Mr. Bradford goes to Taiwan

American Indian is to buffalo as Chinese is to duck

2010-07-13T09:00:00.000-03:00

It has been a couple of days sense I have updated the blog, but we have been pretty busy, and in all honesty, we are a little tired. For me, it's mostly the fact that I haven't had a day off in quite a while. This has made me a little low on energy. Tami is going strong, but I think she misses cheese.
I was able to add a couple more foods to my bucket list that I haven't eaten before; duck blood, not to be confused with pig blood, or pig blood cake, and duck feet. I have to say, I didn't see the duck feet coming. That is the one thing that I would have assumed they would have given up on and decided that enough was enough. After all, they don't eat the feathers.....at least I don't think so. The duck's feet were pickled, and basically tasted like pickled cartilage. How do I know what pickled cartilage taste like? Don't ask.
All of this was served to us by the father of our host family. He took the time to make us a traditional home-made meal. Every time I hear the term "traditional", I get nervous. We arrived, sat with the entire family, including grandma and grandpa. Grandma said that Tami was beautiful and that I was handsome. At least that is what we were told. Grandma could have been telling us to get the heck out of the house for all I know, but I'm going to assume the best. While we were eating this meal we also had the opportunity to watch the Twilight movie. I think that is the first thing in Taiwan that has made me sick during a meal, and it wasn't even associated with something I ate. Seriously, what is up with that movie? Every time I try to give it the benefit of the doubt I find myself saying "really, you can't be serious, that's just too dumb." Anyway, it was a unique meal, I think I'll recover from the movie in the next couple of days.
The picture that is included in the blog post is a little difficult to see in small mode, but if you open it up to full size, you will see a delightful family of three out for a nice drive. Both toddler, mother and daughter are zipping through traffic with great joy. What are the safety seat requirements for children in the U.S.? Do you think a child's seat could be effectively mounted on a scooter?

Work, work, work

2010-07-12T03:59:00.001-03:00

Today is Saturday, and we are working. Not that I mind that, but we will be pulling something like nine days straight without a break. Originally we were planning on having a break over the weekend, but due to scheduling conflicts we had to go with the current plan.
Tami and I went out for our morning run after we woke up and because the streets were less crowded than they usually are, we decided to run around the neighborhood. It was interesting to see that food stands we usually ran past were closed up, or not even there.
As we ran we found a string of parks that seemed to stretch east to west through the city. They would be broken up with random apartment buildings, but as we ran, we would come across another park with people doing tai-chi or walking. Overall, a very nice way to start our morning.
Tonight we are getting together with the rest of the Footsteps crew and having an American meal together. It should be nice but I will miss my frogs, squid and eels

Eel!

2010-07-10T04:48:00.000-03:00

Yep.... That's eel. Kind of like a slimy snake. But I'll be able to confirm that once we eat snake. I'm guessing that will be next week. In all honesty, it was really good, except for one little bit of gristle in each bite.

I guess it's dinner

2010-07-10T04:44:00.001-03:00

Is this biology class or dinner?

2010-07-10T04:44:00.000-03:00

Today was a pretty good day at school. I'm able go keep the children busy enough during the class, that when I give them study time, they work quietly at their desk.
At the end of the day Tiffany picked us up and we went to have our next culinary adventure. Today it was frogs, eel and something much more mundane, squid. Once again, I was very proud of Tami, who actually had seconds of the frog. The eel was good, the frog tasted more like like chicken than anything else.
I believe the secret of eating in Taiwan is to follow two simple rules. Rule one, don't look too closely at the exactly what you are eating. Rule two, remember rule one.
I really believe that we have tried pretty much everything there is to eat so far, but I'm sure that I will be amazed!

Exploring in the morning

2010-07-09T20:40:00.000-03:00

Members of the birthday party

2010-07-09T05:51:00.000-03:00

Left to right - Sandra, Tami, me, Tiffany, Amy, Mandy, birthday boy, Greg.

Third course

2010-07-09T05:47:00.001-03:00

Blowfish soup. No one died.

Sushi!

2010-07-09T05:44:00.000-03:00

The second course of our meal. Some of the best sushi that I have ever had. We also had steamed crabs.

Land of food

2010-07-09T04:47:00.000-03:00

Yesterday we had the honor of attending the birthday celebration of our host father, at a Japanese restaurant. We ATE. This is an example of the first course. A beautiful platter that had gooey duck, salmon, tuna, some other fish, and sea urchin. It was quite a start to an amazing meal.

On the subject of vehicles again

2010-07-07T08:10:00.001-03:00

The picture in this post is an example of a Taiwanese school bus. I believe that this is what in America would be referred to as the Short Bus. There is no long bus.
Because the city is so densely populated, the schools are large and support a huge number of the children. The elementary school near our home has over 2,000 students, the school that we teach at has over 1,500, and that seems to be the norm. In the morning, before school starts you can see children who look like they are in 2nd grade walking the blocks to school. Other students are whisked along on scooters, standing on the floorboard in front of their parents. This morning I saw a toddler resting on her mothers lap, her feet up on the handlebars and a bottle in her mouth, something that would be C.P.S. time in the States, but doesn't even raise an eye here...and no, she was not wearing a helmet.

There are a number of other peculiar vehicles that inhabit the streets of Kaoushong. The strangest one and most puzzling so far is the musical garbage truck. For some reason, and I don't know what it is, the garbage trucks here play a high pitched organ music tune that sounds like an ice-cream truck. The first time I heard it, I ran out to the balcony to see the ice-cream truck and thought that it must have been driving on the other side of the garbage truck that was circling the block. I can only imagine the disappointment of the children who visit here from the states, only to be confronted with rotten pigs blood and egg shells rather than ice-cream. Or, possibly the confusion of the Taiwanese children when they visit the States and see their friends getting excited about the garbage truck coming into their neighborhood.
I'll do my best to get pictures....I hope there is a monkey riding on the back of the truck and making the organ sound!

My lunchbox!

2010-07-07T04:33:00.001-03:00

This is my new lunchbox and my screw together chopsticks. The way lunch is server in Taiwan schools is that the students stay in their rooms and the meal is brought to them. Then they pull out their individual lunch plates and line up and serve themselves. If the kids want more, they go back in like and get more. When lunch is done the students wash out their plates in a sink in the back and selected students take the serving pans back to the kitchen.
The meals are great, healthy and cheap. A heck of a lot better than what the kids get back in the states.
My lunchbox is the double decker design.

For some reason my email is not sending pictures properly. I'll try to upload the image at another time.

Soup's on!

2010-07-07T04:03:00.001-03:00

We went out to dinner two nights ago and had a type of sea food and pork soup. The cooking vessel was pretty unique. In the back kitchen the cook loaded up a kind if brazer with charcoal and put a a chimney on top of it. Then clams, pork, oysters, shrimp and anything else that couldn't run faster than the cook was tossed into the basin. At different times during the meal different types of food would finish cooking, and the waitress would continue to fill the basin with more broth or water. The result was something like a 3 course meal in one container. I would recommend it, if for nothing more than the experience of a "soup BBQ."

On the matter of vehicles

2010-07-05T09:09:00.001-03:00

The area of Taiwan that we are staying in is heavily populated. The town of Koushain, (yes, I am spelling it differently every time), has a population of over 2 million people. This results in a lot of people and with that large number of people comes the need to transport them.
The city is in a portion of Taiwan that I've been told only has rain during the monsoon season, the rest of the time it is fairly dry. This makes the use of scooters very popular. In fact, I would say that the number of scooters on the street outnumbers the cars by about 15 to 1. They zoom around, cutting through any space that is available to them. Think of Sturgis, but instead of bikers there are scooters populated with every possible person that you can think of, businessmen, mothers with children, teens, construction workers, little old ladies, dogs and their owners and everything else you can think of. If it can fit on a scooter, it will be on a scooter. It's not uncommon to see a family of four semi comfortably zooming through traffic on the way about their business. I've found that the safest way to maneuver through the scooters is to treat them like a swarm of hornets; don't get near the biggest packs, don't make any sudden movements and let them move around you, don't try to avoid them yourself.
There are some unique things that I have noticed with "those that ride with the swarm." Even though it's amazingly warm here the majority of the people who ride on the scooters wear jackets backward, with the buttons on the back. They also have what looks like oven mitts on the handlebars and face masks, which make them look like rejects from a Mad Max remake.
Now the masks I can understand, there is a lot of smog and pollution in this town, but the masks seem to be more stylish and decorative than an actual filter mask. After talking with my host mother, she giggled and explained to me that the reasoning behind all the covering was that the ladies don't want to get very dark, so they try to keep themselves covered as much as possible. I've actually seen some people so covered up that all you can see are their eyes peering behind masks and coverings. These attempts at protecting themselves from the sun provides an overall sinister look to the packs that constantly zip through the streets of the town.
Another useful thing about using scooters is that they are easy to park. On almost every available sidewalk and spare curbside you can find scooters parked 2-3 deep. If I was staying any longer in in this place I think that getting a scooter would be a great investment, I don't even think I'd feel like a wimp if I drove one here.

I think I have a signal

2010-07-05T06:06:00.001-03:00

Good days for me! Totally by accident this morning, I was trying to take a picture off the balcony with my phone, and discovered an unsecured wireless signal. This means that I have to old my computer out over the edge of the balcony, but if I do it right, I can send and receive my emails. Thank you random person who hasn't secured their wireless.
If I haven't mentioned it it, I did not bring an actual computer along on this trip. When I went to Chile, I carried my Macbook along with me everywhere I went and was able to continue with my blog. This time I decided to see how far I could push "going small" and brought only my iPhone and my iPad. I know that you may be thinking that I am being a total dork and an Apple fan-boy, but I wanted to bring something that I could store a number of books on, get emails, post on this blog and look up information when it was needed. A simple net book would have worked pretty well, but when battery life is at a premium, and net books aren't that great for watching movies on or reading books, I decided to go with the iPad.
How is it working, pretty well actually. There are some limitations. With my laptop, I was able to upload pictures directly from my camera, something that I'm not yet able to do with the iPad, mostly because I didn't buy the "apple dongle" thing that would allow me to. So that is one hit against Apple. However, aside from that, it is working like a charm.
I think that the perfect solution to blogging and traveling would be to have the new iPhone with a blue-tooth keyboard hookup, however the lack of screen space might be a downer.
I guess that when the trip is over I'll have a better idea if this was a good idea or something that should be counted as an character builder.
Thanks to those of you who are following along, it's always nice to just be able to get my ideas down when I'm traveling, and it's always nice to look back on it when I'm finished.

Pigs Blood Cake, and what I've been up to.

2010-07-05T03:35:00.001-03:00

Let me back up for a moment. Because I have been doing most of my "blogging" on Facebook, I've also been very careful about what information I put out. Specifically, telling the entire world that I am on vacation and that if they want to rob my house, now is the prime time to do it. Which leads me to a bit of a quandary here. I want to use my blog the same way that I did when I was in Chile, but when I was in Chile I had nothing to steal, and even if I did, I was living in my sister's basement and she was at home anyway. Fast forward 4 years and here I am, a respectable, married home owner who is not living in his sisters basement, and I find myself trying to share my life with the right people. So, if you are reading this blog, don't rob my house. I'm serious, don't do it, besides, we have a house sitter, who is a former Green Bay Linebacker who was kicked off the team due to anger issues and gun possession charges. You have been warned.
The reason that I have started this blog us again is because I am on the move one more time. This time I am in Taiwan, and guess what, I'm TEACHING ENGLISH!!!!!!
There are a few things that have changed. I'm with my wife, so instead of sending loving emails to her and telling her how much I love her, I can now ask her to stop hogging the bed. I think it's a decided improvement. Also, I don't have the freedom that I did in Chile. In Chile I went to Santiago for about 5 days to wander around and see the city and I had no one to really rely on. Here, I don't have the freedom of traveling around the country and have to move with a group, not quite as much fun.
That's not to say that it's not a good thing, but I just like the idea that I'm wandering around on my own, (queue dramatic music.)
Tami, my wife, and I are volunteering with the Footsteps Missions though our church. This is a group that provides English camps as outreach programs. Most of the English camps are in China, Taiwan and South Korea. They charge a fee and the money that they have after they cover the expenses are used for outreach programs in Honduras.
So, what do I get out of this? Besides from the pat answers of "serving God and spreading Word to the world" I have to say that I'm really trying to get an understanding about the role of missionary service in my service to God. Tami's family and therefore my family, have a long history of missionary service, if you go far enough back in my family tree, the Cameron's were suppose to be missionaries in Mexico as well, I think. I'm sure my mom can confirm or deny that. I'm not only getting a cultural view of Taiwan, but of missionary service. A two-for-one if you will.
Another awesome thing that I am getting through this, is the opportunity to stay with an actual Taiwanese family. The opportunity to do this is something that is just amazing, and makes the trip very unique. If you ever have the opportunity to spend time in a country living as a guest of a native, do it.

