Report - Work Placement in Chile
Björn Nygren, Spin 3c
Katrinelunds gymnasieskola
Sundsvall, 7th of December 1998
1. Introduction
1A. Aims and purposes of APU (Work placement period)
The Spin programme is an international Social studies programme at gymnasium level, we have an international work-placement period during the third and last year. All students have got the opportunity to choose their own country and location of practice. The school also has a limited number of placements for those that of different reasons are unable to find their own placement.
The practice is organised within two courses that all students are attending, European Knowledge and Global World Order (The placement doesn't have to be within Europe though). No matter what type of placement that the students are undertaking all are supposed to observe differences within religion, culture and customs from an historical perspective. Also, you are supposed to look into the environmental situation of the country. It is possible to carry out the APU within Sweden if any student wishes to do so.
1B. My choice of placement
I went to Chile for my practice period. I have been very interested in the country for a long period of time. The country has a very interesting history and has gone through a lot of changes the last years. Right now, they are trying to build a new democratic system, but their recent, turbulent and bloody, history means a lot of difficulties to this process, and also, Chile is a country with many people living in absolute poverty. Given the opportunity to go to this country, situated on the other side of the World, I thought of it as a great chance to learn about Chile, its history and present.
2. Preparations
I knew some Chilean refugees in Sweden and therefore got the opportunity to do my practice in the country. My main contact here in Sweden, Eduardo Villanueva-Contreras, really dedicated himself to help me with the organisation of the trip and he took contact with a teacher in Viña del Mar, Chile, to assist with matters having to be solved within Chile. She (Maria Gonzales) proved very dedicated too, having a lot of contacts and enthusiasm.
Before I went, I read a Swedish book about the country, Chile, på vilken sida om drömmarna? of Stefan Strömberg It is a book containing a lot of facts but written in a personal way. It served well as an introduction to the country as it tries to give an impression of the mentality of the country and its people, formed as it is of its bloody past. I also met and discussed the trip with Eduardo at several occasions and he informed me about dangers, basic customs, where I was going to stay and the people I was likely to encounter. Also, there has been some more general information from the school.
I had to take two vaccinations before leaving, an additional Polio injection and Hepatit A/B. I flew with Lufthansa, there are quite few flights going to Chile, you should book at least a couple of months in advance, preferably even longer before departure if you want to be sure to get a ticket at the desired date. I booked about two months before, but I had to go some days later than I wished anyway. Lufthansa's flights to Chile are in corporation with SAS (Scandinavian airways) but there are other, alternative companies going to the same destination. I booked my tickets at Tranås-resebyrå, over the telephone. The tickets were rebookable and cost about 8,500 SEK for a return ticket. I had to change planes in Frankfurt and the plane made a stop for about an hour in Buenos Aires for cleaning and refuelling. The difference in time (due to the timezones) was plus 5 hours when I went away, but only 4 h less when I returned due to the time change in Sweden. I didn't get into any difficulties during my travel. Due to SAS reorganising of the flights my plane to Frankfurt was 45 minutes late, but it didn't matter as I could catch my connection flight anyway.
3. Work Experience
3A. Valparaiso and Viña del Mar (Winterhill)
In Viña del Mar where I spent most of my time I was accommodated with Eduardos grandmother. She had a big apartment with several unused rooms so there was plenty of space. The apartment building was situated in Recreo, that is a middle- class area located on the heights of Viña. The standard was rather low in comparison with normal Swedish standard, especially the kitchen and sound isolation was non- existent. This gave me some trouble in sleeping due to car alarms (mostly caused by kids bumping cars for fun.) Also there was a cock in the immediate area and it tended to start crowing very early in the mornings. However this was not really serious as I got used to it.
I visited a private school in Viña, called Winterhill, for two days. From the beginning I was supposed stay at a communal school for a week, but because of a major teacher strike the school was closed, making it impossible. Instead I visited Winterhill. I went to classes with the class doing their final year (age about 18) and I also attended a couple of school gatherings. As I mentioned the school is private and they had a special organisation. They had one class for every age from six-year-olds to the fourth year of what we call the gymnasium. Thus the children went to the same school for thirteen years. For many this created a very strong feeling for the school and some students doing their last year -though looking forward very much to graduate- felt really sad about leaving the school. Also the school had many activities for the children, like musical and dramatical appearances being performed for the rest of the school. I had the opportunity to visit such performance during my short time there and I thought they were very talented. I think such things are far too rare in Sweden.
