Back in the USA

So, I've been back in the United States for about a week now. Its good to be back. I'm still adjusting though. In some ways it feels like I never left. Home feels like home. Friends are the same as the always been. etc etc. Which I think is a good thing but a little unsettling.

My life feels a little disorganized right now. 60% of my belongings are in boxes in the attic, I'm going to be starting classes at John Hopkins this January but I'm not sure what classes I'm going to be taking or where I'm going to be living. Hopefully, things become a little more organized in the next couple of weeks.

Pictures to be posted shortly ... currently my laptop is being inspected hopefully repaired.

Christmas was good. Managed to replace almost all of my missing/destroyed clothes.

Buenos Aires was enjoyable but I couldn't fully appreciate it because I was ready to return to the United States. One of the most interesting things about the city was the people who spoke Spanish with a slight Italian accent.

Leaving Chile

My last couple of hours in Chile ... its weird leaving this place that has been my home for the last 8 1/2 months.

Torres del Paines was spectacular.

Ran out of cash when my atm card wasn´t working. Had to get parent to Western Union me some money.

Buenos Aires for three days then Home!

Bottom of the world

I´ve made it to Puerto Natales and tomorrow I start hiking (for 4/5 days) Torres del Paine National Park. I´m very excited ... this park is one (of many reasons) why I chose Chile to teach English .. Eversince I read a travel article about this park I´ve wanted to experience it. Many call it the best park in South America for its spectacular views. The cost though is very extreme weather. To save money I´ll be backpacking it, camping outside, and carrying my own food ... something I shamefully haven´t done in ages.

At Puerto Montt the sun didn´t set until 10. I´m curious now that I´m 2 airplane hours farther south what time it will set. Its throwing off my body clock ... yesterday I woke up at like 6 and swore it was much closer to 9.



PS. I´ll be out of reach the next couple of days ...

On the road

Hi everyone,

I´m currently in Valdivia, a picturesque town in Southern Chile that is located at the junction of two rivers. This past week Emily, Jesus and his friend Clemente visited me in Chile. We had loads of fun in Valparaiso and Pucon. I´ll probably write about them visiting later but first I want to write about leaving Antofagasta. (This blog could lose chronological order for a little bit because I have a couple of blog entries written on my laptop that I have not been able to load online due to lack of internet)

I´m going to miss Antofagasta. At times I hated the city, its perpetual cloudiness, its dirtiness, my distance from downtown. But I created a little niche for myself; lucked into a host family who loved me and made me feel part of it, a school with frequently amusing, tiring but basically good students, and friends who I could chat and relax with. Its weird that the things that through eight months had become standard events aren´t going to happen again. Roughing housing with my family, walking to the grocery store to buy bread, going to the disco until dawn and then walking for a mile or so (for reasons I still dont´understand) until you could catch a collectivo, calming overanxious students down with phrases of no importa o no te preocupes, walking to the other side of the street to avoid a barking dog.

My host family has been very cute since I´ve left Antofagasta, calling me throughout my travels to southern Chile. Through the internet, I´m going to be able to stay in touch with them. I´m very grateful to them for all that they´ve done for me and am regretful that I´ll not be able to see them again for a long time (if ever).

Still despite all of this, I am very happy to be going home soon. I look forward to seeing my family, hanging out with friends, and being able to be independent again.

Traveling in Southern Chile

So I´ve officially finished teaching and I am currently traveling in Southern Chile. I´m currently in Pucon and planning on seeing Chiloe, Punta Arenas, and Buenos Aires. I´ll post more when I have time (which maybe when I return to the states on December 20th). Currently though I´m enjoying my travels and look forward to seeing everyone when I get back to the states.

Bread and dirt everywhere

Some my host family house is a little messy especially in the kitchen*. This is largely because my host grandmom is just not an orderly person. Thus she puts things in all sort of random locations. Ironically, she is in charge of cleaning the house.

One of the most peculiar things about the house is that there are bags of bread everywhere. Bread is a major component of meals here and everyday my family goes out everyday to buy fresh bread. Instead of throwing away the old bread though, they leave it lying around for a couple of days and then give to the birds or dogs. So if I want a mid afternoon snack I have to go around checking the various bags of bread trying to guess which bread is the freshest. However, it almost always means that there is bread in the house for an afternoon snack. At the moment there are currently 5 bags of bread in various spots in my dining room.

*the messy kitchen makes it really annoying to cook because I have to clear out a space to pots and pans. Frequently, there is nowhere to put things because the sink is full and so is all the available counterspace. The oven also often has pots and pans in it so if I'm baking thats more things I need to move around.

Birthday Weekend

This past Saturday was my host mom's birthday. The family stayed up to 12 o'clock on Friday night to sing Happy Birthday to her. My host grandmom made an interesting layer cake with the manjar and marshmallow mix being smeared on top of 20 layers of thinly baked dough.

For her birthday, I gave my host mom my brown winter coat as gift which she has been coveting since I got here. To celebrate she went out with her friends to a bar/dance club in Antofagasta. The most random songs get played here. On Saturday I heard Salsa, reggaeton, Spanish pop music, Karma Chameleon, Take on me, footloose, as well as spanish songs from the 80's. Very eclectic mix.

Teacher Strike

For the last couple of weeks or so the teachers at many schools throughout the country have been on strike. The strike, as far as I can understand, is mainly over a 28 year old debt and teacher bonuses for this year. The 28 year old debt occurred when Pinochet reorganized the educational structure in the country. During this transition, some teacher's paychecks apparently went missing. The situation is complicated in that the government and the teacher's union do not agree on the size of debt or how much of the debt has been paid. Because this debt occurred 28 years ago, 2/3 of the teachers who are on strike probably weren't teaching when the debt happened. They probably participate out of the notion of solidarity, which is a celebrated ideal here, but it is possible that younger teachers also hope to receive something out of a settlement. (or just don't want to work). This strike apparently occurs almost annually in Chile. Also interesting to me is that some schools have declared that they will be on strike for the rest of the year. This begs the question how do they know a settlement won't be reached by the end of the year.

My school unfortunately is unaffected by the strike because I work at a semi-private school and thus if they teachers went on strike they'd probably be fired and replaced (teachers here also earn more money then in the public schools). So I've been teaching away. I've got 6 more days of classes so I'm pretty pumped to started my South American traveling.

Successful Class Lesson

So to change it up, instead of getting half of the class for my 9th and 10th graders I've been talking to each student individually for three to four minutes. I let the student choose the topic and then we try to hold a conversation in English. Most students choose to talk about their family. Its cute because they always describe their family as beautiful an adjective I would never use in describing my family (though my students have also described my family as beautiful). The best conversation though was when one kid decided to talk about Michael Jackson. He was a big fan of the music and showed me a dance move or two. The conversation are definitely very stilted but we are able to communicate and exchange ideas.

Reggaeton everywhere

So I have many things I could and should write about Halloween, strikes, succesful lesson plans, personal life, school stuff, but for now I have time just to write about the competition that just occurred at my school which I was asked to be a judge for (at the last minute of course).

Today begins spring week and it started of with a competition between the grades. The first contest was a halloween costume with each grade featuring a boy a girl dressed up to the theme of Chuckie, Exorcist, Frankenstein, or Dracula. After showing off their costumes, the contest randomly had them dance to Reggaeton. It was very silly especially when one of the boy's jumped up on the judge's table as if it was a stage to dance. Afterwards, was a race where each grade had to move an apple mouth to mouth to each student. Then was a contest of which student could eat spicy foods without showing any emotion. Tomorrow the competition will continue with a Michael Jackson dance impression contest.

All in all it was a lot of fun and very Chilean (whatever that means). I was very impressed that students managed to run the whole thing without problems and only medium wait times.

Missing Classes

Note this was written last week but I have been having trouble with internet so could only post today.

So this week, in case you didn't know this is the week of the children. If you thought that we had already a week of the children you would be wrong, in May there was a day for the children, but in October kids get a whole week. In keeping with on the tradition of finding reasons for students to miss class, there will be activities for the children Wednesday and Thursday afternoon. The students will also be some classes on Friday but that isn't because they are children but rather to celebrate the anniversary of school's priests death. Last Friday, was the day of the teachers. However, this was celebrated not by missing class (because classes honor teachers) but by a late night dinner party where the teachers could let loose. Last week was also when my school celebrated Spanish by hosting all kinds of language activities including Spanish spelling bee and a Spanish debate. Students were also able to miss classes for those.

In all seriousness the dinner was nice … it was at a (the) fancy buffet place in the South of city and it was packed to the gills with teachers. It was also nice that the principal paid for us, while at other schools, the teachers had to pay part.

Had a very successful class today. As homework my students had to bring in the lyrics to song in to either read or sing. One of my students forgot his homework but was able to sing backstreet boys from memory and managed to get the whole class to sing along.