We had a unique opportunity that we certainly would not have had if we had toured the country on our own. This evening we had the opportunity to meet Tiffany's husband and see their rooftop garden. It was amazing to see the city below us and see the plants that her husband grew in a little rooftop garden. They also introduced us to something called an "amazing fruit", a little red berry type thing that when you eat it, it made everything you eat afterword taste sweet. They demonstrated it to us by giving us the berry and then giving us a lime. It was pretty amazing, the lime did taste sweet and like an orange. If anyone knows what the heck we were drugged with, please tell me.
After the rooftop garden we had the opportunity to meet Tiffany's in-laws, see her apartment, which looked pretty much like ours, but with more people in it, and her husband demonstrated that he was a gymnast in his youth by doing a hand stand and making all his change fly out of his pockets onto the stairwell.
After we had said our goodbyes to the extended family, we were taken to some of the local street food stalls and we had the opportunity to eat something called "stinky tofu." Stinky Tofu sounds exactly what you would think it would taste like, it stinks, almost like rotting garbage. The thing is, we were told that it didn't taste like it smelled. Well, the batch that we got did taste as bad as it smelled. The second questionable thing that we were served was the pig's blood cake. This is made with guess what???? Pig's blood, and rice, but mostly pig's blood. I have to say, as horrible as it sounds, it was pretty much tasteless. Gummy, sticky, probably exactly what you might expect a rice mixed blood clot consistency would be. However, it didn't make me gag, unlike the Stinky Tofu. The rest of the meal, a soup with chunks of intestine and pure cubes of pig's blood, not adulterated with rice, fried minnows, fried chicken parts, fried sweet potatoes and something else fried that I couldn't quite figure out, possibly pig's blood.
I'm not complaining, the experience was one that i'm glad to have under my belt, but I'll put it on the shelf along with Curried Fish Heads, Fried Chicken legs and black licorice; I'm glad to have tasted them and am glad that I know not to order them again. Besides, there are so many other things that are better to eat than pig's blood and stinky tofu, and after tonight, I know that for sure.

Bento box lunch

2010-07-05T01:43:00.000-03:00

Random pics

2010-07-04T20:55:00.000-03:00

This is part of a glass mural that is at one of the subway stations.
The mural was a 360 degree dome that looked like it would be more at
home on a 70's Santana album.

Talent show

2010-07-02T09:02:00.000-03:00

The one thing we did get to do at the school we will be teaching at, is have an impromptu talent show by one of the classes and then lunch in the room with the students.
This girl did some act with what I believe are Chinese Yo-Yos. She did some pretty sweet tricks, including spinning two of the Yo-Yos at the same time. about 4 other students came up and sang or us or did some silly dances.
Then we headed back to the class room, collaborated on what we would be doing for the next few weeks and went home with our host families. Tiffany took us out to dinner at a coffee shop and we had a nice time talking and drinking coffee.
I'll try to keep these post a little more focused in the near future, but right now, things are just going so fast that I don't really have time to get everything down that I want to. Stay tuned, after the jet lag is gone I'll be a bit more coherent.

Tour of Tiffany's School

2010-07-02T08:56:00.000-03:00

The school that Tiffany works at is huge and open. It is four stories high and has walkways overlooking different courtyards or the outside of the school. Here is an example of one of the inner courtyards. The classrooms have windows that can open up and let the breeze from the outside blow through the rooms to cool them down.
We were allowed to sit in on a presentation that some high school students were giving to what I believe was a room of fourth graders. They did an entire slide show presentation and story/skit in English to the class, with the children answering most of the English asked questions in Mandarin, but it was impressive that the students could follow the story as well as they did. Mostly the point of the play was about how over fishing and dumping garbage was bad for the ocean and that you shouldn't eat the little fish, but let them grow bigger and then eat them. The high school students did a great job of telling the story and entertaining the students. The one blatant mistake was when they were talking about the coral being killed off by pollution and instead gave an entire talk, complete with pictures and text about how the ocean's Carol was being harmed.....Poor Carol.
Then it was off to the actual school where we were going to teach at and we did a lot of stuff that I will probably never get to.

Our host mother and her school

2010-07-02T06:22:00.000-03:00

This is a picture of our host mother Tiffany. She is a lady that looks to be about 75 lbs and in a state of perpetual motion. She is something like a director of students a the local elementary school and confided in us that she probably could be a principal of a school, if she was willing to move, but she likes living so close to the school.
She has three children. A daughter who we have met, and is currently taking her college in trance exams, another daughter and a son, who she seems to drive around all over the place. She also has a husband, but we have not met him yet. She said today that he is shy to meet us because he doesn't speak English.
She took us to her school and gave us the grand tour. It's a huge building, with something like 1,500 students, about 30 students to the room. It was the last day of school for her class and most of the classes were working quietly at their desks coloring and watching a cartoon that was being shown on the class's TV.
We didn't really get to seem much of what real classroom activity would look like because from personal experience, I don't want anyone to base my classroom off my last day of school, and i'm not going to do it for that school either.
I was a little disappointed that we didn't get to see any classes in full swing, but there isn't anything to be done about that.

School, School, School!!!!!!!

2010-07-02T06:13:00.000-03:00

Today we had a pretty special treat, we were able to to to our host mother's school and observe the last day of school and a special presentation on "Cry of Sea."
I fell asleep at about 9:00 at local time and woke up around 6:00 in the morning. I had no problem waking up like I was expecting to. This gives me hope that I will be able to get on local time as quickly as possible.
We were not going to get picked up until 8:00 and we didn't want to sit around in the apartment for the next two hours, so we decided to go outside and see what there was to be seen. The only problem was that we didn't have any key to get in on we got out of the apartment, so we decided to wander the streets and meet up with her at 8:00 in the morning when she came to pick us up.
I quick note needs to be said, I think our host mother is a real-estate mogul. She has her own apartment, the apartment we are staying in with her brother and mother and she mentions that she owns and rents another apartment a few miles away.
Anyway, we wander around the the streets for a while, realizing that there are really no sidewalks anywhere in the immediate vicinity. I don't know if they just never thought about putting them in, or if they actually did put them in, and then the store fronts expanded and set up patios, additional walls and motor-scooter parking lots where they once were. As a result, going anywhere in the local area requires you to fight for space with the motor traffic. Not that they don't share the road with you, but they certainly don't treat you with any special love either. As we walked along the way, we found a local temple that we took a couple of pictures of, the school of our host mother, and thousands of little food stands that seem to be set up to provide people with breakfasts and meals to take to work for lunch.
As it continued to warm up, we went to a nice little coffee shop and got some iced coffee before we headed back to the apartment to meet our host mother.
When we got back to the apartment we met the brother and he let us into the apartment where Tiffany, our host mother, met us a few minutes later.

Hanging out at the temple

2010-07-02T04:59:00.000-03:00

Tami and I snuck out this morning and found a temple a few blocks away!

July 1 in Gaoshong

2010-07-01T05:55:00.000-03:00

We were picked up by Dean and David, the preacher at the Bilingual Church here in Gaoshong. We then drove all the way from Taipei to Goushong along highway 1. There seems to be no zoning laws here in Taiwan, something that I have seen echoed in other Asian countries. Gas stations will be build right next to a house, which is right next to an open field with rice planted in it, which is right next to a 30 story business office. Another really interesting piece was the number of farm area there was. If there was an empty lot, there was something planted in it. I don't know if these are family plots or just the way that farming is done here, but to what I'm use to in the states, it's kind of weird.
On arriving to Goushong, I know i'm spelling that wrong, we went to the church which is a sign and a door that leads down a flight of stairs to the actual worship/classroom/office area of the church. After unpacking all of our stuff, we went off to lunch at what David referred to as a "real" chinese restaurant. The food was great, nothing strange at all, but I think we all ate a good amount of food after sitting for such a long time.
David is an interesting guy, one who I don't know if I'll have the opportunity to learn much about. The church is currently running 4 different classes in 4 weeks. One other class is already going, some English class for a military school. David left Taiwan when he was 9 and grew up in the United states. After spending about 30 years in the U.S., around the Chicago area, he felt a calling to move back with his family to Taiwan. He has 5 kids, one of them who is adopted.
His Church runs off something called the Seeker concept, and I have mixed feelings about it's use. Basically it's the idea that you have classes for people who are seeking Christ, and those who are already Christians. Not a bad concept, but they seem to have problems serving both groups and seem to be focusing on the seekers, which by his own admission, makes in creasing the maturity of the church a bit of a challenge.
Also we have found that the groups that we are going to be teaching have nothing really to do with the Bilingual Church. It seems that there are people in this church that have a heart for the poor, and that this Church, being bilingual, brings in people who are generally better off and higher educated. So they decide to find the poorest area that they could find near the city and set up an outreach program with us being the spearhead. David admitted that he really doesn't know where this is going to lead, but that they are willing to just give it a try. Part of me applauds his willingness to give it a try, another makes me wonder if we are walking into this a bit blind. Either way, God will guide us and hopefully keep us out of trouble.
After the lunch and a hour of learning all the above information, we were driven to the school of the person who will be hosting us, from there we drove to her apartment. She actually has 2 flats. One which she shares with her 2 daughters and son, and a husband who is a college profession but from the sound of it, works away from the house during the week, in another town. The other flat is where Tami, Sarah, myself, our host's brother, Mother and the mothers Philipino assistant. It is actually a pretty nice place! I'll try to post pictures soon.

We arrived safe

2010-06-30T18:59:00.001-03:00

It was about a 13 hour flight but aside from a very talkative guy who seemed to have no concept of volume control, the flight was fine. Tami slept for most of the flight, I think only waking up for breakfast and I stayed away for as long as I could before passing out. I was able to have fish oatmeal for breakfast and we have just met our contact at the airport. Pray for us and I'll do my best to keep updating the blog as we go along.

Doss Bradford

And......we're off.

2010-06-30T03:37:00.000-03:00

This sign says all I want to say about airport security and check-in.

This is a test using the bluetooth keyboard

2010-06-26T19:13:00.000-03:00

Well, being about to type with a physical keyboard makes this much easier. I think that this may be a pretty good solution to carrying around a full laptop. Do I think that I'd do this without any chance of seeing any other computer. For example, I still do not have a good way to get pictures onto the iPad. But I think that I will be able to figure out some workaround.

This is a test for Taiwan

2010-06-26T19:02:00.000-03:00

This is a test to see if I can post to a blog. I was going to download an app for it, but I think that just using the Blogger mail feature might work just as well. Here is the first test.

Last day in Chile

2007-01-25T13:46:00.000-03:00

Today is the last day for us in Chile. Katie took off for the airport last night, I'm assuming that she will be back home in the next few hours. The rest of us, Gina, Jake and myself will be returning to the states around 10-12pm tonight.
It's been a great experience, one of those things that I hope will influence my decisions and concepts in the following years. I also hope that the Spanish that I have learned here will continue to improve and encourage me to study further. I think that in the near future I would really enjoy traveling in South America more.
Returning home will be interesting as well. I've kind of gotten use to the situation here, meeting people from different backgrounds and living in a state of general uncertainty. It's been and adventure that I really don't want to end. On the other side I'm going to be returning to home and to the classroom that I will be taking over. I'm really looking forward to sharing the experiences that I have had. I hope that I don't bore anyone that much.
I'm slightly apprehensive about the return to school. I've been looking at the amount of work and the hectic schedule that the MIT program will be returning to, and it almost makes me wish that I had a few 12 year old yelling at me in Spanish instead....ALMOST. However, I believe that the time that I have had in Antofagasta would have really taught me a great deal about classroom management, and I will fall back into the habit of hard study and long nights.
I hope the return home will let me recover from the issues that I've been having for the past week. About seven days ago I had a stuffed up nose that turned into a sinus headache, after that left I've been dealing with a bit of an intestinal issue. I don't know if it's something that I ate, or just the end of whatever little cold that I had. All I know is that is sucks and I wish I could just hide in my own place and recover. Fortunately I have not been sick enough to be laid out, just feeling poor. Yes, before the questions are asked, I've been taking aspirin and some cold medicine, eating right, (as well as I can, I still think my eating mechanism is broken), and I've been drinking a LOT of water. I even stayed in the hostel today when Jake and Gina went out to explore parts of the city I've already seen. Hopefully by the time I land in the States, I'll be fresh as a daisy.
I want to give a heartfelt thanks to everyone who has been reading this blog. It's been a great opportunity to stay in touch with friends and loved ones. The number of people who have read it and posted comments make me feel like it was a true success.
For those of you who were reading this blog and don't really know me, well I hope that you have learned more about who I am, how I think and I hope it's in a positive manner.
For those of you how do know me and still read this blog, thanks, I look forward to seeing you all soon.

Best regards,
-Doss

We are back in Santiago

2007-01-23T13:05:00.000-03:00

I must apologize for not updating the blog for the past day or so. It's mostly been because we've been relaxing in Valapariso, a coastal town about 2 hours from Santiago. It reminds me a lot of San Francisco combined with a small European town. The streets rise up the hills from the shore in a twisted and snakelike pattern, you often look over a railing and see the street you just came up 50 feet below you.
After getting off the bus we took a taxi to one of the Hostels that we had in the guide book. The taxi guy over charged us, but was very helpful in making sure we found a hostel that had room. In the end we knocked on about three doors before we found the one we stayed at.
The first day was spent going north of town to the "good beaches". We were warned by pretty much EVERYBODY that we shouldn't go to the beaches closest to us because "mal" people were there. Fortunately they have a nice rail system that runs north/south and we were able to use that to get north.
After spending about 30+ minutes traveling we laid out on the beach and I got to play in the waves for a few hours. Being a good son, and listening to my mother's advice, I used lots of sunscreen. The others were not as lucky and seemed to get a little redder than they wanted to. The end result was that we didn't go to the beach the next day and the use of aloe vera went way up!. For the evening we grabbed some pasta at the store and cooked dinner. That night I had the opportunity to do a video conference with Tami, we hadn't been able to get the video connection to work, but this time we did. It was pretty neat, yet strange, to know that the person I was watching in the little box was in another hemisphere. I got to see my cat come up and nuzzle her as she typed to me. Over all, it once again reinforces the fact that bringing my laptop along was worth the effort.
In the morning we lazed around and I got my first cup of REAL espresso in a month in the little cafe that was located in the bottom of the hostel.
The rest of the morning and afternoon was spent looking for the post office and getting tickets for the bus ride home the next morning. The evening had us going to various little boutiques around the neighborhood.
In the morning we took off back to Santiago and had an enjoyable ride back. One things that did go wrong, and really the only wrong thing of the whole trip so far, was that Jake got his camera nabbed. Please go to his blog to find the details.
I will say one thing about the situation, and this goes for everyone who reads this blog. IF you are observing someone having their camera being taken out of their bag, DO NOT flick the sleeping guy in front of you in order to tell him in Spanish that his friend is being robbed. The better option would be to say "STOP STEALING THAT CAMERA!" or possibly tell the guy who is having his camera stolen "HEY SOMEONE IS STEALING YOUR CAMERA!!!". Flicking the sleeping guy in the head repeatedly will just irritate and annoy him.
Aside from that incident the rest of the day was pretty easy. We went shopping and then met with the person from the Ministry of Education for a dinner, which was very good. Tomorrow we have some paperwork to do, in order to get reimbursed for the travel money, and we hope to do some tours of the vineyards that are around Santiago. Wish us luck, we'll keep our bags and valuable close to us and safe from now on.

