I know, Ground Control to Major Me, right? Time for an update already!
*side note* this was actually supposed to be posted yesterday, but crappy internet in the hostel meant that it did not happen. Sorry!
It's really easy to forget that I'm kind of a world away right now. In Santiago, of course, modern sprawly smogfest city that it is, it's easy to close your ears to the Spanish around you and imagine that you might be in any major city around the world. The people on my program have done a lot for making me feel more at home than I've felt at UCLA sometimes as well... more on them later because they are wonderful people and I want to throw them their own parade in just a minute.
We're all in a strange kind of in-between stage right now - we're done with our FANTASTIC WorldTeach orientation (can I just say it again? it was FANTASTIC!) which was occupying a lot of my time that might otherwise be spent updating my blog or, heck, even seeing the new Harry Potter. But it was absolutely time well spent - I cannot believe how much I learned in only a week and a half's time. Too many things to name here, but the one that unites them - how to take big and potentially overwhelming things - teaching English to kids who have had little meaningful interaction with the language, living so far away from home in a country with a fascinating but at the same time heartbreaking history - not to mention doing all of this with little to no teaching experience and fewer linguistic skills than I'm used to having - and being able to break them down into manageable, understandable, and ultimately communicateable pieces.
(Goodness - that was a long sentence!)
We learned lots of Chilean slang, we presented lesson plans (snowball fight was also a big fat GO! Thank you Mrs. Cowper's Level 3 ESL class!) had a lovely end-of-program carrete (party) and all-around felt pretty darn proud of ourselves. We're a really tight bunch, something that I wasn't necessarily counting on happening but am really glad that it did. Some conversations are about shared frustrations over Chile's lack of central heating and fun toilet paper issues (come on, Chile! Get with the program!). Some are about today, some are about the next four months. Some are about bigger plans beyond what we can see in front of us. All of it has currency. Meghan, our Assistant Field Director and person with all-around awesome name, describes us as little birds hovering over the edge of the nest, flapping our wings, about to take off.
Ministry training is, shall we say, a good deal more fome - to be fair, it would be hard to compete with all the awesome (*hand motion*)-ness that went on when it was just the WorldTeach gang, but I think it's safe to say we're all getting a taste of some of the challenges waiting for us - educationally, organizationally, philosophically. Spanish classes have also started. I had estimated that I was about an intermediate level in Spanish, but as I'm pleasantly surprised by how much I actually picked up or internalized or whatever in the last year, a review of ser vs estar is not what I had in mind. But I love my teacher - he's this wickedly funny older Chilean guy who just finished writing his first novel and mimed popping a giant pimple on his face to teach us the Spanish word (which, alas, I've clean forgotten). I think I'm probably learning more from the teaching perspective from him than actual Spanish, but at least a good discussion of amigos con ventajas was included.
The hostel is a new and perhaps unimproved environment as well. Let me sum it up by saying that they make you pay to rent a towel. I paper-toweled it the other day, with a surprising degree of success! The environmentalist in me felt a little guilty, though, so I bought my very own brand-spanking-new Chilean towel yesterday. The shower today was all the lovlier in anticipation.
The biggest news today is that some of us in the group finally have our placements! We know that four of us will be sent to Angol, a town in the Araucania region of Chile. The rest of us are waiting to hear which of four cities in the Bio Bio region to which we will be sent. I've heard a little about each city, and I definitely have my preferences, but I'm trying not to get too attached either way because I really don't have a say in it. We're all crossing our fingers that we get to find out tomorrow and that, as has been conjectured, we won't be lined up at the bus station and picked like middle school dodgeball teams. It's all about the flexibility, amigos.
Well that's about it for now.... we have a few bottles of wine from the market calling our names, because we're classy like that.
edit, Wednesday night: We FINALLY have our placements!!! Through a series of currently non-understandable Ministry hijinks, we have actually been spread out through a lot more towns than what we had been told originally. This means that I will be heading to a place I a) have never heard of, and b) have no preconceived notions about, which is really for the best. So.... drum roll....
I'm in Yumbel! Surprisingly they have a pretty legit website. And the BESTEST news: I'll be with my pal Jessie! I'm really happy with my placement at this point. I still don't know anything about my host family, and I would like to learn what grades I'll be taking on at some point, but for now I'm good. More as more arises... off for more attempts at packing, perhaps with a little Harry Potter and carretear-ing thrown into the mix. Chau!
