Ups and Downs

It's been a strange, challenging week. Last weekend was extremely quiet for me, my host abuelita does not do much to celebrate Easter and the other family members didn't stop by too much (although Eralia's 14-year-old granddaughter Sofia did teach me an awesome variation on Rummy called Carioca that everyone who knows and loves me should be prepared to play by the time I return home!). It was nice to relax, maybe a little boring. On Sunday I took a long walk that yielded some pretty good moments:

 Three cows, all in a row. Piedra Mesa in the background.

 La medialuna, which is...

 The rodeo! Somehow I doubt I will be here for rodeo season (I'm guessing it coincides with tourist season), but still... interesting that it's just right up the street from me!

 Flower. Very pretty one. I was informed of the name but I can't remember it.

 Puppy Parade!!! And a very intensely orange-eyed mother who was not amused at all by my photographic efforts.

 PARE! PARE, I tell you!

 And then I walked along the beach all the way out to where I got into these woods where things got very quiet, and deserted. Slowly the woods thinned and disappeared and I was on a rocky point about a half a mile away from the pier, and the view was... Well, just look for yourself.

On Monday I discovered my slight head cold had gotten more serious, so I spent the day in bed watching Battlestar Galactica. Eralia even brought me breakfast and lunch in bed! So sweet!!

Egg, noodle, and cilantro soup. Pretty delicious.

She made me get up for once (tea and bread, the final meal of the day) though, she said I had rested enough. Sure enough, by Monday night I was feeling much better. On Tuesday I thought I could go to La Union to get my Chilean identity card, but it turns out it's not ready yet, so instead I headed into school to set up my own personal classroom! So exciting! Then I went into Río Bueno to meet up with some other volunteers, all good stuff.

 Pristine organization at the beginning of the day!

 The board!

Slightly rumpled but still relatively intact U, at the end of the day!

Wednesday was my first day in my own classroom. I had prepared my whiteboard, I had prepared my materials, I had prepared my plan, I had arranged my classroom; there was nothing left to do but teach. And so I did! I got through my lesson plan easily in all but one grade (I ran the same lesson with all 4 of the different high school grades because I wanted a nice, easy first lesson and because they are all about in the same place as far as speaking and listening to English goes, which is to say... beginners.), and that last grade only because their activity from the first half of class, with my co-teacher, ran over time. They were being assessed on the performances dialogues they had written, many of which the students had memorized! So well done there, even if I did have to pare my lesson down to an abbreviated 15 minutes on the fly. Now learn to say things without writing down the Chilean phonetic spelling underneath the English one, guys! We'll get there.

So my first day of classes went fairly well. Unfortunately then I had to wait around the school for two hours. We get done classes at 4 PM but we had a teacher's meeting at the school at 6 PM. Not really enough time to go home and return. The meeting was at the school, which has wi-fi, and I brought my computer, so it wasn't too big of a problem. I bought some sweet, sweet Coke Light and settled in for some Facebook browsing. I even did a little lesson plan research, and get some good ideas for upcoming themes we'll be working on.

And then, the meeting. It was entirely in Spanish, which I expected. I got a nice welcome from all the teachers (there was cake!!) which I did not expect but really appreciated, but then we had a PowerPoint presentation, first on the integration of special needs (because of psychological, home life, or educational reasons) students into Ignao School through a program called PIE. (That's my school's name, by the way, Ignao Técnico Liceo). I was extremely grateful for the PowerPoint wall of text in fact, as educational terminology has enough cognates with English educational terminology as to make it fairly easy to follow along. Turns out my reading Spanish skills are not quite as rusty as I had feared! However, I understood fairly little of what was being said as the Chilean accent has not yet become comprehensible to me. Again, we'll get there!

So, after this was another PowerPoint which presents each student that is being sent to Ignao under the auspices of this program, and why they are there. And the teachers all had questions and comments for each of them, oh yes they do. So. Many. Comments. We spent about 5ish minutes on each student, and there were two dozen of them. It went on... for a while.

For two and half hours, to be precise.

So when we finally got to go, although the meeting was at some points interesting, I was more than ready. But when I get home, a problem that had been simmering for a while finally hit a boiling point, so to speak. I am covered in bug bites. They are horrible, insanely itchy, at some points painful. On Tuesday night I got no sleep and by the time I got home from the meeting I could feel them, on my feet, my legs, my back, my stomach, my upper chest and up onto my throat, even a couple of my face... I could not ignore it anymore. So I called Alejandra, my co-teacher, and a lot of back and forth ensued, including her mother coming over to speak to me in Spanish so rapid it sent me over the emotional edge, and then a trip to the hospital. Although I think that's mostly because what other medical institution is going to be open at 11 PM on a Wednesday night in a small Chilean town? Thank God for it, though, because they gave me some steroids and some anti-histamines and I slept the sleep of babies. Stayed home yesterday, staying home today, taking another low-key weekend. Although if the bites keep coming, I'm going to have to figure out some other solution. Not right now though, because I've had enough excitement for one 24 hour period, thank you very much!

