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Showing posts from December, 2017

On My Way to Chile. . .

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The adventure starts tomorrow and I am freaking out a little bit. My brain it is running and I keep wondering what I am going to forget to bring because I always forget something. Do you remember back in elementary school, when reading out loud was the most stressful part of life?  You would look down the rows, see you were the fifth person, and then skip to the fifth paragraph in the reading.  You study that paragraph and make sure you knew how to say all the words so no one would tease that you couldn't read.  Then the teacher would call on the next student randomly not going in order of the rows!! That is the feeling I have about the Chile trip at the moment. I'm scared that all my preparation will be for nothing because I've studied the wrong. I'm nervous that even though I've taken Spanish  almost every year since the eighth grade, I will step onto Chilean soil and know absolutely nothing. I wonder if the scenery and food will be as great as I have pi...

Chilean Dance

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The link to the article would not open, so I used the following article which may or may not be the right one. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2006/12/11/279943/- The cueca was named the national dance of Chile by Pinochet for nationalism, but it was reincarnated as a protest dance by simple acts by the people. This was one of the simplest and safest ways to protest the dictatorship since the dance was approved by the government. The cueca was used as a way to remember the friends and relatives that disappeared during the dictatorship and following Pinochet’s death, the tap portion was a way to dance on his grave even though he was cremated. When I first watched the video, the first thing I noticed was that no one was touching their dance partner. This was weird to me because Latin dances are usually intimate with the dancers being an extension of the other. The second thing I saw was the handkerchiefs that everyone was holding. I thought they were a symbol of submission because o...

Chilean Art

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Roberto Matta was part of the surrealist movement but added social issues and politics into his work. Matta was impacted by Pablo Picasso’s Guernica which was an abstract painting that showed the horrors of war and violence. Matta’s works addressed the realities of World War II. During the 1970s under the censorship of Pinochet, artists would be post their work publically and flee in order to get their protests seen. Artists like Adasme would use their bodies as the art in order to get certain visuals to the public like suspending oneself by the ankles from a metro sign in the capital in order to make the stories of the regime more real to the masses. These forms of are forced people to confront the events in Chile head on rather than having them be abstract ideas that could be chalked up to scary stories and later forgotten. Art was used to document the daily lives of citizens under the regime when words were so heavily monitored that no one could voice their struggles without being ...

Chilean Music

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Victor Jara was a revolutionary that used music as a statement against the Pinochet regime. He called all Chileans to rise up and used their voice to demand their rights against the government, and he gave his life to the cause. Until his dying breath, he stood for the freedom of Chile from the oppressive regime and his hands still guide individuals to demand equality, justice, and reparation from the government. Jara used his folk music to show the truth about Chilean society even though it placed him and his family in danger. Violeta Parra was also a Chilean folk singer and influenced the work of Victor Jara. She was one of the most influential women in the movement and used her  music to help the Nueva Cancion movement that called for change around Latin America. Parra criticized the status quo of the wealthy in Chile and address their involvement in the status of the socially and economically marginalized classes.  Los Prisioneros were a Chilean rock ban...

Bear Story

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https://vk.com/video244132350_171200778 La Historia de un Oso is an invention that tells the story of a bear that was taken away from his wife and son to perform in a circus. The authorities came one night and imprisoned many different animals for the circus and forced them to participate through torture and abuse. Many posters were made showing the bears act as a source of friendly entertainment, but during the act the bear escaped from the police and returned to his home to find his family. When he arrived, his home was destroyed, but he was reunited with his family in the end. The bear that created the show, however, did not get that happy ending because he never found his family. He uses this show to bring happiness to others on the streets and he finds comfort in the memory of his family and the joy he brings to strangers. This film can be linked to the individuals killed, tortured, and displaced during the Pinochet regime. Families were disbanded and some individuals were...

Indigenous Groups

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The Dakota Access Pipeline controversy is centered around a crude oil transport pipe that on its 1,200-mile route passes through territory of a Sioux Indian reservation. The American government and engineers is the safest and most cost-efficient means of transportation of crude oil, but indigenous groups and environmentalists protested that it would contaminate drinking water and damage sacred burial grounds. The problem with this situation is that the government did not respect the issues of the indigenous claims to the land and their heritage. This is similar to the Mapuche issue. Indigenous peoples, Mapuche and Sioux, root their lineage and ancestry in the earth and the history of generations past, but the government only acknowledges the laws of land ownership that their created. Indigenous groups rightfully distrust the promises of those in power because it is not possible to get full cooperation from the group that took your land and disbanded your culture in the first place. Th...

