¡MaryMary!

Well, teaching on our own when Angelica was off sick was… interesting. Let’s just say I don’t think our teaching skills are quite up to scratch – was definitely a challenge, especially with the older years who are a lot closer to our own age anyway and so we don’t seem to have as much authority with them. But we managed ok I think (mostly!) and we made it out the other side alive – always a plus!

We had a very lazy weekend, passing our 2 month mark in a pretty chilled fashion. Thankfully Angelica was back on the Monday and so it was back to normal on the teaching front. Most of the lessons we had this week were tests and so we acted very invigilator-like, patrolling the room and answering questions as best we could. 

The language is still very tough, although most days I am able to understand most of what is being said and am able to communicate what I’m trying to say in one way or another, there are quite a lot of days, when I’m particularly tired, or I just zone out, when it becomes really hard to understand anything, let alone speak it. On these days, it’s so tough and frustrating that I don’t speak Spanish. I know I’ve only been here 2 months and so can’t expect to be fluent by now, but it’s still very annoying!

One evening, we were sitting with the girls in the internado and they taught us a few more Mapudungun words/phrases to add to our very small vocabulary (which prior to this consisted of: MaryMary (hello) and Kofkee (bread) !!). These are now stuck on our wall and once I’ve got my Spanish under control I would definitely like to learn a bit more! A few of my favourite words/phrases are:

·         "¿chumbli?" Which means "how are you?" and "Karuff" which means "cold"

On Friday we went into Temuco to meet Ruth, an ex-PT volunteer we met who returned to Chile and married and now lives in Temuco. She was planning on showing us some of the sights of Temuco but the rain put a stop to that and so instead we just went back to hers. We spent a lovely, and very English afternoon/evening playing the wii and watching films. The next morning, having spoken to us the night before about missing bacon, they managed to get hold of some from one of the larger supermarkets, she cooked us up a full English! We had to settle for a different type of sausage (the longanizas that are used in choripans - no such thing as pork sausages here!) but we still had toast, tomatoes, mushroom and egg and most importantly… bacon! Not gonna lie, it was pretty awesome! We went to a church service with a load of youth from a few different churches in Temuco, including the one Ruth and her husband go to, and also the youth from Cholchol. We watched a film together and did a bit of reflection stuff before catching the bus back to Cholchol with the others.

 It was a really good couple of days, despite the dramatic ending in which Danielle left her rucksack which had all of our clothes etc we’d taken with us in it on the bus! Panic! When we realised about 15 mins after getting off the bus, we ran to the Ortiz’s and they jumped straight into the car and drove us to the bus terminal and sorted it all out for us – they really do take such good care of us, we’d be so lost without them! 

Throughout Chile it has been the municipalidad elections this year, with every town electing a new alcade (mayor) and council (concejales). As a result of this, we have been seeing posters and billboards since we arrived of the various candidates running for office. One thing that is very different here to in the UK is how much the people love their politics! 

The election was on the 28^th October and so in the last few weeks we’ve been seeing the final push by all the candidates. We went to one campaign which involved a lot of music (each candidate alcade seems to have their own ‘theme music’ which drive around in cars being blasted out on repeat – it’s only a little tedious!) and dancing and when the alcade came out, the crowd went absolutely crazy – as if he was properly famous or something! I can’t say I understood much from  his speech, but what I did grasp, or atleast thought I did was that he was going to get free wifi for the whole of Cholchol and give every student in Cholchol a netbook so that they can all do their schoolwork. I did think I must have misunderstood that bit but apparently its not as ridiculous as it sounds and he probably did say it! Well – he won, so lets see if his promise comes through!  Free WiFi would be very useful for us!

Another shortened week next week, just 3 days, as Thurs 1^st and Fri 2^nd Nov are both national holidays due to it being the ‘Day of the Dead’ (originally a Mexican tradition I think, not really sure what it entails to be honest). We’re planning on going to the town of Pucon with the volunteers who live in Lautaro which should be really lovely and maybe we’ll even get to climb a volcano while we’re there! 

ChaoChao – or as they say in Mapudungun: ¡Peukallal!

Hannah :)

Santiago+Valpo

A definite routine is starting to develop in terms of our teaching. We are coming to know the timetable fairly well and are taking a lot more of an active part in those lessons. We also have been given our first regular lesson teaching completely by ourselves. So now, every Thursday afternoon we teach Trecero (3^rd) Basico for 45 minutes.

The first time was absolutely terrifying, especially as the class we were teaching was changed last minute (originally, we had prepared ourselves for teaching Primero Basico!) but the kids are absolutely adorable and despite being loud and at times, difficult to control, we have a lot more freedom as to what we teach them (anything we like really, since there isn’t really a curriculum for the primero ciclo) and it’s definitely a lesson I look forward to doing each week.

In the internado we are getting to know the girls more and more which is really nice and are learning a lot more of their names too. On those days we finish slightly earlier we can play games in the afternoon with those girls in the Basico levels (the Medio ciclo don’t finish school until slightly later, about 5:30). Anything from skipping, or playing Uno or card games or even doing crafts such as making bracelets. The collection of films we bought with us from the UK has gone down pretty well too – with constant demands and knocks on our door to “ver un pelicula por favour”. I think we’ll know all these films off by heart by the end of the year!

