Day 10: Hela, Centauro and Cueca

We started our day with a visit to the factory of the company Hela. Hela produces products that help out homeowners that want to renovations or paintings. Even though this visit was more focused on engineers, I really enjoyed it. We saw the entire production process of a paintbrush used for outdoor painting and a wire wheel used to descrape paint or smooth things out. The wire wheel production used some huge machines. It was almost completely machine made from the twisting of the wire to pressing in of the wire into the wheel. The paintbrush was more of a human made process. We then went straight to Conservas Centauro, which was my company. We had a tour from one of the owners and he was great. Another engineering based company but this one was much larger. Something that surprised me was when I asked how much tomato paste they produce in a year, he said 220,000 drums that were all close to 50 gallons. That is so much paste! We than had some more empanadas. This cultural difference is something I am a fan of. I am getting a little bored of them since Ive had them, I think, 4 times so far. We then had our traditional Chilean dance, which is the national dance, the Cueca. This was so different from our raggaeton and salsa classes. We had to use a handkerchief and twirl it above our heads. It was slow moving but complicated. Our day has come to a near end and I am looking forward to being able to sleep in tomorrow since we don’t have to be ready to leave until 1:45.