Sunday, January 23, 2011

Nueva Familia

So much time has passed, but so much has been happening too! On Wednesday and Thursday we visited the fishing and forestry industries. They were both very interesting. 


The fishing industry in Chile is divided between aquaculture and wild catch. Surprisingly, aquaculture is just growing in the country, so most of the quantities of the catch are still wild. The best part of the day was going on a boat to the military base on the other side of the fishing port! Even though it was cold we still went up to the top of the boat and stayed there the entire time. 


The forestry industry is almost a monopoly, with the Arauco being the main player. The interesting thing about the company is that it is divided into different divisions for pulp, saw-wood, timber, plywood etc. The companies sell their products to each other as well as the outsiders. One of the reasons for this is to keep up with the inventory. Arauco replants part of the cuttings. Their main products are pine and eucalyptus. When we went for a tour in their replantation area, we learned a lot about how they grow them by the millions and then replant them when the trees are older. Surprisingly, only about 2% of the total plants are affected by some kind of disease.


We reached Viña del Mar today. The hostel we are staying in is a really colorful eclectic place. I love being in warm weather near the beach, but I really miss our crazy week in Concepción and my host family. Chilenos are so warm and welcoming. It really reminds me of the Indian culture. They wanted to take us everywhere and show us off to everyone. Even the aunts who would come over would start calling others on the phone and excitedly telling them that I had reached! 


The homestay made me realize why on an average the people here are slim. Their dinner is usually very light, mostly just tea or coffee, with some bread and avocado and cheese or along those simple lines. Basically, dinner is what I would usually consider tea-time. I didn't get to eat lunch with the family the entire week, so I can only assume that lunch and breakfast is heavy enough to sustain them through the day. 


Their sense of time is so weird. I knew from our meetings and our program advisors’ warnings, some facts about Chilean culture. One thing that we were told about is their sense of time. In Chile, our Spanish professor told us about how Chileans see time as a smoothly rolling event. This led me to believe that I was sufficiently prepared to deal with this cultural difference, especially since the “Indian standard time” is just as notorious. Even though throughout the homestay in Concepción, Camila was careful about mostly being on time, I confess that the last day resulted in a full-force impact of this cultural difference!

We had to be at a dinner with the other families by 8pm, but right off the bat Cami said we would aim for 8:30pm. This did not seem too bad: after all, wouldn’t more families on the Chilean time be late? However, by the time Cami and I went home, showered and dressed up, it was already close to 8pm, and it takes about 20 minutes to reach the city from her house. Just when I thought we were leaving, she said she wanted to relax for a little bit and drink some chocolate milk. She continued to maintain that we would be on time. When we finally left the house, it was close to 8:30 pm. Then, instead of walking over to the bus stop, we went to her aunt’s house because she had agreed to drive us over there. But the walk itself took about 15 minutes. I figured that we would leave right away, but Cami and her aunt immediately settled down to see some pictures of a safari that her family had recently been on. We left her house around 9 pm, and upon reaching the city realized we didn’t know exactly where the restaurant was. After some intense cursing in Spanish, calling her husband, and laughing so hard I was afraid we would hit someone, we finally made it to the restaurant at around 9:15 pm. By this time Tatjana, our program guide, had called several times to which Cami said irritably, “Why cant they just start without us. Oh, we are just so important!” 

Just some of the random thoughts and incidents that took place during my homestay. Miss them all!

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Dichato.. the tsunami victim

We started the day today with learning about the earthquake and how it happens... how the tectonic plate near Concepción shifted up and slid onto the plate near the Andes. This resulted in an earthquake of 8.8 magnitude that devastated most of Concepción and areas like Dichato, which were close to the epicenter of the quake. The destruction from the earthquake could already be seen in the city, but when we visited the coastal tourist town of Dichato, I could see the full impact of the tsunami.

