What Happened to Secular Education?

I'm fairly certain my school isn't catholic, but somehow I ended up at mass today insted of in English class. Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore (does anyone else think this is a bad analogy?). But back to the point, I'm pretty sure everyone here is catholic. Apparently when I say I'm Christian this gets misconstrued as me being evangelical or something. I'm not quite clear on that.

Well, despite my little run-in with religion, things have been going fairly well. My Spanish is getting better, but it's still not up to writing-a-presenttion-for-lenguaje level. Yeah, that went well. The conclusion I've come to is that school here is easier (with the possible exception of Spanish). I'm actually doing well in math... don't sound so shocked! The other conclusion I've come to is that books here are expensive. While you can buy a full meal here for under 1000 pesos (2 bucks), the book I have to read for school came out to around 6500 pesos (yeah, thirteen bucks) in paperback! This probably doesn't matter because it's not like I'm going through reading material very quickly.

Erika Can't Dance

Have you missed me? Sorry it's been so long since my last post, but fate has been trasnpiring against me. Last Wednesday, the internet was out because... it rained! People started chanting to be let out early and life basically came to a halt. I have to admit, I was a bit baffled by this, but apparently it only rains 3 or 4 times a year and there are no storm drains so it's kind of a big deal. Other than that, well, I've just been busy.

Monday my class had a bienvenida (welcome party) for me! It was fun and we had cake. Monday I also found out that my school has a hymn. That's right, we're just that cool. I thought the U.S. was supposed to be big on school pride, but from what I can tell, Chile wins this one. Other than the previously mentioned events, not much of note happened during the week, but my weekend was fairly eventful. Friday I met Tiare, Marjorie and Fabio after school and we hung out at the Jumbo (Chilean Carrefour. No that probably didn't help. Chilean supermarket.) We ate some kind of sandwich with beef, avacado and tomato. As far as I can tell, all Chilean fast food consists of sandwiches with avacadoes and tomatoes. On a somewhat related note, completos (hot dogs with, you guessed it, avacadoes and tomatoes) are actually not bad.

But anyways, back to my weekend. Daniella, the girl I sit next to in class had a birthday party Saturday! That's right, my first Chilean party! The invitation said it started at nine, so I showed up at 9:15 or so thinking I would be fashionably late. This was not the case. When I got there, one other person was there. Apparently in Chile, 9:00 actually means 10:30. The next hour or two people spent talking and smoking (yes, really), and around eleven or so, we sang happy birthday. Somebody pushed the birthday girl's head into the cake, but come to think of it, this happened at my bienvenida too (to someone else). Note to self: Ask if this is normal or if all of the people you know are just weird. After the cake, people started to dance to, you guessed it, reggaeton. It actually has a better beat for dancing than the music they play at parties in the U.S. The bad news, however, was that everybody here actually knows how to dance. This is really only bad news because I do not know how to dance (see title). I gave it my best shot anyways, but one of my goals for this year has become to learn how to dance. My other goal is to eat an obsecene amount bread and butter.

My First Hamburger in Eight Years

Yes, you read that right, I ate a hamburger. I'm going to pause for a while and let the significance of that sink in. Ironically, I had to come to Chile to eat it. Did I mention that I've also been eating more cereal than I have since... France? What is it about leaving the US that makes me identify with my American heritage so much more? I think I could get used to this. The being American thing, not the hamburger eating. That I suppose I have no choice but to get used to.
Well since I last wrote, I went to another two days of school and... I met my host-family! Thursday morning was a huge improvment on Wednesday. I was beggining to understand some of what people said (I suppose I'm getting more used to hearing Spanish) and people seemed more comfortable talking to me. At this point I'm hardly what you would call a great conversationalist, but I appreciate when people make the effort to make me feel included. I got a bit of a language lesson outside of the normal school curriculum (my Spanish teacher seems a bit scary) as well as math and History. We had a test in math, but History was pretty fun. We talked about the Encomienda system and I actually understood some of it! Then after going home for lunch I had biology and P.A.S. I'm fairly certain that Biology was mainly a discussion of STD's and birth control, but at that point I was exhausted and paying attention would have simply cost too much effort. I was feeling a little bit better by P.A.S. time, but I still have no idea what it stands for. It seemed to be an additional Spanish class though. Maybe grammar? Oh, did I mention that Fabio, the guy I sit next to, ´s new favorite game has become: Quiz Erika about random American brands and cities? I think he's trying to place me on the social scale, but it's a bit annoying/amusing. For the record, no, I do not have a Northface jacket or a macbook.

