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'.