Into the routine now

Okay, so I continue to be a bad blogger, but things sometimes just don't seem as interesting to write about when you're in the swing of it all. Although there are certainly surprises and challenges to every week, things have been running smoothly lately and life is a little calmer than it previously was. Caryn and I have been trying to teach English (sometimes more successfully than others) to plenty of children in the neighborhood, and I've been doing more art projects than I ever thought possible. Especially since my art skills aren't so hot. In any case, our youth group project has been a little hit or miss, since some weeks the kids just don't show and other times more kids than are expected show up, but we're trying to keep a go with the flow attitude.

Caryn and I recently participated in the Cruz del Mayo activities on May 2, which nobody can really explain to me how they started. Anyways, we went around the neighborhood with a group of teenagers collecting food donations for the group of abuelitos that we work, singing a song about beans and pumpkins. It was sort of like trick-or-treat, only with spaghetti and rice and for donations. The most interesting part to me, though, is that supposedly crosses get burned on this day in celebration. Caryn and I searched for it, but we never got to see it. Everyone thought it was pretty funny that we were slightly horrified by the idea of putting a cross in a bonfire, but hey, I guess this was just a very easily spotted cultural difference.

Other than that, we're preparing for the cold of winter and trying to think up ways to teach first graders English. Blacky, the (I should just admit it and say "my") cat where I live, has a cold that keeps me up at night with his sneezing. I never even knew that cats can get colds. Who would have known that coming to Chile requires lots of cat ministry?

Yeah. . .it's been months since my last post

Well, it's been such a long time now since I last blogged that I'm not too sure where to begin. Since then, my family has come to visit, I traveled with Caryn to Argentina and Uruguay, we went camping (like for real camping, the no bathrooms no showers way), we traveled to the south of Chile and hung out with the penguins, I moved into a house with a family, traveled home for a few weeks, and returned to Chile to the craziness that awaited.

Right now, Caryn and I have made ourselves pretty busy, leaving me exhausted at the end of each day and only wanting to hang out with the kitty at my family's house. Basically, we're teaching English to four grades at a school, teaching an English class to young girls at the Casa Ursulina, leading a class called Reflection and Art, helping out with pregnant teens, entertaining senior citizens, and beginning a youth group. Today was a big day for me, as I made my first public announcement in Spanish at the end of Mass to introduce our youth group which will begin meeting next week. I have to say, normally I'm not too nervous about public speaking, but today was a bit nerve-wrecking. In the end it turned out fine, and I'm glad that I could finally feel comfortable enough in Spanish to get up in front of a few hundred people to make an understandable announcement. For those of you who helped me collect cameras, this youth group is the group that will be benefiting from your donations!

The weather is still decent here, but you can certainly tell that it's getting cooler now and it's getting darker earlier at night. I'm glad to still have some warm weather left, but the cold weather is creeping in and making me dread it all the more.

Alright, hopefully I'll start doing a better job blogging again from here on out. Peace!

Certainly not expecting a white Christmas in Chile

Well, after a cold beginning in Chile, I can say for sure now that we've entered the heat of the summer. Lately I just try to stay out of the sun and walk around barefoot in our house since the floor is much cooler than any other place. The Christmas tree is up and decorated, but right now it's hard to believe that Christmas is just a few days away. Instead it feels like we should be celebrating the 4th of July or a summer birthday party.

Last week we had a few goodbye parties for Bridget. . .here's a picture from the first one with a lot of the core women from the house (it was really hard to get everyone in the picture).

Here's Bridget with two of my most favorite old ladies. . .they certainly keep us on our toes.

On Monday of this week Caryn, Bridget's host family, and I went to the airport in Santiago to say goodbye to Bridget. After weeks (maybe months) of crying, Sandra, Bridget's host mom, handled the experience pretty well. Caryn and I are especially sad to see Bridget go. . .our peer group has dwindled from three to two. It's tough sometimes to live in a town where most people our age are either married and having children or still live at home with their parents, waiting to get married. The idea of being a somewhat independent twenty-something year old just isn't quite the norm here.

After dropping Bridget off in the airport, Caryn and I stayed with Sandra and Valentina and some of their family in Santiago for a few days. We visited Vina del Mar and Valparaiso for a day, and we'll both be heading back to visit there in a few weeks with our families. The two places are sort of like twin cities (or joined cities?) on the coast of Chile, north of Santiago, and they're built up into a hill right up from the water's edge. Caryn and I basically checked out the area, found a hotel, and located what looked like some good restaurants so that we have an idea of what to do when our families arrive. On Thursday we hung out in Santiago, doing some Christmas shopping and wandering around in the heat downtown.

For Christmas it sounds like we're going to Mass on Christmas Eve and will then come back to the house and eat snacks, drink champagne, and exchange gifts between the gringos. For Christmas day we're planning to meet up with the Maryknollers in the country at a beach a few hours from here. It sounds like it should be a good time--but definitely not the Christmas that we're used to in the States.

This picture somehow didn't make it in my last post, but this is us dressed up with Bridget's English class to sing "Old McDonald" for the end of the year party. . .what lovely costumes we had!

