And the winter has arrived, thus once again suffering the cold, frozen feet, the seeing my breath in my bedroom.

So I decided that since it has been so long since I have posted something, randomly, without having arrived the request of family members, generally of my Grandpa Ken via my mom, I thought I would write something.

The last time I posted I said that I would write again soon about my volunteer work I have done since returning to Chile post-earthquake, but I never did that. So I suppose I can do that. The title of my last post became the motto of Un Techo Para Chile (a rooftop for Chile), a non-profit volunteer organization made up of youth between the ages of 18 and 30 years old. It was founded in order to help serve the poor, focussing on ridding the country of ghettos and poor living situations. Chile was the first country to create it, but it now exists in all countries of Latin America. Additionally, the mother organization, which I believe also is based primarily out of chile, is called Un Techo para Mi País...a rooftop for my country. Anyway, after the earthquake, UTPCH hopped on the opportunity right of the bat to recruit thousands of volunteers to build emergency homes for victims...the people would suffered dangerous damages to their homes, or those that lost their homes entirely, most of them due to the tsunami that followed the earthquake, although many people who lived in central-southern chile lost their homes because they were built of adobe or brick and just crumbled to pieces. Talca, Concepción, Chillán are some of the areas that were hit hard by these damages, and of the tsunami, Constitución, Concepción and it's port city Talcahuano, and Pichilemu (known for large waves in Chile, and with the tsunami, it received the larges waves in all of Chile due to the tsunami, thus quite large destruction).

Anyway, as soon as I got back I wanted to help in any way possible. The first time I went, I was able to go with a friend of mine Jorge who studies architecture at a different university, but I went with this university. We were a group of about 60 I'd say and we went to a town called Huelquén, which is near Paine, if you googlemap it. Actually I don't think it even shows up so just search Paine. It is just south of Santiago, but very rural and country nevertheless. We were split into groups of 6-7 people, each with a leader who had experience who could direct us and tell everyone what to do. We were building with materials donated by ONEMI, Chile's natural-disaster relief organization. Onemi got lots of criticism for the number of deaths due to the tsunami, being told that they didn't announce and force evacuation soon enough. Anywho, we were building for an elderly gentleman named Humberto. He was one of 8 or so brothers and sisters, I think 7 of them lived in the house that had been in their family's name since it was built, over 100 years ago, made of adobe..a thick mud structure. Lots of them, little space, and very rural. No running water (typical in countryside pueblo towns of chile)...they have these manual pumps that draw water from wells in the ground, quite cool...kinda like the bike pump my dad made a few years back, but you pump with your hands. That means hole in the ground toilets are standard...and generally the toilet is not connected to the house, duhhh. That would be stinky. Don Humberto and his brothers had a bunch of mini-orchards, which means we were given tonssss of amazing fresh fruits, and I swear, the best grapes I've ever had in my life. They had grapes, corn, apples, almonds, walnuts, peaches, tuna (cactus-fruit), and other things I can't remember. When we left, he gave each of us a massive bag of grapes (like, a grocery bag full), and a small bag of fresh almonds. It was very generous of them. As far as the damage to their home, there were lots of cracks in the walls, but the kitchen, which was at then end of the house, looked like it had been picked up and turned about 30 degrees downward, sloping towards the ground and thus opening a large gap between the top of the wall and the roof. The floor was all cracked and uneven and in pieces.

The second time I went with UTPCH, with Jorge again. This time we were 3 buses full of volunteers, almost all university students. There were 2 German guys, and Argentinean girl, and me as far as foreigners. We went to a town called El Peral, a small town near the city of Los Angeles, about 8 hours south of Santiago. Since we went on Easter weekend and left Wednesday night instead of Friday (which is standard), we were to have 4 days to work (leave late sun night to return) and therefore each group (6 people) was to build 2 homes. Our first family was wonderful. It was a Grandma, her daughter, and her 2 daughters, and one of them had two sons who were 5 and 9. They were so nice, the mom and grandma cooked delicious amazing food which fresh bread every day and the two little boys were the most adorable things ever...I had so much fun playing with them when I wasn't digging a hole or something. I got their address and Jorge and I are going to print some of the pictures we took and send them to them. The kept telling us to come back and visit them next summer, they were really sweet. They lived in a very simple meager home...the 5 of them...I think there might have been one bedroom, maybe 2, and then the living room and the teensy kitchen. The youngest 3 slept in the living room with a mattress they stacked in the corner during the day. Very modest, but so kind.

