Chilean Adventures

Christmas in July

2008-07-21T15:55:00.003-05:00

I feel like it is Summer vacation, but its just winter. No more stories about how warm the United States is! But really, winter in Chile hasn't been very bad. Its about 60 everday and gets a little chilly at night, but nothing compared to Iowa winters.

I've been on "break" now for about a week. "Break" here means that I have students coming up to me all the time trying to make stuff up they've missed. This week there is a make-up exam for students to improve their grades or do the final exam if they missed up. Its basically their 5th chance to pass the course.

My best friends Tina and Keri come this wednesday, in two days! I can't wait to show them around. They will be my first guests I'll host in Santiago. We're going to Buenos Aires for 5 days or so. I've heard a lot of people who travel to Buenos Aires and come back to Santiago say they want to move to Argentina after. I'm excited to get out of the smog of Santiago and into another country. We'll see how my Chilean Spanish, Castellano, holds up.

Here are some more pictures! This is my ALL-BOY night class.

Me and some of my students at our 4th of July party:

Me and the other teachers at my site, Plaza Oeste:

Thats all for now.

School's out for Winter

2008-07-02T16:33:00.006-05:00

First semester is almost over! I'm giving final exams to a lot of my students this week. Its so sad, I want to have all my classes next semester, but chances are I won't. Here is one of my favorite classes (they're all my favorite) but this is a great picture. They're so eclectic. If you can see, notice the Iowa State sweatshirt on the guy in front throwing out the peace sign. Of course, they love foreign t-shirts and what not.

I moved into a new apartment a few weeks ago with Chelsea and another teacher from our program Betsy. Its the gringa apartment. We're planning on having a 4th of July party with our students saturday afternoon. We'll see if they can fit in our tiny apartment. My room!

Its basically winter right now but its still in the 50's or 60's during the day and gets cold at night.

No new news really, I'm still enjoying my time a lot and I'm still with my boyfriend Francisco, if anyone was wondering!! My two best friends are coming in 3 weeks, I can't wait. I don't know if I'll be the best tour guide, but it will be good to see familiar faces.

Hope all is well!

Tanto Tiempo

2008-05-26T11:15:00.002-05:00

So it has been such a long time! Sorry about that. I guess I´ll go with the saying no news is good news. But so much has happened.

Luckily, I wasn't affected by the volcano erruption a few weeks ago. It is pretty far south of Santiago. Its so sad though, many people have been displaced and the drinking water is really bad because of all the ash. They've been collecting lots of supplies for the displaced families at my school.

I've learned that in Santiago instead of snow days they have rain days. It rained a ton last week, its Fall here, and they cancelled school for a day and a half, I couldn't believe it! I think it was because they were trying to conserve clean water. Of course we had classes, I had 5 students show up.

School-wise, everything is good. I'm a little behind in my classes because we have lots of holidays and attendance isn't that great so I have to review stuff quite a bit. But I've gotten used to the laid back ways of my college, and I think my students are learning. They're so great. I can't wait until they're not my students and I can hang out with them! They're starting to find me and the other English teachers on facebook, its so funny. But I can't let them see my compromising party pictures, too soon.

We're in our 12th or 13th week of the first semester, I don't remember. The last week of classes is at the beginning of July, so we only have a month left. I can't believe it. My winter break is mid-July-ish to Mid-August and my best friends Tina and Keri are coming!!! I can't wait. I think by then I´ll be Chilean enough to be a good tour guide/host.

Living-wise, Chelsea and I moved into an apartment with two Chilean girls, Paola and Pia. It is right by the subway and we live on the 19th floor. The view is amazing. And since its been raining lately the air has been cleaner so I have a great view of the mountains from my window. We moved in about 3 weeks ago.

