Nature's Farm

Another day, another set of lecutres, another company visit, and another dance lesson! Our days continue to be filled with activities and nonstop action. Even though it's tiring, I'm enjoying every minute of it. I don't want to think about how we're leaving in almost a week!

José gave us two more lectures today on Chilean culture. My favorite part of today's lecture was the section on advertisements; we watched a few videos of Chilean commercials and talked about the aspects of their culture that influenced the messages of the ads. José explained that since Chileans are very family oriented, many commericals appeal to that aspect of their culture. For example, a drunk driving public service announcement got its message across by showing how a drunk driving accident can take a son away from his mother, a family tragedy.

Lunch today at the University was a little earlier than normal, so it wasn't as crowded and more of us were able to sit together in a bigger group. When we were finished eating we sat outside in the warm sunshine for a few minutes before the tour bus picked us up to drive to Nature's Farm.

Bosques del Mauco, or Nature's Farm, was the company that my small group researched and presented on before departure! It is a mushroom production company that grows and ships out mushrooms to many places, including the United States. We got a tour of the different buildings and saw the different processes that go into the distribution of the product. After adjusting to the horrible smell, steel toed boots, hard hats, and muddy ground, it turned out to be a great company visit ending with a look in the packaging center. In order to go into the packaging center, we had to put on hairnets and face masks. Everyone enjoyed taking pictures of our silly-looking get ups. We returned to the bus and drove back to the University.

Nature's Farm group! Caryn, me, and Molly  in the packaging center.

We got back to the University around 6pm, an hour before our dance lesson started, so we decided to grab something quick to eat. Today was our second reggaeton and last overall dance lesson! We enjoyed shaking our hips and waving our arms with David for the last time, took a group picture, and took the public bus back to the hotel at the end of the day. We're excited because we get to sleep in an extra hour tomorrow, with a visit to one company as well as Pablo Neruda's house on the agenda.