They second family was just a sweet old lady of 73 years who had no husband or children but lived in the house she was raised in next door to her brother, the only two of the kids that never married. She went by Doña Rosita. It was also an adobe home with no running water and had a lot of rather large cracks in it, and an inspector had come and said that she needed to get out as soon as possible because the damage, especially on the rooftop, was quite bad and could collapse. I could tell she was quite attached to the home, and petrified of further earthquakes...she said since that night she hadn't been able to sleep soundly a single night and often stayed awake in bed all night, scared to death it'd happen again. The second day when we got there in the morning, she was absolutely delighted, full of smiles, hugging all of us...she even started to tear up that morning because she said that she slept well after we'd come, the first time in about 5 weeks since the earthquake. She was a real sweetheart.

The homes are very basic. We are delivered the materials, two floor panels, 6 wall panels, a door, cutouts and covers for windows (all hinge based, no windows), and the aluminum rooftop which has a rubbery something filter panel thing that goes under that to block out water and help hold in some of the cold. We have to dig 15 holes, generally about 2-3 feet deep, and using wood pillars, they are put into the holes and then filled in with a mixture of dirt and rocks to keep them sturdy and not moving, and obviously all leveled out using a clear tube filled with water...gravity. Then the floor panels go on...then the walls and last the roof and doors. I'd say the hardest part and most irritating was the door and windows because at least with UTPCH, we had to cut them out of the panels...and well, using a saw doesnt make for the most even cuts, especially when the wood is full of knots and our group leader, who honestly was a quite bad leader and thougt he knew way more than he did, thought he could cut it the best and then it came out like a 3 year old cut it...and then insisted on screwing the stinking door on and that it would work despite us saying that we should measure it and prolly cut off uneven edges...well lets just say that made for a grumpy long evening.

Anyway, both experiences were really amazing and just all around makes one feel good about themself. Sadly these homes wont protect much from the cold, but lots of people have talked of putting further insulation on them....mud, more walls, etc. They are supposed to be temporary until their own homes are fixed or replaced.

Ok, now i have freezing fingers so I don't think I'm gonna write more right now. BUt I will try and write something within a week or so, and post pictures.

la tierra se movió, ahora muévete tú!!!

"The earth moved, now you (move)!!"

So I've been back in Santiago for a month now and I never blogged about my travels, but I figure the pictures I posted are sufficient. Most have captions so it kinda explains what I did. But long story short, basically it was about 2 months: 10 days traveling through northern chile, then a few days break in Santiago, then 10 days in the south...PATAGONIA (the BEST) with one of my best friends from California, Ali, then back in santiago for a few days break.

Then Ali and I and her boyfriend Mike who flew in to meet us crossed the border Chile from Santiago to go to Mendoza, Argentina. 8 hour bus ride. One night in Mendoza. 12 hour night bus ride to Córdoba, Argentina. Stayed in Córdoba for the day to see my friend Belén from rotary in Germany. 12 hour night bus ride to Buenos Aires. Stayed in BA for 2 nights with Ali, Mike, and their Argentine friend Nico. 18 Hour overnight/half day bus ride from BA to Iguazu waterfalls. Went to the waterfalls, crossed the border to Brasil (yah, without problems! Good thing my visa worked out well). Stayed one night in Foz do Iguacu. 16 hour overnight bus ride to Florianopolis, Brasil. Took short bus ride across the island (it's the island of santa catarina in southern brasil...connected with a bridge to the mainland) to the small town of Barra da Lagoa. Ali and Mike have been there before so they knew people and got us a hook up in a beautiful house up on the hill, away from the noise and lights (not that there was much, its a small town, but still touristy), each with our own room..and a queen size bed!!! Giant french doors, kitchen, mosquito net...the best! And CHEAP! It pays off to know people. We stayed their from about the 2nd or so of feb till Ali and I both flew out, the 15th of feb. Beach, sleep, rest, beach, swim, beach, surf...it was so amazing and gorgeous. I loved it!!! Also got to meet up with Bruna from rotary in germany because she lives near there!!

