Hello friends!
I wanted to throw in a quick update, even though I don't have much time.
I'm writing from a hotel lobby in Algorrobo - we're finishing up the last weekend of the study abroad program, and have come to a little tourist beach-town to spend a few days together to wrap up. We've all finished our independent projects and sharing presentations of what we've learned. It's very interesting to see what everyone has been spending their last month on! There's a wide range: one girl spent a month studying a safe house for battered women, and was able to compare it to her experience with community work in the US. Another classmate spent a month with the women in a fishing community, interviewing them and later wrote a play about their lives. We saw studies of a bi-cultural education, a community radio station broadcasted from a mental hospital, intercultural health.

Working on this project has been more or less my entire life for the past few weeks. Literally the past week I had no time to exercise or train - I was sitting at my computer, whether in my house or at a cafe or at the University, the entire time. It's been intense, and I've learned a lot, but needless to say, I'm glad it's finished!

Since the word "house" came up in the last paragraph, let me tell you exciting news: I moved into a new house! I was looking for a place to live in Valparaiso (instead of Vina del Mar, which is a good half an hour away), since I'm going to be here for three months. I was lucky enough to find an amazing place! Some circus artists I've been training with happened to have an extra room in their house - the house is beautiful and the housemates are beautiful. I've been living there for about two weeks and I am very happy with it!






Unfortunately, I won't be able to enjoy it for about a week now - after we're finished wrapping up the program here I'm going to go up to San Pedro de Atacama (a little town in the middle of the Atacama desert- they say the drying desert in the world) with a few friends. I have some musician-friends up there, and there happens to be a performance on the 11th, so they've invited me to perform in a fire and music show in the middle of Valle de la Luna. I'm very excited! Valle de la Luna is one of those places that I saw photos of, heard all about, and made a promise to myself I would have a valuable experience in. And now, by luck, I'll be performing there!

Valle de la luna:



I'll make sure to let you all know how it goes!

four weeks later...

Alright readers, prepare youselves for a long and full post (it´s been a while since the last one!)

Section one: homestay
For the first week of our trip to the south, we split up in pairs to do a rural homesay with a Mapuche family. During this time we still have academic seminars every day, covering topics of Mapuche culture and development. The Mapuche are the largest indigenous group in Chile (and they also have a large population in Argentina=. In terms of indigenous groups, they have a unique situationÑ whereas the indigenous peoples of the north were conquered by the Spanish and then swallowed by the government of Chile, the Mapuche fought off the Spanish and ended up agreeing rather peacefully on a boundary line and maintaining respectful trade relations. However, when Chile founded itself as a nation, it automatically claimed all of the Mapuche land and absolved ethnic identity, naming all inhabitants of the new country as ¨chileans.¨ And since then, it´s just gone down hill.
Immediately after Chile´s independence came the military occupation of indigenous lands gruesomely name ¨the Pacification of the Araucania¨(araucania is the name given to the indigenous territory in the south). The Mapuche lost much of their land then, and have been ever since. Though Salvador Allende's presidency intalled land reforms in favor of the Mapuche, the dictatorship quickly overturned all that work.
Now, for lack of sufficient land, they are forced to live as subsistence farmers on small plots or migrate to the city. And to a culture in which the philosophy and lifestyle are closely tied to the land, this grand migration to the cities represents a loss of identity.
Mapuche has come to be synonymous with "poor" in Chilean society and they still encounter strong discrimination (even my host father, who has so far impressed me by his open-mindedness, was surprised when I told him that there wasn't much drinking in my Mapuche family - it was incongruous with his image of Mapuches as drunks. I still remember what he said: "los mapuche son muy bueno para el copete")

Needless to say, there were a lot of issues to explore.

Lucky for me, I was placed with the local school director's family. My Mapuche parents had met in university, when they were both leaders of Mapuche activist groups. Since moving back to the countryside, the husband ahs been very active in getting better education and the wife has been an activist in issues pro-health care and anti-machismo (she said, of my other classmate's Mapuche fathers: "most of them have been my students"). Unlike most of my classmates, my family had warm, running water and no cows. I was very lucky to have a mother with so much experience and that was so willing to share it.

As for the academic seminars, we had a lesson in mapudungun (the Mapuche language and a huge part of their identity as a people), a class on Mapuche music and dance (in which, since my host father was the professor, I dressed in Mapuche wear and danced the 'ostrich dance' without even a sentence of preparation).

