Field Trips and Passport Stamps
I cannot believe that we are already halfway through October. Halfway through October means more than three months into my time in Chile, and as of yesterday, only two months of our program remains. That may sound like a lot, but I only learned how to get discounts at the supermarket using my RUT (Chilean ID number) a couple of weeks ago! And after this past week, I just fell even more in love with my time in Chile and in South America more in general. This place is nestling into my heart quite comfortably.
The week started with two tricky moments. Hey always better to get the bad news out of the way first. Last Tuesday I experienced what can only be called the Milk Explosion of 2017. During my internship (hey remember about that ole thing?) I was hanging out with a little three year old nugget whose name I will keep to myself because #HIPAA (I'm not a doctor, I'm not in the US, and I took no oaths before working at CONIN, but humor me). Anyway, for the first time since I started working at the clinic, we were able to take some of the kids outside to the front of the building so that they could watch the busy automobile and foot traffic on Avenida Pedro de Valdivia. There were shrieks as puppies walked by, eyes widened as a painted car passed, and, most incredibly for me, I watched as these little kiddos had some of their first interactions with strangers since getting to CONIN. They were separated by thick metal bars and bolted doors, but they were breathing fresh air and running around the parking lot.
I was playing with my little one who is as active as any three year old is. She has issues with her spinal cord and lower body strength which means she is smaller than most three year olds you would meet and can't walk without holding on tightly to a hand. But she is always convinced she can try to speed ahead pulling me behind her. Unable to balance on her own, she ended up giggling as she toppled down multiple times onto the gravel. In addition, due to digestion issues, she is fed primarily through a feeding tube that goes directly into her stomach. To get to the fence faster, she asked me to pick her up, and then quickly decided she wanted to walk herself. Then get picked up again. You can get a sense about how excited this little one was to explore a public, exciting, and stimulating road for the first time in months. When we got outside, she practiced walking between the bars and tried to open a car door parked in the front lot. We picked up rocks and leaves and door locks. As we were looking out onto the road, I all of a sudden started smelling something a little sour and my arm started to feel wet. I quickly jumped to the conclusion that someone had had a little accident, but realized soon after that she and I were both covered with a cloudy white liquid. It turns out that her feeding tube stopper had popped out and the contents of her lunch were spilling out of her stomach tube. As absolutely unpleasant this experience was for the both of us and how I am now hyper aware of the smell of sour milk, a part of me was thinking the entire time "you are finally having a pediatrician experience!!!" I brought her back to her room where, with the help of a nurse, we changed her clothes, cleaned her up, and put extra tape on the end of that tube. It was nasty but I survived and took a shower and wasn't disgusted in the moment. Maybe I'm on the right professional path after all.
Tough moment number two came on Tuesday night when Chile lost to Brazil 3-0, sealing the deal of their elimination from 2018 World Cup qualifiers. After winning the 2017 Copa America and coming in second in this year's Confederations Cup, Chile's presence in next year's world cup seemed to be unquestionable. But following two painful and surprising losses against Bolivia and Paraguay in August/September, La Roja put themselves in a difficult position of needing to obtain 6 points out of the next two games along with relying on certain teams to win and others to lose. After beating Ecuador in early October, Chile was back on track to qualify. That continued until the 76th minute of Tuesday's Colombia-Peru game when Peru leveled the score to 1-1. This was around the time that Brazil scored their second goal. Chile's loss and Peru's tie evened their overall point count, but Peru squeaked ahead into the 5th position via goal differential. They will play New Zealand in November for their final qualifier. Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Colombia have all qualified on their own. I woke up to a quiet and hurting Chile on Wednesday morning that was difficult to avoid. And to add insult to injury, the US team also failed to qualify through an absurd series of events and a poor performance.
