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!