and sometimes we win.

I keep meaning to have a quiet weekend in to save the pennies but I always find something better to do. In Santiago there are always new places to discover and new things to see.
Last Saturday evening Charlotte and I met Ed and Aaron to go see a film in the Mall at Mirador Metro Station. It always amazes me how many malls there are in Santiago all with cinemas showing all the latest films in English. I’m not complaining though. We went to see the long anticipated “2012” which to be honest I was expecting to enjoy. Not because of the hype build up, but because I knew exactly how it would pan out: Lots of special effects with a loose plot thrown in to justify the happenings. I wasn’t disappointed. The acting was terrible and the whole idea was quite ridiculous (but I suppose what else can be expected from the guy who also directed “The Day After Tomorrow”?). Nevertheless I’m glad I watched it, if only for the awful clichés and hilarity of the whole thing. When it finished we had to sprint back to the metro station before it closed at 11.30 leading to loss of Aaron camera. He was understandably mortified but his insurance with Project Trust covers thefts up to ₤200 so with the compensation he will easily be able to buy himself a new one.
That Sunday we met again with Ed and Aaron, this time to see the Museum of Contemporary Art. The museum was strange to say the least and most of the “Art” I unable to understand the significance of but in going to a museum I always more cultured and it was nice to experience what the Chileans perceive as Contemporary Art. After lunch we decided it was high time we made some definite travelling plans for the summer. So we headed back to Aaron house and sat down to discuss destinations and budgets. We are very lucky in the fact that all four of us had more or less the same travelling idea. We are to set off from Santiago on the 2nd of January and set off to the South of Chile stopping in places on the way down. We will then cross the Argentinean border, work our way up the east coast of South America and then back over to Santiago for late February. I am soooooo excited!!
The next Friday was the graduation for the 4medios (18yrs). It was weird attending as a teacher having only graduated myself 5months ago. Charlotte and I used the event as an excuse to dress up as we hadn’t had the chance to make an effort in our appearances since we arrived here. What most surprised me was that in Chile they don’t use the typical formal dress for the School ceremony; instead they wear their regular school uniform and the day after they have a gala in which they then dress up. As far as the graduation goes, it was the typical speeches and calling out the students individually to collect a certificate and flowers for the girls.
On the Saturday Charlotte and I saw yet another film at the cinema. This time it was the new Twilight instalment “New Moon”. I shan’t comment on it as I don’t want this blog to turn into a series of film reviews. Film tickets are around about 3.50euros, a small price for a relaxing day out.
This week our Project Trust desk officer Ally came for a visit to see how all us volunteers have been settling in and are coping with our respective projects, host famlies etc. On Wednesday it was time for her visit to San Luis Beltran. Charlotte and I were pleased to hear that Ally always looks forward to seeing our school the most as it has the best English programme and lovely staff. After watching take a lesson with 6th Grade (11yrs) and a trip to our house to chat to our host mum Jessica, the three of us headed into the centre to the local supermarket. Ally has told us previously that she was going to buy a few home comforts that we wouldnt usually buy from the supermarket as a treat from Project Trust. Some volunteers bought things like fresh orange juice and jam but Charlotte and I, being the health-freaks that we are bee-lined straight for the Chocolate and peanut butter. We were lucky that our host family tried peanut butter last year with the previous volunteers and disliked it. More for us. :D
We had a 4 day weekend this weekend to had to do something special. On Saturday we had Project Trust workshop with Ally. We talked about how we had settled into Chilean life and our projects amongst other things. It was a really good chance to reflect on the two months I have spent here so far. Following a wonder round Bellavista post-workshop all us volunteers we treated to a meal at a restaurant on the main street in Bellavista.
Charlotte and I had been invited to test out our camping equipment at Tilly’s country house in San Alfonso about an hour drive out of Santiago into the Andes. We invited Ed and Aaron along with us as well, after all, the more the merrier. Arriving at San Alfonso late morning, we admired the tiny picturesque village and the stunning gardens at Tilly’s house. After putting our tents up at the bottom of the garden we all had lunch and spent the rest of the day relaxing playing cards and chatting about our plans for Monday. Tilly suggested we took a colectivo up to the “Baños Morales” and hiked up to the “Glacier Morado” in the national park. So that’s exactly what we did. The four of us were picked up at 10am sharp the next day and driven into the Andes to begin our hike up. I think it was fairly obvious that this was my first ever hike anywhere as the others climbed the 8km with little difficulty although Charlotte did suffer slightly with the altitude but I think that’s normal as we were about 2500m above sea level. I have never seen views like the ones I saw that Monday and when we reached the top I couldn’t help but have a tear in my eye as I realised where I was and how this was to be merely the beginning of our Chilean adventure. :) I can’t describe the views from the Glacier were incredible to say the least but I’ll let the pictures do the talking for once. On the 8km return we stopped for a picnic by the lakes and continued down, this time slightly more leisurely partly because I twisted my weak ankle a number of times and also because we hurtled up there at such a pace that I wasn’t able fully take in the scenery. We slept very well that night in out tents as we are all exhausted. It was without a doubt the best day I have had so far. :)

