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
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
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
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
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
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
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
Monday, June 25, 2007
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...
Sunday, June 24, 2007
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
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
Friday, June 22, 2007
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
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
Thursday, June 21, 2007
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
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
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
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
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
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