Orientation

We have been kept very busy with orientation activities, but I will try to give a quick update. Basically, we have done a lot of going over the rest of our program. In the session we just got out of, they went over our Spanish classes and the volunteer work that we are going to do with some Mapuche, a Chilean indigenous tribe. Although sometimes the overviews of these programs are repetitive, but they get me excited for the rest of the semester too.

We spend a lot of time with our Academic Directors, Choqui, Danko, and Sergio. Danko is really nice but also a big fan of talking for hours and hours. He usually starts out with something relevant and then that somehow leads into something related to communist movements in Latin America. All of the program leaders love their job and have been doing this for a long time, so they know what they are doing.

My program has 24 students and 6 of us are from Oxy, so we are a little overpowering, but I think we have done a good job of integrating. All the people are really passionate and glad to be here. A lot of us have very similar interests because of the program's focus. Still, it is so nice to have some of favorite Oxy people with me. Maya Kumar (Ku Ku Mai Mai)and I went on an awesome walk on the beach yesterday. We really needed to share some summer stories so it was a worthy use of our time.

I need to go eat lunch now, but I will try to add more soon. And some pictures! I think another Oxy person, Lauren Wemple, will have some pictures of our excursion last night at a Karaoke bar.