Subiendo Cerro la Campana

¡Hola Amigos!

Saturday, my buddy David and I decided to climb "Cerro la Campana" which lies inland from Valparaíso. The mountain (although "cerro" is the word for hill, "Cerro la Campana" is closer to a mountain than a hill; the summit is about 1,900 meters or 6,000 feet) sits in Parque Nacional la Campana. Darwin climbed the mountain in 1883 (I think) on his journey around the world. The park itself was created in 1967 and is a UNESCO biosphere reserve because of it's biological diversity. Most notably, it is home to the Chilean palm, a fascinating species of tree that lives between 700-1000 years, bears edible fruit, and grows at latitudes where it is not typical to find palm trees. Anyway, smack dab in the middle of this park is a large hill, and from the top it is possible to see the ocean on one side, and the Andes on the other. Very cool. We wanted to climb it.

Saturday I woke up at 8:00, threw some stuff in my backpack, grabbed my boots, made a lunch, and headed to Chorrillos to meet up with David. Needless to say I was a little late for our 8:15 meeting time, but I've really gotten used to this Chilean time schedule. To get to La Campana, first one must take a micro to Limache, then take a micro to Olmué, then take a micro from Olmué to Cerro la Campana. Three micros, 2 hours, and several discussions with micro drivers later, we found ourselves at the entrance to the park. (It would be very difficult to get around in this country if I couldn't ask for directions--one lady actually drew us a map of where we needed to go.) We walked up to the tollbooth at the entrance, paid our 150o pesos each, and were given directions and a map. The whole affair was very official. We both had to give our full names, nationality, cell phone numbers, address, etc. They also told us that we had arrived too late in the day to climb to the summit. Instead, we could only hike to the old coal mine (about halfway) and that our turn-around time was 2:00 pm. They also said that if we weren't back by 5:30 they would call our cellphones to check in. Good grief! I found the situation quite amusing, actually. I mean, this country has open manholes 20 feet deep in the middle of the sidewalk. It seems contradictory that the safety procedures on a simple hike are so rigorous. In contrast, an uncovered manhole in the states would probably cause numerous lawsuits, but if you felt like walking into the woods woefully unprepared nobody would stop you.

The trail is seven kilometres long, and according to the time schedule we were given it requires 4.5 hours up and 3 hours down (to and from the summit....we had no intention whatsoever of stopping at the mine). I don't know what the elevation gain is, but it is substantial. From start to finish the trail is a very steep grade, and it was suprisingly difficult to climb. After 45 minutes of hiking we had broken through the cloud cover into the bright sunlight (and heat). The hike up was relatively uneventful. We reached the mine in just under two hours, and stopped for a quick bite to eat, then pushed on. By this point, it became clear that my sedentary lifestyle was not conducive to climbing mountains with ease. My legs simply did not want to function properly, and it was sheer stubborness that finally got me to the top. The second part of the hike, above the mine, was even steeper (2 kilometers in 2 hours) and the trail was frequently loose rock and scree. We stopped frequently to rest and drink, and finally made the summit at three o'clock.

On a clear day, I have no trouble believing that the view from the summit is beautiful. Even with clouds the view Saturday was worth the hike. However, I also got to see firsthand the smog cloud that sits over the third most polluted city in the world (I believe Santiago holds this post, although someone might want to fact-check that). It was really gross. It's bad enough to be visible in the photos I took. Sure, we could see the Andes, but they looked hazy and far away. In the other direction all we could see were clouds (and smog there as well). Also, the rocks all over the summit were absolutely plastered with graffiti. Side note: that stupid Abastible truck is driving up the street right behind me playing "Happy Birthday" and "It's a Small World" End side note. The graffiti was really hideous, and a good reminder of why it is important to practive "Leave no Trace." We hung out on the summit for about 15 minutes, and headed down.

The walk down was sketchy. We got lost once coming down a boulder field, and were constantly sending rocks tumbling down the mountain. Even once we found the trail again, it was no better. We had to take turns walking to avoid getting hit by rocks turned loose by the other person. One would walk ahead and then turn and watch as the other descended. We both fell a couple times too, but eventually we made it safely to the mine. Undoubtedly our clumsiness was related to our fatigue...had we been in better shape things probably would have gone a little more smoothly.

