Latest news from down south (3 months in Chile!)

Hello again blog readers! Let’s see…what’s new?

Well, one of the things I knew I had to write about was the two earthquakes we’ve had down here! Really they only rate between 3.0-5.0 on the Richter scale, so they’re not exactly a full blown earthquake but more like strong “shakes” I guess you could say. Either way, I’ve woken up in the middle of the night twice in the last month because my bed was shaking violently and everything in my bedroom was rattling. SCARY. It happens so frequently here that it’s a normal part of life for Chileans, and although I’m all filled-in on what to do if a real earthquake hits, it’s still really scary because it’s a feeling we never have to deal with in Minnesota (aka the whole earth moving). They don’t last more than a few minutes, but it seems like forever, and it’s scary because you’re just wondering how long it will keep going and if it will start again after it finally stops. Chile experienced the biggest earthquake in world history in 1985 and is apparently long overdue for their next one, so all my American friends and I are always joking (and hoping not) that the cataclysmic earthquake will hit during our 5-month stay in Chile and Viña del Mar will break off and sink into the ocean….and you know, I guess if I meant to die in a cataclysmic earthquake in Chile, then so be it, because there’s nothing I can do about it anyways!

Other cool stuff happening lately: I went kayaking in the OCEAN….for class! It was so awesome, we got to spend our class period kayaking around the pier in Valpo for my phys. ed. class that I’m taking here—who gets to go kayaking in the ocean in Chile anyways?!? Also, I started my language exchange, in which I meet up with my new friend Mario, a law student at my university here, and we spend a couple hours a week talking, for me practicing my Spanish and for him practicing his English. He is so great, very encouraging and patient and more helpful than I could ask for with anything I might need in regards to my stay in Chile. Lastly, I’m in full-swing now with my volunteer work at a school called Ruben Castro, which is a K-12 all-boys’ school and one of the best in the city. I work with a group of eight boys, sophomores in high school and the best in the class, every Thursday morning (at 7:30 a.m. ahhhhhhh!) for 90 minutes teaching them English. They are wonderful, very-well behaved and very smart, and I’m really loving working with them. We focus mainly on activities for them to practice speaking because, like me back in MN, they have very few opportunities to practice speaking their foreign language with a native speaker. It’s been a strange experience because I have my own classroom and everything, the material is completely up to me, I met the teacher one time and she told me to come the next week with 90 minutes of lessons plans…I’m only 20 years-old, what do I know about teaching??? Or teaching English, a language I didn’t have to learn! So, needless to say, it’s a lot more hands-on than I expected, but it’s really fun and I’m enjoying it so much. Everyone who knows me well knows that I have wanted to be a teacher my entire life, so I love stuff like this and I feel so lucky to have had various opportunities to “practice” already at my age. Things are going really good with that, I’m interested to see how it will progress in the coming months.

I’ve now been here for three months as of yesterday, and I cannot believe the time has gone so fast. I’m dreading the end already! In total reality though, we definitely try to make the most of every single day because life is short, and it’s even shorter in Chile because we’ve only got five quick months to live this incredible experience. The past week was a little rough, I started to hit my wall with little things that are really different and food and, most of all, painfully missing people back home. But those feelings pass, especially when my Chilean friend Ivette invited me to spend the whole day with her and her extended family on Mother’s Day, eating SO much and laughing and telling stories and dancing, I spent a night this weekend with my friend Abigail’s entire extended host family, eating and talking and watching crazy home-videos, and my friend Sarah’s real family (haha) just came down to visit and arrived in Chile this weekend. We spent an afternoon showing her mom and sister around the city, ate our favorite empanadas, and then last night went out for an amazing dinner together at this really fancy restaurant that rotates, like the one in Santiago, and looks out over the whole city at night. None of these people are my family, but it doesn’t matter, it’s nice to have someone’s family take you under their wing and it’s made me feel so much better. Plus Skype and a few quick phone calls or emails home, not to mention the big package I just got from Mom…I’ll be just fine.

All in all, things are still great. Rough patches, yes, but I really can’t complain because I know I’m incredibly lucky to be here doing this. I have so many moments, probably every day, where I feel like I could stay here forever—when we’re up in the hills of Valpo and we watch the sunset over the entire port, when I’m sitting with an entire Chilean extended family crammed into a 5-room apartment because they insisted that I stay for dinner and I’m listening to them all talk at once in their crazy version of Spanish, or when I’m out until 5 or 6 in the morning having the time of my life with my three closest friends here. Let the good times roll for the next two months!…I’ll keep you posted.