A few days in Buenos Aires!

Buenos Aires was an interesting experience.  It´s a huge city with lots of diversity.  I was lucky enough to stay in the beautiful Palermo region - very green.

Probably my favorite part of the trip was that on Thursday I got to march around the Plaza de Mayo with the Mothers of the disappeared.  I talked with real three really cool people.  One was a man who belongs to a group of port workers that supports the Mothers group.  He told me a lot... We talked practically the whole half hour that we were walking in circles around the plaza behind these little old women carrying a banner in the front.  One woman told me that her husband disappeared shortly after the coup de etát in 1976, when she had two kids already and was pregnant with another.  He was just a factory worker, not a political militant or anything. 

I got to meet the founder of the organization as well.  She is 86 years old.  Her daughter disappeared and had a baby in the concentration camp.  The poor woman is still searching for her granddaughter. 

The mothers of the disappeared have met at the Plaza de Mayo every Thursday at 3:30pm for 34 years... since the coup de etat in 1976.  They have such determination and courage.  I feel very blessed to have had the experience of meeting them.   


Later Thursday night we went to La Boca, an artsy area with really colorful houses.   There we watched a fun low-key tango show at a bar.  Each of us 6 girls even got invited up to the stage to dance!  It was silly and fun.   :)


Until next time!


Love to all,


Shannon

Party it up - Chilean family style

I just got back from an all-day Chilean family party in Santiago.  We went to welcome my host mom´s son who they haven´t seen for 4 years, and has come to visit for 10 days.  We left Viña at 6am, and waited for her son at the airport.   Everyone was super excited! 

We had breakfast with the extended family at Nona and Tata´s (Grandma and Grandpa´s) house in Santiago around 9am.  This consisted of sopaipillas, and bread-and-palta (avocado)-and-meat sandwiches with tea or coffee. 

Then the group split up for a couple hours.  I went with mamá, papá, y Romii to a special district in Santiago where all the stores have to do with fabric and sewing.  It was the most fabric I´ve ever seen at once!

Lunch was around 1:30 - 2:00pm, and had drinks and appetizers plus 4 courses. (When Chileans party, they like to savor the moment and draw things out for as long as possible.)   The main course was a pasta with homemade noodles and sauce by Tata - super delicious... a recipe that has been handed down in the family for over 100 years!  Tata showed me all the ingredients, but unfortunately I didn´t write them all down.  I really appreciated Tata and Nona... they were very kind to me and easy to converse with - unlike some of the other family members who talk super fast and all at once.

We sat around and talked until "onces" at 7:30pm or so (which is like a repetition of breakfast that Chileans have instead of dinner).  Instead of sopaipillas we ate empanadas, which were superrico! 

The party ended around 8:30.

Last week on Thursday we went to a collection of marionette shows in Valparaíso.  It was a very interesting window into Chilean culture.  They even had Beatles marionettes, which I found rather funny. 

On Sunday we went for a tour around the Chile´s main port, Muelle Prat.  It was very cold, windy, and cloudy, but we got to see "lobos del mar" which literally translates to "sea wolves," but means sea lions.  After that we went out to eat at a restaurant called Hotel Brighton, where we had lunch around 4pm (very late) and got to see the miraculous news on TV that the miners stuck underground in the north of Chile are still alive after over 17 days.

On Monday I did some exploring at the Quinta Vergara Park, which is very pretty.  I also found a art museum called Artequin, that is especially for kids.  I hope to volunteer there!

Una aventura en Valpo

Today was a great day!  I walked to class with two of my friends and we didn't get too lost!  It was sunny and nice out.  Class (advanced grammar) seems like it might be nit-picky but not too difficult otherwise.  We'll see.  After class I went with Karley to look at el mar (the sea).  It was beautiful. 

Later my Chilean friend  Jorge took Karley and I on a tour of Valparaiso.  It was fantastic!  We went to Muelle Prat, the main port in Chile.  We also saw a statue of Arturo Prat, a hero in the war against Peru and Bolivia in the 1870s. We walked all over... I can't remember all the names.  We even got to go up an asensor (elevator) to take us up the very steep hills (cerros).  When we got to the top, there was an outdoor museum of sorts, of grafiti art and murals on the walls of houses scattered around the neighborhood. 

I'm having a great time and hope you all are as well!