I did a lot of reading for biology and linguistics this week, including a book called Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazon Jungle about a missionary-turned-linguist living in the rainforest with a native tribe called the Pirahãs.
At the Mapuche cultural center, our entire group played an exciting game of palín, a sport similar to field hockey. In palín, two teams line up facing each other with curved sticks that are used to hit a lightweight ball made of leather-wrapped wool. The pair of opponents in the middle face off to determine which team gets the ball, and the other team then tries to prevent them from it hitting through the goal at one end of the field. To win, you need four consecutive goals, but neither of our teams even got close!
I have plenty of exams and presentations coming up at my university this week and next, including a linguistics test, presentations in Spanish for my Latin American music and biology courses, and an essay for my political science class. That's a lot of studying!
