monday 31 july 930 santiago-buenos aires
thursday 10 august 830 buenos aires-rio de janeiro
friday 18 august 1210 rio de janeiro-santiago
saturday 19 august santiago celebration of my 21st :)
sunday 20 august 2030 santiago-montreal
That's the bones of the thing. Julia (montreal roomie) and I are grabbing our backpacks and heading out tomorrow. Where we sleep tomorrow no one knows, but that's the fun of the thing.
I'll try to update from the hostels and pit stops along the way. Apparantly my chilean mobile will roam, so in case of emergency, try me at + 56 8 928 4631. Sms are good too.
Wish us luck!
31 July 2006
25 July 2006
aprendi a quererte y a veces entenderte...
Since leaving school I've been working with Alissa, the Project Aprender Canada coordinator in Chile. My job so far has been quite mind-numbing: I have been compiling mid- and final project evaluations, from volunteers as well as school administrators and project mentor teachers. Lots of tables and graphs, typing, translating, and turning the whole idea of this crazy project over and over in my mind.
Project Aprender Canada is only in its second year. It's still very much a personal project, something that started when Jon (fellow McGillian) met with Fernan ("the godfather") and talked about the possibility of sending McGill kids down to work at the schools run by Corporacion Aprender, of which Fernan is a board member. On a micro level, its about being the first gringo these kids have interacted with: help develop oral skills, provide incentives to learn English, broaden their cultural horizons, act as a positive role model. It's about "si se puede" as much as it is about driving home the point that English is real and useful. English is part of a national education policy in Chile -- which, when you consider the position Chile sees for itself in the world, should hardly be surprising.
There's more than a hint of social justice to it, too. Everything about the way this country works keeps the incredible social inequality in place. In Santiago's nicer neighbourhoods, kids attend schools that are perfectly bilingual. Those that have access to real language education are the ones that already have resources. My kids, in Puente Alto, are not necessarily poor -- at least not most o f them. They're from working families, but they all have cell phones, walk around plugged into their mp3 players, and a decent number (if they can make the grade for the public system) will go to university. But when they apply for an award or a job with a kid who went to Santiago College or Instituto Nacional, they are at an instant disadvantage. Just seeing that they went to a school in Puente Alto, no matter what their marks, can slice their chances. English is a skill that is really valued in the job market, something that can help them get out of the Puente Alto funk.
Obviously, in two and a half months we dinky Canadian uni students are not teaching anyone to speak English. But the fact that we come so far is a boost for the status of English at the school, and hopefully the effects of our sojourn will be felt later. We tried to make learning English fun and more relevant. Aside from my silly warm-up games, I filled my hour-and-a-half classes with listening exercises to things like "You're Beautiful" by James Blunt -- possibly the most-recognized English song of the season. In my beginning English class with the mothers, we started with "Hello, Goodbye" by The Beatles. They loved it...and it was fun for me, too.
There is no doubt in my mind that what we did outside of the classroom was far more important than what we did inside. It's really about the times we sat around fiddling with guitars and singing, talking bands and the Montreal music scene. It's about their questions about Canadian food and winters, and what people in Canada think about Chile. It was their constant marvel that we were friends with Julia and Jon (the volunteers from last year) and that we all got together in Canada. It was talking student mobilisation and gossiping about other teachers. It was about bringing me cuchufli and alfajores (cookies) to try, or burning me a CD by Los Prisioneros, the 80s protest band of choice. It's about the dozens and dozens of new additions to my msn contacts, the e-mails, the requests to post comments on their fotologs.
I learned so much from them. But did I actually teach them anything?
On our last day at school, a group of kids threw us a surprise party, where we were showered with confetti and gifts. The title of this entry comes from a card I got from one of my grade ten girls.
Aprendi a quererte y a veces entenderte, she writes -- I learned to love you and sometimes understand you.
I love it - the fruits of my labour at Colegio Obispo Alvear, put so simply. I always knew I couldn't open my mind for those kids and dump out all my English knowledge in 10 weeks. But I could open my heart and see what happened.
I think it worked out.
Project Aprender Canada is only in its second year. It's still very much a personal project, something that started when Jon (fellow McGillian) met with Fernan ("the godfather") and talked about the possibility of sending McGill kids down to work at the schools run by Corporacion Aprender, of which Fernan is a board member. On a micro level, its about being the first gringo these kids have interacted with: help develop oral skills, provide incentives to learn English, broaden their cultural horizons, act as a positive role model. It's about "si se puede" as much as it is about driving home the point that English is real and useful. English is part of a national education policy in Chile -- which, when you consider the position Chile sees for itself in the world, should hardly be surprising.