Through the Eyes of Juan

2007-01-22T00:48:00.000-03:00

This is a video of Juan. It was taken the last day of school and gives me an idea of what it is like to see the world through Juans eyes. He seems be at rear level for a lot of people.
Please notice the Star Wars impersonation he does as Darth Vader, also notice the close up of his belly button that you see at the end.
If you get motion sick from this movie, blame Juan, not me.

We are somewhere

2007-01-21T10:12:00.000-03:00

19 hour bus ride to Santiago followed by a 2 hour bus ride to Valepariso(sp?) I think my eating mechanism is broken. I've had 2 granola bars for the past 24 hours and I feel fine, I only ate those because I felt that I should, not because I was hungry. I hope my appetite comes back, but not too quickly. We had some guy in a taxi take us up the hill and finally found a hostel for 12 bucks a day. That's a bed in a shared room. I wish we had camping stuff, but we didn't pack for that type of trip.
I think I'm going to sleep a lot during the next few days here.
I'll post later.

We took the final, and passed

2007-01-21T10:03:00.000-03:00

Today was suppose to be the last day that we were in Antofagasta. Notice I said that we were SUPPOSE to leave. The government of Chile seems to be highly centralized and because everyone in Chile is taking vacations and such around the holiday seasons, there is no one in Santiago who can get the bus tickets for us to return and there isn’t anyone in Antofagasta who can authorize it. As a result, we will have to purchase our bus tickets and be reimbursed. I’m not holding my breath. The good news is that we get to spend an extra night here in Antofagasta with Mama Nuevo and Katie and Gina. The bad news is that the only bus we could get is Semi-Cama. Semi-Cama means no nice seats where we can lay back in. Think of sitting in a movie theater for 19 hours straight. Then take the movie away and replace it with the choice of watching a barren desert or Allie McBeal in Spanish on a blurry TV. That’s what we got going for us tomorrow, if Dante was on this trip with us he would have used it to replace one of his lamer circles of hell.
When Mama Nuevo heard that we were going to spend an extra night here she actually started dancing in place. When she found out that the girls were coming over to eat she actually did what I believe was a “Chilean Jig”. Jake and I were talking earlier about what we could do to say thank you for all the things she has done for us. I believe having extra people over is just the thing.
The last day of school was pretty nice. We got to the school and I went to the computer room to load QuickTime on the computer that I was going to use for the slide show and set up the last of the equipment that I needed.
The ceremony was to start promptly at 11:30. At 11:55 we started on time. People said some stuff in Spanish and then we were called up to the stage to hand out some diplomas to our students, then we all sat down. Then we went up on the stage to hand out diplomas to students with perfect attendance, then we all sat down. Then we went up on the stage to hand diplomas to our “top” students, (choose Juan, what can I say…he’s my muse, and also the one of two students who showed up consistently and worked hard), then we all sat down. THEN all the teachers went up on stage and we were handed diplomas, and we though we were suppose to sit down, but weren’t, so we went up to the stage and they gave us some presents, then we sat down. We got a nice framed picture that was taken on the first day with all the students. What I mean was that the frame was nice. The picture itself is blurry and looks like it was taken as the person jumped off the 2nd floor of the school. I think that I’m going to replace it with one of the other pictures of the school that I took and keep the frame with the knowledge that the frame was given to me as a present.
On a side note, I don’t know what it is with Chile, but everyone seems to have really bad photographs around here. I’m not talking about the professional ones used in advertising, or the actual composition of the pictures, but the technology of the print process. Many of the photographs that I see framed and displayed are horrible color management and print quality. It’s not because of the cameras; they are using the same ones that we have. It has to be some other reason that I have yet to fathom. Whatever the reason, I hope they fix it, my snobbish photography sensibilities are being bruised.
After our gifts we were given an additional musical present by the students. They all came together and played some traditional Chilean songs. About eight of the students played instrument, 3 guitars, 2 drums, 2 xylophones and a traditional flute. I’ll also try to get some videos up of the songs. The sound quality is poor, so I may just put a small clip on it and then up the MP3s that they gave us as presents. We also had Juan take my video camera and provide us with a “view of the world from the eyes of Juan” I don’t know if it will be funny to anyone who has not spent a month in Chile and 2 weeks working with children to you have to communicate 80% of your message with pantomime and sound effects, but It has me rolling on the ground.

After the whole ceremony we had cake, then lunch. I almost finished about half of my lunch. Partially because I realized we were going to be stuffed when we got home, partially because students were having me sign their dictionaries. I made sure to add sage wisdom to every passage that I wrote and encourage them to continue on with their English studies. I also think they will be slightly confused if they ever become proficient in English.
The final part of the day was the slide show which I had been working on. I have to say that it went off very well. For a period of 26 minutes all the students sat in their seats and laughed and awed at over 450 pictures set do different American songs. The actual file is HUGE, 846mb, I don’t know why it was that large, but it’s too big for me to post. Hit me up sometime and I’ll show it to you sometime.
After that it was time or goodbyes. Hugs were given, kisses were planted on cheeks, diseases were passed in that manner and the teachers received uncomfortable hugs that lasted just a few seconds too long. Jake and I ran down to the computer lab thinking that we would not get another chance to post a goodbye on our blogs, just in case we were wiped out in a horrible Allie McBeal bus incident.
When we returned home, Gina and Kati headed out to the bus station to get the tickets for our return trip, the ones the government failed to buy. Jake and I had an outing with Mama Nuevo. We ate our evening lunch of salad, soup, a large piece of fish and cup of rice, followed by canned peaches in cream. We then got into a Micro, (the small busses that serve for transportation), and headed out to a beach I the north. Ah Antofagasta, you never fail to amaze me. The bus didn’t go directly to the place we were going, instead it stopped as some bus repair station and we were told we needed to wait 20 minutes for another bus of the same number that would continue going north. As we sat there for over an hour we were joined by other lost beach travelers. Jake decided to strike up a conversation with two kids about pro wrestling and soccer, I just put my headphones on and wished the flies would stop crawling over me. After 3 dropped cell phone calls from the girls, we decided that we may be there forever waiting for the bus and if we ever wanted to make a break from this city we needed to know what the girls had found out. The ride home was uneventful, Antofagasta public transportation: 1, gringos: 0.
We decided we would walk to the girls house, about mile away and try to find them. As we walked out of the gate they were there with their Mama Nuevo, which is an entire story in and of itself, and we found out that we were going to spend one more night in the city. Mama Nuevo danced and the rest is history.
As always, read Jake’s Blog, he is the Matthew to my Mark in writing the adventures of Antofagasta, I’m sure he has a slightly different twist on what happened in this exciting and unique day of attempted escape.

Update:
It’s 2:20 in the morning and Jake and I have finished our final. Gina and Katie came over for a while and we hung out. Mama Nuevo had taken off to go get food or something and we all relaxed. Around 10:00 Mama N. gets home and is excited to see the girls, but is disappointed when she finds that they will not be staying for dinner, however she tricks the girls into staying for tea. At 11:00 or so another group of the family comes over, 3 of her sisters, grandma and one of the sisters husbands and 2 kids. The son takes Gina ad Katie home and I try to make pleasant conversation for about 30 minutes while I wait for Jake to return from dripping off the girls. Then the fun starts, the sons and fathers have caught fresh fish, and that is what we eat, along with pork and empanadas eating around 1:40. I’m so tired, I’m going to sleep.
Morning:
I hurt still, I think I’m going to have to go through de-tox. This is the last meal she can possibly serve us. I’m ready for anything, even an 18 hour bus ride of pain.

School is out for....Winter? Summer?...Chile

2007-01-19T15:19:00.000-03:00

Chilean English Summer School is over. The Government still hasn't bought our tickets back to Santiago, we will have to do that ourselves and get reimbursed for it, they have only had about 4 months to know that we needed the money, in Chilean terms that's like 1 day in American preparation time.
Songs were sung, goodbyes were said, cheeks were kissed, (I think I'm going to go scrub mine with bleach), and things started on time. Well, within 30 minutes of the planned time, so that's like "on-the-dot" down here. I'll write more about it later.
As I was about to leave, I stopped by my room to make sure I didn't need leave anything, and I found my chalkboard had been hijacked by my class one last time. This time is was filled with messages of thanks and well wishes for my trip back home. I'm not going to miss those little twits, but I'll think fondly of them and with them the best of luck on whatever they do.
Heading back to Santiago, wish me luck!

Return to Code Yellow, Code Red is over.

2007-01-18T17:47:00.000-03:00

For those of you who saw the following comment posted on my blog:

"We are requesting that you have Katie and Gina contact OJ Cotes immediately. We are concerned about their living environment and need to know what is happening NOW. ocotes@whitworth.edu.... it is only five hours difference, so please have them e-mail immediately.
Peggy and OJ"

The situation has been taken care of, to a point. Both Gina and Katie have a great sense of humor and are using it in this time of challenge. They are also both in good health. We only have one more day left in Antofagasta, (if the government actually gets around to buying our tickets for the bus), and we will survive until then.
HOWEVER, next time you see them, ask them how the trip was, I'm sure it will be an interesting story.

Today was a bit of a challenge

2007-01-18T17:33:00.000-03:00

Today was just one of those that didn't go as planed.
We had lunch served 40 minutes late, someone stole a cell phone so we were on lock-down and I'm having difficulty getting stuff set up for this computer slide show that I'm suppose to be doing tomorrow.
Also, yesterday I had a total of 3 meals between 6pm and midnight, that's full meals, not counting lunch and dinner. I think I'm going to have to go into eating rehab when I get back into the states.

My vote for the happiest man on the planet

2007-01-18T16:53:00.000-03:00

I remember first reading in high-school about the concept of a muse. William Shakespeare, Monet, Albert Einstein and the guy that wrote Peanuts all had muses. Actually, I’m not too sure about the others, but I know that the Peanuts guy did.
Muses were supposed to be the inspiration for these artists. When they were feeling down in the dumps or couldn’t figure out what they should create, their muse inspired them to continue on. I always thought that the concept was an interesting idea, but I never knew where to find my muse.
I have found my muse in the city of Antofagasta. His name is Juan.

Juan is 12 years old and is a student in my class. From the start I noticed there was something different about Juan. He was born with an ailment that does not allow him to sit down for more than seven seconds at a time. When the seven seconds are up, Juan must leap out of his seat and run up to my side. When he does this he either is trying to draw on the board to assist me with the lesson, or he has the dictionary in hand and is trying to discuss what I can only guess as some deep mystery of the universe. At first I tried to listen him, now I just look over and say “sit down Juan”, and Juan sits down, until seven seconds later he is at my side again. Without exaggerating, I probably say the phrase “sit down Juan” about 20 times a day. I’m waiting for a circular trench to be worn into the floor between the front of the room and Juan’s desk. Most students would be discouraged after being told to sit down. If you haven’t figure out yet, Juan is not like most students.

When I do have the time to talk to Juan, it’s always an interesting experience. With his brow deeply furrowed, a fire of concentration in his eyes and usually an open dictionary in his hand, Juan tries to communicate with me. This brings me to Juan’s second ailment; Juan seems to have repetitive amnesia. After the first words in English, usually a ‘you’ or an ‘I’, Juan forgets that I don’t speak Spanish and unleashes upon me a flood of words with such earnest, that I can’t do anything except hope that through shear willpower I will understand what the heck he is trying to communicate. After he is finished speaking he looks at me expectantly to see if THIS time I have actually been able to understand what the he is saying…..sadly, as of this time, I have not. Then, with a huff and a little shake of his head he mumbles something and wanders away to contemplate exactly where the lines of communication broke down between us this time.

Most of the time a student like this would have annoyed me to the point that I would wish that they wouldn’t return to school the next day, but a I said in the past, Juan is not like most students. He seems to take everything in stride and is happy, no matter how often he isn’t able to communicate with the teachers or how many times he is told to sit down.
At the beginning of this last week I realized that Juan is about the only student who has 100% attendance in my class. I also realized that at the start of the day I would expectantly look around the school to make sure that he was there. It was then that I realized that if I didn’t have Juan in my class, it wouldn’t be the same at all.
There are so many stories about Juan that I would love to share, and maybe in the future I will write some of them down. Sadly, I don’t have the time, but ask any of the other MIT students that came down to Chile and they will be happy to tell you about how Juan touched their lives. I know this because as I mentioned Juan to the other volunteers here at the school they all started talking about Juan and sharing similar experiences. We all agreed that if there was anything that we could take home from this city, it would be Juan. We would put him in our carry on baggage and stick him in the over head compartment on the way back to the States. Once we got him back to Spokane, we would make a little nest of donated blankets and shredded TWS drafts in one of the corners of Hawthorn hall and keep him as the mascot of the MIT program. Personally, I think that Juan would believe it to be a very neat idea as well.