Weekend In Iquique

I spent this past weekend in Iquique. Its a city six hours to the north of Antofagtasta. Its a lot like the city of Antofagasta except prettier, warmer and cheaper. The ride up to Iquique was somewhat monotonous; desert mountains on one side rocky ocean coastline on the other side, greenery nowhere to be seen. It was a really good weekend. I went paragliding and spent a lot of time at the beach. Paragliding was a lot of fun and I got a great view of the city of Iquique. You don't really jump off the cliff to get going .. rather the wind fills up under the parachute and lifts you up and back so its not at all scary.

This past weekend was a big weekend for Chile. Chile beat Columbia in soccer and officially qualified for the 2010 World Cup. We watched the game at a bar and the crowd got real into the game cursing the players out for every missed goal and the refs out for every call that went against them. After the game, everyone went out into the streets, cars drove around honking their horns with people in them waving Chilean flags and at the town square a good size crowd of people gathered chanting and singing the Chilean national anthem. One of the volunteers said that her family all got in their car and drove around for an hour honking their horn with rest of the traffic. At one intersection a man got out of the car and did an impromptu Cueca dance with the Chilean flag playing the role of the handkerchief.

This past weekend daylight savings went into effect for Chile. This now means I'm one hour ahead of those of you in Washington DC. When the United States time change goes into effect I think I'll be two hours ahead.

Debates in Detail

So as I mentioned before… my school debate team won Chile's National English Debate Competition. I am very proud of them and happy for them … they definitely are impressive. Two of my students also won individual awards, my host brother who won best use of the English Language (which we think means student who talked most like a native English speaker) and Leslie who won best female performance for her speech in the second round.

The whole week was been pretty emotional and stressful … I was more nervous at these debate events then I have been in a long time … and I wasn't even speaking. On Tuesday, we arrived in Santiago. On Wednesday, we had the first round of competition where they reduced 18 teams to 10 teams. It was a long long day … we had to perform the proposition side twice … we were the first team to debate for the day and the last one. On Thursday, the 10 teams got whittled down to 2 teams. We performed the opposition case against a team that I feel was a good opponent for us because they were a tad weaker and made some easily rebuttable arguments, thus making us look good. On Friday, the final day of competition, we performed in an auditorium in front of the other schools and many people from the English teaching community in Chile. We once again had the opposition side and despite the other team having been able to watch our performance the other day (and thus hear our arguments) we were the dominant team. In all three days but especially the last day my students were amazing. They weren't just able to speak clearly, but also convey a wide a range of emotions such as sarcasm, shock, amazement, anger, and moral indignation. For winning, my students and co-teacher won a free round trip flight to anywhere in continental Chile (they are probably going to Puntas Arenas in Patagonia … I would love to go with them but they are probably going to go during summer vacation when I'm back in the United States)(the funny thing is they would of preferred the second place prize of a notebook).

I am also proud of myself for having coached the team to first place … for coming up with strong arguments, creating dramatic speeches and for showing the students how to be effective speakers. I was though in a good situation, with a group of very motivated talented students who's goal from the very beginning was to be number one. I'm also glad I was able to effective coach them in my own style which is very relaxed and easy going … indeed the students were almost always harder on themselves and each other then I was on them. I've enjoyed hanging out with them, its been fun and rewarding to hang out, to talk with them and to work with them. They are all very open, funny and willing to share their experiences with me. Now that I'm going to have to teach class full time, I'm going to miss spending so much time with them.

Debate photos are now online

http://picasaweb.google.com/paulspicturesfromabroad/DebateTournament#

Debates Finals

Colegio Santa Emilia (my school) won the National English Debates of Chile.

To watch (http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/2266985#utm_campaign=www.facebook.com&utm_source=2266985&utm_medium=social)

more details to follow ... I wrote a long blog entry on my laptop but I´m still having trouble with schools internet. The short summary though is that my students are amazing and that I´m very proud of them.

Update from Santiago

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile ... internet problems at my school are still a problem.

I'm currently in Santiago with my school's debate team for the English Debate competition. Tomorrow, 18 teams we be whittled down to only 10. The team is definitely nervous and excited. I think they are ready though.

The September 18th celebration at my school was very enjoyable. The students all performed dances from different places and times of Chile. It was very much ceremony that celebrated all the parts of Chile so while their was a lot of cueca (the national dance of Chile) there was also a lot of other dance included many indigenous dances. The most popular dance were dances of the people from Easter island with 3 or 4 different grades doing it. After the ceremony, the teachers got to enjoy a catered bbq with excellent meat, wine, and chi-cha.

Here are the photos from the ceremony <>

School Silliness

So the computer network at the school has been messed up due to computer viruses and it's having a number of weird effects. The first is that its currently impossible to print anything at the school, except by going to the Principal and asking her to do it for you. Since the principal is often busy or not at the school this means its very difficult to print things. For example, the other day I decided it was easier just to go to an internet cafe and printout my students debate speeches.

Because of the virus, there are now new restrictions of computer use at the school. Some of these make sense and others don't. For example, the computer I would use to print things (if the network could print things) now has a password that I have to ask a secretary to enter in order to use the computer. However, other new restrictions don't make sense. For example, no one is allowed to use the school computers after six and on the weekends. This is because according to the school computer people the computers anti virus protection does not work after 6 or on the weekends. Also, I'm no longer permitted to be in the computer office after 6 or on weekends (usually I go there to surf the internet on my laptop, because the signal is the strongest), because then people will think I'm using the school computers against regulations (even though I don't have the password). Its all very very silly.

In other school news, tomorrow my school is having its September 18th celebration. Its going to be an all day affair with lots of dances and a long lunch. All the different grades are putting on a class dance for which they have been practicing for weeks. All the students are very excited about it. I'll definitely have to take pictures.

Weekend

This weekend was mostly spent writing debate speeches. I managed to get a rough draft completed for all of the speeches! Other notable things that happened this weekend was that I cooked lamb and made Russian bread and played rugby. I've been cooking a lot lately, in part because I've been craving flavors of things that my host family doesn't cook and the only way to get those flavors is to make them myself. Its interesting, that my family (and I'm assuming by extension most Chileans) are very particular with what can be sweet and what can't. Thus the lamb I cooked which was sweet and spicy was only a really big hit with me. But that's ok with me.

My rugby game went well, I played with second stringers and I did really will in our game. So well that I got to lead the team cheer after the game (like getting the game ball in the US). Of course I mispronounced the team's name (saying Vekingos instead of Vikingos) but thats besides the point.

Compulsory Voting Research

So far through my preliminary research on the debate topic I've discovered that Chile has a voting system that seems to combine the worst aspects of a voluntary and compulsory voting systems. The system is as follows: registering to vote is optional ... however once you are registered to vote you are required to vote and you can't unregister yourself. As a result a decent percentage population of Chile is not registered to vote (especially the young)and have no plans on registering because they don't want to have to vote in every election. The voting system raises the cost of registering to vote without increasing any benefits or registering. As a result, people not registered to vote here probably pay less attention to politics here then unregistered people in the United States do.

National Debates

We finally have our debate topic for the National Debates. It is “This house believes that voting should be compulsory”. If anyone sees anything interesting on this topic definitely send it my way.







PS. I'm happy because I think this will be an interesting topic to study and research.

Expensive Electronics

I'm somewhat curious as to why electronics cost so much in Chile. Most things in Chile are priced relatively the same to the United States perhaps a little less with fruits and vegetables being definitely cheaper. The exception to this is electronics which often cost twice as much as they do in the United States (for example to buy a Nintendo wii here would cost close to 400 dollars. People say that this is because they ship all the electronics from Japan and China and that they are long ways away from those countries. Even so electronics are lot more expensive then it seems like it should be. For example, I could buy a wii in United States for 250 and ship it down here for 50 dollars ... so where is the other 100 dollars going? Part of it is that in Chile the taxes are included in the price so the 400 includes an 11% tax and in the United States its added afterwards but even with that factored in things seem like they should be cheaper. When the family of another volunteer visited them in Antofagasta, their host family arranged for the volunteer's family to buy a laptop in the United States and bring it down with them, because it was so much cheaper to repay the volunteer's family for the computer then it was to purchase it in Chile.

Chilean Independence Day

Chilean Indenpendence day is coming up --- the actual date is September 18. It apparently is a big event, I was talking to somebody who said it was their favorite holiday of the year. Chilean flags have started popping up all over the place. At the school, students have been spending tons of time practicing dances for the school celebration. I'm probably going to be in Antofagasta to witness it .. last year the volunteers got the whole week off but this year September 18th is on a Friday so we are only getting a day and a half off.

Pancakes and spelling bees

The other day I made banana pancakes. The came out pretty well, but I really had to work at frying them because our house's frying pan was an old lumpy piece of metal that the pancake batter kept sticking to. My family argued with me that pancakes were in fact breakfast food and considered dessert food occasionally putting ice cream on top of them.

