These sounds and sensations are a good way to sum up my past week here in Santiago. The next door neighbors are adding something to their house, and the same three construction workers have been there early in the morning, hammering away (and the way the houses are set up it is actually right outside my bedroom and I can feel the pounding!) and blaring a nice mix of all types of music to get the day started off right. Nothing better than waking up to Chicago's famous "You're the Inspiration" and remember jamming out to that with the roommies last year. The minute I leave the house and walk down the street all of the "cute" neighborhood dogs attack their respective gates and bark until I am out of sight. I think the one that I'm going to become best friends with is the Scotty dog that has a bark like a German Shepherd. I have yet to walk by that house on either side of the street and not be barked at. Luckily the ones that bark are inside the fences while the dogs in the street are basically harmless, just hungry and looking for friends.
And now apparently planet Earth is a little unhappy with Chile! Today there were three consecutive aftershocks but they all registered as greater than 6.0's, with the main one receiving a 7.2 and this leads me to believe that they could be labeled as earthquakes instead of just "temblores." I was actually in Santiago this time and during the main shock I was in the metro with Ellie and our new Scottish friend, Aidan, who we picked up along the way to show around campus. I had no idea of the shock until afterward when Ellie told me she felt it pretty strong but it just seemed like the normal metro ride, so I remained oblivious yet again. It was not until we got to San Joaquin, the campus where my classes are, when we saw Johanna and she informed us it was a 7.2 and was even felt in California! This led to the release of another tsunami warning but luckily this time I have no plans to travel to the Pacific coast and go hiking.
The irony of the situation is that we were actually on our way to go help out with FEUC (Federación de los estudiantes de la Universidad Católica), the student org on campus that was organizing, sorting, and packing the immense amounts of donations that they have received in the past week for los damnificados, or all of the people left without food and shelter. It is extremely impressive to see just what La Católica alone has collected in four days and I cannot even imagine how much throughout all of Chile has been collected. At almost every church, in all the metro stations, and in a lot of stores there are opportunities to donate nonperishable food items and items such as milk, flour, rice, soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, diapers etc. It was a cool experience to be able to help with something like this for a while because although what I really want to do is go straight to the epicenter and clean up destroyed buildings, broken windows, etc, these tasks need to get done too! It was also a pretty easy way to talk to the other Chilean students that were there helping out and make some friends. Another thing I have noticed is that every conversation revolves around the earthquake(s). "Where are you from? When did you arrive in Chile? Where were you during the earthquake?" These are the token first three questions that people ask you, sometimes even omitting the first one and jumping right to the topic of the quake. It is really great just being able to say that I was down in Chiloé without a care in the world. I am so lucky.
This week was also the first official week of classes and I am all signed up! It was not nearly as hard as I imagined and the two buildings where my classes are held are right next to each other in the prettiest part of campus, so needless to say I think this will be a fun semester. I am taking two political science classes, one about Asia and another about armed conflict, and one Spanish novel class in addition to our Español para extranjeros course. I think the novel class will be the hardest due to the fact that I can understand about 20% or less of what the professor is saying, but he seems really nice and if nothing else it will be great practice!
Overall this week was very productive and after trying out six different courses I found four that work for me. Also, I will only have class Tuesday-Thursday which is a definite plus. Everything is going almost a little too smoothly for me and I am beginning to wonder when something will actually go wrong. The biggest aftershock I have truly felt was today when I was eating lunch with Mama and all of a sudden the ground and table just started shaking. It is a pretty interesting experience and as long as they stay under 15 seconds and don't get much more intense than that, I'll be set.
Until next time, peace!
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