Back to the big city!

Hi everyone! After spending a few more fabulously lazy days in Viña del Mar, I'm now back in Santiago. On Sunday, we had a meet-and-greet lunch with the rest of the TeachingChile participants at the Mercado Central in the middle of Santiago. The Mercado Central is a huge market full of restaurants and fresh seafood for sale. We had a delicious, very authentic Chilean lunch including grilled fish, salad, wine, and a well-known drink in the country called Pisco Sour. After three hours of eating and chatting (long meals are typical down here...which I love!), a group of us walked around the city for a bit...but before long we were exhausted from the heat!

Yesterday we had our first day of orientation with the school system we're working for (called EducaUC). The people in charge of the English curriculum were absolutely wonderful. They're really excited to have us and had lots of wonderful things to say about the schools. I'm working in a private school owned by the Universidad Católica (Catholic University) called Colegio San Marcos. Some of the schools are subsidized (half owned by the government, half private), but mine is private. Basically this means that prayer, mass, and bible study are part of students' everyday life. I think it'll be cool to experience this with my students!

The head of the EducaUC program explained to us that while Chile has one of the best economies in Latin America and the government has been trying to implement international business, there is a severe gap in English knowledge across the country. Therefore they are behind in advancing the businesses in which they would like to serve and partner with. They also have low education scores across the school system and are hoping that by starting a structured curriculum, including English, it will do wonders for Chile in the long-run. Even their English teachers now (native to Chile) are behind where they should be, so they're really excited to have native English speakers around to help everyone, not just the students.

EducaUC also informed us about the structure of the classrooms in which we'll be working. For those of us working in K-4th grade, we will be in charge of reviewing previous lessons and explaining activities the students will work on after learning a new lesson. Then we will be in charge of working with small groups in the class. The 5th-12th grade teachers will have mini classes of no more than 10 students each week. The students will rotate in and out of our class each week, some going to the native Chilean teacher, some coming to us for English practice. I still don't know which grades I'll be working with, but I'm excited no matter who I end up with!!

EducaUC also encouraged us to greet students in the mornings when they are arriving at school and the afternoons when they leave, to build relationships with them and their families that may be picking them up. They said the parents love to see who their children are working with on a regular basis, and will be very appreciative to get one-on-one time with us. I can't wait to build relationships, not only with the students, but with their families too! Even though I'm only responsible for in-classroom lessons and planning with the head teacher, I also hope to start some English extracurricular activities! I really want to get involved with my school's community as well, so we'll see how that goes :)

Other than that, we've been walking around the city a lot and taking care of administrative tasks (i.e. getting our Chilean ID cards, metro passes, etc.). On Friday, I'll go to my colegio and meet the principal and English department to get more details about my particular school.

The other teachers in my program are awesome. Despite our tight living conditions (yes, I'm still staying in the room with 12 people), we're all getting along great and are having lots of fun learning about each other. It's amazing that even though we've grown up in vastly different places, we have so much in common! There are people from Seattle, Canada, New York, Michigan, Wyoming, Tennessee, NORTH CAROLINA (woo!), England and Australia! I love the mix and hearing about other people's experiences. Many are like me, considering a career change to teach, but some are also doing this while taking breaks from college or before attending law school in the fall. There are also two married couples who decided to try this out together...how cool is that??

And despite my sarcasm about the 12-person room (I respect the married couples even more for being stuck in there with us!), it's actually a very nice hostel...check out their website! http://www.luzazulhostel.com/. We've got a gorgeous balcony upstairs, including a grill, so I think we're going to have a bbq tonight!

I've had a few klutzy episodes in the past two days that I think you'll find funny...first I stupidly put a piece of chocolate in my jeans pockets, and after reaching in and not remembering it was there (or the fact that chocolate melts!), got it all over my white shirt. It seriously looked like I pooped myself...hahahah. THEN I went to the restroom to change clothes (since clearly that's impossible to do in my own room) with sunglasses on my head, and when I bent down to grab my clothes, the glasses fell in the toilet. Thankfully it was clean water! Oh goodness, the clumsiness doesn't stop...even south of the Equator...

Later today I'm going to make a trial run with my fellow Colegio San Marcos teacher, Stephanie (who is also from NC and went to UNC Chapel Hill!), to make sure we know how to get to school on Friday...hopefully we'll navigate the metro lines/buses well and not get lost!

Last thing, I've learned a few fun new terms since I've been here. Apparently Chileans don't speak Spanish...they speak Chilean! They cut off the ends of their words, especially 's' and use a lot of slang. Usually someone would say, 'Cómo estás?' for 'How are you?' but here they say 'Cómo estaí?'. They also say 'poh' after a lot of words. So if you were to answer the previous question, you might say 'Bien, po!'. When they're talking or explaining something, they say 'Cachai' at the end of the phrase, like 'Ya know?'. Needless to say, I'm learning a lot! Sometimes I'm confused, but I'm getting there :) I hope you're all doing well, and I love you very much. I'll post some more photos very soon!

Grace and peace on your week,
LG