Title.. Waste a moment - Fightstar

from coast to coast i'll make most of every second.

It has been a hectic 3 weeks, hence the lack of blog entries. So, apologies. :)


We've been working hard during all our spare time preparing all the materials for the English Oral Presentations next week. The Oral Presentations are quite a big deal for the school, for us and mainly for the students. Charlotte and I have to prepare all the materials for every grade, work out a marking system, sort out the class listings and evaluate every student indivually on the work they've been doing thoughout the year. The mark we give provides a large percentage of the final mark they will receive is english for the year and could be the reason certain students are held down a year. This puts quite a lot of pressure on us as you can imagine. But it does give us a chance to see whether we have made a difference in the level of their English.

On halloween the other volunteers and I went to a party hosted by one of the Chilean families. Halloween is widely celebrated in Chile, im guessing because Chile is geographically close to North America where haloween originates. Trick or treating is popular and even children up to the age of 16 still enjoy dressing up and knocking on doors for sweets. Charlotte and I met the other volunteers at Nuble station that evening and walked back to Aaron and Tobias's house (it was their faily that was hosting the Halloween party). Unfortunately the family saw this party as some sort of buisness oppertunity and brought it upon themselves to charge money for food that was being served. Nevertheless, we had a very enjoyable evening and some of us managed to stay up all night chatting and having a good time. We left early the next morning in time for the metro opening and headed home to bed.

Charlotte and I have made a habbit of taking a detour on to one of the local bakeries on our way to the bus stop to buy fresh empanadas. It's not a good habbit we admit, but they are VERY good and we have made a new friend as a consequence. Ever since the first time we stepped foot in there the shopkeeper has always greeted us with a friendly smile along with our snack. The shopkeeper is an elderly man called German who has owned the bakery for years. That sunday he invited us round to have "onces" with his three daughters to get to know the rest of his family. We arrived at the shop and we're escorted by one of the bakers that works there to his house about a 10 minute drive away. I was slightly aprehensive about going as I had never met them before and knew all too well that I would be doing the majority of the talking for Charlotte and myself. Although thanks to my grandparents 80th birthday party a few months back I now have small talk down to a fine art! :) The daughters surpassed all my expectations. The conversation didn't reach any awkward silences and I found myself chatting to them as if they were old friends. I was sorry to leave but it was getting late and we had school in the morning. One of the daughtners Paulina is a member of a trekking club and has invited us to go on their monthly outings into the Andes. The next one is on the 5th of December which we shall unfortunatley have to miss as we are attending a Project Trust volunteer workshop with out Desk Oficer Ally who's arrives to see how we're doing in a few weeks. Hopefully when we get back from travelling we will be able to venture into the Andes with her and her friends.