I haven't been traveling too much, its so hard to get away for a weekend because I work until 8:30PM on fridays and at 8:30 AM on mondays. But I did go to Curico with my boyfriend Francisco this past weekend. He was a Padrino, godfather, for his cousins' confirmation. Its a more rural town and soo beautiful. Its south of santiago close to the mountains so a little colder, but everything was so green. It reminded me of Paullina little bit. So, needless to say, I met the WHOLE family, they even made me give a speech in Spanish at the dinner after the confirmation. It was horrible, but hilarious. I think my favorite part was how everyone had to tell me the one English word they knew; beautiful, wrangler (like the jeans), bye-bye, very good. They use it, even if its in the completely wrong context. It was great to get out of the city for a weekend and I came back with a huge sack full of walnuts, kiwi, avocados, and apples. His whole family had to give me something to take back, I was not complaining!

I've also been seeing the sites in Santiago. We went to the Santiago version of the Science Center/Coralville Chilren's museum a few weekends ago. It was all interactive exhibits. I also went to a famous Bar called la piojera where they serve a drink called terremotos, earthquakes, made of wine, rum, and pineapple ice cream. They're super potent but a staple of Santiago.

I can't think of anything more for now. Write me an email, let me know how you are! brookeepalmer@gmail.com

I miss everyone! I'm not too homesick yet, which is a good thing since I'm here through the end of the year. Happy Memorial Day!!

New Pictures

2008-04-16T18:26:00.002-05:00

HELLO!

I just put new pictures up on my photo album, click here! I broke my camera a few weeks ago but recently bought a new one, so all is good on the photo front.

There are photos from Valparaiso, on the Pacific coast, Cerro San Cristobal, and the city zoo.

More to come...

I'm officially Chilean!

2008-03-26T14:24:00.002-05:00

I just picked up my Cedula de identificacion today, which is basically my Chilean ID! It has my picture and everything. Of course it was a huge process of going to the international police and registering my visa, then waiting in a lot of long lines, but it was worth it. I'm legal!

So we went to La Serena this past weekend, a city on the coast, to celebrate Easter. We had a three-day weekend which was nice after a stressful first two weeks. The coast was amazing. We ate a TON of seafood, its super cheap here. They have so much too, some that we don't even have English words for I don't think. We went to the beach everyday which wasn't too warm, but of course I got scorched. That Chilean sun is a trickster. There were six of us that went; three Chilean boys and three American girls, needless to say there were some language barriers, but we made it work.

School is going a lot better! I feel like I know what's going on a little bit more, and we have books for our students so they're not completely lost. They're so great. Our first quiz is next week and I'm kind of nervous for them!

I'm not homeless! We had one month of free housing that ends Monday in a university residence and then we were supposed to be out, but Chelsea and I are staying for one more month so we have time to find a place. I was thinking I might have to live on the streets.

As if commuting to my campus for an hour each way isn't enough, March 29th is el dia del joven combatiente - day of the young combatant - which commemorates the deaths of two Chilean boys during the military regime, and apparently its celebrated more in the less affluent parts of Santiago AKA right by my campus! There are protests, and pillaging, and violence, and I'm hoping we don't have to go to work Friday! Two weekends ago all Americans were advised not to go to the city center because of a protest against the American-led war in Iraq. There are so many protests and demonstrations here.

Kind of a boring post, but I guess no news is good news in this case. All is well, I hope everyone is doing well in the states! I don't have more pictures right now because my camera broke, but I'll post some when I get a new one.

Back to School

2008-03-13T12:36:00.005-05:00

So I've had four days of classes and I looooove my students. They are all fairly young and really respectful. I have to very basic classes and one intermediate. I just tell them I'm learning Spanish while you're learning English so we can help each other. Hopefully they won't take advantage of me too much!

I've only had four days of classes, BUT, I've commuted to get there 12 hours this week already! It takes about 1hr 15 min. to get to my school, which is in a bad part of town. I haven't felt unsafe at all yet, but I wouldn't want to be alone around the area at night.

The things my students know is hilarious. I asked them for words they knew in English or other things like that, and they always surprise me. They do try really hard though, I think they can tell I'm struggling with speaking Spanish so its ok for them to struggle as well.