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Settling In
"...I'd lost "yes" but I still had "no" so if someone asked me, "Are you Thomas?" I would answer "Not no" but then, I lost "no", I went to a tattoo parlor and had YES written onto the palm of my left hand, and NO onto my right palm, what can I say, it hasn't made life wonderful, it's made life possible, when I rub my hands against each other in the middle of winter I am warming myself with the friction of YES and NO, when I clap my hands I am showing my appreciation through the uniting and parting of YES and NO, I signify "book" by peeling open my clapped hands, every book, for me, is the balance of YES and NO, even this one, my last one, especially this one..."
from Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
Hola weones y weonas!!!!
I've been in Santiago one week as of today, and I can't even begin to talk about all that I've done so far. It kind of feels like it's been a month already. Between all day classes (it is strangely comforting to be a student again, even though I know that I'm only a student for a bit longer before I have to be responsible for my own classes! egads!) and falling into bed exhausted every night, I haven't had a whole lot of time to stop and reflect, which is pretty fome (another chilenismo del dia... I LIVE for these each day at the beginning of class) if I do say so myself.
Plus, I'm really out of practice in keeping a blog or a journal of any kind. The past quarter - okay, all of last year - saw me abandoning writing because I was, in some ways, too busy living to write any of it down. Not a bad thing, but it's a balance thing that I've always struggled with. Honestly, one of the things I'm really looking forward to in the next few months is being forced to deal with a lot of alone time - it is, after all, a society where "soon" has more than one meaning!
I get the sense that there are quite a few things I'm going to be forced to confront, actually.
For example....
1) El frio.
Chile is really cold! Really, REALLY cold! Current layer count as of 8:43 pm, Tuesday: long sleeved shirt, wool sweater, UCLA sweatshirt, black ski jacket, long underwear, "biz caj" pants, socks, rain boots. (It did rain today, to be fair. Cold, but pretty! And it means a hopefully clear day tomorrow!) It takes a good 10 minutes just to get the warm gear on for sleeping: thick pj's, toe socks, leg warmers, sweatshirt (long underwear and long undershirt too, depending on how much of a pansy I'm feeling like that night). Part of it is, admittedly, my thin socal skin, but the other part of it is that, as a country, Chile seems to have discovered neither central heating nor well-insulated buildings. And it will only get colder once I go 5+ hours further south! (Rumor has it, though, that most Chilean families are big on the fireplace thing, which excites me beyond belief!)
The result is waking up to the need to confront the fact that at that very moment I am the warmest I will be for the entire day. Sure makes throwing the blankets off one of the hardest things to do each day! I almost cried with joy when I started sweating in the electronics store today for reasons only partially related to trying to figure out the word for "adapter" in Spanish. (It's adaptador, in case you were wondering.)
And don't even get me started on getting out of the shower.
2) Crying at inappropriate (?) moments.
Lots of this lately, and never about what I would have predicted. Leaving the house and dad was difficult, leaving Mera and Mom at the gate... wasn't? First leg of the flight, fine. Feeling the wheels leave American soil for good? Not so much. Realizing that a stone's throw away from our hostel is a building that served as a clandestine detention center under Pinochet, with tiles in the cobblestone street commemorating people that were disappeared at 19 and 20... being told this by someone who survived it.
I've never been much of a cryer, but man oh man. I'm starting to think it's a travel thing.... I'm starting to recognize it as part of the process of falling in love with a place. Uh oh!!! The last time this happened I seriously contemplated forgetting to show up on the day of the return flight. We'll see how it goes.
3) La comida...
Chile is, somewhat unfortunately, a country with a massive sweet tooth and a love of fast food. This means for dinner, one has the choice between... a hot dog covered in avocado (yes!) and mayonnaise, pizza with or without french fries, or McDonalds/Burger King. Breakfast is coffee or tea and lots and LOTS of bread. We're getting by with lots of homemade-ish dinners in the hostel, but oh lordy alive do I miss vegetables and whole wheat. Soda is everywhere - I fear that I won't come out of this without an addiction to orange Fanta and coffee for those cold, sleepy, dreary mornings and long days at school.
4) Espanol!
My Spanish is improving my leaps and bounds, hooray! I feel like I have a lot more accessible knowledge - not more Spanish, but a lot less caring about how I sound speaking it, which makes that affective filter (yay teaching buzzwords!) come down or at least stay at a manageable level. The smallest tasks become tricky puzzles... but simultaneously become ridiculously enjoyable victories once accomplished! Next challenge: figuring out this....laundry.... issue.... (como se dice "where does one buy heavenly woolen long underwear of many magical properties up to and including curing cancer and keeping the gringa population of Chile toasty-warm"?)
