Catching up and generally rushing around...

Ok - firstly, an apology for the long back between my last blog. Things have been a bit hectic now and I'd love to say they're beginning to settle down... though to be honest, I'm not sure they actually are!

After weeks and weeks of pushing for lessons with the Basico classes in the school (primary school aged, who don't normally have English lessons with the sole English teacher in school), we have finally managed to get some lessons! We now teach ALL courses from Pre-Kinder (eqv. of Year R) right up to 4to Medio (eqv. of year 13!) This means our timetable is VERY full and so we don't find time to do much else, which is a shame, but we'll see how it goes.

Hanging out with the girls...

I love teaching the Basico classes though, I feel a lot more confident with my Spanish in comparison to last year and with the littl'uns I feel a lot more confident as a teacher and we have a lot more authority aswell. The kids there also are more inclined to want to be there and to want to learn, especially from the Gringas - I had one kid announce to me that I had yellow hair, and then he asked me why I had blue eyes and then seemed even more amazed when I answered "because my mum has blue eyes!" After 8 months, its still strange, how things that are normal and very common at home are so rare and interesting to people over here!

us and some of the girls in the internado

We've spent the weeks with the girls in the internado getting to know the new girls really well which is nice and we've finally started catching up with their names which is always a positive! The other day, we had tea with them - they seem to have caught on to the fact that, being English, we need to be regularly supplied with tea to keep us going! - and then lately we've been provided with fruit on a monday from the girls houses in the countryside, which is always delicious!

Us and the girls in Colina on our sunny Easter break

We went to visit the volunteers in Colina for the Easter weekend. They have a very different project as its Social care and they work in a school and home for people with learning disabilities. They showed us round their project and it looks amazing, must be so tough at times, but very very rewarding! We had a lovely weekend involving sushi, icecream and a circus (which actually had a real live lion - we didn't believe the guy at first, but no - they actually had a lion!). Was a lovely weekend and good to catch up with the girls who we haven't seen since briefly in October!

The other day we had our annual visit from the desk officer from PT, Felicity. Having become our desk officer just after we arrived in Chile, we hadn't actually met her before and it was lovely to meet her, chat and show her round our project.
On Sunday 7th we met her, along with the girls from Lautaro, in Temuco. We climbed 'Cerro Ñielol' for a lovely view of the city, went out for lunch (courtesy of PT - thanks for that one! :) ) and generally chatted the day away. In the evening we took her to Cholchol, and she stayed with us in the internado for the night - She was very impressed with our little house and even said we'd made our room the most cosy and homey she'd seen in both Peru and Chile! - before seeing our project the next day. We took her to our lessons in the morning (including two of our brand new ones with the Prekinder/Kinder!) and then showed her around Cholchol, took her to the river and even introduced her to the amazingness of the Sopaipillas provided by our favourite little street vendor in town. She agreed that they were awesome which is always good! :)
All in all, she seemed very impressed with our project and after showing someone around, i realised just how good our project is and how lucky we are to have been placed here. After our struggles with the basico lessons and my Spanish perhaps being not as good as I would have liked by this stage, I was beginning to get a bit negative about the whole thing. But now, I've feel much more motivated and positive about the whole thing and ready to make the most of the last few months!

To top it all off, our aerobics classes have just started back in the evenings which is lovely and a good excuse to meet up with friends and also to get some much needed exercise (running in the morning is now too cold and dark for me!). I have also been to Capaoiera with the vols from Latauro once now, and I think I will definately be going again - even if every part of me did ache for about 3 days afterwards!

And so thats all for now! Our routines changed a little in the last few weeks but I have a lot of exciting things to look forward, including a visit from none other than my very own sister! Becca is coming over to Chile for the last week of May and I'm SO excited! Better get planning lots of exciting things for us to do I spose!

Chao y Dios los bendigan.


Hannah :)