El viaje al hogar...

Well, I've been back in Scottsdale for a couple of weeks now, and I am HOMESICK.  Never thought I could say "homesick" for a place that wasn't actually home, but I'm not really sure what other term I could use.  Very simply, I miss Chile.

Don't get me wrong, I am very happy to be home with my family and friends, it's been wonderful seeing them all again, but I can't help but feel... I don't know, a deep feeling of loss.  I had really started to feel at home (and happy!) in Chile, and now... well, it's very strange to be back.  The first week home I felt myself repeating the same conversation: "Yes, I am so glad to be home... but I've never felt two opposing emotions so strongly-- I am EXTREMELY happy, relieved, and excited to be home, but at the same time I am completely and totally distraught over leaving."  And that's pretty much how it goes.  I miss my friends, the Spanish, the people... I don't miss the food, the metro, or the winter.  I still (after two weeks...!) feel like I should be going back any day now.  Like I'm not in the real world, I'm just kind of waiting to get back to "normal."  Who would've thought that Chile would become the norm; I can't tell you how many months I spent thinking that going back to the States would be going back to "normal!"  It's funny how these things work sometimes.

Anyways,  I'm in Scottsdale for a few weeks, and then I head back to school in Portland, Oregon.  I'll be there for one semester (hopefully!), after which I'm *hoping* to return back to Chile.  I've sent e-mails to the overseas department at my college, I'm just waiting to hear back from them.  If returning isn't possible, well... I'm not really sure what I'll do.  I would like to come back to Phoenix and spend the semester at ASU, but I'm starting to get the impression that returning to LC would be the only option.  Again, it all depends on the administration, and what the board decides to allow me to do. (It's my money, right? I feel like I should have a little more of a say in this process, but unfortunately, it's all up to the all-knowing "board," whoever they are).  Cross your fingers for me; I'm just hoping that the best option, the option that will do the most for me in the long-term and from which I will learn and grow the most, is the one that emerges from the administrative shuffle.

I have some pictures I never posted; I'll put them up now in remembrance of my times en el fin del mundo.

My host parents with el porotito, Jean Luc.

                                                                                                          ©Kaitlin King

The CIEE group at San Pedro.

                                                                                               ©Marianne Aberbook

Part of the group in Mendoza!

A few friends.  Jose (in the grey) and his cousin Pancho (in the red) became two of my favorite Chilenos!   

 And there they are again! The two stooges.  I miss them too. much.  Seriously.

So there we go.  I should be moving into my new house in Portland around the 20th of August, so I'll try to keep you all posted on that (and my returning-to-Chile petition!).  I'm just wondering how I'm going to feel about returning to Portland instead of to Chile... solamente han pasado dos semanas y lo extraño más que la cresta! (only two weeks and I miss it so much!)  The difficult thing will be moving on to "normal," while still keeping all that I learned (not just linguistically...!) in mind (especially if I'm going to go back... 6 months is a looong time between worlds).  Let's just hope for the best, whatever that is. :)

Que les vaya bien... ♥

Buenas

Ok, so I've fallen behind. Again.  I know, I know.

But seriously, the month has flown by.  I've been out of town for the past five weekends: Las Cabras with Techo para Chile, Mendoza, San Pedro de Atacama, Pichidangui for the 21st (my birthday and, coincidentally, a national holiday), and Viña del Mar (again).  It's been exhausting, but (mostly) awesome.  There have been some ups and downs (sickness, etc.), but I'll get into that in a second.


So first, some pictures from San Pedro de Atacama.   The top three places the nature shows tell you to visit in Chile are Torres del Paine/Patagonia, Isla de Pascua, and San Pedro; I can see why.  The landscape is absolutely SURREAL.

When we got off the plane, we went to see a copper mine (Chile is the world's greatest producer of copper, and there are hella mines in the north where we were).  I could not BELIEVE the size of those man-made canyons.

