Another week has come and gone!

Below are two photos of what I made in my leather making craft class. I made that keychain and pulsera de cuero (bracelet)! :)

Below are all photos of Plaza Victoria. Just a nice little park in the middle of the city. I now know all there is to know about this place. haha :)

So another week has gone by, not too much happened. It was actually a pretty normal week...and I haven't had too many of those here yet! Monday (July 6th) was fun though. We all got the opportunity to sign up the week before for things called artasenías or talleres. This is where we get to go into a professionals workshop and learn to do some kind of craft. The options were: vitrofusion, mapuche loom, leather making, and a few more I can't remember off the top of my head. Anyways, it was a disorganized mess since this event was being put on by PUCV (my university here). I mean almost everyone signed up, but they didn't have enough spots for everyone, so some people don't even get to do any kind of craft. It's a mess. Anyways, on Monday I got to do my first one which was leather making. I get to do my second one this coming Monday, and that will be mapuche loom. It was really fun though. We got to go to this guy's shop/store/house and learn how to stamp and dye leather. We each got to make a keychain and a bracelet/cuff. The little stamps we pounded into the leather were made out of what looked like old railroad pins and then on the botton a design was put on it. Then we took hammers and pounded each design into the leather in anyway we wanted. I was working on mine and then looked over at the owner of the shop, he was making a beautiful piece of art while mine looked like something a child could have made. It was still a blast though, and actually a lot harder than I had anticipated. The best part though was getting to color/dye the leather after we had put on design on it. We got to have any color we wanted and mix colors if need be to. I had no idea so much work went into this art form...I fully appreciate it now. :) And then after we finished making our pieces of art, we had "once" (light dinner) with the family. We had tea, cookies, bread, a crazy type of honey from the south of chile, and jam. it was so fun. Especially because their family had a little 2 year old boy named Nicanor, that of course just latched onto me. We played peekaboo and a light game of chase around the house, it was fun. I got my little kid fix for the day... but I am still missing playing with my Hunty James...I mean he is only my favorite kid in the whole wide world. :) We listened to the best music while we made our art too, the artist is named, "Victor Jara." He is a musician in Chile from the 60's and 70's. He is amazing...I need to get some of his music, its very political and beautiful and calming all at the same time. I recommend it to anyone that wants to hear great music from Chile! The only odd thing about the leather (cuero) making experience is that I knew right away the mum of the little boy , she was really young and nice and helping us with our leather. She was like 26, maybe 30 at the most. But the owner of the shop, he as at least in his 60's. And we found out that they were married! Yeah it was a little interesting...but hey to each their own right. I have been told age is not really important here...and I am slowly figuring that out.

But besides the leather adventure, it has been a relaxing week. I had to do a lot for school this week though...this week was our midterms for our short summer program. So I had to do a presentation on one of the plazas (Plaza Victoria) in Valparaíso. So I had to go with my group to each of our plazas and take pictures and then of course I volunteered stupidly like I always do to put the powerpoint together. But that presentation went smoothly and I learned quite a bit too. Shocking I know. ;)

ALso for school this week, I had my first exam, in Grammar (gramática). I got it back yesterday (friday July 10). And I got an A, yay! Their grading system is different here, rather than percentages you get a numer from 1-7. I think a 4.4 was a C, and then a 6-7 is an A. I got a 6.6, so I was very pleased, accept for the fact that I made some silly and stupid mistakes. But I have learned from the and thats all that matters right? haha

Oh another cool thing I did this week was in my culture class, on thursday ((july 9th), we took a tour in Valpo of all the cool areas to see Grafitti. We have learned about all the different types and what they are called and seen some amazing pieces of art! The only bummer is that our teacher told us that we needed to blend in and we couldn't bring our cameras because they could easily get stolen. But I am thinking I want to go back up to where we were one day and take photos on my own... because its just too amazing to not share with you all, especially Nick. I think he would be amazing by it. The coolest place we saw that day was the "ex-carcel" (the old prison) that is all run down and falling apart but the big huge courtyard has been turned into an area for concerts and then in one of the buildings, it has been turned into a drama theatre. And someone told me that one of the prisoners that had escaped from their when it was still running, now works at the place. Very comforting right? But there was so much grafitti in this place...and it was amazing work. There were some places I had no idea just how they were able to get to it, it was crazy. I will for sure try to go back and show everyone. :)

So yeah that was pretty much my week. Oh but I almost forgot! Last night (friday night)...a group of girls from ISA, we all went out to a club to learn how to Salsa dance. I of course was all for it but a little hesitant since we all know I don't have too much rythm. But the club was called "Axé (Ache) Habana (Havana)." And the owner told us that Axé or Ache in cuba means luck. Just a random tid bit for everyone. :) It was fun to learn the basics, but yeah I didn't get much more after that. But I had just such a great time watching all the amazing dancers. Erin was wild and adventurous and asked a few guys to dance and it was a great time cheering her on and watching her pick up new moves. It was so fascinating to me to see just how people can move like, so fluid and with so much ease. Really really cool. But I soon realized that this was the type of place that was better to go with a partner, so you had someone to dance with. Guys here just stare at you, they don't really come up to women to ask them to dance. Only the creepers do that. Its better to come with guys. Maybe I just need to find myself a latino that can teach me to salsa. Haha. We are thinking of going back there though and practicing more, but our mum Pili said that she loved to dance and she would try to teach us too.

Today (satuday July 11th), it was lovely to sleep in and get some more sleep. I got up this morning and had breakfast with Erin and Pili and we talked about how we watched a documentary about Victor Jara in our culture class this week and how I loved his music and the message he spoke of. Then we learned all about the political history of Chile during the time of his death in '73, and how he was at a protest and taken by the government and tortured and killed. There is controvery about his death and other like him. They are called, "desparecidos." The people taken by the government to thought to be communist and then tortured and killed and never seen again or to be found some days later dead. The politics here is very interesting and I think you all should read about it. The time I am talking about was right after Allende (pretty sure he was communist), who had only been in power for like 3 or 4 years, and how he was forced to step down in '73 and then the government took over and it became chaos and then Pinochet came into power. There was a lot of abuse from the government during this time but it was also a time when the country stabilized economically and things like that. There was definitely a little bit of war going on between these two different sides, and depending on who you talk to their views and experiences are different. Pili, her family owns a mill in Casablanca, and during this time, there was a regulation on how much a family could get of floud, only one bag per family like per week. So there would be a line to their house, of people getting their flouring and begging for more than one bag or more than one bag of feed for their animals. I guess this wasn't a bad time for Pili's family, but many families suffered, especially those thought to be communist. It sounds like a very rough time to be living in Chile. And I am not sure if I understand it all or if I have explained it all right here. But I think you all need to go read a little bit about it. It's very interesting! :)

But anways, after an intense conversation at breakfast I needed to get out and enjoy the sunshine. So I went for a run/walk by the beach. It was so lovely to enjoy the sunshine and frsh air and the ocean all at the same time. Even though I miss hiking in the hills at home, I am definitely getting my hiking in here. I just hike in a city, up the hills everyday to my house. And some of these hills are like straight up, worse than some trails in Boise! Yeah hard to believe, but TRUE! haha

A friend told me about a beautiful botanical gardens here, so I think I might explore and try to find that today. I will bring my camera if I do and show you all how awesome it should be. :)

Have a wonderful day everyone...I am always thinking and missing everyone! :)

Love you!

Chao,

Britt