As tempting as having a pet Juan, Jake and I have already discussed visitation rights between us, I don’t think it would be right to take him from his current environment. I say this not for Juan’s sake, but for the sake of Chile. I truly believe that if there is any hope for the future of Chile and the future of the world, it will be found in individuals like Juan. People who never quite seam to comprehend about what they are “suppose to do” in a given situation are, but darn it, they are going to have fun all the same. After this trip is over and I return home, I doubt I will ever see Juan in this life. Part of me is sad about that. However, I know in the deep cockles of my heart that Juan will make something great of himself, and that knowledge warms those cockles.
Juan, I wish you the best of luck. I hope you never remain seated.

A little trip up North and back to the smell.

2007-01-16T16:09:00.000-03:00

Wow, a lot has happened in the past few days. I really dislike not having the time to type in this blog. It may seem kind of lame, but I look at this blog as a form of meditation. A time where I can review the experiences that I have in a relaxing manner and try to understand what the heck has occurred from the last time that I updated it. Meditation may seem like a strange thing to say when I’m sitting in a comfy chair with a computer in my lap, but that is what I feel like when I am done, although I tend to still be a bit tight in the shoulders and lower back.
Last time I updated, we were heading off to San Pedro. We were planning on leaving on Friday night, but we couldn’t get tickets until the next morning. What resulted was an impromptu hair cutting party for Jake.
After that was a rousing game of cards with some amazing cards that Katie had. They all had breeds of cats on them, each card displaying a different breed. That’s 58 different cat breeds, including the jokers. I think some of the breeds were made up.
Waking up in the morning we headed out to the bus station in the early morning and got on the bus for a LONG 6+ hour ride. Arriving in San Pedro, we stumbled of the bus, were greeted by some old lady with a flier for a hostel and off we went. After paying 10 dollars each for a bed we lounged in the sun for a while, just enjoying the fact that we could breath and not have the aroma of dog poop and rotting garbage lingering in the background. We walked around the small town, admiring the church and a local market, with VERY expensive hand made crafts, (I think I can pick up the same things in Santiago for a cheaper price), we went to a restaurant and decided to have our “one nice meal of the trip”. Sadly, we had paid for a trip about that was about to leave in 90 minutes and failed to take into account the time that the cook would take to make the meal. What resulted, was us getting one of the nicest meals that I have seen in months, five minutes before we had to leave for the trip. Eating a meal that fast felt like I was spitting on a work of art. A tasty, succulent, delicious work of art.
As we piled on the bus we found that we had two more passengers than we were suppose to, due to a counting error on the part of the tour company. This resulted in Jake, Gina and Katie sharing a small seat made for two. They compromised by alternating on who was the person to sit on everyone’s lap.
We drove the desert, one of the driest in the world, to find that we had made our second mistake in our hurry to eat the meal and get on the bus. Only one of us had taken a water bottle, and that water bottle was only half full. I have to hand it to our little band of four, we all shared that water equally between each other for the entire four hour trip. I sign of selflessness that I have rarely seen.
After talking through the “Valley of Death”, that was it’s actual name, we all piled into the van again and went to the overlook of the Salt Flats, followed by a ride to Luna Valle. When it neared the end of the trip we joined about 50 other people, all walking up huge sand dune to watch the sun set. While we were there, Katie smoothed talked, or if you prefer, flirted with some other tour guide guy in order to get our water bottle filled. Thank you Katie, I will probably never make fun of you randomly talking to strangers again.

The sun-set was beautiful. The four of us found a little bit of rock on the side of a cliff, I pulled out my little speakers and we all listened to Bob Marley sing as the sun went down over the landscape of sand and red rocks. Usually I would just enjoy the silence of the landscape, but on that day and at that time, Bob hit all the right notes for us.
Getting back into town we walked around town, finally ending up at a restaurant with a fire pit where we relaxed and talked about the day.
We woke up at about 8:00 to get our tickets for the bus home. After another LONG ride back to Antofagasta, we arrived at 3:00pm. I tried to call a couple of people back in the states because we were near the call center, but I only got voice mails. When we got home our Mother Nuevo gave us teasita and then took us of a tour of the city. We went to the north where we saw the famous arch landmark that is on a lot of the Antofagasta advertising, then drove all the way to the south of the city where we ate empanadas from a little fishing shack. When we got home she tried to kill us by giving us an awesome, yet uncomfortably large, meal of steak and rice.
Jake has taken to having strange and scary dreams at night. For the first few days he couldn’t figure out why this was happening. Then he realized that eating an entire banquette 15 minutes before bedtime has strange effects on his psyche. Me, I just fall asleep in pain.
For school on Monday, I had a very enjoyable day. I was refreshed, the kids seemed to be more comfortable, although I had an additional two just “show up” and one of the most disturbing students didn’t show up. I’m actually looking forward to the next four days. I’m also looking forward to leaving on the forth day.

We are back and alive

2007-01-15T16:38:00.000-03:00

We had a great time in San Pedro. I will take some time tonight to do a bit of a write-up. Right now we have to get home and do something with the "family". What, I don't know.
BTW, school went really well today. I don't know if it's because I have one difficult student absent today, if I know we only have 4 more days left or if I'm just getting the hang of it. We'll see.

One down, one to go.

2007-01-12T16:31:00.000-03:00

The weekend is over!!!!!!!
We have survived and are getting ready to take off for one of the surrounding towns. We are debating between Ikeke (sp?) or San Paidro. I think we are going to San Paidro. One has a beach, SP has the desert and interesting things to see. Either place will not have 80 children yelling in Spanish. Rsssssseally, that's all thats important right now.
I'll be packing light, probably not brining the laptop, but probably the camera. Wish us luck, and that we will have the energy to return at the end of the week.

DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE WORDS COMING OUT OF MY MOUTH!?!?!

2007-01-11T16:59:00.000-03:00

Today was a difficult day in school. I believe that it's because I'm tired and am ready to have the weekend arrive. Right now I'm so desperate for some down time that I'd be happy hiding in the teacher's lounge with 5 bottles of water for hydration and a case of Beany-Weenies. Let me please just hide and relax, watch a few movies and not have to talk to anyone.
Today I actually tried to work with the students and take the role of a real teacher instead of a story telling professional wrestler. I believe that I failed.
The morning went well with a few games and the kids having fun. By the time of our first break I was ready to go to the beach. At lunch I dug deep and decided that I was going to teach them numbers because they all learn their numbers by rote. When I start counting they all start chanting along with me and I can't get them to shut up. However, if you ask them an actual number, by writing it on the board they take forever to tell it to you. If you tell them the actual number out loud, they are LOST. I spent over an hour, were we actually all tried to focus, trying to teach them to identify the difference between the numbers like 17 and 70. It was a total failure. By the end of the day I was ready to just stick everyone in front of the computer with a movie playing and go pound my head against the wall, because that's pretty much what I felt I was doing with the students. Instead I went out for after school activities and played soccer with some of the kids. It made me feel better to run around for a while, I know the kids felt the same.
Tomorrow is another day. In fact, I feel like it's going to be a game day. One that is filled with wild sound effects, laughing children and very basic English.
I'm taking off, I believe we are going to head to the beach and relax for a while. I hear it's snowing and -4 in Spokane.........I wish I was boarding.

Story of the Bano Pan-dito

2007-01-11T16:44:00.000-03:00

This picture doesn't have anything to do with the title. Well, not much anyway. The picture is of the meal that our Mama Nuevo will leave for us when she is at work and she wants to make sure that we aren't deficient in our bread and sugar/lard diet.
We have however found someone at the school who hates pan, (bread), almost as much as us. The difference is that this mystery man is willing to take a stand. Some time during the day, twice so far this week, the Pan-dito has snuck multiple rolls of pan and filled up one of the boys toilets with it. I don't know why he is doing this, except that I believe that he is, as I am, sick in tired of pan at every single meal. In fact, he is willing to defiantly demonstrate his true feelings for pan. Only the fiery heart of a Chilean activist could make such a bold and triumphant statement. The Directora is confused and frustrated. No matter how many times she tells the students that they are at an ecological school that prides itself on cleanliness, the Pan-dito fights on for truth and against the oppression of the traditional Chilean diet.
Mr. Bano Pan-dito, I salute you and wish you success.
Viva La Revolucion!!!!!!

I'm taking back the streets

2007-01-11T16:41:00.000-03:00

I’m taking back the Calle de Antofagasta. Tonight we had friends of Mama Nuevo over for Tesita. We had about 3 servings of sweets and as of 11:35 I do not believe we will be having dinner. I think it’s a good night. The friends that came over turned out to be Maru (I believe that is her nickname, I’ve heard other people call her Maria), Nancy and Anita. Maru is the director of the school, Anita is the English teacher and Nancy is some other teacher associated with the school that we are working at. Maru also brought her mother Ortilla over and her daughter and some guy associated with her daughter. I felt sorry for the guy, the women laughed and joked like a bunch of school girls. He just looked like he regretted ever agreeing to come along. Anita brought her guitar and we ended up spending about 60-90 minutes singing songs in Spanish and a couple of English favorites, “I Believe in Angels” and “What a Wonderful World”. Jake and I did a duet with the later, which seemed to be quite a hit. Anita played a pretty good guitar too.
Some deep part of me makes me hope that the Death-Metal Opera singers were huddled on the other side of our paper thin walls, wondering when the heck we were going to shut up.
Over all, it was a great day. None of the kids set fire to anything, we had a delightful hootenanny with some old teachers and we didn’t have to go to bed with visions of pan and pork dancing in our heads and stomachs.

Yet another day down, and I rock.

2007-01-10T17:19:00.000-03:00

Today went much better. Actually, I don't know if it went better or I'm just loosing my mind. We spent the morning going over words for different parts of the room, chair, floor, door, etc. We then went to the concept of "touch vs point". Something that has helped us play more games throughout the day.
I had the class break down today, as they are prone to do every 15 minutes during the day, and I found myself surrounded by about 4 boys speaking Spanish at about 500 words a minute. Finally Joseph, pronounced Hoseph, walked up to the board and wrote this gem down. After he had finished this they all started jumping up and down and pointing at me yelling Nacho Libre, Nacho Libre Which means that they either think I look like Jack Back, or they think I teach with the personality and entertaining energy of a professional wrestler. Either way, I think it's pretty dang cool.

In case any of you are curious, this is what my board looks like when I am done at the end of the day, (click to enlarge). I usually fill up my board about 3-4 times during the day and have to erase before I can go on to the next lesson. My fingers are dried and caked with chalk and my lungs are probably filled with dust.....I miss an overhead projector or document camera. Before anyone says anythign, I know that I spelled worried wrong.....something that will forever plague me, but how well are pro-wrestlers suppose to teach anyway?

In the evening decided to take advantage of the lax child protection laws here in Chile and decided to teach the students the American past time of "dodge ball". The students seemed to enjoy it, although the concept of "out" seemed to be pretty lost on them. We ended up having three of the teachers wandering through the game, telling people when they were out. The students would go and sit down on the sidelines and before you knew it, they were back in the game again. In some games the same student was out 3-4 times. I finally ended up handing out on the sidelines and just making sure we didn't have any reinforcements come around.
Sadly, the balls that we used had more in common with rotten sponges than actual dodgeballs, but fortunately there is no water here for balls to fall into and get nasty, no one could throw the balls hard enough to be a danger and the students didn't seem to care.
I don't know if it's wrong of me or not, but I miss the hard smack and feeling of terror when a proper rubber dodgeball makes contact with someone. Playing dodgeball with balls that don't hurt is like playing "touch" professional football.

Opera + Death Metal = a fun time for all.

2007-01-10T17:11:00.000-03:00

The streets of Antofagasta are always filled with music. Most of it is either Reggaeton, the local music of preference here, Top 40 or 80's music I haven't heard in years. Jake and I have a special treat that sometimes plays above this normal din. We have a group of people that live right next door to us that we have taken to calling "Calles de Antofagasta" or the "Streets of Chile." They practice about 2 times a week and usually play for about 3 hours. The first hour they are a pain in the ear, the second you are starting to wonder if they are just playing better songs and the third hour you want to go with them on tour. They play something that can only be described as Heavy-Metal Opera. Enjoy the Calles de Antofagasta, they are sure to be coming to a stadium near you.

2mb sample of the best garage band in Antofagasta!

Listen to if for 3 hours straight and TRY to say it's not the most amazing thing in the world.

