Loose ends.

I HAVE 8 HOURS LEFT IN CONCEPCIÓN. This is really bittersweet. I wasn't ready to leave two weeks ago...now I am. I'm really excited to be home for Christmas, my 9.5 days at home are almost completely full with plans to get together with friends and family, and I can't wait to see everyone at Middlebury...but I don't want to leave. Especially today, I've been trying to notice everything, trying to do everything I have or haven't done this semester...and of course, I made sure to absorb as much Vitamin D as possible before my journey to the tundra. Ooh, talk about shock.


The other day I decided to reflect a little about my experience here. I've been forced to "reflect" all semester, as the Midd program requires us to write in a journal (which is then corrected for grammar, ha). I've enjoyed that. So I decided to write a more thoughtful blog entry than usual, not just detailing the events of my life in Chile.


One thing I've noticed, and which I may have referenced before, is that I feel so CONSERVATIVE here, from a political standpoint (although I don't consider myself particularly conservative when I'm in the US). Before arriving, I had heard that people from other countries say that the two political parties in the US are right-wing and more-right-wing...and I understand why. The first round of the Chilean presidential elections was last Sunday, and one of the candidates was from the Communist Party. I had a conversation specifically about this with some students in my rural sociology class, and found myself trying to explain US politics (of which I know VERY little) and ideology (individual liberty/freedom is the most important/valued thing...maybe?), and when we got on the topic of communism, I realized that usually the US viewpoint of communism associates it with dictatorships, at least in what I've seen, which is much more negative than the Chilean viewpoint, which just sees communism as another form of government, in which the government has more control over social decision-making. It doesn't sound so scary when there's not a dictator involved (at least not to the Chileans...). Anyway. Another application-- In my internship at the Consultorio (public health clinic), I got to understand the public health system in Chile pretty well. This was really interesting for me, as there isn't the divide between "public" and "private" in healthcare in the US. One thing I noticed is that there is a lot of talk about rights in the public system. Those are important. Especially after a military dictatorship. One conversation that I had with a nurse, though, really got to me. We were talking about the day-after pill. Specifically, I was asking if it was sold (legally) in Chile (abortion is illegal here). He explained that it is sold legally, but that it isn't accessible to everyone, because although anyone can get a prescription from their doctor (public or private), the pill can only be obtained at an external pharmacy, where it needs to be bought. Users of the public health system can't get it at the pharmacies in the consultorios--they need to go elsewhere and purchase it. From this nurse's point of view, this setup basically shows that poor people don't have the right to the day-after pill, but that people with money do. What?!? (that was my reaction.) I guess it makes sense, ish. It depends how you look at the situation. As I see it, any user of the public healthcare system can go in to get prescriptions for birth control and condoms...and can get them at the consultorio's pharmacy. Therefore, why is it necessary to also be able to access the day-after pill? People should be personally responsible, right? They had the option of prevention...if they didn't use it, why should the government be bound by the people's "rights" to provide a backup? Of course, there are complications of this situation as well, like when people are raped, or the birth control method malfunctions, but in general, I just thought his viewpoint was strange, as he declared that people's rights were being violated through this setup. Trying to see it from his standpoint, it makes sense. If the pill is seen as a medical necessity, the patients who can't pay are going to lack a medical necessity, to which they are entitled. We differ on the point of necessity.


Another part of my LONG conversation with classmates last week involved talking about the healthcare setup in the US. This was interesting. A couple of people mentioned how they had heard that US citizens needed to go to Cuba to get medical attention when they had medical issues because of the effects of 9/11 (ex: NYC residents whose lungs had been affected by debris in the air)(note: I could not confirm or disaffirm the validity of this, as I had NEVER heard this beforehand...). Others mentioned Obama, as a figure of healthcare reform. After they completely bashed the system in the US, I asked them what they thought of the Chilean system. They said it was "a joke". A lot of people use the private system when they're young, working, and relatively healthy. Therefore, the healthcare taxes that they pay (7%) go to the private sector. Then, when they're old, not making money, and have more health problems, the private system is too expensive, so they switch to the public system, which they may have never paid into. This creates an issue where the public system is burdened with caring for these people, on top of the other users of the system,whose 7% is probably smaller than the 7% that the private-system patients pay, because the public-private divide is marked by socioeconomic standing, in most cases. This all doesn't have much of an impact on my ideas about health reform in the US, because what's being proposed, to my knowledge, is not a dual system of attention like the setup in Chile, but it just seemed funny to me that all of these sociology students want their government to control more of their resources when they think that they're not used efficiently...

