Making Pottery in Pomaire

As you can see from all of my photos and previous posts, my study abroad program is awesome. But what makes it even more awesome is that they plan "cultural activities" for us throughout the semester! Only a couple of them are mandatory; the rest are just for us to sign up and go if we want to!















We had one a few weeks ago in a pueblo named Pomaire, located only a couple hours outside Santiago. Pomaire is well-known for their pottery and ceramics and our group had the privilege of eating at a local artisan's home and being personally taught how to mold the clay and make a couple pieces of pottery.

When we first arrived we were taken to the artisan's house/workshop where his family made us breakfast [we were ravenous!!!!!!] consisting of bread, jam, milk [the cow was in the field next door], and these crunchy, sugar coated fortune cookie tasting things. It was exactly the nourishment we were seeking. Afterwards, we were taken up to one of the hills outside the town to watch some of the men make clay bricks. A guide told us about the entire process, which included building them into a large pyramid type structure and lighting a fire underneath to harden them. [Althought I could be wrong--I was only half paying attention because I was oogling over a precious dog. Of course one of the program leaders had to tell me to stop touching it. Sorry for being an animal lover.] We also walked past this perfect looking pool of clay and naturally I had to stick my hand in it [what was going on with me that day?!] and then I tried to hide what I had done until I could wash my hand, which was nearly impossible. At least I didn't get scolded that time.

After our brief Pomaire history lesson [I thought the coolest part was that the founders of the town were Incans], we went to the artisan's house/workshop because it was time to get to work with our hands! We were split into two groups and given a pottery master who proceeded to give us a hunk of clay and instruct us on how to form it into a vase, cup, or bowl. He also showed me how to make little flowers to decorate the vase I made.

My pottery work

Then came the really fun part: using the pottery wheel!! He chose me to go first since I was already done with the first project and he easily made a beautiful bowl to give me an example of what to shoot for. It was so much harder than it looked! My bowl didn't turn out perfectly [I blame my tiny hands], but I didn't care, I was still proud of it.

By then our bellies were hungry again and it was time for another homemade Chilean meal! It was empanadas de pino [http://bit.ly/1TJjPf], cazuela [http://bit.ly/bQFYbb], more bread, and yummy red wine. Afterwards, our group was let off into the town to go explore the wares of the shops. Some of the things we found in the stores made out of clay were kind of strange...like a giant version of ET and recreation of cartoon characters. But there were also tons of really beautiful pots and all different sizes of pigs. [For some reason the pig is like the classic symbol of Pomaire. The guide probably explained it to us in the beginning, but I didn't catch it]. I didn't buy anything to take home because I'm 99.9% positive that it would break in my luggage because I'm catastrophic like that. However, I did manage to buy mermelade made from some kind of melon/squash that I had never heard of and a cool baseball hat. 

Julian, Rachael, me, and Natalie making our toast

And of course I found a couple cats to have a photoshoot with while I was there:

That's all there is to say about the trip to Pomaire. I'll write about another cultural activity in my next post because we are going to Villa Grimaldi, the detention and torture center for Chileans during the Pinochet dictatorship, this Friday. It's going to be an emotional experience, but it'll give me the chance to explain that important time in Chile's history, which I haven't written about yet. Chau!