Rachel's Adventures in Chile

Bicentennial Madness!!

2010-09-15T16:33:00.000-07:00

So, as promised, I am writing just before the independence day (Septmeber 18th) weekend festivities begin. So far, there has been a lot of hype for the big celebration, 200 YEARS! Last Sunday Chago and I ran a 10K race in Santiago. It was a lot of fun, there were more than 7,000 people there. I was a little nervous since I had not been training and it had been almost a year since the last time I ran that far, but I finished the whole thing! Chago stayed with me the whole time (although I know he would have liked to go faster), he managed to get used to my turtle pace. :) "Wheres Waldo?" If you dare... you can look for Chago and me in this picture (Photo 7 - http://www.emol.com/MundoGrafico/index.asp?G_ID=15793#) He has a blue hat, and I have a white hat to the right of him. I'll give you a hint, we are in front of the middle white divider. And we are both wearing red shirts :P Also in preparation, my entire school has been preparing dances for the past 2 weeks to perform tomorrow (Thursday) at a big presentation/assembly. Each grade has a different dance. They have spent a lot of time practicing during school - which has caused a crazy schedule and some missed classes - but will hopefully make for a wonderful show!

Tomorrow I will be heading to San Fernando to spend the holiday with Chago and his family. On Saturday we will be driving about a 1/2 hour to San Vicente (where my host family has family and will be spending the holiday) to spend the day with my host family. We have through Monday off, so a wonderful long weekend!!! :) Coming back from vacation, I will be moving into Chago's sister's apartment in ñuñoa (a different suburb of Santiago, a little bit to the north of where I currently am). It will be a change up, but I'm excited for apartment living again :)

I have two months left of the English Opens Doors program. I cannot believe how fast the time has gone by. It is a little scary not knowing the next step, but I am just praying that things will all come together. I just want to thank everyone for posting comments, reading, and keeping me in your prayers. It has been wonderful hearing from those that have sent emails. I miss you all very much, and I can't wait to see you again soon! I will post again after the 18th celebration!! Take care!!

Love,

Rach

Chilean Winter...

2010-08-29T16:52:00.000-07:00

Ok... officially the worst blogger in the world. Or at least thats what we are all thinking! Its ok, thats including me. So as the title of my blog says, we are in winter here in Chile, but getting ready for the spring which is coming soon! I am completely thrown off with the date and the weather not matching up in my head as they should. However, we have had some beautiful days lately... I have even been able to take my jacket off at school!

I have never had any problems with street dogs here in Chile (and there are a LOT of street dogs). They always seemed to follow me or wag their tails innocently. However, the street dogs that one of my neighbors gives food and water to have always been pretty fierce, barking at anyone who walked by, even on the other side of the street. I was genuinely intimidated by them, preferring to keep my hands and ankles intact. About a week ago I decided to try and be nice to them and see if they would be less aggressive, and it worked! I conquered with kindness! And then I tried passing the other day when only one of the dogs was on the sidewalk. He started barking and looked like he wanted to eat me... I realized he was not part of the whole friendship agreement we had signed. It looks like I still have some work to do! :)

So in my last blog I mentioned Chago and I would be going to Iquique for winter vacation. We took a bus, which took about 24 hours each way. It was beautiful in Iquique, with warmer weather than we had been having here in Santiago. We stayed with Chago's uncle Pancho, and his two cousins, Nicolás and Valentina.

We hit up a lot of shopping. There is a mall called the Zofri that has pretty good deals and a TON of stores, as well as a couple different outdoor markets that were pretty neat. At the Zofri Chago got to try on a bunch of baseball gear, he was halfway there to enjoying America's favorite past time :)

We also enjoyed going to the beach, going running, and a museum about the chinchorro culture that once existed in Iquique.

It was really fun to get to know more of Chago's family and to see all of the north of Chile. The only unfortunate thing was that we drove through the Atacama desert both ways during the night, so we couldn't see anything! :/ But overall a fantastic trip!

Teaching has been going well. I have started at my school here in Santiago and I'm really loving it. I work with three host teachers and I finally have my own room!! It is wonderful, I am just in the process of getting some posters for the walls so it doesn't look so bare. The school remodeled the room especially for me! I am definitely feeling very welcomed!

Miss Claudia, Miss Rachel, Miss Natalia, and Miss Ely :)

Here is the link to the school's website - and a story about the work I will be doing! (http://www.csmc.cl/CM1/eventos.asp?galeria=157) If you scroll down it is in English, and you can click on the Galería to see some pictures of me and the other English teachers! Speaking of teaching, I also started doing a sort of English workshop on my day off every other week down in San Fernando. I work with about 25 students there for an hour to an hour and a half. They are a good group who enjoy participating and want to practice their English. It is different from my experience teaching here in Santiago, because I get to do whatever I want. It is nice to have the liberty to choose the activities and content, and not having to worry that they will not learn a specific content they will need to know for the test. It is a really relaxed setting and the students are from 9th to 12th grade.

