“PUERTO VARAS: THE CITY OF ROSES”

Rose Marie Kuschel R.

June 06^th, 2007.

The city of Puerto Varas (named to honor Manuel Montt and Anotonio Varas, both intellectual mentors of the colonization) is located only 10 miles (16 km. approximately) north of Puerto Montt, the capital city of Los Lagos Region. The city was founded as a consequence of the German colonization promoted by Vicente Perez Rosales in 1854. During this time, Germans were offered lands around Llanquihue Lake to settle and farm that territory. Puerto Varas was founded as the main port of the lake and connected by a road to the nearest seaport, Puerto Montt. The great growth Puerto Montt has had during the last decade, helped Puerto Varas become a residential town and an important tourist destination, probably one of the favorite destinations all over the country.

Puerto Varas was built in a natural landscape formed by the Llanquihue Lake, the second largest lake in Chile and the third largest natural lake in South America, and by Osorno and the Calbuco Volcanoes. On the western shore of Llanquihue Lake there are located other important tourist destinations such as Puerto Octay, Frutillar, and Llanquihue.

People visiting Puerto Varas will recognize two of the most important city attractions considered part of the German influence: it’s wonderful gastronomy and beautiful surroundings, including well–kept gardens and avenues full of trees and flowers, especially roses of all kinds and colors. That is the reason why this town is also known as “The City of Roses.” The idea of planting roses along the city was established during the government of Teobaldo Kuschel Kneer, the mayor of the city from 1958 to 1695. He wanted to give Puerto Varas a special characteristic that could distinguish this place from the rest of the cities and towns located in the same region. The idea of having roses decorating the main avenues and public places is still very strong and important in the area. In fact, every year there is a special contest where the Botanical Garden in the city chooses the most beautiful and ornamented private garden. The winner besides winning money also wins the opportunity to be considered as the owner of the house with the most beautiful garden in the entire city.

The German style architecture typical of southern cities along with excellent gastronomy can be observed all day and night at each of the wonderful sites attracting visitors. People wanting to go out may decide whether visiting coffee-shops, pubs or restaurants that may be in small simple houses or luxurious places where you may enjoy eating the most delicious dishes. In this city, the presence of salmon is very strong and considered one of the favorite dishes. Shellfish is also very common. People who really don’t like seafood may enjoy wonderful barbeques with a great variety of meat including lamb, cow, pork, goat, etc. This city is also well known for its brewery and cheese factories, but mostly because of the ancestral pastry, desserts, chocolates and all kind of sweets brought along with the first German colonists. In Puerto Varas were you may have the opportunity to taste the most delicious marmalade prepared with natural ingredients and the most delicious recipes that are impossible to find even in Germany now because of the immigration process that occurred years ago.

Besides good food and beautiful surroundings, people visiting this city may have the chance to practice in multiple adventure sports, including hiking, Tyrolese ropes, rock climbing and canoeing. People from the area usually offer tourists “eco - adventure tours” because the environment gives the possibility to practice and enjoy a wide variety of activities and sports in the magnificent area all through the year.

Puerto Varas is undoubtedly a unique place in the world and a city that offers bit of everything for everybody. It has the great advantage of being connected with other countries such as San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina through the International Route and it is just a few minutes by car or bus from other important places. The same international route allows access to other tourist destinations often visited by tourists through the year such as Ensenada and the Petrohué and Peulla River Falls.

So, if you want to spend an unforgettable vacation alone or with company, never forget that Puerto Varas will offer you a great variety of activities and great places to visit without having to travel or move from the city. The most important thing is that you will have the opportunity to taste the most delicious sweets and food you could ever imagine.

Anneke is leaving The Gathering ...

I found out today regrettable news for

all of you fans (I include myself) the Dutch

band The Gathering. Anneke Van Giersbergen,

the lead-singer is leaving the band.

She said she wants to give new direction

to her life and search for different and

new horizons in personal and musical aspects.
On the band`s official web site, they tell us

that Anneke will be with the band till

August 2007, continuing with the commitments

they have.
But after that, she will continue on her own

way in the musical world with her new band

“Agua de anique” and The Gathering will go on
With differents masculine and feminine voices.
However, for those who knew The Gathering

when she was still part of the band,

you`ll know that she left us an amazing legacy...

you only have to listen “Mandylion”, “Nigth time birds”

or “If then else” and remember the complement

they were together. Even though they are

losing the vocalist, The Gathering will continue
working and they will release a new album

by 2008. They`ll also release their next DVD,

“A Noise Severe”, which will be the last visual

recording with the now ex-vocalist “Anneke”.