The way of teaching was not conservative as is the case with many schools in less developed countries. The pedagogy was good in most cases and the students liked most of their teachers. They wore a kind of uniform, but it was a sweatshirt and trousers of the same material, more like a jogging dress then a uniform. The school was mainly for middle class people as poorer could not afford to have their children there. But the school fee wasn't high though and as a result it wasn't very wealthy either. The classrooms were quite small and the quality of the equipment not as high as it could have been. They had computers connected to Internet, though. I did not get opportunity to visit an ordinary (communal) school the standard of these schools are significantly lower and the salaries for the teachers are very low (about 300 dollars a month) causing the mentioned strike. This strike came to a resolution while I was there but it didn't result in any significant change.
During my first week I also visited the University of Valparaiso. I didn't stay long as my "guides" were a little short of time but I experienced the situation at the university as I talked to representatives both for students and teachers. As with the communal school, the state Universities are short of money. They manage and the teacher's salaries are also a bit better. There is a shortage of universities; therefore it is quite hard getting into the state universities. Many of the final year students took extra classes at so called Pre- Universities in order to pass the test you have to pass in order to be accepted. Even though the state universities are poor they have a high status among students. Those having money could pay for going to a private university, but it is considered less good as these students are "those who didn't pass the test". The exception to this is some super expensive universities in Santiago were only big company leaders and other members of the highest upper class can afford to send their children.
During the first week I also took some time to discover/explore Valparaiso and Viña del Mar. These two cities, with together between eight hundred thousand and a million inhabitants have grown together, now only being two parts of one big city. The cities have still got distinguished city-centres and environments. They are both situated on the Pacific Ocean coast, directly west of Santiago de Chile (the capital.) They are built on slopes, with the commercial districts close to the shores and the residential districts above on the heights. Valparaiso is an old harbour city and serves as a port to Santiago. It has many old buildings, once beautiful but now in many cases so dirty that the splendour of the past cannot be seen. Also the harbour areas are filled with bars, discos, strip-clubs and worse. These areas are quite dangerous to visit at night.
Above the city centre there is great area densely populated with houses. There many poor live, creating slum-areas. The houses have one or two stores and are either very old and in bad shape or they are newly built shacks. There are some areas that are a little better. The Congress is situated in the city centre.
Viña del Mar, is not as old seen as a town, even though the place has been populated for a long time. It is less dirty and more of a tourist town then Valparaiso. On the heights above, Recreo (where I lived.) is situated. Here a majority of the middle class in the area around Valparaiso/Viña lives. The further from Valparaiso you come, the better are the residential areas. In the northern part many of the most wealthy live. You will find large villas and great summer palaces there. The city is also gifted with a long beach called Reñaca. The city is cleaner and more modern in its appearance. Many tourists come here, mostly from other Latin-American countries.
3B. San Felipe (Casa de Jovenes)
The second week I went to work in another town called San Felipe, this place was quite a different experience as it only had about fifty thousand inhabitants. The houses are mostly one storyed, sometimes two. Three stores are very rare. It is very dusty and it makes the houses dirty. It is situated between Santiago and Valparaiso and a bit further up north; the three cities form a triangle.
I worked at a home/boarding-school. for boys (between 15-25 years old) called "Casa de Jovenes" The teenagers do not have any homes because of different reasons, such as problems with the family or loss of family. They come from bad social conditions and Casa de Jovenes offers a good environment for them. The amount of studies they performed can be questioned but they have better lives than many of those having been raised under similar circumstances.
There is another home for boys in the same area. It is called Pablo Sexto and according to people having visited the place it is an horrendous environment to grow up in, not getting attention and a lot of violence all the time. Therefore all the boys at Casa de Jovenes made sure to stay in line, some of them had previously stayed at Pablo Sexto and they all were aware of that they might end up there if they got thrown out. But you certainly could tell were these kids were from, they used many bad words and often acted as people of their social status usually do (taunting each other and trying to be tough.)
The supervisor at the place was called Mario, a sympathetic man who loved his job. Also, they had a woman coming over and making lunch everyday. In addition there were four Germans working part-time there. They were there instead of doing military service in Germany. I stayed in their house during my visit. They where nice and it was convenient talking English instead of Spanish for a while. We started work one-o clock and finished nine-o clock at night. This meant you didn't have to get up early but you didn't have much time to spend at night either. I mostly played chess and Ping-Pong with the teenagers. We also went to a pool-hall in the neighbourhood.