5) Teaching?
Every day is something new to learn that somehow I already knew. Lots of things are beginning to click into place... I remember helping Rocio with something in the class I observed back home and feeling myself subconciously step back into my Covel writing tutor pants. I learn classroom management techniques and know how much more I could have done in Amigos. Our field directors and the current volunteers are an energetic, amazingly caring, formidable force to be reckoned with. So much learning.
I'm SO excited....and terrified. I'm wishing we knew more about our placements, but that won't come for another week and a half - probably literally the day before we are sent to our towns. This town, this place I will be living for the next four months - it could be a tiny seaside village, it could be a bigger city (with my luck the one I'll end up in will share a name with the same place I was so looking forward to leaving...irony!) I'm starting to learn what I can't and don't need to fight. I'm enjoying getting to know my bacan roommates, the five of us reading before bedtime only to groan ourselves awake for another grey day in Santiago some 8 hours later when Jessie's alarm plays us a happy electronic Bach tune. The best moments are dinnertime in the hostel common room, watching everyone cook and drink wine and eat bread and avocado and just sit, somehow not recognizing that we're all goodness knows how many thousands of miles (okay, kilometers) we are away from home.
Time for another bedtime layering routine! Tomorrow I will plan another sample lesson; this one I will present for comments to a group on Thursday. Wish me luck and warm toes!!!
Abrazos,
Meghan
from Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
Hola weones y weonas!!!!
I've been in Santiago one week as of today, and I can't even begin to talk about all that I've done so far. It kind of feels like it's been a month already. Between all day classes (it is strangely comforting to be a student again, even though I know that I'm only a student for a bit longer before I have to be responsible for my own classes! egads!) and falling into bed exhausted every night, I haven't had a whole lot of time to stop and reflect, which is pretty fome (another chilenismo del dia... I LIVE for these each day at the beginning of class) if I do say so myself.
Plus, I'm really out of practice in keeping a blog or a journal of any kind. The past quarter - okay, all of last year - saw me abandoning writing because I was, in some ways, too busy living to write any of it down. Not a bad thing, but it's a balance thing that I've always struggled with. Honestly, one of the things I'm really looking forward to in the next few months is being forced to deal with a lot of alone time - it is, after all, a society where "soon" has more than one meaning!
I get the sense that there are quite a few things I'm going to be forced to confront, actually.
For example....
1) El frio.
Chile is really cold! Really, REALLY cold! Current layer count as of 8:43 pm, Tuesday: long sleeved shirt, wool sweater, UCLA sweatshirt, black ski jacket, long underwear, "biz caj" pants, socks, rain boots. (It did rain today, to be fair. Cold, but pretty! And it means a hopefully clear day tomorrow!) It takes a good 10 minutes just to get the warm gear on for sleeping: thick pj's, toe socks, leg warmers, sweatshirt (long underwear and long undershirt too, depending on how much of a pansy I'm feeling like that night). Part of it is, admittedly, my thin socal skin, but the other part of it is that, as a country, Chile seems to have discovered neither central heating nor well-insulated buildings. And it will only get colder once I go 5+ hours further south! (Rumor has it, though, that most Chilean families are big on the fireplace thing, which excites me beyond belief!)
The result is waking up to the need to confront the fact that at that very moment I am the warmest I will be for the entire day. Sure makes throwing the blankets off one of the hardest things to do each day! I almost cried with joy when I started sweating in the electronics store today for reasons only partially related to trying to figure out the word for "adapter" in Spanish. (It's adaptador, in case you were wondering.)
And don't even get me started on getting out of the shower.
2) Crying at inappropriate (?) moments.
Lots of this lately, and never about what I would have predicted. Leaving the house and dad was difficult, leaving Mera and Mom at the gate... wasn't? First leg of the flight, fine. Feeling the wheels leave American soil for good? Not so much. Realizing that a stone's throw away from our hostel is a building that served as a clandestine detention center under Pinochet, with tiles in the cobblestone street commemorating people that were disappeared at 19 and 20... being told this by someone who survived it.
I've never been much of a cryer, but man oh man. I'm starting to think it's a travel thing.... I'm starting to recognize it as part of the process of falling in love with a place. Uh oh!!! The last time this happened I seriously contemplated forgetting to show up on the day of the return flight. We'll see how it goes.