Last Wednesday was my 19th birthday. I don’t know why I was so nervous about turning 19. Perhaps it’s because I enjoyed being 18 so much or maybe it was just the fact that I wasn’t spending it with my family and friends back home. Either way, I was determined to make it memorable. I brought a hefty amount of “Miloja” into school that morning to share with the English department and the students that spend most of their break times in our classroom. For those who don’t know what “Miloja” is, it’s a Chilean desert with layer upon layer of manjar, chocolate and thin wafers of puff pastry. A winner in my eyes and a perfect substitute of the traditional but nevertheless impressive birthday cakes I’m used to. I was bombarded with hugs and “felicitaciones” all day from the students. I especially enjoyed getting sung “happy birthday” to in Chilean Spanish by the children in 3ºbasico (7yrs). After they had sung they put their hands together in a praying fashion and rested them on their heads. I was unaware that the hands were meant to be candles until the one of the teachers told me to “blow out the candles”. I suddenly realised and blew across the class as if I was blowing out candles on a birthday cake. And in the style of a Mexican wave all the little hands disappeared. So unbelievably special.
I had arranged with the volunteers who could make it to meet in the park near the Baquedano metro station from some Champagne and nibbles. I think some form of fizz is necessary on any birthday and I wasn’t prepared let this one go un-fizzed. Charlotte and I met Naomi, Christine and Aaron and Tobias that evening in the park and proceeded to enjoy the cheapest fizz available (we’re on a tight budget) mixed with some cherry liquor I found in the supermarket. It was an early night as we had a busy day at school the following day.

Every year the school hosts an event called a “Camaricum”. It’s similar to an English fête in the way that there is a multitude of stalls selling food and homemade trinkets. It’s a big deal for the students as well as each class dresses up their form tutor in fancy dress. The costumes this year ranged from a shoe to a bunch of grapes to Cleopatra. Very entertaining. Also, each class has to prepare a dance to show and compete with the rest of the school. Charlotte and I were pestered (well, Charlotte was more pestered. I didn’t need any convincing!) into joining the 2medios (15-16yrs) in their version of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”. The boys are surprisingly good dancers and we imitated the dance straight of the video. We rehearsed every day during and after school for two weeks and we could safely say that we could boogie along with the best. The dance also involved, needless to say, dressing up as zombies. As charlotte and I are a little short of dosh, we just bought a cheapo, large, men’s T-shirt from the local supermarket, ripped and sloshed some red paint on it and threw it over some black leggings and a block top. Team that with some scary-looking make up and backcombed hair and HEY PRESTO! We were zombies! The dance went amazingly well and the students enjoyed laughing at and chatting to the “freaky miss”. Also because the activity was out of school ours it meant I could speak in Spanish with the students which I LOVED! I really love getting to know the students at school, it’s a nice to have someone different to talk to other than your project partner. Not that I don’t enjoy being with Charlotte of course, but variety is always a good thing when you’re in such close proximities with someone you’ve only known for a couple of months.

There was a multicultural festival in Santiago this weekend so Charlotte and I decided to check it out along with the family’s resident crazy uncle Roberto, one of the cousin’s Sebastian, Camila and her boyfriend Manuel. It held annually in the Quinta Normal Park and features stalls and a variety of stages with live music and performers. There were circus acrobats, and typical Chilean folk music. I have tried to like the Chilean folk music but it’s really not my taste at all. We spent most of our time at a stage called “Music Fusion”. The “Music Fusion” stage is just as the name suggests. Some of the acts were more than strange with odd looking instruments and peculiar costumes. A particular group called “La Triciclo” who performed a strange type of electronic rock and wore things like kettles as head-gear, fake beards, military suits, animal skin and colourful comedy breasts. Original to say the least and both Charlotte and I spent most of the gig with look of sheer shock on our faces at the utter abnormality of the whole thing. After “La Tricolo” left the stage the area started to fill with people. We then found out from Roberto that there was a famous Chilean band playing next called “Chico Trujillo”. I had never heard of them but if they were getting a crowd like this how bad could they be? In fairness, I think if I had of heard the music before hand I would have enjoyed it more but considering that this group were completely alien to me I could see why all the Chileans were dancing and jumping up and down to the beat.
I am doing my very best to not take Chile for granted. I have moments when I look into the distance on my way to school in the morning and catch a glimpse of the breath-taking Andes all draped in snow and I can’t help but beam from ear to ear. I can only imagine what travelling down the south will be like. I started vaguely planning my trip today. I think the best plan is to go without a plan but have rough guide of places you would like to see and more or less when you would like to arrive at a couple of key destinations. I am very lucky to have an amazing Chilean guide book that tells me pretty much everything I need to know about backpacking across Chile from basics like recommendations on the best spots to visit to how to get there and prices for accommodation and travel from place to place depending on the region. I now refer to it as “The Bible” even though perhaps I shouldn’t as Chile is very Catholic. Anyway, I have an endless list of things to look forward to.