The 15th of feb I flew out headed to Ecuador while Ali went home. I had two 12 hour layovers, blech. Arrived in Quito...stayed at an awesome hostel there and met lots of cool people. 2 night there, then took an 8 hour bus ride through the andes, rainforest, etc, to portoviejo where I met up with Jaime, also from rotary in germany (these are all kids that were in my district in germany, but from these respective countries, ie argentina, brasil, ecuador). His family so kindly offered for me to stay in their home. Stayed there a couple nights and then met with Tito, also from rotary in germany, but not my district, and we went to Montañita...beach surf town a bit further south with them and Jaime's little brother. Went surfing, got smacked pretty hard in the nose with a surfboard, that hurt...but I surfed in the best surf of ecuador so it's all good. Stayed there one night then went to Baños while they returned home because they had university. Baños is a little adventure town in the mountains...went mtn biking, saw waterfalls, and white water rafting...rafting was SOOOOO COOL! Except I got smacked in the chin in the same place...first with a paddle by the uncoordinated english kid next to me, then with his helmet. And then the scrawny kid fell overboard and I had to pull him back in!! It was a lot of fun tho...I'm ready to go when I get back to California now in the Trinity!

Finally I headed to Guayaquil, largest city in ecuador, where i did my volunteer work with vosh (volunteer optometric services to humanity). We we about 10 from the US. 3 doctors, 6 others part of the org. and myself. I was the only optician, woohoo! There were a few that had minor experience dispensing glasses but I think I came in handy. Also there were only 2 of us that could speak spanish well...so sarah and I did a lotttt of translating. It was a really amazing experience. We gave eye exams to about 1000 people more or less, in the slums of the city. The lions club and a community center was who helped organize it all. We got glasses to everyone we could/needed them. I remember one man, probabaly around 50 years old and he'd never had glasses in his life. He measured to be extremely near-sighted...about -6.00 or -7.00 prescription...if you know anything about Rx's, that's pretty much blind without glasses. And hed never worn any. When we gave him a pair, which were'nt even dead on cause they were all donated, he spent the entire rest of the afternoon staring at everything. His hands, the wall, other people, just looking at everything ...he'd never known how it was to really be able to see. Well that lasted 3 days and then I flew back to chile, a week after the earthquake.

I've felt some good aftershocks, but not many in a while now...there have been lots of little ones that aren't always felt.

Oke I'm going to post this now and verrry soon I will blog about my latest experiences...volunteering with chile to help the earthquake victims.

Picture's of the REST of my travels...

So I'm back in Santiago...and I've just put up pics (link to the right) of Patagonia in Chile and Argentina, Central Argentina, Iguazu waterfalls, southern Brasil, and Ecuador. Check em out!

pictures of the north

i went on a trip to the north and i posted pictures on my web gallery...click on the link to the right that says gallery.

i will blog as soon as i can...but im sorta in the midst of travelling and it might be hard...

un poquito atrasado....

Okay. I've sat myself down to blog because I've been slacking so badly in that department for the last 2 months. I have relatively legit excuses though....SCHOOL.

First, before I start, note that sometimes a word that usually has an "s" may not have it because my S key is kinda messed up and it only makes the s if i press really hard. So if i miss it, sorry.

Now...alas,....where do I begin. Well, I'm done with the semester. Seems like it went really fast. Maybe it did? I had my last final last thursday and now three whole months of vacation!!!! Woohoo.