Dinner at 11:00

2007-01-10T17:05:00.000-03:00

Jan 9
Teaching went much better today, I had a variety of subject material that I wanted to cover with the students, and the fact that the day was broken up into multiple segments made the day easier. For my “American Cultural” elective that I taught I had 14 boys in my room, no girls. I tried to get them to tell me what they wanted to know about American Culture. What actually happened was that they listened to me tell stories with pictures that I had on postcards, many personal sound effects and lots of words, which I think they never fully understood. I felt like I was teaching a human reproduction class with the ways the entire group of boys stared at me in this strained and embarrasses silence, only to nod or grunt when I mentioned something they had a passing understanding about. About half way through I realized that this I probably exactly how a class like that would go. Whatever the subject matter was, I believe that they understood that there were 50 states, Washington State was NOT Washington D.C., there is an ocean somewhere near Washington and that we have a heck of a lot more water than they have probably ever seen in their experience in Antofagasta. By the end of the class a couple of students had actually asked me various questions, mostly by pointing out the word “towers” and pantomiming a plane crashing into it, which I took to mean that they wanted to know where the World Trade Center had been. As much as I would like to have gotten into a political conversation about it, I believe it was beyond their level of English mastery.
My technology class was a bit more of a bust, but not because I didn’t try. I was planning on having all the students get set up with a blog. What happened was that the instructor of the school came in and I believe said that they were going to shut the power down for the computer room for 4 minutes. So I spent about 10 minutes trying to explain the concept of “on” and “off”, web address, link and address bar to about 22 students using only a whiteboard and prayer. This is material I have difficulty teaching people who speak English natively, this was what I will call a “unique” experience. Once I sent someone to find out if they were done shutting the power off and received a confirmation, the real excitement started. Blogger, the site I was going to have everyone set the blog up on, was down for maintenance. I passed the rest of the time in class by taking all the kids photos for their future blogs and letting them just surf the net, like I knew they wanted to do in the first place.
After school Katie, Gina, Jake and I went down the Central, (the center of town), and relaxed with some food and drink. We were all thankful the day was over and had time to discuss what we wanted to accomplish in the future.
Returning home at 9:15 by a very round about Micro route, (the mini busses that they use for transportation here), we were greeted by a spread out tesita, (a kind of tea time meal). Our “Mama Nuevo” as Jake has come to call her, was at work, teaching at the university. In her stead she left more food for us. After eating we both came upstairs, considering falling asleep before she came home so that she couldn’t feed us any more. At 10:15 Mama Nuevo came home with her son Rickardo and his wife and Kris, their 2 year old child. Both Jake and I went down stairs to play with Kris and were trapped into the “web of diner”. We ate at 11:00pm. The dinner consisted of salad, pasta and porkchops. Just the thing you need to fill your stomach with before you head off to sleep. I can only imagine Mama Nuevo coming home, determined that her boys were going to have a full belly of pork and pasta before their heads hit the pillow tonight.
It’s currently 11:50 and it’s time to go to sleep. I have a long day tomorrow, we were informed at dinner tonight that a bunch of important professors, heads of local schools and such were going to show up for dinner tomorrow and that we are not to run off to the Central, but be home before 7:00. I also have a stomach full of pork to digest. Pray for me.

Is it normal to fear the next meal?

2007-01-09T17:31:00.000-03:00

I've survived the second day of school, and I have to say that I think I did better than yesterday, and that's all that I can hope for.
Before I start taking about school, I would like to introduce you to my "Chilean Mother." She is one of the sweetest people that I have met, this is a picture of her that I took with my computer.
I think she is trying to kill me.
Jake and I arrived at home after school. We were both tired and ready to relax. She had prepared a simple meal for us of bread and luncheon meat. This was not the normal size of meal that we were use to it, but Jake and I were more than happy to have a light meal and just relax for the evening. I felt so good afterwards that I went out for a 20 minute run, one of the first that I had had in months. After taking a shower and relaxing upstairs watching "FAME", (think of a three way love child between American Idol, Big Brother and Bay Watch), it was 10:30 and Jake and I were about ready to go to sleep. We heard a light tapping on the door. When we opened it, it was Rosalinda, telling us to come down and eat dinner. We came down stairs at 10:30 and found an entire meal spread out for us. Being the good "ninos" we were, we ate everything that was put in front of us, very taste, but not the thing you would expect to get so late.
I have started to find myself worrying that at some night at about 3am I will get a knock on my door and be told that it was time to come down to dinner.....it's only a matter of time.

Come se dice "You have no idea what I'm saying"

2007-01-08T17:35:00.000-03:00

Well, I have to say that I am at least alive after today. It wasn't that bad at all, except that I feel that I'm really going to reevaluate the techniques that I use in the class tomorrow. We had WAY too much time with the students without any breaks. It consisted of 2-3 hour blocks of time where I tried to guess what level of English the students were at. I found that my worst expectations were pretty much true. They don't speak that much English at all.
I was suppose to have 24 students in my class. When the students finally all enrolled, I had six students. Six is a pretty strange number for a class. I don't know if I should bring everyone into a little circle and have them look at the same book or sit in front of the classroom and write on the board. I don't now if the students knew what to do either. Commonly they have about 45 students in a classroom. Only having 5 other classmates and a gringo teacher that didn't speak Spanish probably made the situation a little strange for them as well. At one point during the class I was drawing a body on the board to go over the words; head, hands, feet, mouth, eyes, nose, etc... I looked over, and had 5 kids up from their seats drawing people along with me. Some of them are pretty good artist.
I was also determined that I wasn't going to be using any Spanish in class. Charlyn said that we shouldn't....after talking to everyone else, I don't believe that she meant it as exclusively as I took it. The students became so annoyed over the fact that I claimed I didn't know any Spanish, that my class broke down in the middle of the afternoon, and the students all came up to the front of the class and started giving me an Spanish lesson, complete with writing on the board and asking me to repeat after them. I did find that out of shear desperation, the students started opening up and speaking more English than I thought they new. Tomorrow will also have the school broken up more, allowing everyone to be able to focus a bit better.
I wish that I had a more insightful thing to say today, but I don't. It has not been an exhausting day, but it's been a tiring day that I plan to really work over in my head and try to come up with a better strategy for teaching tomorrow.
Wish me luck!

I've learned something Tonight.

2007-01-08T17:08:00.000-03:00

This was written last night after returning from the "family get together."

In all of the South Park seriousness that I can muster on this late night, I have to say something; I’ve learned something tonight. I’ve had a bit of an epiphany about how different family structures can work. My family has always prided its self on being independent. When I was 18 my parents told me that they had raised me in the best way that they could, and even though I still lived under their roof and they supported me, I was now in charge of my life. They would be there if I wanted help or suggestions, but my decisions and actions were now my own. They have stayed true to what they said. They have always respected my decisions and the privacy of my life. They have also always been there for me with wise advice and total support when I asked for it. This has worked out well for the way that my family is structured and the way we live our lives. Members of my family move about every three years, if we were as interconnected to each other as Rosalinda’s family was, we would be unable to function if we had never been “kicked out of the nest”.
Being with/in Rosalinda’s family I realize that none of them have every had that moment that I had at 18. I don’t believe that any of them have every had a time in their lives where totally their own. The decisions that they make in life are made in relation to the other family members and the consequences of those decisions influence the entire family in return.
Personally, I have difficulty fully appreciating this kind of setup. The very foundations of independence and support that my family respects and needs goes against that all encompassing connectivity and influence that I’ve been experiencing here. However, I can see how it could work in a family unit where no ever, or rarely moved away from the city that they were born in. (The family seemed confused about the fact that the place we were currently living in the States was not the same place that we were born.) What I see as meddling and nosiness between family members is nothing more than my parents being concerned about my sister and I when we were thirteen years old. That concept of never truly leaving or braking away from your family to live a life independently on your own is something that I don’t believe that I have every truly understood until today. I told you I was the slow one.

2007-01-08T17:04:00.000-03:00

Yesterday started off as a really nice and easy day. We hav our classes to prepare for. We were under the impression that we had the entire day off, something about the conversation last night being “nada mass por un antes dia.” I think we misheard and it was more along the line “you are not going to have time to do anything more tomorrow.” These translations are sometimes difficult.
We started the day off well. I worked on some Spanish flash cards and Jake read a book. We listened to some Musica Americana, (Jason Mraz), and were getting ready to do some work for school. Suddenly Rosalinda’s son and daughter-in-law show up, drop off a fan, grab a couple of things, give a quick hola and chao and they were of again. 30 minutes later Rosalinda shows up with her son and daughter-in-law again, and we are told that we are going. Going were? Who knows?
As we walk to the bus stop we are told that we are going to her sisters house. When we get there, a medium sized Chilean apartment which is five flights up rusted stairs, we find that it’s not just her sister(Elya) that is there, but her mother, her sister’s 3 kids (Nino, Miguel and Maria), her other sister (susana), her other son and her sister’s boyfriend. By the end of the day, we would have met another one of her sisters, her sisters 3 daughters, (one who had 2 children in tow) and I think some other people who may or may not be related to the family. At one time we had over 19 people stuffed into a small 5th floor un air-conditioned apartment. AND Jake and I were the center of attention and conversation for a large part of the day. I didn’t even get to do much studying for this pop quiz.
I guess I should describe it as “our family” instead of “the family.” Rosalinda has said a number of times that she wants all of her family to be like ours. At first it seemed to be just to be a nice thing to say, but the more and more that I hear it and experience her family, the more I’m starting to believe it. It’s kind of freaking me out.
Jake has been identified by the family as the smart one of the two of us. When we get into a conversation with a group, Rosalinda kindly suggests that they direct the difficult questions to Jake, because he speaks better Spanish. In reality, she’s right. Jake has had more Spanish, or at least the last Spanish class that he took wasn’t over 13 years ago. He’s also better at conjugating the verbs, something that I was never really good at, but I’m trying harder. But, like most things in life, there is more to it than that. For one thing, I just need some time to process my vocabulary. I am very much a global processor. I think in global concepts much more than sequential parts. Jake is a math major and is much better than me at hearing a word and committing it to memory. I, on the other hand, can read an entire book, be able to repeat the entire story a year or more later and have entire discussions over the minute details of the plot and the interrelations of the characters, but I will not be able to tell you the name of the main character as soon as I finished the book. The second reason that I’m the “slow child”, is that I just have trouble focusing after about an hour of intense conversations centered around questions that have been asked of me five times already. My brain just shuts off and starts thinking of old Teletubby episodes. Jake, on the other hand, seems to have the heart of a champion and is more than willing to once again pantomime the act of swimming and running for the question number 5 of the Americana South American tour “Que desportes nosotros jugamos?” This question is commonly asked in the second hour of conversations, somewhere around the 4th to 6th period of awkward silence. I believe that during these silences everyone frantically searches their brain to think of questions that can be asked or answered in simple Spanish and will keep the other person talking long enough that you can actually figure out another question to ask. Think of hot potato played with Spanish words instead of an actual tuber. Then keep that tuber blazing hot for an entire evening.
So I’m not bitter about being the Corky in our little group, I actually enjoy it. It allows me to listen intently to Spanish, speak only when I wish and when it all becomes to much and Blinky and Winky start dancing in front of my vision, Jake gets to play 20 questions with the guest.

Living the wired life in the 2nd world

2007-01-08T17:00:00.001-03:00

This was written on the 6th, before I posted from the families house. I often do this by writing in a word document and then doing a cut/paste into the blog.
Jan 6, 2005
I know that it was a pretty big risk to take my laptop all the way down to Chile with me, but I have to say that so far I have been very happy that I’ve taken the chance. I’ve done a very good job of keeping it by my side at all times and I figure that if I ever am in a situation where it was physically taken from me, then I would have a lot more problems than loosing a laptop. At the same time, I have been careful to not bring it out in public places, or to ever let it out of arms reach. I feel like I should be doing some ad for Apple, with the amount and different situations that I find myself using it. It’s also beneficial with keeping in touch with friends and family. I’ve had a couple of opportunities to actually talk to friends back in the states with IM and send real time pictures back and forth. I haven’t been able to get the live video feed to work yet, but I’m sure that it’s technology ports between us that are preventing it, and not the actual technology on the client side.
After updating my blog today at the dinner Jake and I spent most of the morning at, we took a long walk down to the playa, or beach. We were suppose to meet Charlyn there at 4:00pm. When got there, 45 minutes late, we looked around and couldn’t find her. Realizing that this was Chile, we realized that we were probably early. We decided to go to the local super store “Jumbo”. While there I was able to find some paper, pens, 3 liter bottles of water, which I will horde 2 of them, and a set of something that looks like 3x5 cards. Although they aren’t exactly 3x5, nor are they lined. I guess they are more like cards. Anyway, I found them, so I can use them as flash cards. While checking out I used my credit card and realized that I didn’t have my passport with me. I was actually able to successfully explain and explain my way out of not having it for identification. It’s times of stupidity like this that I realize that I’m getting better at speaking Spanish.
When we returned to the beach an hour later, Charlyn had just gotten there. Ahh, Chilean culture. I think that if you set everything forward by two hours, you have adjusted your clock right. When we returned home we were greeted by Rosalinda and immediately whisked off to dinner at “some person’s” house. We were able to figure out that is was a good friend of Rosalinda’s and that it also was the principle of the school that we were using for the program……which really is a pretty big surprise/honor. So Jake and I spend the next 3-4 hours having dinner and polite conversation with an extended family.
I was speaking with Jake, and it seems that every day we are studying Spanish for the day, only to receive a practical quiz in the evening. Tonight was a true pop-quiz. I think we would have received a passing grade.

I feel I should publish something.

2007-01-07T17:22:00.000-03:00

We are at yet another family members house, having dinner. I´m amazed at the number of family members that these people keep in contact with. Either that, or Jake and I are being paraded around as the attractions of the year. Kind of like a traveling geek show. It´s probably a combination of both, there isn´t a lot to do here in grand old Antofagasta.
The family wanted to make sure that we could use their computer and internet, a seemingly rare thing here.
I have fulfilled my duties as a guest, have a great Sunday, wish me luck on the start of classes Monday!