Chile History and Politics

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Letelier: Forgotten Terror in DC I knew that the United States had a part in many dealings with different countries with dictators including Chile and Cuba. What I did not know was that those dealings had any repercussions on American soil. I am not surprised that this incident is forgotten history nor am I surprised that Minister Letelier has not received justice. As the video stated, the U.S. has a tendency to forget the history that has the potential to paint our country in a bad light and would much rather focus on the scandals of popular culture than the our foreign relations. The Colony: The story of forced labor, killings, and torture was a bit of a shock to me due to the information from a previous assignment that stated that Chile was ranked higher than the United States in terms of governmental cleanliness. Since I am an American that grew up with out history, I am accustomed to hearing about our failures, but since I do not know much about other countries, it is hard to c...

Dame la comida

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For some reason I was unable to get the Anthony Bourdain video to play, so I did not get the in depth guide to Chilean food from the grand master. Well that is what I pictured the video to be because that is a cool dude. I did get to watch the other two videos on the dish and wine. And luckily for me, I had to show my mom videos about food to make her feel better about me leaving the country. Surprisingly all the videos about glaciers, earthquakes, and volcanoes didn't put her mind at ease. That being said, I saw a lot of videos on the seafood and fresh produce of Chile. Because the country is so well cultivate that they do not have to rely heavily on chemicals, I want to try as many different foods as possible. Hopefully this experience will make me higher my standards on the foods I consume in the United States because I eat like trash most of the time. I want to base my opinions on the foods I am exposed to on the taste rather than how it looks. If I shy away from everything in ...

Talk the talk

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I am afraid. That is the simplest way I can describe my feelings about the trip. The closer we get to the departure date, the more real it becomes, and that's when I start making the list of what could go wrong. We are basically diving head first into a whole new world and that is pretty insane. (Aladdin pun not intended but appreciated). This is the craziest thing I have ever done and its like I'm ticking things off my bucket list all at once which is a plus. I'm nervous about the culture shock, the food, and the language. At first I was nervous about the language just because it was Spanish , but now the videos are kicking my butt. Chileans talk really fast. . . you mean faster than the people in the states that already talk to fast for me?!? Apart from the language, I'm most nervous that I won't have time to breathe abroad because there won't be a comfortable spot that I can go to relax. Everything will be different, but I am interested to see how similar we ...

Chile Geography

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Isabella Allende describes the four major regions in Chile even though is it currently split into 15 provinces. For Allende, Chile is made up of norte grande, norte chico, valle central, and zona sur. The big north occupies the top fourth of the country and is the barren land of the desert country that holds the salt lands and minerals. The deserts in this region is where astronomers get the best view of space and it is thought of as a window into the galaxy. The clarity of the sky allows scientists to get a better grasp of how the world is beyond Earth which is amazing to think about. The little north was described by its cosmic energy and the grapes that make the national wine of Chile. The videos both explained how grapes are a major crop in Chile produced by the water traveling down from the peaks of the Andes that is used to make the wine distributed  throughout the world. The central valley is also described by its fruits, but uniquely it also houses the capital city of Sant...

Chile Introduction

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Howdy my fellow adventurers!! I am Jerica Simmons, a senior at LC with a sociology major and a dual minor in human services and Spanish. I am using the Chilean study abroad to replace the last course I need for my minor. Rather than taking a Latin American culture class in Lynchburg, I decided to immerse myself in a bit of Latin American culture. Though I have taken Spanish classes since the eighth grade, I am not very comfortable with the language. I have developed a good grasp on Spanglish, but my Spanish is really rough. I tend to make up words or just pronounce English words as if it were Spanish instead of learning the actual words. I feel like by doing this, I am cheating because I know that I can navigate the United States without putting much effort in my foreign language. By doing this, I am not earning the right to call myself a Spanish minor, so my main goal for Chile is to force myself to be better at the language. I don't want to just be able to survive in a different ...