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Published: June 18th 2009
Hello,
It's been awhile since my last blog. I've been quite busy and have decided to take any free time that I have had and spend it relaxing as much as possible. But hear goes my next blog.
Lately, I've been going through a lot of self-evaluation. Family, career, education, and the like have been running around inside my head like yuppies running around Whole Foods 5 minutes before it closes. First of all, I've been here in Caldera now for about 2 1/2 months yet I don't feel like I've gotten involved much with my family or the community. So I've made an effort to change that. I go for walks in the center at least 3 times a week and try to spend "once" (pronounced: own-say. It's a late-afternoon/early-evening snack before dinner...at least that's what it is for most Chileans. For us, it's dinner) with my family as much as possible. A couple weeks ago we went out and played pool together. It was a blast but took forever because Chileans play a different kinda of pool than I have ever seen. All the balls are lined up in a numerical order around the sides of the
table. You have to get the balls into the pockets in order. However, the holes for the pockets are substantially smaller and next to impossible to get a ball through. Still, it was a blast.
As far as school goes, I've been trying to get more involved with my students. I'm trying to learn all of their names, but I'm already horrible with names and it doesn't help that half the time I don't understand what they've said when I ask them their names. My school has a program where it helps students learn a trade while in high-school to guarantee that they can work afterward. My school has a few trades but the largest one is scallop farming. The school actually owns a building down by the ocean where the students work with actual scallops and are responsible for their growth and harvest. It's actually a really cool program with amazing social benefits like building sustainable communities and other great things that I love! I went and visited them the other day and learned all about what they did directly from the students. It was really quite an experience. They've promised to take me out to help harvest
the scallops when they're ready.
The community is putting on a Drama Festival focused on the English language. All of the English teachers from the town got together for a workshop in which some people from the theater department at the University of Atacama in Copiapó taught us a little bit about teaching drama to students. It was a blast because we all had to move around in crazy ways, dance, and improve!
The same night as the drama workshop I went to a baby shower. It might be the funnest I've had my entire time in Caldera. There were tons of people and lots of activities. One of the activities required only the men. We had to eat chocolate out of a...get this...diaper and guess what kind it was. If we got it wrong we had to stand in the middle and all the women got do basically whatever they wanted to us. It pretty much just meant grinding on the guys. I never actually lost because they guys next to me were helping out since I had never even seen, let alone tried, any of the chocolate. It really was disgusting. Later, I was made to
feel like a piece of meat by 3 of the women who wouldn't let me off the dance floor. There were 2 young boys there who were a riot and kept asking me all night to "Say (insert random Spanish word here!" I had a great time teaching them some English and learning some Spanish from them.
The parents of the kids at Colegio Parroquial Padre Negro put on a seafood sale every year to help raise money for the kids to go somewhere in Chile. This year they're going to La Serena (I have a blog about my trip there). The seafood sale was amazing. TONS of fresh fish, fried fish sandwiches, empanadas, and other Chilean food. It was all really cheap, too! It was about $1.00 for a fish sandwich--and they were delicious! My students enjoyed showing me around...and getting some money from me!
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marta
non-member comment
I miss you!
Thank you Zach -- I was wondering what was happening with you. xoxox M