Overall it was a lovely week. Along with the seminars, I went on long walks every morning, accompanied by the family's cocker spaniel, learned a new knitting stitch from my Mapuche mother and leanred how to make bread in the ashes of a bonfire.
(Cocker Spaniel "Wuesacona")



(My Mapuche mother showing us how to make cheese empanadas)

On the theme of bonfires, I'll throw in a quick note about October 22. My 21st burthday was spent, not bar-hopping, dressed up downtown, but making s'mores over a bonfire in a cow pasture in the middle of nowhere, singing folk songs that rotated between the Beatles and Victor Jara. And, of course, there were more stars than I've ever seen at one time in my life.


Part Two: Galvarino

The last week of our trip to the south kept us moving form place to place. It included one day in Pucon, teeny tourist town in the middle of volcanoes, forests, mountains, lakes and abounding with expensive companies to take you there. I reached into my Ward family tradition and chose to go on a long - distance bike ride (5 hours in the mountains).

We also spent two days doing a "village study," where we were sent off to little towns to conduct anthropological research on a variety of topics. My partner and I were sent to a teenie, tired and dusty town: Galvarino, where there was one functioning restaurant and nothing close to a hostal to stay at. The policemen (who we were advised to go to first), scratched their heads for a while before thinking of the names of a couple old ladies in town that may have extra rooms to rent. We ended up staying in a house with a depressed widow, her two daughters who asked us "do you have chocolate in the United States? Do you have dogs there? What do you wear in the United States? Do you have friends there?" in a house wih a mysterious smell we later discovered came from the pile of rotting chicken on the kitchen floor (our best guess is that it was initially for the cat...) Those two days were very engaging intellectually (we chased down contacts from all walks of life -- interviewing schoolgirls in the plaza, history professors, and a Mapuche organizer recently elected mayor), but emotionally speaking it was extremely draining.

Really, that was the summary of the entire two weeks. I think we were all ready to return to Valparaiso, where we had a host family we were comfortable with and a room that had already started to feel like home.


(sitting in the only functioning restaurant in all of Galvarino)

Part Three: Valparaiso!

The moment we returned to Valparaiso, our period of independent study started. Since then, I've been busy interviewing directors, recording rehearsals, scribbling notes during performances. To say what it is I'm researching will take a bit of explaining. I came to Chile with the hope of researching political street theatre, inspired by stories I'd head of street theatre under the dictatorship. However, when I first started exploring the theme, I was told by a primary source that political street theatre doesn't exist anymore -- what does exist is all spectacle, pure entertainment. So I changed my focus - I found a group of actors doing "playback theatre," a community-oriented, improvised theatre directed towards drama therapy, and I decided to research that, as a form of social theatre.

But. Almost two weeks ago I met with my research project advisor for the first time, who told me there is indeed political street theatre going on and threw out a handful of names off the top of his head.
So now it's looking something like this:
"Chilean Theatre, off-stage: In the street, the tent, and the community" (except that in Spanish, that would our with alliteration.)

THE STREET:
Street theatre! There's at least one established group in Santiago and one in Valparaiso. It's true that they don't deal with directly political themes - instead they are exploring issues of identity, colelctive memory, society, etc


(Los Mendicantes - Street theatre group from Santiago)

THE TENT:
Circus theatre! I've been training regularly with three great people that together make up the group "En viaje, artistas del circo." I was able to see their show last weekend, and it was beautiful! (see photos of it here:http://www.elzocalo.cl/2008/rueda_viaje.html) They told a story, let the audience connect with them emotionally, and infused it with their circus arts. And they're not the only ones- they've offered to connect me with their other circus theatre friends.


(Images from "La Rueda" the show by my buddies)

THE COMMUNITY:
Playback Theatre! If my priority was purely a strong academic study, I would focus on this -- it makes a great study, researching how they rehearse, how they perform, and how the audience responds. I saw a performance in Santiago last week, and it was amazing to see the relationship between the audience and the performers, the camaraderie that was built between the audience members, and the emotional response it evoked.
But...now that I have so many amazing opportunities, I couldn't dare leave behind either circus theatre or street theatre...

(Rehearsal with Valparaiso's Playback Theatre group)

Now, almost two weeks into our research period, I've learned that I love doing research. It's so stimulating to follow leads and do interviews, chase down directores after the show, walk alongside a parade taking notes.
I'm lucky to have a topic in which I essentially get to talk to people about their passion. So far everyone has been very excited and open to talk to me (I'm afraid my classmates studying things like violence against women or drug rehabilitation may not be quite as fortunate).

I'm shocked we only have two weeks left to do research, which also means only two weeks left in our program!
Time flies!


(Me and Ulises - the host brother!)

