a weekend in between

wow, do i have a lot to recount.
last time i left off i was in cusco, peru doing to touristy thing. the next day we headed to the infamous machu picchu. it took a two hour bus ride plus a rather pleasant two hour train ride to reach the town at the bottom of the mountain-- Aguas Calientes. Our globalization professor had explained to us the proximity of Machu Picchu to the rainforest, calling it the "ceja de la selva", which literally means the eyebrow of the jungle. we noticed the difference in flora right away, all the green was lush and full and the air a bit more humid although we were in the mountains. they don't exactly know for what reason the site existed, but there's a good chance that it was chosen because it looks down on surrounding valleys but cannot be seen from below. it was untouched by the spanish conquistadors and "discovered" in the early half of the twentieth century by hiram bingham. and the llamas still roam there today.

the next day we went to a weaving center where we learned the entire process from shearing to finished tapestry. the women wore traditional dress which we assumed was just for the gringos' entertainment, but as we drove around outside of the city we noticed more and more people dressed in this fashion. it felt good to get farther away from the tourism, and we were lucky enough to get to visit a rural school near the valle sagrado. it sat in the middle of a dry field, and the children greeted us with smiles and excitement. 24 gringos and just as many peruvian children, their cheeks permanently burned and dried from the intense sun and lack of sufficient water. we sang songs with them, talked, played futbol, duck duck goose, gave them candy and lots of hugs. when the teacher told us the school had no water-- NO water-- we gathered out water bottles and passed them around. one boy tried to take a whole bottle from me and i told him "estamos tomando o pasando, son para compartir" (we are drinking or passing, these are for sharing), and he replied, "ella tiene dos en su mochilla" (she has two in her bags). what could we do? the children were so poor that they stole the water for themselves, a kind of desperation that no child should have to experience. it was the best part of the trip.

we hit up a salt mine after that, headed back to cusco and bargained our way through a feria artesenal. i bought a baby alpaca blanket for $18, it's softer than the butt of a baby human.
the next day we got up to fly to lima, the capital. it was overcast and dirtier than cusco, but i liked it because it seemed more genuine. we toured a cathedral and a small museum, then ate lunch and were given the options of going back to the museum or going to el monesterio de san francisco- the monestary of saint francis. this was my choice, because underneath the beautiful church are CATACOMBS! i consider myself an aficionado; it was one of my favorite parts of my visit to Paris last spring. i convinced enough gringos, and they bone filled basement did not dissappoint! skulls, femurs, hip bones... creepy and awesome. we wrapped up our day in the city driving to the coast, an area called Miraflores. they took us to el parque del amor, the love park, which was beautiful if not rather tacky. then it was off to the airport again, back to santiago.

peru, peruuuu

hola de cusco, peru.
we arrived in the afternoon after several hours of traveling to what is one of my new favorite cities. peru is so much different than chile, in such a vibrant and interesting way. the altitude here is a lot-- 11000 feet maybe? sorry, but anything above sea level to me is high. we have been feeling the altitude for sure, yawning and breathing deeply and wanting to go to sleep. we toured the catedral in the plaza de armas, and learned so much cool stuff about how the incan slaves who built it slipped lots of little superfluous details into the arcitecture, a kind of eff you to the conquistadors. for instance, the carved mary in the shape of a trianle, like a mountain, which symbolized the god they worshipped--the earth. i also learned that the pelican is the symbol of christ because it is the only bird that will peck open its own stomach (thus killing itself) to feed its babies.
we ate dinner at an awesome cafe catering to tourists. i had a hommous appetizer, a ceasar dinner salad and and iced tea (my first one in south america!) for $8, including tip.

now we are off to bed, because we depart for machu picchu at 7 am tomorrow. but really, peru is awesome!

pensando en el poder

ive been thinking about empowerment lately. women´s empowerment especially. theres this one girl in my program who uses what seems like every possible event to talk about it. she always wants to bring up abortion issues, how women have real power and just generally has this air of the really loud neo-feminist doctrine. additionally, we went to a forum on environmental sustainability in chile, and they gave us fridge magnets that said, ¨mujer-- mejor contigo¨. Translation - Woman, it gets better with you.
Woman? Why just woman?
Someone explained that women are targeted here as an emerging social group. in fact, any group that isn´t the white male group is an emerging social group. women here seem to exist in a social status equivalent to women in 1959 America; they sort of sit on the cusp of being equal with men, and in many ways they are, but in general they still walk just a few steps behind.

