Meeting Sayuri’s Mom Talk about an amazing mom. I was invited to take once tonight with her at her home. We pulled up into the driveway beside a garden full of head high rose bushes. After entering through the door, I met the nana of sorts. She has essentially lived with the family since she was about 9 (now about 60) and she now lives and works with them for no pay other than insurance and room and board. Unlike many other nanas, she is welcomed as one of the family. She even dined with us later that evening. I can believe it though that this family would be so welcoming. It’s a large one – 4 sisters and 2 brothers Sayuri has, but I only met mom and one sister tonight. Mama walked into the ... read more

I traveled to Talca again this weekend, but I spent most of the time at Cody's house with him and the others who live in Talca. I sucessfully took the micro (bus) by myself and found the place. Walking toward the house, I ran into him and Valeria coming from her house. We spent the afternoon planning and shopping for our great feast for the evening. Valeria, being from a Mexican family prepared quite an array of Mexican foods: refried beans from scratch, seasoned ground beef, and roasted tomato and pepper salsa from scratch. I prepped a lot of the vegetables and put together the guacamole which turned out delicious I must add! Cody - our sole man - did some grilling outside: corn - fresh from the family's farm, zuchinni, onions, and sausages. Justine brought ... read more

On Thursdays, I don't have any classes in the afternoon, so I took a nice long much needed siesta. After that I was ready to prepare dinner for the family and guests. We've been talking about me preparing something, and Francisca suggested I do it on the day we had 2 guests to sample it too. I needed a couple things at the grocery store first though so I gladly spent a little time there. It's seemingly never busy! I did go at a later hour though today and as a result, I ran into several students. One of them was picking up a shift of bagging groceries. The highlight of my trip however was walking down the aisles singing and dancing to my favorite Latino pop star, Juanes, sing over the speakers. I tried to ... read more

Despite being perturbed that I was basically stood up for a meeting with the principal, it was again a pleasure getting to speak with Cristian for that hour. It seems like whenever I have a little downtime, he's always there to chat. He told me that there are two other blondes in town that look exactly like me, but we speak very differently. Apparently they have a very strong American accent that Cristian replicated for me - hilarious. We also talked with a few others about Religion. Apparently religious practice is quite common here. I have been asked on multiple occassions, do you have a religion? And I have been pleasantly surprised when they recognize Metodista. On my way out of school, I ran into Narciso with whom I visited for probably an hour. When they ... read more

I got to participate a little more today - calling roll and doing a short activity with the song L-O-V-E. I don't know how I'm going to learn all of the students' names (there are like 300), but I'll do my best! The activity seemed quite successful as the kids really got into it and of course, they enjoyed me singing to them. I had a great time watching them at the end of class and between classes. They're all a buzz! For one class, they left the room and 3 or 4 were playing their guitars before they got out the door. Then another class, having talked about "extraordinary" during the singing activity called out to me "Miss! You're extraordinary!" Made my day :) The lounge serves as every teacher's desk (I know - just ... read more