Chilean "Beatles Bands"

I'm determined to get better at this blogging, at least to let you get a peek into my life here. Yesterday was a pretty busy day, but fun! Even though I finished my internship at the hospital (and now am interning at a local health center in this poor, poor little area called Peñalolén), one of the doctors invited me to come every Friday to see surgeries. So yesterday I got to watch an amputation of a diabetic leg and a fistula of an artery and vein through a tiny, tiny cut near the wrist (basically they took an artery and vein and sutured them together because the pt had renal dysfunctions...I'm still a bit confused on this, will need to google.) After seeing two surgeries in a row, I went home to have some lunch with the family, then went rock climbing. After that I went straight to doing the English conversation sessions at the library. However this was the first time I, by myself (!), led the group, so I invited one of my chilean friends named Hugo to go with me to help me out. I'm so glad he came because he would purposefully ask me "English" questions and make funny jokes to help me out (haha). Anyway, after that, because Hugo absolutely loves the Beatles, he invited me to a Chilean Beatles Concert Festival (Chileans ABSOLUTELY love the Beatles). It was interesting because I've gone to Abbey Road on the River in Louisville and seen all these cover bands of the Beatles, but never have I ever seen Chilean cover bands of the Beatles. It was great! It was also fun singing IN ENGLISH with all the Chileans.

All right, must get back to doing a bit of studying.... mid term tests on Monday with papers :(
chao! Angelita

CHILE VA AL MUNDIAL!!!!! CHI CHI CHI LE LE LE VIVA CHILE!

Chile's fútbol team (soccer team for us gringos) has qualified for the World Cup 2010 in South Africa. I'm pretty sure they qualified in their game against Colombia on Saturday (they won 4-2), but they just played Ecuador today and won that as well, therefore the chilenos are going crazy around town now! All the commercials have been some variation of the chilean fútbol chants and the only things on the news right now are clips of the games and the overwhelming excitement of the chilenos. If I'm correct, the last time they made it to the World Cup was 1998. Also, they have some of the youngest players that have qualified for the World Cup (the oldest player is 23 and many of them are even my age!), so many people are talking about the "young, fresh" advantage they have. Anyway, the town is going crazy here! I swear I might not be able to sleep tonight. All the cars are honking their horns, trying to fit the rhythm of the chilean chants, people are screaming "Vive chile!," and the apartment right next to me on the 21st floor of our building has been throwing confetti paper out of their window for about an hour now. It's all pretty exciting and it makes me really happy that seriously the chilenos have something passionate like this that connects the whole country with each other. It's a good nationalistic thing they have, unlike our tank-looking American football players.

Vive Chile!
Angelita

Ps. Just got back from San Pedro Atacama desert (driest desert in the world!) this past weekend. It was absolutely amazing, I will write about it soon...I swear it'll be a good read. Nothing big planned for this week. Instead of adventuring this weekend, I'll stay in Santiago to go to my host sister's Cheerleading competition because I promised her I'd go. Plus I have a midterm on Monday so I should probably study for that as well. Boo, I forgot about the school part here.

2 months in Chile and who would've guessed, todavía está lloviendo (still, it's raining)

8 pictures for the 8 weeks I've been in Chile.

(From left to right)
Foto 1: Sunset at Parque Padre Hurtado during the independence week. The sky was covered with kites that day as the sun set. Gorgeous.
Foto 2: Flora at La Campana Parque Nacional.
Foto 3: Picnic in the park for la dieciochera (independence day).
Foto 4: We hiked La Campana literally in the middle cloulds.
Foto 5: Santiago has a dreadful blanket of smog that hovers over the city. The city is located in a valley encompassed by the Andes Mountains and surrounding hills. With all the pollution that accumulates, there's no where for the smog to go but into our lovely lungs.
Foto 6: Me at La Campana. I felt like I was looking out a plane and could only see clouds. However, there's no window to separate me from the clouds. I'M LITERALLY IN THEM.
Foto 7: My room! Small, but great view of the Andes! I think it's actually intended to be the maid's room because it's right next to the kitchen & away from all the other bedrooms.
Foto 8: Sunset en Pucón (+ no photoshop or color-enhancing at all!) If it looks amazing in the picture, imagine seeing it firsthand. The mountain literally looked like it was glowing.

