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.