Por La Razón o La Fuerza

PUCV put together an impressive schedule of activities to welcome the international students, hailing from Japan, Colombia, Austria, and, YES, Norway, among others. Groups of students were assigned a “monitor” to give tours of the campus (which has buildings flung all over Valparaíso and Viña del Mar) and to answer questions about courses in their respective departments. Each gringo student was given a thick list of courses (a list that regular PUCV students never see since they’re automatically enrolled in the courses of their department (“carrera”) and have no choice in the matter), so it seemed that we were all basically choosing based on which title sounded cooler: e.g., “Historical Evolution of Cinema” vs “Poetry and the City 2,” both classes in the art department, or “Ecology of Chile” vs “Implementation of Fieldwork Laboratory,” both in biology. No surprise, the classes with the coolest names aren’t necessarily the best. I’m very glad we were able to consult with the students … I myself attend such events at Brown basically every semester, even though the classes I’m interested in don’t change all that much.

We have until August 29th to shop the classes and decide what to take. Apparently some professors do not look upon fickle gringo students kindly and even lock the door once the class bell rings so that students may not enter the room tardy. This makes it impossible to take consecutive classes on different sides of campus, since public transportation would be required and there are only 10 minutes for passing. (Actually, the micro buses are incredibly frequent; I think the longest I’ve had to wait was about 30 seconds.)

In any case, the classes I’m planning on shopping starting this Wednesday, August 1st:

- Spanish 4 (required for the COPA program)
- Historical Evolution of Cinema
- Latin America in Text and Images
- Cinematographic Lectures
- Poetry and the City 2
- Implementation of Fieldwork Laboratory
- Urban and Rural Geography
- Modernity and Social Problems
- Introduction to the Contemporary Chilean and Hispanoamerican Short Story
(The Chilean doppelganger of my Brown class “Philosophical Themes in the Contemporary American Short Story,” no?)

No class on Friday = always a good thing.

The umbrella Programa Internacional de Intercambio Estudantil (PIIE… international student program) and my program COPA also create a dozen or so classes just for gringos. The titles are very tempting: “Recent Social Themes and Politics of Chile,” “Contemporary Latin American Poetry,” “Art and Society in Pre-Hispanic Chile,” "Urban and Regional History of Valparaíso.” However, I have decided that I do not want to take many classes with gringos, even though I think these classes would definitely be the best at accommodating the abilities and expectations of international students. I think I’ll be doing quite a lot of reading this semester…

We have been exploring a bit more of Valparaíso, which is a very beautiful and historical city. The entire city is protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The downtown unfolds along the sea (with a metro line running parallel to the water), and the houses climb up into the “cerros.” I went with a group of gringas to a fruit and fish market and officially got stares from 100% of the people eating lunch as we walked past.

The city has a dozen or so “ascensors” (funiculars) that actually serve as public transport to lift people up the steepest parts. We rode a short one, Ascensor Concepción, yesterday, and thoroughly enjoyed the view from the top.

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[The Chileans love foosball... aka TACA TACA.]

Though I'm somewhat anti-blog, I've decided for some reason to keep this log of happenings during my semester abroad in Chile. I'll try to put photos up here and update de vez en cuando, and please drop me a line!

After a bit of an ordeal in Miami (through which I actually ended up arriving in Santiago 2 hours earlier than expected), I traveled with the COPA/IFSA-Butler study abroad group to Olmué. We stayed in a Chilean-style resort within a somewhat rural town of over 14,000 near the Parque Nacional La Campana. The national park boasts that on August 17, 1834, our old friend Charles Darwin ascended the La Campana mountain and wrote about the experience in his “Trip of a naturalist around the world”:

“We spent the day in the top of the hill, and never the time has seemed as short as at that moment. Chile lied to our feet as an immense landscape limited by the Andes and the Pacific Ocean.”

While in Olmué, the group had several orientation activites to prepare us for life in Chile: the peculiar “modismos” (slang), how to behave with our families (“A messy room is sure to upset other members of the family”… how strange, I know.), and the near-certainty of being stared at, mugged, and possibly held at gunpoint. Apparently 80% of the students from last semester were victims of some crime. So far I’ve been trying to carry as little as possible and holding my bags close. Vamos a ver.

On Saturday, the moment arrived for the 35 gringo students to meet our adoptive families. Luckily the student who lived with my family last semester sent me an email a few weeks ago, so I had already gotten the low-down and ample reassurance. As I stepped off the coach bus, I spotted my family, and my mom (whose brightly dyed blonde hair stands out) seemed to recognize me too. We drove to the apartment with my Chilean Mom Ana María, 24 year-old Chilean brother Víctor, 10 year-old Chilean sister Andrea, and Víctor’s “polola” Evory (in Chile, “polola” is girlfriend and “novia” is fiancée).

I will be living with this Chilean family for the next five months in Viña del Mar, the upscale counterpart of adjoining Valparaíso where La Pontífica Universidad Católica de Valparaíso is located. I haven’t picked classes yet (they start next week), so in the mean time I’ll be learning the lay of the land and how to get around on the micro (“meekro”… known in other Latin American countries as an autobús camión colectivo, guagua…), a pint-sized bus that careens around town wearing about 10 different signs on its windshield, making it quite tricky to locate your destination on the list in enough time to signal the micro to stop. The micro from home to the University goes along Valparaíso’s version of Lake Shore Drive called Avenida España, which is literally just feet above crashing waves.

So far in Viña/Valparaíso, we’ve had a few events to familiarize ourselves with the very dispersed PUCV campus, and tomorrow we’ll meet with real live Chilean students to get the scoop on which classes to register for.

It is winter here in the southern hemisphere, but the climate is Californian/Mediterranean, so it’s cold and sometimes rainy. Apparently it recently snowed in Valparaíso for the first time in recent history, and everyone says it’s an unusually cold winter. The outside weather is definitely doable for a Glencoe / Providence resident, but the unusual thing is that the houses are not heated at all. So you come inside the house still wearing a heavy jacket, scarf, socks, and shoes. A fellow gringa and I were marveling at how much energy this must save on a national scale. It reminded me of an observation my sister Eva once made in India. When she realized how much toilet paper and garbage is avoided because Indians generally don’t use toilet paper, she could visualize an entire nation of Americans flushing toilet paper simultaneously; the thought was rather alarming.

Being abroad for six months is quite an interesting concept. It’s so much longer than a two week vacation, so I’ve been telling myself to take my time photographing things since I have so much time to explore. But at the same time, especially once school starts, I can imagine the weeks flying by and realizing that so much of the great unknown will remain greatly unknown. But at this point, I am very curious and enthusiastic about being here. My Spanish is already improving, and the bits of the city I’ve seen so far are lovely, sprawling between house-covered “cerros” (hills) and the Pacific.

It’s always a big pride (?) boost when people start talking to me in Spanish. This has happened twice so far. Once, I was riding a micro on my very FIRST day in Viña del Mar, and an older woman sitting next to me started asking me a question, something about whether the micro runs near the marina. I sort of couldn’t understand her, but I said that I had just arrived on Saturday and didn’t know my way around yet.

The second person was an American Airlines employee in the Miami airport. So I’m not sure if that counts. But it’s still cool?