Our first stop was at the Pre-Colombian History museum. There were artifacts from all over Latin America, stretching from Mexico down to Tierra del Fuego. It was a well kept, if somewhat oddly laid-out museum. It was a bunch of interloping square and rectangle rooms with no set path. For those who like to wander, that’s fine, but I started wondering if I was just walking by stuff I had already seen. Anyway, I was very happy to find these little figures chewing coca leaves, something I had become obsessed with while in Peru. Yes, coca is what is used to make cocaine, but the actual plant has so many natural, beneficial properties – most notably, it boosts metabolic and gastronomic activity and helps with nausea and altitude sickness. Sadly, coca isn’t really present in southern Chile.
The coca chewing figurines in the museum, and a church nearby.
After the pre-Colombian museum, we hopped on over to the Plaza de Armas for the Chilean history museum. This mostly covered from the 1500’s when conquistadors came to the country. It detailed the wars with the indigenous people and other South American countries up to the 1970’s, but then just petered out. Oh well. By this time I was just exhausted, and went home to shower and rest for a little bit.
But my rest was short-lived, as Patrick showed up with flowers and then we escaped for dinner at the premiere Indian restaurant in town (the head chef is from Bangladesh, so yeah, it’s authentic). Turned out I was rather unhappy with my chicken tandoori – I obviously need to learn my Indian food names so I know what’s what – but Patrick’s coconut chicken curry, and the naan, were great. So, not an overall fail – but India Pavilion in State College has this place beat, I think. Of course, I had to have Bravissimo afterwards. More gelato. So good. So sue me.
Monday saw us getting up bright and early to be herded to the instituto with the rest of the volunteers. Let me take a moment to describe the overall program: the Centro de Volunatarios is the main route for volunteering with the Ministry of Education in Chile. Several organizations, such as WorldTeach, also recruit people for the program, and then we all get lumped together. So, while the past 10 days had been nice and cozy with our group of 22, we were now in a group of 128 volunteers, including ourselves. They split us by north and south groups, and away we went.
Needless to say, I felt very bored with the Ministry orientation. The groups were too big and the information was too disorganized. Most often, the presenters talked at us instead of with us, and we were given very little to do on our own. It also didn’t help that I slept through the majority of the presentations – but hey, had they been interesting, I would have stayed awake.
Granted, some of the presenters were great people, especially if you got to talk to them on their own. This was also their first year partnering with the instituto, so granted, things were not expected to go over cleanly. But when people cannot even work a simple Powerpoint presentation, it’s clear we have a problem on our hands.
However, the Spanish classes were worth it. I ended up in a basico (basic/beginner) class with a couple of the WorldTeach crew, and some of the other volunteers. Our teacher, Maria, was simply awesome, and I actually learned during that class. However, it was slotted for the end of the day – 3:30 to 5:00 – so it was hard concentrating. All we wanted to do was go back to the hostel, eat, and roam around Santiago.
Tuesday night put us at the hostel with a few bottles of wine before hitting up a pool hall. This was quite entertaining, as we had two tables for our group and played a couple games before deciding we sucked, and it was way too cold. I love playing pool when it’s 40 degrees out, let me tell you.
Allison taking a good shot.
Thursday night, Patrick and I grabbed dinner near La Moneda and scrambled around the centro trying to find tickets for the soccer game that night. That was a fail, so we just hopped on the metro and went out towards the Estadio Nacional. This stadium is positively huge, and feels even bigger than Beaver Stadium (and I imagine it is). Patrick and I got a couple cheap tickets and went in to find ourselves only a few rows off the field. However, as there was a track around the field, you were further away than in a usual stadium. There also weren’t a whole lot of people there because it was only an exhibition match for Universidad de Chile versus the Argentino Juniors.
First, the B-sides played and that was quite entertaining because the score ended up 6-4 after 45 minutes of play. It seemed like every time I looked away, someone scored. Also, up till then, everything had been quite tame. However, when the real teams took the field, things got interesting. Huge chants went up from the stadium, accompanied by a gigantic drum beat… and flares? Yes, flares.
A view of the Estadio Nacional, and the flares set up by the fans.
This game was nowhere near as high scoring, but it was a good time palling around with Patrick and most of the WorldTeach crew. Getting home also proved an adventure, as the metro was closed by then and we had to depend on buses.
And then finally, Friday. An end to this hellish week. By then I was getting awfully antsy and just wanted to get to my placement and start teaching already. It also didn’t help that we only found out where we were going on, oh, Wednesday night was it? Thanks for the notice, Ministry – four days before we leave, we find out exactly where we’re leaving to. Me? I was off to Angol. More on that later.
The Ministry threw us a giant party at the hostel that night. They pulled out all the stops – every table had two bottles of wine and two bottles of pisco sour, complete with a pretty nice set-up under a tent. We had a few people speak at the beginning, congratulating us on finishing the week and wishing us luck for the coming months. And then it was time to run amuck. This was helped along by massive amounts of food and more bottles of wine that just appeared out of nowhere.
My roomies for the duration of Santiago, the crew going to Angol, and a crazy bunch of us.
Afterwards, the WorldTeach crew ditched the party and took it out to Bellavista, the bohemian neighborhood full of clubs and bars. Our field directors, Thomas and Meghan, joined us, along with several of their friends and random Chileans. I tuckered out rather early, however.
The next morning saw everyone getting up (some hungover) to leave the hostel by 9 o’ clock for their placements. It was sad seeing everyone go – we had just spent the past 16 days together and had gotten used to our routine of breakfast, class, dinner, fun. And now we had to face the reason why we all came here: teaching English to Chilean students in the south.
Saying goodbye to the majority of the crew, and sending them off on the bus.
Four of the 22 stayed behind at the hostel, however: me, Allyson, Connor, and Jenny. We were the four destined for Angol, a town in Araucania, the 9th region. We spent the day running errands, and Allyson was the unfortunate victim of a robbing in broad daylight. For that matter, police in Santiago are prejudiced against Americans – at least ours were – and that turned into a disaster.
And at about midnight that night, we were off to Angol…
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