Heading South

Well now I'm getting ready for another big trasition:
Tomorrow at 9 am, we are leaving for an "academic excursion" to the south (primarily Temuco).

Tomorrow afternoon we're meeting our homestay families, and we will be with them for a week: this is a Mapuche family (Mapuche= the largest indigenous group in Chile, lots of political and social struggle). I don't really know what to expect, but I'm excited for the different experience.
During this week we will also be having two academic seminars a day, including ones of the political struggle, environmental issues, Mapuche music and dance, the Mapuche language (Mapundugun)

After that week, we'll have three days to do an ethnographic study of a village (I'll be focusing on "culture" -- music, theatre, dance).

THEN we're going to go around to some other neat places and learn about some interesting things and we'll return back November 3rd.

Seeing as the first week I'll be living with a family probably with no electricity or water, and the second week I'll be traveling from hotel to hotel, I will probably not have time to get online, which is why I'm laying it all out for you.

I'll make sure to do a big "this is what my past two weeks were like" post on return.




AAAND I can do one of those now!
My past week has been a lot of the same: training, training, training. The interesting thing about training this week is that I tore my hip flexor. That's been a struggle, figuring out how to continue training and progressing while still taking care of my body. And also, figuring out how to stay productive emotionally also, not getting frustrated. And I'm doing pretty well with it. I know it will heal soon enough, and I know I can keep training in certain ways until it does.

Also, since this week was the last week all of us from the program are together (we're splitting in have tomorrow - half to the north, half to the south), we've been doing a lot of activities with the group. Last night we had an "art share" where everyone in the program came, and people shared poems, stories, dances, everything. Our academic director played some Bob Dylan and Violeta Parra, one friend read a poem she wrote to our grammar professor, I did a quick acro act with my host brother, et cetera. LOTS of fun!
And today, we got together and did a boat tour around the bay of Valparaiso. It was so much fun - we saw a bunch of pelicans and sea lions, got to see the hills of Valparaiso from afar, and were able to be on the water! That was such a great experience in and of itself - being on a small boat on the water reminded me of all the water-skiing trips with the family - just that subtle physical motion was so comforting!

So all in all, it's been great! And it will continue to be!

Hasta luego, amigos. Chao!

Catching Up

Whew! Look how time flies! It's been almost a month since my last post - I can't believe it's gone that fast!
Let's see how to sum this all up...
Yesterday was the END of our classes with my program! After six weeks of Spanish and lectures, we now have a week to relax and prepare for the next step. Then, the 19th of October, our group is splitting in half, with half going on an educational excursion to the north, and the other half to the south. I will be going to the South, where it's green and rainy and the home of the Mapuche people (largest indigenous group in Chile).
We'll be there for two weeks, then immediately start on our independent study project.


So, what have I done the past month? The most exciting news is the circus news.
A few weeks ago, the man I'm taking trapeze classes from mentioned that they were preparing a circus show and wondered if I'd be interested in performing.

Well, of course.

So Saturday, September 27, I packed my circus stuff and hiked up to the Ex-Carcel (remember me talking about this place?) Tall posts had been turned into trapeze rigs, black curtains hung up and blue mats plopped down to make a stage, lights were placed on the top of stone walls, and we were set.
Now, I've warmed up in some pretty scuzzy green rooms, but the one for this show was the scuzziest of all: it was the old prison showers. Barely any light, one broken mirror, stone floors, and eerie eerie shower stalls down the hallway.
No matter, it was worth it. And once all the other performers got in there, with their stripes and clown makeup and brooms and juggling clubs, the ambience changed enough for me to forget the creepy history of the place.
The show went really well, it was a lot of fun. Afterwards there was a lot of congratulating and dancing and making friends - and all of a sudden, I'm an international contortionist!

Here are some photos from the show:





And the next chapter of the story:
The next Tuesday I was between classes and received call on my cell from an unknown number. I picked it up and the conversation went something like this..."Hi Jacki, I'm Claudio from EnViaje Circus, we have a gig this Thursday and our contortionist can't make it. We heard about you from the show at the Ex-Carcel, and were wondering if you were available to do this show?"
Whewh! That night I went to their house to talk to them (three artists: a musician/actor, an aerial/dancer/actress, and a handbalancer/juggler/actor, all living together and making art together.) Their house was beautiful - past a huge eucalyptus tree, up a winding stone staircase, through an iron door with stained-glass windows, and you enter into a huge space with wooden floors, a trapeze hung in the kitchen, artsy collages on the tables and jars of spices lining the windowsills. It was a beautiful place with beautiful people - a true community of friends committed to making beautiful art.
So a long story short, we met and talked it over Tuesday, rehearsed Wednesday, rehearsed Thursday afternoon and performed Thursday night. It was a wonderful experience and very inspiring.