Ridiculous.  Later, we went on a bike tour through this beautiful area in San Pedro.  I was feeling sick all weekend, so I was really happy to hear that I could still go on the tour and skip the bike part (I was allowed to follow behind in the truck that followed the group).  Beautiful sights/ancient indigenous sites.

We stopped by some ruins, and found a sweet spirit circle:

And then we climbed a giant sand hill, which was kind of impossible? But worth the effort.

View from the top:

My friends Martin and Julie on the way down the sand hill.

Next stop: el Salar de Atacama.  It's the largest salt flat in Chile; salt, salt, salt, as far as the eye can see:

So that was San Pedro.  Gorgeous.  I'll try to write a little more in the next couple of days and catch you all up.  ¡Que les vaya bien! ♥

San Pedro de Atacama

 

This weekend I visited a family that had alpacas in their backyard.

...I can now say that I am satisfied with my South American experience/life in general.

Techo para Chile

I don't have a lot of time, but I figured I'd put up some pictures from last weekend. We went down to Las Cabras to build mediaguas (emergency housing).  We're still not allowed to go down to the most affected areas; they are still officially "unsafe for travel" as far as our exchange group is concerned.
(Note: all of these photos are the work of my friend Mari; I forgot my camera at home (oops).)

 Las Cabras is the little red "A" in the bottom left corner.

Some pictures:

The building site, with work already started (and a school bus in the back).

Mediagua construction is not rocket science.  You dig some holes, put wooden posts down (pilotes), make sure they're level, then start building the pre-fab "house" on top.  It does help to have a little previous know-how or some leadership if you've never done it before, though (especially if you have a building site as difficult as ours).  The first day, we had neither (just diagrams, materials, and ganas (motivation)).  What we DID have were the remnants of a 200+ year old house, and the nastiest foundation I have ever seen.  Cement.  Bricks.  More cement.  Boulders.  Needless to say, we spent a lot of time digging the first day (actually, we spent the ENTIRE first day digging.  Lots of rocks.  Lots.)

Sadly, this rock wasn't even one of the big ones.  We were unearthing small planets in this yard, no lie.

Leveling the pilotes.

Remnants of the house.  That covered-over, patio-looking part?  That used to be their indoor kitchen.  If you look closely, you can see that the only room left of the house is separated from outside by cardboard (CARDBOARD.  I think about 6-7 people were living together in the one room they had left, protected by CARDBOARD).

More cardboard.  You can kind of see where one of the old walls used to be in the back there.

Two of the kids, with the remnants of their house in their "front yard" (which all used to be house, not yard).

The second day, a helper/leader showed up, and revealed that (almost) all of the instructions we had been given were wrong.  He was great, though! Very patient.

Our friend Colin, with the grandpa of the house (sweetest old man ever).

Gettin' down on the roof.

The ladies of the crew (from left): Jules, Ryann, me, Cintia, KK.  Some bad-ass, strong women here.  (Quote of the weekend? "We don't need no man!")

Anyways, it was hard work, but good work.  I really hope I get to go down again before I leave.  This weekend some of us are heading to Mendoza, Argentina (visible on the map above in the top right corner).  The limitations of our tourist visas require that we leave the country every 90 days, so we're heading over there for a couple of days.  Hopefully we'll come back with some quality wine and leather goods.  Until then, take it easy! Que les vaya bien. ♥

Some fotos

A couple of fotos from our trip to Valpo/Viña a couple of weekends ago (I know, I know... sorry for the delay :) ).  Like usual, I have borrowed some pictures from friends; the source is (always) credited at the bottom of the photo.

First, we visited one of Pablo Neruda's houses in Isla Negra (he has three: one in Valpo, Santiago, and Isla Negra).  Gorgeous! The man had good taste in property.  He built his house with the idea of making it a boat on land; it was really a cool thing to see.  I'm definitely ready to move in.

                                                                                                     

                                                                                                          ©Kaitlin King

 Right on the sea.  Gorgeous.

Later, we headed over to Viña, where our hotels were, and had dinner in Valpo.  Some somewhat blurry photos of Valparaíso:

 

at night...

