sunday afternoon

it´s a gloomy sunday afternoon. it´s 3 and i barely just got out of bed. i was kind of sick, more like exhausted, for 2 days and went to bed on thursday and friday night around 7pm each night. winter school on friday was intersting. like i said, 2 girls got into a fist fight in the bathroom while they were supposed to be preparing their english skits. one of the girls had scratch marks all over her face, so obviously she was the one that lost. the really stupid thing about it all is that they had to preform their plays in front of their parents like an hour later. whatever though, stupid kids are stupid kids all over the world i guess. after mcdonald´s, i got on my bus home, #12, but i ended up taking it the opposite direction than i needed to. i ended up on the opposite side of town, where there just happened to be the giant mall of maipu, mall oeste. i ended up buying a new pair of tennis shoes, which i needed badly because my other ones were old and worn out and i could basically feel the pavement through them. after the mall, i took bus 12 back to the opposite side of maipu, where my house is, and went to bed at 7:30. that leads me to yesterday...yesterday, after staying in bed til noon, i decided that i was sick of bed and even though i felt like crap, i told my friend tania, who works at the hostel international santiago, that i wanted to go out. she got off work at midnight and her parents came and picked me up with her in their car. they live really close, and their house is awesome. the fam was super nice to me and asked me a ton of questions. after talking to them for a bit, tania and i took the bus into santiago and went to a club in an area called palermo. it was really nice. we danced until 5, which is totally what everyone does here, then we took a colectivo back to our condos in maipu. i went to bed by 6 and now here i am at 3 on sunday. i´m going to go meet up with jamal and talk, since we haven´t seen eachother since we got back from the trip, so that is what i am about to do right now. i will write tomorrow after my first day of school and let everyone know how it goes...cross ur fingers that it goes well :) oh and mom, email me, i haven´t heard from u in forever! and derek and grandpa, have a blast fishing!
chau

here's the link to the argentina pics

http://sandiego.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2042088&l=b43ce&id=24504079
I'm out of batteries after sitting in mcdonald's for the last 2 hours trying to figure out how to connect to their wifi then uploading pics once i figured it out. but all is good...last day of winter school was today and the kids put on a play and i got a cool book for helping out. there was a fist fight between two girls and that was interesting. other than that, i might be going to a red hot chili peppers cover band tonight and tomorrow i am going to my friend tania, from the hostel, 's house who lives in maipu close to me for her parent's bday party. i'll write more tomorrow but check out my pics.
peace and chau

living in maipú

i am in my house in maipú...i got picked up at jamal´s house last night at 9 by my new host sis, daniela, and i came back and unpacked and went to bed. i live in a 2 story condo in a really nice new area of maipu, with a really big park across the street. i live on the 2nd story, where the other 2 daughters live, and the dad lives downstairs. right now, since we are on winter break and daniela is a spanish teacher at the school i work at, we are both home at the moment. the rest of the family is at work, but daniela said that they are all pretty independent anyway. last night when i got here, the oldest sister, who doesn´t live here with the other 2 sisters and the dad, was here with her husband and 2 kids. the 3 year old niece was adorable and so shy to meet me, but didn´t want to leave my room when it was time to leave. so cute. the house is in really nice new condition, in contrast to a lot of the other houses outside of this small area of maipu. i am volunteering in the winter vacation school today and tomrrow in the center of maipu. on the way to class, on the micro (bus) i passed by shack after shack just outside of the new condo developments. crazy. but the winter school was from 9-2 and i was exhausted. after so much traveling by bus (which i will NEVER do again, much to no ones surprise that knows me haha) and dealing with 4 people for 9 days straight that i´ve only known for a month, i´m getting a cold. don´t get me wrong, i had a blast and such an adventure, but it´s difficult. i am getting amazing at biting my tongue and breathing through about any situation down here :) not such a bad habit to learn. anywho, i am all over the place today. there is no wifi at my house and i don´t want to upload my pics onto my new fam´s computer, so i am going to attempt to find a cafe or somewhere with wifi tomorrow after my second and last day of working at winter school. the other 2 girls that have been there since monday, stef and ali, want to get pedicures, so we´re going to try and find somewhere, but i don´t know how much luck we are going to have. one of the girls that works at the hostel, aka my second home, lives somewhere near me in maipu and said she´d call and we could meet up on her day off. today, it´s 5pm already, but i plan on putting my pics on my laptop, editing them, painting my nails, watching tv, reading a book, and being an all around bum to get over my cold, or attempt to. i think i´m going to start wrapping this up but i miss everyone...i don´t know what i´d do without my virtual journal, even if everyone is reading it :) it´s good to know that people are there reading what i´m going through...haha...okay well that´s all for now...if i feel like finding energy, i´ll upload pics online tonight, but i doubt it. tomorrow for sure though. and i´ll take some pics of maipu and my house and fam and winter school just to show u the new area :)
peace and chau