Also, it's been fun here seeing how people view the US. Some, like a few sociology classmates, get all heated about the US's involvement in Chilean politics, especially in the pre-dictatorship period and in the education that the University of Chicago gave to a bunch of young Chilean economists, who then, armed with the ideas of Milton Freidman, helped to turn Chile into a very neoliberal place. Others, who are more idealistic about the US, have asked me if there is poverty there, if there are crimes, etc. When I explain the college application process, people tell me, "Oh, just like in Legally Blonde!" (and some think we don't need to pay for said college. oh my, are they wrong there). They see the American humor of Homer Simpson and the fairytale endings and massive homes of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. I'm obviously generalizing here, and it's been better getting to know people on a personal level than note the stereotypical ways that Chileans think about the US. It's easier to talk about stereotypes, though. Also, although a lot of people don't like the way the US works (capitalism, international intervention, etc), they recognize that it offers them opportunities, particularly for higher education. I have met so many students here who are planning or hoping to study for a doctorate in the US...the Chilean government helps with scholarships to some.

One thing that people need to go get those doctorates, though, is that they need to speak, write, read, and understand English. I've been meeting up with a professor all semester to just converse in English so she can practice--she's got one of those scholarships, and wants to be able to use it! In working with her, seeing how the English teaching in schools can be badly orchestrated, and talking to people about how they want to learn English, I've come to the resolution that maybe I'll come back to teach English. Having a native English-speaking teacher is quite rare here, but can make a big difference in learning the language. I don't know how to teach English, but that could be remedied, right?

Anyway, enough reflecting and rambling. Sorry about that. Now I need to go, to finish my final essay for Juan, and sleep!

Love and excitement,
Tiernan

Blueberries in December

On Thursday, my rural sociology class went on a field trip. We spent the day in Negrete, a small town about two hours from Conce. We visited their association of canal members and a blueberry-kiwi-raspberry farm (we ate LOTS of berries, and got to see the area where they pack the blueberries to be exported). The day was topped off by a big lunch of roast meat, boiled potatoes, tomatoes, onions, and bread. Chilean hospitality at its best. Some of the students finished up the day with a party in the back of the bus on the way home, finishing up the wine and beer from our large lunch.

At the farm, I had my first notably embarrassing moment in Chile. I've said and done other thoughtless/stupid things while I've been here, but this was the most remarkable. We were discussing kiwis, and our guide was telling us that all of the really good, large fruit is exported, so the kiwis in Chilean grocery stores are, comparatively small. He asked me where I was from, and if I had noticed how much smaller the kiwis in Chile are. I really haven't noticed this (I've eaten some quite massive kiwis here, witnessed in an earlier post), but I didn't want to completely say he was wrong, so I started explaining, "Well, by now I've eaten a lot of Chileans..." Obviously, "Chileans" referred to kiwis, but seeing as the term "to eat" is sexually connotative in Chile, and I omitted the name of the fruit, I got the entire class laughing. Whoops. In times like this, it's good to be a foreigner...

Love and fresh fruit,

Tiernan

The North!

I just got home (to Conce) after a week of traveling around northern Chile with Amy. It was a good week--we got to see a lot of different types of places and have some adventures. To describe the week, I present photographic evidence of our travels, as well as some travel tips:

Travel tip #1: Don't forget your towel. Some hostels have them, some hostels rent them, sometimes you want to go to the beach...life's just easier with a towel. Amy forgot hers, so we tried to buy one in the grocery store in Santiago, the first stop on our journey. As it was just a normal-sized supermarket, her best option was a double-absorbent floor cleaning cloth, about 1 x 1.5 ft. She bought it. It did the job.