My host sister Connie has finally started to warm up to me. She shows it by calling me ugly and silly (in English) and by tackling me. She is absolutely fearless when wrestling with me … the other day she headbutted me! I was so surprised I fell down laughing.

I was talking to a Chilean the other day about the work schedule for people who work in the mines (I still know how to enter the work schedule into IDC). Most of the workers have 4 days of work followed by 3 days of down time. However many of the workers want to have a schedule of 7 days of work followed by 7 days of rest, which would allow the workers to live practically anywhere they wanted to in Chile. For this reason the local politicians are strongly against any changes to the work schedule because they want the money from the mine to go into Antofagasta and not into other parts of the country.

Watching the Chilean news can be amusing. Today there was 10 minute segment on the dramatic rescue of a dog from a flooding river. I keep joking that the sports segment of the news should just be called soccer because thats the only sport that is ever mentioned.

Today was the school English spelling bee for which I was judge. I was fun and cute watching the kids spell. The cutest moments were when a student resigned as soon as heard the word and when a kid spelled library lightberry.

Assorted events

Last Friday was the regional competition for English Debates . My school colegio Santa Emilia once again performed well receiving first place. (I meant to take pictures but I forgot my camera). This means that we will be going to Santiago at the end of September for the national Eenglish debate competition. Once again I disagreed with the judges decisions … the other team from the Antofagasta region that is advancing to the national competition, I didn't think was the second best school in the region, in fact I didn't have them in my top three schools, because they had mediocre pronunciation and spoke rather flatly, but what can you do but laugh (the judges ended giving them same amount of points as colegio Santa Emilia which is absurd). One of my fears for Santiago is the judging, which I haven't always agreed with.

The other day I was talking to another volunteer who was telling me about the gyms in Chile. Apparently, Chilean guys tend to bring the girlfriends who watch them work out. Then the guys will lift way to much weight trying to impress the girls while displaying horrible technique. Apparently the guys will also often take off their shirt and flex in front of the mirrors. I say guys because in Chile girls almost never go the gym.

Speaking of the other volunteers, several of the volunteers from Antofagasta got badly hurt a week and a half ago when they were visiting San Pedro de Atacama. While traveling to the Tatio Geysers their car went off the road and they flipped. Because they were way out in the middle of nowhere it was 2 hours before an ambulance could reach them and for some of them over 30 hours before they received surgery. Their injuries were pretty serious, a cracked skull, broken vertebrae and a broken ankle but luckily luckily no one died and no one is going to be permanently disabled. Impressively, they are all going to try staying in Antofagasta until the school year ends.

I had a bad experience with a collectivo the other night. I took one back to my house after going out Friday night and when we got to my house the driver asked for 10 mil (about 20 bucks). Usually, I negotiate before I enter the collectivo but this night for reasons I didn't. I was pissed because the cost should have been 4 or six dollars. I argued with the drive for awhile showing that I a) understood Spanish and b) understood collectivo prices, however the most I could get him down to was 7 mil. There was no way I was paying that but the smallest bill I had was a 5 mil so I tossed it at him and left the collectivo slamming the door on my way out. While I was walking the rest of the way to my house the collectivo driver pulled up to yell at me some. I think he told me to be respectful and that people don't do this in Chile but I'm not really sure what he said because I only kind of understand Spanish. I said sorry and walked away.

I was talking to a half-chilean half Japanese man the other day. He told me he had been to Washington DC, considered it the most beautiful city he has seen and started telling me about the cherry blossoms. I do like DC a lot. I wasn't sure what to make of the fact that he got sick off of the seafood and had to spend a day in the hospital.

I've started helping the students practice for the up-coming spelling bee. They are pretty good but sometimes they will say the most random letter combinations in trying to spell a word. For example the word was weather and the student tried beginning it with a 'g' I just started laughing. The have the most problems with the 'v' versus 'b' , 'd' versus 't' and 'sh' versus 'ch'.

One reason why I like to play sports

So yesterday, I was a little stressed after my school day. Tuesday is rugby day so I walked down to the field and practiced with the team. After two and a half hours of practice I was completely relaxed.

Why was I stressed? Just a variety of annoying things happened yesterday. One of my co-teachers had repaired the dictionary in my class (the kids had largely destroyed them, though the ministry hadn't sent the best dictionaries ... they were pretty thick and broke easily in the center) and she was upset that the students in my class had written all over one of the repaired dictionaries. So she was urging me to keep the dictionaries locked up in the cabinets. However, my view is that if the dictionaries are in the cabinets they are never going to get used while if they are out in the classroom they will get destroyed but they also will be used. (I can hear someone being unsurprised that I'm unconcerned with my things getting ruined).

Also yesterday I had to go to the bank to find out why the money the government had deposited into my account hadn't shown up. This meant I had to figure out what I needed to say, stand in line at the bank for an hour and then try my hardest to figure out what the bank employee is slowly saying to me. After only 2 repetitions I found out that their was a second layer of security on my account that needed to be removed and that I had to go stand in a second line to do so. Fortunately, the second line was pretty small. Hopefully, now I can get my pay for the month of July.

I was also stressed because I agreed to help teach some of the younger students. One of the secretaries was subbing for the English teacher who was out that day and asked if I could help her. I agreed to help her, partially because the secretaries are always helping me out. However, after my regular day of teaching dealing with two full classes of 40 students was a little much. (My classes only have 20 students) Especially because they were little kids and especially noisy and screamy. Though it was stressful it was also fun interacting with kids that age ... for about half the class the secretary and I acted out a verb and the kids had to say the correct verb. The kids were very enthusiastic and I tried to keep them entertained by coming up with creative actions like farting or doing push-ups.

One of the goals of the English Opens Doors Program is to inspire the students to learn English by having them interact with the volunteer. The students of the school, despite having 5 volunteers in the past, are enthusiastic towards me. Everyday, I have about 50 students say hi to me and I shake at least 30 students hands. Students are always coming up to me and asking me questions (which I sometimes understand) and members of the rugby team always ask me if I'm coming to practice and try to teach me dirty words. This is probably the most rewarding aspect of the program.

In Chile instead of saying your mom, they say your sister. There is currently a beer commercial where people say things that can be taken innocently or not and after each statement a guy says your sister. In part of the commercial they are at a rugby game and a person says enter with force to the rugby players (which is then followed by the dude saying your sister). So of course last night at practice people keep telling each other to enter with force. Guy humor is pretty much the same all over.

Pictures

Photographs from my August -- http://picasaweb.google.com/paulspicturesfromabroad/AntofagastaAugust#

Includes pictures of churimoyo, mountain climbing, hand in the desert, la portada, ghost town, empanadas, and stuffed tomatoes!!!

Update

Last week one of my students let out the most atrocious fart I have smelt. We decided to hold the class outside the smell was so bad. I went back to my classroom to make sure that there wasn't actually fecal matter hiding somewhere. Kids from the next class 25 minutes later were complaining about the smell. The funniest part was when I told my co-teacher about the incident she said she would have the class's head teacher talk to the students about it. Any ideas about what the head teacher will say?

Yesterday, I shaved my mustache for rugby purposes. Since I am playing with high schoolers, our rugby coach told me I need to look more like a high schooler. I definitely prefer having facial hair. I feel I look a lot younger and less distinguished looking. Since I have shaved, my host mom keeps asking me where Paul is and if I've seen him. In typical Chilean fashion, 24 hours later, the joke has gone on for too long.

On Friday, our school competed in the second round of debates. We did a good job, though we performed better in the first round. (112 points this round compared to 138 points the last round … out of 144 … I felt the judges this round were harder). Based on the combined scores for both rounds, my school easily had the highest score. The next round is the regional competition, which is on August 31. The topic is advertisements. Since the topic is the same as the first round of debates, we aren't going to have to do too much to prepare, just review the speeches and try making them more gripping and dramatic.

I finally climbed the mountain behind my house. Two times actually, once with just my hostmom and the second time with my host mom and another volunteer, Rachel. The first time was really late in the afternoon and by the time we had gotten to the top clouds had come in preventing us from seeing anything. It was very eerie, particularly when you looked at the edge of the cliff and saw nothing but gray clouds, whether you looked down or out. Despite not being far from Antofagasta we couldn't see the city at all from the top of the mountain. The second time, we left earlier, but it still got cloudy and we didn't get the greatest view from the top. About halfway up we could see the portada in the distance.

I'm not sure I've mentioned this before but there are more public displays of affection particularly among the young people in Chile than in the United States. It largely because kids growing up live with their parents for a longer amount of time then they do in the United States (often until they are 30 or so). The current generation is known as generation kangaroo for this reason – because the kids bounce back to their parents as soon as possible. The other day I was walking back from rugby practice and I decided to walk through a park at 9:30 at night and on every bench their was a couple making out.

