abril, ya

It has taken me longer than planned to once again share my most recent news with everyone in my blog world, but here I am. I have so much to say about the last three weeks.. or however much time it´s been since I updated last. My attempt for this entry will be some sort of summarization plus in-depth adventure description. All of this while keeping in mind a suggested method of recounting my life often posed whimsically by one of my dear friends Stacy, ¨paint me a picture with your words.¨ I have a feeling this will turn into a series of entries submitted throughout this week, so as not to oversaturate the minds of my small population of readers as well as overwork my tired eyes.

I am currently enjoying a quiet saturday night seated comfortably at the darkly finished wooden rectangle that is my dining room table. I am staring through the glass paneled sliding door-that divides the balcony from the living room- at a nightscape of my chosen home while listening to Bon Iver. I am exhausted from a week of poor sleep and a long day. With my most recent food purchases such as nutritional yeast (levadura de cerveza en polvo..still confused about that one), polenta, powdered ginger, wholewheat flour, and dry garbanzo beans at my side along with my new Pablo Neruda Antología General and the five dollar spanish-english dictionary I adopted in Buenos Aires, I have set myself up to write.

Today included a thought provoking field trip to Villa Grimaldi in Santiago. Villa Grimaldi is now a memorial at the site of what was first a family vacation home but later transformed into a torture center by the government of Pinochet from 1974-1978. This was actually a mandatory field trip with students from my program led by a survivor that lived through torture there and at one other site (which now makes him physically ill to visit). It began in a classroom with a scale model of the buildings that constituted the detention and torture center at the time (which were later destroyed by the government in an effort to erase all evidence), progressed to the Villa and ended at Cementario General (a large cemetary that holds 5-6,000 people). This was only one of 750 torture sites throughout the country at the time. Our guide explained to us that he had been a student studying law at the University of Chile (my university here) and told us what happened in each building at the torture site. The point was torture to extract information from the detainees, rather than for eventual death. That means the victims were tortured over and over again, but given small increments of recuperation time as well as minute amounts of food so that they were in some sort of zombie state but would be able to survive. For me, the most moving aspect of our day was actually when we arrived at an impressive monument that marks Salvadore Allende´s tomb at the cemetary. We listened to our guide share the history of the golpe de estado (coup d´etat), divulge specific torture methods and even share exremely personal memories of his time as a detainee-all with relatively calm compusure. Once he began talking about Allende´s agenda, working to close the divide between the upper and lower classes, and later death, he choked up. He explained that he came from a middle class family, attended prestigous private schools, understood his responsibilities to consist of only studying and having fun, never worrying about money or going hungry. As he continued explaining the social class divide and Allende´s work and suicide, the tears overtook him. He then took a moment to soak up the small pools filling his eyes with his hands, as three drops wet the stomach of his pink collared polo shirt. We kept walking through the cemetary and he lightened the mood by pointing out a building with coffins that had been badly damaged by the earthquake, now exposing the hip bones of a skeleton for all passersby.

I have to admit to finishing this entry the day after it was started, and in this way can additionally talk about the large black book now sitting on my coffee table titled El Dia Decisivo. Currently I have two Chilean roommates, Fernando and Estibaliz (that may be spelled wrong) and we are searching for a fourth international student to live in our apartment. Anyway, Estiby got home last night and ended up sharing this interesting book of news articles and ads that were printed at the time of the coup. She said it was given to her by her grandmother and went on to explain that her grandparents on both sides of the family had worked for Allende´s government and were endangered at the time. The subject of Pinochet is still so raw here, and that doesn´t surprise me considering how recently it occurred. The military regime retained power until about twenty years ago. What I didn´t realize until I got here was that there are still Pinochet supporters, and that it is such a controversial issue that very little is taught about that part of Chilean history in public schools. That doesn´t mean people are hesitant to talk about it. I guess everyone has their own story, and I like listening.

