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.

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.

Pictures of my ride to Antofagasta and the house I'm staying at

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

Last night I was watching a little bit of the Chilean rodeo on tv and they had an event where two men on horses prodded a cow into running himself into a barrier ... the more the cow got knocked off his feet the more points the cowboys scored. 

And of course as always the hispanic announcers were terrific. Cuatro Puntos! Cuatro Puntos! Cuatro Puuuuunnnnntttttttooooooooooooossss!!!!

Host Family

Since I don't have it in me to write one long post, I've decided to it up into a bunch of smaller posts. This post will be on my host family.

I like them a lot, they are better than expected. They have a nice small house about a one and quarter miles from the beach. In this house I have my own room and my own bathroom. The room is maybe a tad smaller then my room at 1406 Webster without the attached sunroom. However, because I have a lot less stuff here, it is pretty spacious for my needs. Like all of the houses here, the house has the slight feel of a fort (or as my host mom put it jail) because they have bars over the windows and thick locks on the door to prevent robberies. (My host mom was happy to declare that her house at never been burglarized) The most interesting part of this security apparatus is the horizontal bars over the open air atrium that attaches my room to the rest of the house. (see related pictures)

My host family consists of a grandma (who's name I don't know but goes by 'buela), a mom (Silvia) and two kids, a nine year old girl and a 15 year old boy (Connie and Alex). The mom speaks alright English, Alex speaks pretty good English and even the grandma speaks a little bit. This has been both a good and bad thing. It has definitely helped me feel comfortable in my new surroundings and when I have asked them questions I have been (mostly) sure that they actually understood what I was asking. On the other hand because the whole family wants to practice their English, I don't have as many chances to hear/practice my Spanish. I've notice though that I can make out a lot more Spanish words when my host family talks to me in Spanish then when other people talk to me in Spanish. I think this is because I sort of am starting to understand their accents/ how they say things but it could also because they speak a tad slower and say things more basically.

Also helpful is that my host family has had volunteers in the past. I feel that makes them more attuned to how Americans act and to volunteers needs. They also tell me what other volunteers did, which lets me know of what activities there are to do. For example the volunteer last year played rugby with the students which I am going to try to do.

My host mom like call herself a witch and says that I will come to dislike her but so far she has been very nice and helpful. She likes to tell jokes, and to talk and jokingly threatens to hit me if I misbehave (despite being just over 5 feet tall she seems to be under the illusion that she can beat me up.) Yesterday she helped me out by taking me shopping (I bought a bunch of small stuff hangers, tape, batteries, cell phone, paper, folders etc.) She is a secretary at the school that I teach at and t on the first day introduced me to everyone.

The son Alex also attends the school, and is in 10^th grade which means that I will be teaching him. He was on the debate team that won the national contest last year. He is a good guy, smart and teaseable, and I get along well with him. The daughter (who the mom says has devil hands) is a typical nine year old. From what I read, compared to American standards, Chileans tend to be indulgent with their kids and this can been seen with the daughter who tends to get into things. However, I enjoy rough housing with her (the pictures of her with the sword were taken after we play fenced … I had a saw to defend myself).

The family is Mormon (except for grandma who is Catholic), but the only signs of this is going to church on Sundays and not drinking alcohol (I made the mistake of bringing a bottle of wine as a house present) .

I have been eating all my meals so far at the house. I've adopted fairly easily into the Chilean eating schedule. This is a light breakfast of bread/toast and coffee, heavy lunch at 2 consisting of a salad (Chilean salads consist mainly of chopped lettuce and tomato and/or cucumber with lime juice on it; however Chileans really like mayonnaise and the other day my host mom put mayonnaise and bbq sauce on her salad) and a main course and then a light dinner at maybe 9 / 9:30 with perhaps a small snack around 5/6. There is always plenty of food and often I'm not able to finish my lunch or dinner. (those at work who have had lunch with me know I regularly tend not to finish my lunch) For example, at lunch yesterday we had eaten a salad and an empanada before the grandma brought out a huge plate of rice and chicken for me. I managed to get half of it removed from my plate and still couldn't finish it.

The food has been pretty good so far, with chicken, lasagna, pizza all being cooked. One day the food was pretty bland with chicken and rice but everybody at the table (including me) put BBQ sauce on it. I've been buying fruit juice at the supermarket to add to my options. I food has been agreeable to my stomach so far with only minor indigestion

So yea, in summary basically a good living situation here.  

The first day of the next eight months

I've successfully arrived in Antofagasta. I have so much to say about everything that I feel like I need an epic post to do so. So all I will say for the moment is that my situation here is good and even better than expected. I've met my host family and like them and have met some students and think I might be able to survive them

PS -- http://picasaweb.google.com/paulspicturesfromabroad/SantiagoEndofWeekOne#