After school on Thursday I packed up my stuff and went to meet my host family! I didn't do much except go to bed that first night and I had school friday morning, so I didn't really spend that much time with them until the weekend. First however, let me tell you about Friday. I'd been feeling a bit overwhelmed by meeting my host-family etc. and out of my comfort zone so I was really not looking forward to going to school, but it was much better than I had anticipated. We had Physics, Lenguaje and, wait for it, English! Yes, this may have been the highlight of my week, but probably not. The teacher's English wasn't perfect, but it was so much better than most of the people at my school 's English. We talked about Twisters and the Wizard of Oz. Ironically the Wizard of Oz came up twice on Friday, once in English class and once when my host-family was trying to explain straw to me.

After school on Friday I went with my host-mom and host-sister to the centro where we walked around the feria (market) and hung out. I will gladly admit that I was half asleep at this point. I only got to sleep nine or ten hours that night because my host-brother, Alvaro's primero communion was on saturday. We went to the church with my extended host-family (my host-dad's mom, my host-mom's mom and grandma and grandpa etc). It was through the school (they go to the liceo catolico) and it was a bit long with a lot of standing, but afterwards we went home for an Asado (barbeque). Elizabeth and I played with her little cousins, and I threw a football (yes, american) with Alvaro. It was fun and since then, things have gotten less awkward.

After sleeping 12 hours saturday night, I got up this morning and helped make pankekes con manjar. They're sort of like crepes with dulce de lece filling, and as you can imagine, they were delicious! For lunch we had some more meat. I miss vegetables and water! They eat tomato, cucumber, celery etc. salads, but not without salt. Tea is also taken with artificial sweetner. I probably should not find this weird, but I do.
Did I mention that I have three host-dogs? A family of German shepherds! There's even a baby of three months. He's adorable, but rather mischevious. Their attitude towards dogs is very different here, or at least it is in my family. In the US we tend to treat our dogs like humans, let them sleep in our beds, cuddle with them etc. but here the dogs stay outside and are treated like... dogs. We spent some time trying to train the puppy (achilla), but it was more through dominance than the positive reinforcement methods I'm used to it. After the dog training session, my host-dad attempted to teach me to play the guitar and we had a Beatles sing-along. The only problem is that I can't sing. Maybe that will change after a year here, but I think not!

First Day of School!