back in santiago

so i am finally back in chile and it feels like i am back in my home, which is kind of an odd feeling. we got stuck in mendosa between 12 hour bus rides because the road between chile and argentina was closed through the andes from the snow in the mountains. so we hung out in mendosa, known fo rits wine, but didn't do any wine tasting. we ended up staying at the hostel and sleeping a little, then going out and hanging out at this really cool buffet style restaurant, where we stuffed ourselves.then this morning we got back on the bus and got to sit at the base of the mountain, on teh bus, for a good 3 hours before proceeding to ride the bus 9 hours to get to santiago. i guess the government in argentina didnt want to let people through if the weather wasn't good, but it ended up being fine and sunny. the snow looked pretty through the bus window too. so i am staying at the hostel tonight with the 4 i've been traveling with and then i am going to be picked up by my new host family tomorrow night at gabe and jamal's house. i will try and post pics by the end of this week, but i don't know how my internet situation will be. i know i need to write a long blog, because they've been rather short lately, but all i want to do right now is take a shower and lay down in a real bed, even if it is a bunk bed at a hostel, becausen i've been on a bus for close to 3 days straight. ick. okay so i hope everyone is doing well and hold a good thought for me tomorrow that my new host fam is awesome. miss everyone and a long blog and pics will be up by the end of the week.
peace and chau

igauzu

so today i am leaving igauzu to go back to santiago, then maipu. i´ve been having the most awesome vacation ever and i´m so glad that i came. argentina is a wonderful country and igauzu was a nice vacation. it is warm here, which is a huge plus as well. yesterday we all went to the waterfalls here in igauzu and they were absolutely breathtaking. i will post pics once i get back to my laptop that´s in maipu. i also got an email from the ministry with my stats of my new fam...there is a dad that´s an engineer and two daughters, one that´s 26 and an english teacher and one that´s 24 and a general ed teacher. i will meet them monday night after my 36 hours of bus rides. ugh. tonight we get on the bus and at least on this bus i get a full cama...which is a bed that reclines the entire way. there are a bunch of people waiting to use the internet so i´m going to just write a couple more lines. i really don´t know what else to say though--i am having a blast, i am in a wonderful mood, i´ve gotten some pretty cool presents for a lot of people, it is warm here and it´s made me so much happier, and i talked to derek last night, which always makes me happy :) i hope that everyone is doing well and having an awesome summer, and i will definitely keep this posted on how my new host fam is! i´m so nervous and excited to meet them, it´s crazy! okay, well i´m going to go but i wanted to check in real quick. miss everyone and i will write monday night or tuesday morning and upload pics shortly thereafter.
peach and chau
g

argentina

hellllooooooo everyone. okay, so i am here in buenos aires and its just as pretty and fun as i remembered it being. plus the weather is way nicer here than in chile. i only have to wear a sweater during the day, not a giant coat or anything, so that is nice. and i also went shopping at zara last night, which i love everywhere i go in the world but they dont seem to have one on the west coast in the us. oh, i dont know where the apostrophe is on this keyboard so im sorry if it looks like i have no concept of grammar. anyway, heres my trip in buenos aires in a nut shell so far. we got here the first day around 11, after a long but beautiful 20 hour bus ride. the pics of the snow in the andes mountains is absolutely unbelievable, but i will have to wait and post them until i get my laptop back. all of my stuff, minus the stuff for this trip, is sitting at jamal and gabes host fams housr in maipu waiting for our return. so we got here around 11, ate lunch, checked in, napped and then went exploring a little. that night we went out to a nice dinner with a bunch of other people that we met at the hostel we are staying at, called hostel inn, and it is a branch of the one that i called home in santiago. then, yesterday we went and saw evita perons grave in a really awesome graveyard and went to an all you can eat cow place. i obviously didnt eat any so that sucked for me but it looked pretty good. we walked back to teh hostel from that and went to the plaza de mayo, where the moms of the people who were taken during the dictatorship still march every saturday. last night we were going to go to a tango show through the hostel, which was going to costa around 70us, but we decided to take a cab to the same part of town and ask the locals where to go. for 4us we got to see a tango show and for 3us we could order a bottle of wine. way more price effective and it was one of those places that only the locals really know about. so that brings me to today. we are going to go and wander around a couple other areas in buenos aires today, then we are taking a bus overnight to a place in the north called igauzu falls. it is supposed to be the most amazing waterfalls ever. beautiful and tropical and warm. i cant wait...except that i am super white and pasty and dont really want to be in shorts or a bathing suit. we are planning on being there for 2 or 3 nights, then coming back to buenos aires sunday night, then taking a bus to mendoza, which is between here and santiago, for monday night, then making it back to santiago by tuesday night or wednesday morning. it is definitely going to be more of an adventure...which is exciting ;) okay i need to get going because there is a line to use the computers at the hostel here, but i wanted to check in like i said i would. again, happy bday katie and der and john and i hope u guys all had awesome bdays. i will check in in a couple days and if anyone needs me, my us cell is always on.
peace and chau
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last night in the hostel!