On the way down we stopped at the mine. According to the locals, the mine was in it's prime during the nineteenth century, and the mountain is so riddled with mineshafts that it is possible to walk in one side of the mountain and come out the other. Obviously we had no intention of doing that, but we did want to check it out a little bit. I had brought my headlamp, so we grabbed our stuff and ventured into the mineshaft. The shaft went back about 100 feet and then branched three ways. Two were dead ends because they had collapsed, and the other kept going as far as I could see. We didn't follow it very far...the floor of the tunnel was very wet and neither of us had a helmet, but we snapped some photos and continued on our way. My photos didn't turn out very well, so I didn't post them in this blog entry, but hopefully David's turned out better. I'll try to get them to post later.

On the way up, some locals had told us about tarantula-sized spiders that live in the park. These "Arañas Pollitos" are not poisonous, and they don't usually bite. However, they also told us that they saw one inside the mine shaft once. I'm very mildly arachnaphobic, and one reason I didn't want to spend too much time in the mine was because I was a little nervous that one of these huge arachnids was going to fall on my head. Oh, did I mention they can jump up to a foot? Augh! Anyway, we continued our hike down, and about 30 minutes after leaving the mine I damn near stepped on one of those bloody arañas. Scared the bejeebers out of me. After the initial shock, I whipped out my camera and leaned in to take a photo. When I was about a foot from the spider, David says "look out man, these things can jump!" and scared the beejebers out of me again. Funny thing is we didn't know at the time that they actually could jump; he was just joking around. Anyway, we took some more photos and kept walking. The rest of the hike was uneventful, and we got home by about 8 in the evening.

Graffiti, and smog. Lovely.

David and I on the summit, with the Andes (and smog) in the background.

The Andes (and smog). I'm not sure what the peak in the middle is, but it absolutely towers over the rest of the mountain range. The photo, as usual, doesn't quite capture the full effect. I know there are peaks in the Andes that reach 22,000 feet, and that may well be one.Araña Pollito.
Araña Pollito with a scale for comparison. It really freaked me out to put the watch so close to the spider, so I hope you folks at home appreciate this pic.

Cerro la Campana, from the trail on the way down. By the way, campana means "bell" in spanish.

ya me voy,

Andrius

Valparaíso and Viña

¡Hola amigos!

I realized recently that I have lots of pictures of places I've been, and very few of the place I live. Here are a few pics of Valparaíso and Viña, of things I see every day. ¡Disfrutense!

Welcome to the Market. This building sits right next to the Casa Central, and just across the street from the ISA office. It has been around for more than a century, and many of the employees are 2nd and 3rd generation. For a class project we had to interview someone that worked at the market. My partner and I ended up talking to the president, a very nice gentleman about 65 years old. I now know more about the market than I ever wanted to.

If Gord Sloan came to Valparaíso, this is where you would find him. You can buy meat, fruit, vegetables, bulk olives, and a whole lot more. Everything comes directly from the farms the morning of, and is all very fresh.

Lemons.

Artichokes, six for a buck. I don´t know what that yellow thing is.

The Casa Central of the Catolica. The market sits one block to the right of this photo. In the back left corner of the picture, you can sort of see a large department store called "Jumbo." It is the Chilean equivalent of Target (there's also a Wal-Mart equivalent called "Lider") and it is rediculously big, opulent, and American.

The "front yard" of my house. On the left is a 10 foot concrete wall (painted yellow with a large green double door big enough to accomodate a car). I took this picture standing on the driveway.

The dining room. I took this photo from the door that leads to the kitchen. To the right of the photo this room turns into a living room with couches and chairs. Out the window is the front yard.

My room. It's actually quite spacious and get's lovely light in the morning. To the right of the photo is my closet and to the left is a desk with lots of clutter.

The view out my window. I can actually see the ocean in the other direction, but this picture is more representative.

The Chilean flag. I put this up after the soccer game, and not only is it cool to have a Chilean flag in my room, I also don't have to look at the painting behind it. (See next photo.)