Title.. Vegas - All time low

Keep me where the light is.

We only had three days at school this week thanks to the previous long weekend and Teacher's Day on friday. Thursday is by far our busiet day. We have classes non-stop throughout with a variety of age groups branching from the loud but cute 1st Graders to the moody, 17 year old 12th Graders who think they're "too cool" for English. Its quite embarassing to think that I was one of them. The younger ones are always more enthusiatic aswell. This thursday we played a game called "Pet Salad". "Pet Salad" is a variation of the childhood favourite "Fruit Salad" in which all the children sit on chairs in a circle. They are all named a fruit so for example if there are 15 children, there will be 5 apples, 5 pears and 5 oranges. One fruit is called out and the respective children stand up and switch places. The last person to reach a different chair has to call out the next fruit. Now, if someone calls out the phrase "Fruit Salad", everyone switches. It's madness. "Pet Salad" is the same, but with pets, not fruit. These active games really help the children to memorise specific vocabulary. We have discovered that you can use the same game for all sorts of topics which is handy to know when you're short a lesson plan or two.

This friday, as I mentioned before, was Teacher's Day. Teacher's Day is a national holiday in Chile in which schools close and the teachers go on a day trip. We set off from school at 10.00 and headed south for the day. Charlotte and I weren't sure what to expect. We arrived an hour later at a holiday resort complete with pool and football pitch and were served complementary drinks and empanadas. We ate, drank and got to know all the teachers we hadn't met before. After the meal, the Director made a speach showing apreciation to all the hard work the school staff and rewarding us all individually with posh pens and bags of sweets. It made me realise that Colegio San Luis Beltran is a strong unit of people all working together.

We planned to go to Fantasilandia with all the Santiago volunteers on Saturday. Fantasilandia is a theme park in the center of Santiago. It's cheap to get in aswell at only 6900 pesos. We arrived in time for it's opening at 12.00 enjoyed the rides and attractions untill closing time. The theme park itself surpassed all my expectations. From the outside it's a little disapointing. But when we realised that the rides we're pretty impressive. There were a couple of decent rollercoasters and the usual topsy-turvy rides. There was even a free-fall attraction of about 50metres. One ride in particular caught our attention. "Evolution" is a hoop-shaped ride with seats around the outside. The hoops rises and spins around both around and upside down and the separate seat compartments do the same. when it reaches the top it holds you upside-down so your body is no longer in the seat and your full weight is forced against the harness. You hang there for about 20 seconds and then starts moving and spining again. This happens around 6 or 7 times before the ride finally ends. It was awful. We were all actually screaming with fright rather than enjoyment. Never ever again.
On Sunday we arranged to meet for a volunteer picnic. Money is short and it seemed like a good, cheap day out. Charlotte, Christine, Aaron and I arrived at destination Puente Alto at around 11.00ishh. The idea was that we were going to meet Kirsten and Sinead at the station and then catch the bus to San José de Maipu where their project was. We met successfully and caught the rickety bus to the countryside. It’s about a 45 minute journey out of Santiago centre on questionable road. We felt like we were back at Fantasilandia! Buildings and cars quickly transformed into something that looked like all the pictures I’ve seen in books of the Chilean countryside. This is what I had come to see. The whole area gave us a taste of the wonders this country has to offer and made me even more excited about travelling (if that’s possible). When we reached San José we made our way out of the village. Camp was a hill over looking the Maipu River and the foothills of the Andes. It was probably one of my favourite experiences so far. We really got to know each other and laughed and chatted about anything and everything. As a group, I think we mesh really well. We’re all quite different from different backgrounds and that means that we all have stories to tell and the conversation never runs dry.
On way back home Charlotte, Christine and I stopped off at Naomi’s house to catch up with the latest X-factor with a glass of wine and “onces”. I don’t usually watch X-factor but since I’ve been away it’s been quite relaxing to watch some mindless TV on an evening, and you can’t get much more mindless than X-factor. Haha. It was the perfect end to yet another busy but lovely weekend.

