Wandering around Chile

Por fin!!!! I have a new camera and can post pics with my blog!!

Independent Study!! This is the part of my program where they say..."Ok girls...go study something in Chile...come back in a month with a 20 page paper in Spanish and tell us about it!"

I chose for some insane reason to study in three different parts of Chile. I guess I had an idea in my mind that I was going to compare them...but they are so different that I am just busting my butt write about all three of them. I am studying about how pregnant women, specifically indigenes pregnant women who live in rural areas in Chile, access the attention they need during their pregnancy.

I started about in the south of Chile in a little town called Carahue. I must say that Carahue is not my favorite place in the world to be. It is small and crawling with angsty teenagers who have nothing to do but yell after the gringa who is wandering around. I think that I have never been verbally molested so much in my life. It was quite a pain.
I stayed with a mapuche woman and her two kids Antu (age 6) and Miñaculla (age 1 1/2) and her 16 year old neice for the week. This was pretty cool. The house was heated and food was cooked over a wood stove and I spent my time coloring and practicing writing numbers with Antu (girl...in case you were wondering) who is basically the cutest six-year-old anywhere. During the day I went to the hospital and hung out with the midwife. They have some very interesting things in place to be sure that the women are not stuck in labor out in the campo. For instance...if a woman lives far without access to transportation, she (at 36 weeks) can come stay in a house next to the hospital until she gives birth. The house is like a hotel where the women can come and go until they go into labor. From Carahue, I made my way up to Putre. This involved, taking an hour and a half bus from Carahue to Temuco. Finding a taxi from the Temuco bus station to the Temuco airport. Convincing the taxi driver that I have a brain and am not going to pay 8,000 pesos for a taxi ride, taking a plane from Temuco to Santiago, waiting around in the Santiago airport for the red eye flight to Arica, getting to arica, taking a taxi from the Arica airport into Arica, finding a place to stay for the night (thank you Anneliese!) getting up early, walking to the Paloma bus station and taking a bus to Putre. Whew. Got there all in one piece though. Spent a week in Putre going to the consultorio and hiking with my french friend Cyrille.

A little harder to study in Putre because there are, in fact, only two pregnant women and they dont have to make appointments. They just show up whenever they want. Also el matron has some interesting hours...but I managed to get the info I needed. I was so sooooo much happier to be in Putre. I think that it is my favorite place on earth. First of all, it is soooo beautiful. Second of all it is really really peaceful and the people are very friendly. I made friends with both locals and travelers passing though in my hostel. It was very sad to leave. :(

And now some photos. yayayay. From the camera that I bought in Carahue!! (Actually I believe that it was the only camera for sale in all of Carahue...the lady at the store was like...you want what???)

The matronas office in Carahue and the house where women from el campo can stay when they are nearing the end of their pregnancy.

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The matrons office and consultorio in Putre!

South of Chile!!

Oh dear. Catching up again!!!

So trip to the south. Sadly, our last day living with our Chilean families was April 24th. We had a giant dinner with all the public health chicas and all the families together and it was a very nice last hurrah. Sat morning we got up ´pretty early to go to the Arica airport for our flight to TEMUCO!!! First time to the south of chile. Everyone was very excited. Very amusing plan ride because we were on one of those planes that lands like in every city. Went from Arica to Iquique, I think iquique to maybe calama?? Then we landed in Santiago and had a layover and then finally got on the flight to temuco. Arrived sometime in the evening. It was dark but everyone was still very very very excited to see green. We have been a little tired of the sandbox desert of Arica and so it was nice to see trees and grass again. Temuco is nice. It is another place where it is easy to forget that you are in Chile...except when you see the guys riding down the highway in their horses and carriages.

We had about a week of classes in Temuco and the areas surrounding Temuco. This was very very cool because the focus was traditional medicine and Mapuche people. We had all of our classes outside or in Rukas (like huts with straw roofs a fireplace built into the middle of it). Having class with a fire is awesome but amazingly distracting. Very easy to get sucked into watching the flames.

The highlights of these classes were...
-Walking through the woods learning about medicines that can be made from different trees and plants
-visiting hospitals that use specifically tradicional medicine and talking with the Machis that work there
-having class outside overlooking tree covered hills and drinking coffee to keep warm
-eating lunch in rukas and taking after-lunch walks to visit the sheep and chickens
And my all-time favorite part...
-The day where we went to a little pueblo that got hit by the earthquake in Feb but didnt receive any help. We helped build a posta (like a little tiny health clinic) that was well away from the ocean (in case of future tsunamis) I will admit that i was not much help in the building but I did make the most giant pot of hot chocolate you have ever seen over an open fire. Then I played with a ton of the little girls who live in the pueblo and taught them how to play tic tac toe. In exchange they gave me a tour of the pueblo which included the outhouse, the best place to view the ocean, and the cemetary that is haunted by a crying baby. (This was sad because they also took me to the grave of the mother of one of the little girls who died last year. :( :( ). Overall it was the coolest day...and all the men from the pueblo (and Shira and Karman) made amazing progress on the posta. They even put the roof on. Very sad to say goodbye to all the little girls. I want to take them all home with me.

The last bit of our trip in the south together, we stayed in Pucon. It is cute there but a bit touristy. The best part was visiting a waterfall...which Mei-lani and meredith and i managed to climb to the top of and stand on a rock just about where the water was falling down the cliff. The water is so blue that it looks unnatural like someone colored it with eggdye. It´s quite beautiful.

That was it for out visit to Temuco and other parts of the south. The next post will be about the beginning of my independent study!!!

Again sorry about spelling as I can not spell and my chilean computer just tells me everything is spelled wrong. :)

Love!!
Laura