But my week quickly turned around on Wednesday. Wahoo! We've come to the good news! My Folklore Chileno class took a field trip to the Museo a Cielo Abierto in San Miguel, Santiago and were given a tour by the director. The museum is made up of 51 murals painted on the ends of the famous 4 story department buildings in San Miguel. The whole project took place starting in 2010 to save this low income community's housing from being destroyed due to decades of pollution, deterioration, and graffiti. The murals have saved the identity of the community and the community in it of itself. After winning a government grant for the first 8 murals, the neighborhood that is a part of the museum has been converted into one of the most impressive collective examples of public art in Chile. In addition to the murals, the original government funding plus additional grants and museum visitors have provided the complete renovation of the buildings that were going to be torn down. The first collection of artists who completed their murals in 2010 were paid, but the remaining 40 or so have all be done pro bono. It is a process of redefining a neighborhood through art. Below are some of my favorite murals:
The week started with two tricky moments. Hey always better to get the bad news out of the way first. Last Tuesday I experienced what can only be called the Milk Explosion of 2017. During my internship (hey remember about that ole thing?) I was hanging out with a little three year old nugget whose name I will keep to myself because #HIPAA (I'm not a doctor, I'm not in the US, and I took no oaths before working at CONIN, but humor me). Anyway, for the first time since I started working at the clinic, we were able to take some of the kids outside to the front of the building so that they could watch the busy automobile and foot traffic on Avenida Pedro de Valdivia. There were shrieks as puppies walked by, eyes widened as a painted car passed, and, most incredibly for me, I watched as these little kiddos had some of their first interactions with strangers since getting to CONIN. They were separated by thick metal bars and bolted doors, but they were breathing fresh air and running around the parking lot.
I was playing with my little one who is as active as any three year old is. She has issues with her spinal cord and lower body strength which means she is smaller than most three year olds you would meet and can't walk without holding on tightly to a hand. But she is always convinced she can try to speed ahead pulling me behind her. Unable to balance on her own, she ended up giggling as she toppled down multiple times onto the gravel. In addition, due to digestion issues, she is fed primarily through a feeding tube that goes directly into her stomach. To get to the fence faster, she asked me to pick her up, and then quickly decided she wanted to walk herself. Then get picked up again. You can get a sense about how excited this little one was to explore a public, exciting, and stimulating road for the first time in months. When we got outside, she practiced walking between the bars and tried to open a car door parked in the front lot. We picked up rocks and leaves and door locks. As we were looking out onto the road, I all of a sudden started smelling something a little sour and my arm started to feel wet. I quickly jumped to the conclusion that someone had had a little accident, but realized soon after that she and I were both covered with a cloudy white liquid. It turns out that her feeding tube stopper had popped out and the contents of her lunch were spilling out of her stomach tube. As absolutely unpleasant this experience was for the both of us and how I am now hyper aware of the smell of sour milk, a part of me was thinking the entire time "you are finally having a pediatrician experience!!!" I brought her back to her room where, with the help of a nurse, we changed her clothes, cleaned her up, and put extra tape on the end of that tube. It was nasty but I survived and took a shower and wasn't disgusted in the moment. Maybe I'm on the right professional path after all.
Tough moment number two came on Tuesday night when Chile lost to Brazil 3-0, sealing the deal of their elimination from 2018 World Cup qualifiers. After winning the 2017 Copa America and coming in second in this year's Confederations Cup, Chile's presence in next year's world cup seemed to be unquestionable. But following two painful and surprising losses against Bolivia and Paraguay in August/September, La Roja put themselves in a difficult position of needing to obtain 6 points out of the next two games along with relying on certain teams to win and others to lose. After beating Ecuador in early October, Chile was back on track to qualify. That continued until the 76th minute of Tuesday's Colombia-Peru game when Peru leveled the score to 1-1. This was around the time that Brazil scored their second goal. Chile's loss and Peru's tie evened their overall point count, but Peru squeaked ahead into the 5th position via goal differential. They will play New Zealand in November for their final qualifier. Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Colombia have all qualified on their own. I woke up to a quiet and hurting Chile on Wednesday morning that was difficult to avoid. And to add insult to injury, the US team also failed to qualify through an absurd series of events and a poor performance.
But my week quickly turned around on Wednesday. Wahoo! We've come to the good news! My Folklore Chileno class took a field trip to the Museo a Cielo Abierto in San Miguel, Santiago and were given a tour by the director. The museum is made up of 51 murals painted on the ends of the famous 4 story department buildings in San Miguel. The whole project took place starting in 2010 to save this low income community's housing from being destroyed due to decades of pollution, deterioration, and graffiti. The murals have saved the identity of the community and the community in it of itself. After winning a government grant for the first 8 murals, the neighborhood that is a part of the museum has been converted into one of the most impressive collective examples of public art in Chile. In addition to the murals, the original government funding plus additional grants and museum visitors have provided the complete renovation of the buildings that were going to be torn down. The first collection of artists who completed their murals in 2010 were paid, but the remaining 40 or so have all be done pro bono. It is a process of redefining a neighborhood through art. Below are some of my favorite murals:
I apologize not all of the pictures are great quality, but I hope they give you a sense of the magnitude and beauty of these pieces of art. And one of the most amazing facts is that not one of them has a touch of graffiti. Going into the project, no one knew how the murals would be received by the community or by the graffiti artists who had covered these walls with their names before the renovations. The fact that none of them are covered with graffiti shows the power and the respect that these art projects have. Their magnitude and diversity were incredible.