The Monday after a crazy week of Fiestas Patrias

Hola! It's a lluvioso (rainy) Monday, something to signal the return "back to real life." I just got through my first week de las fiestas patrias de Chile last week. Their "day" of independence from Spain occurs on Sept. 18, but these festive chilenos stretch the festivities for a whole entire week. They seriously drop everything and celebrate for an entire week, NON-STOP. For those who are familiar with the kentuckian life, los chilenos celebrate their "4th of july" more like our derby week. Trade in the mint juleps for lots and lots of chicha (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicha) and pisco sours, horse races for el rodeo (note: chilean rodeo is different than american rodeo. In chile, it consists of 2 guasos (horse riders) trying to ram a poor cow into the wall of the ring...really sad actually), oaks and derby parties for fondas (barbeques and carnivals in the park), and derby cups and pins for all the goodies you'll find at las artesanias ("artisan booths", kind of like St. James Art Fair on crack --- in a good way of course). Now imagine all of this maddness for a whole week (Neat fact: in Santiago, last fiestas patrias are celebrated for a week. There's even a law that says all the festivities have to end by 6pm on Sunday. However, if you live in the north, it's tradition to celebrate las fiestas patrias for 2 more days because back then they didn't know that they got their independence until 2 days later). Here's a taste of what I've been doing for a whole week straight:

LA CUECA (the national dance) and EMPANADAS -- godly goodness

CELEBRATIONS IN THE PARK. Word in spanish is called = "Fondas." I went to las fondas en el parque inés suarez y el padre hurtado. However, the chilenos also have a fonda called "Jane Fonda" -- Yes, like the actress. Aren't they so funny.. (sarcastic laugh). Volantines (kites) are a BIG deal in chile. The skies are speckled with them, especially during las fiestas patrias.

ANTICUCHOS - OMG, TOTALLY ADDED TO MY LIST OF FAVORITE CHILEAN FOODS -- it has LARGE chunks of meat, fried onions, sausages, and a piece of bread all on a stick

Anyway, all in all, this week was a huge success, lots of fun! I feel a whole lot more chileno now. Every single day we did something to celebrate las fiestas patrias. However, I also took advantage of the week off of classes and some friends and I traveled south to Pucón (on the map, it's a little south of Temuco -- about a 13 hr bus ride from Santiago) from Monday to Thursday. There I climbed el volcán Villarica (however, didn't get all the way to the top. Only half-way, but still an accomplishment! It took about 4.5 hours just to get to the middle of the volcano and was another 2 hour hike to the top. One of the hardest things ever. Volcano 9340 ft, covered in snow and ice), one of the most active volcanoes in Chile, went biking, canopying, and sat en las termas de Trancura (termas= natural hot water from the volcano).



Life has been good so far, I think I'm finally adjusting to chilean life here. My host family is doing well, except for the fact that our dog, "La reina" got a hernia on Saturday, so we've been very preocupado con her. She's doing a little better, hopefully the medication is enough to make her feel better so that she doesn't have to get surgery. Too bad health insurance for pets doesn't exist because all the x-rays, emergency visit on Saturday night, y medicamientos are racking up!

All right, I never know how to end posts on my blog. Oh well, until my next post, chao chao!
Angela



oh yeah, just thought I might leave this here if anyone's bored, want to send love from the states? HINT HINT.
Angela Cao
c/o IES Abroad Santiago
Barros Borgoño 159
Providencia, Santiago, CHILE
750-0513

"April" (septiembre) showers

Hola! Quick update since I should really be doing tarea (homework) right now, but who says I can't take a break. There's been a lot of rain lately. September is basically April here. We're wrapping up the winter and heading towards la primavera (spring)! However, as you all know, "April showers bring may flowers." So I'll be stuck in the rainy weather for a bit. In fact, all this rain has caused many aludes (avalanche, landslides) near the mountains. It's caused el Río Mapocho to overflow and just terrorized the homes and lives of many chileans. One lady and her 1 year old daughter have died so far. Only her husband survived. On the news, they've been describing it as a dream that they wish they could wake up from.