The tsunami occurred in three big waves, which is part of the reason why there were as many as 25 victims and 27 considered missing. After the first and the second wave, a lot of the people came back down the hill to see their homes, because the government announced that the danger was over. But then the third wave hit, and many people, homes, and animals got washed away. The waves were huge, as much as 25 feet high. The destruction zone can easily be seen by the marked absence of homes and trees. Many spots only had the bathroom left, since the government had built this as the only brick part of the house for the villagers in order to help with sanitation.

Today was an eye-opener as to just how much Chile suffered during the quakes and how well it has coped.

To end with happier memories, we spent the afternoon with some kids in an under privileged government day-care center. The children were absolutely fabulous and completely adorable! We got them snacks and chocolates and milk and cookies and craft supplies, with face painting being the highlight of the 'noon. By the time we left, I was absolutely COVERED with drawings and scribbles. It was so sweet, and I really didn't want to leave them at all!

My buddy and host family continues to be awesome and might be taking me out to karaoke tonight - my first time ever!

Pictures soon! Estoy muy cansada! Necesita siempre ahora.

Monday, January 17, 2011

¡Concepción es muy interesante!

¡Hola Amigos!

I'm in Concepción with my host family, who are the sweetest ever! I am living with Camila and her mother. Cami speaks excellent english although her mother only speaks spanish and french, so Cami has to translate for us. I am absolutely loving it here!

Concepción is a very interesting city. We have already learned a lot about the earthquake and can see its effects still, in broken buildings, shifted foundations or unrepaired parts of bridges. But it has still recovered amazingly fast.

We went into the coal mine today, and it was an incredible experience. A miner himself gave us a tour and it was really astounding to hear all the stories about how they had to deal with gas leaks and figure it out in the olden times by keeping a parrot who would faint at the presence of methane, about how they would tie their children to beams to prevent them from running away and forcefully get rid of their fear of the mines, and about how if the lanters die and there is completely absolute darkness all around, they have to have the courage to stay in the same place until they are rescued - they are the real valiant heroes of Chile.

We just came back from Cami's friends party and are exhausted. More stories tomorrow about Dichato and how it was hit by the Tsunami.

Take care, hasta Mañana!

Friday, January 14, 2011

Lo Siento... too much happening!


I know I have been ignoring you guys for a while, but so much has been happening! On Wednesday, we went to a winery called Undurraga. It was a beautiful place, and we learned a lot about their marketing campaign and different varieties of wine. One thing that I was surprised to learn about is that in order to grow wine, alluvial soil, which is not too fertile, is the best. Too much fertility does not produce good wine. We got to do some taste testing at the end. I loved one of their sweet wines so much that I bought three bottles of it! Their wines are not very expensive and are made for the mass consumers instead of a higher end model.

Yesterday we went to Amcham – the American Chamber of Commerce, to learn more about the Chilean economy and the role Amcham plays in Chile. Chile has been really concentrating on increasing entrepreneurship in the country, but what is interesting is that they are mainly targeting for foreign entrepreneurs looking to start their business in the country. This is because the Chilean culture is such that failing at a start-up is considered extremely bad and embarrassing. If a start-up fails, chances are that the entrepreneur will not get a job in the industry after that.

We visited the Pablo Neruda house in the Bellavista neighbourhood after that. His house was designed by him for his mistrss (later became his wife) Matilda and is ingeniously done. Although he was afraid of water, he was fascinated by sailing and considered himself a sailor on land. This is completely reflected in the design of the house. The entire house is built on a slope, with water rushing down around it via canals. The house itself has low ceilings, and rooms that reminds one of different parts of a ship, like the captain’s room for instance. He decorated the house with gorgeous items, which were often taken from a ship or in some way reminiscent of a ship. His house is filled with eccentric collectibles, mismatched furnishings, and memorabilia of importance to Neruda. Dear friends like Pablo Picasso made some of the lovely paintings he had. Neruda was not just a poet and Nobel Prize winner for Literature, but he was also an Ambassador for Chile in France, a leader and a brilliant politician.