3) La comida...
Chile is, somewhat unfortunately, a country with a massive sweet tooth and a love of fast food. This means for dinner, one has the choice between... a hot dog covered in avocado (yes!) and mayonnaise, pizza with or without french fries, or McDonalds/Burger King. Breakfast is coffee or tea and lots and LOTS of bread. We're getting by with lots of homemade-ish dinners in the hostel, but oh lordy alive do I miss vegetables and whole wheat. Soda is everywhere - I fear that I won't come out of this without an addiction to orange Fanta and coffee for those cold, sleepy, dreary mornings and long days at school.
4) Espanol!
My Spanish is improving my leaps and bounds, hooray! I feel like I have a lot more accessible knowledge - not more Spanish, but a lot less caring about how I sound speaking it, which makes that affective filter (yay teaching buzzwords!) come down or at least stay at a manageable level. The smallest tasks become tricky puzzles... but simultaneously become ridiculously enjoyable victories once accomplished! Next challenge: figuring out this....laundry.... issue.... (como se dice "where does one buy heavenly woolen long underwear of many magical properties up to and including curing cancer and keeping the gringa population of Chile toasty-warm"?)
5) Teaching?
Every day is something new to learn that somehow I already knew. Lots of things are beginning to click into place... I remember helping Rocio with something in the class I observed back home and feeling myself subconciously step back into my Covel writing tutor pants. I learn classroom management techniques and know how much more I could have done in Amigos. Our field directors and the current volunteers are an energetic, amazingly caring, formidable force to be reckoned with. So much learning.
I'm SO excited....and terrified. I'm wishing we knew more about our placements, but that won't come for another week and a half - probably literally the day before we are sent to our towns. This town, this place I will be living for the next four months - it could be a tiny seaside village, it could be a bigger city (with my luck the one I'll end up in will share a name with the same place I was so looking forward to leaving...irony!) I'm starting to learn what I can't and don't need to fight. I'm enjoying getting to know my bacan roommates, the five of us reading before bedtime only to groan ourselves awake for another grey day in Santiago some 8 hours later when Jessie's alarm plays us a happy electronic Bach tune. The best moments are dinnertime in the hostel common room, watching everyone cook and drink wine and eat bread and avocado and just sit, somehow not recognizing that we're all goodness knows how many thousands of miles (okay, kilometers) we are away from home.
Time for another bedtime layering routine! Tomorrow I will plan another sample lesson; this one I will present for comments to a group on Thursday. Wish me luck and warm toes!!!
Abrazos,
Meghan
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Que sera, sera
I'm here! I don't have a lot of time to spend just now, but I do have FREE WIRELESS INTERNET in the hostel (trumpet fanfare!) so expect to be hearing from me soon-ish. The flight was fine, although Delta is kind of ridiculous (who charges for an in-flight movie?!?) and my big duffle bag full of my life for the next 5 months made it in at exactly 50 pounds, woo hoo!
Sleep deprivation over the past few days is making it hard to string anything coherent or worth reading together, but I just wanted to put it out there that I am HERE :) I've been loving the emails/facebook messages/voicemails; they have made me feel like I'm not really thousands of miles from home and I appreciate that immensely in these first few strange days. Time to go eat lunch, hang out with the new roommates, and contemplate unpacking (but probably give up.)
Chau!
Sleep deprivation over the past few days is making it hard to string anything coherent or worth reading together, but I just wanted to put it out there that I am HERE :) I've been loving the emails/facebook messages/voicemails; they have made me feel like I'm not really thousands of miles from home and I appreciate that immensely in these first few strange days. Time to go eat lunch, hang out with the new roommates, and contemplate unpacking (but probably give up.)
Chau!
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Oh goodness.... a blog post?
Hello my friends!!!!!!
So I'm sitting here in my dining room, enjoying the sunset (summer sunsets are the best, please try to prove me wrong!) and halfway watching Cosby while loading my tunes on my shiny new mp3 player, making the obligatory lists increasingly full of exclamation points, and I'm thinking to myself.... "Jesus H. Christ, I'm leaving for Chile in less than a week! I should probably start posting in that blog that I have been telling everyone I am going to write to keep them updated about my (mis)adventures in the frozen south! Egads!"