I went to the partido de fútbol de Chile con Venezuela (World Cup qualifying soccer game) on Saturday. It was rainy the whole time. Plus, I got a fever on Friday, so standing in the rain for about 6 hours on Saturday didn't really help my cause. Oh well, part of the experiencia, cierto? Chileans are crazy at fútbol games! Out of nowhere, people will light fires in the middle of the stands and make all sorts of ruckus to pump up the fans. It was great!! I also learned many chilean cheers/songs because we sang those SERIOUSLY all night. However, sad to report, Chile tied with Venezuela 2-2. From what my papa tells me, now Chile has to play like 3 more games to try to qualify for the World Cup next year now.

Also, last Thursday, I got to scrub in on an open heart bypass surgery. However, I didn't just sit in on this surgery, I STOOD literally right next to the patient's head as I peered into this crevice in which the doctor was repairing the left mitral valve of the patient's heart. It was unbelievable. Purely amazing. Minutes before the surgery did I realize that they were going to cut open this poor 52 year old women and put her life on the line while they tried to help her. I walked into the the small quirófano (operating room) and this 52 year old women was lying on the bed in the middle of the room, dressed with the minimal clothing of a blue operating dress, with wires and tubes running in and out of her body, as she gathered every bit of life into her hand to wave hi to me. This was it. This was the moment that decided if I could continue my path of becoming a doctor -- could I bear to see all this blood, bones, human organs, and the face of this innocent lady, who may have wasted her last bit of life waving hi to me, simply hoping to live? It was kind of sad, but I had to get rid of naive Angela who wants everyone to be happy and be nice to everyone and convince myself that this was not a human and that the doctors were just playing with sharp knives....and a saw. I tried to erase every bit of humanity from her to make the smell of burning flesh and sounds of broken bones on this human being "okay." I thought I was going to be more grossed out, however the whole time I found myself with eyes wide open with an eager face wanting to see more. (Fearing that I may sound like a small 7-year old boy)... "It was so cool!" Nonetheless, after 4 hours of standing, peering into the chest of the patient, I walked out of the hospital in disbelief. Disbelief of what I just saw--- the ability of another human to fix a tiny, minuscule valve in someone's heart and sewing up the sternum (YES, SEWING BONE), but also the fact that this scared and hurting person was going to wake up to a healthier life. I got to meet with her today in the intensive care unit (la unidad de coronaria) and she looked bright as a peach! She was smiling and telling me how great she felt (and then proceeded to tell me about her "guapo" (handsome) 19-year old son who was going to visit her and how I should "really" stay to meet him). Less than a week after her surgery, she was up and ready to continue her life, now with a heart that works. Qué maravillosa! This is what makes me want to do medicine.

Okay, that's it for now. Sorry no pictures

Tengo una abuelita chilena

I have a Chilean "abuelita" (grandmother) ahora! Dice "Por la nueva hijita, ¡Bienvenidos a Chile!" which translates to "For the new daughter, welcome to Chile!" It's now been about more than a month since I've been in Chile. ¡Qué maravillosa! No puedo creerlo. A lot has happened since my last post (sorry, my goal was to post something every week and I fail, I'm not really good at this) Here's some things that have happened since my last post:

• Friends and I traveled al norte en La Serena
• El 13th cumpleaños de mi hermano, Estéban.
  
• Have all my classes now, finally! I'm taking a Spanish stylistics class, medical spanish, health internship, and natural disasters of Chile class at La Universidad de Chile. The La Chile class es un poco dificil porque I'm the only extranjera (aka non-chilean student) there, the professor talks really fast and slurs all his words together. Dios mio.
• Just completed the seminar portion of my health internship two weeks ago at Universidad Diego Portales. In addition, last week I started my clinical rotations at Dipreca Hospital. I started in la Unidad de tratamientos intensivos (UTI = intensive care unit) and will be continuing that this week. We'll do these rotations for 6 weeks, rotating through surgeries, neurologia, unidad coronaria, emergency room, and then one of my free choice during the last week. Here in Chile, they have public and private hospitals. After the 6 weeks, we'll switch to a public hospital and observe the differences there.
• I've learned how to take the metro system to ANYWHERE in Santiago (big big accomplishment!)
• I've started exploring Santiago a little on my own. Last weekend I wandered around cerro Santa Lucia and the artisan fair/centro (fíjate en my word choice of "wandered" around Cerro Santa Lucia. I actually didn't get to climb it because I talked to this guy at the foot of the hill). He collects coins/money from all the world which was really cool. Then we talked about random stuff, his life, life in general, and then his thoughts on problemas in Chile. He believes that too many people are having babies and that the gov't needs to implement some law that limits how many kids you can have. He was saying that young kids were just having a lot of sex (in Chile, condoms are very scarce, not many women are on the pill, and abortions are illegal). Entonces, his idea of pop. control was somehow eliminating all of these accidental babies. The conversation kind of got ugly towards the end because I said that to sustain a positive change, the gov't should put money towards educating the public (i.e. safe sex, abstinence, the like..), but he was persistent in saying education won't do anything -- "we need to decrease the population. There are too many of us." We argued this for about seriously an hour and a half in broken Spanish/English. Therefore I never got to climb el cerro Santa Lucia.
  