Title.. Gravity - John Mayer

We feel the time is coming, we're trying to pretend like we're prepared, we're not prepared, but if it's destined we are in.

We had a long weekend this weekend. Charlotte and I were originally planning to go the “7 Tazas” (literally translated “7 Mugs”). The “7 Tazas” is a series of cascading waterfalls in the mountains about a 5hour bus ride from Santiago. All the Chileans rave about it, saying it’s definitely worth a visit and is good opportunity to use our camping equipment. This was the plan, well, until we were told that rain was on the forecast. We decided rearrange for another weekend.
On Friday night I ventured out alone for the first without Charlotte. She wasn’t feeling very well and thought she’d be better off preserving her voice by not socialising. Fair enough. I had heard the day before that Chile was playing at home to Ecuador on Wednesday. It was a world cup qualifying match so I was very keen to get us volunteers some tickets. I was to find out when I got to the ticket stand that the only tickets left were 60,000 pesos (about 65euros). That’s over three quarters of our monthly wages, so we decided to give it a miss, after all, they will be other matches. I met Christine, Ayoolu, Naomi, Aaron and Tobias at 8.00 and we proceeded to Bellavista for a very enjoyable evening. :)
The next day Charlotte and I went to San Miguel Metro Station to meet Ed and Chris. On the cards was an evening of board games and baked goods at Jose Miguel’s house (an English teacher at Ed and Chris’s school). We arrived and watched the Chilean national football team beat Colombia in the World Cup Qualifiers. The 4-2 win meant that Chile is through to the World Cup Finals in South Africa for the first time since 1998. When England qualify for World Cup finals the celebration is minimal, however you’d have thought that Chile had won the World Cup by all the tooting of horns and cheering you could hear in the streets. It was a very special evening in Chilean football. I’m kind of pleased I didn’t buy the match tickets now. It wouldn’t have been a lot of money for what will be a fairly relaxed game. Although, if Chile win, Colombia will have to go to the play-offs against Brazil to qualify so they have everything to play for. After the football, we took part an EPIC game of Risk until 5am. We had a really lovely evening despite the lack of sleep. :)
On Sunday we met Ayoolu and Chrstine in Maipu and went to see a film at a mall near their house. We saw “The Taking of Pelham 123” in English. It was an awesome film. The next day we all went to the zoo at the foot of San Cristobal. I was surprised how many species of animals there were. After all, in the Chilean heat there is only a certain amount of animals that can survive the climate. The animals seemed happy enough in their enclosures but I felt sorry for the poor Polar Bear in the heat.
I’m looking forward to this week. It’s a short week at work because on Friday we have “Teacher’s Day”. “Teacher’s Day” is an opportunity for all the teachers in Chile to skip school for the day. Each school celebrates it in a different way. Our school for example had organised a day at a country house for all of the teachers. There’ll be a pool and a lunch and it’ll be a good chance to get to know the teachers outside of the classroom.

Title.. This is a suitable valedictory - The scene aesthetic

throwing a line out to sea, to see if I can catch a dream.

