Blogs from Caldera, Atacama, Chile, South America - page 3

So I meant to write this earlier this week but this week has been hectic. My coteacher was out of school sick so for the first half of the week I had every class to myself. I think I had control for about the first 15 minutes with the good students. What a learning experience! I decided to give myself Thursday off since I had worked over my regular scheduled hours for the whole week by Wednesday. Then Friday was Dia del Trabajador also known as Labor Day. Most of the world actually celebrates it on the first of May I discovered. So I've been enjoying a long weekend. I've been finding out that the region I'm in has some very unique places within its borders. *Just north of Caldera there is a beach that has ... read more

Semana Santa This week is Semana Santa or "Holy Week". This was also my first week teaching classes alone. For anybody who thinks that teachers are getting paid enough I challenge you to teach any subject to a classroom full of 10-17 year-olds. If you've done that, try doing it to a classroom of students who don't understand a single word you're saying. Then tell me if you think teachers are paid enough!!! Actually, this has been one of the most exciting, challenging, and rewarding weeks of my life. I've answered the question "do you have a girlfriend?" about 20 times. I've seen students bored out of their minds. I've seen students light up when we start playing a game and they see that they actually do know some English. I'm exhausted to be honest. Today ... read more

Well, I spent my first night in Caldera. It's a very small town right on the ocean. It has a nice beach. The view isn´t spectacular but there is another beach called Bahia Inglesa that is GORGEOUS. The water is clear-aqua colored similar to pictures of the Caribbean. I spent the day today in classes making a fool of myself in front of Chilean students. It was a BLAST!!! I think I turned red about 80 times. But that's not that difficult to do. I don't have very much time right now but I just wanted to post some pics I've taken.... read more

Uff, Amden überquert.... Endlich geschafft... Es war ein Krampf...... read more

Lifes a beach and then you sit on one!! Have you ever seen a desert, no the kind that has chocolate sprinkles on top. The one where there isn´t much H2O around, well our journey through to Bahia Inglesa followed the edge of the Atacama (driest place on earth), past Copiapo. A town where mining is big, perhaps more popular than in the Neath valley, where a huge proportion of Chile´s natural resources are brought to the surface. As you can imagine Copiapo is dry, dusty, feisty and quite frankly rather ugly. Strangely it seemed to have an abnormally high population of 'lady boys'some of who joined us for the rest of our bus journey, with their vanity cases and loud pumping house music through their ipods. However our destination was far more picturesque, it is ... read more