It's been a really long time since I kept a blog even somewhat regularly, so it's proving more difficult than I think it normally might be to put into words what I'm feeling and thinking right now. Me? Teaching? In a foreign country? How on earth did this turn from just an idea into a reality? I alternate back and forth between being really excited (they put mayonnaise on everything? COOL!) to absolutely terrified (they put mayonnaise on everything?!?! OH DEAR GOD!) and I've had what I'm sure are only the first of many near-panic attacks to come.
And still I'm packing, I'm reading through the predeparture group emails, I'm fielding questions from friends and relatives with an almost illogical calm. I'm trying to picture the feeling of 5 months, of damp, cold weather, of living with a host family I've never met and won't meet until I, well, meet them; the sense of being in front of a classroom and being responsible for the faces staring back at you. Well, I have had a little bit of experience with that, especially in the past few weeks. I completed my mandatory 25+ hours of ESL experience with the most inspiring bunch of adult ESL learners EVER (!!!) and was fortunate to shadow a teacher who gave me a lot of ideas as well as encouragement and general worldview-opening-upping... (wow, can you tell I'm going to make a GREAT English teacher?!?!)
So I'm feeling pretty good about that at least. I got to see what the nuts and bolts of running a classroom are like, I got to have a fourth of July class potluck with DELICIOUS mexican food (they sang happy birthday to me in English AND in Spanish!) and I even got the chance to teach my own portion of a lesson (conversation bingo is a GO!). It was so hard to leave them today - they all gave me these beautiful handmade cards that are definitely going in my suitcase, wedged somewhere in between the scarf one of my best friends knitted for me a few years back and the snazzy teaching outfit lent to me by my former professor.
I think that's what it's coming down to at this point for me - I'm blown away trying to pin down all the ways that everyone has helped me get to this point. It kind of makes me feel like all I had to do was show up! I know they helped me get to where I am, and knowing that it's pretty much up to me now is its own mental and emotional game of 52 card pickup. This is going to be a real test for me, probably in ways that I can't even name right now. The best kind of test, in my admittedly limited experience.
So ('entonces.....!') here we go... I don't have much else that can be said tonight. I'm not-quite-frantically writing more things on my lists, crossing them off, looking forward to a quick trip away with my family for the next two days, counting the sunsets, and really dreading the airport goodbyes. All in all... business as usual.
:)
Okay, the gooey stuff aside... I love you all and I will miss you all terribly (ha! you thought I was done with the gooey stuff!) but hopefully with the magic of the internet we will be able to keep in touch. I plan to update this blog at least once a week (and you all have full permission to do some long-distance heckling if I don't) and as soon as I get the important stuff (like a phone number, a skype address, a home address, etc) I'll send it along to you, my dearest dears! Please send me your addresses (email and snail mail) if you'd like, too, so I can send you fun little things along the way.
And here's some logistical-type stuff for inquiring minds who would like to know more:
Departure date: July 14th (yes, this means I will be missing Harry Potter, and no, I am not overly happy about this)
2-3-ish weeks (this is going to be a journey of a lot of "-ish," I can tell already!) in the capitol, Santiago, in training
At this point I will be assigned my post, which will likely be located somewhere in the 8th Region (known as Bio-Bio!)
Here are some pictures: http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/South_America/Chile/Central_Valley/Bio-Bio/
And here is the wikipedia page: (I swear to you that there was more information here at one time! maybe I was dreaming though.... sometimes it happens, dreaming of being on wikipedia. wait, that doesn't happen to you? oh... yeah.... me neither....) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bio-Bio_Region_of_Chile
The program I'll be there with is WorldTeach, at www.worldteach.org, and it's the Chile Ministry Semester program.
I will be there until the end of November, at which point I return to Santiago and begin the travel portion of the itinerary. I'm hoping at this point that 10 days will be enough (well, you know) and that I will have some travel buddies by that point. Large plans include Macchu Picchu or Easter Island. Smaller plans include seeing whatever of Chile I haven't seen by then (I really want to see Valdivia and Chiloe, and that place in Atacama with the giant hand statue!) Home in time for Christmas!
Adios para ahora! As Lilia, one of the students I met in the past couple of weeks says, adelante el sol te sonrie.
Love love love!
Meg
Ps... here is a song for you all, complements of the incomparable Irene:
So I'm sitting here in my dining room, enjoying the sunset (summer sunsets are the best, please try to prove me wrong!) and halfway watching Cosby while loading my tunes on my shiny new mp3 player, making the obligatory lists increasingly full of exclamation points, and I'm thinking to myself.... "Jesus H. Christ, I'm leaving for Chile in less than a week! I should probably start posting in that blog that I have been telling everyone I am going to write to keep them updated about my (mis)adventures in the frozen south! Egads!"