I suppose I will start where I left off last time. I had mentioned how Chile had been in some soccer game and won against whoever they were playing, I don't remember...colombia, ecuador, i think, and so they will be going to the world cup in south africa in 2010 for the first time in 12 years i think. Since then I really haven't done much, hence my not blogging. I left Santiago once on a little excursion that was planned by my CSU program. We went to a teensy town on the coast called La Isla Negra...and no, its not a black island. It's just a coastal town. It's where Pablo Neruda, the most famous poet of Chile, had one of his three houses. We toured his house. He reminds me a bit of Grandma Jean...has a lot of things. But his were relatively organized collections. For example, he collected African masks and artesenal trinckets. As well as ships that are inside glass bottles. He had a massive shell collection, including a Narwal horn that was about 9 feet long. Also had a shell from the Philippines that was about 3 feet in diameter, it was pretty sweet. Appeared that he just had a lot of things...he was quite wealthy and also people would just give him things. The house was pretty, the bedroom overlooking the beach with the wallbeing a massive window alone. It was cool. After the house, we wandered around the rocky beach and then went to a restaurant on the beach (the bus driver had some difficulty finding the place, but eventually we made it down there). It was okay-food. Not as good as i thought' it'd be for it's location and snazzy-ness. Funny how the CSU program includes these fancy restaraunt meals for us in our "program costs". If i could decide, I'd prefer to save the money...i'm sure that meal was AT LEAST $50. Appetizer, coctail, wine, entre, dessert, the whole shabang. It was a nice day though.

And other than that I've been in Santiago...studying pretty much. There were a few fiestas I went to...there was a Halloween party and I dressed up as mother nature, by far the best costume in the party. I was going to be gone that weekend, but the plans fell through so I had to find a last minute costume that would be original and cheap. It randomly occured to me in the middle of the night while pulling a late-nighter studying for a Borges exam. The day before halloween i went to Patronato...an outdoor shopping market with tons of vendors that stretches about 7 city blocks to look for things. Pretty much I just wanted green fabric and a bunch of fake flowers and maybe some vines. I found a store that sold me soem perfect green fabric and some yellowish fabric that has a very nice texture for about $3. After that I ran into a fake plant shop which was perfect, and got all my flowers and vines for about $6. And that was it! I robbed a big palm frawn from the short fat palm tree downstairs in the courtyard of my apartment building and made a sweet head-dress type thing with it, fabric, and duck tape. It was the highlight of my costume by far. I now have a forest-theme decorated bedroom...i already have green walls and now i have all the flowers and vines draped around my room. It makes it more homey. Now with my free time with school being over, i am going to make things out of the fabric. I intentionally did not cut the pieces up, or as little as possible (i had to do a little hand sewing for the costume, but the pieces pretty much stayed as big chunks...it was a wrap around dress with lots of safety pins). I don't have a sewing machine here obviously, but i have time, so I'm going to hand sew a skirt from the green and a top from the yellowish fabric. Something to occupy my time.

I also had my birthday party. It was a joint birthday party for me and Felipe. Anyway, we had our birthday party together because his birthday is the day after mine. I wanted to do a theme to make it more interesting...so we made it a black and white party. Obviosuly the idea was that everyone dress up in black and white. It was quite good! The girls were the best about being color coordinated, naturally. We made black russians and white russians to continue with the theme and got black and white balloons with streamer thing and felipe got some black lights. It was in the backyard garden/patio of his house and the weather was really nice and never got cold at night. It was a fun party and everyone pretty much danced all night long and had a good time. It was much better than my 21st birthday, in which I had to take an exam for my online psychology class and didn't really celebrate.

Otherwise I've just been doing school things. Well, not now, but up till last thursday. I had my final in Borges 2 weeks ago, got ALMOST an A. I got a 5.4 and a 5.5 to a 7 is an A. Oh well, doesn't really matter because even had I got a 7 I woudn't have got an A in the class. But I got a B in the class so I'm happy. I studied my butt off for that exam...I even went to a startbucks to study because, even though it's a bit more expensive, for the cuantity of coffee you get it, its cheaper. There is a nice café downt he stree from my apartment but you pay about $4 for a coffee thats 2 inches tall with some cream plopped on top. NOT worth it. For about 3-4 weeks straight, monday through saturday from 9am to 8pm there has been construction going on in the apartment 2 floors down from me so I had to leave. They just finished on monday, FINALLY. It was excrutiatingly annoying, really loud, and banging shaking always going on. I studied quite well though.