We ended the day with a visit to the nightclub called Kamakazi. The nightlife in Santiago starts exceptionally late! Our new friend Filipe wanted to take us, and by the time we walked out of the hostel it was already past 1am, and the nightclubs here don’t close until 4am! It was a lot of fun, with great music and a lot of Chilean dancing.

This morning we were so tired from last night we just barely made it through our classes. Then we went on a hike to Las Animas. It was a good hike, and we got to enjoy the waterfall at the end of it. The scenery was gorgeous, with trees and lakes and mountains everywhere. A few of us, included me decided to try zip-lining, which is basically when we cross a lake or river by zipping across a cable attached only by a harness. It was the best adrenaline rush I have enjoyed in a while! I am really glad I had the chance to try it!

I came home so tired that I decided to stay in for the night. More pictures later. Need to sleep for about 9 hours for tonight!

¡Hasta Pronto!

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Had the first day of classes today! We started with Spanish and culture, and moved on to Business practices in Chile and the Chilean demography and consumer characteristics.

The one interesting thing I have noticed is that Chile is an almost developed economy with changing cultures that is fast becoming like that of the United State's. It is however, a very homogenous culture. People have the same sort of tastes and expectations. Marriage is becoming less and less important or necessary, with people often living together without getting married, while divorce rates have shot up after a recent law change that makes it legal.

There are so many interesting things that we learned in class today. Chile is so close to being fully developed, yet the nation has a wide disparity in income distribution. This is to the extent that the poorest 20% often do not even finish high school. But at the same time, Chile has a stable economy, stable social life and a steady rate of growth averaging about 6%.

That's only some of the information we learned about today. I will be writing a paper soon, so will keep you all updated with detailed information if you so desire :)

Adding some interesting pictures from the fruit industry and some other random shots.














The last three are pictures of the UDD campus... isn't it pretty?? They can see the mountains from anywhere they turn!

Monday, January 10, 2011

Fruit Industry of Chile


Today was pretty eventful. We made our first visit to Universidad del Desarrollo. The campus is set in what looks to me like a surprisingly upscale neighbourhood with a beautiful view of the Andes in the distance. The buildings themselves are not really very pretty to look at; they kind of remind me of my high school. But, they ARE very strong against earthquakes, which I guess is the most important thing. Their medical school is one of the best in the nation.  The Vice President welcomed us. He was very informative and entertaining. The school was only established in 1990, which means it is 21 years old. That is really young, but they seem to have created a great reputation for themselves already! The founders of the school are all over-achievers – two have even run for the office of President, one losing by only 2%!

The V.P. also talked to us about the earthquake and tsunami, and how the people of Chile were not warned in time. It appears that many lives could have been saved from the tsunami by evacuation to higher grounds but the people were not warned about it.

We then took long drives in the bus to visit three sites – ASOEX, COMEXPORT and USDA.

ASOEX is the fresh fruit association of Chile. They do the main research work behind fruit export, which forms a huge fraction of Chilean exports. They update the exporters on things like certifications required by specific countries, the amount and type of fruit exported everywhere, and such. They also do a lot of PR events to help promote Chile as a reliable fruit exporter. In the fresh fruit industry, reliability is a big part of being a good exporting nation, and fortunately Chile is considered to be one of the most reliable exporters.

COMEXPORT is one of the exporting companies for fresh fruit. We went to their plant and it was really interesting to see how they did everything from choosing the fruits, to making sure that the fruit was of a certain grade and met the requirements of the country that it was being exported to. The fruits are cooled to zero degrees centigrade approximately to make them last longer through the months. Fruits are separated according to sizes and boxed. They are then packed and samples are sent to the USDA for inspection.

USDA is the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and its main function is to ensure that the fruits are free of harmful pesticides and bugs, and that it meets all the requirements of the United States. Randomly selected crates from the different exporters are checked everyday, and given a stamp of approval if they pass inspection. As many as 3500 crates are brought in every day to the USDA.