If you somehow magically managed to make it to end of this epic post, your reward is some seal pictures I took while I was in Valdivia. They reminded me greatly of this, one of my favorite internet thingies:

Fun fact I learned while Googling this image: Seal in German is Seehund, which translates literally back into English as Sea Dog. You're welcome.

Dear Ricardo Arjona,

Thank you, brave soul. You who so fearlessly watch over my sleep all the nights of my stay here in Hospedaje Tulipanes, glowering mysteriously out from your featureless burnt sienna prison, your hair oh-so-carefully tossed to the side, your colorful vest arranged just so, your awkward squat a masterpiece of discomfort: it is your face that I see last every night as I drift into the hinterlands of sleep and it is to your squared jaw and heavy brow that I wake each morning. Who are you? I often ask myself this question. Wikipedia tells me that you are a Guatemalan super star, a teacher and a basketball player and a singer-songwriter, a maestro of all Afro-American and Latin music, and a man known to many as El Animal Nocturno.

BUT WHO ARE YOU?? What do you dream, what do you hope for? I guess I could listen to your music and find out, but that would kill your mystique, and ruin all of my fun. I prefer instead to create my own story for you, one filled with Guatemalan princesses (is that a thing?) and cowboys (also a thing, maybe?), of close scrapes and daring feats and triumphant victories.

So thank you Ricardo Arjona, you ponderous unicorn of a man. Though you may grow withered and frail in real life, somewhere far far far away from here, to me you will always be the hunched protector of my sleep, the Guatemalan cowboy of my dreams.

Sincerely,

La Miss

P.S. La Miss is Eralia's nickname for me, which you should probably know since you're always hanging around and surely would have heard me called that, but I thought I'd remind you just in case you forgot. I love you. What? Who said that. Gotta go bye!

One more photo of Lago Ranco

(Although let's be honest, it's probably not the last you've seen of this place, at least from me.)

Santiago Orientation Week

I took this when I climbed the hill of San Cristobal (I think that's what it's called, too lazy to Google) and saw the virgin. It's one of my favorite pictures I've taken so far of Chile, I think. Which includes the ridiculousness that is Lago Ranco, where every picture I take looks as though it could be plastered on the wall of a travel agency.

So how is it here? Like I said, a little ridiculous. The weather has held up pretty well although it's a bit overcast today. But yesterday I took a walk around town, reveling in the cascade of "Hola!"s and "Buenas!" from people I'd never seen before. I found myself, as I invariably have this week, down by the water, and I napped for a bit on a bench in a park. Sun on my face, the quiet whisper of leaves above, the anti-rhythm of the lake throwing itself onto the rocky beach... For a few minutes everything dropped away and I just existed, in time, without restraints.

A lovely start to the weekend, if you ask me. I came back and hung out with Eralia, Sofia, Maria Jose, and Raul. A chilled out Thursday night, topped off with a re-watching of Pitch Perfect and then a morning (FINALLY) of sleeping until I woke up.

Next week I start teaching some classrooms on my own, so I've savoring the peace and quiet for as long as I can. I survived the first two days in one piece, and in all honesty, I like a lot of the kids. They're not all interested in learning English, but I think they've become accustomed to seeing it as a chore. Hopefully I can bring a little life to the subject, and maybe in turn get them to give it a second chance.

In the meantime, here are some pictures from my first week in Santiago. 

 A public sermon happened in the park. Not entirely sure what was being said, although I caught some stuff about homosexuals and the father and whathaveyou, so I think it's probably better I didn't.

 The first thing I ate in Santiago! And it was... not particularly Chilean, I don't think. After strolling around for a bit and picking my new Chilean burner phone, lemon ice cream was exactly what I needed. Although mine was much thinner than ice cream, it might have been sugar-free, so it tasted more like water-ice? Still, highly enjoyable.

I hate that this is so blurry. Turns out climbing a hill for like, an hour, is not conducive to steady-handed photography. Who knew?!

 Sign on the way up the hill. Might be kind of hard to read, but it says, essentially, this way to the Virgin.

 The noblest and regal-est street dog I have ever seen in my entire life. EVER! I want to take you home with me, good sir!

 The Chilean guard. Every one and their mom wanted a picture with them because, I mean, look at them.

A falling down church. I don't know its significance or why it's so dilapidated  but it kind of reminded me of some of Savannah's old forgotten buildings. Southern Gothic gets me every time.

Lago Ranco

The view from the mountain behind my town. If you are thinking this looks like something from The Land Before Time, we are on the same page.

My room:

Some other rooms in the house! Unoccupied at the moment, it's just me and Auralia.

The pitch!! Although that is obviously not what it is called in this part of the world.

Aralia!

The front!

The gardens here are seriously worthy of envy.

 My house is right on the corner. Mountains in the background, NBD.

 Bird. Including this because I was told I should.

 Sunset.

 The Catholic church.

 The radio station!!

Wonderfully fragrant bundle of herbs.