Last thursday was my phonetics final, which was hard. I had a 4.3 or somethign going into the class...a 4.0 is passing (its a 60'% but equivalent to a C- in the states). The class just irritated me, and I wasn't the only one...there were plenty of chileans who had the same complaints as me...the teacher honestly only taught us one thing in class after the midterm exam, yet there would be 5 or so concepts on the 5 quizes we had during that unit. The TA's made the quizes and it appeared that they werent necessarily on the same page as us or the teacher. therefore i did pretty badly on most of the quizzes but on the final project I made sure to get a good grade. We had to do a paper in the form of a hypothetical research project that was about 10 pages long in the end (1.5 space, so pretty long). I ended up with the theorectical research part to back the ideas and hypotheses, don't ask my why or how. There were 4 of us, and me and one other guy pretty much made sure thigns were getting done. And then the day before its due at 5pm in the evening when we meet to put all the parts together and make sure everything is good, this kid from my class Marco shows up in the study room. I say hi and he asks me if I saw Martin. And I said, yeah, he's right there. Marco says, oh I'm meeting him for the final project. And I said, oh, ok, well martin's in my group, and marco says, well, then i'm in your group! He laughed and I was mad. I knew this kid was a slacker. I asked him why he was suddenly in my group after we chose our groups 6 weeks before. He told me because the girls he was with dropped the class. Irrelevant, the drop date was 2 or 3 weeks before that, so he would have already known. And because he's a slacker, he intentiionally asked martin to be in our group at the last second so he could get points for the project, which was worth 15% of the final grade. So since he adds himself to our group, I ask him that because he had done absolutely nothing to contribute to the project, if he could add mroe to my portion. I had written 2 pages and the page amount for this section was to be 2-4 pages. I said, PLEASE see if you can write one more page. All he had to do was that, and the abstract, a one paragraph summary of the project, which would take 10 minutes. And since I wanted to put everything together and print the thing to turn it in (i wanted to make sure it was perfect and looked good, those points count...and seeing i was working with 4 boys i was sure that none of them would be that picky, no offense, males). , anyway, i asked him and the others that were still finishing up their parts, to send me what they had before midnight so I could do it and sleep and then just turn it in before my soccer class at 10am. I had been working on very little sleep for the previous few nights. Well, i stayed up till 1am and only 1 of the 3 had sent me their stuff. So i go to sleep and set my alarm for 8. Marco calls me at 7am---still hasnt done his part , and asks to send him something to help him write the abstract. I was so irritated. I hate working with people like this...SLACKER. Needless to say, he finally sends me his thing at 8, i had to put everything together still and ended up missing soccer becasue i didn't finish it all till 10am at my apartment. Oke, that was all said and done...but still the presentation remained. And the deal with that was that one person would present, and it was supposed to be 10-15 minutes. But the person who wass presenting did not find out until the day of the presentations. They started on a thursday, and this kid marco calls me at 9.35 am that day and says "oye, kari, i dont really understand what the project is about" REALLY???!!! 30 Minutes before we have to be ready to present and you're calling me asking me wahts its about?!! Might I add, he had the paper document for a week before this, so he had time to present! I was so mad and just told him sorry i cant help you, you had a week to call me and ask questions.

We didn't get called the first day of presentations and had the entire weekend to prepare more...I was scared to death i'd get picked cause it wouldbe hard in spanish etc...so i made sure to be ready. I had notecards, practiced, etc. Go figure, when we continue tuesday she calls him. Not only did he only speak for 6 minutes, but he couldnt answer the teachers questions. I had to give him my notecards cause he wasnt ready and otherwise woulda just read from the powerpoint. We scored a 3.7 on the presentation which is a 50-somthing%. We got a 6.2 on the written document, the best grade in the class. Came out to a 5.7 on the project in the end. Now i'm just waiting my grade on the final...we'll see. 7 pages of torture...needless to say it was nothing like the practice exam that they gave us. No joke. oh well, thats life.

Otherwise...here I am. I suppose I should comment on the weather, which has been fabulous. It's been the the mid to lower 80's lately, and I'm loving it. Went swimming the other day to the public pools that are on the big hill in the city., They were pretty.

I posted pictures, check those out.

And now, until I late post I suppose!!!! ChaU!