woo hoo tonight is my last night of calling hostel international on calle moneda y cienfuegos my home in chile! :) i'm excited but sad to leave it as well because it's been so nice having my own space for a week. tomorrow i am off to buenos aires via a 22 hour bus ride through the andes. initially i was completely against going via bus, but it's supposed to be beautiful and the rest of the group opted for that one. so, it'll be an adventure and it stops in a pretty town called mendosa. i'm pretty sure i wrote this in my blog yesterday but i am on my laptop now, so it's a hell of a lot easier to type than it was on the computer i was using in the internet cafe down the street. the wireless has been down in the hostel for a while because of the rain, but it's somewhat better right now. it vaires between 1 and 3 out of 6 bars of wifi connection. but it functions and that's all that matters. so i've been getting a lot of love from jeff, nina, derek, mom, laurie, felipe, grandpa, dad, derek, lily, dani, ryan and katie and it's made me so happy :) thank you for being such an awesome support group and helping me stick it out down here. it's been lonely and it's so nice to know that i have people up there that care :) so, corny, but really i do appreciate it. i got to talk to grandpa this morning as he was leaving the dock to go fishing and that was cool. okay well i need to go and try and find a hostel online in buenos aires, because the one that we thought we were going to be able to book was completely full because it is vacation week all over south america. but not to worry, there are about a million cheap yet nice places to stay in buenos aires, so that is cool. i will write another blog tuesday moring to be realistic, since i will be on a bus all day tomorrow and i get into buenos aires monday afternoon and i'm betting i'm going to want to walk around and not be sitting after that long of a bus ride. so, if anyone needs to call, i have my us cell and it works and i may not answer if i'm not by it, but i can check voicemail (it's a pain but i can) or texts are always the easiest route to go. oh ya, and happy happy happy birthday katie (tomorrow) derek (the next day) and john (the day after that) i hope that you are all having a blast in the summer and i will try and call/write to wish u happy bdays individually.
chau & peace
g

sorry i´ve been so bad about writing...

so i am in the middle of moving from santa maria to maipu. i have been staying at a hostel in santiago by myself for the last few days trying to figure everything out and it has been hectic, which is an understatement. i got a text from dad today saying that he´s been checking and there´s been no blog, so here is a quick one.
i have to go to a meeting with the chilean ministy today and they are telling me the facts about my new school and new host fam. so far, all i know is that i am moving to maipu, and am living with a 24year old girl and her dad. next week is my week off, so 6 other volunteers and i are going to buenos aires via bus. the bus ride is 20 hours but they break it up with a trip to a really nice vineyard area in the andes called mendoza. so that should be awesome.
other than that, i´ve just been really busy packing my stuff and moving from santa maria into the hostel, then meeting with the chilean ministry to try and figure things out. i went into maipu for the weekend last weekend and was hanging out at jamal and gabe´s house and their host mom told me that there was no good reason for me to go back if i wasn´t happy. she helped me contact the chilean ministry people and talk to them and tell them i wasn´t going back. apparently it is almost impossible to move both schools and cities, but i didn´t leave them much choice because i packed all my stuff and got out of santa maria.
the director of my area, clayton, was a jerk about the whole thing and claimed that he hadn´t been receiving my emails of complaints. but i caled karina and belen, two women in charge and above clayton´s head, and they helped me immediately. i think they felt bad for me. i also met a couple other volunteers since i´ve been at the hostel that are here volunteering for 8 months and they seem to have similar problems with the ministry. this summer program is the pilot program for the 10 week program, so i am the person being used to help fix out the kinks. kind of lame for me, but i am glad that i have everything figured out and that i´m going to buenos aires for a week and then i´m moving to maipu.
i am sorry that i lagged on the blog but as u´ve read, it´s been a pretty hectic week. right now, i am in santiago staying at the hostel and hanging out with 5 of the volunteers because we all have a meeting this afternoon with the ministry. i am excited to have people to hang out with and believe me, i waited a while to write a blog because i didn´t want to worry anyone with any bad news. but no bad news as of now. i´m cold and it´s rainy, but i´m happy things have worked out.
okay time to go get some food...email me if u want and again, sorry if i worried anyone by lagging on the blog. i haven´t been able to get ahold of grandpa, so if someone could tell him to call my american cell, that´d be awesome.
chau
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bad at keeping up on my blog...