And they, being artists in-between performances, also teach classes. How could I NOT take advantage of that?
Last week looked like this: school classes four days a week, handbalancing lessons four days a week, aerial silks three days a week, trapeze two days a week...




More has happened, and more WILL happen, and I'll try to write more often!

11 Sept

Today's the day:

Sept 11, 1973: In Chile, a military coup is staged to overthrow democratically-elected Socialist president Salvador Allende. From here, Gen. Augosto Pinochet takes over and leads a 17-year dictatorship in which thousands of people are tortured, killed, and made to "disappear."

Sept 11, 2001: In the United States, hijacked planes crashed into the Twin Towers in New York City. 3,000 people were killed.

Selection from "Cita con Angeles" by Silvio Rodríguez Domínguez

Septiembre aúlla todavía:
su doble saldo escalofriante.
Todo sucede un mismo día
gracias a un odio semejante.
Y el mismo ángel que allá en Chile
vió bombardear al Presidente
ve las dos torres con sus miles
cayendo inolvidablemente.


September still howls:
its double chilling casualties.
Everything happens on the same day
thanks to a similar hatefulness.
The same angel that there in Chile
saw the president being bombed
sees the two towers, with its thousands
falling unforgettably.


Today in classes we spent a lot of time reflecting on this day, this day that is so important to Chilean history. I don't know how many times I cried today - I'm still having a hard time getting my head around the fact that all of this happened: that soldiers took over the streets, entered anyone and everyone's house yelling "are you a communist?" Killing people in the streets, taking them to boats waiting in the harbor to torture them.

In Spanish class today we read Salvador Allende's last speeches- the radio transmissions from La Moneda (the Presidential Palace) as he knew he was being overthrown.

"La historia no se detiene ni con la represión ni con el crimen. Esta es una etapa que será superada. Este es un momento duro y difícil: es posible que nos aplasten. Pero el mañana será del pueblo, será de los trabajadores. La humanidad avanza para la conquista de una vida mejor."

(History cannot be stopped by repression nor crime. This is a stage that will be overcome. This is a hard and difficult moment: they may crush us. But tomorrow will be of the people, it will be of the workers. Humanity continues to fight for a better life.)

We talked about this a little bit at dinner with my host parents. My host father said that Allende died like a ship captain. All of his men had betrayed him- he knew the danger, but he didn't leave La Moneda- he went down with his ship.

A theme throughout his speeches that day was his "duty." His duty to the Chilean people to complete his term as President, just as the people had decided he should.

In the recording of his last speech he says "Viva Chile! Viva the people! Vivan the workers! These are my last words and I am certain that my sacrifice will not be vain, I am sure that, at least, there will be a moral lesson that punishes treachery, cowardice and betrayal." And then you hear the sound of bombs and crashing.




There is just so much to digest!
This was all so recent: we are now 35 years from the coup. After 1973, there were 17 years of dictatorship, and then the past 18 years have been democracy.
My host brother, now 24, was born during a dictatorship.
One of our directors asked us, "You were all about 12, 13 when the Twin Towers were hit? That's how old I was during the coup."

comparison

In the past week or so here, I've discovered one very important thing:
Valparaiso is the Portland of Chile.

Reason Number One: Artsy

I've walked the streets of Valparaiso a good number of times now, and I am always overwhelmed by new and beautiful murals, graffiti, street art, painted houses, marble collages embedded in the sidewalk. Walking around, I get the feeling that the people living here take pride in making their space beautiful, and are proactive to take the responsibility to do it.
And there is such a vibrant culture of street art! I have no idea how such a culture
could have developed, but all over the streets are incredible works of art, not just tagging but art.
It creates such a beautiful, positive environment.
Here are some photos I took while walking around with some buddies:





One of my favorites, which I unfortunately don't have a picture of, was a nintendo logo, but instead of "Nintendo" it said "NoEntiendo," which means "I don't get it" in Spanish.


Reason Number Two:
Beautiful naturaleza

Both Vina del Mar and Valparaiso (just to clarify: two cities that are so smooshed together they count as one) are right on the water, and follow the curve of the water. I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but it's become a big part of my daily life here. I've been walking to classes every morning, following a caminata right on the water. I've never spent so much time so near the ocean - I still find myself gasping every time there's a gap in the buildings and I see the expanse of blue.
I've also gone a handful of times to the beautiful sandy beach three blocks from my house to train.

