Chilean Life

So many things have happened since my last post.

Two weeks ago, I volunteered as a guest in one of the other English professor’s class at her elementary school. She teaches there all day and then works at DUOC at night. I taught a first and fourth grade class. I was prepared to be a guest there but not teach the whole thing. First graders’ attention spans are a lot shorter than what I work with everyday. It was still a great experience and the kids were in awe to have a real foreigner who actually speaks English in their English class. Also, I am now famous because of it. Check out this website that they posted about the day http://www.colegiopumahue.cl/pen/noticia.php?id=404. I am supposed to go to another English professor’s class in the next few weeks. Her students are in high school so I think they will be easier to handle.

I am taking Spanish classes every week with the past WorldTeach director who lives here in Santiago. I really enjoy it and I know that it will help me better my Spanish, which is one of my main goals of being here.

My students took their first quiz and like most classes some did better than others. Teaching is very up and down. Some days are amazing and fun and you feel like the students understand everything. Other days it is like hitting a brick wall, but the good days are definitely worth hitting a few brick walls.

Two weekends ago, I went to a BBQ or asado at my friend Dan’s house. It was so much fun to hang out with everyone and have real hamburgers and chips, even though they took forever to cook. Sidi and Dan’s families are so nice. I got lost trying to find their house on the bus but thankfully Dan’s host brother and his friends found me in their car. I got to explore the parts of town that apparently do not believe in street signs.

I also saw a concert/ballet on Friday night. It was amazing. The concert was in the old main train station for Santiago. If you want to hear some great music, google Los Jaivas.

Holly, Sidi and I watched a cheesy American movie that weekend. At the movie theaters, they do not dub the movies so it is like going back to the US for two hours. It takes me another two hours after the movie ends to realize again that I am in Santiago, where everyone speaks Spanish and not English. The movies are a nice treat and it makes me feel at home again. It is much like when I find an American movie on TV that is dubbed over. On Sunday, I watched the Wedding Crashes in Spanish, which was funny. It is so funny how some shows here I love dubbed over, while I do not like watching them back in the States. For example, I love watching the Simpsons here but back in the US, I don’t enjoy watching them. Who knows, it is probably because I can understand a lot of the jokes and what going on with the characters.

Last weekend some of the WorldTeach volunteers that are living in Concepcion came to visit. It was so fun to hang out with them and hear about their host families and living situations. They came up to visit because Jenny, Karen and Thomas ran in the Santiago marathon on Sunday. The girls ran a half marathon and Thomas ran the full thing. I went to it as a gringo supporter. They did a great job and I am so proud of them for doing it. There were thousands of people there. It took Holly and me 45 minutes to figure out how to normally walk 15 feet to meet up with our friends because of all the barricades. We ended up taking the metro one stop down and then walking up the street a back way. It was our own minimarathon.

Also, we have planned our trip for Semana Santa aka the week of Easter. I am so excited. This weekend, on Thursday, we are taking a bus to La Serena in the northern part of Chile on the coast. It is the second oldest town and has 29 churches. It also is supposed to have some of the best pisco factories in Chile. You can take tours of them like a vineyard. Pisco is like the Vodka of Russia for Chile. It will not be as hot as Santiago so there will be no sunbathing, which is probably better for my transparent skin. We will return by bus late Sunday and arrive in Santiago on Monday morning. That will be a long bus ride but I have all Monday to recoup before classes start again on Tuesday.

Day to day life here consists of lesson planning and preparing for classes during the day and then I go teach at night. I teach Tuesday and Thursday from 7 to 10:45 at night and then Wednesdays and Fridays from 2:30 to 7. I will soon start taking another Spanish class. Thankfully this one will be free. I explore, plan and run errands during the day and at night work and then come home and eat dinner. That is the daily schedule for me right now. One good thing is that my body is on a schedule too, so no matter what I wake up between 8 and 9 in the morning, which means I rarely use an alarm clock (I love that so much).

My host family is still so welcoming. I think I have made a good impression because my host mom keeps bragging about how much I like her food and how we are joking about things all the time. She loves to recount the times I have laid on her bed and watched TV with her to her friends. The food is still very good. I just ate a roll and a half of bread with a cup of tea, which is my usually breakfast. I stuff myself with carbs so that I can last until 1 or 2pm for lunch. I found my new favorite kind of bread last night that they only make after 6pm, strange I know. She bought it yesterday and I can never eat too much of it.

Eugenia tells me everyday how you have to be careful and not eat too much at night and not drink too much pop or juice or eat too much fruit or bread because you will get fat. I don’t think she is telling I am getting fat. I really think she is trying to remind herself. I walk enough to burn thousands of calories and she tells me that I have not gained weight and that I walk a lot too, or else I would have to start going to the gym she says. They have some crazy sayings and practices here. For example, my host sister told me that I could never wash my hair when I have a cold with a runny nose. Her doctor told her that your hair takes 24 hours to dry completely so it is never really dry, thus you must never wash your hair when you have a runny nose. Oh, the funny Chilean sayings and traditions.