¡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.

.

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 :)

¡Feliz Dieciocho!

¡Hola a todos!

Sorry for the unreliability of these posts.. but Internet access is fairly sporadic here.. so we'll blame that! :)

So the last 2 weeks have been all about Dieciocho - the 18th September, and Chilean Independence Day.

We started off the week starting on the 10th with a little work and some lessons happening on Monday and Tuesday, but a lot of time was spent focusing on preparing for the Parade on Wednesday. We helped out in some really difficult classes on these days which was definately a big challenge since no matter what you did - they were NOT going to listen.. I'm suprised they even bother to turn up atall to be honest..!

Wednesday 12th was the day of the big parade! The entire school all on their best behaviour and uniform walked the streets of CholChol. In true Chilean-style of course it didn`t actually start until a good hour after it was supposed too! But it was a very good day.. and pretty impressive to watch I`m sure! Annoyingly.. both me and Danielle left our cameras in the Staffroom - so no pictures to show for it I`m afraid! :/

Friday was another relaxed day, with displays of the kids work, lots of dancing (including an attempt at dancing the Cueca, the traditional Chilean dance - which was... interesting, to say the least!), games etc. We finished the day with a big Staff lunch of Empanadas and in the Afternoon we went for a walk around CholChol with one of the other teachers.. which was good, until it started tipping it down!

We had an entire week off for Independence week - but forget a relaxing holiday.. that was definately not on the agenda! It was however, a pretty awesome week and I think over the course of 3 days, I ate enough meat to last me about a month!

On Monday we went with the Ortiz family out to the countryside, to Lorenzo`s (one of the teacher`s at the school) parents house. We walked to the top of a nearby hill for a spectacular view of the valley and also later on ventured down to the river. We also tried our asado here (a traditional Chilean BBQ) in which you get about 3 absolutely huge chunks of whatever meat is going and then a multitude of salad besides!

For Dieciocho itself we went to Temuco. Well, atleast we eventually went to Temuco after running for the bus, before finding out that it was a different timetable and then having to wait over an hour for a bus..!! We went to Angelica`s (the English teacher) house and had our second Asado in 2 days! This time we got to help out cooking it.. well, I say cooking - hacking at the meat with a knife is probably a more accurate description!!

After lunch, we went to a fair at the Town Stadium, which involved a rather annoying mime, churros, and a very proud Llama.

In the evening we went to a music/battle of the bands type thing in which Angelica`s husband was playing. It ended with a Reggae set and lots of dancing at about midnight.

After this, no joke, we were invited to DINNER. So at 1am we were sitting in a very fancy apartment in the centre of Temuco munching on empanadas and crisp sandwiches - the Chileans thought we were absolutely MAD for having crisp sandwiches (says the people who have dinner at 1 in the morning!) but hey.. thats Gringitas for ya :) A few entertaining taxi/car rides, and several hours later, we finally got to bed.

No lie-ins for us though! and by 11 we were back on a bus to CholChol and to the Ortiz`s for lunch. It tipped it down all day and so we spent it huddling by the fire and watching TV. I had a bad cold and so they were very fussy over me, giving me paracetemol every 4 hours on the dot as well as hot lemon and honey and letting me take a nap in the afternoon.. It seemed a bit over the top at the time but I have to admit - when you`re feeling rotten, it`s pretty lovely being so well looked after!


The volunteers in Latauro came down for the final 4 days of the holiday and so we had a very English few days, watching films, showing them CholChol and cooking lots of English food - including our first roast!!!!

The fact that I got to experience something so important to the people here after just a month is pretty awesome and really reminds me why I`m bothering to do this atall - which believe me, is a question I quite often ask myself, especially when the work is tough and I`m not feeling brilliant. Its nice to finally have an answer - because experiencing something like the Dieciocho celebrations is why I`m here. An entirely different culture, way of thinking and way of celebrating is what I`m trying to get a grasp of, and I`m actually now beginning to do that after just one short month!!

Back to reality now though - work. A different kind of challenge entirely, but one which is pretty rewarding and where every day is different! Never a dull moment in Chile thats for sure :)


Thanks,

Hannah :)

Hey Everyone!!

We're now 3 weeks into our Chilean adventure and its still all a bit overwhelming!

Our second week was spent much like the first - a lot of eating, confusion and some classes too. The major drama of the week was trying to sort out our Chilean ID cards, without which it is impossible to buy anything and which was very difficult with the zero spanish we had. We ended up travelling pretty much to every town around it seemed.. a lot of time was spent on buses! 

The bulk of the rest of the week was spent preparing our first couple of lessons (no joke - it took us about 3 days for each! guess we´re not so good at that yet :S) 

The weekend was a relaxed one. We ventured into Temuco for the first time by ourselves and miraculously managed to make it there and back in one piece without too many near-misses (we nearly got off at the wrong stop but other than that we managed fairly well :) ) 

The Sunday was spent with our adopted family. After Church (in which a number of new ministers were ordained which meant the service was even LONGER than usually - 3 hours to be precise!!!) we went for a family lunch and spent the afternoon playing basketball. In the evening they took us to Temuco - the journey was.. interesting to say the least. The 5 of us kids were bundled into the back of a van (literally!) where we sat on cushions on the floor and played Irish Snap - a bit bouncy but generally ok! We went to the arcade-type place and went bowling before having some of the most amazing icecream ever :D

This week has been much more busy. Our first two lessons were.. interesting to say the least. They didn´t quite go to plan, but from what I know about teaching, it never does - spose I better get used to that one! Other than that, I think the kids generally enjoyed them - we put a lot of time into trying to think of what to do so hopefully it was worth it! 