The place is funded by the Catholic aid organisation Caritas. During my time in San Felipe I also had time to visit another two other homes, also funded by Caritas. The first one took care of small children that suddenly had had to leave their homes, because of, for example, abuse or death of the parents. Also this place was very nice, the children had nice beds, games to play, a television and video and a big dusty yard to play on. Some of them were traumatised, but they all seemed to be able to forget their bad experiences at least during daytime. The second place was located in a nearby town of the same size, called Los Andes. This was for girls, they were younger than the boys in Casa de Jovenes were, but it was very similar, but bigger. These were only short visits and I didn't spend much time there.
3C. Santiago (CONACIN)
The third week I spent in Santiago with a student. Santiago is a large city with 4-5 million inhabitants. I went there to visit the University of Santiago and to interview a representative for CONACIN (Coordinador Nacional Indianista) that works for the rights of the native Indians and to stop the exploitation of their territories. I will further present the results of the interview in the research section. The university made a slightly wealthier impression then the University of Valparaiso. The campus was widespread and the main building was grand. We went home (to Vi¤a) earlier then planned as there were riots caused by the arresting of Pinochet in London. Therefore this was all that we had time to. The last week was free. I went back to Winterhill once but spent most time visiting the people I had got to know. I also went with some friends to Isla Negra, to see the poet Pablo Neruda's famous house.
4. Impressions
4A. The people and Society of Chile
In all, my impression of the country is positive, this despite great social differences, maltreatment of Indians and other problems with the society. These are very sad factors in the country, but they also have a very nice scenery in many places and a people that are very friendly. All the encounters I made were with incredibly nice people, especially those I visited who all offered their hospitality. They all thought it was very nice having a stranger from Sweden under their roof. Actually I found that people generally looked more sympathetic too, the exception being Santiago were the Western way of living has been totally adapted. Another dark side is that the friendliness is not applied on their neighbours the native population.
One difference in culture that I did find strange and sometimes annoying, that was very obvious among young people, was the machoism of the boys. This could not be seen among the grown-up population, but rather in schools, streets and discos. This machoism includes an attitude towards girls. They whistle and comment if they see someone that is good-looking. And they have a way with girls they know that first made me think that a lot of them had relationships, before I realised that it really is how they are with friends.
With friends and guests the Chileans are very service minded and they want to serve you and make sure you do not have to do anything yourself. This in contrary to the "help yourself" attitude we have in Sweden. This is mainly if you only are staying one or two days, after that I think you are expected to at least take your plate and other things you have used to the kitchen. Actually, I felt a need to help with such things in order to not get a bad conscience. But in general, I have found Chile to be astonishingly like Sweden and other developed countries in many ways.
4B. Climate and houses
As mentioned above, the state of houses and other buildings generally is much worse then in Sweden, partly because of the different climate. The insulation is non-existent and they have windows with just one thin layer of glass instead of our normal three. This means it can be rather cold on some occasions during wintertime. However, I came there during springtime and the climate was perfect for a Swede like me. The temperature was normally around 25 during the day in Valparaiso/Viña and the sun shone almost every day. Also, some fresh winds usually blew from the ocean, cooling you. The situation was a little different in Santiago and San Felipe. There it could be slightly over 30 degrees Celsius during daytime, and without winds. Add to this very smoggy air in Santiago and the dust of San Felipe and the weather wasn't quite as convenient for me, as I am used to the Swedish climate. However I managed pretty good.
As a result of the phenomenon "El Niño" there had been a drought in Chile. This made it even dryer in a landscape that already from the beginning consist of dry steppe and sandy hills overgrown only with small bushes. The drought wasn't extremely serious, but it did affect the farming in a bad way.
4C. Language
Chile is an old Spanish colony and therefore they mainly talk Spanish. English is taught in the schools, but generally the students are very badly motivated to study other languages as their neighbouring countries all have the same language. As a result I had to talk Spanish most of the time. The native population (the biggest group being the Mapuche Indian's) also tries to keep their traditions and language alive. This is not an easy task in many areas, the exception could be the Indian communities that so far have been left relatively alone, mainly in the southern parts. I will go a bit further with the problem for the Indians in the Research part. For me, the fact that I had to talk Spanish was positive as I got much practice and achieved a significant change in fluency. The Chileans can be rather difficult to understand in comparison to the school Spanish taught in Swedish schools. They talk much faster, less clear and also use a number of words only used in Chile which I had to learn in order to fully understand. Of course, I only learnt the most important and commonly used words but I managed to understand when people talked to me.
