Finally Blogging...

Well, it's been two weeks and I have yet to post the blog I told everyone that I would. I have, however, been working on it very much. I just haven't been happy with the results. Rather than give you all a day by day account of my time in Chile, I would rather talk about all of the things I have been learning. Through this, you will gain (I think) a better perspective of what my life is like here.

For those of you who don't know, I moved to Chile two weeks ago (May 31) to teach English for 6 months. I am here through the Chilean Ministry of Education with a program called "English Opens Doors." There are 39 volunteers from all over the states as well as Australia, New Zealand and England. Our first week here was spent in Santiago for training, then we were all dispersed throughout the country to our respective placements. I am in Northern Chile in a small town called Tocopilla. There are four volunteers here and we are all at different schools. My school is called Gabriela Minstral and I will be teaching from 4th-8th grade. I will talk more about the kids and the schooling in later posts, as I am just observing now and don't start actually teaching until next week.

I apologize for the length of this first post, but I really have learned a lot in the short time that I have been here. Please feel free to comment, because I want to hear from everyone! I miss you all! So, on to my trip...

The biggest struggle I have faced so far (besides the obvious language barrier) is water. Here in Chile drinking water is not something that is very popular. In Santiago it was easy to run to the market and just by a bottle, or a gallon jug as us volunteers ended up doing, but in Tocopilla it is not as accessible. People here just don't live on water. I have no idea how. My first night with my host family, I asked for a glass of water with once (we don't eat dinner, just have tea) and my host mom asked me if I was on a diet. I have accidentally bought carbonated water from the store (oops) with much disappointment. So, although I am facing dehydration, I have learned to cope, and have started buying bottled water (sin gas) in bulk.

Food here is either salty or sugary. There is really no in between. Chileans are very aware of this and take pride. They never eat just vegetables. You get vegetables with oil and about a cup of salt on top. Other food items, they will just add sugar. Juice here, is like Kool-aid. Just flavored sugar and water, and you drink that for lunch everyday, or Coca Cola. Today we had fresh juice for the first time since I've been here. I watched my host mom actually blend the fruit, then add water of course. Then right when I was super excited to enjoy this great creation, she added about a cup of sugar. Oh well.

I really have enjoyed some of the food I've eaten here. For example, Chorripan. This is a very popular Chilean dish typically enjoyed at asados (or bbqs). It's like a spicy hot dog sort of thing with salsa on top. Oh man, I could eat it forever. But you must save room, because after Chorripan and probably one other appetizer meat, then you sit down for Carne and salad. Salads here are simply a sliced vegetable (with oil and salt). Usually at my house, we have tomatoes (that I peel, because they don't eat the skin). But today, we just had lettuce. There you go, a Chilean salad.

Chilean slang. I love Chilean slang. It is crazy. Most of the Spanish they speak isn't actual Spanish, but Chilenismo. My favorites include: "Buf!" It's sort of just an exclamation. I have quickly learned that this is just a Santiago thing, but I still use it in Tocopilla anyway. I think it's funny. Also "Poh!" This word is added to everything. I mean, EVERYTHING. When you want to emphasize something, you say "Poh!" For example, if someone were to ask me if I were hungry, and I was really hungry, I would reply with, "Si, poh!" I don't know if that's a good example, but it's awesome.

Well, I definitely don't live in Orange County anymore. The city I lived in faced a huge tragedy last year. There was a 7.7 earthquake that effected Tocopilla the most in the country. Much of the city was ruined, and people are definitely still feeling the consequences. The government housing that is provided for those who were hit the hardest (think FEMA housing for Katrina), are these plywood houses. Literally three pieces of plywood with a roof. They have little shanti towns where electricity runs from hut to hut. There is no running water, and they wash dishes and clothes outside in plastic bins. There are blue houses in the communities that the bathrooms are housed in. One of these communities is right on the beach so it is freezing at night. It is really quite crazy to see.