I think I may have mentioned something about going to get my uniform in my last update? Well that's what we did Tuesday! I also got my visa verified (I don't think that's the right word) at the Chilean equivalent of the FBI. There we met a very nice mormon boy from Minnesota. He was helping his Nicaraguan friend with his visa so we chatted for a while and he's volunteering in Tierra Amarilla teaching people (yes, I had to ask, about God). Apparently he has already been in chile for 6 months so his Spanish is much better than mine, but I thought I heard an American accent. After we got my paper saying my visa was verified (I remembered the word) we went to a kind of city office where people register births, deaths wedding etc. and applied for my carnet or ID card. There we ran into mormon boy again and after talking about Chile for a while, he started to tell me about... his religion! That's about when they called my number to go apply for my carnet so we politely excused ourselves. After that I got taken to an AFS meeting conducted in rapid-fire Spanish. I thought that was a reality check... until I started school. Speaking of school, after lunch, we went back to Copiapò to hunt down my uniform. We started at a little uniform shop where I bought my skirt, two yellow polo shirts that I'm allowed to wear to school when I go back after lunch, and my PE jacket. Then we moved on to another small shop in town where we bought two white shirts and two pairs of grey socks. Next we bought shoes, little black mary janes (ok, I haven't owned a pair of those since the fifth grade I kind of would have preffered to keep it that way), then we went on a wild goose chase to find a blue polar. We went to store after store asking for one and the answer was always: no, but try.... It turned out that Javiera, one of the volunteers at our orientation who also happened to go to my school, had a polar, a vest and a tie I could borrow. So that was it, no more stalling! We went to speak to the director of the colegio and he told me that I would start the next day in segundo medio D! That's tenth grade for those of you who are as confused as I was. So last night I got all of my stuff together and set my alarm for 6:40. Just my luck. It didn't go off. I woke up a couple of minutes after 7, so I didn't have any extra time to worry. I'm not going to lie, I was nervous, but not as much as I would have expected.
So when we got to school it was a couple of minutes before 8 and school started at 8:10. I followed a friend of my tia's around for a little while like a lost puppy dog (pay attention, you're going to see a theme here) before she waylaid a kid that was apparently in my curso and told him to take me to class. He became my mentor for the day and he presented me to the class, then we sat down. Chilean kids are shockingly unruly in class! We had religion first and I didn't understand much of what the teacher was saying, but she gave us an assignment which I also didn't understand. That's OK because Fabio, the guy that was showing me around, spent a good half an hour to an hour picking my brain on the subject of American music. For those of you who know me, you can imagine how this conversation went.
"Do you listen to Justin Bieber" *starts singing song involving the words hey baby*
"No" *shakes head*
"Miley Cyrus?"
"Nope"
"Then Britney Spears?"
*Snorts* "No"
So the conclusion I've come to is that I simply don't like music very much. I mean yes, I listen to it, but always distractedly. I don't get really into music like so many people seem to. OK, moving on, let's discuss... music class!
Between classes, we apparently have a ten or fifteen minute break during which I followed Fabio around (lost puppy dog theme again) and was introduced to people. It was kind of fun, but I don't think I remember a single name. After that dventure was music class. For this, we moved to another room with a bunch of guitars and drums. I think I copied down song lyrics in my notebook (ok, so I think they were song lyrics, I know I copied them down). Kids were playing drums and guitar and it was kind of awesome, if a bit loud. I even got a drum lesson at the end of class! It was really cool, but I don't think I have that kind of coordination. Then we had another break and stood around talking to people (ok, stood around in my case) before going in for Qimica class. It was exciting because I actually understood this teacher! However, chemistry is another story. I copied it all down in my handy dandy notebook (a cool AFS one none the less) and listened to people talk to eachother and at me for a while. Somehow Fabio became my unnoficial translator and people have to talk to me through him even though he generally just repeats what they said in Spanish. It's kind of funny, but a bit limiting. Did I mention that somebody actually put a tack on his chair when he went to get up? He sat on it. I'd been under the mistaken impression that that kind of thing only happened in movies. Apparently Fabio is muy rico as in plata, something that a few people pointed out. I found it a bit strange, but maybe it's a cultural thing. That would explain the iphone with which my musical inquisition was conducted and his snazzy green watch. Yes, when I say green, I mean lime green. I'm more than a little jealous. So at 1:00 when Qimica finished, we left to go home for the day and I practically bolted to the car. I felt much better after eating lunch and helping to make bread, but my first day was a bit challenging. I spent most of my day feeling like an overgrown baby. I feel really tall next to these tiny Chilean girls! And on second thought, I speak neither un pocito nor un poco Español (it seems that whenever I say un poco someone chimes in with pocito and vice versa). The other kids were all very nice, but they speak really quickly and it's very hard to understand them. I think I'm going to have a really good time here, but these first few weeks are going to be tough. Let me end my novella here by saying that my host family gets back tonight! I should meet them after school tomorrow! I'm a bit nervous, but very excited!!!!