Mi Escuela

2007-01-06T13:11:00.000-03:00

Wow! I feel so much better! I think the arsenic has worn out of my system enough that my headache has stopped. Actually, Jake and I walked home and he had some aspirin for me. Thanks for all your concern and offers of bottle water. I've learned my lesson and will take better care of myself.
I also did some research on the arsenic issue here in Antofagasta and found out that in 1971 they put in a water treatment plant that dropped the stillbirth and infant mortality rates to the same level as the rest of Chile. The arsenic rate is still above the 10 parts per billion that is suggested by the world relief agencies, but it seems to be much safer than was played out to me by some people. At the same time, I'm not planning on chugging gallons of tap water. I will still buy my bottle water. When I left the States I thought that I would be in a situation where I could save money because I wouldn't be spending it on coffee. However, my coffee habit has been replaced by a H2O habit. The large bottles of water here cost about 800 Pesos, which works out to about $1.40 or so U.S. Net gain to my pocket book, Nada. It's interesting to notice however, I'm not missing coffee here. I haven't even broken out the pound of coffee that I brought with me all eh way down here! Something may be wrong with me. Maybe it has to do with the 90+ degree heat, the fact that every liquid that I drink is for hydration, or the fact that if I get tired in the afternoon it's called a siesta and everyone else is already tired and resting. Either way, I'm sure my first cup of coffee will get me massively wired when I return home.
This is a picture of the school, lookin from the second floor where our classrooms are located. The school is build around the patio where we will be conducting our sports and group meetings.
This is a special school. El Escuela de Ecologica. A school that is focused around ecology and biology. Which is an interesting concept, considering that 1) The town owes its existence a mining company which destroys the land, pollutes the water and generally trashes the entire desert. And 2) there doesn't seem to be a single thing alive for miles around this entire city, except what's in the sea and within the city limits. Gina plans on teaching some environmental biology lessons and conduct a neighborhood cleanup walk as part of her lessons. I hope the kids that go on that walk have some strong backs!
This is me in my classroom. Notice how the desks are arranged and the number of desks that are stacked in the back. There were about 46 desks originally, all stacked in groups of two, in 3 tight little rows. According to Charlyn, the way that we are arranging the desks is really going to blow the students minds. For all the years that they have been attending school they have sat in rows.
It seems that the goal of the whole program is to immerse them in American culture as deeply as possible. This means that all the "cultural sensitivity" that we have been working on for the past 10-12 days needs to be tossed out the window. The same with the fact that we know any Spanish. Charlyn has encouraged us to not let the students know that we can speak a word of it. I think that it is going to be a bit of a challenge for the first day, considering that Jake and I are starting to mingle Spanish and English in our conversations with each other. Not good Spanish, but Spanish none the less.
When we got to the house after working at the school for a full 6+ hours setting up the rooms, Rosalinda was waiting for us with plates of fruit and encouraged us to go upstairs and relax, I think she could tell that we were hurting. We both laid on the bed and watched Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon on my computer while we ate fruit. I don’t think I had come home from school and been sent upstairs to watch TV with a snack sense 4th grade. Right when we got to the part where the sword Green Destiny was being returned for the first time, Rosalinda called us downstairs. We were greeted with a bowl of soup that had a whole potato and chicken breast in a broth and a green salad. I really am going to have to watch what I eat. The fruit would have been fine for an entire lunch, the soup was almost overkill. Gina and Kati seem to be having a similar experience. Their host mother doesn’t let them leave the house until they are able to recite all the street names and bus numbers that they will be using to get to and from the house. I can only imagine them standing in line in front of the door, dutifully reciting the information in unison until their host family is satisfied. I think that all of us may find ourselves showing up at school with little letters to the teacher pined to our shirts. I’m just glad that it’s not cold here, or we would be forced to tie our mittens to our coats so that we wouldn’t loose them.
After the soup Charlyn showed up and we went over some preparation and information for the first day of school on Monday or “Lunes.” I really realized how much time we are going to be teaching. A total of 7+ hours. 7 hours of teaching people that don’t speak you own language. It’s a little daunting, especially considering that we don’t know what the skill level of our students will be. Couple that with the fact that these kids have a reputation for being a little “rougher” than the common American students and it’s a recipe for fun! When all is said and done, I’m actually looking forward to this whole thing and I am much more positive than I was earlier today. I think that has to do with the fact that I no longer believe that my head will explode when I cough. It’s amazing what not being sick will do for your attitude.
After we went over our class material, Charlyn and Rosalinda started talking in Spanish. They started talking fast. Really fast. It was at that moment that I realized that I was able to pick out different words and phrases from the conversation. For me, that was a huge accomplishment. Up until now, people speaking full speed conversational Spanish, especially Chilean Spanish, sounded like a slurred blur of sound. Now, I didn’t understand all the words, but I could at least identify the ones that I did know, and I was able to pick out key words that I didn’t know. I really wish I had more time to stay down here in South America, or be in a situation where I could hear Spanish constantly. I believe that my Spanish would continue to improve and I would become much more proficient in it. As it is now, I’m just happy with the opportunity that I have now.

I´m not feeling as well as i´d like

2007-01-05T14:30:00.000-03:00

The picture is one that was taken yesterday of Daniel and Mario, Daniel is on the left.

The picture above that one is pretty much what the entire 18 hour drive looked like, minus the sea in most areas. It was impressive in it´s nothingness.

Sorry if my spelling is poor for this post, the spell check is set for Spanish, so everything was marked as being wrong when I tried to correct it.

I think that I´m just tired, but i´m not feeling like the rose that I usually am. Last night I was dreaming in Spanish. My bed spread had a maze on it, and I had to give a little dot directions in Spanish in order for it to get from one end of the maze to the other. When I got done with one maze, another maze would start up. It all resulted in a bit of a headache. Coupled with the fact that I was already dehydrated and had spent the previous day in the sun it made for a difficult nights sleep. I even ended up drinking a bit of the arsenic water, just because I knew that a little bit of arsnenic wasn´t going to be as bad as being totally dehydrated for the rest of the night.

Anyway, enough of my whining. The school we are at is very nice, with a large computer lab. The group spent the day cleaning up the rooms, arranging the desk and getting the rest of our books and materials layed out for Monday. The classrooms are set up for about about 35-40 desks, and the classrooms were not that big. According to law the classes have to be less than 50. I guess I´ll have to think about this the next time I´m working in a large classroom in the states. It doesn´t mean that I´ll be any less happy about it, but I´ll at least know that other people have it worse.

The classes that I will be working with will be around 20 to 25 students, who will arrive on Monday. Wish me luck, it´s going to be an interesting time!

I´m dreaming in Spanish, and it´s still gibberish.

2007-01-04T14:25:00.000-03:00

Jan 4, 2007
I’m reading the last line of my last post and realizing that I must have been tired, because the last thing I was last night was cold. Anway….
The trip around Antofugasta was quite interesting. Jake and I got up at about 8:00 in the morning and I started working on studying more Spanish. I am tired of not being able to remember a word after I hear it, I also need to work on my verb tenses. I don’t have a good book hear that has them in it and I feel very stupid not being able to comfortably conjugate the words I should use. I’m also having issues with typing. I’ll start to type the word, and the Spanish one will come to mine, causing my fingers to start typing that. Boy I’m messed up!
Anyway, I studied a while then our host mother fixed us a breakfast of rolls, cheese some kind of luncheon meat, probably ham based, juices and café. I don’t use the term coffee, because what they use down here isn’t really coffee. It’s Nescafe and consists of a powder that almost, but not quite, taste like weak coffee when mixed with water and lots of sugar. I had mine with warm milk because the tap water of Antofugasta is supposedly heavy with arsenic from all the mining. Charlyn has warned us that we should only drink the bottled water, and find unique ways to avoid drinking the water from the tap. Vegetables and rice cooked in the water should be ok, but we should avoid it as much as possible. I’m of the opinion that I’m going to be as careful as I can be, but not be psychotic about it. Antofugasta is a large city, filled with a lot of people who aren’t dead yet. Besides, I’m only going to be here for two weeks. Napoleon is rumored to have died of arsenic poisoning over a much longer time, and I’m a much larger man than Napoleon was.
After an enjoyable meal and after breakfast discussion with looked more like a game of charades, our host mother insisted on accompanying us to our meeting spot. I believe that she was convinced that Jake and I would get lost and wander around her city until we got mugged, killed, were responsible or starting an international incident or some combination of the three. We met Charlyn, Gina and Kati in front of the gazebo as promised. Tradition has it that if you walk through the arches of the gazebo you are destined to either never leave the city or will return. I make sure that I kept a good distance from any part of the arch. I’ve only been here less than one day; I’m not ready to make those types of commitments yet. After hellos were said we started waiting for Mario and Daniel. Daniel would be our tour guide around the city. He has just turned 16 years old and is basically a little brother of Charlyn, who is trying everything she can in her power to keep him in school and out of as much trouble as she can. I don’t know how successful she is being, but I wish her the best of luck. Mario is his 18 year old cousin who has just returned from his military training. When you turn 18 you reach the age of total consent for everything in this country, and it seems that Daniel is hanging out with him now doing “everything” as well.
Talking with Mario and Charlyn, it seems that when you turn 18 and are male you get entered in to a draft for military training. Mario drew the short straw and spent nine months learning telecommunications. There is a heavy military presence in Antofugasta because it use to belong to Bolivia and the land farther north use to belong to Argentina. The land was lost in a war around the early 1900’s and Boliva and Argentina have been without a seaport for that long. Political relations are strained between the countries to say the least.
Daniel showed up in typical fashion, about 30 minutes late, and only after a telephone call to wake him up. The actual tour wasn’t anything exciting but we all got some time to check out the rand new mall, (it looks exactly like any American mall), and walked along the shore. After a lunch of hamburgers and French fries we went to a meeting at the Ministerio de Education. Where we met our counterpart on the Chilean side. Carolyn was having difficulty getting money transferred from the Santiago up to Antofugasta. This is something that seems fairly common, things being late and materials not showing up on time. After an enjoyable discussion about what we were hoping to do, planning to do and didn’t know about yet, we had a parade of people come into the office who were at various governmental levels. I think I kissed about 6+ cheeks that day, (the traditional Chilean greeting between women and men).------I just got back from the house of Yorka and Christian. I’ll continue with the story of the day and get back to what happened this evening.
After the “official” meeting, where we had the opportunity to speak English with Carolyn and it was Daniel and Mario’s turn to look confused about what we were saying, we went to la playa. The playa is Spanish for beach and really seems to be the main thing to do in a city that is surrounded by open desert with little life and the ocean to the remaining side. We swam and dived in the ocean, but I don’t want to know what was in that water. I’m still having a headache from it. In all honestly, it may be just the lack of sleep, sun, dehydration and exertion from swimming, but I’ll blame it on the water.
Yorka is the daughter of Rosalinda and Christian is her boyfriend. We were suppose to be at the house of Rosalinda at 7:00 to be picked up by Danica and Roberto, (Rosalinda’s son and daughter-in-law). We were all suppose to meet that group and Rodrigo and his wife (Rosalinda’s other son and daughter-in-law), but were half an hour late. We decided that they had come and gone and looked forward to a nice relaxing night. When we were about to call it a day at 9:00 when Roberto pulls up for the first time, two hours late by Unito Estado’s standards. Piling into the care we drove a short distance to the house and had a delightful night eating empinatas and conversing in Spanish and broken English. I also learned how to make empinatas.
Take two eggs, flour, salt and water and mix together into a hard dough. Put in whatever stuffing you want, usually shrimp, cheese, fish or whatever. Then deep fry them. The result is a tasty dish. As I described it to Gina she said “oh, a Hot Pocket.” At that moment, a little part of me died inside.
We also talked a little music, different slang terms in both English and Spanish, and ate some really greasy empinatas. I had a pretty bad headache the entire time, and still do, but it was a great experience and I feel that my Spanish is improving, if nothing else, my charades and workarounds are improving. It’s strange that I’m starting to pick up more words and phrases. I think it’s because I’m starting to compensate for the Chilean accent. This also scares me a little, because I don’t want to return home with a Chilean accent. No one will be ale to understand what I say!
Anyway, it’s late, my head feels like a jackhammer, I have a meeting at 9:00am with the other Whitworth teachers to see the school for the first time and I need to study a few more minutes of Spanish with a hope that some of the words will stick in my mind.

I´ve wandered through the desert on a bus with no name

2007-01-03T14:23:00.000-03:00

Jan 3, 2007
Well, we’ve completed our journey to Antafugasta and we are all ok. The 18 hour bus ride brought new meaning to the term “nada.” I have never seen an area so devoid of any form of life, plant or animal. Almost the entire route up we hardly saw an wild plant or animal. There were some places where a slight scrub brush might be peaking Its green leaves through the surface of the rock strewn landscape, but those were few and far between. In parts of the desert there was emptiness as far as the eye could see. Even the parts that I didn’t see, I am pretty sure they were full of emptiness too.
The bus was amazing Big seats that reclined and foot parts that folded down, resulted in an area as comfortable as possibly could be designed for epic drives. It was as close to being in first class than I will ever be.
On arrival Charlyn greeted us and one of the host mothers showed up. We all piled into the host family’s van and headed out, with Charlyn giving us a tour as we went.
After a little bit of confusion in finding the area, Jake and I met our host mother, a kind older woman names Rosita. As we arrived, we found that she had invited over her 3 children and their families. The rest of the evening was spend trying to convey our ideas across, in broken Spanish, to her 2 daughters, 1 son, their spouses, one toddler and a baby. A great time was had by all. Jake and I gave her our welcoming presents, chocolate and some postcards of Washington.
Tomorrow we have a tour of the city with Charlyn and one of here students who will serve as a guide for us. At 3:00 we have a meeting and then off to the beach. At 6:00 we are to meet back here and have dinner with one of Rosita’s daughters.
This was a great way to start off our days here in Antofugasta and I’m looking forward to writing and experiencing more. As it is right now, I just need to get warm.