my favourite movie

Macarena Valencia
June 20th
My favourite movie

This was the funniest movie that I have ever seen. I saw it about ten or twelve years ago and I don’t know why I love it so much. When people ask me which is my favourite movie I say “Un príncipe suelto en Nueva York,” in which the principal character is Akkem (Eddie Murphy.) This movie is about a prince that lives in Zamunda and he has to get married to a woman who has been raised to serve him. On the day when she is introduced to the people and the prince, he talked with his father, the king, and told him that he wants to go abroad for fun and find a woman who really likes him. His father gave him permission to go abroad for a month and he decided to go to New York, with a friend who was a king’s servant. They arrive in New York, and in the taxi ask the driver for the poorest part of the city so they were taken to Queens. There they settle, renting the most poor and ugly apartment of the building. Then some Queen’s habitants steal all their things and they go outside to see the city. They get jobs in a fast food company, similar to Mc´Donalds but this one was Mc´Dowels. They started to work there and everything begins. In the city, he meets the woman he was searching for but he never told her that he was a prince so she thinks that he is poor and as the days pass they start a relationship. The prince’s father flies to New York to look for him and he has to hide from him because he doesn’t his girlfriend to learn that he is a prince. Finally, she learns the truth and ends their relationship, he tries to explain to her what happened, but she never listens to him. Finally he goes back to his city in Zamunda, and he has to get married. On their wedding day, he thought that the bride would be the woman who had been raised to obey him, but when he took off the veil he realized that this woman was the girl that she had met in New York.
I love this movie, nobody knows why I like so much, and my friends said “it’s a really bad movie” but I like it a lot, I see it whenever I can, and I have it recorded.

SEVENTEEN YEARS AFTER DISCONVERY OF THE FINDING OF PISAGUA GRAVE.
A SOLEMN CEREMONY TOOK PLACE IN THE "PARA QUE NUNCA MÁS" MAUSOLEUM. THEN THE CEREMONY RELATIVES ENTERED THE MAUSOLEUM.

Attendants remembered the victims of Military Government, “which were killed because their ideas,” said Héctor Marín.

Bladiminira Flores presented a carnation in memory of her son, a 26 year-old teacher named Humberto Lizardi.

This emotional ceremony was carried out at The “ Para que nunca Más” Mausoleum, the political Iquique relatives of executes and missing prisoners grouping, commemorated 17 years of the finding of Pisagua grave.

At the Nº3 cemetery, representatives of different groups united, among them was Iquique Commission of Human Rights President, Mr. Flavio Rossi. The attendants’ faces showed pain for the disappearance and death of their loved ones in spite of the years that have passed.

Seventeen years have passed since the nineteen political executes bodies were found in a grave located in the north of this cove, on June 2nd, 1990. The first body found was Manuel Sanhueza Mellado who was prisoner in Arica, with his wife and his father – in - law. The wife and the father – in – law returned to Arica and Manuel Sanhueza did many years after but inside of a casket.

President Hector Marin said that this date helps to remind us that exists “Historical memory” exists which says never again should ideas be combated with guns, like what occurred during the Military Government and is the state that has to put impunity to crimes of hurt humanity”

Finally each attendant deposited carnations on a cross at the same time when they were telling the names of the deceased. The white carnations were for prisoners whom are still missing and the red carnations for bodies that have been found.

The exquisite flavour of Chumbeque

by Claudia Castro

The chumbeque is a typical and characteristic sweet of the gastronomy of the north of Chile, especially of the city of Iquique. The chumbeque is made out of flour, oil, and three layers of cookie that can be filled with honey, dulce de leche, mango, chocolate and a bunch of other flavours. But the most traditional chumbeque is the one filled with lemon from Pica. On the other side the chumbeque is not very nutritious because is high in fat. One piece of chumbeque contains 376 calories.

The origins of the chumbeque come from the Chinese emigrants that came to Iquique at the beginning of the 20th century. The recipe came from the mix of a Chinese recipe to make alfajores combined with some products of the region. That is how the chumbeque emerged and now is known mainly in the northern region of the country.

In Iquique, Arturo Mejía Koo registered the chumbeque as a brand. Now it is distributed to all the north of Chile, Santiago and Punta Arenas. The store is on Ramírez Street, and for more than twenty years it has been the only store that sells and distributes chumbeques.

The chumbeque has remained popular through time because its consistency and exquisite flavour.

CHILE HAS THE FIRST PUBLIC STEM CELLS BANK

Dianne Díaz Figueroa

Stem cells can be infinitely divided and also can produce specialized cells, reestablishing the principal components of blood when necessary.

Though the umbilical cord blood is not the only way to get stem cells, it is the easiest one because the others sources of stem cells are in the brain and in bone marrow, and these require a major surgery.

The complete potential of stem cells potential is still being studied, but researchers hope that they might be a sort of spare cell for any zone in the organism. We already have proof that stem cells are beneficial for illnesess such as leukemia and anemia among others.

Chile already has its first national public bank to keep blood from umbilical cord, which contain stem cells. The importance of stem cells is that they are fundamental for blood diseases, and these will be at the disposal of any transplant patient in the country.