Thankfully, none of us volunteers are placed in this sort of housing, but my lifestyle has definitely changed, to say the least. I live with a young married couple. She is 25, and the English teacher at my school. He is 28 and owns a shop on the main street of town. One of the requirements of hosting a volunteer is that they have their own room, so that is really nice. I am lucky because I have wireless Internet. Not many other volunteers can say the same. We share this building with a bakery with fresh bread (it smells really good) and the landlord. Whenever we want to take a shower, we call the landlord and he turns on the water heater so we can have hot water. We have a quaint kitchen where I am learning to cook, and we eat all our meals in front of the tv in the living room downstairs. I am learning how to hang-dry laundry, not put toilet paper in the toilet and basically become a housewife. Claudia (my host mom) cooks every single meal from scratch. I am helping her. My main chore is the dishes. I never knew how lucky I was to have a double sink.

Because I really have not much else to do, I am getting in shape (surprising I know). Tocopilla is a very small town. No, we do not have a stop light, and yes, I can walk everywhere. A colectivo (a taxi) costs 350 pesos at most to get across town. That's about 75 cents. Things in Chile are pretty cheap to say the least. Anyway, there is no movie theatre or much to do at night. Unless I wanted to go to the same bar or disco (we have one in town) every single night, I need to pick up a hobby. I know that when I start teaching and have students to show me the ropes of the city I will be more busy, but for now, I started running (ha!) and playing tennis. One of the other volunteer's host brother is home from school (I'll explain in the next paragraph), and he is very good at tennis, so he takes us to one of the schools with one of his friends, and they are very patient with us. So hopefully, when I return I will be awesome and can keep up with my dad.

The strikes. There are a lot of strikes in Chile. Now, since I have been here, there is a large one, but people have told me that whenever there are unions here, there are always strikes. Right now there is a student strike. Students from high school up to University are striking against the ministry of education. They don't like where funds are being allocated, and feel like they are missing out on education opportunities. Universities have been out of school for up to a month because of the strike (hence my friend's host brother being home from school). While in Santiago, we saw high school students marching and chanting. It was really crazy.
Now, the teachers are striking as well, because of their pay. This means that I don't have to work this week, and I am marching tomorrow. Yessss. There was also a bus strike last week, so my 20 hour bus ride up north was bumped to earlier than we thought. And on our drive from Antofagasta (the large city 3 hours south of me), we faced many road blocks because of the bus strike. They have stopped lots of construction. So, as you can see, lots of strikes.

Now, I'm going to touch on schools a little bit. Before I came here, I heard that students were not well-behaved in Chile. I heard that there was not much discipline in the classroom. In training, we heard that students were very disrespectful and went as far as making out in class. Since I have been to school, I have noticed the blatant lack of respect for the teachers, but not necessarily to the extent that I had been told, but definitely different than the states. Students walk around in class, and interrupt the teacher a lot. They listen to their mp3 players in class, and blast the music so as to not even hide the fact that they aren't paying attention. They will move to their friends' desk just to talk and it's really just utter chaos inside. A lot of this is that teachers really don't fight back to the students. It will be tough to keep my students in line, but I think I just have to show them my serious side for a while.

Here in Tocopilla, the students call teachers "tia," like aunt. It's funny. Or there is "miss" and of course, "profi." Here I am a celebrity. All of us Americans are. People stare at us wherever we go, and my desk quickly gets surrounded by students asking me questions about my favorite animal or color (because those are the only words they know in English). I receive multiple pieces of candy at school each day, and a few marriage proposals. They don't wear sandals here of any kind, and shorts are not something you really ever see. I definitely stick out, but not as much as my friend with blonde hair. Everyone here is a brunette.

The last fun fact I would like to leave you with is that not just America hates George Bush. The entire world does. Now, I knew this before, but I have actually experienced it here. I cannot count on my fingers how many times I have been asked who I voted for, and how I personally allowed him to be elected in the first place. It's really quite funny. They love Obama, so they like me.

So as you can see, I have learned a lot already. I'm learning so much about who I am and really discovering a new culture in a way I have never done before. I am becoming part of a community in this tiny town where seriously, everyone knows your name. This will not be the easiest 6 months of my life, but I think I will learn more than I have ever before. I will keep posting (not all as long as this one), and add pictures probably tomorrow (since I am on strike). Please ask me what you want to hear about, because I am afraid that this is terribly boring. For now, I am going to update and refresh my Internet to watch the Lakers hopefully not be a complete embarrassment, we'll see.

Thanks for reading, I hope it's not too long and boring.