There's more than a hint of social justice to it, too. Everything about the way this country works keeps the incredible social inequality in place. In Santiago's nicer neighbourhoods, kids attend schools that are perfectly bilingual. Those that have access to real language education are the ones that already have resources. My kids, in Puente Alto, are not necessarily poor -- at least not most o f them. They're from working families, but they all have cell phones, walk around plugged into their mp3 players, and a decent number (if they can make the grade for the public system) will go to university. But when they apply for an award or a job with a kid who went to Santiago College or Instituto Nacional, they are at an instant disadvantage. Just seeing that they went to a school in Puente Alto, no matter what their marks, can slice their chances. English is a skill that is really valued in the job market, something that can help them get out of the Puente Alto funk.
Obviously, in two and a half months we dinky Canadian uni students are not teaching anyone to speak English. But the fact that we come so far is a boost for the status of English at the school, and hopefully the effects of our sojourn will be felt later. We tried to make learning English fun and more relevant. Aside from my silly warm-up games, I filled my hour-and-a-half classes with listening exercises to things like "You're Beautiful" by James Blunt -- possibly the most-recognized English song of the season. In my beginning English class with the mothers, we started with "Hello, Goodbye" by The Beatles. They loved it...and it was fun for me, too.
There is no doubt in my mind that what we did outside of the classroom was far more important than what we did inside. It's really about the times we sat around fiddling with guitars and singing, talking bands and the Montreal music scene. It's about their questions about Canadian food and winters, and what people in Canada think about Chile. It was their constant marvel that we were friends with Julia and Jon (the volunteers from last year) and that we all got together in Canada. It was talking student mobilisation and gossiping about other teachers. It was about bringing me cuchufli and alfajores (cookies) to try, or burning me a CD by Los Prisioneros, the 80s protest band of choice. It's about the dozens and dozens of new additions to my msn contacts, the e-mails, the requests to post comments on their fotologs.
I learned so much from them. But did I actually teach them anything?
On our last day at school, a group of kids threw us a surprise party, where we were showered with confetti and gifts. The title of this entry comes from a card I got from one of my grade ten girls.
Aprendi a quererte y a veces entenderte, she writes -- I learned to love you and sometimes understand you.
I love it - the fruits of my labour at Colegio Obispo Alvear, put so simply. I always knew I couldn't open my mind for those kids and dump out all my English knowledge in 10 weeks. But I could open my heart and see what happened.
I think it worked out.
22 July 2006
tick tick tick
The spaces between my thoughts are filled with ticks. There's so much I haven't seen, or photographed, or written about for this to be over. I never explained how the eigtht graders won me over, or told you about the principal with the TV in the closet, or how many times I taught "You're Beautiful" by James Blunt.
This is my last week of decent internet connectivity until I return to Montreal on August 21st. That's a euphemism, of course. It's not about the internet at all. It's leaving this bizarre city and everything it has meant to me over the past three months.
I have mixed feelings about Santiago. I mostly feel that I could never actually live here. It's just too big, too smoggy, too much like a million other cities. It's nothing like the other cities of my life -- it doesn't have the charm of Lisbon, or the attitude of Montreal, or the white sands of Abu Dhabi. Puente Alto, where I spent most of my time, is particularly devoid of character. It the largest 'comuna' of Santiago, at the southern extreme of the city. It's huge, almost a city in its own right. It has nicer neighbourhoods as well as ugly, poor areas, huge hipermarkets and daily street markets. But Puente Alto is primarily where people sleep. The jobs are closer to the heart of the city, which makes for long days and rough comutes.
I lived in a firmly lower-middle class neighbourhood. Blocks and blocks of rectangular houses that despite the idiosyncracies of paint colours and add-ons can't hide the fact that they are all essentially the same. The houses started taking over the vineyards about 15 years ago, to accomodate the thousands and thousands of people from all over Chile who followed the work opportunities. The last parcel of vina shared a wall with the school where I worked -- and it has already been sold for development.
