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.