st. george kids and halloween

So it´s been about a month since I´ve been in Chile. . .man how the times flies! I´ve spent the majority of my time here observing first grade, and for the past two weeks I´ve been subbing a few times a week in the fourth grade classroom in an English club. I wanted to take some time to describe St. George. . .because this place is unlike any school I´ve ever seen.

St. George

First of all, let me start by saying the school is MASSIVE. It runs from kindergarten to 12th grade, which is quite a range of kids first of all. However, the school body consists of almost THREE THOUSAND KIDS, over a hundred teachers, and all the administration. . .the school is huge. It´s very possible to go through your time here and not see other people at all. For example, our group is split between the elementary (1st through 4th grade) and the second and third levels (5th and up). I hardly ever see the people in the second and third levels all day. This is because of two things: 1. We´re busy and even more importantly, 2. The school campus is enormous. ENORMOUS. It has the feel of a college campus, because not only is it just massive, but the campus itself is immaculate. It´s well trimmed, flowers are blooming everywhere, and trees are everywhere to be seen. Just beyond the school itself in the background are snow-capped mountains that add to the already beautiful scene. The school is equipped with two huge computer labs for the staff, multiple labs for the students, and some classrooms even have smartboards. Resources do not seem to be lacking in the school, that is except for English materials. . .but that is just a given in a place where a book to learn English is hard to find and expensive as crap.

The kids

The students. . .dear god the students. Take whatever level of independence you´ve seen, multiply it by 34873674, and you get the level of St. George kids. The general feel of the entire school is one that fosters the individuality of each child and that their opinion matters. Of course, this is a great thing right? You have little first graders switching between classes, 2nd and 3rd graders walking across the entire campus to get to certain classes. . .it´s unbelievable. The only thing I´ve heard is that the kids, when they´re older, start to question EVERYTHING. They comb through their grades for mistakes, they fight tooth and nail for every point, and they challenge every answer that a teacher may give. This sounds awesome I know. . .for everyone BUT the teacher trying to teach the class.

Speaking of class, classroom management is practically nonexistent. The first time I went to a classroom was the English department head´s class. Now this is a lady who is in charge of about 30 teachers under her, and this is the ONE class she teaches. It just so happens this class was taking a test, and that myself and two others were brought in to talk to the kids about the States and our experiences. Now in my experience, a test is serious business. . .nothing on the desk but a pen or pencil. These kids had newspapers, notebooks, magazines out. . .some of them even had in headphones listening to music during the test. While we were talking, a good deal of them were talking, listening to music, or just staring out of the window. The head teacher was talking to them to pay attention. . .funny enough, the kids were able to answer her exactly at whatever she was saying, no matter how little attention they were seemingly giving. First grade itself is crazy. . .it takes about at least ten minutes to settle the kids down, plus 5 to clean up. Keep in mind the classes themselves are about 40 minutes long, so thats almost half the class just getting the kids to sit down and stop talking.

Recess is something I have to describe on its own. In the states in my Phoenix school, we had five to six people watching kids outside playing at any given time. Why? Simply to break up fights, solve disagreements, or stop kids doing something generally outrageously stupid. Here though at St. George, things go a little different. While 1st through 4th grade are outside playing, which by the way means hundreds of little kids are running everywhere, there are ZERO people watching. ZERO. And what are the kids doing? Well, they´re either

1. playing ¨soccer¨ which means they´re slide tackling each other, kicking and headbutting the air in any way possible to come in contact with the ball, and running into each other. By the way at any time there are about 8 games being played, with goals made up on the spot
2. climbing trees or crawling through bushes
3. running on the 2nd floor as fast as they possibly can
4. rolling slowly on the dirt through everyone doing all the above
5. eating and drinking each other´s food while doing at least one of the above

The first time Garrett and I saw this, we were horrified because this was a nightmare come true. In the states, if this went down, the kids would literally kill each other and the school would get shut down. Here in SG, there. . .was. . .nothing. No problems, whatsoever. ONE time I saw a kid get upset at not kicking the ball and started to cry. So what did the other 30 kids he was playing soccer with do? They freakin SET UP A PENALTY KICK so he could kick it. When he missed the kick the first time, did they give the ball up them? No, they let him kick it AGAIN at the goal. It was honestly unbelievable, and spoke volumes to me about the character these kids have at times.

Halloween

Since there was 12 of us in the program, we decided to all be months of the year. I luckily got September, so in true Chilean spirit for the 18th, I was Chilean pride. Everyone´s costumes came out to be incredible. . .and the party itself was amazing. Soooooo much fun. Here´s a sweet group pic:

from top left to top right: January (new years), February (cupid). march (march madness), april (april showers), may (may flowers), june (summer on top, winter on bottom). From bottom left to bottom right: july (uncle sam), august (uh. . .stealing of the mona lisa), september (CHILEAN PRIDE BAYBAY), october (witch), november (dia de los muertos), december (christmas tree)

asados = God's gift to man

So this past wekend was a long one due to the fact that it was Colombus Day. It was kind of interesting to see that they celebrated it here in Chile, even though they changed the name of it to "Day of the exploration of the new world," but still. A South American country, celebrating the legacy of centuries of conquest, exploitation, and brutality by the colonialists? It seems kind of roundabout to me, and I honestly never really liked the idea of "Colombus Day" because Colombus was a complete ass. Maybe if they changed it to the name they have here, or celebrated the indigenous that lived in the states beforehand, or something to take the focus off of Colombus's crew and made the meaning of the holiday something other than HE. . .but whatever. It was a three day weekend, and I was about to experience in every way what chilean asados mean.