My family is from the south of Chile. He's an engineer, and works at a paper factory about 15 minutes away. For the first month or so I hardly saw him. By the time I came down for breakfast at 8 am he was on his way out, and when he came home, often only in time to catch the last few minutes of the 9 pm news, I was in my room, thinking about sleep. Sometime in June I returned from a weekend trip to find him alone with the kids -- Ivonne, the mother, had just started a new job. She's a nurse, works at a hospital about an hour from home. Her shifts are 12 hours, some days from 8 am to 8 pm, others from 8 pm to 8 am. After that Adolfo was home more often, but I saw Ivonne only a few times each week. With three kids to get through university, working hard is the only option.
I felt comfortable in my yellow house across from school, in the bedroom with the pink winnie-the-pooh bed spread. There were some things I didn't love: lying in bed in the morning with the blankets up to my chin watching the vapour of my breath, the awkward silent treatment from the kids, the dad's first attempts at cooking. But every night I was thankful to come home to a family, to warm my hands over my cup of tea and chatter absentmindly in Spanish.
Last Sunday I left the yellow house and Puente Alto with my obscene amount of luggage. James and I moved into the apartment in Las Condes with the other Canadians. Las Condes is towards the north of Santiago, a classy neighbourhood of apartment buildings with watchmen, bars filled with the after-work happy hour crowd and even green spaces.
It's a different life, that's for sure. Sometimes it's nice to hang out with other Canadian kids, partying, talking travel plans. But the experience of living in Puente Alto, with a family, was certainly more valuable.
I've starting to think that maybe I could live in Santiago -- not, you know, forever, but for a bit. There's no water (unlike every other city I've lived in), but the mountains are pretty neat. The smog is gross, but the winters aren't as cold as Montreal. The city is big, but so are the hearts of its inhabitants. I guess anyplace can grow on you.
In this last week, between my work compiling programme evaluations for the corporation, I'll try to post some more reflections about this whole crazy experience. I've been thinking a lot about this project, trying to figure out what exactly we have achieved here and where this is all going. Expect some school stories. ...
This is my last week of decent internet connectivity until I return to Montreal on August 21st. That's a euphemism, of course. It's not about the internet at all. It's leaving this bizarre city and everything it has meant to me over the past three months.
I have mixed feelings about Santiago. I mostly feel that I could never actually live here. It's just too big, too smoggy, too much like a million other cities. It's nothing like the other cities of my life -- it doesn't have the charm of Lisbon, or the attitude of Montreal, or the white sands of Abu Dhabi. Puente Alto, where I spent most of my time, is particularly devoid of character. It the largest 'comuna' of Santiago, at the southern extreme of the city. It's huge, almost a city in its own right. It has nicer neighbourhoods as well as ugly, poor areas, huge hipermarkets and daily street markets. But Puente Alto is primarily where people sleep. The jobs are closer to the heart of the city, which makes for long days and rough comutes.
I lived in a firmly lower-middle class neighbourhood. Blocks and blocks of rectangular houses that despite the idiosyncracies of paint colours and add-ons can't hide the fact that they are all essentially the same. The houses started taking over the vineyards about 15 years ago, to accomodate the thousands and thousands of people from all over Chile who followed the work opportunities. The last parcel of vina shared a wall with the school where I worked -- and it has already been sold for development.
My family is from the south of Chile. He's an engineer, and works at a paper factory about 15 minutes away. For the first month or so I hardly saw him. By the time I came down for breakfast at 8 am he was on his way out, and when he came home, often only in time to catch the last few minutes of the 9 pm news, I was in my room, thinking about sleep. Sometime in June I returned from a weekend trip to find him alone with the kids -- Ivonne, the mother, had just started a new job. She's a nurse, works at a hospital about an hour from home. Her shifts are 12 hours, some days from 8 am to 8 pm, others from 8 pm to 8 am. After that Adolfo was home more often, but I saw Ivonne only a few times each week. With three kids to get through university, working hard is the only option. I felt comfortable in my yellow house across from school, in the bedroom with the pink winnie-the-pooh bed spread. There were some things I didn't love: lying in bed in the morning with the blankets up to my chin watching the vapour of my breath, the awkward silent treatment from the kids, the dad's first attempts at cooking. But every night I was thankful to come home to a family, to warm my hands over my cup of tea and chatter absentmindly in Spanish.
Last Sunday I left the yellow house and Puente Alto with my obscene amount of luggage. James and I moved into the apartment in Las Condes with the other Canadians. Las Condes is towards the north of Santiago, a classy neighbourhood of apartment buildings with watchmen, bars filled with the after-work happy hour crowd and even green spaces.
