Last Week!

Monday, we were back to class in Santiago. We had one class in the morning and had a generous 7 hours to spend as free time at the university that we could use to get our journals done, start on other papers, or just hang out. I spent a couple of hours in the sun before I went inside and completed my last 2 journals, then waited around until the bus picked us up. Everyone was tired from the day of heat and computers, so it was a slow night. I had some wine, then was off to bed.

Tuesday was another long day, only this time we were constantly on the move. We started off at Ohio National, an insurance company. After that, we had lunch and went to the U.S. Embassy. The presentation there was interesting because it was a husband and wife; the wife was clearly nervous speaking in front of us (her job started the day of Obama’s inauguration last Tuesday), and her husband was a fantastic speaker. She seemed as if she was unsure about living in Chile, and he seemed fine with it. While he spoke, she danced around behind him trying to get the overhead projector to work with the remote. It was incredibly distracting, and I couldn’t focus on what the guy wanted to say, so I ended up only retaining their personal story about how they got to Chile and their adjustment. It was interesting, at least. Finally, we went to Procter and Gamble of Chile. We were all so exhausted by this point, and I know we all were really looking forward to this presentation. The information was interesting and I was glad that the first speaker asked for our participation, and that I finally got to hear about marketing rather than more financial statistics of the country, which seemed to be every other presentation. Hannah McKee (I hope that’s how her name is spelled, at least!) attended UC and got accepted as an intern a few years ago, and now is an Assistant Brand Manager for the company. She walked us through the company structure and all about her job, as well as her adjustment to living in the city as well. The whole presentation lasted just a little too long though, and we were all relieved to head back to the Kolping House. It was still probably one of my favorite presentations of the trip because it was the first that I felt was even remotely relevant to my career path.

Wednesday was a fun day. We had a company visit at MADECO, a copper factory, and took a tour of the plant. I like watching factory processes because I feel like all the time I ask myself, “how do they make this?” and then you get to see for yourself. While I haven’t thought much about how they make different copper components, it was still interesting to watch. However, I wish they would have warned us how long we would be in there--we were HOT and needed water! After MADECO, we had lunch at a mall and then headed to La Casa de Fran, a center for underprivileged kids. We all set up little stations for these kids, age (I’m guessing) 5-12, and played with them for several hours. My station was face painting, though I gave up on it pretty quickly. The smallest little girl there had me paint a bunny on her face, and I was thrilled that we were speaking Spanish back and forth to each other. She was my little buddy the rest of the time there, though I quickly began to understand almost NOTHING she was saying other than “I’m hungry, when are we eating??” She drew me a picture of herself among the typical flowers and butterflies, then I asked her, in Spanish, if she wanted to paint my face now. I was surprised that she understood because I didn’t know if I’d even spoken it correctly at all, but she got up, pulled two chairs together, grabbed paint and a paintbrush, and asked what to paint. I said “un Corazon” and she drew a giant heart on my cheek, then gave it a face and hair. It was adorable. When she had to go home, she gave me a really big hug and said “chao, tia!”… about 3 separate times. Finally, we left, our lungs all filled with dust from the play area outside where water balloon fights and soccer were played earlier, and with giant crayon drawings in hand from the kids.

That night, we had our goodbye dinner. It was really just Enrique making tons of steaks, chicken breasts, and sausages on the grill while everyone had a little to drink. Again, I had wine, after becoming attached to the cheapest wine at the grocery store called “Gato”. (The worst part is, we ended up just buying it in the box…) Everyone had a lot of fun just being at the Kolping House one last night, and we all went to bed at a ridiculous hour.

Eight a.m. the final morning of the trip, we were off to San Antonio to visit Puerto San Antonio. I hate to admit it, but the tour was pointless… nothing was happening, so we didn’t really know what to look at. We spent about 20 minutes on the tour, then went to Pablo Neruda’s house. He was a famous Chilean poet, and even though it was irrelevant to business, I’m really glad we went on the tour. His house was something out of a fantasyland, with all kinds of poetic twists to it. He collected nearly everything, and giant mast heads were all over the house. It was a bit creepy, but neat. The windows were all giant and opened up to a beautiful view of the waves crashing against the rocks on the coast…so peaceful. Even his bedroom had two walls of windows that met so he kept his bed at an angle to see out both of them. I wish I could have taken pictures of it, but was only allowed to take pictures of the views out of the window. After we finally finished all 3 tours, we went to Vina again to spend only a couple of hours. We laid on the beach, and it was strange to be back there ending the trip where it began. The group of 19 that were spending their last weekend in Vina got dropped off at their apartment and hostel, while the last 5 of us that wanted to just go home got to go back to Kolping.

So yesterday, I spent a somewhat lonely day at the Kolping House, just getting sun and puttering around to keep myself busy until the taxi came at 6. Now I’m sitting at the Toronto airport, waiting for my flight home and wishing that the weather was just as good at home than it was in Chile!