The fruit industry was extremely interesting to learn about and great to actually see up close.

Got back home to finally be able to fix my internet so I can get it in my room! Yay good days!

Time for bed now.

¡Hasta Mañana!

Concierto de Cultura

¡Mis Amigos!

I FOUND THE OLD ARTICLE I HAD WRITTEN! It was hiding as a draft :)

Here you go... slightly different points noted, along with PICTURES! :

Estoy muy cansada hoy - Today I am really tired.

We walked around a lot in Viña, this time with some of the other kids from the group. We stopped at a really nice restaurant on the beach walk but they didn't have anything vegetarian so ate some yummy icecream and waited until we got home to eat some noodles (carried in case of emergencies like this!). Overall the day was great, although I am exhausted and it was cool throughout the day unfortunately.








The low point was getting downgraded again :(. We ended up in the hostel we originally booked at, but comfort spoilt us! The room is now the size of a pea pod and we just about fit our two suitcases and ourselves in it. Oh well, such is the life of a tourista! Check out our crazy street. This is how we walk up!



The high point was going to watch a Chilean opera. It was an amazing experience, and one that not too many people have the fortune to enjoy. The opera itself was in Italian, but they had Spanish subtitles displayed on a wall. The theatre was a treat as well. Built within the Botanical gardens which we visited in the afternoon, it is a massive outdoor structure with three different levels of seating. We picked the last one because it was the cheapest, but the seats were not bad and the entire playacting was displayed on a projector.

Hopefully this video will be a little clear.

¡Que sueñes con los angelitos, mis corazones!



Sunday, January 9, 2011

¡Llegamos en Santiago!


Everything I blogged yesterday got deleted! L And it took me FOREVER to tell you all about it!

So I will keep this one a little shorter, but I’ll still tell you guys all about it! We met up with some of the other kids on the trip at the Flower clock at Viña, and then we walked around for a long time looking at the little sea town. We tried to grab lunch at a little sea-side restaurant which unfortunately had nothing vegetarian for me so I stuck to ice-cream!

Khalia and I had to take a little break before we went to lay on the beach for a while and then went on to a … believe it or not… a Spanish opera. It was all in Italian, but a big screen projector was showing the play-acting for us poor Galleria folks and also had the Spanish subtitles, which I only understood about half of! It was really interesting. People were loving the playacting which was a lot more like a Broadway production than an opera show! The entire outdoor theater filled up fast.

We JUST about made it on time to meet up with the rest of the class in Santiago this morning. We had to take the bus back and then take a bus from the metro station to the hostel (great basic place for students with a pool – pictures later!). We walked in just as the group was about to leave for the city tour!

Saw some interesting sights – the Wall street of Santiago, the super duper rich peoples paradise which had some awesome houses, one with a helipad no less! And we saw a lot of the government buildings as well as the Presidential palace.

I am absolutely exhausted after all that and refuse to think about having to attend classes tomorrow!

Been trying to attach the opera but its not working.. Will try again tonight.


Friday, January 7, 2011

La playa es bonita! - The beach is beautiful!

We finally got to Viña del mar! everything from the moment I woke up has been gorgeous and perfect. I found SPF 50 sunblock (really do NOT need to tan!), navigated the subway system perfectly, managed to buy round trip bus tickets to Viña in Spanish, and enjoyed the mountains with quaint little valley towns throughout the two hour ride all before 2pm!

Our B&B where we were supposed to stay had a broken sink faucet, so we got upgraded to a better B&B which is just perfect in this little house on a very hilly location. Lucky us!

Vegetarian food is a challenge to find here, by the way! Enough to make me consider just eating chicken from now on. But I stayed strong, and finally found a place that had salads and vegetarian sandwiches – love how much palta (avocados) they use here!