Sight-seeing in the Atacaman desert

This Saturday, some other volunteers and I rented a car and checked out a few of the local sights, namely: el mano del desierto, a ghost town, and la portada. Despite my nose deciding it need to be blown every couple of minutes it was a good day. We picked up food at the grocery store before we left and had sandwiches of advocado, cheese and ham with cookies and other snacks. I took a number of good photographies that I'll have to post in the not to distant future.

El mano del desierto is this huge sculpture of a hand in the middle of the Atacaman desert. It was designed to be sort of in the middle of no-where so that people would come solely for the sculpture and then take in the surrounding atmosphere. Apparently the sculptor created giants hands in other parts of the world, allegedly there is one in Patagonia, Venice and France. Unfortunately, a group of people were cleaning the hand when we got there which sort of interrupted the just us and the desert aspect of the place.

The ghost town (I forgot its name) was also in the middle of the desert. It was previously a company town during the nitrate boom (which went bust when scientists figured out how to manufacture nitrates instead of having to mine them). Afterwards it was used briefly as a camp for political prisoners during the 70s right after the Pinochet coup. It was cool place with lots of rusted stuff lying around. The Chilean government had restored the town's theatre and central plaza, which was this mini little oasis of green in the middle of a dead town in the middle of the driest on earth. The Atacaman desert is something, because I had been expecting a little bit of green, maybe some cactus or something but there is nothing but dirt, sand, rocks and hills.

While at the ghost town, we locked the keys in the car. Fortunately, some other town visitors were able to help us break into our rented car. It was funny because when we explained the situation, the guy who helped us was like sure I have the right tools in my car. We definitely gave each other a glance when he said that because who has the right tools to break into a car. However, he came back with only ordinary tools which we used to partially wedge open the car door.

The Portada is the sight that Antofagasta is most famous for. It's this huge granite rock 100 feet off the coast that has been eroded so that it has a hole in the middle. A picture of it is featured on all of the town buses. I've been a little skeptical of whether the beauty of the Portada would live up to its reputation but it definitely exceeded expectations. Its in a very scenic location on a beach surrounded by mini cliffs and it is larger than I expected. You can't help but a wonde a little how is it standing with this huge hole in the middle of it. Definitely worth seeing if you happen to be passing through Antofagasta.

Weird fruit watch and empanadas

So the other day I tried a Chirimoyo (or custard´s apple in English)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Custard-apple. It was pretty good, sweet and juicy but unusual in that the flesh of the fruit was a tad custardy.


The other day, I also went to Florencia empanadas which makes the best empanadas in Antofagasta. You can get tons of different topings such as bacon, shrimp, chicken and cheese, olives, to put inside of your empanada and they come out nice warm and greasy. I enjoy Julia´s Empanadas in DC, but these are easily twice to three times as good. (which makes me wonder why they don´t make empanadas like these in DC)The coolest part of these empanadas is that the store puts holes in different places on the crust of the empanada, that you can use to identify what´s inside the empanada. Definitely handy when you and friends order half a dozen

Debates

So Colegio Santa Emilia did really well at the debate competition this past Friday. We scored 138.5 points out of a possible 144. The next highest score was 116 points. I wish we had gotten a little bit more useful feedback from the judges so that we can perform better when the team goes to the national competition, in part because I'm running out of things to tell them. Some of the team members were definitely nervous because they started speaking really quickly when the were up on stage. One minor curveball was that the debaters used a microphone and we hadn't practiced with one before. However for the most part, they handled it without any problems.

I also had a reasonable amount of fun doing the 4 hour event thanks in large part to my students. Before we debated they had a silly team cheer that we did (give me an s give me an s give me an s what does that spell sssss; give me a h give me a h give me an h what does that spell (silence) (the h in spanish is silent)). We also teased each other throughout the event.

The next regional debate is in 2 weeks. But even though we have a lot of work to do to prepare for it, I feeling pretty confident heading into it.

Debates

Tomorrow is the first round of debates. Wish us luck. I'll let you all know how it goes.

Antofagasta

So the Antofagasta Region has lost its first volunteer. She found teaching too stressful. I'm sorry that she was leaving because she was very social and upbeat. Interestingly enough she is moving to Santiago to continue to study Spanish. Two other volunteers here are also considering leaving sometime in the near future as well. One misses home and has student loans that need repaying and the other one doesn't feel safe in Antofagasta. I was surprised by the person who said that they didn't feel safe, because in my opinion Antofagasta is safer than my neighborhood back in DC (this may say more about my neighborhood in DC than it does Antofagasta). My host mom is always telling me that this or that area is unsafe and I've started rolling my eyes and sarcastically saying I'm sure its real dangerous (despite rolling my eyes I do tend not to walk in those areas). In return, I show my host mom articles of crime in Columbia Heights and ask her if she is sure that Antofagasta is dangerous. Now the person who feels unsafe did have his wallet stolen which could contribute to his feeling uneasy.

As for me, I'm doing alright here in Antofagasta. I'm definitely still counting the weeks and I am happy that I've past the half way mark of my stay here in Chile. However, I'm definitely not ready to return home yet. And though I do miss things about home, I'm not having a bad time here in Antofagasta. I enjoy learning how to play rugby and salsa and getting to see and travel throughout South America. I don't enjoy learning spanish (languages has never been a fun subject for me) but I'm glad that I am learning it.

In other news, the four month volunteers have arrived in Antofagasta so I'm excited to meet and share stories with a new group of people. There are 10 of them which doubles the number of volunteers in Antofagasta!

Pepino Dulce story

So the other day, I made a hamburger casserole for my host family. At the grocery store, I saw an interesting unusual vegetable named pepino dulce. Since my casserole needed some peppers, I picked on up. Unfortunately the word for pepper is pimienta. Pepino is cucumber. So instead of buying sweet peppers I was buying sweet cucumbers. I was very surprised when I got home and chopped open the pepino dulce because it was very unpepper-like. It was sort of pink inside and had a slight melon taste. I tossed into the casserole but I'm probably lucky that you couldn't taste it in the final product.

Links

Article about Guinea Pigs (http://www.slate.com/id/2223942/) that mentions the Last Supper Guinea Pig painting (http://reflectionseurope.com/gallery/imagestore/Peru/reflectionseurope_com_Last_Supper_with_guinea_pig_Zapata_Cusco_Peru.sized.jpg) I saw in Cusco.

Stories from Peru

One of the coolest things I saw in Peru happened on a bus. On all of these long distance bus trips that I have been taking, people come on and off the bus all the time to sell the passengers stuff like water, soda, candy, sandwiches, in Chile empanadas. On the way from Cusco to Puno a lady came on the bus with a huge cloth bag on her back. She opened it and inside there was cooked lamb meat. She then took out a huge knife and started hacking at it and selling it to the passengers on the bus along with some cooked potatoes. Keep in mind that the bus was moving at the time and that we were on a Peruvian road with lots of bumps and turns. It was one of those wow I'm definitely not in America moments. I bought a piece and it was pretty good.

In Puno, we ended up spending a night on an island in the middle of Lake Titicaca sleeping in the house of an island family. I learned a new game from the family's kids that involved throwing rocks into holes. If you hit someone else's rock you got another turn making the game a lot like croquet. I lost badly.

Machu Pichu was definitely the highlight of the trip. I wish we could of arranged it to spend more time there; we did it as a day trip meaning we had to wake up early to catch a four hour train ride and then leave early to to catch the train back to Cusco, leaving us with only 4.5 hours on the mountain. We paid for a guide at the mountain to explain everything to us in English which was definitely worth it. He kept making silly jokes like the Egyptians the copied this from us. Afterwards, I was surprised because the other volunteers decided to leave Machu Pichu to try to get lunch in the nearby town before the train ride back. I on the otherhand was determined to spend as much time as possible on the mountain so I stayed and wandered around some. I ended up trying to climb the mountain behind me (see pictures) but ran out of time (and water) before I could reach the top. Part of me wishes I had played it less safe and kept climbing, but I was pretty tired, kind of thirsty, and a little dizzy (from the altitude) when I turned around. (My shirt was completely sweated through) Still I managed to get some pretty cool pictures from way above Machu Pichu. 

Photos

Photos of my winter vacation are now posted here - http://picasaweb.google.com/paulspicturesfromabroad/Wintervaccation

Cathedral in Cusco

One of the cooler things I did on my recent winter vacation was take this audio tour of a huge cathedral in the main square of Cusco. The Spanish of the course decided that the best place to build their cathedral would be right on top of an old Incan Palace (This is a common theme in Cusco, which is why Machu Pichu is unique, because the Spanish never found it and thus never destroyed it. Many of the buildings in Cusco are built with the original Incan foundations beneath them). One of things that made the audio tour unique was that it described the techniques and strategies the Spanish used to make Catholicism more accessible to the local population. Much of the artwork in the church had a dual purpose of both worshiping the religion and explaining the religion to the local population. The most memorable painting in the cathedral is a painting of the last supper where the meal has been replaced with the meat of a Guinea Pig, which apparently was something upper class Incans used to share at feasts. Also in the church were several carvings that could be take to be either as the Incan figure Pachamama or the Virgin Mary.