Ain't it a beauty? I don't even want to know what it's supposed to represent.

I borrowed this pic of the Inti-Illimani concert from a friend.

The beach in Viña.

Francisco.

La gata, Pascualina. I don't usually like cats, and this one is no exception. She meows outside my door at all hours of the night, and sometimes climbs in through the window of my room when I'm sleeping and then meows to get OUT again.

And finally, in stark contrast to the dear old US of A, politically correct simply does not exist in Chile.

ya me voy, Andrius

English Opens Doors

¡Hola amigos!

The first week we arrived in Valparaíso, there was a large fair where people could sign up for various and assorted activities that the University had to offer: basketball, soccer, dancing, ping-pong, and the like. One option was a very official looking program called "El Ingles abre Puertas" (English opens Doors) and I put my name on the mailing list, just to check it out. Turns out the program is in some way connected to the Chilean government, and is designed to get native english speakers (me) into Chilean public schools. The hope is that by sending a foreign university student into the classroom it will make the language more accesible and real to the students, which in turn will make them learn. Like many government programs, it looks great on paper and has little basis in reality. Now lets take a look into the classroom and see how it actually works.

I went for the first time last Monday, at ten in the morning. The school is located in Miraflores Alto, which translates into a 10 minute walk and a 25 minute micro ride from my house. As instructed, I rode the micro until I saw a Lider (chilean for "Wal-Mart") and got off the bus. The high school is called "Liceo Industrial Miraflores Alto". In Chile, students choose their specialty earlier than in the US, hence the "Industrial" in the title. Most of the students at this school will not go to University; only about 2-5% of students in public school study post high-school. (To give a more accurate picture of the educational systemAbout 40-50% of high schools are private, and almost all of those students go to university.) Unlike the title of the school makes it sound, these kids aren't being trained to be engineers. Most of the will work in very low paying jobs that require little formal education. Did I mention that it's almost exclusively a boys school? About 98% of each class is boys, and I'm not sure if it makes the class worse-behaved or more well-behaved because there are no distractions.

The building itself is a reasonably sound facility. It has a cafeteria, classrooms with functional desks, chairs, and whiteboards, a teachers lounge, and is generally clean and well-kept. The entrance to the school is closely guarded; it is a strictly closed campus and there is a locked gate permanently watched by a doorman to make sure that no students leave. Every day a few street dogs sneak past the doorman into the school grounds. According to the teacher I work with, they grow fat and lazy during the winter and during the summer they starve. Teachers have a permanent classroom and the students change classrooms every period. Unless the teacher is in the room, the door is shut and locked. When class starts, the teacher enters the room first, followed by all the students. They remain standing by their desks until they are explicitly told by the teacher that they may sit. What I'm getting at is that on the surface the school looks very functional and the students appear reasonably well-behaved.

The first day I went to volunteer, I had no idea what to expect. I didn't know how well the kids spoke english, how the classes were taught, how many kids were in a class, what I would be expected to do, or pretty much anything, for that matter. Here's what I saw. The class is taught entirely in Spanish, which was a suprise. Even in very basic Spanish classes in the states, the teachers try to speak very little in English. These students have been taking English for 2-3 years, and still the class was pure Spanish. Here's what we did in each class. The teacher began with a paragraph in english (about tattoos, which I unfortunately have heard enough times to commit to memory). Here's the first part:

----Nowadays it is very common to see someone with a tattoo or piercing in their ear, nose, or even eyebrow. With us today in the studio is Jarek Warren. Tell us, Jarek, what exactly is a tattoo?

The students copied this from the book into their notes. Next, the teacher writes the paragraph in a strange pronunciation format to help the students speak the text. It bears no resemblance to English, but is designed so that if pronounced like proper Spanish it sounds like English. It look something like this:

----NAuadais ets`Veri Comun tu sei SAmwon wid a taTU` or Bodi ....etc

In actuality what I just wrote bears a much closer resemblance to the actual english spelling. When the professor writes the pronunciation on the board, it is unrecognizable. If I didn't know what it was, I would think it was Swedish or something. (Actually the first day I thought it was another language...I thought they had put me in the wrong program: "Swedish Opens Doors".) After the pronunciation, they copy the translation in their notebook.

