Happy 4th of July!

During a walk through the cerros

I am writing to you from my bed, wearing multiple layers and watching my breath steam and thinking about how last year I was on the beach enjoying the sunshine and watching fireworks...I am however happy and achieved the American dream of eating more than my stomach can hold and drinking lots of beer in celebration of our country's birthday. I went to two asados today with lots of gringos and a few Chileans and while we ate mostly Chilean food, it was a nice way to hold onto some American traditions.

This past week I've been attempting to start working on my thesis and am slowly realizing that I quite literally have no idea what I'm doing despite the months of preparation my school tried to give me. While we talked about proposals and interview guides nobody ever really told me what a SIP (Senior Individualized Project) is, or how to even write one. So now 5 days and many conversations later I am beginning to form an idea of what I have to do. My Chilean friends and family have taken pity on the stupid gringa and are helping me out with finding sources, interviews and developing my hypothesis. I am forever grateful for the wonderful people I have met here and have immensely enjoyed being reunited with them. This weekend I had lunch with Dan's host family, the wholeeeeee family, and then spent the rest of the afternoon with my family. I wandered through the cerros and enjoyed the sunshine.

Sambito, the house cat.

The paro, strike, continues and I have been talking to people about their opinions on it and what really is going on. It turns out that in addition to free education they are asking the government to nationalize the copper mines and kick out the foreigners (from the copper industry). My understanding is they believe that this will allow for free education to be a possibility. Most of the people I have talked to don't think that the protests are going to amount to anything, the government is pretty un-yielding, in addition to thinking that this isn't the solution. There have to be fundamental changes in order for it to work, as well as the support of parents (who are actually paying the bill). Right now some carreras, majors, are voting on whether or not to stop the paro in order to be able to finish the first semester and continue on to the second, we'll see what happens.

I went to a bar tonight to watch the soccer game, Chile vs. Mexico. It was really fun, and the game took place in San Juan, Argentina, which is where my Argentine host family lives. And Chile won! All in all a very nice 4th of July.Cerros