4D. Social differences
What I find to be the bad side of the country is the huge differences between poor and rich. Nowadays there is also a rather big middle class that almost have as much money as the average Swedish citizen, but these are still fewer then the poor. The poor people live in bad neighbourhoods. When I went to Viña from the airport the first day (it takes about two hours) I could see several towns made of, among other things, corrugated plates and being miserable poor. All houses that have something that could be worth stealing has walls or high fences around, usually also two or three guarding dogs and if possible an alarm.
Chile is a country with constantly improving BNP, but the achieved wealth mostly gets into the hands of the rich population that attracts enormous amounts of money. Many new jobs have also been created over the years since the end of Pinochet's dictatorship, but this is mainly in the service-sector. This means that many people work as window cleaners at gasoline stations and other such jobs, where they receive a minimal salary that they can hardly live on and also support their family with.
Another common job is to jump onto busses and sell cheap ice cream on them. It is very common especially in Santiago, they come aboard every time the bus stops. This also happens in Viña/Valparaiso. I guess they have some kind of deal with or are employed by the buss company, but many of them sure look miserable, generally I think that these are not people with good lives.
4E. Environment
As with many less developed countries, environmental issues have not been given a very high priority. I did not discuss environmental issues with anyone but you can not help notice some thing when you live in Chile. One thing I thought about in my "everyday life" was that smaller plastic cans with Coca- Cola, Fanta and other such drinks were labelled "Non returnable can". The bigger 1,5 litre and two litre cans were, however, possible to return to the store where you bought them in order to receive a small discount on the next can you bought. Otherwise this would have been very serious, as I think soda is the most common drink in Chile.
Another thing was the terribly contaminated river going right through the otherwise so clean Vi¤a del Mar. This river was green because of Surfeitation and flowing through other cities on its way against the Pacific Ocean. During springtime it normally flooded, but this spring the drought has prevented this. They told me that during these floodings, the river expands a lot, therefore a broad strip of land on one side is barren so that the water can fill it without causing any harm. This space was used as parking space when the river was in its normal state. Also, during these floodings a stench spreads in the nearest parts of the town.
The air of Santiago is another problem. It is very smoggy, making it impossible to see the whole city or the surrounding mountains from viewing points in the centre of the city. Unbelievable enough, in Sweden, a great deal of the vehicle exhausts comes from buses, making them a big environmental problem. There are some busses driven by electricity, but these are a very small minority. There are almost more buses than cars in the centre of Santiago, sometimes you can see ten of the in a row before the first car in the line. There are thousands of them, driving around as fast as they can, not following any schedule. If you want to catch one you just have to wait, usually less then a minute. It is not necessary to wait at a bus stop even if these exist. You could catch one even if it is waiting in the middle file of a four-file road. If you want to get off you just get up from your chair and press a button placed by the door. Also this you can do in the middle of the line of traffic, having to cruise between waiting cars and buses in order to get off the street.
4F. Ghosts from the past - The Pinochet crisis
The second day of my stay in Chile, Pinochet got arrested. This tore up much of the pain from the past. Not that his deeds had been forgotten, since 1973 and till this day a widespread hate for Pinochet and his crimes has been noticeable present within the Chilean society. This is not made easier by the fact that the upper class, the parliament and also a part of the middle class population sees Pinochet as their saviour and some kind of saint. No matter of what was the case with Chile before the coup d'etat in the 11th of September in 1973, I find it very hard to accept that he is indirectly and directly responsible for almost four thousand deaths. Pinochet himself defends his actions with that it "was necessary". This I find to be a big lie. After the Coup d'etat it became obvious that the ruling party and its allies had no kind of preparation for defence against a supposed military coup.
I went, together with some family to Eduardo that had been very personally affected by the military regime, to a demonstration for human rights and against Pinochet. This demonstration took place in Parque O'Higgins in Santiago and was arranged by different student organisations, Amnesty International and some leftwing political parties. In total it attracted about thirty thousand people. It was a great experience to see so many devoted people, from different classes and backgrounds unite. It should be noted that the people in favour of Pinochet also arranged huge demonstrations. These were mostly held in the wealthy parts of Santiago.
The news has torn the country apart into two sides, without any middle ways, you either hate or love Pinochet. All the newspapers always had about ten pages about the news, including the front-pages. You could see thank you to Great Britain and Spain sprayed in the walls of the cities by radical left-wing youth and riots were very common in Santiago, the police (Carbineiros) always responded with Water-cannons and mass arrests.