Well, so much more to say but I actually have homework for once in about five months so I need to get to it! I have been in school for about three weeks now and am enjoying it so far. I have class monday through thursday and each class is two days a week for an hour and a half. Due to strange circumstances, I have classes at two campuses that are both an extremely close walk from my apartment. Most people didn´t get that lucky, I´m still not sure how it happened. Here´s a rundown of my classes:

1. La Imagen de Chile en Gabriela Mistral y Pablo Neruda
-My professor positions our desks in a half circle around her and teaches us the history of Neruda´s life as we make our way through his work. We read and analyze the poems.. well right now it´s mostly her doing the analysis to teach us what we´re looking for. My class consists of five people currently, but may grow with additions from another section. Right now, four of us are exchange students- two of us from the US and two girls from Norway, along with one Chilean girl. Yes, all females. Every thursday we have to present a poem of our own (pr supuesto in Spanish)...I missed the first class and didn´t realize we had to do this, so last week I had to present two! At the end of the semester we´re going to present our work in front of other faculty members and our professor will compile a book of all our poems. Of course, we also have three essays to write throughout the semester.

2. Discurso Artistico y Formas Políticas en Latinoamérica
-The class has some kids from my program as well as other exchange students, plus three Chileans. I guess it´s like art history of Latin America..I think it will get more interesting. The professor is young, dresses in all black, has some tatoos, likes to stroke his small tuft of a beard, often talks in circles, enjoys simply making stroking motions on the screen with his hands in an attempt to explain the images he shows us, and paces back and forth the entire class. Last week he started pacing the length of the classroom instead of the width, which meant he was walking vigorously on this narrow path to my left. I kept noticing he was carefully stepping over my backpack and I was attempting to move it out of his way when he came for another lap towards the back of the room. When he saw me attempting to clear his path he started laughing an unexpectedly hearty laugh...the class remained silent.

3. Politica Latinoamericana
-This is definitely a Latin American politics class. This one will probably be my most challenging in every way. The professor is probably the fastest speaking Chilean I have encountered and rarely slows down. During the second class he actually stumbled on his words and had to start over, I tried not to grin. The class is pretty small, somewhere around twenty people and about evenly divided between Chileans and exchange students. We have a small reader and supplemental readings for each unit. I finally got the reader and fotocopies of the texts for the first unit last week. It doesn´t appear to be too much, but I will probably have to look up every fifth word so it will still be time consuming. The professor keeps the role list to his right and his notes to his left as he lectures from a desk at the front of the classroom. He enjoys interrupting long speeches by choosing a name at random and calling on someone in the class to answer any question that pops in his head. I have so far been called on twice, and somehow managed to respond correctly both times!! So far, my favorite thing about this class has been learning about the Brazilian pact called ¨Cafe con Leche¨..look it up if you´re curious, the name just entertains me every time.

4. Curso de Yoga
-This is a serious course. I received a syllabus and had to buy a small journal to document anything I feel-physically or emotionally. It´s not actually serious, but kind of. We have to arrive on time or else we get points deducted and she gives us little homework assignments. Oh, luckily this just reminded me that I have homework for tomorrow. I am supposed to come up with a positive, motivating phrase that will help me achieve a current goal. We spend a good amount of time meditating (or attempting to...) during every class. She is trying to teach us the meaning of yoga as a lifestyle rather than just an activity. I also saw something about a discussion of the vegetarian lifestyle in the syllabus. If you didn´t already guess, I love this class.

5. Baile y Ritmo
-This is a high energy Latin dance class where we are learning all different types of dances and get to practice them mostly with the same partner-although sometimes she makes us switch and switch and switch. I have a merengue test coming up soon. This class is all Chileans except for me and my friend Cory (another girl from my program). My Chilean dance partner Patricio likes to do this little routine where we just keep spinning each other, so I´m usually pretty happy because I love turns. He is always determined for us to master the new steps presented and before each attempt he looks at me and says, ¨vamos Katrina, vamos. I have to admit his enthusiasm is motivating.

6. Well, I am currently also searching for an internship. More news hopefully by the end of the week on this.

To be honest, I spent a good portion of the day cooking, working on this off and on and taking pictures to share with all of you on my born-again mac-Melvin. Enjoy the photos and I will do some more blabbing this week.

besitos