update dump: moneda, deserts, coasts, whims, geysers, semi-camas, nieve, etc.

I'm pretty bad at updating. Just wanted to get that out there. But.. it has been a while since I've written about what I've been up to, so here we go! weeeeeee.

La Moneda: EAP had the tutores (Chilean students from our respective universities) take us to La Moneda, which is like the Chilean Government Building where Presidenta Michelle Bachalet works and all that. It was interesting to see the exact location of the golpe militar happened. What is that you say? In septiembre of 1973, the Popular Party got overthrown by a military coup led by Pinochet. La Moneda was bombed, Allende (the Populist president- 1st president with communist ideology ever elected) committed suicide, and there was pretty much a battle between the right and the left. History is fascinating...Unfortunately it was only a short 20 minute tour. I learned things for sure. I'm also segura that I was one of the very few that was actually excited about going and learning about the history. It also surprised me that La Moneda was so open to the public.

lugar donde se murió Allende

map gigante de Chile

mi grupo con el tutor, Luis

museo abajo de la moneda

We finished up our Intensive Language Program class on the 18th of July. After presentations of our mini-trips, we had a little fiesta consisting of café, té, sandwiches and good company. During the last week of class people started getting in little groups to travel together. I threw myself in a group going to Northern Chile (go naturaleza!) after deciding to not go to another city city (Buenos Aires)- I will go there someday though. We left to the aeropuerto at beauitful 5 am, and left for Iquique via avión (plane) at 8ish. Amazing thing: security, waiting and all, took less than 5 minutes. How I miss those days.

prof. lesmer y yo en el último día de clase

Coming up next: 19 de Julio hasta 27 de Julio- Vacaciones después ILP- El Norte de Chile
Then: El Colorado: nieve en julio

cucaracha, viña, y fútbol.

Finally. the day that I've been waiting for arrived today. FUTBOL. I finally got to play fútbol with chilenos! Yes, I finally exercised after a few months, but more importantly, i participated in one of the most beloved things in Chile... or Latin America for that matter. Thank God!! It's been a relief to finally be able to run around, I was feeling a bit cooped up these past few weeks. Me and another friend, Christine, were the only girls playing, but they guys were really good about passing to us. Very unlike the U.S. har har. The guys were from the church that we've been going to the past 2 Sundays. Muy amables. Hmmm. What else... Today we also went to a winery called Concha y Toro, located just a tiny bit afuera (outside) of Santiago. It was a beautiful place with a nice little tour and wine tasting. We got free wine glasses as a regalo. How nice. On another note, ILP is starting to wind down as this is the last week of classes.