• FOUND BILBIOTECAS (libraries), which are my favorite places EVER. Plus, Alison Nelson, if you're reading this, I found a biblioteca called "Café literario" that has all the natural light I'd ever want. It's located in the middle of a park, with a BEAUTIFUL fountain/wading pool in the front. Plus, get this. The whole building is made of glass windows. Did you hear that, WINDOWS!! So whilst studying, I get to look out at mere natural beauty. And if I'm there early enough, I get to see one of the homeless guys take his daily bath there.
  

• I've started walking to more places than using the metro/bus because a) my transportation costs have been adding up and b) the weather has been god AWESOME! Average this week was about 75 degrees (got to 82 on Wednesday. However, as many of you all know, shorts weather for me starts at about 40 degrees. Even though ahora is PRIME shorts weather, chileans find it muy awkward para las mujeres to wear shorts, although it's more appropriate to wear short mini skirts. Anyway, I'm dying because I LOVE wearing shorts but I can't. Nonetheless, it's been mucho fun walking everywhere. I've been venturing into lots of random shops, museums, centers, business places (if a company earns enough money, they are required by the government to have some sort of public museum/art gallery to educate el público de los artes y cultura chilena), etc and have been meeting a lot of new random people. One person I met this week was taking advantage that I didn't understand Spanish well. I asked him what he did for a living and he told me that he puts a pistol to people's head and robs them once a month down south. I told him 10 times that I don't think I'm understanding him correctly, but turns out he was just messing with me. He was fun.
  
• Last Wednesday I started teaching English at "Rincón Inglés" at the library. Fue muy divertido! Also, next week I'll start working as a TA for an english class at Universidad de Diego Portales.
  
• Went bowling with my family last sunday. Turns out they love to bowl. ¡Qué divertido! So awesome since I'll be missing out on bowling club this semester.
  

Today I got my dose of chemistry because I'll admit it, I'm a nerd and I miss doing chemistry. I got to help Estéban memorize the periodic table....IN SPANISH. Oh how I miss it so! But I'm learning all the elements in spanish. suh-weet!

Chao chao.

ps. I saw a Chilean with a "Kentucky Horse Park" shirt the other day. ¡Que rico!

Spanish lessons:
bocina = horn
mascota = pet
colita = butt

Jay Manuel in Spanish

It's already the weekend again! At the moment I'm watching Jay Manuel's fashion makeover in spanish and it just hit me. I know Spanish. I'm not even paying attention to the tv and I can understand everything Jay Manuel is saying! Granted, he's not saying anything educated, but nonetheless, I'm understanding it all! Dios mio. Now after learning all this Spanish, maybe I can start working on my Vietnamese!