Travel tip #2: If traveling by air within Chile, wear whatever shoes you like...you don't need to take them off to go through security!

Travel tip #3: If leaving from the Santiago airport during this travel, buy a piece of pie de limon (lemon pie) before getting on board. It is quite the treat for a plane flight...

Travel tip #4: Don't spend the night in Calama. If you're in Chile and want to go to San Pedro de Atacama, the #2 (?) tourist destination in Chile, you can get on a 24-hour bus ride or a 2-hour flight from Santiago. Amy and I chose flight (with pie), which meant we arrived in Calama, the nearest city to San Pedro, late at night, after all the buses to San Pedro had left. We stayed at a hostel in Calama. Eww. We covered ourselves head-to-toe with clothing before climbing into our previously-slept-in beds (evidenced by hair from other sleepers). We slept quickly, and were up and out of there on the first bus to San Pedro...

Travel tip #5: Go sandboarding. It's fun, and not that hard. Climbing the dunes was the most tiring part, but once you're at the top, you get to sit on top of a sand dune!

Travel tip #6: Go to the Valle de la Luna and the Valle de la Muerte (Valley of the Moon and Valley of Death). Without the crowds, if possible.

Travel tip #7: If experiencing signs of altitude sickness, lay down for awhile with your feet higher than your head. This may be useful if you go to see the geysers El Tatio, a geyser field that's a two-hour-ish bus ride from San Pedro (which leaves at 4:30 AM). If you're lucky, your tour guide might feed you cookies and chocolate for breakfast (like ours), or eggs hard-boiled in the geysers.

Travel tip #8: If you get a chance to try llama meat, go for it. We ate llama meat ke-babs in this teensy village called Machuca on the way back from the geysers. it was a pretty strange place, an old town that has basically been preserved purely for tourists' visits. Between five and six people live there now, one of whom sells llama meat to the tourists. Ironically, the entire village is alongside a llama pasture... Travel tip #9: The Termas de Puritama (thermal baths) are lovely. Travel tip #10: GO SEE THE STARS. If you're in San Pedro, you should definitely sign up for a star tour. Amy and I did--it met up in the town and bussed us to a badly-lit location (with the goal of escaping light pollution). Our "tour guide" was a French astronomer who now lives in San Pedro and gives star tours (www.spaceobs.com). He explained the basic astronomy we should understand before beginning (ie. the Earth is round, the Sun is the center of our solar system), and then showed us the Southern hemisphere's constellations with his laser pointer. He told us how he thought many people were probably on drugs when they defined some of the more absurd constellations, and he made us feel really small by explaining the size of the Earth in comparison to the Sun and other stars-galaxies-etc. He taught us how to take a date stargazing. Haha. There was a set of large telescopes that he and his assistant focused on specific things, so that we could see some star clusters, emerging galaxies, the rising moon... and in the end, we were all herded inside for some hot chocolate. Success. It was interesting, entertaining, and beautiful. The stars were so clear and plentiful-- they actually twinkled!

Travel tip #11: Grado 10. If in San Pedro, this tour company is good. We went to the salt flats (where there are flamingoes! they can exist in the middle of a salt desert because there are pools of water in which grows a certain type of algae, which feeds a certain type of plankton (sea monkeys!), which feeds flamingoes) and the Altiplano Lakes with them. The guide was interesting, the bus was comfy, and the lunch they prepared was delicious!

Travel tip #12: Don't arrive at your destination at 7 AM on a Sunday. In Chile on Sundays, everything is closed. We hadn't thought about that before our arrival in Caldera. Oops. Since we were only going to spend a day there (on the beach, in Bahía Inglesa), we didn't have a hostel to crash in or anything...so we took a taxi to the beach. Some nice hotel receptionists let us store our backpacks in their hotel for the day, and we ate breakfast in a strange dome-shaped restaurant...