But the big adventure of the week was my trip to Mendoza, Argentina! A beautiful gaggle of gringos left Santiago on Thursday and took our *34* minute flight over the Andes into Argentina. We were originally planning to take a bus, but last week was quite rainy. Rain in Santiago = snow in the Andes. ¡¡¡SNOW!!! And when there is snow, the passage is closed. Duh. This country can't hang with snow. So to be safe, we booked a last minute flight to ensure that we would get to Mendoza in time for a weekend of relaxation and fun.
On our first day, we took advantage of what Mendoza is most famous for: vino. It is one of the 9 wine capitals of the world and is most famous for its Malbec production (*sheds a tear of joy*). We signed up for a day long tour of three vineyards by bike! Not going to lie, I was expecting biking through rows of grape vines with a wicker basket. Instead, we biked between the wineries through busy streets on very very sad bikes. My first bike ended up being retired due to its perpetual flat back tire, and my second bike didn't last much longer as the seat refused to stay in one place. I was falling off the front at one point and then falling off the back two seconds later. And it didn't have a back break so I was terrified I would flip over my front wheel the entire time. I ended up having to ride in the maintenance van that followed the line of bikers at the same pace as said bikers. But I opened the windows and enjoyed the beautiful 70 degree weather as we drove past endless fields of grapes.
Winery #1: Bodega Lopez
Winery #2: don't remember its name but it was gorgeous and felt like Edna Mode's house (think all glass windows, too much open space, insanely high ceilings, and solely white or black furniture)
SURPRISEEE #1: Olive Oil factory!
Winery #3: Baudron (won the best Malbec in the world a couple of years ago)
SURPRISEEEE #2: Beer pit stop! Just in case all of the wine wasn't enough. Here I'm taking the opportunity to share some pictures of my beautiful amazing lovely friends who went on this adventure with me. Not pictured: Shayna, Bryce, and Claire (for some reason didn't snag any pictures of those cutie patooties)
Maria
Sam
Matthew
Ed
Woahhh they are so beautiful! I'm so lucky! Anyway, I digress. Saturday had quite to live up to if it were to be anywhere as wonderful as Friday was. If wine is Mendoza's gold medal, its hiking opportunities provide the silver. Our original plan was to hike to the first base camp of Aconcagua, the tallest mountain in South America and the tallest mountain outside of the Himalayas. But after chatting with our wine tour guide, he said that by the time you drive to the parking lot, there is really only a 10 minute walk that you can do without a permit. Not vale la pena. So we hit the internet once again to find something a tad longer. Bryce took the lead on this and came back with a couple of options, one of which was the Cerro Arco, a 6ish mile hike round trip that provided views of all of Mendoza. And boy did it live up to that description:
It was a gorgeous day in the low 70s with the sun shining down all day. We enjoyed the classic squished hiking sandwiches and cookies at the top as we stared out to the Andes in the southwest and looked down onto the little city we had come to love over the past 48 hours.
And before we knew it, we were boarding the bus on Sunday morning to head back to Santiago. We drove through the Andes, winding through the province of Mendoza back over to Chile. Back during orientation, Peter Winn and Professor Luis Ortega (the fabulous socialist leader who helped run Salvador Allende's campaign) told us that one thing we had to do before we left was travel from Argentina to Chile over the cordillera directly. And so we did, and it was breathtaking. And after failed attempts to hike towards it, we drove right by Aconcagua. I apologize for the poor second photograph, but that beautiful snow capped giant is the tallest point on this continent.
22,837 ft of majestic beauty
It was a weekend of wine and amazing friends and perfect weather. The only negative things that happened are that I may or may not have had bed bugs and that I walked into a bench and it somehow completely ripped my pants. But I easily have overlooked both of those because goodness gracious I've been so happy recently, and this trip only added to that. All I can think about was how fortunate I am to be able to explore such beautiful places with people that I care so much about. That being said, after I reflect on a weekend in Argentinian wine country, it is impossible to ignore California's wine country and the horrific fires that continue to do damage. Sending special love out to Isabel and her incredible Sonoma. We are all thinking about you.
Sending love as always,
Olivia/Liv/Boo
Spanish Word(s) of the blog: roble francés = French oak
Every winery we visited used only French oak barrels for their nicest wines. Exclusively. Cuz why pay less.
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