After one week in La Casa Ursulina

Well, after surviving one week and one day in la Casa Ursulina, I'm starting to feel a little bit more accustomed to my new surroundings and the people that I live and work with. That doesn't necessarily mean that I know how to use public transportation or how to find where I live, but that will come with time.

Throughout the past few months, many of you have asked me what I would actually be doing once I arrived here. I really didn't have much of an idea besides working at a women's center, but now I feel like I'm starting to figure it out a little better. From now really through December Caryn and I are just supposed to be getting used to the house, getting to know the women who come to the center, and working on our Spanish. For the time being, my day mostly consists of waking up, eating breakfast with the three women who work at the house and Mimi, the nun in charge, and sometimes a few other women who volunteer here. After that, it really just depends what's going on that day as to what we're going to do. Three times a week the other gringas (American girls) and I do Tae-Boe with one of the women from the community for about an hour, and then we either go downtown to run errands or do some sort of task around the house. For instance, today we learned how to clean out wool that has been shaved off of sheep. It's really actually a disgusting process that makes me appreciate wool so much more. You basically pull apart the wool so that all the dirt, poop, and other random things stuck in it falls off. After that it gets washed, you do the same cleaning process, and it gets washed again. We haven't learned much past that step yet, but we'll get to the point where we can actually spin the wool, which should be interesting.

Most of the classes here are either craft classes or exercise/dance classes. There's crocheting (but not like we do in the States usually. . .they use super fine yarn and make table cloths and other things that require intricate designs), painting on fabric, ceramic painting, making blankets out of used clothing and materials, and weaving, which I started to learn how to do today. As for the others, there's a regular excercise class, belly-dancing (which isn't nearly as strange as I thought it would be), and something called bio-dance, which I have yet to experience, though that also sounds a little weird. On Fridays we have a class for pregnant/parenting teens, which I'm excited to get more involved with.

This weekend the house is having a huge party/benefit to celebrate the 18th, independence day, which is a huge huge huge holiday here. Most people will have all of the next week off. We'll spend the weekend making empanadas and dancing the cueca, the national dance here. I've actually been attending class with the other two gringas to learn how to do the dance, and the teacher keeps telling us that we've learned it better than most Chileans now--who knows if she's just saying that, but we're quite proud about it!

Hasta pronto!