Blogs from Valparaíso, Valparaíso Region, Chile, South America - page 44

The majority of my time here has been spent volunteering in the shany-towns round here. The next few entries will be about that... VILLA LA CRUZ On saturday mornings I go up to VIlla la Cruz, a campamento an hour or so´s micro ride away. ´Campamento´is a squatter´s shanty-town, a campment, a collection of about 1.000 people living in tin, wood, plastic, cardboard, or old-political-billboard shacks on the outskirts of Viña and Valparaiso. Villa la Cruz is up in ´Reñaca Alto,´ which is a politely-termed euphemism: Reñaca is the swank, rich summer beach resort of the Chilean wealthy. The ´alto´of Reñaca Alto is several planets away from that. Where I teach is at the very end of the settlements - after that it´s pure open country-side. The view is spectacular: behind the green hills are mountains, ... read more

My house-mate Kazuo is awesome. He´s here with the japanese equivalent of the Peace Corps, as a fishing engineer working with artisan fishermen. He makes noodles for breakfast and dries fish out of his window and despite all that is really cool and smart. One friday night he had his girlfriend Meigumi over and another friend, Miho, who lives on the beautiful but frigid island of Chiloe in the south. Miho has to live in a dirt-floor shack so she was living it up for her vacation to Valparaiso. So we had a sushi dinner for her, hwere I re-connected with my roots and rolled some flat sushi blunts while we chatted and drank beer and had wasabi-eating contests (I´m not sure who won. I had my face immersed in a bucket of cold water after ... read more

Valparaíso is definitely my favorite of the sister cities over Viña del Mar. It is rich with culture and history, and has a very San Francisco feel to it. One of my favorite things that I have done so far here are one, going to the Ex-Carcel. This jail was used to house prisoners (both actual criminals and political dissidents) in Agosto Pinochet´s seventeen year dictatorship over Chile. Although there is no documentation to prove it, many historians believe that people were jailed, tortured, and murdered within its walls. It is now a cultural center. When we went, we saw people dancing and learning how to dance, drumming, and people climbing up a three story sash. It was amazing. The inside and outside have been completely covered with murals, and the cells are in tact. The ... read more

The autumn is about to arrive in Valparaíso, even though it doesn’t seem to mean such a great change in the lives of the people of Valparaíso. Some of the people that are contracted might have a week or two of winter holidays to look forward to in July, but the majority keep on working or whatever it is that they are doing as usual. In the organisation where I’m working we are about to start with a new concept. It’s very exiting and very new, but so far it’s just an idea and we have still to find out how we’ll go on the implementation stage. The concept is called planning ahead. It was at this weeks staff meeting that the co-ordinator presented the revolutionary idea of making a plan of the activities of the ... read more

We are back in Chile and have spent the last few days chilling in Vina Del Mar a big coastal resprt. It was weird and quiet as it is the end of their summer now and so out of season but it was great to have the beaches pretty much to ourselves. Got the bus yesterday to Valparaiso apparently the cultural capital of Chile. Our hostel is awesome and owned and run by the guy who wrote the footprint guide to Chile so we got a full briefing when we arrived and maps and everything. heading off up the hills later to an open air museum I think. This place is actually built entirely on a hill, they have loads of ascensores or cable cars to get you up and down! The views are awesome and ... read more