----Hoy en día es muy comun ver alguien con un tatuaje .....etc.

Now, the students were supposed to have done all this work the week prior. Of the 40 students in the class, about 10 had done the homework. One student came up to the teacher's desk to turn it in, and the teacher asked him to read what he had written aloud. He began to read, and I could sort of make out what he was saying. When he finished, to my horror, the teacher looked at me and asked, "out of 7, what grade would you give him?" Not wanting to be the bad guy, I gave the kid a 6.5. I don't think it was what the teacher had in mind, because he didn't ask me to give any more grades. Thankfully. Next, he asked me to give a short introduction about myself, which he proceded to translate for the students. After my introduction, he shocked me again by saying "ok, you have 20 minutes. Do your thing." Huh? It's my first day!!! Anyway, I proceeded to do a really easy question and answer. I wrote this on the board:

What's your name?
My name is....

Easy, right? Think again. I gave them 2 minutes and instucted them to ask this question to the people around them. After two minutes, I walked around the classroom putting people on the spot. Absolutely no one could answer me. I had ask, translate, translate, have student repeat. The bottom line is that the whole class is taught in Spanish, and no one in the class has even a basic proficiency in English. What's more, the dynamic of the classroom (ie nobody wants to learn) prohibits almost any other style of teaching. And that, dear friends, is what the teacher and the Chilean government want me to change. Perfect.

After class, I ate lunch with the teacher and he told me a lot about the demographic of the student body. Many of them, he said, live high up in the hills of Miraflores (the farther away from the ocean and the higher up you live on the hills the poorer you are). Some of them are squatters and consequently are incredibly poor and have no plumbing, running water, or electricity. He also said that the reason that many kids come to school is just to get away from the house for the day. To make a point, when I was in class this Monday, a student handed me his notebook and asked (in Spanish) if I knew any tags, or graffiti. Since growing up in the relative wealth of the vanilla valley is not a good way to learn a lot of graffiti, I don't know any, and I sure wouldn't have told him if I did.

I don't want to come off as being too pessimistic about the whole thing though. There are some students in every class who really want to learn the language, and just haven't been given the tools to do so. These students copy everything I write, and really appreciate it when I speak with them to help them learn. The teacher, although he is very weary from seeing so many students go nowhere, speaks good English. He keeps the class under control, and if the students put a mimimun of effort into the work, they could easily learn at least the basics of the language. I hope that what I'm doing will eventually help at least a few students out of their current situation. Thanks for reading, and I hope all is well at home.

ya me voy, Andrius

P.S. I also see a lot of stuff that would NOT fly in a classroom in the states. For instance, the teacher told a student "¡Oye, siéntate gordito!" (Hey, sit down fatty!) I had to try pretty hard not to laugh. Poor kid.

Inti-Illimani

¡Hola Amigos!

Every Wednesday night ISA hosts a 1.5 hour "History of Chile 101," taught by a professor from the university. The main topic is Chile's recent history (1970's onward) specifically events revolving around the coup d'état that created the Pinochet regime. The coup was supported in large part by the United States, and the regime under Pinochet committed countless human rights violations. Anyway the matter is still very fresh in the minds of many Chileans and it is important that we gringos understand the history so when the topic arises we don't make complete idiots of ourselves--hence the history classes. To read more about the history of Chile, I recommend visiting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Chile.

Anyway during these discussions Pablo (the prof) talks frequently about a musical group that was very important during this era: Inti-Illimani. When the military coup took place, Inti-Illimani was touring in Europe, and in light of the fact that artists, politicians, and musicians opposed to the new regime kept getting killed, made the wise decision not to return to Chile. Instead they stayed in Europe and worked from abroad to end Pinochet's regime. They were also in large part responsible for preventing Pinochet's re-election. The result is that this band is very very well respected and important to the Chilean polpulation and culture. Conveniently enough, we discovered that Inti-Illimani was playing at the Muncipal Theater of Valparaíso Friday night at 9.30. Student tickets were only five bucks, so a bunch of people went.