We're going to make like a drum, and leave

2007-01-02T21:28:00.000-03:00

We made it around the city in record time. I dragged everyone around to the main key spots that I had visited through the week in downtown Santiago. The fact that we didn't get lost was a huge factor in the speed of our movement. I believe a fine time was had by all, but the general consensus is that we all want to take off and to start teaching, or we all want to scrap the whole Jan term thing and just take off for Patagonia and the surrounding area. I don't know if Peggy, my adviser, realizes the fact that if we went to Patagonia we would be in MULTIPLE cultures. MULTIPLE!!!!! Think about that. Our DMIS scores would go through the roof by the time that we got back from Patagonia. Going to Antofagasta will only immerse us in a single culture and put us in contact with a select group of people. If we go to Patagonia, and maybe trek through the highlands and mountains, we would be running into MULTIPLE cultures and MULTIPLE groups of people. Every single village we met would be like an entire Jan term each. If we really traveled a lot and went a number of miles a day, it could be close to 20 Jan terms all rolled into one.
I encourage you to think about it Peggy. All I need is your "say so", and I'm all over expanding my cultural experience. I'm willing to do it for the program and my education, I'm just that selfless.
Anyway, if I don't hear anything from you in the next hour, I'll be leaving for the bus station on an 18 hour drive to Antofagasta to start the main-meat of the Jan term program. For the vegetarians reading, that's the main-vegetable.
Wish us luck, There won't be any more post until at least that time. I also do not believe that I will have the wireless access that I do here, in fact I would be surprised, so the updates may not come as ofter or be as verbose.
Hasta!

And we are off! (In Santiago)

2007-01-02T10:04:00.000-03:00

The first day in Santiago as a group, where will we go, what will we do? The suspense is killing me!
The picture I took was one at the garden we visited a few days ago, I thought it was cool.

Hail, Hail, the gang is all here!

2007-01-01T23:19:00.000-03:00

Well, I got to the Airport way early, but it was worth it. It was great to have the opportunity to meet with the other Whitworth students: Gina, Kati and Jake.
I think they were all timed when they got here and we ended up sleeping for a good part of the day until evening. While they relaxed I went off with the Brazilians for a few hours in search of an open market. Santiago was strangely silent this afternoon, slowly trying to recover from the celebration of the night before. When we finally woke up we all gathered in the courtyard and the Brazilians finished their BBQ and shared with the rest of the people on the patio.
Tomorrow we will be able to explore Santiago together and leave in the late evening.
I've really been impressed by the Brazilians. One of them said that it was a pretty special group that happened to find each other at the hostel and that not Brazilians are as open. However he also said they are the type of people to accept someone warmly first and only withdraw that friendship if the person proves unworthy. He summed the sentiment up with a traditional Brazilian saying; "When you find yourself in hell, give the Devil a hug". Whether this is common of all Brazilians or just good luck with this group, it was a very enjoyable experience to have them share their time, culture and celebrations. The same goes for all of the different nationalities that have enjoyed this holiday together. I'd like to think that the hostel is just a special place where people of different cultural backgrounds, but similar beliefs and openness come together. I hope that I am proven correct.

I stand corrected.

2007-01-01T15:27:00.000-03:00

That cat did eat the bone, I watched him today, and he crunched an ate the whole thing.....that's got to hurt 12 hours later.

Happy New Year!

2007-01-01T06:51:00.000-03:00

Well, it's the New Year. In the past few years I have always had some very quiet New Years Celebrations. Usually I fall asleep before midnight and don't even notice that the new year has come until I wake up in the morning. This was not one of those years.
It's currently 6:50am, I'm at the Santiago airport waiting for my fellow students to arrive at the airport starting at 9:00am.
I shared a cab ride in with two nurses from Tasmania, Australia who have been traveling for seven months around the world together, only spending a total of two hours apart. They are leaving for Peru this morning. They have spent so much time together, or maybe they have always done this, that they finish each others sentences and talk in a type of shorthand where entire concepts are conveyed between them with a OOOH, YA! And, they rarely are quiet, I'm going to miss them.
As I run my hand through my hair I have confetti fall out of it onto the floor. I think I might be finding that confetti falling out of things for a number of weeks to come.
When I finished the last entry I had spent the entire day walking around some large hill garden area on the outskirts of Santiago. There is a lot I'd like to mention, but I sadly don't have enough time or energy to write it all. Nor do I think you really care. However, I will tell you that we adopted one of the city dogs on the trip. He was a happy dog, and I realize why. Every time we stopped at a water stand or place where people were, someone would reach into a side bag or backpack and pull out a handful of dog food for our perro. I had at first thought that only some random crazy people were feeding the dogs, now I know it's a common thing to do! Anyway, I liked that dog, even though I didn't want to touch him for fear of catching something.

Anyway, back to where I left off at the hostel. The hostel had decided to put on a free New Years dinner for all the guest, and I think everyone showed up. The nationalities that showed themselves were Brazilian, Uruguay, Swiss, American (me only), Welsh, Irish, Australian, Argentinian, Dutch and probably a couple that I missed. Dinner consisted of potato salad, chicken, rice with vegetables and bread. I gave my chicken bone to the cat that hangs around the patio and he attacked it like it was his last meal. I intended to pick it up after he was done cleaning it, but couldn't find it. I know that he couldn't have eaten it, no matter where I looked I couldn't find it. I hope this doesn't come back to haunt me.

After the dinner a group of the native English speakers got together and started talking about almost everything under the sun, the Brazilians got into their group and everyone else split up between us. During this time we were introduced to an interesting pastime by the Welsh called "whiplash." Whiplash consist of relaxing all your facial muscles and then shaking your head back and forth as fast as possible, while everyone takes pictures of you. It's not as stupid or as easy as it seams. I say this, because I was told that I was particularly good at it. Here are some of the examples. I encourage everyone to at least give this a try, it's a pretty good party game.

A final grand finale of 3 whiplash attempts,

After everyone was done with the whiplash game, our conversations went to what other languages we each spoke. The Welsh actually spoke Welsh and gave us quick lesson.

By this time it was getting late and it was time for us to get ready to go watch the fireworks. Besides, the patio was going to be closed down for the night at 12:00, something that had the Brazilians very worked up about. The Brazilians had a tradition where they would BBQ their meat over a slow flame for hours, leaving the meat to roast while they went out to watch the fireworks. When the fireworks were done, they would come back and have a meal and continue to party through the night. There had been a miscommunication between the staff of the hostel and the day staff said the patio would be open for the entire night, the night staff decided that it wouldn't. This resulted in a number of angry Brazilians and a lot of meat that needed to be eaten quickly. The Brazilians had been planning to share the meal with everyone, but now they really needed everyone to eat the meat before it went to waste. Brazilian BBQ is just hunks of meat that are rolled in salt, LOTS of salt, and slow roasted, then served with bread. It's not easy to eat that much salted meat, I think I'm still trying to hydrate myself. With the amount of sun the Brazilians get, and the amount of salt they eat, it's surprising they aren't mummified by the age of 30.

Here is a picture of some of the hostel folks with the Brazilian flag, which they seemed to carry with them everywhere they went.

After everyone ate all the meat they could, a group of about 20 of us went out into the streets to watch the fireworks. I ended up talking with a Dutch lady who had been traveling the world for about two years now and found that she would be visiting some of the Brazilians she had met at the hostel when she went down to São Paulo. I also found out that one of the ladies at the hostel is a famous Brazilian Opera singer and that we had been listening to one of her CD's during part of dinner. Everyone had been wondering why the music was dragging so much.

The entire down town had been blocked off to traffic and it seemed like the entire city had turned out for the fireworks. I mean, there were hundreds of thousands of people out.

As the countdown got closer the tension built and finally the fireworks went off. They were launched from a huge radio tower in the center of town. The radio tower is similar to the Space Needle in Seattle, it's that big. The following fireworks display went on for over 20 min and was one the the most amazing and biggest that I had ever seen.

After the fireworks display was over all the English speakers gathered together, crossed hands and sang Auld Lang Syne together, at least we tried, but I don't think anyone really knew the lyrics, except maybe the Welsh. (On further research, I don't think anyone knew the lyrics, it seems to be Scottish and we had neglected to bring any Scots along.)Despite that fact, None of the Chileans know what we were saying, the Brazilians were chanting some Futbol chants, waving their flag and yelling intermittently Vive Chile or Vive Brazil.
As the streets cleared out and most of the families went home, we went off in search of a concert that was being given in the area. The opera singer loudly declared that "she knew Espanol! Follow me!" With this, we all went off in a group in search of the concert. Somehow along the way we had picked up another Australian and a Swiss guy from the hostel who claimed that he spoke four languages, was a drummer for a grunge band and worshiped the Foo Fighters. Why he told us this, I don't know, but Steven sure seemed to be having a good time.
Although our Brazilian singer seemed to know Spanish, it didn't mean that she new where the heck she was going. What she did seem to know was how to accost every stranger she came across and ask them where the concert was. After getting blank looks form about 8 people, she struck pay-dirt on the 9th and an older gentleman, his son and some other lady who I think just wanted to come along with a large group, agreed to show us to the concert.

With the Brazilian Flag waving as a battle standard, we went out into the night in search of the fabled concert that no one had any true confirmation was even happening, but it was ok we were assure, the Brazilian opera singer knew Espanol!
We finally did find the band and everyone had a great time, thousands of people danced in the streets to greet the Año Nuevo. At 2:00am the band closed down and we started our way back to the hostel. From the looks of the street the street crews would have hard next day with all the confetti, bottles and trash that lined the Avenue. From the look of some of the celebrators, it looked like it would be a hard next day for them as well.
Many of the other people left the streets in search for clubs or other forms of entertainment, but I knew that if I was going to catch my ride tomorrow the the Australians I would have to call it a night.
Crawling into bet at 3:00am, setting my alarm for 4:45 and wishing I didn't have to meet a cab at 5:00.
When I drove away in the cab at 5:00 I could still hear the music playing in the buildings that we passed and I knew that this was going to be one hard New Years to beat.
I hope that all of you had a great New Years celebration, and more importantly I hope that we all have a great New Year.

My day with the english teachers.

2006-12-31T19:20:00.000-03:00

Today I was planning on taking it easy and learning some more Spanish, letting my burnt forehead and nose heal, hydrate myself and generally get ready for the rest of my co-teachers to arrive from the states tomorrow. I didn't do any of that.
As I was answering emails and eating breakfast this morning I heard someone say "I'm an English teacher too!" As I looked up I saw two ladies who were sitting at the table across from me. I started talking to them briefly and then went bad to my emails. When I was done I went over and spoke with them a little bit more. It turns out that one was from Uruguay and and the other one was from Brazil. This means that one spoke Spanish (Cecilia), the other spoke Portuguese (Rita), they used their common language of English to communicate. That was a perfect opportunity for me. (On a side note, it's very interesting to be at the hostel and find groups of people speaking in their own national language, but if the groups are of mixed languages, they are almost 99% of the time using English.)
I ended up spending the rest of the day roaming around an Cerro with these two teachers, talking politics, education, travel, Spanish, Portuguese and English. It was a great opportunity to spend the day and I was able to have many of my questions about Spanish and how to teach English to Spanish speakers.
The day was really long, I'm very tired, but I've got a number of pictures to post and I'll try to write more later.
-Edit--- We had lunch right outside the zoo, I had a ham sandwich, water and an ice cream bar called a Praline. That bar made me forget all about the Super SexyBo and have faith in the icecream of Santiago and all of Chile. I'm sorry I ever doubted. Also, Mr. Super SexyBo, it's over between us.

My week as an illiterate retard

2006-12-31T09:30:00.000-03:00

Ya, my title may not be PC, but it's my blog.

I've been here one business week. (That's 5 days for those of us who have been students for so long we've forgotten that other people only put in 5 days of work a week.) I'd like to take this time to cover some "lessons learned." Heck, for the fun of it, and because I've missed it so much, (notice the sarcasm), I'm going to do it in a 3-2-1 format.

Three things that I've observed
1. Not knowing how to read a language fluently can make things difficult. I've spent 10 minutes trying to figure out how to use a payphone, only to realize that in BIG LETTERS is the requirement to dial 09 before I start the rest of the number. The only reason I figured this out is because I started translating every single phrase that was on the phone box with my little Spanish dictionary. A dictionary, I might add, that is for SPANISH speakers. As a result, I have a pronunciation guide of how to pronounce the English words, but not the Spanish. I've started carrying my dictionary in my left pants pocket and every time I come across a word that I don't know, I pull it out and try to translate it. After doing this for a week I'm starting to get better, but like I said at the start, if I am able to figure out what is going on, it takes me about 3-20X the amount of time it would if I was reading my native language.

2. Big cities are big cities. Spending 3 years in Chicago has prepared me for my time in Santiago more than any Spanish classes or orientation programs ever could. Big cities have their own idiosyncrasies that are shared and are unique. When I say this I'm talking about how stores are hidden between alleys. How decent supermarkets are hard to find, and once you find them you know there won't be any more around for probably about a mile. How boundaries like rivers, large streets or railroad tracks can mean the difference between a neighborhood you are same in and one that you probably shouldn't explore much farther. How to deal with and be comfortable dealing with beggars, street performers, con artist and a variety of other people that are pretty much unique and common in larger cities.
Within Santiago I can keep my mouth shut and mind my manners and I am fine to go almost anywhere. Even though I'm blond and blue eyed, there are enough different types of people there that I don't stand out. I don't feel that much of a strangeness when I am walking the streets, aside from not being able to understand the language and a few other small changes that I'm able to deal with as they come. I believe that the real culture shock, and the real fun, will begin when I get to Antofagasta and am no longer able to blend into the crowds.

