"Nothing Exciting" in Chile

I was just telling my host-sister about how I couldn't update my blog now since I hadn't done anything exciting this week. She then reminded me about how I played the bass in the plaza yesterday and how my host-dad threw a party at our house last night. Actually, as she also mentioned, a week of life in Chile is enough to write about in itself. She's right, of course, but things here are starting to feel normal. I'm beggining to forget that if three months ago, I'd done any of the things I've done this week, I probably would have written a very long blog post about it. I suppose yiou really can get used to anything. In the spirit of trying to recapture my sense of wonder though, let me tell you about how Wednesday, I went with my host-siter to the library to look for a book I have to read for school. I didn't find it, but I did check out an Agatha Christie book and Ely and I have decided to make weekly trips to the library a tradition.
I should probably also elaborate on the things mentioned above. Yesterday my school orghanized a "caminato familial", or a family walk from my school to the plaza. Once they got to the plaza, some of the bands in my school played live music. Do you remember how I played the bass during our school's celebration of the 18th? Well we played the same song, El Guillatun, again. We also went first. It was pretty exciting. After that, my host-sister and I went to the exhibition in the Casa de la Cultura dedicated to the 33 miners. It had poems that people had written, things from the "Campamento Esperanza", the camp that the families made outside of the mine, and a lot of other mementoes. It was really beautiful.
After walking back to the house, we improvised something to eat for lunch since my host-mom is in China on a buisness trip. At about 3, my host-dad's friends started arriving for a birthday party that lasted until about 6. Yes, I'm talking about 6 am. I went to bed at about 11, but I did go swimming for the first (actually make that second) time in our pool. Apparently my host-dad's friends are all very musically talented, they're part of a tuna or some kind of traditional band. They played a bunch of songs on the guitar and sang. It was pretty cool.
Today, we pretty much spent the whole day sleeping and cleaning up.

Chile, Chile Lindo

I've just been informed that my dedicated fans are clamoring for more news of my Chilean adventures. Before I start telling you about last few weeks, let me take a moment to extoll the virtues of this country. I am under the distinct impression that Chile is the most beautiful place on Earth. I haven't seen enough to say this for certain, but the few places I have been can best be described as awe-inspiring. The Elqui Valey in La Serena is idyllic. The mountains around Santiago are gorgeous. The Atacama desert is other-worldy. Did you know they filmed the moon landing here? That's what my host brother says anyways. My host-family spent the day at the beach the other day and among the few photos I took, aboiut half are worthy of national geographic (a slight exageration). This is not due, as much as I may wish it were, to my photografic talent, but to the mind-staggering beauty of Chile. Before I begin to bore (is it too late?) let me tell you about what I've been up to these last few weeks.
After we got back from La Serena we went to the AFS asado to celebrate the 18. There I got to talk to the other exchange students scattered around Copiapó, and we got to know eachother a little better on our excursion to Santiago for our first AFS orientation. The exchange students from the middle part of Chile all met up in Santiago to talk about how our experiences have been going. Although we've all been living disrtinct experiences, we had so many things in common! I feel like I made some life-time friends there in the space of four days. I also got a chance to practice my English and catch up with two of the other Americans who were at my Miami orientation. Rosemary ws telling me about a friend she has in the US who's interested in coming to Chile next year who had actually read my blog. I'm not going to lie to you, I felt very important! A thing that really surprised me at the orientation though was how many people were still more comfortable speaking English than Spanish. I think the US really needs to come up with a new method for teaching languages because frankly, after five years of taking it in school, my German still sucks! And don't even get me started on how bad my Spanish was when I got here!
Speaking of my Spanish, its been improving fairly steadily. I recently discovered that I can read books in Spanish. Or book anyways, I just finished "the Lost Symbol" by Dan Brown. Yeah, I felt prettyu good about myself after that. I even walked to the plza the other day and signed up at the library. Let me tell you, that was an adventure in itself. I had to figure out where to get things photocopied! OK, so not that exciting, but its these little Chilean things that I still haven't gotten figured out. I suppose I still have nine months to work on that.
Hmmm, so other news. My host-mom left for a mining exposition in Shanghai today. That's right, we sent her off to China for two weeks. I might be more jealous if I wasn't currently in Chile! I¿ll try to keep the updates more frequent in the future! (On a side note, comments are always nice).

Hanging out in La Serena and Celebrating the 18 de Septiembre

So last weekend was the long awaited 18 de Spetiembre. My family went to La Serena (a city about a four hour drive south from here) where we stayed with my hostdad's sister. On Friday we went for a paseo in the Elqui Valley to my host-family's lugar secreto. Frankly, I probably shouldn't be telling you about it, but it's not like I could tell you where it was if I wanted to (and I don't). Suffice to say we had an asado there with my host-family, my host mom's mom and my host-dad's mom, dad and sister. As you can probably guess, we ate empanadas and large amounts fo meat before breaking out the guitar for some typical chilean songs and dances. I mainly just watched most of this, but I did dance some cueca. On saturday, more or less the same thing was repeated, but this time at somebody's house also in the valle. You will probably be shocked to learn that there was no cueca danced n the 18th (ok, so not where I was, I'm sure there was somwhere in Chile. I did however learn how to hacer bailar el trompo (I'm not actually sure that's the correct term for it). It's something like spinning a top, but it requires way more skill. I'll try to upload a video but I'm not sure if I'm blog-savvy enough.
My succeses with flying kites were a little less, well, succesful. Apparently Chile is big on kites, who knew? On Sunday we went to the beach (no, it wasn't exactly beach weather) and explored Coquimbo, La Serena's port counterpart. We ate at a restaurant in the seafood market and wandered around a bit before heading to a giant fair that takes place every year over the 18th. It was packed with people and everyone had to stick close together so as not to get lost. Monday we headed back home because my hostsiblings had school starting on Tuesday even though I have this whole week off. I've pretty much been studk at home for the past couple of days attempting to tach myself guitar, but yesterday I met some friends at the mall and window shopped. Getting there was a bit of an adventure, I decided to walk and ended up getting just a bit lost, but I made it. Last night was also my hostmom's cousin's 18th birthday, so they had a fmily asado with all of the cousins and everyone. I go back to school on monday, but this weekend I have an AFS get together, and next weekend is our first real orientation! I'm excited about hanging out with the other exchange students again!

