Fiestas de Patria
Fiestas de Patria, the Chilean Independence Day festivities, basically consist of a full week of festivals, parades, and parties, which were fun, but very tiring. Tracy and I went to one of many military parades over the weekend, where Michelle Bachelet, the president of Chile, led all of the armed forces in a march around Parque Bernardo O’Higgins:
Everyone gets very into Patria; municipal schools and public universities are closed for the week, asados (barbeques) are on every corner (barbequed pork is the “official” food of Patria), kids and families dress up in traditional costume. Mercedes loves Patria, and we went to a fonda (fair) to watch the National Cueca Competition:
It surprises me that people who went through such horrible things at the hands of their country are still so patriotic. Mercedes proudly displays the Chilean flag on her balcony; it is the largest present in the apartment complex.
Sickness and Homesickness
I’ve been feeling kind of sick lately, which has put a damper on things. I’m exhausted most of the time, which is problematic when I want to go out at night and explore the city, but all I can do is sleep! Plus, a lot of things are going on at home and at Hampshire that I wish I could be there for—as in, protesting the prospect of Hampshire College turning into “Hampshire University” straying away from liberal arts education, as well as just really missing my friends and family a lot. Skype is great, but it’s hard to not be able to give people hugs through the computer. Don’t get me wrong, though—I’m having a great time here.
Valparaiso
Valparaiso is, without a doubt, the most colorful city I’ve ever seen. Murals adorn every wall, and the colors are reflected in the ocean and beautiful beaches. The people even wear more color than they do in Santiago!
(Alex surrounded by murals)
Our group visited two schools in the Valparaiso area—both municipal schools. The first we saw was an all-female technical school, Liceo Tecnica Feminina, where students complete a general track the first two years, and select one of five foci the last two: childcare, senior citizen care, design (like graphic design, but most of the time computers aren’t used), textiles (essentially sewing), and cooking. (Childcare and cooking are the most popular.) Of the 1,100 students in the school, 100 are mothers and 60 are currently pregnant. We spent a lot of time talking to students in the childcare program (four of the twenty-five or so students in the room were mothers, one seventeen-year-old had two children already) and discussed post-graduation goals, life in Valparaiso, and got many suggestions on what kind of food we should eat while there. I spoke in detail with four students, Tamara, Alexandra, Isabel, and Anjelica, who all said that they were happy to attend Liceo Tecninca Feminina, although some mentioned disappointment that the school wouldn’t prepare them for university (the school does not offer the standardized testing necessary for university acceptance, nor does the curriculum cover all of the material required, due to technical programs.) Tamara and Alexandra both wanted to be preschool teachers, and Isabel and Anjelica were interested in careers in education, as well. They had each spent a week working in a special school for children with autism, and had enjoyed that—Anjelica wanted to work there for awhile after she graduated in December.
The second school we saw was a municipal elementary school in a rural town an hour outside of the city. What surprised me the most was the contrast between this school and the rural schools I had seen in Nicaragua. I guess I had a preconceived notion of what education in rural farming communities was—but this school was actually very “modern.” They had an abundance of materials, innovative special education integration programs, school gardens, and small class sizes (16 students in a class with one professor, although the levels were mixed (first and second grade in the same classroom, third, forth, and fifth, etc.)) Even though we went to the school on a Saturday, three students and one alum (who was now in high school) came to talk to us, and all were very happy with the school. The principal was very welcoming, and took us on a tour of the school’s five classrooms, explaining along the way different types of intelligence, how the school has no violence, and how every graduated student is bussed, for free, to the closest high school a few towns over.
High Holy Days in Santiago
On the morning of the parade in Parque O’Higgins, Tracy and I went to Rosh Hashannah Services at Comunidad Isrealista Sefardi de Chile, a conservative Sephardic synagogue in a Santiago suburb. When we arrived at the gate, a security guard started talking to us, and we explained that we were exchange students who wanted to attend services for Rosh Hashannah. He then began to interrogate us: When did you get here? How long are you staying? Where are you from? What is your home synagogue? What movement? etc. We handed over drivers’ licenses, student ids, and cell phones (so they could confirm Tracy’s homestay.) Two women, who breezed through security with tickets, apparently complained to the president of the congregation that there were two gringas outside who weren’t being let in, and she came outside to chat with us. She was really kind about the whole ordeal—she explained, slowly enough for us to understand, that this was just a security precaution and she didn’t want us to feel unwelcome. As they were scanning our IDs, we talked for a bit about what we were doing in Chile, our home synagogues, and the fact that she was the first female president of the synagogue, where women still can’t read from the Torah. All in all, this ordeal took about forty-five minutes, but it was worth it—the president then walked us into the synagogue, helped us find seats, and invited us back for Yom Kippur.
Getting into the synagogue for Yom Kippur was much easier—they remembered us, and let us and our two other friends breeze through security. The Kol Nidre service was beautiful and incredibly moving. The rabbi began by asking us to put our arms around the people next to us, and there was something really special about having one arm around Susannah, a college student from the US, and the other arm around a random middle-aged Chilean woman, while the rabbi sang the blessing over the talit. The music was incredible—there were no instruments involved, just voice—and the rabbi and three cantors sang everything in a four-part harmony (with help from a choir during Kol Nidre.) I don’t consider myself to be a very religious person, but it was very comforting to be sitting five thousand miles away from home, singing songs I’ve grown up singing, in a language that isn’t English or Spanish, even if I don’t believe in all of the words.
Those are pretty much the big things that have been going on here. Tonight, Mercedes and I made strawberry jam and are going to begin a new puzzle of Pablo Neruda’s house in Valparaiso (I didn’t write about that before, but we went to La Sebastiana, and it was beautiful—by far my favorite of Neruda’s houses!) We have a lot of adventures planned for next week, which I’ll write about as they come along. It’s hard to believe that our time in Santiago is almost up—we spend most of October traveling, and then I’ll be spending most of November in a rural community in Southern Chile. Then December will roll around and I’ll be coming home. Time is going so quickly, and so slowly at the same time!
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