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