The concert was fantastic and the atmosphere of the concert was unlike any I have attended before. The two guys in front of me shared a 1.5 liter box of wine, for instance. But more than that, the crowd dynamic was fascinating. Usually at a concert everyone goes wild and screams and shouts for the band to come on, and when the band comes on they scream louder. Not here. The crowd was going crazy and cheering for the band, but the minute one of the band members began to talk, the theater became silent. The crowd would often "shush" people who were being obnoxious, and the person would always clam up. It was really a testament to how respected the band is.

Inti-Illimani is an 8 man gig, and their instrumentation includes everything from flutes to electric guitars to mandolins to native Mapuche (indigenous Chileans) instruments. I can't put my finger on the genre because I don't think it fits in to one, but its sort of a Jazz/Jam/rock combo. Also, each band member plays at least 5 different instruments, so the dynamic of the band changes almost every song. Right before the intermission, they played a song that was very meaningful to the crowd, and the sense of patriotism was palpatable. I think one reason that it was so cool is that (at least for my generation) there is absolutely nothing in the states that can compare. Sure there are good bands, but there is nothing so intimately intertwined with the politics and history of our country. I'm sure the older generations (in the states) understand the feeling I'm talking about, and may even have some equivalent, but unfortunately I'm not so sure that many people my age can really understand. It is the exact opposite of the apathy that I see on a daily basis in so many of my peers. Not that apathy doesn't exist in Chile...it does, but on the whole my Chilean friends are much much much more politically motivated, informed, and aware than my friends at home. Either way it was very powerful to have every single person in the theater, young and old, shouting at the top of their lungs.

I was also very appreciative that our group of Americans was welcome. In our efforts to avoid a "communist sandwich" during the 70's (Thanks Nixon), our government really screwed things up for Chile for a long time. Friday night, every person in the theater knew the United States' role in history and the consequences it had, but subsequently realized that it was the actions of a government of a past generation, and we were not to blame. All in all we felt very much welcome. Thank you Chile.

ya me voy
Andrius

What are the chances?: Part II

¡Hola amigos!

So. Today I wanted to go sandboarding on the sand dunes between Reñaca and Concon. I called some friends and told them to meet me at 12:00pm if they wanted to go. Only one person showed up, but we decided to go anyway. I should mention that sandboarding depends on the fact that there is someone renting sandboards at the dunes. Last time I tried to go, no one was there, so my buddy and I went farther up the coast to a town called Horcon. It was fun, but I still waned to go sandboarding. (It's not like the U.S. where I could call ahead to make sure the guy will be there...It's just some guy with a truck and a bunch of boards and I have no way of knowing when he will be there.)

The dunes are visible from the highway between Reñaca and Concon, so the strategy is to look out the window and see if the truck is parked at the dunes. If it's there, we push the "I want to get off so please stop the bus" button, and exit. Today, I was looking expectantly out the window with my finger on the button in anticipation of going to sandboard. To my dismay, I saw no truck. Almost simultaneously as I reached the conclusion that once again I had been foiled, something unexpected happened. From beneath the micro came a horrendous "whumph" that vibrated the floor so hard I thought it would break. The primary "whumph" was followed immediately by a series of successive "whumphs" each louder than the one preceeding it. This is not a reassuring noise when one is traveling at 50 mph without a seatbelt. The driver pulled over immediately, and all the passengers piled out of the bus. I peered under the bus and saw that the drive shaft had broken at the hinge and it had been this smacking against the underside of the bus that had made the "whumphing" noise. Along with the other passengers of the fallen micro, we took the next micro to Concon where we walked the beach for about an hour.

Either way, It seems that anytime I get on a mechanical method of transportation (or biological, come to think of it), it malfunctions in the most dramatic way possible without killing everyone aboard. Knock on wood. Anyway, I figure the only other means of transportation I use are colectivos, long-distance buses (in case that's considered a separate category from micros), and airplanes. That means at the most I can have three more traumatic experiences before I leave and it means I'm not even halfway there. Ah well. Hope all is well at home.

ya me voy
Andrius