Also amusing was that the Spanish apparently did not respect or understand the Incan's drainage system and as a result for a hundred years or so the church kept flooding because water naturally pooled there.

Also interesting was the fact the greater emphasis on saints then Catholic traditions that I grew up with. Especially, interesting was different representations for the same figure especially of the Virgin Mary with different names, such as Virgin Del Carmen and Virgin of Belen. I was slightly reminded of the scene in Talladega Nights where Will Ferrell describes what Jesus is his favorite to pray to. They also had a statue for a black Jesus (named El Negro) who was the saint in charge of earthquakes. (the audio tour said he was black because of the smoke of the candles lit to him but I'm do not really believe that because none of the other statures seemed slightly blackened despite even presumably they also would have had candles lit for them.

Another thing the Cathedral had was the large public cross of Fransisco Pizarro.

Peru

I had a really great winter vacation. I went mountain biking in the countryside, explored Cusco, climbed around Machu Pichu, ate Guinea Pig, slept on an island on Lake Titicaca, bought some artesian goods, ate lots of potatoes and pizza, explored Arequipa, checked out a lot of Incan ruins and generally enjoyed myself. The only downside was that at the end I got a little sick and thus returned early skipping out on Colca Canyon. But I do have a week of in September so maybe I can return and do a several day hiking trip. The biggest thing I rerealized on this trip is how much I like the outdoors. When I return to DC I do need do more hiking and biking trips. For the record I think Machu Pichu is more impressive than the Taj Mahal (sorry Prashant). If I could redo anything about the trip it would be to rearrange the itinerary to spend more time on Machu Pichu instead of trying to do it is as a day trip. Also I would do it a little bit later in the trip because afterwards for all of the Incan ruins I saw I was like yeah they are nice but Machu Pichu is more impressive.

I have a couple of stories and pictures about my trip, that I´ll try to post over the next couple of days, but I could be busy trying to readjust to life in Antofagasta.

Weird eating habits

So today at lunch my host mom´s niece put butter on her graham cracker!

Winter Break Plans

So tomorrow begins the first day of winter break. I'm going to be traveling to Peru for the vaccation with a couple of other volunteers. The current plan is to check out Cusco, Machu Pichu, Lake Titicaca and Arequipa which is apparently near a huge canyone that is twice as deep as the grand canyon! I'm definitely looking forward to the break from classes and the beginning of my vacation.

Because I'll be traveling, I'll be out of contact for the next two weeks. But, I'll definitely take lots of photos of everything.

Payday

Today, our paychecks for June arrived in the region. They were delayed a little over week because a lot of the staff in Santiago were sick from swine flu. Late paychecks are definitely annoying but because I fortunately have savings so it really didn't impact me.

My host mom has been making an authentic chilean food called picarones (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picarones) lately, in part because its cold out and its a traditional winter dish. Picarones are little squashed unqlazed donuts that you dip into some kind of hot sugar. They are pretty tasty and definitely keep your stomach warm.

Photos

Here are some pictures of Antofagasta that I've been meaning to post. I spent some time fiddling picassas cropping tool one these (http://picasaweb.google.com/paulspicturesfromabroad/Antofagastapicturesof#)

In other news, my nose does not like the cold.

Weekend Activities

On Friday, the volunteers got to meet the governor of region 2. It was a quick little event, handshake and photograph but still kind of neat. It was a little awkward because we were expecting to go into his office where just he and an assistant would be but instead we enterred at the end of huge governmental meeting in a decent size room with about 20 people around a huge table.

Afterwards, we went to a bbq at the escondida foundation with typical bbq foods of choripan and steak and zucchini. It was pretty chill except that the food didn't arrive until hour after we did.

Me as a debate judge

So last Friday, I was one of three judges for a small private school debate competition. One of the reasons, I wanted to be debate judge was to get a better handle on what the judges are looking for, so that I will know how to prepare my students for their upcoming debate competitions.

One of the take aways I got is that it is possible for the judges to watch the same debate and come away with fairly divergent reactions. This is a little troubling because in the regional rounds its the two teams with the highest scores that proceed -- meaning that is possible to win both of your regional debates and still not proceed to the next round. However, for my school its not a problem because we will automatically advance to the national round since we were the national champions last year.

My other take away was that the students should be very dramatic when they are speaking perhaps even over acting a little bit. Both in this competition and in the speaking competitions the winners were the team that should the most emotion.

After the competition, I had a respectful talk with one of the teams who disagreed with the judges ruling and wanted to know why we ruled as we did. They had a decent reason to be upset, they had actually made a really good argument that all of the judges missed. But the reason all the judges missed it is that it wasn't well presented, the impacts of the argument weren't mentioned, and they didn't repeat the argument at all in the rest of the speeches. My lesson from this is to be careful, just because you make an argument does not mean that the argument was heard/understood.

Now to eat Turkey in Turkey

So I finally made Chili in Chile. I didn't have any Chili powder but found out how to make a substitute online using other spices. It didn't taste quite right but was still very good. My host family liked both it and the bad jokes accompanying it.

Yesterday, I had off for the feast of St. Paul and St. Peter. I went to the movie theatre to see Transformers 2 in subtitled. Today I missed 3 of my 4 classes. 2 because of a mass for the St. Paul and Peter feast and 1 because they skipped claiming I was busy with the debate team.

brrrr

So, it is now officially winter and I am cold. I'm currently sitting in my classroom, with my sweater, winter hat and scarf. Outside its not as cold as it gets in DC, but because all the buildings (my house, the school, cafes) lack any kind of heating there is no break from the cold. The other day I taped the second door to my room shut, in an attempt to stop the draft in my room and to make it a little bit warmer. I keep being at the kitchen table wondering how cold it is outside and then realizing oh wait its just as cold as it is right here. At the supermarket, I keep looking enviously at the space heaters on sale, but my host mom laughs at me and said only really old ladies buy those. Apparently just as August is the hottest month in DC it is the coldest one here, so when you are complaining of humidity and sweat, I'll be complaining of coldness and frostbite.

School Stuff

Today was the public speaking competition. My student, Catalina, unfortunatley didn't finish in the top three and won't be advancing to the next round. I thought that Catalina was the second best student there. The judges, however, disagreed giving it to a boy who gave a very enthusiastic but error prone speech, and another kid who spoke perhaps a tad more clearly and loudly but had a simple speech. Catalina speech was well done, but she stood a little further from the microphone so it was a tad harder to hear her. Oh well.

They students also got back their grades for their first trimester this week. My host brother Alex got some mediocre marks (I think the equivalent of some low B's) so his mom is making him drop out of the student government for the rest of the year to focus more on his grades ... creating some household tension. In Chile, grades and test are the sole determinants to what college you go to, making extra curriuculars much less important.

I also realized this week that one of the biggest differences between schools in Chile and schools in the United States is that in the states, classes tend to be arranged by student skill level so that all the good students are in the same class. Here, all students go to all their classes (actually the students stay in the same class room all day and the teacher rotate, as a volunteer I am the sole exception to theis) with the same students meaning that there is a greater mixing of skill levels. I wonder if this related to the notion of solidarity that frequently mentioned as strong value here or to ease of scheduling.

Federalism

So over the weekend I was talking with my boss a little bit more about the school strikes which resulted when the local districts used the money the had received from the federal government for teacher bonuses on other things. I realized I didn't know why this type of event didn't happen in the United States ... states receive tons on federal government money and as far as I know it almost always goes to what it is directed to ... is this because of contract law? better financial controls, better incentives? the federal government would sue if the states didn't use the money as directed? It sounded like this sort of problem was common in Chile and I imagine it would be common in other developing countries, but I can't imagine a solution being to complicated. Potential here for a thesis project?

Pictures from Mejillones and Tal Tal have been posted

here: http://picasaweb.google.com/paulspicturesfromabroad/MejillonesyTalTal#

Tal Tal

So my trip to Tal Tal was very nice and relaxing. I successfully gave my presentation and met the Tal Tal volunteers who are friendly and fun. Tal Tal is a small beach town that fills up in the summer with people from the Atacama region and all over. It has a nice main street and apparently nice beaches though we didn't go to check them out. Like Antofagasta it is built right against (and on) the surrounding hills. It was used to be bigger with a railroad line during the Atacama's saltpeter and nitrate day, but has condensed itself into a pretty little tourist town with some fishing. Because it was late fall, the town was rather empty.

