Events began on Friday, but we went up a day early to try to resolve the longstanding issue of the boys’ report cards. It appears that they need to be sent to the Chilean Consulate in Miami to be approved and – you guessed it – notarized. They then need to be taken to Tramites Administrativos (a small bureaucratic office in Santiago) to be stamped, then to the Ministerio Educacion to be stamped again. After all of this stamping, our children can be officially registered for second grade.
We were worried about sending the original copies of the report cards through the mail to Miami and back. A notarized copy does not suffice; apparently, notaries are not as all-powerful as they sometimes appear. I was informed that there might be a way around sending the report cards to Miami by having the embassy write a letter on my behalf.
I went to Tramites Administrativos and asked if this were the case, and was informed that a letter from an official at the Embassy would suffice. I called my embassy contact and asked if she would be willing to provide a letter, and she agreed. The next morning, I picked the letter up at the embassy and went back to Tramites Administrativos. Unfortunately, the person who wrote the letter was not officially registered at the Tramites Administrativos as being authorized to write the letter. I therefore had to contact the Embassy once again, requesting a second letter stating that she is hereby authorized. The Embassy was reluctant to fulfill this request, stating that they had done so in the past and had been excessively burdened with requests of this nature. So, having wasted a full day of my own time and hours of other peoples’ time, we were back to square one.
The rest of the trip was much more enjoyable. On Friday morning, I attended a fascinating talk by Jaime Orellana, Undersecretary of Justice for Chile. He explained the enormous judicial reform that is now underway in Chile. The reform is globally historic in its scope. Though other countries have attempted such reforms, notably Guatemala and Venezuela, these efforts were not as ambitious and were not fully successful.
Chile is modeling its new judicial system on the German system. It is intended to accomplish a number of things. One is to implement in practice the Chilean constitutional guarantee of innocent until proven guilty. While this guarantee has been part of Chilean law for a long time, numerous administrative practices have weakened it. For example, under the previous system, lengthy detentions of suspects were allowed before they could hear the charges against them. Also, they might be represented by law students instead of lawyers. The new system guarantees lawyers will defend the accused and also provides more transparency to the proceedings as well as direct access to a judge. Another goal of the change is to reduce corruption, which mostly took place at the level of court clerks. Still another goal is to help create a more favorable business environment.
I was impressed by Mr. Orellana, who lectured in flawless English, and by the fact that Chile found the political and economic will to pursue the changes. They are enormously expensive – about $500 million up front – and require a long term financial commitment since the new system will require a significant expansion of the judicial workforce. Initially, most judges opposed the changes, and the opposition on the supreme court was quite strong. This has since changed. The changes are being implemented region by region to make them more manageable and so that they can learn by the process. By the time Santiago’s legal process changes, I think in 2005, hopefully all the kinks will be worked out. This is important since Santiago’s courts are by far the busiest in Chile.
After the judicial reform lecture, we went back to the hotel where we were staying to hear about the student Fulbrighters’ research. These covered a broad range of topics, all of them interesting. Here are some of them.
- A study of how salmon farms in Chile’s southern lakes may effect the ecosystems there.
- A study of how the transition from fishing to fish farming effects communities and the individuals that comprise them.
- An effort to model pollution in Santiago.
- An effort to improve public transportation in Santiago.
- A gendered study of the guitarron, an instrument unique to Chile, and the poets and folk musicians who play it.
- A study of the role of a particular chemical in cancer.
- A study of the judicial reforms underway.
I think there may have been one or two other topics as well. All of them were well presented and interesting. The Fulbright commission did an excellent job in screening the applicants. After the student presentations, we went to lunch at a nice restaurant at the foot of Cerro San Cristobal, a hill that overlooks Santiago. I had a kind of mild, meaty, delicious fish called reinita (I think).
For Saturday’s events, the families of the Fulbrighters were also invited. There were a couple of kids Gus & Sam’s age, which made the trip much more enjoyable. We boarded a bus and went to the Veramonte vineyard in the Casa Blanca valley. We were treated to an explanation of how the grapes are grown, harvested, and turned into wine during a tour of the facilities. Then, we sampled some of Veramonte’s produce. We had three different wines accompanied by cheeses, nuts, crackers, and bread. The sauvignon blanc was accompanied by a fresh goat cheese. The second, a merlot, was accompanied by toothy parmesan. The last, my favorite, is called Primus and is a mix of cabernet sauvignon, merlot, and carmenere. By this time, my brain was so addled from the delicious flavors that I can’t remember what kind of cheese came with it.
After Veramonte, we went to a horse farm. They showed us a couple of gorgeous Chilean horses and described the features that make them distinct from other breeds. They are short with thick, strong, straight legs, have a nose like a ram’s in the sense that it curves down, the face and the neck have appealing symmetry in profile, and they have a mild disposition (in contrast with English thoroughbreds, which tend to be jittery). They are quite expensive, about $70K - $100K. One of the female student Fulbrighters asked if the caballeros came with the horses. Based on the big grin on his face after her question was translated, I think he was quite flattered by her interest. They gave us an incredible display of horsemanship. The Chilean horse is unusual in its ability to run sideways. They are very agile and can spin in place very fast. They can also stop almost on a dime, even from a gallop.
Next we had lunch at the horse farm’s restaurant and were entertained by performers playing traditional Chilean music and dancing the cueca, Chile’s national dance. It is said to be modeled upon the movements that hens and roosters make prior to mating.
After all of that running around, we slept well on Saturday night! We returned to Talca the following morning.
One of the nicest things about the weekend was the contacts we made with other Fulbrighters. We met an open and interesting couple, Ron and Tina, and their three children. We hope to host them in Talca one weekend soon. He has Chilean ancestry and was an attorney and adjunct law professor in New Hampshire before coming to Chile to study the judicial reform I wrote about earlier. We may also see some of the students again, particularly those who are headed for Chiloe, an island in the south of Chile where we plan to spend most of the month of January. The chair of the Instituto and her husband have a house there and generously offered to let us use it during that time.
Next weekend we’re headed for the coast. More after that!
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