Good 'ol Southern Hospitality- Getting to know Perquenco

Hello again everyone!!

So unfortunately my first week of classes (observation week) was pushed back an entire week, so I don't actually start in the classroom until Monday.  In the meantime, the director of the Perquenco Education System, Hans, took it upon himself to show me around and give me the grand tour of the commune.

Some background info:
Perquenco is a commune in Araucanía (for those of you who STILL haven't taken the time to look it up on the map, I've done all of the work for you: to the right is Araucanía in relation to the rest of the country and below is Perquenco in relation to Araucanía).
The whole commune spans across 330.7 km² and has 6,500 people.  3,500 of those people live in el campo (the countryside) and the rest, 3,000--one of those being me--live in the main town.
In the center of town, there are two pre-schools, one escuela primera (grades k-6) and one escuela secundaria (grades 7-12).  Then there's the campo, which consists mainly of Mapuche inhabitants.  There are three main surrounding Mapuche communities which make up the majority of the campo.  Each of these communities have their own pre-k school and escuela primera.

Mapuche:
The history of the Mapuche is pretty cool.  They are a group of indigenous people whose culture and population have endured and successfully resisted many attempts by the Incan Empire to subjugate them AND the Spanish Conquest.  So ultimately they have survived for centuries and still exist today in the south of Chile (almost all of them residing in Araucanía).  They now make up 4% of the Chilean population and there are 3 communities in Perquenco!!

For years and still to this day, there exists a lot of discrimination against the indigenous people in Chile, and specifically in this region, against the Mapuche.  --Take a minute to think of the racial slurs we have in the US.... in Chile, the racial slur is "Indio", translating to Indian in English--
The Mapuche are in a constant struggle to gain back the land that was taken from them by the Spanish and their people are torn between the Chilean and Mapuche culture.  I've asked a couple of the residents in Perquenco about this and all of them have told me the same thing, that the Mapuche are always asking for more land, because they have very little, but what they do have, they're too lazy to do anything with it.  Because of the generations of bad blood between them and the Chileans, many of them are ashamed of their heritage and refuse to speak their language or practice their traditions. 

Back to my day....

Hans decided that as apart of my Perquenco tour, he would bring me out to the Mapuche communities and visit the schools!! So off we went into the campo to drive through the Mapuche communities and visit all of the schools in action so that I could get a well rounded view of all of the people of Perquenco and the realities of my students. 
Everyone has told me that Perquenco is an impovershed town, but I have to say, it is nothing like the campo.  That's where the real poverty is.  There's lots of farms, pigs, horses, cows and chickens everywhere!! All of the roads are dirt and it takes quite some driving off the beaten path to get to some of these communities.  But like I said before, the view and the landscapes along the way are breathtaking!

So we visited the school and spoke with the teachers and I learned that in each of the schools there is a very steady balance between Chilean and Mapuche culture that the teachers and administrators strive to enforce.  The children learn songs in their native Mapuche tong and practice traditions such as traditional dance, dress and celebrate holidays so that they can grow up and be proud of their culture rather than be ashamed of it.  To the right for example you see two members of the community building a "ruca".  This is the traditional Mapuche housing structure that the community is trying to re-create for the children on the school grounds. 

All the while the children continue to learn Spanish and learn of Chilean culture and history as well.  I think this is absolutely wonderful!! It was so inspiring to see the children getting the same lesson that other Chileans receive but in a classroom draped with Mapuche flags, art, instruments and costumes along the walls.

It was hilarious to see their wide eyes and listen to their "ohh's" and "awww's" when Hans told them that I was a "special visitor all the way from the United States", Hahahaha!!  They were so cute!!!!

And each class sang me one of their Mapuche songs in order to thank me for coming out to visit them.  It was SOOOOO great!!!!!!
It got be all the more excited to be here and anxious to learn more about the Mapuche people and their culture!