a girl from Brazil named Priscila, a Swede named Gustav and a German, Christoff. I had actually talked with the renter when I was still in Michigan and assumed he had already found someone for the room. I went with a new Mexican friend Leonardo on Wednesday to look at the room, and moved in on Thursday evening. I was greeted very warmly by all of my new roommates and feel very much at home.

departamento

Kitchen and entrance of my apartment.

The same evening I went with my landlord, a young architect by the name of Daniel, and a group of other students (some from my university) to a place around the corner called “El Boliche”. There was a wonderful duo of Argentine girls singing old Tango songs. I seem to meet so many Swedes here. When we arrived at the venue almost everyone sitting at our table was Swedish, although there were a few Norwegians. I ordered something called a Churrasco Italiano–basically a sandwhich with tomate (tomato), vacuno (beef) and palta (avocado).

I left around 12:30, yet everyone was asking me why I was leaving early–can you imagine! They stay up so late here. Maybe I will get used to this…

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First Day in Chile!

Published
by
hannah
on March 4, 2008
in Chile and Travels
. 1 Comment

This is an update e-mail I sent to my family last night:

Mom, Family and Friends,

I am on a different keyboard, so forgive me if i make a million mistakes.!
I arrived today, Pablo picked me up from the airport and we took a bus directly to Viña del Mar. We spent some time with his relatives, his grandma, his great aunts and uncles that live in the area,
and then went to my university with his cousin, Diego.
Diego showed me how to grab the “micro” which is tantamount to a local bus which runs between Viña and Valparaiso.
It costs about 80 cents, or less with a student ID, which I should get tomorrow.
(I missed the orientation in the morning because  of my flight….it started at 9:30am and I wasn’t even off of the plane until 10am)

After I spent several hours in the university seeing what I had missed in the morning, Pablo and I went and got something to eat, and then I went with Isabel (Loretos sister) to her house. I am in an internet cafe at the moment, near Isabel’s house. Tomorrow I have to be in the University at 10am to finish up more paperwork. also tomorrow i have to figure out a cellular phone plan, a bank account, somewhere to live longer term, register my visa with the police, etc. 

My Spanish seems to be doing fine, except I hear from many people that I sound Mexican. This doesn’t surprise me much, since I perpetually say “mande” (the equivalent of “excuse me”) in order to hear things correctly, pass by others in the street, ask questions, and I cannot seem to shake this mark of mexicanness–it is, however, just my first day!

Today there was a large fire between Santiago and Viña, covering some 17,000 hectares. The entire city is covered with a tinge of smoke and ashes have been falling lightly over us the whole day! It is a very strange occurrence, even for the locals. I took a video earlier of the smoke rising over the city from afar.

I am trying to type relatively fast, as well as cover a lot of material, in addition I am extremely tired. I want you to know that I am doing very well, I am optimistic for my classes and that everything will turn out alright. My classes actually start next Monday, so this week is just orientation. I will have this entire weekend to orient myself and figure out a place to live.

I cant wait to live somewhere with WiFi internet access so that i can start posting on my blog and showing everyone pictures.
in time…

besos y abrazos,

Hannah

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Buttery Rotaract E-mail

Published
by
hannah
on February 26, 2008
in rotaract
. 0 Comments

Wayne State’s Rotaract Club has been in contact with our twin club in Beirut, Lebanon since last semester. Rima Abou-Mrad is a Multi-Year Ambassadorial Scholar studying at Wayne State University. She is originally from Lebanon and has been instrumental in making the connection between Beirut and Detroit.

Here is a buttery update on a Rotaract Conference in Istanbul that we are trying to attend with the Beirut Club:

Fw: Trip to Istambul

From: Rima Abou Mrad                               Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 10:39 AM

To: VP WSU Rotaract Hannah, Katrina WSU Rotaract, Rotaract WSU

Dear all,

Please find below an email from the Rotaract Club of Beirut.

Please let me know what you think.

Take care

Rima

—– Forwarded Message From: Mona Karam <mona.karam@usj.edu.lb>
To: rimaaboumrad@yahoo.com
Cc: adibmounla@yahoo.com
Sent: Monday, February 25, 2008 3:17:56 AM
Subject: Trip to Istambul

Hello dearest Rima,

I am glad to get in touch with u after a long absence.
As Adib told u ill be organising with u our trip to Istambul

So i propose to u this plan :
As Easter will come from March 20 till the 24, it is the best time for us
to go there as we will be on vacations.
What about u ?

As for transportation, Adib told me that it will be by bus.

We need then to know where we will be hosted (if in rotaractors houses)
or in a youth hotel maybe we will charge the turkish rotaractors about
this issue

As for the project I will ask Adib about any ideas
U can do same from your side
and will update u of our findings

Rotaractly yours

Mona

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