5. Research -Interviews
Much of what I have learnt about the society in general I have told about in the Impressions section. But I had time to make three interviews. These where made in Spanish and I used a recording machine as it often was very difficult to follow and understand for me, when talking about complicated things and the object of the interview gets carried away. I haven't had opportunity to get together with Eduardo for translation of the material, but as I understood the general content of what they said I will try to summarise what I got to know here. I am planning to write my essay about the modern Chile and for this I will get the complete translations of the interviews.
I interviewed a teacher at the faculty of history at the University of Valparaiso, a student that was chairman of "Centro de Alumnos" which is a politically independent student's organisation for those studying at the historical faculty earlier mentioned. I also did an interview with a representative for CONACIN (Coordinador Nacional Indianista).
With the teacher and the student I discussed the situation of the Universities and the education system of Chile in general. They both thought as many other teachers and students I had shorter talks with, that the government had no real interest in education. They are not willing to give any more money then necessary to keep the system going. The best-educated teachers take jobs at the expensive Santiago universities if they can. But both students and teachers tries very hard to get everything working.
Many of the students of Chile are very active in saying what they think and playing a part in the society of Chile, all sides are presented politically. The unwillingness to give money to the system creates an incapability to accept very many students, resulting in that hard tests have to be past in order to get a place at a university. A fact is that there are very many young people in Chile as many are born in comparison with Western countries. This often excludes poor people, as they cannot afford taking extra classes at pre universities. Also, the part that can afford it has to devote all their time to study, having ordinary school daytime and extra classes almost every night. Free time has to be spent doing homework or resting.
Centro de Alumnos is a student's organisation trying to speak for the students at the faculty of history in order to improve the quality of the education and for the students in other aspects too. They also arrange voluntary work in the poor villages surrounding Valparaiso/Viña. The organisation CONACIN, as I have mentioned earlier, is trying to co-ordinate the fight against racism and exploitation of the Indian native population. All the time old Indian communities are being built over with infrastructure, mainly roads and new settelments. No political parties have really taken these questions seriously. Even if there are laws prohibiting exploitation of traditional Indian communities and discrimination of the people, this does not help, as it should.
Lately a highly ranked politician for the Socialist party was accused for allowing a big hotel to be built on sacred Mapuche ground. He was freed of all charges, but still, the hotel was built and won't be torn down. Even though promising, the sitting government has ignored the terrible situation that the native population has to suffer. They are discriminated on the labour market and generally very poor. This creates criminality, especially among younger people, that further worsen the prejudice of the population against the native Indians. The Indian's have groups that regularly hold small manifestations in Santiago and other places, protesting against the maltreatment, but nothing happens.
6. Results
Despite not being able to practice at the communal school and having to go home earlier than planned from Santiago, everything went as planned. I always had something to do and I think I fulfilled the goals of the Work Placement period. Thinking about it would have had its benefits to stay at one place all the time getting time to really know the place. But on the other hand I got to know more of the country in general in this way. Therefore I think this was the best way to go, not staying at one place all the time nor travelling around without stopping more then one day per place. In this way a got both a wide and a rather deep understanding of the country, its system of society and the mentality of the people. Still there are some very serious problems to deal with before achieving status as a fully developed country, this will of course take a very long time, but at least they are a little bit closer now then some years ago.
Great thanks to Maria Gonzales in Chile and Eduardo Villanueva- Contreras here in Sweden who arranged the trip and Silvia Henry- Contreras with whom I stayed under a long time. She has been very kind and willing to help me during my visit and I hope to see her again. Also their families, have helped me a lot with both practical matters as transports, guidance and other things. All together I am perfectly content with my practice period.
7. Conclusion
I hope and I think I have made my best out of the practice period, with much help from the person mentioned above. All of my classmates have not had such luck. Chile is a very interesting country from many points of view and has a very bloody recent history, still rooted in the minds of the people. A people that still manages to live in the present and many have great hopes for the future while others still live in great despair. The country is still well developed in comparison with other Latin-American countries. I have had much luck, having contacts and finding people that were very willing to help me. I think going alone also made me improve my independence and I also have had great success in improving my Spanish. I feel I have really broadened my perspective of life and society. This form of practice is very good for those who get a good placement, but for many this has been a problem and there lies the question of how to improve the organisation.
8. About sources
I would just like to state that I have not used any written sources for this report, it is totally based on my own experience and what people have told me. It consist of my impressions of Chile and from my personal point of view..