It's been a really long time since I kept a blog even somewhat regularly, so it's proving more difficult than I think it normally might be to put into words what I'm feeling and thinking right now. Me? Teaching? In a foreign country? How on earth did this turn from just an idea into a reality? I alternate back and forth between being really excited (they put mayonnaise on everything? COOL!) to absolutely terrified (they put mayonnaise on everything?!?! OH DEAR GOD!) and I've had what I'm sure are only the first of many near-panic attacks to come.
And still I'm packing, I'm reading through the predeparture group emails, I'm fielding questions from friends and relatives with an almost illogical calm. I'm trying to picture the feeling of 5 months, of damp, cold weather, of living with a host family I've never met and won't meet until I, well, meet them; the sense of being in front of a classroom and being responsible for the faces staring back at you. Well, I have had a little bit of experience with that, especially in the past few weeks. I completed my mandatory 25+ hours of ESL experience with the most inspiring bunch of adult ESL learners EVER (!!!) and was fortunate to shadow a teacher who gave me a lot of ideas as well as encouragement and general worldview-opening-upping... (wow, can you tell I'm going to make a GREAT English teacher?!?!)
So I'm feeling pretty good about that at least. I got to see what the nuts and bolts of running a classroom are like, I got to have a fourth of July class potluck with DELICIOUS mexican food (they sang happy birthday to me in English AND in Spanish!) and I even got the chance to teach my own portion of a lesson (conversation bingo is a GO!). It was so hard to leave them today - they all gave me these beautiful handmade cards that are definitely going in my suitcase, wedged somewhere in between the scarf one of my best friends knitted for me a few years back and the snazzy teaching outfit lent to me by my former professor.
I think that's what it's coming down to at this point for me - I'm blown away trying to pin down all the ways that everyone has helped me get to this point. It kind of makes me feel like all I had to do was show up! I know they helped me get to where I am, and knowing that it's pretty much up to me now is its own mental and emotional game of 52 card pickup. This is going to be a real test for me, probably in ways that I can't even name right now. The best kind of test, in my admittedly limited experience.
So ('entonces.....!') here we go... I don't have much else that can be said tonight. I'm not-quite-frantically writing more things on my lists, crossing them off, looking forward to a quick trip away with my family for the next two days, counting the sunsets, and really dreading the airport goodbyes. All in all... business as usual.
:)
Okay, the gooey stuff aside... I love you all and I will miss you all terribly (ha! you thought I was done with the gooey stuff!) but hopefully with the magic of the internet we will be able to keep in touch. I plan to update this blog at least once a week (and you all have full permission to do some long-distance heckling if I don't) and as soon as I get the important stuff (like a phone number, a skype address, a home address, etc) I'll send it along to you, my dearest dears! Please send me your addresses (email and snail mail) if you'd like, too, so I can send you fun little things along the way.
And here's some logistical-type stuff for inquiring minds who would like to know more:
Departure date: July 14th (yes, this means I will be missing Harry Potter, and no, I am not overly happy about this)
2-3-ish weeks (this is going to be a journey of a lot of "-ish," I can tell already!) in the capitol, Santiago, in training
At this point I will be assigned my post, which will likely be located somewhere in the 8th Region (known as Bio-Bio!)
Here are some pictures: http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/South_America/Chile/Central_Valley/Bio-Bio/
And here is the wikipedia page: (I swear to you that there was more information here at one time! maybe I was dreaming though.... sometimes it happens, dreaming of being on wikipedia. wait, that doesn't happen to you? oh... yeah.... me neither....) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bio-Bio_Region_of_Chile
The program I'll be there with is WorldTeach, at www.worldteach.org, and it's the Chile Ministry Semester program.
I will be there until the end of November, at which point I return to Santiago and begin the travel portion of the itinerary. I'm hoping at this point that 10 days will be enough (well, you know) and that I will have some travel buddies by that point. Large plans include Macchu Picchu or Easter Island. Smaller plans include seeing whatever of Chile I haven't seen by then (I really want to see Valdivia and Chiloe, and that place in Atacama with the giant hand statue!) Home in time for Christmas!
Adios para ahora! As Lilia, one of the students I met in the past couple of weeks says, adelante el sol te sonrie.
Love love love!
Meg
Ps... here is a song for you all, complements of the incomparable Irene:
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