so i´ve kinda sucked at keeping up on the blog this week. sorry if u´ve been checking it and didn´t find anything. i hope that everyone looked at my pics too.
i´ve been trying to not catch a cold this whole week, but i don´t think it´s working. my english teacher, lindsay, and 3 of the other volunteers in the area are all sick. yesterday was our 2 week mark of being in our assigned cities, and i think the climate has started to sink in to everyone´s bones. i didn´t go to school today. the cats (there are 3 that live outside of the house) all decided that it´d be fun to jump and crawl and pounce all freaking night long, right above my head. the roof´s really thin, so it sounds like they are bouncing on my bed. ugh. and i don´t feel so hot. yesterday in class, i felt like i had a fever all day. the kids were really rowdy because it was raining outside, and that didn´t help either. one of the teachers said that when it rains, the kids and the animals all lose their minds. it makes sense to me.
so i am basically sitting here, trying to kill time, before i go into santiago and spend the weekend with the volunteers there. they all don´t get done with school until around 4, so i should probably leave around 1. i was thinking that i might go early and look for some new shoes, since my boots and my chuck taylors have the thinnest soles ever. it´s like walking on concrete, which is why i alwys have 4 or 5 pairs of socks on, on top of 2 pairs of tights. i just don´t want to walk around the big city with my backpack full of clothes for the weekend.
ugh, i am exhausted. my english teacher has been "sick" all week with "head aches" but obviously, i think she´s full of it. lindsay went with her to viña last weekend, and florinda (the english teacher) bailed on her and treated her like she was the hugest burden ever. she´s a bitch. my host dad calls her "la bruja" and it´s hilarious because she rides around sant maria on her little bicycle and it totally reminds me of the evil witch in the wizard of oz. haha.
next week is the last week before i get 2 weeks of vacation. i´ve emailed clayton, the director of my area, 2x and asked if i could volunteer in maipu for a week, but he sucks at responding to emails in a timely fashion. oh well. if i don´t go to maipu for one of the weeks, i think i might travel with some of the other girls that have 2 weeks off, too. only the volunteers in maipu get 1 week off, everyone else gets 2 :)
alright, well i am going to go and finish packing up and get ready to take a bus to san felipe, then another bus to santiago, then walk around and stall til i have someone to hang out with. i miss u all and hope that everyone had a fun 4th. i watched chile and mexico play in the copa america, but neither team could score a point. if anyone needs to get ahold of me, the chile cell sucks internationally, but i always have my u.s. phone with me.
peace and chau
g

weekend etc

this weekend was an amazing break from santa maria. i am putting up pictures on facebook and i think i can put a link on my blog to view them, so hopefully i'll figure out how to do it.
alright, so this weekend, in a nutshell:
friday i took the bus into santiago and met up with hannah, maggie, jamal, gabe & michael. we all went out to dinner at a restaurant near the hostel and then called it a relatively early night for latin america (2am).
sautrday we walked around all morning in santiago, then met up with gabe and jamal's english teacher, who took us to his aunt's beach house in quisco. it was nearby isla negra, where one of pablo neruda's houses, but we never got around to going there. in quisco, we watched the copa america game, where chile lost, and just hung out and mellowed out a little. it wasn't warm, but it was definitely warmer than santa maria. i didn't even have to wear leggings under my jeans like i do everyday here. i had a good weekend, but it was interesting trying to get anywhere in a timely matter with 8 people. i am such the person in charge that it was hard to let the english teacher, lorenzo, take over and do things his way (latin=slower pace)...okay they are kicking me out of the biblioteca, where i'm using my laptop, because the school is closing, so i will write more at home later, or in the manana. okay chau for now :)

here is the link to my photo album so far...if it doesn't work, email me asap and let me know...
http://sandiego.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2039290&l=ae7f0&id=24504079

earthquake!!!!

