Re-Visting the South

Life is still continuing as usual here in Santiago.
I'm still racing through weeks of classes and tests to find myself on more weekend trips. After this weekend, I will complete my 5-weekend traveling streak. Hartos viajes - So many trips.

This past weekend, after surviving my 2nd Econ test and a History control, we went on our second trip with CIEE - Temuco.
Temuco is a town about 6 hours south of Santiago, which I had actually "visited" before - and by "visited" I mean that I had seen the bus station. This trip was more of cultural excursion. We spent two days visiting different Mapuche communities. The Mapuche are the indigenous people of Chile.

Our first night, at dinner, CIEE recognized all of the October birthdays - so we had a little cake to celebrate.



Me and Abby blowing out the candles - Abby turned 21 on the 26th. This is also her picture.

  The next day, we started our cultural journey. We went to a Mapuche school to paint some of the buildings and play with the kids.

We also taught them how to make s'mores

This is our post- Capture the Flag picture. They loved it.

The school building! They are going to finish the rest. Our goal was to start it for them.

Locamotives

Visiting the 2nd Mapuche Community

Some of the guys from CIEE joined the traditional game - basically hockey.

They danced for us



And invited us to dance too



Puerto Saveedra

The beach

Getting some sun after our hike in Temuco

The trip was successful. We came back knowing so much more about the Mapuche and feeling great about doing service.

(Sorry this blog post is short and lacking in detail - I'm on my way out the door to catch a flight to San Pedro de Atacama. It's a city in the north that we've heard is an absolute must when you come to Chile.)