Check it out!



Reason Number Three:
Culture!

I have only been here for what, two weeks? and have already encountered a plethora of festivals, shows, performances, workshops... I'll be walking through the city and happen upon a performance of traditional Chilean dance in the plaza, I'll turn and see I big advertisement for a Jazz festival, then go home and have my host mother hand me an announcement about a theatre festival coming up.
It's been very stimulating to simply be in this environment.
Last weekend I cried when I the went to see the opera Madame Butterfly at the Teatro Municipal de Vina del Mar, then the next night I inhaled cigarette fumes at a punk show in the basement of Casa T.I.A.O (description to come).

Tangent (on the theme of culture): with my program we are required to partner with one of six organizations, the organization I chose, called "Centro Cultural Playa Ancha" focuses on "occupying and recuperating public spaces for the development of Art and Culture." Specifically, they offer workshops and classes, run a community television chanel, organize events to bring together local communities (block party style) as well as arrange larger carnavals - one of which is the Carnaval Mil Tambores, which will happen in early October. After a few unfocused meetings we finally figure out how we gringas (there are three of us with the program) could possible help. Turns out they just want us to participate!
For me, this means I will meet weekly with musicians to learn how to play cueca, the Chilean national dance, on the accordion! In October, I will be marching in the parade with my beautiful Bella and a ruffled indigenous dress on. I couldn't have happened upon a better opportunity!
I'll be doing something like this:


And some other photos from Mil Tambores 2007:




Reason Number Three:
Circus is Everywhere

It would be just my luck, wouldn't it, that the very week I arrive to Valparaiso, they are just getting ready for a Festival of Clown?
I wasn't able to make it to any of the activities, but I made sure to see their opening parade, and it definitely made me cry a little -- a celebratory community dancing in the street! And not just that, but a circus one! It assuaged all my worries.

Beyond that, I've found a place to train! The Casa T.I.A.O is a casa ocupa, literally an "occupied house," that houses something like 30 or 40 artists, hosts workshps and classes in all sorts of arts, and puts on shows! They have done a great job transforming a scummy abandoned building into a place of art with paint, wheatpaste, and a creative sense of interior decorating. They have a sala de entrenemiento with a lot of space, mats, and a trapic and aerial fabric! The plan is to take two trapeze classes and one fabric class a week(at about two dollars each), make lots of friends and then make art!
So far the plan is going very well.
My very first visit, I had mistaken the day. I knocked on the large, antique oak door for a long while until it was opened, and that was only because a person just happened to be leaving. Luckily I ran into a circus person pretty quickly (I suppose the chances were good), and after hunting down a schedule and realizing there was no class tonight, I decided to ask if I could stay and train anyway. Of course, was the answer. My happenstance guide decided to train with us, and eventually a Spanish Juggler called "Smurf" joined us as well.
The next day I returned for the trapeze class with my host brother, Ulises. The class was wild and wonderful and difficult! It's not dance trapeze, like I'm used to, but circus trapeze (If you're reading this and understand, I figure you'd appreciate the detail, if that means nothing to you I won't bore you to explain), and turns out that circus trap has an entirely different technique than I'm used to. It was very tough.
After the class, after finding out that one of my classmates had done a fair amount of partner acrobatics, the two of us decided to play around. This was such an inspirational experience - even though I didn't understand half of what he was saying (though my vocabulary is good, my circus vocab is still lacking), we were able to move through a good amount of moves, pulling from our shared knowledge. And, quite easily, he was able to teach me some more.
This is [one of] the [many] beauty[s] of the performing arts: the human body is the common denominator across all cultures! Expression and community and beauty, all right there.

Fabulous!

For days after this class, I had to stretch my calves every time I was planning on standing up, they were so tight.





And of course there are things to say about my classes, and my friends, and my host family, and all the other walks and explorations we've done in the city...
It'll come.

a casa

Well now I'm writing from my new home.
Everything is fabulous. I was given a wonderful family - I have two older siblings, a brother, 24, and a sister, 29 - and just to keep in the theme of my siblings back in the US, both are engineers. My parents are both very kind and engaging and have made me very comfortable. And my city is beautiful! We live right on the water, on this beautiful ocean!

I don't have much time to write now, but I'll give you a teaser for tomorrow:







And, does this one look familiar?





Tomorrow, I'm heading to my first official day of classes, my first lecture, and in the evening I'm heading over to a casa ocupada to check out some trapeze classes, and then afterwards going to watch a show by a clown theatre troupe.
I'm home!