Getting ready for the 18 de Septiembre

For this to make sense, you should know that the 18th of Spetember is the Chilean national holiday. Picture the fourth of July, but a way bigger deal. The whole month of September gets devoted to being Chilean, people put flags on their cars, on their houses (apparently it's against the law not to) and act Chilean. From what I can tell, this involves dancing cueca and going to asados. Last weekend my host family went to visit my host dad's grandma in Totoral, a village in the Chilean countryside. Yes, it is as cute and rustic as that description makes it sound. There we ate a ridiculous amount of grilled meat. I'd been under the impression that asados were like barbeques with the salads and side dishes etc. but it turns out that they are comprised of grilled meat. Period. After eating, my host-mom helped me improve my cueca (the Chilean national dance) because I was going to dance it in an act at my school on the 16th. Don't think that because Chile is a Latin American country that it's national dance is anything like tango or salsa (which by the way just means sauce) because it's not. Cueca is a quirky flirtation. Frankly, I can't describe it. Go google it if your curious. My cueca did get to the point where it was passable, and dancing it in front of the entire school was actually fun! I think I'm growing to like the spotlight. If you're wondering why I ended up dancing the Chilean national dance in an act, you're not the only one. (I'm still wondering this myself.) All five of us exchange students had to dance and they partnered us with Chileans who are actually good at dancing to make up for our lack of knowledge. All and I'll I'd say it turned out pretty well. I also ended up playing the base for a song that my class was performing a Mapuche dance to. (In case your curious, yes I did feel cool, despite my flowery cueca dress). Speaking of which, everybody with a few exceptions came to school dressed like huasos (chilean cowboys?) today. Why don't we do anything like this in the US? To wrap this up let me mention that my family is going to la Serena for the weekend of the 18th where we will (hopefully) eat empanadas, go to an asado, and dance cueca.

Anniversario del Colegio

I apoligize for being boring lately, but it's gotten to the point where life here almost feels routine. After a month here, I obviously don't speak Spanish fluently or really fit it, but that's t be expected. I can however, understand a lot more, and I'm way more comfortable with Chilean life in general. I even went into a store and bought something all by myself yesterday! It was only a bottle of coke, but still, I felt accomplished.

As you can probably tell from the above mentioned adventure, I've been having an exciting week. Last weekend, my family went to the desierto florido for a passeo. We drove a couple of hours on a highway before turning onto a dirt road that led to the village that my abuela and her mom live in. They have goats by the way. That dirt road turned out to be nothing compared to the one through the desierto though. We stopped and took alot of pictures, and I spent part of the time riding outside of the car (Ely got the roof, I'm a bit jealous). Overall, it was a bit like stepping into a Monet painting. Everything was pastel colored, the flowers were like the dots of paint from an impressionist's brush, and the clouds were so damned fluffy! Whew, there, I'm done trying to be poetic.

Besides Chile's awe-inspiring landscape, there has also been the matter of my school's anniversary. Apparently in Chile, school's celebrate their anniversary once a year (that needed clarification) by forming alliances, having a bunch of games/contests, and doing other crazy stuff. I was in the Hollywood or white alliance (we won by the way!), and this involved doing a show where people dressed up as celebrities and walked the red carpet. I was Madonna. (Please try not to laugh.) Part of the festivities also involved having each of the exchange students come up on the stage and dance. (Previous comment reiterated) Basically I've been feeling a little bit out of my comfort zone the past few days.

The anniversary ended Friday night with la fiesta del colegio. It was regala, and since I don't own any fancy clothing, I ended up borrowing my mom's sister's dress and shoes, my host-sister's leather jacket, and having my host-mom do my hair and makeup. Getting to Casa Norte, where the party was, was an adventure in itself. It was down a long dirt road, but since it rained thursday, mud road may have been a more accurate description. When I showed up at ten (it started at nine) the two exchange students with rotary, me and a handful of Chileans were the only ones there. This whole notion of latin time is taking some getting used to. I danced with Sara (the finnish exchange student), Daniela and a couple of other people.

The rest of the weekend I've mostly done homework. Guess who got assigned a two page essay to write! Yes, I did! It's to replace a dissertacion that they did in tecnología while I wasn't here. I also have to read book for thursday. Fun. I did, however, walk around the centro yesterday with my hostmom and sister, and saw the mil cuecas they're dancing in the square. We also ate sushi (apparently that's one of my host-family's favorite types of food).

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.