While I feel I have a good set-up here in Chile, I am a little jealous of one of the Tal Tal volunteer's living situations. She lives in a huge 1 story mansion right on the water. Part of the house is a classy restaurants with good food (many restaurants in Chile are just lightly decorated rooms, with food that is slightly better than how my host grandmother cooks). As a result she enjoys chef cooked lunches and dinners. We ate at this restaurant Friday night and I really enjoyed the food (fish empanadas, swordfish, artichoke hearts, french fries with plenty of lemon) and the good wine. (pictures to be posted soon of Tal Tal and the restaurant.)

Her host family have been around since Tal Tal was founded. I was interested to learn that one of the ways her host great grandpa made money was pumping water from the sea to water down Tal Tal's dirt roads so that dust wouldn't get everywhere.

Packages make everyone's day

Thank you all my friends who helped with putting together my birthday package. It made my day/week. It arrived this friday and I was able to open it on Saturday. The timing was perfect also ... I had just returned to house feeling sick after my trip to Tal Tal and said hi host family, I'm feeling sick host family, goodnight host family and they all said but you can't go to sleep you have a package. So instead of feeling sick in bed Saturday night doing nothing, I was able to distract myself with episodes of weeds devouring reese peanut butter cups (I've almost finished the bag).

Anyways thank you everyone!

English Debates

So I've started working with the school's debate team on constructing briefs for the upcoming English Debates. The two topics for the first set of debates are:

Technology is killing our work ethic

and 

Advertisements makes people waste money.

If anyone sees any interesting news stories related to these topics definitely forward them to me.

Updates from Here

So the other day I introduced peanut butter and jelly to my family. What happened was I was explaining how two things go together like peanut butter and jelly and they started protesting that peanut butter and jelly didn't go together at all. At first, I thought they were just pulling my leg, but then I realized by their faces of ick at imagining the combination that they really though this was some crazy gringo idea. So this past week we went to the supermarket and picked up some peanut butter and tried it out, and of course they liked it. My host mom was like damn the gringo isn't crazy, he's right.

This past weekend a couple other volunteers and I took a day trip to the oceanside town of Mejillones located an hour north of here. It was a relaxing day spent walking along the beach , eating seafood and ice cream. Mejillones is supposed to have a lot of sea lions and sea turtles but we didn't see any. The most memorable moment occurred when I thought I saw a sand dollar, went to pick it up and it turned out to be merely bird poop.

The six month volunteers have also just arrived in the region. I met three of them that will be in Antofagasta this past Sunday over a nice government paid introduction dinner. They seemed nice. This weekend I'm traveling to the town of Tal Tal for the English Opens Doors Program with my boss Marcela and another volunteer to welcome the 3 volunteers in that town to the region. I'm going to also give a small presentation of what I've learned in my two months here. I'm excited because not only do I get to miss a day of classes but I also get to explore another town.

I've finally gotten my temporary Chilean carnet, which will be like a green card for me. The best thing about this is that it means I can use my credit more easily (whenever I tried to use it in the past the store keepers would always give me a hassle because one of the security measures that they use is to write down the rut number of the credit card owner but because I was a foreigner I didn't have a rut number. But with my carnet I now do.) People have been making fun of the number of my rut number because it is the same number that a new born would receive.

I got my hair cut the other day. The owner of the house next to mine cuts hair for a living. I had some minor problems, because I really didn't know how to describe the hair cut I wanted except for saying mas similar a mi pelo ahora pero yo quiero tener menos pelo (which I think means --very similar to my hair now but I want to have less hair). Fortunately, the haircutter had a book of hair photos and I found my hair style there.

This upcoming Thursday, I am going to play in my first rugby game with the team. I am pumped. This past practice we spent half the practice locating rocks on our dirt field and pulverizing them with a pick.

Odds and Ends

So I a couple of people have pointed out that I really haven't talked about how I am doing here in Chile. Which reading back on my past posts is definitely true. 

I think the best description of my state of being is that I'm doing better than surviving but not thriving. I've managed to establish a weekly routine. During the mornings and afternoons of weekdays I teach, surf the Internet and plan lessons/grade tests. Occasionally, I am able to spend the afternoon at the beach.

Monday Night - Spanish classes

Tuesday Night - Rugby practice

Wednesday Night - Free Night (though I'm going to try to start showing English movies for the students every other Wednesday night

Thursday Night - Rugby Practice

Saturday - Salsa classes

Rugby practice is with some students at school who have a coach and everything. I don't play at their games on Saturday because I'm too old to participate, but I go to practices because it was a really really good work that leaves me exhausted. 

I've also been becoming closer with the other volunteers in Antofagasta who are fun to hang out with. Last week, I also hung out with the brother of one of the rugby players who speaks a little bit of English (because I am in Chile hanging out of course meant that I didn't get back to my house until 5:30).

My Spanish has been improving slowly. I can say a decent amount of things in Spanish (my top 5 list of things I say is si, no, por supesto, lo que sea, y no te preocupe .... the Chilean equivalent of baby has not made the list and I actually don't know how to say it) but my ability to understand what other people say is still fairly limited (it doesn't help that Chileans are considered by other Spanish speakers to have a tendency to mumble). Often though I am able to make out 90% of the words that they say, but am unable to put the words together.

Its a little weird that I was definitely feeling restless in DC, but now that I'm here I'm counting the months until I return to DC.

I'm expecting the next couple of months to be better .... more volunteers are coming to the area, the English debates are going to start soon which will be interesting, and I've got a two week winter break in July.

I've also been trying to figure out what I will being doing for the next couple of years. I'm debating between pursuing a Masters or a PhD in either economics of international development, international development or public policy with a focus on international development. However, I have been having a hard time gaining good information that would help me choose what type of program is best for me. If anyone has any advice for me I would appreciate it.

Last year, I applied to Master programs at SAIS, American University, and at the University of Maryland. I got into American and Maryland and waitlisted at SAIS. I decided to defer from UMD for a year. So what I really trying to figure out is there program that is significantly better for me than UMD's (note: I would qualify as an in-state resident making UMD relatively cheap for me).

teacher strike

So teachers throughout Chile have been on strike throughout the country. In Antofagasta, strikes have gone on for the last three weeks. Today, I finally received an email from English Opens doors explaining the situation. 

" the strike is the result of a bonus that teachers throughout the country were promised last year during a renegotiation of their contracts.  The government claims that it sent the bonus money out to the municipalities to be distributed to the teachers, but apparently the municipalities spent the money on other things without passing it along to the intended recipients."

Unfortunately, I still have school and classes because I work at semi-private school which has a different contract and I believe receive better pay, but other volunteers have had the days off. The interesting thing is that I haven't seen any stories about it on the television news ... not that I watch all that much news, but in the past couple of days I have seen news stories about a 3 and a half foot mom and a story about a family getting gastric by pass surgeries. 

Rumor is that the strike will end Wednesday or Thursday this week.

Cumpleaños

So I turned 26 this past weekend and celebrated my birthday on Saturday. The original plan was that I was going to return to my house after salsa lessons for some cake with some of my host family and a couple of friends and then head to a disco for the evening. I was a little bummed because not many people were going to be able to make it ... asados going on, sickness and I even thought about trying to move the event to a better day. 

However, when I returned after salsa I was surprised by my host family and all the other antofagastan volunteers at my house. Just like my 24th birthday this caught me completely off guard. We then proceeded to eat cake (chocolate and manjar) sushi (prepared by my host brother Alex) potatoes on toothpicks that you could dip into a peruvian sauce (at first I thought they were cut up pineapple) beer, rum, homemade bread, and chips. I also opened my presents in which I received a t shirt, a book of Karl Marx in Spanish (an inside joke), some chocolate, and some nice rum. At 12:30 we left for the discotheque where we danced until 5.

The funniest incident of the evening was when it came time to cut the cake. Apparently its the tradition for the birthday boy to take a bite of the cake before it is cut (and someone will push his head into the cake) but I misunderstood what was being explained to me and instead put my forehead into the cake. 

San Pedro Photos

http://picasaweb.google.com/paulspicturesfromabroad/SanPedro#-- I've post the photos from San Pedro de Atacama. I think that they are pretty good though none can quite capture the view of the open landscape

Post cards

I bought some postcards at San Pedro de Atacama. Email me your address if you want one.

San Pedro de Atacama

My trip to San Pedro de Atacama was pretty amazing. Eight other volunteers and I were able to tour the chilean countryside seeing mountains, the desert, lakes, and the altiplano. While our large group was a tad unwieldy we managed to get a good group package deal on our tours. Everyday the sky was perfectly blue without a single cloud and the temperatures comfortably in the seventies. At night it would become much cooler but nothing too extreme. Being there made me I wish I had down more outdoor explorations when I was in DC. Perhaps when I return I can put some cheap trips together.