This proves how utterly rubbish I am at keeping anything resembling a diary. It has been a week without updates.
Anyway, on Tuesday we finally started doing some proper teaching. I was over the moon. We worked all day with a variety of ages groups doing conversation classes. I met Tilly and Gloria who have volunteering in the school for many years. They are both qualified teachers and will be helping us throughout our year here. Tilly was explaining to us how a lot of the students at San Luis Beltran come from difficult social backgrounds and have very low selfesteems. She mention one case of a child that was misbehaving in class, so the teacher sent a letter home to his parents. The next day, the child came into school with a blackeye. As you can imagine, the school never sent a letter home again.
Straight after school, me and Charlotte headed down to Maipu where there are lots of shopping malls. I needed to buy a chilean SIM card. I was once again suprised at the low cost of electronical goods. My SIM card, for example cost me 5000pesos (about 5 euros).
On Wednesday it was Jessica’s birthday and Charlotte and I had offered to cook a nice meal for the family. We decided on a nice and easy pasta dish and a Lemon meringue pie. We arrived late home from school because we had last minute lesson planning to do for the next day and start cooking straight away. It wasn’t until we had started when I realised that there were no whisks and a completely uncontrollable stove and oven. Nightmare. The food turned out okay, well, the pasta was really good but the desert pastry was a tadd burnt. Not to worry, it was eaten nevertheless.
This weekend we climbed San Cristobal with some of the other volunteers. We all met at Nuble and after some delay Charlotte, Kirsten, Sinead, Ed, Aaron, Tobias, some Chileans and myelf all set off up the mountain. We reached the top in about 2 hours and we were exhausted. It was decided that it would be a nice idea to get the cable car down the mountain which is a snip at only 900pesos each so well worth it. We got some lunch and a few drinks and pareted ways at round 5 O’clock. Charlotte and I had to rush home cause we had birthday party to go to that evening. It was Paula 10th birthday and even though we were shattered after a long day we had to make an appearance. Once again it was a big family event with lots of decorations, music and party food.
On the Sunday Charlotte received some bad news. She might have to go back to Hong Kong for a few weeks because of an illness in the family. Both she and I are hoping she won’t have to go. The flights are very expensive and it would be a shame to have to leave the project. Despite this, we decided it would be good idea to go out for the afternoon to try and keep her mind off things. We met up with Aaron and Tobias at Franklin metro station and went to their local market. Franklin metro station is known for being the most dangerous station in Santiago and we were advised to travel very light. Carrying only the necessary money, Bip! card and wearing no jewelry. On telling our hosts where we were going, Carolina gave us a look of sheer horror as if to say, “Do you want to get mugged or something?” We remained optimistic and passed through Franklin station unharmed and with all our belongings in tact. The market in Franklin is the second largest market in Santiago where you can buy ANYTHING, from clothing to electronical goods. On arrival I had slightly underestimated it, thinking it was probably about the size of a spanish market as some of them can be quite large. I would say you could walk around it for about 4 hours still not having seen everything. We had had enough after around an hour an a half. After a while everything looked the same and I wondered if we had been walking around in circles. I would still recommend going to see it, purely for it’s sheer enormity.

Title.. She had the world - Panic! at the disco

On a clear day I can see a very long way.

We didn't go to school on friday as I had to go and order my ID card, it also gave Charlotte the chance to pick up hers. We met Ayoolu in Las Rejas metro station and carried on towards our destination. I was surprised at how quick it was to get everthing sorted out. No queues, nothing. Impressive.
We arrived home around lunchtime and proceeded to make Chocolate Brownies for Jessicas birthday party the day after. They don't use weighing scales here so I had to do alot of guess work. I had raved a bit about the amazingness of my chocolate brownies so I felt slightly under pressure to impress. They didn't last untill the party so I'm thinking thats a good thing. Charlotte and I are thinking of cooking something different each week for our hosts, so they could taste a bit of our background aswell. Charlotte, for instance, is going to prepare suishi next week.
That evening we headed into Santiago center again to meet Naomi and some of the other volunteers. We met Aaron, Tobias and Naomi outside the metro station and proceeded on to Bellavista. Bellavista is basically student central. It a lovely area with parks, buzzing bars and, for me, a good first look at Chilean nightlife. We hadn't sat down for five minutes when we bumped into one of the brothers living in Aaron and Tobias' house. He and his friends we're then with us for the remainder of the night. It was a good night all in all. I met some young Chileans who were all really friendly and it gave me and Charlotte the chance chat to some of the other volunteers and see how they were doing.