Travel tip #13: Wear your sunscreen, even when it's cloudy. The sun was hidden for most of our day at the beach. We went for a walk along the shore, napped on the sand, ate lunch, rented a kayak, and (finally) sunned at the end of the day. However, against Amy's wise warning, I didn't apply my sunblock. And I got burned. My skin is currently peeling to teach me my lesson...

Travel tip #14: Talk to the locals. When we arrived in La Serena, we walked around the city for awhile (which we liked--it's pretty, with lots of palm trees and colonial arquitecture), and then we headed to Coquimbo, because we had heard there was a nice beach there. A woman in the grocery store bathroom, however, pointed us to a better beach, where we headed after browsing the port area.

Travel tip #15: Tours to the Valle de Elqui are fun. The Valle de Elqui is a fertile valley between La Serena and the Andes. It's an area of a lot of contrast, because the valley is completely green, aided by the Elqui River, but the surrounding mountains are desert-like. We went on a tour to explore the area, and we saw lots of plants (for papaya, avocadoes, grapes, etc), a pisco factory, and some small towns. We ate at a restaurant where all the food is cooked in solar ovens!

Travel tip #16: Don't expect foreign movie theaters (Chilean ones, at least) to offer a wide selection of good films. Before our night bus out of La Serena, we had a good six hours to kill, so we decided to see a movie. Our options included Terror in the Antarctic, 2012, New Moon, and The Princess and the Frog. Guess what we saw? The newest hand-animated Disney feature. Dubbed in Spanish. It was kind of fun.

Travel tip #17: If spending a day in Santiago without a hostel, you can leave your bags in the Middlebury in Chile office (if a Midd student), or in the baggage custody area in the Alameda bus terminal. What a back-saver...

Travel tip #18: Watch out for false advertising. Amy and I had read about a restaurant that served American-style pancakes, no the skinny crepe-like kind the Chileans usually offer. Since Amy still has two months in Chile, we decided to search for the restaurant. We found it, and we were even more excited to see they had maple syrup on the menu! And real coffee! With anticipation, we took our first bites, and instantly realized something was wrong. They had lied about the maple syrup. It was something else. Don't go lying to Vermonters (and pseudo-Vermonters) about your syrup...

Travel tip #19: Cerro San Cristobal in Santiago is a great place to go to see a panoramic view of the city, but you may wish to buy funicular tickets for going up AND down. Amy and I decided we'd ride up and hike down...How hard is it to walk down a hill? After reaching the top, and seeing our fill of smoggy Santiago, we realized there isn't really a direct way down. There is a road that winds around the hill, but it takes a long time to walk (we were pressed for time to make our busses), so when we saw a path cutting through the woods, we took it. We ended up muddy and on the other side of the hill when we finally reached the bottom. Ha. It was fun to be "lost in the woods" in the middle of a huge city...

Travel tip #20: Go with a friend.

Now I've got to go! Field trip to the countryside tomorrow. Only 12 days left in Chile. What?!

Love and aventures,

Tiernan

Just realized it's DECEMBER!

Ridiculous. I got the Middlebury CF Christmas party invitation yesterday. It was red and green, and mentioned mangers and cookies...I experienced some type of culture shock. Spring does not feel like Christmastime, and I haven't eaten a homemade cookie in four months! Guess I'll just keep enjoying the spring, and feel reallly confused upon my plane's landing in Milwaukee...

Procrastination and preparation.

Our bus tickets have been bought. Our hostels are reserved. My clothing, shoes, and a week's supply of apples are waiting to be packed. Two essays are waiting to be finished. I am finding it incredibly hard to concentrate on schoolwork, due to (1) excitement and (2) a seemily decreased capacity to do schoolwork, thanks to my LONG break from Middlebury. So I'm writing a blog entry instead. Short story:

Two days ago, I went to the grocery store. As I was watching my items be scanned by the cashier, the man in line behind me said hi. Which never happens. I responded similarly, and he proceeded to tell me that my hair is really blonde. Hahahahaha....

Experiences like this (and crossing the street--vehicles are much more likely to stop) make being blonde in Chile really fun.

Back to work.

Love and essays,
Tiernan