there was an earth quake today! it was crazy--lindsay and i were sitting in the office making posters and stuff and all of the sudden, everything started shaking! i knew that there were a lot of earth quakes here, but i didn´t think i´d feel one within two weeks of being here! crazy! haha it was awesome though! nothing major, just a little rocking back and forth and it was over. but ya, other than that, today was another typical day of teaching i guess. i taught a lot today--close to 7 hours. it is so exhausting. but i have made copies of 5 basic rules for all of the classes i teach and left a copy taped to each wall. the rules are: show respect to everyone, no cells or music, no food or drinks, raise your hand to speak, and do not interrupt. they seem to be working more or less. there was one class today, 7th grade, where i intercepted a note between two boys, that roughly translated to "the english teacher is an asshole" but whatever. they both got expelled from my class :) serves them right and i hope that the other kids will all hear about it and learn from their mistakes. after class, lindsay and i went with my english teacher into san felipe, the town that is a little bit bigger, and had once (like dinner but not called that here). it was nice to get away from the pueblo, even if it was only for a little bit. the change of pace was nice. okay, well, speaking of change of pace, i need to go and pack my bag for the weekend because i am going to santiago to visit some friends. it is a long weekend, no classes on monday, so i am super excited! okay, i will write tomorrow if i have time, but it is a travel and party day for sure :) thanks for the love and support from the other side of the world...chau (they spell it like that here, btw)
peace
g

copa america

chile won their futbol game against ecuador in the copa america today. it was a good game--they were supposed to lose and they won 3-2. i watched it with my sister while i made posters with basic questions for the kids to learn in english. now we´re watching mexico and brazil, and mexico is up 2-0 with 76 minutes done out of 90. i don´t really feel like writing a long blog. i´m super tired from speaking in spanish all day. my host dad told me that my spanish is getting a ton better, but that is because i speak it all day every day. hopefully anyone´s 2nd language would get better in my situation. so, quick recap of my day:
i only had classes from 11:30 til 1, and they were supposed to be the awful 7th graders. apparently, someone in charge hd talked to them and told them that if they didn´t act nicely to me, i wouldn´t teach them. it worked. the kids were super well behaved, for chilean kids at least, and we came up with 5 basic classroom rules. i wrote the rules on a poster tonight and i am going to go and put it up in class. the first rule is to show respect towards everyone. i think they´ll get it. i hope so at least. the rest of the day, i hung out at home with me host sis and made lunch, then chatted, then hung out some more. she is so sweet, i´m going to miss her when her school starts up again in a week or two.
i also found out that during the 2 week winter break from classes, where i thought i´d have to teach one of the weeks, i don´t actually have to teach at all. that means that i have 2 whole weeks off- one of which i want to go to buenos aires and the other i think it´d be cool if i went to maipu and helped them teach there. i think it´d be cool to see the differences in schooling between rural and metro life...and to hang out with some english speakers for a while :)
okay well i am going to go watch the rest of the game, then go to sleep. i have to work all day tomorrow--thursdays are my longest days of the week.
peace & chau
g

Culture shock

so, today was a little better. i didn´t lock myself in the bathroom and cry, so that was a major improvement. i went to school and lindsay helped me plan lessons and think of good songs to use to help them learn various things. i taught mainly by myself, but only after the director went into each class and told them they´d better quit the shit if they knew what was good for them. the kids were more or less okay. today i was more of the foreigner than the one they didn´t listen to. in the 8th grade class i taught in the afternoon, for example, one of the older boys who i´d noticed whistling at me yesterday had his cell phone out and was sitting there taking pictures of me with it. i took it and put it in the front of the room with my stuff and told him that if anyone had their music or phones out when i was teaching, i´d take them for good the next time. i think that made them realize that i was serious. it just sucks that i have to be the one disciplining them, especially because its so obvious that they don´t get it from anyone else. some of the younger girls, from kindergarten or so, were super cute and took me around saying ¨hello teacher¨ because that´s all they know. there was a staff meeting after school, which ends at 5 (and starts at 8....UGH) and the 2 ¨english¨ teachers and lindsay and me went over some of the stuff that we wanted to accomplish in the 7 weeks we have left. the teachers want lindsay and i to teach such complicated things, even though the students haven´t even started to cover the basics. i got home around 7 and just chilled in the freezingness. i guess mom and grandpa were worried because of the "anti-american" ideas here, but it isn´t like that. they just don´t like the war in iraq, which i don´t think too many people are pro-war at the moment. if anyone wants to read anything about chilean history, here is a link about pinochet that mentions some of the horrendous things he did to people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_Pinochet
my two host parents were just 2 of the 30,000 tortured. it was in the late 70s, not recently, so don´t freak out about me being tortured for god´s sake. it isn´t like that. if anything, i am the one that is like the ones they see in the movie. i´ve been told i have beautiful eyes about 10x a day since i´ve been here.
oh, i also talked to clayton, the guy in charge of the volunteers in my area. he said that if i am that uncomfortable, he can cut back my hours and i can go and travel more or sit in on classes in maipu. i am obviously not made for the rural life. maipu is on the outskirts of santiago, which im sure i´ve already mentioned, so hopefully i could go hang there for a week or something with the 6 volunteers that are there. there is also a week break for winter vacations where a few of us are trying to coordinate a trip to buenos aires. that´d be awesome. it just sucks that all i have to look forward to as of now are the weekends. but, like i said, it is a learning experience. the phrase "what doesn´t kill you, only makes you stronger" comes to mind. alright, so i have said my two cents. i need to go get into the warm blankets on my bed and dream about friday being here already. my chilean cell is lame and doesn´t like int´l calls. if u want, call my american phone, even though my bill is going to be INSANE. haha what else is new? okay thanks for the concern, chill out, i´m okay. i will survive. i just would rather be in the city with my friends in a fun school, but anyone can do anything for 7 weeks, right???? haha okay chau and peace
g