We finally decided to walk to playa Acapulco (the nice beach) and it was heaven on earth! We found beach chairs and a huge umbrella and just lazed around for the afternoon. The sky is unbelievably blue – couldn’t see a single cloud!




It’s interesting to observe people here. The one thing I noticed is that the ladies don’t seem to attempt to have a stick thin body. And looking at the hills around this place and how much Khalia and I huffed and heaved to climb them, they must be really fit.

About to shower and relax for a while now.

¡Hasta Pronto!

Thursday, January 6, 2011

¡Ultimo destinacion, por favor!


It’s so bizarre to be in a country where some people don’t speak any of the languages you know. I had a 5-hour wait in Lima, Peru before I boarded my flight to Santiago, and I was really confused about where to get my boarding pass. This airport definitely was not built for foreigners. There is no information desk anywhere and hardly any airport officials expect at the gates to ask for help. Nevertheless, I managed to convey to a Spanish-speaking attendant to help me find my way. This entailed a lot of emphasis on certain words and a ton of gesturing! I know he asked me if I spoke Spanish, and when I said no he asked me what language I did speak. He seemed kind of disappointed when I said “Ingles”!

I could see a change in attitude as soon as the plane reached Lima. If anyone else has noticed, when a flight lands in the U.S., people wait patiently until they are told they can start leaving the aircraft. Peruvians seemed a lot more like Indians in that aspect- as soon as the seatbelt sign went off, everyone rushed to gather their things and attempt to be the first to leave the aircraft! I felt right at home J

The flight to Santiago was beautiful. I got the window seat, and enroute the only thing I could see for miles around were brown mountain ranges below us with tufts of cloud splattered around. Santiago as a city is an interesting mix. It has some beautiful buildings and right off the bat it’s obvious that it represents a country fast moving towards being a developed nation. But at the same time I could see litter strewn everywhere and lots of stray dogs around. Hmm, maybe it’s more like New York than I realized! It even has a street that I swear looks like Wall Street and I-banking type business folks lounging around!

Khalia and I walked around till we were starving and then just walked into a random little restaurant that had some lovely outdoor seating so we could enjoy the perfect weather (just the right amount of balmy humidity with a slight cool breeze in the evening). It’s lucky that I knew a little español, because we had to use it to explain to our non-english speaking server exactly what we wanted. The pictures on the menu definitely helped though! It was just a sandwich with cheese, tomatoes and avocado but it was deliciously simple and surprisingly filling!

We walked back to our hotel with a small bottle of Chilean wine and lots of high spirits – pun intended – and are just about to relax and enjoy it, so until tomorrow, folks!

¡Buenas noches, mis amores!

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Jet Setting as usual

I am so jet-lagged it's unbelievable. I travelled over 26 hours yesterday, to get to Cincinnati from India. And I already have to unpack and pack in order to leave for Chile tomorrow!!

Why come to the States at all, you ask? Well, as always, I had so much food that I brought back with me that I HAD to stop here! I guess it was also easier to purchase round trip tickets, so why not.

Over break, my friend Khalia and I managed to book hotels for the first three nights before the program starts. I was so excited about being home that it didn't even hit me until then that I would soon be in CHILE! We decided to stay one night in Santiago to relax and then stay at Viña del Mar the other two nights to enjoy the beach. The hotels (both really nice) are surprisingly cheap. Both of them were well under $35 per person per night. Compare this to Europe when I traveled there in 2009, even the hostels would be close to $50 per person per night!

I can't really say I am nervous about traveling, but then again this might be because I am accustomed to being able to find my way over the years. What I can say is that I am so excited to put a pin on another continent on my world map to show my travels, and to experience a culture that from my research, seems like the middle ground between the western and eastern cultures.

Today, I have to boring things like pack, check in at my bank, clean up my house and leave everything in order.

But Tomorrow, I will be spending in Pesos, eating empanadas and attempting to use my limited Spanish vocabulary!

Hasta Pronto, is amigos! See you in Chile!