From Thanksgiving to the end of the year party

Thanksgiving dinner ended up being quite fun, even though it was a decent amount of work, especially for a group of us who had never prepared a full Thanksgiving before. Mimi, Ruth, Bridget, Caryn, and I invited some of the Chileans that we're closest with over for the event. The funniest part of the whole meal was probably the horrified looks on the faces of our guests when we explained that this meal would be self-served in a buffet style. Completely unheard of in their parties, we really had to convince them that it was okay to take as much or as little as they wanted. Below is a picture of the whole group:

The Friday following Thanksgiving Mimi, Ruth, Caryn, and I attended a retreat in El Quisco, a beach town about seven hours north of Chillan. We travelled by bus to Santiago (and man, I must say, we watched some really lovely movies on the bus ride there. . .all containing extreme amounts of violence), ate lunch, and then got on another bus to El Quisco. It's a beautiful town, and the retreat center that we stayed at was less than a fifteen minute walk from the beach. The retreat was hosted by the Chile Maryknollers, and was definitely the most, um, interesting retreat I've ever been on, with very alternative ideas of spirituality. In any case, it was nice to get out of Chillan for a week and hang out at the beach a little, even though it was waaaaaaaaaaaay too cold to even consider going in the water. Meanwhile, back in Chillan, summer has truly arrived.

Here's a picture from the beach at El Quisco:

And here are the really large, creepy looking spiders that I called tarantulas (but really are not at all harmful) that were hanging out around the retreat center:

This is Caryn, Sarah (a Maryknoller), and I hanging out at Isla Negra, the home of famous Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. It was easily one of the strangest places I've ever been based on the odd things this man collected, but the view was gorgeous.

This week we had our end of the year party at the house, which of course involved lots of eating and then each class performed a skit. It really was a lot of fun, especially after all the hard work that went into it.

Today we put up a Christmas tree, which just feels super strange considering it's quite hot outside. We're trying though--we watched Love Actually last night and keep listening to Christmas music whenever we can.

Photos from the past few entries

Here are some pictures that really belong with the past few entries, but this is a faster way for me to put them up.



This is from Daniela's birthday party, before they smashed her face in the cake.

Here's Diana Margarita and Gabi at the Abuelo's birthday party.

Ruth, Mimi, Caryn, and Jaime celebrating Jaime's dad's retirement.



This is Matias and Sebastian hanging out at a confirmation party.

Here's the abuelito opening presents at about 2 AM on his 80th birthday.

Thanksgiving gringo style tomorrow

The time just keeps flying by here and Chile. It's hard to believe that next week is already Thanksgiving, especially since we're well into spring and almost in summer here now. It's a little strange to be headed into the winter holidays with roses blooming everywhere, but I suppose we'll made do without a white Christmas this year.

Tomorrow Mimi, Caryn, Bridget, Ruth (the North American nun who just moved in with us), and I are planning a Thanksgiving dinner with a few families from the neighborhood. Obviously Thanksgiving is not something that is celebrated here, so we're having to make do with our courses and accept that there will be no cranberry sauce or full turkey (but we are having turkey--no worries!). We'll see how it turns out, since none of us really knows how to make some of the stuff. . .but in any case it should be a fun experience.

The last few weeks Caryn and I seem to have been crazy busy. For one, a couple weeks back Bridget's uncle Tony came to visit, and we ended up spending a lot of time with them. Ruth arrived on almost exactly the same day, so there have also been a few more people around. For one, when Tony was here we went out to a place in the woods in the mountains where Caryn and I will go camping this summer with one of the families that we're close to. Bridget had been there before and asked Carola if she could take us out there to show her uncle. We hiked around to a gorgeous area with a waterfall, but to be honest, if you're slightly clumsy (like me!), the climbing around part was a little difficult and scary. I only managed to fall a couple of times, but hanging out on wet rocks just might not be my strong point in life. I'll post some of Caryn's pictures from that day eventually.

The day after our trip to the waterfall we had an asado (a cookout) in the campo with Sandra, Bridget's host mom. That was enjoyable and laid-back, but then Sandra wanted to take us to this German park thing nearby. We didn't really know what we were getting into, but this was easily one of the strangest places I've ever been in my life. It was this giant German area in the middle of the campo with a playground for kids, a gigantic tent restaurant thing, and a fake pig that claims to sing and dance (totally creepy). I'll have to post a picture of that, because words certainly do not describe how weird this pig is. Later on we learned that this area was where many people were tortured during the Pinochet dictatorship, since a lot of the Germans (who had fled Germany after World War II) were closely connected to the government at that time.

That same weekend we went to a festival in Puertezuelo with Tony and Carola's family. After cramming into the pickup truck (five of us in the cabin with a gigantic sombrero that we thought was a drum since it was in a case and a guitar and another seven people in the back part), we drove for about a half an hour until we arrived in the town for this festival. It was really fun, with lots of eating, singing, and dancing, and it lasted literally all night. The kids that came with us all ended up going out to sleep in the truck, but we stayed until about six in the morning when the festival finally ended. The Chileans sure do love to stay up all night--no matter how old or young you are.

Tonight we're headed to the Victor Jara festival, which will be another festival full of music and dancing, from what I can tell. I'll write more about this sometime soon.

Beyond going to festivals and parties, Caryn and I have added a few new things to our weeks. We continue to teach English to third and fourth graders, we assist with English at another school with sixth and eighth graders, we hang out with the senior citizens in the chapel once a week, and now we've been asked to try to start a youth group at the church in addition to hanging out with the women at the house and learning how to weave. Overall, we seem to have become pretty busy these last few weeks.

Alright, I think that's all for now. Ruth's been working on a webpage for the Casa Ursulina, so be sure to check it out!