Happy International Women's Day!

On our way to the Internation Women's Day celebration (a free concert in the Plaza de Armas), we found this dance!  Our guess was that it was a Mapuche group.  They pulled a friend (Steph!) in to join them--so fun to watch! A great way to spend our last night in Santiago : ) 

Finally some photos!

I know you've all been waiting for these... first just some 

general shots walking around the city!  

 And now getting into the centro commercial, a large outdoor mall/pedestrian zone area that's always crowded (about 15 minutes from our hostel)

People sell everything on the street here.  Including, as you can see, books of the local laws so that Chileans can be up-to-date on their govt...

And this is the Plaza de Armas, the main square in Santiago, surrounded by fancy federal buildings and the post office (the white one on the right)

 and here's a magician drawing a crowd... 

 and more streets on the way to the central market... 

note: there is fresh fruit EVERYWHERE

another note: there are also dogs (and sometimes cats) EVERYWHERE

The beautiful central market building!  Unfortunately it was closed so we couldn't go inside 

very near the central market, there is an old train station (Estacion Mapocho) that was the first built in 1905 to celebrate the Chilean bicentennial, became the main railway station for much of South America, and was vacated in the 80s.  Now it has been restored as a (gorgeous) cultural center

Inside the cultural center, a human rights mural (it reads "I do declare: Chile needs more human rights defenders") 

And, to finish us off for now, several cool-looking, nameless old buildings in disrepair

: ) 

Santiago

Ohhh so much to tell.  I've been trying to put my finger on what makes Santiago so different from any other city I've visited.  One of the first things I noticed is that there are very few tourists here--I've only seen two, after three days all over downtown.  That might be because there aren't too many actual sites to see here.  You could easily cover every guide-book-y spot in a day or two.  But there are so many little details to drink up, like all the beautiful old buildings and shaded streets (and colorful graffiti--separate photo post to come soon once I get them documented!).  

And even though there are no tourists, the streets are teeming with Chileans themselves strolling to get ice cream or watching street performers or just generally taking in the lovely evening.  And there are street vendors selling everything from empanadas, to freshly squeezed orange juice (literally, shopping carts full of fresh oranges with a little fruit squeezer station affixed across the top), to socks, to jewelry, to used books, to tarot card readings, to clothes, to weird trinkets.  In any other city that I've seen, the locals would rush past this kind of thing without a second glance, but here it seems that they regularly frequent these little carts.  They form huge crowds to watch anything interesting going on, from puppeteers to magicians to student marches.  Any of you guys who know me well know that I am a devout people watcher, so I absolutely LOVE being here--and it's made even better by the fact that the Chileans living in Santiago also seem to cherish the details of their city.  It's so unique!  

So while I've had a limited amount of free time here, I've been wandering as much as possible to take it all in.  And I went out for drinks to try the pisco sour (delicious) and terremotos (also delicious), popular Chilean drinks.  Luckily, my Spanish has been working out great!  I've already noticed it coming more easily.  There's a lot of new vocab specific to Chile that will take a while to pick up.  But everybody is patient and helpful.  I haven't run into any real problems understanding or making myself understood.  In fact, I talked to some Chileans at a bar and ended up singing Journey with them, which is all the communication Maddie Boots needs!  I'm really looking forward to getting to my host family next week, partly because I know that's what will help my Spanish most. And just because I can't wait to meet them! 

Orientation

Ok!  Finally some time to report everything that's been going on.  All the volunteers in the program are staying in a hostel in central Santiago, where they serve us breakfast (usually just bread, jam, and juice or coffee) and dinner (different every day! and tasty so far) every day.  We walk to orientation, which is about 25 minutes away, in the busier part of downtown.  It's a really nice walk along the main avenue (Bernardo O'Higgins, or La Alameda) right past the presidential/government palace, La Moneda.  Orientation classes are in an institute building on a quiet little cobblestone street where the Socialist party headquarters are located. And we actually learned today that the building right next to ours was once used as a secret torture facility during Pinochet's regime.  Intrigue!  

There are about 55 volunteers total, most from the U.S. but a good handful from other places!  Most have graduated within the last few years, but a few are older.  It's a really cool group!  We have orientation every day from 9-5, with a nice break for lunch (the program gave us meal tickets that are accepted at most restaurants near the orientation building).  Yesterday we learned about what goes into planning a lesson and saw/critiqued examples of different classes, which was all very new to me. Then today we split into groups and each got a special lesson from one of the program staffers teaching us a foreign language that they speak (entirely in that language), so that we would understand what the students feel like when they are in our classes.  My group was in Afrikaans, and it was a really cool exercise but I could tell that it would be very frustrating if I really were a student.  Then we had to make our own lesson plans on assigned topics (in groups of 3) and give that lesson to the rest of the group, for feedback.  It was a verrrrry eye-opening day, in a good way.  A lot of us (myself included) hadn't realized how little English we can expect our students to understand.  Our biggest challenges are going to be keeping it simple and intelligible yet still energetic and exciting.  But my group felt really good about our lesson, I enjoyed it a lot!  Very excited to get into my classroom next week and get started : ) 