Today was....

I cried 3 times today. I got in the shower this morning at 7:30 to start getting ready for school, and the water was luke warm, at best. I started shivering, then laughing, then crying. I got ahold of myself, finished my shower, got ready for school, and left. I got to school and the director introduced Lindsay and me to the school. Lindsay went and taught the high school kids and i went to teach 5th graders. my english teacher´s name is florinda, but come to find out, she isn´t the english teacher at all. she´s an art teacher that teaches english like 3 times a week to the younger kids, even though her english is at an extremely basic level. so we get into the 5th grade classroom, and its like walking into hell. the kids were insane. like no respect for anything or anyone. they were taking a test in english, but they were all walking around, looking at each other´s answers, making paper airplanes, and saying shit and fuck because those are the only 2 english words they apparently know. so i sat and watched the insanity, then helped florinda grade the tests, which were terrible. half the tests were blank, and like 2 or 3 were actually 1/2 correct. after that first period, i sat outside in the sun with florinda and helped her grade more papers. it was recess for some of the little kids, and they came up and just made fun of me for everything. then one little shit gets his milk carton and jumps on it, getting chocolate milk all over my legs and my stuff. florinda didnt even send the little bugger to the principal or anything. the lack of discipline leads to a complete lack of respect. its a terrible cycle. so i wandered around after that, and each classroom i´d walk by, the kids would open the windows and whistle, make kissy noises and say shit and fuck. awful. i locked myself in the bathroom and cried. then i went back and tried to work on some lesson plans, then went home for lunch. i called katie and of course, recapping made me cry again. my poor host sister was home and didn´t know what to say to help. she walked me back to school, then i taught with lindsay the rest of the day. her older kids were a little better, and actually cared to learn english. but, for example, she asked who in the class wanted to travel outside of chile and only 3 kids raised their hands. the campesino way of life is so stuck in these kids´ heads that there is honestly no way for me to help. i have never felt so useless in my life. i am going to finish this up, write the coordinator of the program and ask that i either work with lindsay, be transferred to maipu (a suburb of santiago, where there are 6 other volunteers in schools where the kids actually realize the importance of learning english) or go home. i´m trying so hard to make this work, but it is just too much. my sanity is more important than disrespectful little kids attempting to learn english. so, i hope tomorrow is better, but if not, i´m requesting to be transferred. i haven´t been getting many emails from any of u...i´d really appreciate it if u had time...

