Cafe in the morning, pisco at lunch...

We started the morning at the civilized hour of 10am (at least for the group) at Cafe Havana in the district downtown where most of the expensive offices are located. We met and then walked the two blocks to the US Embassy. Vladimir had met the ambassador through Rotary some weeks ago and made the connection for us to have a visit. The embassy is very fortress like, with attractive rose marble, but few windows. We passed through security, then handed our passports to a marine and then went into the embassy. Craig Kelly, the ambassador was very busy because of a world economic forum that is in Santiago right now, but he came in for a few minutes to chat with us about what we are doing and why and to talk about some of his educational and exchange initiatives. He was a very charismatic and intelligent man and when he left, Joelle Uzarski talked to us for about 45 minutes about her job as the regional coordinator for English language education (the region includes Brazil and the southern cone) and local initiatives. None of us had known what to expect, but it was really fascinating. Cafe all around after and many delicious sweets at Cafe Havana. Jacqueline had a chance to talk briefly with the owner and we all piled into a suburban to head for a drive with Werner to a small town called San Jose del Maipo. The Maipo river, which was partially diverted to provide irrigation by the Spanish into the canal of San Jose, is a medium sized river that winds its way out of the city and into the mountains. There is still only snow on the highest mountains in the Andes, but the mountains were beautiful and we stopped for lunch in the town. Pisco sours all around and we had pastel del choclo for lunch. It is baked in traditional pottery and it is a delicious mix of coarse ground corn, chicken, olives, onions, grapes, boiled eggs and who knows what else! We were stuck in traffic for a long time on the way into Santiago because we were right at rush hour. People here work long hours, so rush hour is 6pm on. We visited a support institution for severely handicapped children in the La Reina neighbourhood of Santiago where various Rotary projects have helped these poor abandoned kids. It was really hard to see these kids, but Vladimir wanted us to know about it in order to help them with matching grants for fundraising. A very full day in Chile. I am having problems uploading photos so I apologize for the lack of visual content. Perhaps someone else will be able to get some photos going on .

Robyn