We also got to watch a parade put on by the school on Tuesday which included a number of bands and lots of Cueca dancing. We have started going to an aerobics class twice a week in an attempt to burn of all the bread (not sure its working, but hey - atleast we´re trying :) ) in which we get to learn the cueca. The footwork is very confusing but its fun to attempt! 

Other than that, we`ve spent some more time with the girls in the internado; watching films, teaching them some classic dances (well.. the macarena) and generally just spending more time with them :)

Food-wise its still pretty awesome. We tried Sopapiallas for the first time, which are a kind of fried, doughnutty savoury bread which you have with all kinds of sauces (ketchup, mayonnaise, mustard) and which are so unbelievably and unhealthily amazing! The bread is still as good as ever and after discovering manjar, a kind of caramel-type sauce we will definately need to keep going to those aerobic classes thats for sure!!

During the week we also got to go down to the river and explore. We managed to get to the beach and I can say without a doubt it is one of the prettiest places I`ve ever seen.. and thats in winter!! So though it`s definately getting gradually tougher here.. everyday brings something new and I`m still loving every moment!!

Hannah xxx

¡Hola!

Our first week in Chile has been.. hectic to say the least!

On Sunday morning 21 of us stumbled off the plane in Santiago where we were met by our country rep Claire and taken to the hostel. Most of the Santiago lot were collected by their families and the rest of us went to the deputy rep Andrew´s house for our first Chilean meal! (discovered that Chileans drink ALOT of tea so thats one less home comfort to miss! :) )

We spent the monday looking around the city etc like proper tourists :) including climbing to the top of Santa Lucia hill for a pretty awesome view over the city! It was actually pretty hot too.. so much for winter!!

On Monday night.. we caught the overnight bus (comfiest bus EVER) down to Temuco with relatively little drama, aside getting lost trying to find the bus in the first place and spraying the entire bus with a bottle of fizzy water I´d bought.. woops.

On arrival in Temuco we discovered that it most definately NOT hot down in the South. We stood in the freezing bus stop looking thorougly confused and lost until Luis, the deputy headteacher came to collect us.

Since we`ve been in CholChol we´ve met ALOT of people and been completely bombarded with constant Spanish. The Chilean greeting is a kiss on the cheek and after meeting all the teachers, all the girls in the internado and other people besides, I think I´ve probably kissed more people in this last week than I have in my entire life!

Our first meeting with John, the headmaster was pretty interesting - communication was limited and in the end we resorted to using google translate for most of the meeting

.

We were then taken to a huge house just outside the village where an English ex-missionary called Audrey lives. She was absolutely lovely and gave us a lot of advice about our year. She`s also donating a lot of things to us such a grill for making toast and also an old TV so that even when we`re in our flat we can be constantly listening to Spanish.

Our little house is very small, but very nice. We spent some time cleaning and decorating it and its beginning to feel a lot more like home. It is however SO cold here (being winter and all, along with the lack of central heating) and the gas heater we have is quickly becoming the best thing we own! :)

The school provides us with breakfast (bread), lunch (usually something with pasta or rice, and bread) and then dinner (again, something with pasta or rice, and bread). So generally, eating involves a lot of bread, and a lot of tea and coffee (without milk!).

The rest of the week we spent sorting out and decorating our little house, exploring the village, sitting in on some of the classes (English ones that is), helping out in the kinder part of the school with the 5 and 6 year olds, and helping making bread in the school kitchens.

The evenings we either spend with the girls in the internado, talking and listening to music or some nights we´ve been invited to various peoples houses for dinner which is always lovely and means we get to experience some proper Chilean home cooked cuisine, which so far has all been absolutely delicious!

Yesterday afternoon, once school had finished we got to go into Temuco and buy some of the essentials we had yet to get, including a phone. Luckily the daughter of one of the teachers came with us and speaks some English and so she was able to help us work out where we had to go and show us around the main part of the city which was pretty handy! - without her I genuinely think we would probably still be in Temuco now, if we´d have even got there in the first place!

We´re going for our first Chilean `Sunday Lunch` tomorrow at the house of one of the teachers which I´m already looking forward too!

The language is tough, but we´re already finding it easier to understand what people are talking about and are beginning to get a grip of basic answers to questions too. Hopefully we should start helping out in the classes more over the next few weeks and so attempting to control a class of Chilean kids will probably help us a lot on that front!

So yeah, an intense first week and its not looking like it´s going to get any more relaxing thats for sure! But its certainly been worth every second of fundraising and I`m so looking forward to the next year and all the amazing things I`m going to get to be a part of! 

¡hasta luego!

Hannah xxx 

Ready to go....!

Hi everyone!

My leaving date is fast approaching - 18th August for those that don't know - and I have transferred the last of the money pledged to Project Trust which means I'm completely ready to go on the financial front atleast.

I spent the last week in Coll on training, meeting my partner and country group and learning more about my project and what I'll be spending my year doing! It was a tiring but amazing week and now its just a case of last minute preparations + jabs etc. left to go! Its all getting very real now!

I should have a fairly reasonable internet connection whilst I'm abroad so I will hopefully be able to update this blog fairly regularly and will also be doing 3 newsletters at Christmas, Easter and towards the end of summer so if you would like to recieve a copy then if you could email me an address to spitfire062@gmail.com I will make sure I include you :)

So yeah - basically thanks so much for all your support through out this year - everyone whos given me money or contributed in some other way - its been challenging but no where near as tough as the next year is going to be thats for sure!

Anyway - will try to keep you posted.. thanks again! :)

Hannah xx