Getting used to living Chilean style

Alright, so i´m not going to lie, yesterday was a little intense for me. i felt like i was on the verge of tears the whole day and i´m really glad i didn´t write a blog bitching about everything because today was so much better. the language and culture shock is quite intense, to put it mildly, but today was sunny and the chilenismos (chilean slang) is slowly catching on.
So, lets start out by talking about my host fam. the dad´s name is leopoldo, the mom is juana, and the 2 daughters are yakollen and rellen, which are both indigenous chilean names. the older sis, yako, is 21 and took me shopping yesterday but put me in a cab and sent me home so she could go and hang out with her pololo (boyfriend) so that was kinda lame. the mom and younger daughter got in for the night from santiago around 5pm and the mom seemed a little uneasy at first. she has since turned into the most awesome pseudo mom a girl could ask for, except for the fact that i don´t think i´ll be seeing her much. she and rellen are only here on saturday nights and i plan on traveling every weekend. last night i went out with one of the other girl volunteers, emily, and we bought some warm stuff made out of wool and alpaca to help us survive the freezingness. i went and had once (like tea time) t her fam´s house then rode the micro (bus) back to my neck of the woods. i watched a hilarious chilean movie called el rey de los borbones (king of the idiots) with the fam, then went to bed. luckily, the warmest i am during the day is when i am in bed. i got up around 11, then hung with the fam all day.
i don´t know if anyone remembers, but when i came to chile last january, i had a bit of a problem with the fam because of our differences in political views. they were super conservative, and well im not so much on that side of the fence to put it nicely. the socialst woman president, bachelet, won when i was here last january as well. i was excited about it and the lame host family, not so much. this fam, on the other hand, is socialist and their stories are so interesting. juana was a prisoner during the dictatorship for 4 years, where she was tortured and then exiled to france. leopoldo was a pow and tortured for 3 years, then exiled as well. juana showed me their named in the book entitled ¨informe de la comision nacional sobre prision politica y tortura.¨talk about some heavy shit. polo (leopoldo´s nickname) and juana are both fluent in french and italian because they were exiled for close to 15 years. juana is the sweetest little lady, but she showed me pictures of protests against torture and the dictatorship, where she was front and center. she is definitely not afraid to speak her mind.
i also sat and talked to the younger sis, rellen, for a while this morning. she taught me what a lot of the younger kids in chile were thinking, and that a lot of them held some animosity towards america. i expected that. polo and juana took me on a drive tody before the sun went down, and i got to see the real campesino way of life. the houses are made out of mud and straw, and the vineyards are everywhere. we are in a valley, surrounded by snow covered andes mountains. there is no more snow in the valley, which is sweet. between getting warmer clothes and having the snow leave, i feel a little more like i´ll be able to tough out the next two months.
tomorrow is my first day teaching 5-8th graders. i am nervous but excited, and hope i can get to sleep tonight. my spanish is already 10x better than when i got here and the comlete immersion will do me good. i plan on going to santiago this weekend to meet up with some of the other volunteers, so i am definitely looking forward to that. i´ve tried uploading pics but the internet is beyond slow, so i dunno if it´s gonna happen while i´m here. but i am happy and getting adjusted and couldn´t have asked for a more interesting and eye-opening family. i hope you all are doing well at home and feel free to write me an email (which only jeff and mom have done coughcough) i´m in need of english dialogue anyway i can get it!!!
okay chao and i´ll try and write tomorrow about how my first day as an english teacher went!
peace
g

I´M LIVING IN SNOW

yes, you read correctly, it is currently snowing outside of the window of my new home. i guess this isn´t normal for this area, but of course it´d be snowing my first day here, right??? i´m trying to be bright and cheery, but come on now people, it´s snow and i´m gayle. the two are like polar opposites. plus they told me it´d never be below 40, so i have to go buy a winter coat tomorrow. luckily, the daughter is 22 and let me borrow her hand-made wool sweater and a parka. so, no bitching, i´ll be fine, but let me just say that it is damn cold here and there is no heating in the school i´ll be teaching at or the house i´m living in.
ok, positivity is the name of the game right now. the 5 of us that are dispersed all around the countryside left the hostel this morning around 9. we took a 2 hour bus ride from santiago to a small town called san felipe, where we had to wait for an hour for the directors to show up. then they took us to lunch, where the host families and even the mayor of the town slowly showed up. my host dad, don leopoldo, came and i was so cold that he took me home and got me a sweater and jacket from his daughter. we had a coffee, then went back for lunch with the rest of the group. lunch was awesome but the spanish is definitely in need of improvement. no one, not even the english teacher i´m going to be working with, can say a complete and correct sentence in english. and the other volunteers are all half an hour or so from me, except for lindsay, but i don´t know where she lives yet. after a 2 hour lunch, we all parted ways and i finally got to unpack my suitcase :) then don leopoldo took me to the school where i´ll teach, like 5 blocks from my house, and i met the principal and a lot of the teachers. they were all super enthusiastic and excited to see me. there were a few students still trickling out of school and they all looked pretty excited too. i will be helping teach english 4 or 5 days a week to the 5th-8th graders.
i can see my breath right now fyi. haha okay, so i think i am going to go and bundle up and watch a movie with my new host sister. she´s watching a really old movie called brazil, but its in english (con subtitulos)...so maybe i´ll start paying attention.
everyone send me warm thoughts and love :)
peace
g