So tomorrow morning we will all be finding out about our travel arrangements, how we will be getting to our regional locations this weekend.  I already know that I will be taking a decently long bus ride (10-12 hours, depending on where they send us first), but just don't know when I'm leaving on Saturday (or Sunday, possibly).  Since I didn't get here until very late Sunday night, I haven't had a free day in Santiago yet.  I'm hoping that I won't be leaving until later Saturday at least, so that I can see more of the city that I haven't been able to get to yet!  

Day One

I finally made it!  It was a long and trying voyage, but I finally arrived at the hostel here a little after 11pm last night.  I would have loved to see the Andes and Santiago from the plane but it was too dark.  So I was drinking it all up this morning on the walk to orientation!  I've never been to South America and didn't really know what to expect, but I really love it so far.  It's very different from any place I've been!  I am still trying to get myself organized and set up with a phone and everything I need and so forth, and as a result I haven't been taking any pictures yet.  But I plan to tomorrow!

There are a lot more people in the program than I expected!  Fifty or so.  I assumed most of them would speak a little Spanish at least, but that doesn't seem to be the case.  It's an interesting mix of people, though! We have three days of training this week, then Friday they give us our travel info for the weekend (going to our regions) and have a little cocktail party for us.  Hoping to see as much of Santiago as I can before then!

Where I'll Be

Imagine my surprise when I woke up yesterday morning to an email with my placement information!  I wasn't expecting to know the details until I got to Santiago.  Lucky for me, my assignment sounds fantastic:

Town- Angol, Chile
in the northernmost part of the Araucania region, 2.5 hrs from the regional capital, Temuco, and 3 hrs south of Concepcion.  That means 10 and a 1/2 hours of scenic views on my bus ride from Santiago. The town is only about 49,000 people but it looks very pretty (stradling the Vergara River).  Can't wait to see it!  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angol)

Plaza de Armas in Angol (from somos9.cl)

School- http://www.colegiosanfrancisco.cl/
judging by their fancy website, twitter, and YouTube channel, this Catholic school has really got it together.  Apparently it's about 1,440 kids pre-K-12, and I'll be co-teaching with the high school English teacher.  We've already exchanged emails and I think I'll enjoy working with her a lot!  It looks like everyone wears uniforms here, including white smock-coats for the teachers, so all my worrying about professional attire may have been in vain...

(from their facebook page)

Host family- Yeny & Wladimir and their two kids
woohoo! host siblings!  I'm very excited to meet them all; we've already been in contact (and become facebook friends) and they seem extremely sweet.  Their house is in a neighborhood on the edge of town, about half an hour's walk from school (which is in the center of town).  But my host-brother and -sister go to the same school so we'll all be making the trip together. I picked out a gift for them today--hope they like Jenga!

So yeah, I'm pretty excited... Finally packed yesterday, and I've got today and tomorrow to make sure everything is in order before we head up to Chicago for my red eye flight Saturday night.  In the meantime trying to see as much of my family as possible! 

T minus 8 days!

After a quick trip to the Chilean consulate in Chicago, I finally have my visa in hand (and my passport back--whew!).  This week I also learned my placement region; I will be heading to Araucania! Araucania (there should be an accent on the i, but my keyboard doesn't cooperate like that) is in southern Chile, so I will have to take a 13-hr bus ride from Santiago to get there.  It has the largest concentration of Mapuche people, the indigenous people of southern Chile & Argentina, of any region in Chile, and it is also the poorest region.  Much of Araucania is agricultural but the capital city, Temuco, is the 4th largest city in Chile.  [Disclaimer: these are the facts I keep citing but I got them all from wikipedia -- better research to come!].  

I may have already mentioned that I initially requested to be placed in a mid-sized city in the central region.  Needless to say, this placement will potentially be very opposite.  I won't know my exact placement (town, host family, school) until my first week in Santiago, but I do already know of 3 other EODP volunteers in my region, and we can't all be in Temuco!  So I'm keeping my mind open to the possibility of a rural setting.  Maybe even a Mapuche school, that would be fascinating!  The anthropologist in me knows that I'll love it wherever I am.  

While I was in Chicago I was able to meet 3 other volunteers.  It'll be so nice already knowing some people when we all get to Santiago!  I'm getting very excited.  Next week will be spent frantically rounding up everything I want to pack (and inevitably having to leave some of it behind) and making sure I see all my family and friends before I go!  

P.S. in an effort to spice up this blog visually, I'm using a photo  from Araucania I found online--to be replaced once I have some photos of my own!