Anyhow, I absolutely love my family. My younger sister and I have so much fun together. And my parents are just so loving and supportive. This past week has been a bit stressful for me. I'm trying to figure out my class schedule, which is really stressful because not only do I have to figure out what classes to take, but I have to take into account how long it will take on the metro to get to a class and if the credits for that class will even transfer. And for those who already know how stressful pre-registration at Grinnell is for me, having to add this little things into the "picking my classes" ordeal makes it almost 10x as bad. Dios mio! In addition, I've been having a little trouble handling the "racism" here. The diversidad in Chile is quite different than in the United States. I'm generally a very happy person and kind of oblivious to when people are attacking/making fun of me. But being a gringo in Chile makes me stick out like a thumb. However, in addition to being a gringo, I'm the asian-gringo. The worst was the other night at the bus stop. I was sitting at the bus stop, waiting for the bus and all these chilenos started yelling and screaming at me "China, China, China! (pronunced chee-na. The word for asian in Chile is "china" because apparently all asians look chinese...)" They were very rowdy (I think they were un poco borracho because there was a fútbol game that night) and when the bus stopped, they got off yelling and started running around the bus, close to me as I was sitting at the bus stop. Luckily I was with a friend of mine, but I'd never felt so scared and discriminated before. It was enough that they were screaming towards me, but I seriously felt that they were going to come up to my face and yell at me because I was "china." The last time I had felt like the minority was in elementary school, me, the only Asian one surrounded by only white American friends. But the great thing about the united states is that people are so fascinated by different cultures. Maybe I've taken for granted the the openess and embracement of different colored/looking/acting people in the united states. Diversity is NOT común in Chile. They absolutely hate the Peruvians (which now the black-asian mixture in Peruvian blood adds to their despise of Asians). Anyhow, despite all of this, I can only keep my head up high and try not to let it bother me. One way is by spending a lot of time with my family. I haven't told them about what's going on, but I just feel so loved by them. Every time I come home, my sister runs to give me the biggest 20 second hug, then proceeds to tickle me to death. Sometimes I wonder if they ever feel a bit embarrassed to be housing a "china-gringo" in their house. But when they take me out in public, I know it's not true. My sister, Panchy holds my hand every time we're out on the street and my brother Esteban plays/jokes with me like a normal brother.

I can't say it enough, I LOVE my family. And their love they give me reminds me why I try to be nice to everyone, always. I may have no idea what another person may be going through, but hopefully by just being super happy and friendly, I can make that little difference for that person by being caring and happy. Mr. Foster did that for me in highschool. By just being himself, full-spirited, and just an awesome man, it helped me not to dwell on the things that were bothering me.
I don't tell my chilean family what I'm going through because I don't want any pity from them. But because they have so much kindness, love, and support to offer, it helps me to get my mind off things and feel so genuinely accepted in their presence. I smile and laugh with them SO much. Mi guatita (stomach) hurts so much when I'm with them. Me encanta.

The other night I tried to teach them how to say the word "refrigerator." It was so cute. Esteban caught on rather quickly, but it was so funny listening to mi papa trying to do it. But nonetheless, maybe like a day later, he got it! :) We decided we're going to start writing English words of the day and Spanish words of the day on the kitchen wall so both of us can learn. Also, my sister has started flaunting her spanish skills by speaking "trabalenguas" (tounge twsiters). It's fun. My favorite that I can do is:

Yo compré pocas copas,
pocas copas yo compré.
Y como compré pocas copas,
pocas copas yo pagué.

Also, my sister has been teaching me a lot of chilean spanish. They do a lot of things different here (with the language, that is). Instead of "cómo estás", it's "cómo estai." Also, they LOVE adding "-ito/a" to the ending of nouns. So while my sister deadly tickles me to death, we go over all the body parts she plans to attack, like my guatita, narita, orejita, manita, piernita, brazito, etc. In addition, mi mamá calls me her "niñita Angelita"

Anyway, the other day I climbed el cerro (hill) de San Cristóbal. It took about 2 hours to climb and about an hour to descend. It was GORGEOUS. The hill rises 880 m and about 300 m above the rest of Santiago; the peak is the second highest point in the city, after Cerro Renca. At the top of el cerro, there's a 22m statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary. We have a great view of the statue from my apartment. We're on the 21st floor and every night during dinner we get to look out at a magical view La Virgen at the top of the hill. With La Virgen so high above the city, she protects and looks over us in Santiago. ¡Que lindo!

View from top of Cerro San Cristóbal


La Virgen at the top of el cerro San Cristóbal





Shrine for La Virgen


La vista de las Andes Mountains y Santiago



Looking out upon the city from San Cristóbal

Also, I guess Louisville, KY had a big flood the other day? Guess how I found out. I watch the news with my parents every night. Recent stories have been about carbon monoxide deaths, smoggy weather, Chileno-stuff, etc. Well, out of nowhere, they start to show clips of la inundación (flood) in Louisville! They show clips of a gas station I know and our mayor, Jerry Abramson comes on the screen as well! ¡Qué extraño! Louisville, KY on the nightly news in Santiago, Chile. Wow, would have never thought.