There are three private stem cell banks in Chile, which means that only relatives to the donor can access the stem cells and they have to pay monthly for the service of criopreservation. Now, with the public bank, donations are accepted and the stem cells are available for those who need them. The obtaining procedure is for free, but the criopreservation service, even when it’s public bank, isn’t free. Doctors in charge say that it will be a lot less expensive than buying the stem cells from other countries. Doctors also said that by now there are no health programs which cover the blood stem cells transplant, but a patient who couldn’t get enough money might be helped by charity organizations.

Newborn was found on the road.

By Eileen Llanes


On the road between Antofagasta and Maria Elena, a newborn baby was found dead in the desert. This baby was found by a truck driver who took the baby and called the police.

When the police arrived to the crime scene they realized that the baby had died five hours before due the injuries that the baby had on his body.

As a result of the investigations carried out by the police, it was revealed that the newborn baby was thrown out by a young woman who was on the bus from Antofagasta to Maria Elena. She went to the bathroom and gave birth to the baby and then threw the newborn baby out the window. Nobody in her family knew about she was pregnant, not
even her boyfriend.

The guilty young woman was found in Maria Elena because the police found a blood stain in the bathroom of the bus.

In the exclusive interview with the English Gazette this woman said that she did it because she did not have enough money to raise the baby and buy the diapers, and she thought that if the baby disappeared nobody notice would notice it.

She could be sentenced to thirty years in jail without any benefits.

For Extra Entertainment

by Romina Gomez T.

“Out of classes”

For people who prefer something stronger to read about, we are going to start this section recomending you to read Howard Phillips Lovecraft.

Lovecraft's writing, from 1917 to 1937, is on the limit between fantasy and horror. It's a peculiarly intellectual kind of horror, for the most part, the horror of people who learn that the universe in which they live is far less sane than they thought.

It's a world where people who seek out prohibit knowledge are broken by it, not because it's evil or corruptive, but because it was never meant for human beings. This is horror in the older tradition, in which we are less likely to see people being turned into snacks than to hear the story from the person who found the bones.

Most of Lovecraft's work, short stories, are still in print. The stories generally stand alone, although many of them share plot elements and backgrounds. The common elements and backgrounds for much of his work are known collectively as the Cthulhu mythos (Cthulhu is the subject of just one of his stories). Lovecraft is another author whose writing you owe it to yourself to try. You may not care for it, some do, some don't, but you won't know unless you try. You can't judge on the basis of other similar authors, because there are no similar authors, though there are many authors whose work reflects his influence. And There are a good number of books that say "Lovecraft" in large print, but acknowledge themselves in finer print to have been 'completed' or 'coauthored' after his death, most often by August Derleth.

The stories Collections of Lovecraft's stories are readily available, new or used, in paperback. "The Dunwich Horror", is about a mad bargain with a creature from Beyond which becomes, decades later, a matter of very public concern. This story was made into a weak movie which, among things, misdelivered the punchline. "Pickman's Model", is a story more cute than horrific, about an artist who paints unreasonably realistic-looking monsters. Or such as the eponymous "The Call of Cthulhu". Lovecraft's earlier stories contain many of the same plot elements, but are closer to fantasy. They are meant to evoke wonder, rather than horror. The best of these may be "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath".

Lovecraft was mainly a short-story writer. He left some poetry which is of limited interest to those who are not devoted Lovecraftians. And he left two short novels. "At the Mountains of Madness" that is a longer Cthulhoid tale about an expedition which goes looking for the unknown, and is far more successful than it had wished. "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" that is horror, about a man who discovers the secret of necromancy and uses it badly but it's not related to the bulk of his work.

If you want to seach about the works of Lovecraft here is a special website for you to read www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/index.html . Enjoy it!

STRESS

A FACTOR TO CONSIDER

by Carlos Tarifeño Rojas

Stress is one of the most frequent problems that human beings have presented throughout their busy lives.

It is certain, that most stress derive from work problems. At the moment, many young people have personality conflicts and depression due to this.

Chilean College students are pressured to get good grades, and most of the time these pressures create stress, and some, bring about fatal consequences.

But not only university students are affected by these problems; in high schools and in some junior high schools, students, of any socioeconomic status, can be affected by stress, until the point of commiting suicide.

Why does this happen and how can we detect it early to avoid tragedies?

Many experts have researched this problem, but the issue is why the cases do not decrease but on the contrary, more and more are accentuated, causing statistics that no one can deny?

Cases of "Bullying and Moving" in Chile have increased, causing avoidable tragedies, if only authorities had made awareness programs, in order to detect these problems, and to avoid future misfortunes.