The first day of winter in Chile

so i just was informed that it is the first day of winter here/the first day of summer back at home. so it is 7pm and has been pitch black for over 2 hours, and i bet it's still sunny at home :( oh well though...
so we just finished our 3 days of intense 9 hour orientation into what the school system is going to be like, etc. Half the group left for a city on the outskirts of santiago, a place called maipu, and i'm kinda bummed. right as we were really all starting to get to know one another we have to part ways and go all over the central area of the country. that's okay though, that's what adventure is all about. a couple of us said that we will probably come back to this hostel next weekend and stay as a group since we got along so well :) that'll be fun.
so i am exhausted. training was more school than i've sat through in longer than i can even remember. i feel really ready to start teaching though, which is awesome. i hear that the town i am going to be in with a couple other volunteers basically will shut down to welcome us. apparently most of them haven't ever even seen a foreigner, which is crazy. i can't even imagine. i am still completely hungry and never full, but the meat here isn't even appetizing looking. i guess i'll survive, right?
alright well i am pretty much brain dead and there's nothing really that new to report on. just lots of school and training and hanging with a bunch of new cool people...i will post more when i have time. i'm leaving for santa maria, the town i'll be at for the rest of the trip, at 9am tomorrow morning. so between meeting my fam and getting used to the town, plus figuring out the whole internet thing, it might be a while til i post another blog.
peace
g

My first day of orientation in Santiago

Okay, so since I don't know what this whole blog thing is about, I found out from another volunteer down here and now here I am. I couldn't keep writing 10 different emails to everyone, and this seemed like the best option.
So here I go...
We have been staying at a hostel here in Santiago, the capital of Chile, where I also flew in to, for the last 3 nights. Today is the first day of actual orientation where we get to learn about what we will be doing. The last few days I've spent exploring with a few awesome people I've met so far. The first night I got in, we went and ate at a place called the fat cow. Finding foods that are vegetarian friendly (or at least fish-only friendly) is a seemingly impossible task but hopefully it will get better once I go to my host family's house. At the Vaca Gorda I got shrimp, so that was good. After dinner we came back to the hotel and hung out for a little bit before bed. The rooms are 3 sets of bunk beds, with 6 lockable closets along one wall. I am on the top bunk closest to the door, where it sometimes lets me have wireless :) I am sharing the room with 3 other girls, named Lindsay, Emily and Jen. They are all awesome and I am actually going to be teaching at the same school as Lindsay in the town of Santa Maria.
I feel like I am not typing in a logical way at all, but I guess that's because there is so much to spit out :)
So the second day we went shopping in town and poor Lindsay got her camera stolen from right off of her neck. I volunteered to go with her to the police, or carabineros as they're called here, and 4 hours later, some crazy driving down pedestrian-only streets, a trip to the closed US embassy (it was a Sunday night), and filling out a million forms, the carabineros dropped us back off at the hostel and we ate dinner and filled in the rest of the group about the insanity of the day. That night, Clayton, the director of the program in the region where 5 of us will be placed, came in to the hostel and answered some questions we all had. He is American and super helpful, so it'll be nice to have him in my area if I need him.
Yesterday was another touristy day. We went and took this elevator/escalator type thing to the top of a mountain, San Cristobal, where there is a giant Mother Mary statue. It was beautiful, with a view of the city and of the Andes. Then we got to take this cool little pod-like thingy down to the bottom of the other side of the mountain. After that, a few of us took the metro (which was JAMMED at rush hour) to a popular mall. I got a Chilean cell phone, which you can call me on whenever, and it is pay as I go. I'll leave the number at the bottom of the blog in case u want to show me some love over the phone :)
Today we got up and had to be at the college down the street at 9ish. The 20 of us that are volunteers sat in a chilly room and got to hear more about the program. We got messenger bags with the Chilean Ministry of Education logo on it, a notebook and a pen, so I feel a little more official. After 2 Chilean women talked to us for a while, another lady from the states took over. We're now on lunch break from her power point stuff on what to expect, so I have to start wrapping this up.
I will try and write at least a paragraph everyday just to let everyone know whats going on and once I get to Santa Maria, I will attach pics and videos to this thingy too. Alright, well I miss home but I'm loving it here, and here is my cell & feel free to call (it is 3 hours later here than SD)
My cell: 01156 78276345.
Much love,
G