My boss quit yesterday. There are coordinators at each site for the English classes and mine quit! As if we weren't confused enough on the first day of class, now we have no idea who to ask! We're just trying to scrape by these first few weeks. Books don't come for the Basic classes until the beginning of April, and we don't have any idea what the curriculum is for intermediate because they're revising the whole program.

Other than that, everything is great! Chelsea and I haven't started apartment searching yet, but we are going to soon. Next week is la semana santa (holy week) so that will be very interesting being in a very catholic country. Hopefully I get a ton of school off, we don't know the calendar yet.

Chao!

"Certified" Teachers

2008-03-09T19:24:00.002-05:00

Hola! We finished our training at DuocUC where we will be teaching and we start teaching tomorrow...kind of. The teachers in my program at my campus still don't know their schedules, what level of English they're teaching, or have any materials. Everyone was on vacation up until last week so things are pretty disorganized. All we know is we have to show up by 8:30 because 4 out of the 5 of us will have an 8:30 AM class. That sounds ok, but it is about an hour and 15 minute commute to our campus. Wish me luck!

Last Friday we had a farewell dinner because half of the people in our program are teaching on the coast and they left us! Here is a picture of our entire Teach in Chile group:

Everything is still going really well. I haven't been using my Spanish much because I still live with a lot of people in my program and its been so stressful trying to figure out our schedules we just speak in English.

Todo esta bien!

2008-03-04T16:21:00.005-06:00

So we made it! Chelsea and I got into Santiago about 1:00 p.m. (10:00 a.m. in Iowa) last Sunday. Both of my suitcases were overweight, of course. We had training with our organization CIEE - Council on International Educational Exchange - all last week. It was basically cultural training and learning about how to get around Santiago. We went to Pomaire a village outside santiago famous for its pottery, and la Chascona - one of Pablo Neruda's three houses in Chile.

La Chascona.

We had a few classes on Chilean spanish because its very unique and they speak very fast. I learned that Chileans love onomatopoeias. Their cards to ride el metro (the subway) are called BIP cards because they make a beep when you use them and they call babies guaguas - pronounced wah--wahs. So thats pretty fun.

We started training at DuocUC this week and it has been really unorganized. We don't know which level of English we are teaching, what book we are using, or our schedule. Hopefully we find out before we start next Monday!

Right now I'm living in a residencia for international students. We each have our own rooms and share a few people to one bathroom. I have all my pictures up on a webpage if you go here and there is also a link on the left side of my page.

The people in the program are great. They come from everywhere: Arkansas, Maine, North Carolina, Virginia, Texas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Oregon, Iowa, and I think thats it. Here are some of the people in our group in our hotel one night. We had a little wine and pisco night. Wine is probably about $4-5 a bottle and pisco is about the same, it makes for some fun nights.

This is a view from our first hotel room.

Some Chilean amigos we hang out with.

Hope everyone is well! Drop me a line sometime or leave a comment. You can email me at brookeepalmer@gmail.com.

And on that note...

2008-02-23T00:43:00.005-06:00

I'm packed! For the most part. I'm feeling a sense of closure in Iowa and I'm ready to take off. Tomorrow is the big day. Luckily our flight isn't until the afternoon so I can sleep in and pack last-minute things I undoubtedly forgot.

I'm traveling with my best friend Chelsea Stone and we went out to dinner last night with both of our families. It was a great going-away dinner and it made me realize that I'll always have home to come back to, no matter how far away I am. Cheesy, I know, but it is somewhat scary going to a completely new place with no remnants of my old life. I have to start all over!

I didn't get to say goodbye to everyone I wanted to, its so hard to see people, and I'm worn out from goodbyes. I always get so emotional. But if you're reading this and I didn't get to say good-bye I'll just see you when I get back! Or you can come to Santiago and visit.

Packing is the worst

2008-02-20T00:21:00.001-06:00

So, I leave in four days and haven't packed a lick! Its so hard to know what I'll want to have in 2 months.

2 weeks out

2008-02-09T18:46:00.000-06:00

Leaving in 2 weeks.