One of the friends I met here who was also a volunteer left to go back already today. She was only doing a three month program instead of the full six month. I am sad she left (one of the few volunteer friends here in Santiago), and I cannot believe that three months have already gone by! I feel like I am still just getting settled in! I guess that goes to show how time really flies, especially when getting used to new environments. I am hoping the time slows down a little bit, as I am a little anxious about the next step. I was able to put off the reality of finding a job while all of my classmates were stressing out because I had this volunteer plan set... I guess now its my turn!

Anyway, we are preparing for September 18th here, Chile's independence day celebration. We are still making plans for where exactly we will celebrate, but it is sure to be a very big event. It is the bicentennial celebration, and that means the typical dancing of the cueca (national dance), eating asados (BBQs), drinking of wine, and other festivities, but to the max!! I think there will be some special dances or other types of performances as well. At school, each grade level is assigned a typical dance of some part of the country to perform the day before school gets out for the independence day break. A couple of teachers are assigned to each grade to help. I (along with 2 other teachers) have been assigned to 12th grade, dancing the typical dance of Easter Island. I think we are mostly supposed to help with choreography and such, so I will definitely have to do my research! I believe it has a similar movement to Hawaiian dancing. I'll have to get back to you in a couple weeks ;)

Thanks for reading if you have made it this far! Please comment so I know someone is actually checking this, even if it is mainly just looking at the pictures ;) Hopefully that will motivate me to write more! I think of you all often and I really want to hear from you. If you want to chat via Skype, I am usually on in the evenings - my username is rmvanderhey. Thats all for now, I will write again soon, hopefully before the independence day madness here! Love you and take care!!

Rach :)

Which witch wished which wish?

2010-06-23T17:53:00.000-07:00

So it has been awhile since the last update, and a lot has been happening!! I started volunteering at a school, working with mainly high school students. That age is fun to work with because they are able to go a little more in depth and they already have somewhat of a foundation of English (vocab, structures, etc). On Tuesdays and Thursday a few student teachers would come in to help with the English classes. For a project they were completing, they were making a CD for students in grades one to four to take home, along with a book, in order to practice English phrases at home. The CD also included some tongue twisters and rhymes. The other volunteer and I were asked to read the commands and tongue twisters for the recording since we are native English speakers. The title of this blog - Which witch wished which wish? - was one of the tongue twisters (you had to say it twice), and it got me every time. Unfortunately, due to a lack of space at the first school, I was switched to another school, where I have been about 1 week. My program requires the school to have a separate room for my use in order for my teaching to work as they intend - and the school I was at initially did not have the space. Although I'm sad to have left the kids I'd been working with for the past three weeks, I'm excited for a new adventure and just praying that God's hand is in all of the new changes.

The kids at the new school are very sweet and I am working with three different English teachers. The teachers are all very welcoming, and I am enjoying the variety of students and people I get to interact with. I help with kindergardeners, 6th, 7th, 9th, 11th, and 12th graders. It is quite a range, but keeps things interesting. We just started winter vacation so I haven't actually started teaching my own classes, but I will start when we get back from break in 2 weeks.

A couple of weeks ago, Chago and I went up to the mountains - to a place called Sierra Bellavista - with a couple of his friends for the day and got to see some snow! Since they don't get snow where Chago lives (just a very rainy winter), it was exciting for him and his friends. It was pretty minimal in comparison to Minnesotan winters, but it was still fun to have a snowball fight and we even managed to build a mini snowman!

For the 4th of July, Chago and I made an "American" style BBQ, complete with cheeseburgers, chips, fruit salad, and we even found some A&W in the grocery store to top it off (they don't have root beer here)! It is so funny how excited a can of pop can make you just because it is something familiar in a foreign environment. Although we didn't get to see any fireworks, grill-master Chago made the day very special with his enthusiasm for his first 4th!

For vacation, Chago and I are going to go up to northern Chile (24 hour bus ride) to Iquique. He has an uncle that lives there that is letting us stay with him. I am excited to finally get to see northern Chile, not to mention a little warmer weather couldn't hurt! :) (You can see on the map below where we are - Santiago - and all the way up north, almost to Peru, is Iquique).

Aside from school, things have been going very well. My host family is wonderful and I am slowly but surely starting to make a life here. I can't believe almost two months have gone by already. I am anxious to get started at the school in full swing. I know it is going to add so much more enjoyment (and I'm sure craziness!) to my life here! After vacation I will also start working at a school in San Fernando (where I was planning on volunteering before the earthquake). Since I have Fridays off at my school here in Santiago, I will be leading conversation groups every other Friday for students who want to practice speaking English at the school in San Fernando. I am really excited to get to work with the teachers and students there, as they played a big role in my final Spanish research paper at CSBSJU. It will be very interesting to see how the actual environment and issues compare to what I wrote about in my paper. It will be another adventure, thats for sure! :)

Sorry for taking so long to write. However, following with my initial promise of being better at blogging than when I was studying in Viña, I still think I'm ahead of that record by a post or two :) Please write and keep me posted on your lives - including pictures!! :D Being far away from friends and family is difficult, but I love hearing from you. It makes me feel a little closer to home. I love you and miss you all, take care!!