Part of the ILProgram involved having to go on a viaje (trip) to some place outside of Santiago. We so happened to chose the worst day to go... it was raining like mad. (Once again, thank you Steven Wang for the Gortex jacket). It was quite an adventure I must say. We woke up uber early (like 6 in the morning) took the metro to the bus terminal. I experienced my first creepster, heebee, etc. I made the mistake of saying good morning to this elderly man. He ended up sitting next me and staring at me the entire 35 minutes of the metro ride. Thank the Lord he didn't follow me off. After the creepy ride, I approached my group at the boletería (ticketbooth) and meet our 16-year old Chilean guide named Axel. Yes. Named after Axel Rose. He was a cousin of the host brother of Becky, one of the EAPers. Buena Onda. We rode the bus for 1.5 hours and stopped in Cartegena only to find the streets empty, stores closed, and rain pounding. We still got off. Our first priority was to figure out how to get back to Santiago. We walked quickly, but got soaked even quicker. There were several times where we had to run under a roofed patio type of thing and chill with the perros callejeros( street dogs) for a bit. One followed us for a while. Cute patchy pup. We quickly took pictures of the miserable place, saw mendigos (beggers/homeless guys), got soaked some more, and finally found an open restaurante. Shabby, but at least it protected us from the rain. We had some nice encounters with cucarachas on the table, walls, and even one in Becky's food. Yum. Not wanting to know if we had "suprises" in our food, we chowed down quickly. We interviewed the waitress (part of the project), and booked it to find a collectivo, which is sort of a taxi but it has a route and you pay less. We flagged one down, but we had 5 people and there was only the 3 person backseat unoccupied. We quickly decided to just stuff people in. Mind you, our group consisted of some pretty tall and big people. ranging from 6ft something to 5'7". I was for sure the smallest person in the group. We played "stuff the sopping wet EAP children in the cab". Becky, Axel, and Kelley first stuffed themselves in. I awkwardly sat on Becky's lap, my neck crooked. Richard dove in head first. His feet were bent at a 90 degree angle, resting on Kelley's lap while his head was bobbing with effort not to rest his face on someone's lap. It had been a while since I laughed so hard in such an awkward position. We arrived in San Antonio 15 minute later, in front of a fish market. It was still raining, except now there were people on the street. San Antonio was much bigger of a city. We did interviews, ran into a shop (bought a DRY jacket), bought an umbrella (paragua) from a street vender, found ourselves a taxi that would take us to Pomaire. Luckily we didn't have to stuff 5 people in the back. But unluckily, I had to be the 4th person in the back.. meaning laying across people's laps.. for 45 minutes. I was pretty happy when I got out of the cab. It was sucky, but it was cheap and we had no other option. The pueblito of ceramics and crafts, Pomaire, was our destination. I'll let the pictures do the talking. It was a cute place for sure.

So. I'm tired of writing so I hope yalls can figure out what I've been up to via pictures. If not, ask me something and I'll answer it. =)

Upon arriving in Cartegena

perrito!

colorful!

the only restaurant open

our friend. whose friend got eaten by my friend.
empanda... one with a buggy bug inside.
"instacoffee"
San Antonio fishmarket
pescado
POMAIREfamous for their black clay ceramic stuff.
pigs= goodluck
nativity scene
windchimes!

more piggysmassive massive empanada

on the way back.

CONCHA Y TORO

Que lindo no?

"diablo"

grace and graciella (that's me)

FÚTBOL!!!
Ah. The beauty of playing in a semi-indoor hardfloored gym belonging to a church, in jeans and unbroken in wanna-be-converse, with a thick layer of fog and "esmog" mingling together in the air as sweaty jugadores fight for the ball, Chilean men, young and semi-older busting out their terrific street-baller foot moves, exaggerated and not so exaggerated injuries, super animated reactions, rushing the striker, sporting the latin-american jerseys, speaking the futbol language that I have not yet deciphered.
Seriously made me so happy.

Manzanilla Té and other things

Nearly everyday I have a cup or 2 of manzanilla tea (at times, other types). Tea is good. Ana Maria drinks tea all the time, so I've picked up this daily custom of hers. On another note, I think I'm becoming more used to Santiago in general. What does that mean? I mean developing some sort of habit or being accustomed to everything. From taking the metro and/ or bus, to being surrounded by castellano (people don't like to call it español here for some reason), to eating salad with every single dinner (good stuff), to stopping by the panadería to get fresh hot bread on my way back home. It's a good feeling to feel like you're not completely a tourist. Speaking of tourist, when you bust out a camera, you are officially a tourist. Today on the metro, since our group was already being blatantly loud and speaking english, I decided to bust out my camera. While doing so, some penguinos (secondary school kids) started giggling. So I looked over and said, Sabemos que somos gringos. Muy obvio yah. And they giggled their way off the metro. I've become less self-conscious about being a gringa. Good sign I suppose.

A lot has been going on; classes, signing up for stuff, registering for stuff, getting our student transportation card, going out, blah blah. Emotionally its also been a fun little rollercoaster. I've had ridiculous waves of fear and peace. But thank God that He's been teaching me to just chill in Him. "Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass. He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, And your justice as the noonday." (Psalm 37:5-6). It's hard a lot of the times to really internalize this promise, but that's here faith comes in. You just have to know. Cause its true and its been evident throughout your life. But yet, we always want another piece of reinforcing evidence to prove that God is really faithful. Stupid us.