3. I know a lot more Spanish than I though I did. That doesn't mean that I "know" Spanish, but I'm recognizing more words than I thought I would, and although I don't have concrete proof, I think my vocabulary is growing. In most situations I'm able to ask and get what I want when I order or buy something. However I'm also becoming more frustrated with the fact that I don't know as much Spanish as I want. I'm fine asking someone something, but when they start speaking back to me I am at a total loss. Combine this with the fact that the Chilean dialect is notorious for being being hard to understand, even by other Spanish speakers, and It's quite a challenge. Although there are these little victories, like today I was asking the desk clerk for a ticket for breakfast and he asked me what my room number was, and I actually understood what he was asking. Admittedly, it was partially a guess, but at the same time I didn't stare blankly at him. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to improving and working towards becoming competent, if not fluent someday.

Two Questions that I have.
1. I want to know how learning Spanish in Chile will influence how well I speak Spanish in the Northern Hemisphere. I spoke to one Native Chilean who worked in the United States . he said that if I can understand Chilean Spanish then I shouldn't have any problem with any other dialects. At the same time I want other Spanish speakers to understand what I am saying.
I had a bit of an epiphany about my 3rd day here. I realized that with all of the different dialects and accents of Spanish that there are, as long as I speak as clearly and as confidently as I can, it doesn't matter if my pronunciation is perfect, because I don't know exactly which dialect I am trying to match my pronunciation to, and neither does the person who I am speaking to. This knowledge of "sinning boldly" has given me the confidence to use my Spanish in situations where I might have been self-conscious before. I also have to say that no one has noticed and that I commonly get a fast string of Spanish in response that I have no idea in what they are saying.

2. Now that I've gotten partially comfortable being an illiterate retard in Santiago, I'm curious how well I'm going to deal with being an illiterate retard minority in Antofagasta. In the past, with my traveling, except for Singapore (which was a big city too), I have always had a large number of people with me that I traveled with and we didn't interact with the locals that much. This time I am only going to have my four other co-teachers and myself in a totally different culture. It is sure to be interesting.

One AHA or understanding I've had.
Well, where do I start. Lets just say that I mostly am realizing that I am as resourceful as I hoped I was in this situation. I'm pretty happy with myself so far. I'm sure that will change sometime soon.

Video test take 2

2006-12-30T09:37:00.000-03:00

Ok, here is the second test, I don't really like using YouTube, but until I figure out a better way, this may be the easiest. Tell me if it's worth the time or I should go a different direction.

Hostels are cool!

2006-12-30T09:21:00.000-03:00

The picture of today is of me at Corro Santa Lucia. In the background is part of the city of Santiago and the start of the Andi mountain range. The smog is so bad that I wasn't able to get a good shot of them, but believe me, they are huge!

Someone wrote me in an email asking how I was liking the Hostel and if it was strange not knowing anyone here, this is part of a the reply that I gave.
As far as not knowing anyone, it doesn't bother me at all, I make friends where I want to, and there always seems to be an interesting group to talk to here at the hostel. If I wanted to, I could get a couple of travel partners, I just enjoy exploring the city on my own right now. Last night I spend an hour or so talking to two Australian nurses from Tasmania who had been traveling for 7 months straight and were heading out to Peru in a day. It was interesting hearing their stories. Yesterday I had a great conversation with a guy from Brazil who had gone to Harvard business school and "missed the US greatly." Yesterday evening I ended up having a conversation for about 2 hours with a guy from Vegas and his soon-to-be-father-in-law who was originally from Santiago, but spoke four languages and worked as an interpreter for the Chicago International Airport for the past 30 years. And, this morning, my roommate Charlie left for Brazil.
Charlie was an interesting character. He was from Iowa and had been traveling sense October. He had 4 foster children that he sponsored through PLAN and was going throughout Central and South America visiting them. At 68 years old he had gone through Guadalajara, a small village in the Andes and still had foster children to see in Brazil and somewhere in Mexico. He seemed a little bit lonely, as I'm sure that anyone would who had been traveling that long. Also, he wasn't the "type" that you would expect to traveling, not the "adventuresome" look. On top of all this traveling, he said he was scouting out a place for a winter home in South America and was touring the neighborhoods in order to find a place to stay. Where every you are Charlie, I wish you the best of luck and hope that you have a safe trip.
For those of you who have not had the opportunity to stay at a hostel, I really encourage you to do it. It's kind of like a miniature Casablanca where random groups of travelers meet as they stop off to rest and regroup. But that is a topic for another day.

I had a SSB!

2006-12-30T00:11:00.000-03:00

I'm secure in my manhood, I'll admit it, I had a Super Sexy Bo. What a SSB is, I don't know. It was suppose to be helado, Icecream. There are helado stands all over the place in Santiago, and for about 60 cents I was able to try some. As I watched the cats man the defenses, oil the canons and eat Italian food, walked up and ordered un Super Sexy Bo.
Let me first say that I was hoping for something that was close to vanilla ice cream with a chocolate shell. What I got was a melted mess that leaked a cherry flavored dairy-like substance and a cracked shell that tasted and had the consistency of chocolate flavored wax. I ate the whole thing, after all, it was 300 pesos and I wasn't going to let it go to waste. However, I will tell you that I don't think that the Super Sexy Bo and I will be having another meeting in a park any time soon. There are some things that just need to stay in Santiago.

The cats have taken the high defenses

2006-12-29T23:59:00.000-03:00

I went to a place called "Cerro Santa Lucia." It's basically a big steep hill in the middle of the city were defenses were created to fight off the people who wanted to do something that the current people who owned the hill didn't want them to do. It's got lots of rocks, twisted paths and lots of old cannons doted around the scenery. Strangely missing here are the usual pack of dogs that I have mentioned usually roam the parks and calles del Santago. The reason for this is that you have to sign your name, social security number and place of origin on a sheet of paper before you are allowed to enter the garden area of the hill. AND, because dogs are scientifically known to not have thumbs for working a pen, do not have a social security number and probably wouldn't be able to spell their place of origin if they overcame the first two challenges.
Within these peaceful and steep garden, I found where the cats are hiding. Not only are the cats hiding, but they are feasting on spaghetti. How they got the spaghetti, in Chile, I don't know, but I assume if you posses the ability to get guards posted at all entrances to a garden in order to prevent dogs from entering the area and to be in possession of the hill fortress complete with canons and ice cream shops, then getting spaghetti is pretty easy.

I'm not use to so much sun

2006-12-29T22:06:00.000-03:00

I've been spending the past few months in the cold of the North West, not the 90+ degree weather that is down here in Chile. I spend about 10 hours walking around the entire city and come back dehydrated and dazed. Today I think I'm either getting smarter about drinking water, I'm getting use to the sun or my body has given up and quit complaining. Either way, I'm feeling better and not as wiped as I have the past few days. I'm trying something new, so it you would, please check out this link. It is a quick video that I put together, I don't know if the sound is working or not, it may just be the small speakers on my computer, please help! Actually, scratch that, i figured out what was wrong, it's fixed. Anyway, it's in Quicktime, because it's the only format that iMovie exports in, and iMovie is the only thing that I have right now. It's ok, but doesn't do all the things that I want it to. Then again, it was free, so I probably shouldn't complain, I'll figure out some other work a rounds.

Here is the picture of the day, I found a really cool market that had a unique smell about it. Think of about 4-5 BLOCKS of stalls, all selling produce in some sections, meat in others and still in others, totally random stuff. It was pretty neat. when I came across this shot, I figured that I had found out where some of the dogs had gone. On closer inspection I realized they are sheep. Very cold sheep.

I also found where they are keeping the cats, but this guy is eating about 15 feet away from me me and smacking his lips so loud after every bite that it is driving me absolutely nuts!!! So I'll tell you more about it later.

You can post comments!

2006-12-29T09:15:00.000-03:00

This is for those of you who may not be familiar with blogs, but you can post comments on the stuff that I write. Comments, suggestions, observations, criticisms or whatever. If you do this, it will help me determine what people are interested in hearing about.

I've set it up so that you don't have to be signed in or anything in order to post a comment, this opens me up for Viagra ads being posted, but it will make it easier for you.

Just click on the word comments at the bottom of the page and you will be taken to a page that allows you post on this blog. If you want, please put your name on the post so that I know who I am replying to!

Politics, politics, everywhere I go.

2006-12-29T09:02:00.000-03:00

One of the things that I have noticed about Santiago, and probably the rest of Chile, is the fact that almost every aspect of their lives relates to politics. Their poetry, their music, their graffiti. I guess this is because, until recently, they were living under a dictatorship. I'm sure that kind of experience can have an imprint on a culture.
The image above is one that I took in an art gallery..I'm sure it has some political significance, I just don't know what right now, It's something I will look into further when I have time to translate the brochure.
Anyhow! It's interesting to see how active and passionate the culture here seems to be about government, not only the government that is currently in charge, but what HOW the government should be structured. In the book shops are books on political philosophies and history ranging from Mao to Regan.
The wide range of political views that are show here are almost revolutionary in my American eyes. It's not uncommon to see books on communist theory, or the Hammer and Sickle on street graffiti. It's a topic for another time, but it makes me think about how passive the majority of the individuals in the United States are about politics.
I have a lot of stuff to do today, but I'll try to keep up on the journal as well as I can.

The city of the dogs

2006-12-29T08:53:00.000-03:00

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Ok, the name of the post really isn't fair, Santiago is not a city of the dogs in a derogatory sense, but let me say, there are a LOT of dogs here, and not in the way of pets. Almost everywhere you go downtown there are random dogs walking around like they own the place, but no one owns them. They are smelly, dirty, probably filled to the brim with fleas but they are really cute and try to be endearing as their mangy coats will let them. They will wander around the parks until they see a likely subject who might take pity on them, and then approach with tails wagging. When they get close enough they roll over on their backs and try to look as defenseless as possible. I'm not fooled, if I was not the hunk of burning manhood that I am, I think they would try to eat me instead. I've even seen a couple of instance of people walking around feeding the dogs out of dog food bags, kind of like feeding the pigeons, but without the feathers or fluttering.
Anyway, the picture above is of one of the dogs watching the changing of the guard ceremony. He didn't seem to be very impressed. I think he had seen better in his time there.
On a side note, Santiago does NOT have a cat problem. The only cat I've seen is the one on the patio in the back of the hostel. He's slim, small, black and kind of looks like he's probably taken on one or two of the dogs in his lifetime. For that Mr. Gato, I salute you!

The morning so far

2006-12-28T12:51:00.000-03:00

I'm currenly sitting in Centro Cultural Palacio La Moneda, relaxing and checking my email. I may be lucky so far, but I have not had any problem finding internet access this far on my trip, they have free WiFi available here at the museum. I don't expect it to continue when I get north, but it's nice now.
Last night was good, except that I wasn't sleepy at 2:oo am, so I ended up watching some podcast on my iPod until I was ready to go to sleep. I met my Brazilian roommate, who seems to have one of the unique snoring patterns that I have ever heard, almost like he's breathing in oatmeal or something. Fortunately I either fell asleep, or he stopped snoring, either way, it's a win. I'm also currently downloading some pictures that I took this morning, I happened to be in front of the old state building, that was bombed during the 1973 revolution, when I assume I observed the changing of the guard. It was pretty cool, complete with band and marching and a few horses.
After watching that I was planning on seeing the tomb of Bernardo Higgens, the local historical here for Chile, but I got sidetracked to this museum.
BTW all the Whitworth students who are coming down here, bring your student ID, I was able to get the ticket agent to give me a student discount.

I am alive and well

2006-12-27T22:36:00.000-03:00

Ok, this blog is for my time spend in Chile. A lot of it will be for the Students that I am working with at Willard elementary school. The teachers of the students can use their discression as to what they show the students or not...in all honesty, I may just use exerts from this blog and send it to the students and teachers in an email.
Anyway, I'll also be posting my journal entries and anything else I feel might be worth it here.

Here is a bit that I wrote before I knew I could get wireless internet access in the patio of the hostel.

"Well, I got to Santiago well enough. Lots of traveling and going through Mexico City. I have been surprised by the amount of Spanish that I am able to figure out and remember. I also purchased an English to Spanish dictionary at the airport in Mexico City to help me out. I got into Santiago and made it though customs, still had to pay the stupid $100 to get in. I then called Charlyn and after figuring that I had to dial 09 (reading for the win, although it was Spanish reading) I finally got in touch with her, although I wasn’t able to talk that long due to the price and the fact that I didn’t have enough coins. I need to find out the exact exchange rate down here. The phone calls cost 200pesos or 70seconds and the Hostel that I’m at, at Ciefuegos 151 is costing me 13000 for 2 nights.
The hostel is a nice place. I met a room mate of mine named Charlie, and old guy that has something like 4 foster children through PLAN. And he has been traveling sense October visiting them throughout south America. I think the charger is working here. At least I hope that it is, and isn’t going to blow my battery up.
I’m really looking forward to this trip. It was a little sketchy until I got to the hostel. I don’t know who thought these things up, but they are awesome. I really, really appreciate them in every one that I have been to.
Anyway, I’m of to the patio to strategize about what my next moves will be!"

My next move was to fall asleep for 6 hours, get up and wander around the city for a couple of hours. It's a neat place. I'm not feeling much of a culture shock right now, mostly due to the fact that I'm in a big city and i'm use to living in Chicago. I can blend in pretty well around here and if I don't want to interact with people, it's not a problem. I think that once I get up and start working in the small cities I will start to feel a little different.

Tomorrow I plan on taking off and exploring the city for a while and see what there is to see. I'm happy that I brought my computer now, the lockers that are here seem pretty sturdy, and I'm not very concerned about leaving my stuff around if I need to. Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to get some pictures and post them.

Well, the internet connection went down, so there isn't much I can do, except copy and paste what I have written into a word document and hope that I can get another connection.