God Bless,

-Rach

PS.. if you would like my address here in Chile just shoot me an email!

Arrival to Florida...I mean Chile...I mean La Florida, Chile

2010-06-08T20:18:00.000-07:00

I arrived in La Florida - a suburb that is southeast of Santiago - late last night to a warm welcome from my host mom Patty, my host dad Carlos, and my host sister Annia. They also have a son Carlos Felipe who is my age but studies down south, so will not be around too often. When I arrived they had once waiting for me, which is a smaller meal that consists of tea or coffee, and bread with all kinds of things to put on it - butter, avocado, jelly, ham, cheese, etc. Now that I have been practicing my spanish ("Chilean") for so long, since I studied in Viña 2 years ago, I find that I am actually able to communicate pretty easily with my family, which makes it so fun and relaxing to spend time with them! My sister is very sweet and we spent a good amount of time chatting last night. She is talkative and interested in my culture, which always helps when getting to know someone! I have felt very comfortable and at home here so far.

I live in the same city as another volunteer, Fred, and we will actually be teaching at the same school. Today, Fred and I had an adventure trying to get our temporary resident visa registered and requesting our Chilean Identity cards. Almost every place we went, they told us a different place we needed to go to actually get what we needed done. Although it wasn´t the most efficient morning, we did get to see a bit of Santiago/get practice with the transportation systems! That is one thing I am a bit anxious to get resolved is figuring out how I will get to school/around town. I am usually pretty comfortable with finding my way around, but my new house on the far end/outskirts of town and the transportation available to me seems a bit complicated still. Walking around in daylight and getting to know a map well will definitely help me out!

Anywho, I am settling in here and I just want to say that you (friends and family) are in my thoughts and prayers as I share our culture and my life with the students, friends, and families here. Love you and miss you! Please write :)

P.S. I´ll post pictures soon, I just need to get some batteries for my camera!

Bienvenidos a Chile!!

2010-05-27T12:07:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone! I made it safe and sound :) I arrived Tuesday morning. After lugging my 100 pounds worth of suitcases, backpack and briefcase through the busses and streets of Santiago, Chago and I dropped some of my luggage off at Chago´s sisters´apartment in Santiago, where we had empanadas for lunch!! After lunch Chago and I took a bus to San Fernando (where he and his family live) - where I will be for the rest of this week. Chago works all day - but eats lunch with us at the house - so I have had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with Pia, Chago´s niece who is almost four. We have shared many chomwicks (sandwiches according to Pia) and have ¨read¨ our English books. I have also had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with Chago´s mom. We went and saw their new house that will hopefully be ready to move into in a week or two! Its on the other side of town, so we definitely got our exercise in walking to and from :)

I am getting anxious to start the English Opens Doors program, although I still have some reading to do yet! I will be heading to the hostel in Santiago on Sunday, with the program starting early Monday morning. The first week will be orientation, and the following week we will be sent to our placement sites. I will let you all know how it goes, please keep me posted on how you are all doing. I miss you and love you! Talk to you soon! :)

And we're off!!

2010-05-24T08:08:00.000-07:00

Today is the day!! I leave at 4:10PM!! I just wanted to say thank you to all of the friends and family that I have been able to spend time with before I left. Each visit has been so special. I am going to miss you all so much! Please keep me posted with emails and pictures, and I will do the same. Enjoy the warmth of summer, as I will be heading into Chilean winter!! :) Also, please keep me in your prayers tonight, for a safe flight. I will land tomorrow morning at about 7AM Minnesota time, 8AM local Chile time. Take care and I'll be in touch again soon!! Love you all!

-Rach :)

10 days and counting

2010-05-14T22:44:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my blog! As some of you may have noticed from my study abroad blog, I was not the best at keeping it up to date. I intend to be much better this time around...or at least I'll try :)

I have a little over a week now before I leave (May 24), and I am getting very excited! I was notified of my regional placement today. I will be volunteering in the región metropolitana (metropolitan region). This is in the central zone of Chile, where Santiago (the capitol) is located - the blue section on the map below. I will receive my host family and school placement information during orientation the first week in Santiago (May 31-June 4). For those of you who don't know, I will be teaching English in a public school, partnering up with the school's native Chilean English teacher. If you are interested to read more about the program, you can check out the website http://www.puntonorte.cl/voluntarios/

I really want to keep connected with all of my family and friends (you!) during these next 7 months, so please send me email updates/comments/questions/pictures/etc. I hope you all enjoy your summer and the new adventures ahead of you. I love you and will miss you all. Please keep me in your prayers as I begin this next chapter! Take care and God Bless :)