Yes: A Chakra Manipulation Experience

Hello Everyone!

I guess you may  be wondering why this blog is called Yes...Well, it's because Laura told me to say, "Yes" to everything. So far, I think that I have stuck to it fairly well!

The plane ride was not as bad as I thought it would be. On the way to Mexico City I sat next to a Gastrointestinal physician named Richard. He was really nice and made the first part of the flight more pleasant. Once I got to Mexico City, I had to wait for five hours until my flight for Chile. As we were boarding, I thought that I had lost my passport and was near crying. However, I looked in my backpack, found it almost instantly, and proceeded to feel like a complete idiot. Anyway, after that there were any mishaps and I got to Santiago safe and sound.

This is where I am tying from right now!!!

 This is the living room...

This is the kitchen! Where we drink tea and eat bread 24/7!

Pesos are the currency, although I wish I was as rich as the numeric value implies...

My host family is very nice, but also eccentric. I am living with a single mom and her twenty-one year old daughter. Before I met my host family, I was worried that they might be distant or reserved. This was not the case and is not the case with most Chileans. There are lots of hugs and kisses on the cheeks when you meet them, even if they have no idea of who you are. My host mom is by no means a classic Catholic nor is she conservative. By now I hope that Uncle Bob and Dad aren't panicking! She works in a mall giving massages that "manipulate chakras" and use pressure points that are supposed to  be connected to organs within the body. With all of this being said, I still did not hesitate to say yes when she invited me to a "danza."

The Danza was basically a combination of meditation, dancing, massage, and empowerment for women. We started by rubbing our partners tailbone with our fist which, as you can imagine, was hard not to laugh at out of the sheer awkwardness of the situation. However, no one else was laughing so I kept a straight face.After rubbing the tailbone, we worked out ways up the spines and massaged each others arms, legs, and scalps. Next, we rapidly beat our hands on each others' backs, solar plexus, and feet. This was done to free the "chakra," or energy, that is contained within each of our bodies. We did different exercises to release the four different types of chakras from our bodies. For example, to release our red and masculine chakra, we were told to focus on everything that was frustrating or angering us and then to turn all of those feelings into a ball of energy that we pushed into the circle. To release and balance our purple chakra, which exits our body from our third eye, we just laid on the floor and meditated. I almost feel asleep so I don't think I was doing it right....

Today, I went to my first class at IES which is the program that is providing my classes. To be honest, I was relieved because it meant that I could see my classmates and speak English for a while.We learned about general parts of Chilean culture and then we were sent out on a scavenger hunt within the city. We saw two churches which I'll try to show somewhere on here...
 This is an Orthodox Church...

 A view of the street...

 More of the street....

We also found the International Multicultural Art Museum!
Here's a statue that was outside of it!

International Cultural Museum of Art 

 Oddly enough, what caught my eye the most was all of the stray dogs that were on the streets. They are a ton of them and they all seemed very nice, although I did not pet any of them.
 Here's a cute stray dog that I thought was dead at first...

Now, I am back home and starting on my homework. When I last checked, there was incense burnings, drums beating, and singing in the living room. Home sweet home?

I miss you all!!!