overall women´s empowerment is important, but i find its place in my life to be omniscient. ive decided that truly empowered women hardly talk about being it, they just act empowered. i told someone once that i never had to learn about Girl Power, because when i was growing up the person providing for me, the most empowered person in my life was a woman--my mom. ive never considered that i might be less capable because of my gender, and i think to even address that discrepancy is to give it too much credit.

im a chick, so what. i still do what i want.

beach weekend take two

it's springtime in santiago, and my new favorite beach, Viña del Mar, is a short busride away. we (all girls--amy, julie, jessica, jennifer and bethany) piled into the bus shortly after class on friday and made the trip out. we stayed in a hotel that was a converted mansion, although with the confusion we sustained over booking fees and deposits i wouldn't highly recomment it. however, it included breakfast and was a short four minute walk to the beach. friday night we passed with an awesome dinner at an italian restaurant, followed by trying to get in to the local casino. they charge an entrance fee, and it's more than $6! we weren't going to pay to go in and lose money, so we skipped a block north to hit up happy hour at a bar called margaritas. they marched us gringas to the third floor where we enjoyed huge and perfect margaritas and watched the live entertainment on a television screen-- they were playing downstairs.

we woke up yesterday and did the required tourist shopping. i considered buying an ashtray for my friend andrew who grew up there, but opted for a shot glass (for myself) instead. we saw the main plaza and the quinta vergara, both featuring the old palacios from colonial times. as the heat grew we appeased ourselves with ice cream, bought big bottles of water and headed to the beach. we ended up spending five hours there, sitting in a circle and checking out everyone as much as they were checking us out. a bunch of skimboarders entertained us for most of the afternoon, and i made eyes with one in particular who to me, only got cuter as the day progressed. the best part of the afternoon with the very loud and open sex talk that transpired, only made more entertaining by the fact that no one around us understood what we were saying.

after dinner at a chinese buffet (in spanish they are called tenedor libre-- free fork), we headed up the coast to meet up with a friend from AU. her apartment was on the 20th floor of an ocean front building, and we passed the night with piscolas and merriment. we got home around 3, woke up this morning and caught the bus home. they run every 15 minutes. it was one of the best weekends of the trip.

ingles abre puertas

today was our first real taste of helping teach english in a chilean school. the trip only takes about and hour, and we (jennifer and i) end up at liceo victor jara in la pintana. the english teacher is young, and she speaks to us in spanish. jennifer's parents are colombian so she understands everything, i understand most of it, and everything goes along pretty smoothly. she asked us how the school compares to american schools (igual, mejor o peor?), and jennifer told her that it's hard to compare them. this school is the largest in the neighborhood and it's an art school, so theatre, dance and music are an important part of the curriculum. the classes are packed with 35+ kids and they all talk at once, climbing over desks to get to their seats and shouting across the room. the teacher, aracelly, never loses her patience and rarely raises her voice, and the activities get done. she teaches 3rd through 8th grade, and today we got to see a 3rd grade class and a 6th grade class.

the third graders were ecstatic to see us. i tried to pretend that i didn't speak spanish, but that only lasted for about 3 minutes. they wanted to know everything--where i am from, how i know spanish, how to say all of their names in english, how to say things like perro and gato in ingles. they were working on learning clothing, and had a lot of trouble differentiating between shirt and skirt. hey asked for our autographs and one boy (9 years old!) whipped out a camera phone and took my picture.

the 6th graders were a lot different, sitting gender segregated and asking us more questions about boyfriends and guns and roses and if i had ever played zelda. when i told them i had an N64 they almost lost it, and when i said that my sister had a wii they asked how old she was. i told them 23, and they replied, don't you have any younger sisters? the girls made us paper flowers on which they had sprayed cheap perfume, and again they asked us how to say their names in english. we had so much more fun than we anticipated.

and my favorite part was that we realized the bus takes us straight back to my metro station, making the return journey closer to 40 minutes.

hurrah!