LET´S TALK ABOUT PBL

danny.iqq@gmail.com

A different and innovative project called Problem-Based Learning

by Carlos Tarifeño Rojas

According to our first approach about the definition of Constructivism? problem-based learning (PBL) is a complete approach to education, used by Universidad del Mar along with its 15 branches in whole the country.

PBL is both a curriculum and a process; the curriculum consists of carefully selected and designed problems that demand acquisition of critical knowledge, problem solving proficiency, self-directed learning strategies, and team participation skills from the learner . The process replicates the commonly used systemic approach to resolving problems or meeting challenges that are encountered in life and careers.

In problem-based learning, the traditional teacher and student change roles . The students assume increasing responsibility for their learning, giving them more motivation and more feelings of accomplishment, setting the pattern for them to become successful life-long learners. The faculty in turn becomes resources, tutors, and evaluators, guiding the students in their problem solving efforts.

Students involved in problem-based learning acquire knowledge and become proficient in problem solving, self-directed learning, and team participation. PBL students do as well as their counterparts from traditional classrooms, and, in fact, better practitioners in their professions.

This technique was not invented by the University, but has been adopted as a development tool to help students increase their capacities, abilities and skills.

Most of the Chilean Colleges have already copied and adapted this technique to their own curriculum and students´ learning has been much more pertinent and objective.

In Iquique, this technique has been implemented in the area of health and has given excellent results, in both internship and in the workplace.

BE CAREFUL WITH THE HOLE.......!

Pot Holes in Iquique´s streets: A Fact

by Carlos Tarifeño Rojas

There are many people that think of Iquique as a priviledged city, due to its beaches, beautiful landscapes, and wonderful climate. But there is another side of Iquique that many people don´t feel very proud of: Iquique´s roads.

Iquique, like Valparaiso and Concepción has streets with true deathly traps that can be a problem for months.

Walking or driving on some of these streets is a risk and the authorities haven´t committed to solving the problem.

In Iquique there are more than fifty big holes, of different dimensions and depths, called " the hole route. " It is approximately one and a half kilometres long and is located in the southern sector, on one of the streets where thousands of young people travel every weekend in route to the bohemian sector of the city. There are also other "craters" on almost every single street.

According to the neighbors, along the avenue, fatal traffic accidents occur every month.

The drivers, tired of not receiving solutions from the authority, initiated some protests, but unfortunately did not have any impact on those who should solve these situations.

By the end of 2004, the City Government began a construction project in the heat of a major elections campaign; one that included improvements in the street lights, installation of traffic signs and repairing of the destroyed roads. This plan was never carried out and again, promises were not fulfilled.

Celebrating the Month of the Sea from Iquique

A TRIBUTE TO THE HERO: CAPTAIN ARTURO PRAT CHACÓN

by Carlos Tarifeño Rojas

One of the most important landmarks of the Pacific War which emphasized the patriotism and symbolism of our Chileans traditions like , was The Iquique Naval Combat and the glorious accomplishment of Captain Arturo Prat Chacón.

His address to the crew of the Esmeralda before the Iquique Naval Combat has been preserved in Chilean history:

“Mates, the odds are against us. Our colours have never been lowered to the enemy, and I trust this will not be so today. As long as I live that flag will fly high in its place and, if I die, my officers will know how to fulfill

their duty.”

The figure of Commander Arturo Prat faithfully represents the commitment of Chilean seamen to their country due to his heroism displayed in the Iquique Naval Combat, on May 21st, 1879, during the War of the Pacific against Peru and Bolivia. On that day, Arturo Prat was the Commanding Officer of a fragile wooden ship, the corvette “Esmeralda” which together with the small schooner “Covadonga” in the early hours of that day faced two Peruvian ironclads, the powerful “Monitor Huáscar” and the battleship “Independencia. ”

Commander Prat, in spite of his inferior force, decided not to withdraw, but to confront the Huascar, sacrificing his life in battle together with more than one hundred members of his crew who decided to fight to the very end instead of lowering the flag.

Commander Prat became legendary when the Huascar rammed the almost motionless corvette Esmeralda, after hours of fighting. Precisely at that moment, Prat boarded the Peruvian monitor while calling on his men to follow. He was only heard and followed by Sergeant Juan de Dios Aldea. The rest of his men could only watch helplessly as the Huascar backed away with Commander Prat falling on the enemy deck under a volley of rifle fire.
After two more rammings from the Huascar, the Esmeralda sank with her flag being the last to disappear.
Arturo Prat and the daring sacrifice of his crew made a profound impression on Chilean public opinion at that time, awakening a patriotic enthusiasm that prompted thousands of youngsters to volunteer for the war.
Besides his gallant behaviour in combat, Prat is remembered as an integral, intellectual, righteous officer, endowed with solid moral values that formed an exemplary family together with his wife, Carmela Carvajal, and their three children. He was also the first Chilean naval officer to receive a university degree, after studying Law with great effort, at the same time as he performed his naval duties.