Now for those of you who don't speak the "Spanish," asado means bbq. In Chile, men take bbqs are seriously as China is about violating human rights (Seriously, throwing the Nobel Peace Prize winner's WIFE under arrest too? What are you thinking??). Asados by NO MEANS are just times where guys put meat on the grill and fire up the gas tank. It's a time of family, friends, music, drinking. . .the food just compliments the overall merry mood of being outside and enjoying life with the people you love. But my god, do they compliment well. I should mention that a great majority of the grills aren't gas operated as well. . .you have to fire it up either with coal or wood, and since you're usually cooking for a huge group of people, this means starting the fire up takes up a special importance. Every guy it seems has their own method to start up the fire, whether that be arrange the wood pile in a certain way, or using a certain amount of newspaper and waving it a certain way around the coals before setting it down, to literally making a Molotov cocktail with a wine bottle and throwing it into the grilling abyss. . .it's awesome. Sooner than later, I'm going to have to figure out my own style and when I do, I'll let you know. . .hopefully you see it for yourself if you come and visit!!

Anyways, about my past weekend. . .it was purely with my host family for almost the entire time, which was actually pretty great because I got to hear an enormous amount of Spanish and practice. I picked up on a few key phrases here and there that apparently are said nowhere else in the Spanish speaking world. I just hope I don't walk away in over a year speaking Spanish and then have Spanish speakers go "Huh??" every time I start talking. In any case, it was on Saturday when the whole fam and myself piled into the family and drove to the beach, to a little town called Hanga Roa. Apparently no one on the staff recognizes the town, so I might be stating the wrong place. . .although I'm 99.9% sure that was it. Anyways, after about an hour and a half of driving, we pull up to this HUGE house where the parents of my mom live. It was absolutely GORGEOUS. . .it had the feel of an old house, full of antique furniture, amazing wooden floors, and fireplaces everywhere. And I mean everywhere. It was actually pretty chilly and cloudy (what a bummer) so they had 2 fireplaces going on in the hallways of the house.

I walk outside to a view of the coast in the distance (the house was set more or less on a hill, so the beach was on a down slant), along with rose gardens to my right and an actual playground on my left. Directly in front was a huge outside eating area, with two MASSIVE wok-looking bowls of seafood paella, avocado, tortilla española (scrambled egg and potato mix), crackers, smoked sausage, different types of cheeses, homemade sangria (easily the best I've ever had in my life), and bottles upon bottles of wine, red and white. Needless to say, I was blown away. It was an impressive spread, and the fam took me in like one of their own as they served me a great portion of EVERYTHING while talking about international travel, their families, and the grandparent's upcoming cruise trip. After the paella, they came out with three different types of cakes. After the cakes, they brought out their french-press for coffee and fruit bread. Incredible. After a brisk walk around the premises afterward to settle the food down, I watched Narnia and The Da Vinci Code with the kids of the family, read some "Mountains Beyond Mountains" (excellent book, I recommend it), and went to sleep happy.

I woke up on Sunday to another cloudy morning. After a shower and quick breakfast, we left the grandparents and drove back to Santiago. . .but here´s the twist. We went back to our house ONLY so the kids could shower and change, and we dipped out in 15 minutes to a friend of the dad´s house for, you guessed it, another asado. As soon as we walked in, I was greeted by the family, offered drink and chips, and then was given a choripan (chorizo sausage in toasted french bread) which was delicious. I heard more talk of international travel (I guess quite the topic nowadays) and watched as steak after steak get grilled up, that complimented this massive salad that had some type of awesome cheese, olives, and sun dried tomatoes. I ate, drank, and played with the family's six year old girl, who had made a picture book in her school of songs in Spanish and French. Which she sang to me. Which was the cutest thing I've seen, more cute than that dog picture from the jungle. Sunday night I was finally able to catch up with Greg, kicking it at our friend Sebastian's house while drinkin microbrews, eating sushi, and watching the 49ers screw up every possible thing (and by them, I mean their qb) against the Eagles. God I hate the Eagles so much.


After being comatose from eating so much, I woke up on Monday and got myself to the gym to work out. Which really didn´t help, because I got back home and my family asked me if I wanted to go out to lunch with them. I said of course, not realizing that we were going to the mall and not coming back for another 4, 5 hours. We got to a restaurant called Tip y Tap, which had maybe one of the strangest meals I've seen. "Carne Crudo" was what they called it, and lemme try to explain this: So basically imagine a piece of good quality hamburger meat was on your plate, BARELY cooked. Like it's still very much raw. Mush it with your fork and spread it out on your plate. Now absolutely douse all the meat with absurd amounts of lemon, garnish it with onion and cilantro, and mix it all up. Finally, spread the meat on pieces of toasted flat bread and eat. That's crudo in a nutshell. I didn't order it because I didn't want to get something potentially godawful at first, but I did try it. . .and it didn't kill me, and actually tasted pretty decent.

