It’s been a busy last few weeks finishing up my internship at Acción Emprendedora and exploring the last remaining unexplored parts of Valparaíso and Santiago. I’m pretty sure that by now I know Valparaíso better than most of its residents, and the brightly-colored, graffiti-painted, hilly neighborhoods of Valpo have become quite commonplace. I’ve begun memorizing the Santiago metro and know all of its touristy areas, historic buildings and artisan markets front and back. As far as language goes, it’s no longer much of a challenge for me to get around, ask questions and converse with people. All of the things that gave me trouble back in March when I arrived here have become routine, and I feel very little like a tourist and very much like a resident of Chile. I guess that’s what nearly 5 months in a country does to you. With that being said, I plan to spend the next week being as much of a tourist as I can as I venture off to Easter Island with Joanna for the next 5 days, and then come back to spend my last 2 days in Chile before flying back home.
When I haven’t been working the past few weeks, I’ve been trying my hardest to leave no more parts of Santiago and Valpo unexplored. I spent a day a few weeks ago simply walking all over Santiago and going every place I ever had any desire to go to—the Brazilian neighborhood, two of Santiago’s biggest parks, a few of the universities, Cerro Santa Lucia, and some more artisan markets. I was actually in pain at the end of that day after spending at least 7 hours walking around the city in poor shoes, and couldn’t wait for the 120 km ride back to Valpo. In Valpo I explored the Naval Museum, the area near the port, all parts of downtown, dozens of markets, and miles and miles of hilly streets. I think I’m very much to the point where I’m ready to see some new sights, but I’m glad I really got the chance to get to know 2 cities extremely well. I think it’s a lot more rewarding getting to know a few places well than many places at a superficial level, so I’m so glad I’ve had the opportunity of learning nearly everything you can learn about a city in 4 and a half months. But I think I’m finally to the point where I’m bored here, which is a good thing. I’ve gotten to know the cities, I’ve gotten to know the language, I’ve caught up on all of my sleep debt and gotten rid of all of my stress. But now, happy that I’ve had my time in Chile to relax and explore, I’m ready to get back to being busy all of the time.
My project at AE turned out very well, I think. We were really happy with the amount of entrepreneurs we were able to talk to and gathered a lot of great information from them. We’ve supplied the AE staff with about a 30 page write-up of our study (in Spanish, of course), and we really think our project could make a big impact on AE’s future. I won’t bore you too much with the details of our study, but we successfully interviewed about 40 micro-entrepreneurs across 3 of Valparaíso’s cerros, and studied the micro-economic potential of each in order to understand better the ways in which AE could get involved. In our write up we came up with not only ways in which AE could change, improve, and target their courses to the kinds of entrepreneurs we found, but gave them policy ideas on how to distribute micro-finance loans (for once that part of AE is built up) and new ways AE could get involved in Valparaíso in order to maximize our impact. It turned out to be a really amazing project. I mean, how many people can say that their summer internship meant walking through a beautiful south American city and talking to entrepreneurs? We presented our findings to our team at the AE Valpo office, the AE central office, and the rest of the gringo interns, and they were really well received. Everyone seemed impressed with what we were able to accomplish through our project, and jealous that we got to spend our summer in such a unique, active and fulfilling way. I really will miss the people I’ve met at AE—the 9 other people who work at the Valpo office (3 Chilean full-time staff members, 4 Chilean interns and 2 gringo interns) made it a great place to work, and I truly enjoyed the time I spent with them working on projects, eating lunch, and hanging out with.
There are so many things that I’m going to miss about Chile, yet so many things I’m happy to leave, so I think I’ll give you guys a bit more information on Chilean culture by continuing on my last blog post of things I will and won’t miss when I leave.
Will miss: empanadas. It’s hard to believe that I’m not tired of them yet, seeing as I probably average at least one per day. But I find them so delicious and cheap that it’s hard to resist them, and I’m going to have to find a restaurant back in California that can make them for me, or better yet, learn to make them myself. To think of the amount of cheese empanadas I’ve eaten in the last few months? At least 100. And the number of veggie empanadas that I’ve eaten in the last 2 weeks at my new favorite empanadium? At least 10. I mean, I’m sure my body will be happy to escape the huge amounts of fried dough and cheese, but I don’t know when I’ll be able to find such a cheap lunch ever again.
Won’t miss: Chilean bus drivers. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been a fan of the Chilean public transit system in general. I’ve never waited more than a few minutes to catch a bus here in Valpo, no matter what time of day nor what part of the city I’m headed to. But I surely won’t miss Chilean bus drivers. They are paid on commission, so they’ll do anything to get an extra person on the bus. Which means that they’ll stop anywhere to pick someone up—bus stop or not—leading to a drive that turns into lurching and stopping every few meters for them to pick someone up or at least try to. And since they’re paid on commission, they’re not afraid to wait at a crowded intersection for a while until the bus is absolutely filled. Joanna and I waited at least 10 minutes last night sitting in a bus at an intersection while the bus driver tried to persuade people to enter the bus, and that’s not the first time such an event has happened. Oh yeah, and since they’re paid on commission, the faster they go the more people they can pick up during their shift, meaning they drive incredibly fast. And by incredibly fast I mean at least 1.5 times the speed limit. On busy streets. Stopping every so often very quickly to pick up passengers. Doesn’t turn in to the most enjoyable/relaxing bus ride.
Tomorrow morning Joanna and I are off to Easter Island, home to ancient maoi statues, tropical beaches, volcanoes and an incredibly interesting mysterious culture. Everything I’ve heard about it makes it seem like one of the absolute coolest places to go in the world, so I’m beyond excited. Although it’s technically a part of Chile (and actually technically part of the city of Valparaíso) it’s the most isolated place on earth—it is the inhabited place that is farthest away from any other inhabited place in the world! It’s a 5 hour flight from Santiago (one of the 2 airports that have flights there), and it should be an incredible 5 days out there. We’re really excited for the adventure that awaits us!
It’s hard to believe that in just over a week I’ll be boarding a flight back to the United States, and in less than 3 weeks I’ll be back at Stanford! But I’m ready to go home, ready to get back and see my family and friends, and to enjoy some time in summer weather, shorts, and t-shirts. Well, I’ll be ready to go home after Easter Island. But for the next 5 days I’ll be spending my days hanging out with megaliths, climbing up volcanoes, and exploring the mysteries of the most isolated place on Earth!