...and during the day:

Valparaíso has flat parts (the picture above), but something like 98% of the population lives on the cerros (hills).  The houses are literally one on top of the other, connected by a bunch of really narrow, sketchy pathways/staircases:

...imagine being faced with this guy on the way back from the bar, yeah?

Here you can kind of see the one-house-on-top-of-the-other thing.

While in Valpo, we saw a performance by a local musician named Pascuala Ilabaca (click the link to go to her Myspace page).  Really cool.  She played the accordion and sang for us (her own songs and covers of more traditional pieces).  If you click here, you can watch her (awesome) version of Chilean folklore legend Violeta Parra's "Puerto Montt está temblando" (the video is not too great, but it's the only one I could find).  The lyrics describe Parra's experience with an earthquake in May of 1960; pretty fitting given our little "experience" at the beginning of the semester, yeah?

Anyways, after some time in Valparaíso, we visited a vineyard on our way home:

Me and my friend Matt, mid-wine-tasting:

Finally, we paid a visit to the sanctuary of Chile's first saint: Teresa de Los Andes.  It was a beautiful sight to see:

Anyways, that's about it for right now.  This week in school is going to be pretty stressful, but afterward I should have some time to relax.  This weekend we're set to go build houses in the south (FINALLY), so I should have some good stories to bring back from there.  Until then, hope everything is going well with you all; ¡que les vaya bien! ♥

Things that are going to make me fat, Part I

For the most part, Chilean food is not that exciting.  Not a whole lot of flavor, NO heat whatsoever (someone send me some hot sauce!), and just generally... I dk, standard.  Lots of corn. Whatever.  What they DO do really well is carbs.  CHILEANS LOVE THEIR CARBS (almost as much as me).  Which is why I am starting a brand new section: "Things that are going to make me fat in Chile."  Enjoy.

1. Manjar

That's right: manjar.  Otherwise known as dulce de leche, manjar is like a sweets-lover's wet dream.  It comes in all forms (soft, hard, spreadable, chewable...), and it's EVERYWHERE. Cookies, cakes, crepes, little rolled-up ice cream cones on the street (barquillos)... there's no escaping it.  Not that you'd WANT to, anyways.

Alfajores: chocolate-covered, manjar-filled cookies.  Very typical.  They're everywhere.

Did I not say that it came in all forms?

2. Pancito

Breakfast, lunch, dinner, avocado, cheese, jam, butter... really, bread goes with everything, at any time.  I don't think the Atkins diet would be REMOTELY possible here.

 The infamous round, holey (holy...?) bread, found in EVERY SINGLE Chilean home.  Not lying.

3.Mote con Huesillos

They sell it everywhere, but I hadn't tried it until yesterday on the cerro.  That's probably a blessing, because if I'd tried it earlier I probably would weigh at least 10 pounds more by now from drinking it every day.

 Nectar of the gods.  Peaches (huesillo) floating in some delicious, sugary, peachy-ish nectar with wheat (mote). Sounds weird, but it is OUT OF CONTROL.  Easily the most refreshing (and sugary) beverage on the planet.  Definitely learning how to make this and bringing it home. It is too good.

4. High abundance of ice cream

 I have never come across anyone who loves ice cream as much as myself, but Chile, as a country, gives me a good run for my money.  It is *literally* everywhere.  My favorite place is a spot called Emporio La Rosa; they make all their own ice creams in crazy flavors like mint raspberry (sooo refreshing), mango green tea (surprisingly subtle), and, my favorite, chocolate con albahaca.  Tried it (even though I didn't know what albahaca was), LOVED it, went home, looked it up in the dictionary, and you know what? Albahaca is "basil."  And it's DELICIOUS. Chocolate and basil ice cream? New favorite.

Haven't done any Chilenismos in a while...

Chilenismo* of the Day

(*only one today)

Olor a rodillas: really, really smelly.  "But Kate, why 'a rodillas'? Knees don't stink!"  Because, my friends, your rodillas (knees) are half-way between feet and ass.  Best of both worlds! Chuta, ¡él tiene olor a rodillas!