We slept in pretty late on Saturday. We had plans to go out during the day and see more of the city but we wern't sure what time Jessicas party started. Chilean families make such a lot of effort for birthdays. The house was decorated wth streamers and baloons and there was even a "50" made out of real flowers. Everything kicked off around 8 O'clock when all the family started to arrive. It was a really good evening filled with lots of laughs and abundant food. I was slightly worried about our present. We bought her a box of Lidnt Chocolate as she only like two varieties, Lidnt and a Chilean brand. It turns out, we didn't do so bad. She really liked the gift, even though she only got one as the rest of the family took it upon themselves to fill their boots. Nevertheless, it was brownie points (excuse the punn) all round.

Sunday was a very lazy day. As it was raining, we couldn't really go out so we decided to get some much needed RnR and chill out with a few films.
This gives me the oppertunity to introduce the family. There is Jessica (Mum of the house), Jorge (Dad of the house) and their 3 daughters, Jessica (31), Carolina (27) and Camila (18). This is where it gets slightly confusing. Jessica (daughter) has 2 children, Paula (9) and Benjamin (3 months) and she is currently married to Gabriel (Benjamins father). Apart form this, there are various sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles etc that are also worth a mention, but there are so many I cannot remember the names of most. Charlotte and I have been very lucky to be welcomed into this family. Project Trust weren't joking when they said that Chilean families treat you like one of their own.

Title.. Scrubs, Season 2, Ep 3

These winding roads will never lead me back to the place where I belong.

On my first morning, I was introduced to the school and officially my first day of volunteering. San Luis Beltan is a local school about 20 minutes walk from our house, so it's quite convienient and it means that me and Charlotte get a gentle morning exercise, which is never a bad thing. It's a lovely school and when I arrived all the teachers started to intoduce themselves and say "ohhh, so you're la nueva". I was famous, or seemed to be. haha.
Sadly, the doorman at the school had passed away the day before so all the school was slightly downbeat. The was a memorial service held for him the playground complete with hymns and Bible passages. I hadn't met the man but I was honestly moved by the whole thing.
We did very little during the morning, some small jobs involving the creation of a last-minute powerpoint presentation for one of the english teachers and some general cuboard sorting out. After break I was introduced to my first class, well, it wasn't my class, but Miss Loreto (an english teacher) used us as assistants. I was introduced as "Miss Laura". I love being called "Miss Laura". The loud group of 12 year old boys one table were refering to me as "Miss Pretty" because of my blond hair, which I liked less. At least during that class, bar the whistling and name calling, I got to actually teach something help someone.
I was intoduced to Naomi, a ex-vulunteer who is back in Chile for a year as part of her university course. After school, we all went into the center to get me "Bip!" card. A "Bip!" card is basically like an Oyster card in London that you put credit on and then can therefore travel on the metros and buses without having to hunt for loose change.

The next day at school was a half-day as the town were holding the funeral in the schools chapel. That morning, aport from doing very little yet again, I met Oscar and Cathy, two university students also volunteering as San Luis Beltran. They are very nice and have invited both Charlotte and I to a barbeque at Cathy house in the coming weeks.
We left school at noon and headed into Santiago center again to see more of the city. We arrive in Baquedano and walked around the park there. It's amazing how the city can cahnge so dramatically within a half hour bus ride. We also took some nice photos of the scenary. :)
Dinner that evening was not the norm. The conversation took a turn into Chilean sexism. The women in Chile no longer accept the tradicional ways of living. They, like most cultures believe that men and women should share things like house chores and the cooking. Jorge (my host dad) has other views. He is very stubborn and won't accept change. He said and I quote "If the women of the house won't cook for me, then I will just go hungry." He pulled an amusing face and everyone else at the table starting giggling. It just shows that most Chileans are ready to move with the times, be it a little late.

Title.. If bigger scars make better stories, then you should see the scars on me - Search the city