10 Days In

I've been in Santiago, Chile for 10 days now and it's been everything from exciting, beautiful, and fascinating to challenging, lonely and confusing! Luckily, I've had experience with the vaaaast highs and lows that can come with getting acquainted with a new place and I think it's a challenge that I'm willing to take on! I think my first 10 days could pretty much be divided into 3 parts: 1) First few days of just playing and exploring the city, 2) Orientation week with the Harvard college students, and 3) Short trip to the southern cities of Concepción/Talcahuano to meet with a community affected by last February's earthquake.

I landed in Chile last Wednesday, June 9. I'm living with a young couple in the ñuñoa neighborhood of Santiago. It's a great location... lots of interesting places to explore and really close to Santiago's confusing-- but definitely comprehensive-- public transportation system! The woman I'm living with also works at Con-spirando, the women's collective where I'll doing an internship this summer. Since the other students hadn't yet arrived and orientation activities weren't starting till the following Monday, my early arrival gave me plenty of time to settle in, get the lay of the land, and start exploring the city! Together with my professor/pal, Monica we tried lots of different restaurants, familiarized ourselves with some of the public transportation (although I'm still confused....), and began preparing for the students' arrival and the course on Human Rights that Monica will be teaching and that I'm assisting with. Assisting with the course in this case basically means that I'll attend the class sessions, maintain the course website, and meet with students as they prepare for their class presentations. The first few days were fun and REALLY helpful but I found myself ready to get the show on the road and start the official orientation!

The Harvard College students that I'm working with this summer are part of a program through the college that matches them with internship sites and also provides various lectures, excursions, and orientation activities. I was lucky to get to participate in the orientation activities this past week which included trips to lots of sites around the city (especially some powerful visits to introduce us to the fairly recent dictatorship under Pinochet and the diversity of views that still exist around that time!) and presentations on everything from culture shock to Chile's current political and economic situation. As we explored, listened, and talked about the frustratrions/joys of this adjustment, I was CONSTANTLY reminded me of my incredible co-workers at the Center for Global Education in Mexico who are quite the experts at Orientation Weeks of their own! We also had the first 4 class session of the Human Rights course. I think it is going to be great and I'm so excited to learn about these issues within Chile's particular contexts.

The end of this week took me to the southern cities of Concepción and Talcahuano, the areas most affected by the recent earthquake here. Con-spirando has been asked to give a series of workshops around personal and spiritual well being as people make meaning of this huge trauma that has occurred in their community. Three of the women from the organization gave a great workshop (very creative and really well organized, in my opinion!) and generated lots of interesting insights from all who attended. While my official role was to photograph the workshop itself, I found myself absolutely amazed by what was happening around me and am so excited and honored to get to learn from people who are doing such important work that can far too often be overlooked.

The weekend trip itself brought up a lot of the main challenges that I personally find myself confronting here. First of all, language is SUCH a challenge for me! I knew it would be but the reality is hard. I find myself so embarrassed to admit that I lived in Mexico for two years because I'm constantly confused as the accent and vocabulary here (particularly amongst young adults!) just seems so unfamiliar! I hope this gets better over time as I get more and more used to everything from lingo to just the general way of life that is so different from the places where I have lived before.

I start work at Con-spirando this Monday. My schedule for the rest of my time will generally be 4 days/week at Con-spirando, 1 day/week with the college students on excursions, and 2 evenings/week with the Human Rights course. Whew! Thanks so much for all of you out there who wrote to me on my birthday last Tuesday. It was SOO wonderful to hear from so many friends and family. I'm thinking of all of you and would love updates on how life is in your corner of this world!


Here is a link to the photo album where I'll be posting pictures along the way! http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2060919&id=28500257&l=8a1a0be573