Orientations and Copiapò in More Detail

This is just a more detailed Synopsis of the orientations and my first day in Copiapò, but here I go.
Since I left New York wednesday morning, a lot has happened. I feel as though years have gone by. I flew to Miami where I had the most-difficult time catching a shuttle to the hotel. This did not bode well (after all, it was in English), however, everyone else had an equally difficult time with the shuttle, so if it's an indication of anything, I'm not the only one in for some hard times. After we got to the hotel (beautiful by the way) we spent a couple of hours hanging out and showering (although not both at once). I was roommates with Mimi, the girl I'd been talking to on Facebook. It was awesome, we became really good friends in like, a day! There were six of us going to Chile, three year kids (Me going to Copiapò, Mimi going to Temuco and Bo going to Iquique) and three semester kids (Rosemary going to Quillota, Allison going to Arica and Carah going to Limares). There were also the people going to Brazil and Paraguay at our orientation, so we hung out with them too, but the Chileans were the last to leave so we had like five hours by ourselves to talk. Most of the orientation in Miami consisted of waiting around, being yelled at for being late (oh, the irony!) and listening to stuff we already knew. Talking with the other AFSers was fun though.
After our day and a half in Miami, we took a hotel shuttle to the airport at 8 o' clock for an 11:30 flight. I managed to sleep through some of it, but I was in the middle of the middle row, and whenever I woke up, the people on both sides of me were sleeping. I did however get an amazing view of the snow capped Andes, which really drove home that it is winter in Chile. The real shock, however, was when we got off the plane and realized that they didn't heat the buildings. We spent most of our two days at orientation camp shivering. It was held in this large building full of pictures of Jesus and crosses that was practically impossible to navigate in. Somewhere in that maze however, there was a room with a fire, but we couldn't all fit around it. There were maybe sixty or seventy kids, mainly from Europe (actually, they were mainly from Italy), but people more or less stuck together in their country groups, and it was a bit awkward. Most of the other kids spoke English to some extent, so we Americans were embarassed by our language abilities. My roommate was a girl named Charlotte Rousseau (from France, in case you couldn't guess), and we had a small room with bunk-beds and a completely inadequate supply of blankets. Last night was the first night in a week that I haven't woken up frozen! And I slept thirteen hours for the record. School is going to completely wipe me out! Well, we spent most of saturday in our area specific groups (I was in group one, el Norte) and we found out a lot about the country, the culture and AFS. The rest of the cities in el Norte had the kids going by plane, and most of the closer cities, the kids were getting picked up, but us lucky ones got to leave that night for the bus station. There we waited around for a couple of hours, and I talked with Mimi a lot. We were the only Americans laeving that night, and it was sad to say goodbye to her. It's crazy how close we got in like four days.
My bus left first at 10:00 pm, and there were four of us on it from AFS. Me, Javiera, an AFS volunteer, Julien, a French boy going to my school, and Carmen, a Swiss-German Girl, all going to Copiapo. I slept through most of the bus ride because the seats reclined into almost beds, but I woke up a bit before we got there and looked out the window. The desert is gorgeous! When we got to the bus station, Carmen and Julien's families met them, and my hostmom's Tia Cecilia (she's actually her god mother) met me and brought me home. We drove by my host family`s house on the way and it is beautiful! Red painted stone of some sort. She thinks that my host family will be home by wednesday or thursday, but until then I'm staying here. She took me around town to see the mall and town sqaure, then we met her husband for lunch: a plate of grilled meat. Sorry Marie, I think I may have eaten your steak. Once you're all done laughing, I'll mention that my tia speaks English, but her husband doesn`t. I understand most of the Spanish directed at me (It's much slower), but reponding is difficult. I`ve completely forgotten the future and past tenses, so living in the present is pretty easy.
I've been exhausted for days now, but that did it. Did I mention that I slept thirteen hours last night? Before that though, she brought me out to Bahia Inglesia and Caldera. The desert is full of flowers right now since it rained recently and it's beautiful! Anyways, we got home (it's about an hour drive and did I mention she has a beach house?) and ate dinner (some kind of beef and rice) before going to bed. We may be going to find a uniform today or visiting Carmen who lives very close. She had to go to her school today, so I'm alone with the nana for a while. After she gets back, we'll see. I don`t really know what's going on, I think I don't start school for a while, but I'm sure I'll find out soon enough.

¡I'm in Copiapò!

I wish I could post pictures, but I'm too lazy to figure it out. You'll just have to believe me when I say Copiapò is beautiful. Actually Chile in general is beautiful! We had an amazing view of the snow covered Andes while we were flying in becasue yes, it's winter here. At our orientation in Santiago, most of our time was spent huddling around the fire (no central heating) or shivering. This was even more of a shock after our orientation in Miami earlier this week. I feel like we've done nothing but sit around and wait for something to happen for the past week, but it was agreat opportunity to get to know some of th other exchangers. There are 6 of us from the US, three year and three semester kids, as well as the Paraguay and Brazil kids. We spent a lot of time hanging out together and talking about Chile because we were the last to leave for the airport on thursday. None of the other Americans are being hosted very near me, but there is a Swiss girl named Carmen and a French boy named Julien who will be going to the same school as me. Right now I'm staying at the home of an AFS volunteer, my host-mom's tià Cecilia, until my host-family gets back from vacation on wednesday or thursday. She's been really nice to me, showing me around copiapò and even taking me by Bahià Inglesia. The house is beautiful, and she's been explaining things to me (some in English, some in Spanish). I can catch most of the Spanish if it's really slow. I think we might try to go buy our uniforms tomorrow, but in anycase I don't start school right away, which is really nice because I'm exhausted! I should probably also mention that the dreaded bus ride went very well. I slept through most of it, and our seats reclined into almost beds. It's nice to finally be here though. I'll try to write another update soon.