Blogs from Aisén, Chile, South America - page 9

I have one week left in Patagonia... ONE WEEK! I can't believe 5 months have gone by this fast! I nearly didn't get to do things that I wanted and got to do a whole lot more that never new I would do. As for school, this week I've planned a lot of fun games and activities for my classes so that the kids remember what a good time we had together. With my 5th grade we played tons of games that had to do with body parts such as "Simon says" and "Head to toe". With my 12th grade I designed a treasure hunt. They ran up and down the school for half an hour deciphering clues only to find out the treasure was learning English. Of course! I also gave them lollipops. I still ... read more

Chileans are very generous and friendly people. My friend Brad had been helping a Chilean named Francisco with his English in exchange for him taking Brad around and showing him the area. When Francisco learned that Brad had invited other volunteers to come to Puerto Aysen to teach English to kids (including his son) he offered at once to let us stay at his cabañas for free. He even made us an asado for us and invited his entire family to come and get to know us. We were the life of the party. Everyone wanted to dance with us and hear story from us. It was an unforgettable night. The next day we they took us to Lago Riesco to sightsee. ... read more

As part of my involvement in the English Department, I conducted a Spelling Bee competition at the elementary school I work at. I invited all the kids to participate voluntarily. As a result, I had more contestants than I needed. I had to carry out a preliminary round the day before the competition so that I could have 5 kids per grade left. The competition was done by rounds were two grades participated at the time. The whole competition was carried out in English so sometimes it was up to my applause of lack of to notify the parents, teachers and students that they had spelled correctly or incorrectly a word. Chilean kids are always full of energy and I was a little worried that they would misbehave during the competition. On the contrary, they were ... read more

In Patagonia, in some of its most remote places, the indegenious people of the region the Tehuelches left evidence of their existence there by leaving imprints of their hands in rock walls. The sign at the site read: "We don't know what these paintings meant, nor why did they did it, we only know that this tradition dates back 10,000 years and that it wasn't a hobby or individual inspiration. The hand negative (paiting the silhouette of the hand) or the hand imprint is a sign of the communities that once lived here". ... read more

After our long drive, our destination was a a small town in the southern part of the lake General Carrera called Chile Chico. The town, no longer than 5 blocks, is a great getaway from city life. The only thing you can hear during the day is one or two cars driving by or the wind coming from the lake. Nice little shops are lined up on its main street and offer all that daily life requires. Warning for those of you that decide to go: there's only one ATM in town and it only accepts Master Card. We stayed at a quaint hostel just outside of town were we had the most amazing sleep we've had in a hostel. ... read more