After shopping in the mall, I came home, read, and laid around until nighttime. While I didn't necessarily go camping or have crazy adventures, I saw a big piece of how Chileans socialize: with CRAZY GOOD FOOD, amazing wine with something else, and lots of time to just sit and talk. This is something I could get used to, and I know for a fact that when we get our own place, asados will be a part of my weekend routine too. By the way, sorry for the lack of pictures, but I accidently left my camera at my grandparent's house and seeing as they went on a cruise, I won't get it for a few weeks. . .so here are a few pictues to give you an idea what went down.



basically what the weekend looked like, with more people, more food, and def more smiles



This is exactly what the paella looked like, more or less. No joke. Except maybe a little bit bigger.



Santiago, Chile baybay

So it is currently the second week of being here in Santiago so far. I haven't posted because I wanted to take a decent amount of pictures first. . .but honestly, I haven't had enough time to do so. Allow me to tell you what happened. . .

So we left on Sunday last week before the crack of dawn. Now I enjoy traveling, but I HATE packing and moving all my crap from one place to another. I also don't enjoy waking up before 8. So as you can imagine, moving all my possessions and waking up at around 4:45 in the freakin morning made me about as happy as Tiny Tim before he got all the goodies on Christmas. I piled into a cab with Phil and we drove (correction, driving would be the normal word but our dude was easy goin 40 over the speed limit and speeding through red lights) to the airport. I felt kind of bad handing our driver 5 dollars in nickels, dimes, and pennies but honestly I had to get rid of as much change as I could.

So we fly first to Lima, Peru and had about an hour layover (big ups to airports with free wireless, honestly all airports should have this). I was a little bummed this was gonna be a 3 hour plane ride. . .until we got on the actual plane. It was the size of Fisher Hall in Notre Dame, with each seat equipped with its own TV and access to over 40 movies, TV shows, music playlists, weather reports. . .I'm surprised the TV didn't have the capabilities of makin me a sandwich. Which really didn't matter, because we got handed a bigass in-flight meal AND free refills on drinks. . .including wine and beer. While I got a water and inca cola, how sweet is that though? LAN airlines really knows how to pamper their customers.

And now on to Santiago. . .honestly, this place reminds me a lot of like the best parts of LA. The weather is dry, it gets hot but never too hot, and it's incredibly more modern than Quito. Not even close. I honestly I feel like I'm in the states except for the fact that people are incredibly hard to understand. It's one thing to not know Spanish. It's another thing ENTIRELY to not know Chilean Spanish. Oh my SWEET DEAR GOD it is different. First of all, people cut off their s's from words. Now I was used to this on the Ecuadorian coast, because people do it at the end of words. But no, Chileans do it at the end, the middle, and the beginning sometimes. Also, there's a lot of slang I need to get used to. . .in general, I've heard a lot of people say "pues" at the end of their sentences. This has been cut before into just "pue" and in Chile, it's said like "po." Why? I have absolutely no idea. All I know is that it makes it extremely hard to understand people for the most part. . .but just like anything else, it will come in time.

OK, here is a lil tidbit about the family I stay with. First of all, I almost didn't have a family at ALL. I was going to live with the director of English at St. George, and the current CHACERS did everything in their power to NOT allow that to happen. They obviously know the director and thought it would be everything I wouldn't want. . .so they were able to find a family that took me in at the last minute.

Flash forward to the moment when all of us are waiting in the CHACE apartment for our families to pick us up and talk to us a moment. Nerves were running a little high. . .the experience was getting more real, and going home to actual St. George families (that's the school I'm teaching at) was really knocking the point home. The CHACERs told families to get there at 6:30, expecting people to show up at 7:00. . .typical Chilean arrival time. However, lo and behold at 6:20 the doorbell rings. Then again at 6:40. Yet again at 6:45. Families start pouring in, and I was told that the families must have been outrageously excited and eager to come so early. Before you know it, 7 hits and all my buddies from St. George have families. . .

. . .except Eamon, Greg, and I. As we sip on Chilean wine and shuffle our feet, a mom and dad come powering through the door at 7:15. MY FAMILY! I eagerly say hello, and listen to a small conversation they have with the professor taking care of us new CHACERS in the group. We leave fairly soon, and we're just doing rapid fire conversation. . .and I'm following everything. Once we put my stuff in the car, we start driving and things are good. Then this happens. . .

Dad: So do you like sports?
Me: Yes, I really like playing basketball actually.
Dad: YOU DO? I WAS ON THE NATIONAL CHILEAN BASKETBALL TEAM!!!!
Me: Wow, really??
Dad: Yes, many years ago. . .but our family is like a team you know. We do two things: play sports, and eat well.
Me: niiice.

So right off the bat, I know that my dad might be a little intense but is going to be someone I like. Tomorrow, I'll take some pics of the school and post some more stories soon. Until next time!