On Thursday 11^th October, we were off up to Santiago and Valpo for the weekend! We discovered after we booked the bus tickets home on Sunday night that we actually had the following Monday (national bank holiday – no idea what for!) and Tuesday (Teachers day) off school! We arrived in Santiago about 7am on Friday and after a lot of wandering and getting lost, we found a café for Breakfast. The morning basically consisted of a lot of that – getting lost that is. The amount of people we had to ask for directions was ridiculous. But we found our way around (eventually) and after browsing the market at Santa Lucia for a couple of hours, met up with a couple of the other volunteers who lived in Santiago and who’s house we were staying at that night.

We made the 40 minute bus ride out to Quilicura, a suburb right on the edge of the city where they lived and worked. Their host family was absolutely lovely and after some time spent catching up, we headed back into Santiago about 10 to experience the nightlife of Bellavista.

The next day after a very late start (true Chilean style) we met up with several of the other volunteers at the bus station and all got the bus over to Valporaiso on the coast (about 1 ½ bus ride away). Valpo is absolutely gorgeous. A huge town of mismatched buildings spreading all down the coast and right up the surrounding hills. Its full of street art and stray dogs and has some really interesting transport systems – including the trolley system (electric-powered buses on set routes) which is the oldest in the world and all original, and the ascensors (these are pretty much uphill trains to save the walk up the many hills), and even better than this – ITS WARM. We were staying with a couple of volunteers  who lived there and 11 other volunteers were also in Valpo this weekend (making the most of our long weekend) and so in the evening we hit the town en masse to make the most of the ridiculously cheap drinks!

On Sunday we had chilled on the roof and had an asado at Sammy and Finlay’s house before going off to do some sightseeing. We visited the port before meeting up with some of the others and burning off all those Choripan’s climbing up one of the hills for some pretty awesome views of the town and the sea. In the evening, we went out to dinner with the volunteers from Colina (just north of Santiago) who were also down for the weekend, to celebrate Beth’s birthday. The meal was pretty cheap, but had the BIGGEST portions you’ve ever seen. Trying to be healthy after that asado, I settled for a salad, but it was probably the biggest salad in the world – I couldn’t even eat it all! Anyway, after trying, and failing to change our bus tickets for the next day, we said goodbye to everyone until new year and got on our bus home.

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We made it home with little drama, back to the cold reality of the south of Chile and after a relaxing Monday and Tuesday to ourselves we now have two days work before another weekend! However, a text at about 10pm last night told us that the English teacher is off sick for the next 2 days and so we have to now take all her classes on our own!!! Hmm.. this could be a couple of interesting days.

Hannah :)

Back to reality(ish)

¡hola!

Well, as the title suggests, it was back to work for us after our week off celebrating dieciocho. The reality part, not so much - everyday brings something new and sometimes things are still very surreal. However, I'm definately feeling more settled and a routine is beginning to form. 

In the week beginning the 24th September, it was back into lessons straight from the onset. We are being trusted more and more with preparing and running activities in the classes too which makes the whole experience much more fun (though it still takes us a ridiculously long time to plan anything!). 

Friday 28th, was of-course, my 'cumpleaños' on which I was thoroughly spoiled by everyone. It was a really amazing day with lots of cakes, and hugs and singing and the fact that we didn't have to work made it even better ;) The weekend was a relaxed one and then on Monday, my birthday was celebrated with the girls in the Internado. 

It was a complete suprise for me, but the girls had prepared a lot of food (annoyingly we'd already eaten, but we did our best!) and sung to both me and Tia Glenis, who's birthday it was too. I thought it was really sweet at the time.. but then they bought out the eggs. 

Now, apparently this is some kind of Chilean tradition, but being a clueless gringita, I had absolutely no idea what was going on. They did it to Glenis first though, which gave me about 1 minutes warning of what was going to happen! Basically, they crack an egg over your head. I put up a fair fight and managed to avoid the majority of the egg as it was cracked, though they then proceeded to scoop it off the floor and smear it into my hair with their hands! which I'm not sure was much better to be honest... They then (well meant I'm sure :S) decided to help me wash the egg out of my hair by pushing me into the shower - fully clothed, phone in pocket! I managed to escape fairly quickly and ran into our house for a proper shower before we went to aerobics, unlike poor Glenis, who was in there for a very long time!

Other exciting news is that we seem to have managed to enter ourselves into a dance competition in Novemeber, and so in our aerobics classes, we are currently learning the Charleston and will eventually have to perform it, feather boas and all in front of goodness knows how many people! I know I came on a gap year to have new experiences and try new things, but I have to admit.. this wasn't quite what I had in mind. 

The rest of this week has been much less dramatic. Wednesday evening, we spent having a lovely asado-type meal to celebrate our Chilean abuela's cumpleaños. The meal was followed by the most amazing cake, which was pretty much layers of pastry and manjar, with chocolate on top - I mean, can't really go wrong there can you!? 

We have done a lot more teaching and today we got to teach our first class completely on our own, which was... terrifying. Not helped by the fact that the class we were teaching was changed pretty much last minute, so having prepared a basic lesson on colours for 1ro Basico, we were stuck in 3ro Basico instead, and so had a lesson which was probably pretty beneath them to be quite honest. But the kids were absolutely lovely and didn't seem to mind too much! Also, now we know how much they roughly know, next week's lesson should (hopefully) be a lot easier! We also have a lot of unused worksheets.. so if anyone wants any colour by numbers or wordsearches on colours - I have about 20 million going spare over here ;)

So that's another weeks work finally completed, if you don't count working with the girls in the internado tonight, which I swear is more exhausting than teaching most of the time! But there you go.. Next weekend we're venturing up to Santiago and Valpo which should be a nice, warm change, and a good excuse to see all the other vols too :)

¡hasta luego!

Hannah :)