It's a different life, that's for sure. Sometimes it's nice to hang out with other Canadian kids, partying, talking travel plans. But the experience of living in Puente Alto, with a family, was certainly more valuable.
I've starting to think that maybe I could live in Santiago -- not, you know, forever, but for a bit. There's no water (unlike every other city I've lived in), but the mountains are pretty neat. The smog is gross, but the winters aren't as cold as Montreal. The city is big, but so are the hearts of its inhabitants. I guess anyplace can grow on you.
In this last week, between my work compiling programme evaluations for the corporation, I'll try to post some more reflections about this whole crazy experience. I've been thinking a lot about this project, trying to figure out what exactly we have achieved here and where this is all going. Expect some school stories. ...
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17 July 2006
10 July 2006
vina del mar
I’m going to continue to avoid talking about school. I have four more days left at Obispo Alvear and that’s depressing, so I’ll tell you about my weekend instead.
Friday night was all about size. I joined the cool female teachers and their palolos y esposos (boyfriends and husbands) for dinner at a restaurant called Los Buenos Muchachos. We were a large group, sixteen I think. Not that it mattered – I can honestly say I have never seen a bigger restaurant. I got the feeling that you’d get laughed at if you tried to make a reservation for two. The place had a full stage, with screens in each of the three ‘wings’ of the hall so everyone could see the show. There was cueca (traditional napkin-twirling Chilean national dance), Hawaii-style hip swaying from Easter Island, scantily clad tango dancers, and a ‘group dance’ moment oddly reminiscent of aerodance at the Y. The food was parrilladas – a pile of meat served sizzling over hot coals. We probably started eating at around 10:30, and at 2:30 we finally decided to leave the dance floor. When we left the restaurant, it was pouring outside. Rain makes Santiago almost Venice-like – and I don’t mean that it gets any more romantic. The lack of drains makes walking across the street a cold and soggy experience. Luckily for me, one of the teachers lives vaguely near me so I got dropped to my gate.
It was still raining when I woke up on Saturday morning. I dragged myself out of bed, put my
toothbrush and some clean socks in my backpack and hopped on a bus to Vina del Mar – where I was quite happy to find the only water around crashing joyfully onto the beach. The most beautiful part of Vina was of course Julia, who is halfway through a Spanish course at the Universidad Catolica. I can’t begin to tell you how wonderful it was to see her – a little taste of home. Her host family welcomed me with the characteristic hospitality that continues to impress me in Chile. We spent a lazy afternoon wandering the boardwalk and soaking up the 
sun. We took some ridiculous self-shots on the beach, which I am posting to show how disgustingly pale I am. Even Julia – blond and fair as she is – has more colour in her face. Ugh.Vina is a classier, cleaner version of its sister city Valpo. There are massive palms lining the streets, glassy high-rises along the water, and the casino bulging out onto the beach. The long stretch of sand and its proximity to Santiago make Vina a summer hotspot – apparently the streets get so full of people that driving is impossible. Vina has mounds of festivals and the casino has its share of big acts. I heard plenty of English over the weekend – but I guess the foreigners are probably a lot more obvious in the winter.
The coolest thing about Saturday night was that I conversed in every single language that I know. English with Julia and her Canadian/American/Norwegian friends from school, French with Julia and the Chilean dude who just got back from a study abroad in France, Spanish with the Mexican and Columbian exchange students, and Portuguese with a Brazilian girl doing some sort of journalism internship.
Our night started at a bar in Vina with a topless photo of Madonna on the wall and ended at a salsa-pumping patio in Valparaiso. Good partying, complete with piscolas (pisco + coke) and the 6 am micro bus ride that makes going out in Chile the adventure that is it.Sunday involved waking up to a yummy lunch of casuela (a cross between chicken soup and stew), planning where will wander in August over a massive banana split on a patio near the beach and a sleepy 2 hour bus ride back to Santiago. ...
03 July 2006
VIVA
A shout-out to the tuga team on their way to the semis!
Ricardo is a wall...
And, in spite of my students who insist that he is gay (their new favourite way to annoy me is to make suggestive comments about CR and Deco...) I still think Cristiano Ronaldo is the most beautiful man at the World Cup.
I technically will be teaching class on Wednesday during the next game... maybe we can watch the game in English? I will find a way... Root for us!
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