By Guillermo Perez
Throughout my life, I have had the privilege of living in many places, including Spain, Mexico, and the United States. I have remembered and missed my country of birth, Chile, in each of these places. However, this was the first time in recent years when I had the chance to mix the world of Chile with that of the country where I live. This internship allowed me to combine my North American world with my Chilean world, and it was a truly extraordinary experience.
This summer, I’ve had the opportunity to show Chile to my UT classmates and introduce them to my friends, family, and the places where I grew up and studied. In addition, this has allowed the international students to get to know the country in much greater depth and visit places that not all tourists get to see.
The UT students spent a weekend in Viña del Mar, the city where I was born, grew up, studied, and lived most of my life. Viña del Mar is a place two hours from the capital of Chile, Santiago, and is on the coast of the country, bordering the Pacific Ocean. Viña del Mar is home to approximately 350,000 people. It is known mainly for its summer tourist activity, a music festival in February, its exciting history, and its diverse gastronomic offerings.
Viña del Mar is next to Valparaíso, another famous Chilean city, declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003. Among other things, the city of Valparaíso is known for its impressive architecture, its hillside elevators, and its nightlife. It also has some of the best restaurants in the country and is the venue for many important cultural events.
Valparaíso is the seat of the country’s legislative power. It is home to the Chilean Congress, which is divided into a Senate and a Chamber of Deputies. It is important to remember that Chile is a unitary country with only one national Congress. The seat of the executive branch, on the other hand, is in Santiago, in the Palacio de La Moneda, right across the street from the International IDEA office. It was impressive to leave the IDEA office and pass in front of La Moneda every day, a building full of history.
In the first photo below, we are watching the sunset on the coastal road of Viña del Mar, one of the most beautiful places in Chile. In the second photo, you can see one of the exquisite dishes we tried that weekend during our visit to Valparaíso. The dish is a grilled octopus with “merken” potatoes. This food is particularly Chilean, as the “merken” is a local condiment made mainly by the Mapuche people. Besides, the restaurant we visited works only with sustainable fishing, and the octopus was extracted from the sea the day we ate it. It was really exquisite!
These experiences again showed me the relevance of bonds and friendship for the success of academic work. Having formed such a close-knit group allowed us to achieve our goals more efficiently and collaboratively. It is no news that academic life is quite solitary and that there are often few possibilities to share conversations, ideas, and reflections with others. An internship like the one we lived in is an opportunity to reverse the loneliness of academic life. It allows for building small communities of thought and reflection that will last over time. This fact is crucial if we also consider that experiences like this internship will enable us to get to know different cultures that, in one way or another, enrich our academic reflections and give more depth to our vision of the world. Generating these groups is also an opportunity to balance work and personal life better because it allows the possibility of working with people with whom you live profound experiences that go beyond the daily grind.
Looking at it in perspective and with the distance that only time allows, this internship was a unique adventure for other reasons as well. The possibility of working in Chile amid an ongoing constitutional process was spectacular. It allowed us to see up close a political process that few people have been lucky enough to experience as we were able to do. I am incredibly grateful to IDEA for making every effort during our internship to allow us to see the constitutional process up close and combine our work with formative experiences on the Chilean political discussion.
In fact, we heard fascinating talks from academics such as Fabricio Franco, Kimana Zulueta-Fulscher, and Sebastian Salazar. We were also able to participate in seminars on the constitutional process with members of the expert commission and the constitutional council that allowed us to be part of a very relevant learning experience for our academic careers. This experience was possible due to the excellent work of Ricardo, Renata, and Ana Maria in the IDEA Chile office, who made our work and our stay in Chile an absolute pleasure.
Finally, I am grateful for the possibility that UT and IDEA gave us to participate in this internship. I hope this experience will continue to be repeated and many more students can join these weeks of intense and rewarding work. I am sure that none of those who come after us will regret living this extraordinary internship!