San Pedro itself is a very cute little town with a church, a little shaded town square and many restaurants and tourist shops. However, it has many little oddities that made it unique. For example, the town has a bad electrical generator which means that the power in town was frequently out at both our hostel and in shops around town. When this happened some shops turned on their own generators, others closed or continued to operate without power. Unfortunately, one of the shops that would close was the ice cream shop. Also, there was no bank in the town and only two ATMS, both would stop running when the power was out and both ran out of money on Sunday creating problems for some people. Also, due to some past instance none of the restaurants or bars in the city have the proper permits to allow people to dance. At a bar when two volunteers danced a little salsa, they were warned that if they police showed up they could receive a ticket. Because of this we were invited to a party at some person's house where dancing would occur. We went and ended up talking to both tourists and Chileans standing around bonfire. It reminded me a little bit of college. 

Because the many pictures I took (to be posted soon) can do a better job showing the scenery than my writing possibly can I'm only going to mention the highlights here.

Got to try llama meat - tastes like beef

Saw the beautiful landscape at the Valley of the Moon,

Saw the Tatio Geysers ... one of the highest and largest active geyser fields in the world -- (to see them you have to wake up at 4am to arrive at sunrise when the geysers for reasons I'm not sure of are the most active -- Because they are so high up it was very very cold and my toes were frozen by the end.

Both when I was visiting the Tatio geysers and other altiplano lakes, I broke my personal record for the most distance from sea level while standing on the ground. El Tatio is approximately 13780 feet above sea level. My previous highest had been when I climbed Mt. Baldy in New Mexico which is 12440 feet. Interestingly, the view from El Tatio and the high parts of the altiplano weren't that spectacular because all of the nearby ground in high up while the view from Mt. Baldy was very spectacular because it dominated the surrounding landscape.

Got to see flamingoes on a lake in the middle of the salt flat.

Got to soak in some hot outdoor springs 

Got to climb around ancient atacaman ruins in on the side of the mountain. -- while climbing around I tried going down a part of the hill that was too steep to climb and ending up having to slide on the rocks down for about 100 feet.

The night sky was brilliant and truly amazing --- because of the lack of lights from the town and the clear cloudless sky.

I really can't wait for my next trip in Chile.

-- my next trip might actually be to Peru

Trip

So today I am going to be leaving Antofagasta, and heading to San Pedro de Atacama (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_pedro_de_atacama) for the next four days. Despite being a small town in the desert, it is one of Chile´s top tourist attractions because it is near geysers, lakes with flamingos, and something called the valley of the moon.

This does mean that I will be out of contact with everybody for the next couple of days. More when I get back.

Estadunidense

So i found the other week that the proper way to describe myself is not as Americano but as Estadounidense. Since I found this out I´ve talked to some people and all of them insists that Americano refers to the continent and that they are just as Americano as I am. I thought I could win by pointing out that they would never in any situation refer to themselves as Americano and understand me perfectly when I use the term but I couldn´t win any coverts to my argument

Bureaucracy

So the other day, I got to miss school and go downtown to get my papers processed for mywork visa. This involved visiting two buildings next to each ... the Antofagastan Police office and some other building. It was a lot like going to the MVA in that there was a lot of waiting. Marcela, the regional cordinator for English Opens Doors, was with us to help smooth the process. At the second stop, I ran into some minor problems because the line ticket I had, had already been called while I had been waiting in line at the other place. Marcela went up and talked to the supervisor and managed to get me a line pass. However, the person behind the counter wouldn´t let me copy my papers with their copier even though she had let all the other volunteers copy theirs saying it wasn´t her responsibility. (I think she was upset about the line pass ..... the system is a little silly because one of the papers that needed to be copied was from the building next door but there were no copiers on the way). So both her and Marcela went up to the supervisor and argued their cases. It was interesting watching them argue for two minutes back forth ... not loud but intensely. Marcela won and the lady made me my copies and processed my application.

Afterwards, we went to a decent restaurant where I ordered a vegetarian burrito. It was the worst burrito I´ve had in sometime, basically a black bean salad wrapped in a tortilla. Oddly enough there were some small pieces of chicken in it. Several times while I´ve been here, I´ve realized how mexicanized my view of Latin and South America is. I assume that if they have it in Mexicao then they will have it here. However, tacos, burritos, tequilla, are all very rare here. Avocado however is very popular here. (I had some of my 12th graders create jokes and several created jokes about a phantom avocado.) Luckily, the restaurant had delicious kiwi juice.

protests

So normally, I´d be teaching my 11th graders right now. However, the principal is currently talking to them. Apparently, their math teacher hurt herself and is going to be out for several months and the students have been protesting the lack of a suitable replacement.

Though it wouldn´t be evident from my classes some students here do take there education seriously. Several years ago there were widespread protests by high school students here (called the penguin protests after their school uniforms) to protest the quality of high school education they received which prevented them from competing for positions at good universities.

from reading wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraponera - who wants to be a Satere-Mawe warrior?

Random Thoughts about Chile

I read somewhere that after seatbelts became mandatory in the US, car crashes went up because people drove a tad more recklessly (ie. moral hazard ... from a public health standpoint it was successful because fatalities were reduced). If this is the case then in Chile the drivers should drive more cautiously because no one here wears a seatbelt. But thats definitely not the case. Note: despite being crazier drivers here than in the US it nowhere approaches the craziness of driving in India where in most cars the backseats don't even have  seatbelts.

Because of the dust, people's windshield are always dirty.

Nancy means nobody here.

They say ciao here instead of adios but spell it chao.

My family spends more time cooking food here then we do in the United States. Almost everyday includes a trip to grocery store and home stove cooked meal (my family doesn't have a microwave). They usually go to the store to pick up fresh bread and vegetables, but since they go almost everyday they will also pick up whatever else they need when at the store. Last Friday, I cooked lunch for my family (baked fish with mustard and black pepper). We left the house at 1 pm and didn't started eating until 5:30. During that time we probably walked 4 miles between buying groceries and trying to go to the bank (it turned out it was closed because it was Labor day). Now we had to walk a little farther then normal to get fish because the local supermarket doesn't have them so instead we had to go to the outdoor market. But still that was a lot of time mostly devoted to making a meal. The meal was good and the family made salsa and salad to go along with it. But it was a lot of prep time for just one meal.

My family doesn't have a credit card.

May 1st is Labor day here. I think this is the case for much of South America

While at the outdoor market, I saw a man a man slap another man hard for saying something to his wife/girlfriend.

Kids playing on a playground in Chile sound exactly like kids playing in the United States. A sea of screams, laughs and shrieks.

Along with the typical school chaos there is only one printer for the school, which is kept in the director/principal's office. The office is usually locked and only a couple of people have the key. So often when I print something I am unable to pick it up until the following day ... and sometimes the following day the printout has disappeared. I never knew how much of a luxury easy printer access was at the BLS.

Right now some kids are pretending to sneak into my class room and everytime i look up they run away.

the power of American ads

So as I have mentioned Chileans eat a lot of Mayonnaise. At lunch today as my host mom was putting mayonnaise on  her noodles and fries I started making fun of her love of mayonnaise. She replied that it was the gringo's fault ... that before everybody ate house mayonnaise and didn't use it that much but then hellmans came and started showing ads of kids eating their rice and brocoli after their mom poured mayonnaise on it. And after that, Chileans started putting mayonnaise on everything. After she said this I broke out laughing ... especially since I tend to discount the efficacy of ads. 

Asado

So the Chilean Asado went well ... in many ways it was a typical Chilean event in that ...

The start time was at 9. We left the house at 10:30, arrived at 11 and were one of the first people there. Food was served at 1am. I fell asleep at around 5. The party ended at 6 and I arrived back at my house at 6:45.

The event was pretty good even if I could only really converse with two people there. There was dancing which was fun and Karaoke which was less fun. The meat was good especially the chorizo.

I'm definitely not used to the late times of everything. What's funny is that I had hurried back to house in order to not make us late. Live and Learn.

Pay Day

I got paid today. 85000 Chilean pesos. Unfortunately, 1 peso does not equal 1 dollar. Naturally afterwards all the volunteers went out to a nice lunch.

The 2 Week School Anniversary Celebration

Is almost over .... 

This is both good and bad news ... On one hand my will finaly have everybody in them so I can give students assignments and expect all the students to have completed them. Additionally, I won't have my class room disturbed from the noises of students practicing their song and dance routines outside. On the other hand, I will finally have to work a full five day work week and I won't have classes randomly canceled as happened to my first class today and my last class yesterday. 

Tonight, there is a big dinner/party for all of the teachers in which my suit will get its second wearing. Yesterday, was pajama and costume day which ended with a student party at the school. During the pajama and costume day, the students competed in contests such as musical chairs and races that involved students spinning in circles before running and popping a balloon by sitting on it. The two days before that every grade presented a dance ... most of the songs were American songs such as the "boots with the fur" song, swing music from the 50's and "candy shop."

Last friday, was a field day where all the students went to a park and did a number of contests, including soccer, water volleyball, how long can one student lift three other students, egg toss and how many students can we stuff into a tent (the winner had 24 students). The event ended with the longest largest water balloon fight I've ever seen in which I got drenched. 