Anyways, a quick summary:
-On Friday night some of us went to La Tavarena (located in Plaza Ñuñoa), an Italian restaurant--which was ok--, to celebrate America's Independence Day. Afterwards we went on a fatty long adventure in trying to find "Basic" bar, where many of our fellow EAPers were partying it up in celebration of I-Day. Didn't go in because 1) you had to pay a 4 buck entrance fee which I refused to do because: 2) smoky 3) lots of people packed in the little place 4) lots of craziness and debauchery. So la otra Grace, Ricardo, and I went on another fatty trek looking for a café to rest our weary feet. Failed. So we ended up in the same place we had eaten dinner, which was hecka far considering we took a bus to get to Basic. The air was freezing and super esmogy, so we took a taxi back to my house where we chilled. Ya.

- Saturday I woke up at beautiful 12pm and took my time getting ready. I went to my friend Garret's práctica (internship) to check it out: a hogar (house) for kids/people in general with disabilities. It was really an indescribable experience; both painful in a way, and beautiful in another. 2 of Garret's friends from church came along also. After a debrief of the rules and expectations, and a quick prayer, we went through the gates leading us to the center. The hogar was located in a barrio in La Reina (I think). The neighborhood was a huge contrast to Providencia, where I'm staying at the moment. It seemed a little more like what many would imagine border Mexico to look like. Not exactly, but something like that. There, Camilla, a 12 year old, met us at the door. She immediately grabbed our hands and lead us on a tour of the hogar. I don't know if I could really say much about the place, but it was cute in a way, but so serious in another. The bright colorfully painted walls, the life-sized images of Disney characters, the green garden in the middle, the drawings created by children, severely contrasted the images of kids with stunted limbs, bed-stricken, pallid faces, cries of pain, and crooked huesos. I was overcome by a mingling feeling of sadness, joy, hope, compassion, empathy, and even a bit of horror at how kids here had to live each day with so much of a burden, but yet justifiably, a gift. These kids are beautiful. They express their joy in whatever way the can. Joy, something they can have and express so fully.

I had to leave early because I met up with Vale, a former exchange student that was in my TA at Northwood Highschool. She had a lot of good advice for me since she had experienced living in a foreign place, learning a foreign language. She showed me around the ferira, el cerro Santa Lucia, and Barrio Lastarria where we had "once" (sort of like Chilean tea-time) at a uberly cute café. After that I went to Garret's asado (BBQ) at his house. It was a mix of Chilenos and gringos. Twas a good time of singing, eating, waiting, etc. Met some really cool people.

Sunday, church started at 5pm. Thats right. 5 pm. It was held in a room rented by a bigger church. The church was called Luz al Mundo. With a congregation of about 50 or so people, families, kids, college kids, etc, and a German Spanish-speaking pastor, Luz al Mundo, I must say, is one warm and passionate bunch. I really felt refreshed there. Afterwards we met Marcos (a Jack Black look-alike) and Arturo. We (Grace, me, Andrew, and Christine) went to eat at a "picada"(a good, cheap local restaurant). There we had cheese and shrimp empandas, and churiana (fries topped with chorizo, beef, eggs, and onion), something resembling Roberto's carne asada fries, but not quite there. Good stuff.

Today we had our cultural monitor, Luis, take us out to a "museum". Club Hipico. While all the other groups went to museums, we went to a horse racetrack founded in 1870. This self-guided tour was chill. We pretty much walked around and then sat in the stands observing the smoggy, yet picturesque scene. Afterwards we went to Barrio Republica and chilled at a strangely set-up bar where we (they) had wines, beers, (we had) sodas, juice, and more choriana.


Pictures:

Club Hipico

The stands.

Barrio Republica

Touristy us.