July 17th

Part of the orientation process is learning about the history of Chile. And there's a lot of it. Without even mentioning pre-European history, there are a good 400 years or so to cover. In a nutshell: there are a lot of wars and generals and earthquakes. What's really confusing though is the political history. Most people have probably heard of Allende and Pinochet (both subjects to avoid in Chile, generally speaking, which makes understanding it much more difficult) but that's only knowing about Nixon and Kennedy, if Nixon had violently overthrown JFK and ruled as a dictator for 18 years.

The Presidential Palace (la Moneda)

For example, right now there are six major political parties that are all represented in Parliament. SIX. We listened to a right-wing historian and a left-wing historian, who happen to be friends and both thoroughly derided the other one's work. I'm mostly very confused and newly aware of how extremely little I know. One historian said Chilean history has been mostly non-violent, the other said it's been full of uprisings and military interventions. A third historian spoke entirely in Spanish and I'm not entirely sure what she was talking about. 

Luckily we're going to Valparaiso tomorrow to learn more history so I have yet another chance to feel completely overwhelmed.