Other days have included police day where the middle schoolers sang a song about the police, day of culture where students displayed their art projects, and a song competition in which the winner sang smoke over water. 

Nights in Antofagasta

So manage to go out about once every week (usually with the other volunteers here in Antofagasta). Some of these experiences have been pretty ordinary and others have been rather interesting.

My first time out was probably the most exciting because I got lost on my way back to my house. I didn't know the city or my neighborhood very well and since much of Antofagasta looks rather similar to my eyes (one story house with walls and little stores with signs of “hay pan”) when the bus started going up to the top of the hill Antofagasta rests and we hadn't gone to the top of the hill going into the downtown area, I assumed I missed my stop and got off. My plan was to walk down the hill to the coast, get my bearings and then walk back up the hill to my host family's house. I had spent sometime already walking along the beach and thought I could tell where I was when I got there. Unfortunately, when I reached the beach that didn't prove to be the case, but because I had to have passed my stop I started walking back towards downtown figuring I'd recognize a landmark soon enough. It turns out though that my assumptions were all wrong and that the bus actually hadn't passed my house; the buses don't take the exact same routes going north as they do going south. It all ended up working out though. After walking 30 minutes in the wrong direction, I ran into a young couple in an old beat up van parked on the beach eating Chinese food and asked them how to get to my house. After they told me it was a long ways away, I managed to convince them to give me a ride in exchange for some cash. It took them maybe 10 minutes to drive me home, with van motor revving loudly the whole time (particular when we went up the hill).

My next time out, another volunteer and I went to a schloperia, which is basically a dive bar that typically only men go to. They almost solely serve cheap beer (Cristal, Escudo, Brahmia are the big beer brands here … much of Antofagasta income is from mining so the town and the schloperias have a blue collar feel to them). While we were talking, a Chilean man came up to our table and told us he'd buy us a round if he could join our table and talk English with us. We said sure and conversed for awhile. He then bought us another round and we continued talking. On the back from the bathroom (they had a trough just like at UMD) a different man comes up to me and speaks to me in broken English and asks if our table needed more beer. I said no definitely not because we had already drunken too much (a beer here is basically a liter) but he either did not understand or didn't listen because soon enough another round appeared at our table. After mostly finishing that, our new friends asked us if we wanted to find some girls at a discotheque but both me and the other volunteer were tired so we headed home instead.

This past weekend, the volunteers and I went to a nice small discotheque on the third floor of the Antofagasta Mall. Because of the connections of one the schools' secretaries, we didn't have to pay the cover which would have been 15 dollars! The place was very nice and it had an excellent view of Antofagasta (because at 3 stories up it was one of the tallest buildings in town. The city really looked like a carpet of lights spread out along the hill. This time I managed to stay up until 6am which is the time when parties in Chile typically end. I don't know how people here do it … as is my style I took a nap before heading out, however my host mom regularly comes back to the house at 6 am without needing a nap beforehand.

This upcoming weekend I am supposed to attend a Chilean asado (bbq) with my host mom. Details next week.

dogs again

Today, I arrived to my class five minutes before my students arrived. Unfortunately, I found a stray dog inside who had left some nice presents on my class floor. The janitor was able to help me out and after some time at the front office we were able to find an alternative class room for me to use. Definitely unexpected however.

rain

Yesterday we got a light to medium sprinkle of rain yesterday. It caused power outages throughout the city including at the school function I was at. Also my host family let one of the dogs (we seem to have picked up a second dog - basically its a small dog that kept wandering into the school and my host mom felt sorry for it and started feeding it) into the house so that it wouldn´t have to suffer in the rain.

Also yesterday I bought an empanada that I thought would be sausage and cheese and unfortunately turned out to be a hotdog on one side cheese on the other wrapped in bread. They eat a lot of hotdogs down here, with of course maynoisse and avocado.

http://picasaweb.google.com/paulspicturesfromabroad/Schoolparadeantofagasata#  -- Photos from school parade and birthday cake celebrations

Happy Birthday School

So for the next two weeks, my school will be celebrating its 25th anniversary. The school's anniversary is traditionally a big celebration in Chile and I feel that this being the 25th it will be even bigger. It will mean lots of school events and lots of canceled classes.

My school actually bought me a gray suit for these two weeks so that I could classily participate. Its actually my first non hand me down second hand suit. Its nothing fancy but looks nice and fits me real well because it was made for me. 

Yesterday, the school had a parade in downtown Antofagasta. They actually closed down the streets by the citys main plaza for the school parade. There was speeches, singing, marching and formal dances including the cueca (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cueca) the national dance of Chile that is said to imitate a rooster and hen. (Pictures will be posted soon)

Today, I arrived at my classroom and found that all the desks in my classroom were unexpectedly being used for the birthday cake presentation to be held at noon today. So I had to quick come up with an activity for the students that didn't require them to use their desks (we played a game). They warned us we would need to be flexible

press

http://www.mercurioantofagasta.cl/prontus4_noticias/site/extra/pdp/pdp.html?sec=2&ts=20090419000538&fp=20090419&pag=09 - A small article on the English Opens doors volunteers in the Antofagastan newspaper. Unfortunately, another volunteer and I got cut out of the photo.

Nissan-chan

There are three ways to get around town here in Antofagasta ... bus, taxi and collectivo. A collectivo is a hybrid between a taxi and a bus. It follows a set route like a bus but is a car driven by a person. The interesting thing is that almost all the collectivos here (and there are many many collectivos here ... they are more common then taxis or buses) are Nissans ... more specificly Nissan Sentras from the 1990s. So basically everyday I see car that look just like mine except that they have better seats, better paint jobs, mirrors etc.

Side note: I gave my car to my parents to use for my sisters and they spent 800 dollars fixing it up, giving it some new paint, mirrors, fixing the windshield, etc ... So I actually don't know what my car looks like at the moment

mal suerte

So yesterday, I got bitten by a stray dog at the beach. I was just minding my business walking by a dog on the rocks when it bit me. Of course it did bark at me first but I was listening to my Ipod so didn't consciously pay attention. Fortunately I was wearing Jeans so it wasn't to bad.

Teaching

Teaching so far has been good but exhausting ... I seem to be able to maintain control of the classroom but barely for some classes. (the other day I ended up kicking a student out of my class but that was an exceptional circumstance where the kid was consistently disrupting the whole class --- I'm also fortunate because I think I can keep him from returning, it is good to know that the administration has my back.) For the most part the students are just very active and talkative. This, however, does not mean that I can ever get them to speak in English. I'm trying out different ideas to try to get the students to speak more in class … skits, rewarding speaking volunteers with class points, praising people who do speak, calling on people.

My teaching schedule is interesting: its convenient in that for the most part all of my classes are in the morning (8 to 1); inconvenient in that its very chopped up meaning that I'll have sections of some classes for more time then I will have other sections of the same class. This is compounded by the random holidays and canceled classes which makes planning class somewhat complicated. I find that despite my classes being solely in the morning, I end up staying much later at the school because I often end up taking advantage of the school's free wifi which I can access on my laptop.

I have managed to remain amused at the slight chaos that affects all school activities. For example, last Thursday I gave handouts to the copy person. On Monday, I went to pick up my copies but the copy office was closed for no apparent reason so I had to create a lesson plan from scratch. Today all the classes started and ended 15 minutes late for no apparent reason. This chaos has been most noticeable with selection of students for the English speaking competition. We keep meeting to select the student that will represent the school but one person who is critical to the selection process is perpetually absent from these meetings.

The most interesting thing so far at school has been the reaction of the younger students to me. While I don't teach the younger students, they often play right outside of my classroom. Often when they see me a bunch of them will come over and swarm me asking me questions saying hi etc. A similar thing occurred when I observed classes in seventh and eighth grade. Midway through class, a group of students flocked to where I was sitting and asked me all sorts of questions such as: what is my name?, where am I from? What kind of music do I like? ( radiohead, guns and roses, pink floyd, and my chemical romance are all popular here) Is my eye color real or do I have colored contact lenses (I wasn't sure why I'd have contact lenses and glasses) do I drink?, do I smoke?, what sports do I play?, why did I come to Chile?, do I like Antofagasta?, do I believe in God? Do I believe that the world will end in 2012 when the Mayan calendar stops (it took me a while to fully understand this question) do you like Chilean women?, do you think our teacher is hot? How old are you? Etc ….. In the seventh grade classes some students asked me for my autograph and in eighth grade some students wanted to take my picture with them (in both these cases I made the mistake of giving into the first request only to have 10 more people ask me). Fortunately, the high school students are less excited about me probably because they have had volunteers teach them in the past and because they are high school students and not as excitable. My favorite class so far is a ninth grade class that still isn't used to having a volunteer and thus causes no problems …. I'm betting that will change throughout the school year.