Friday, August 24, 2007

Friday August 24, 2007

I slept in Friday, had breakfast, studied a little, had lunch, then walked to Proyecto Nuestra Casa (Project: Our Home). This is the volunteer job that I’m going to start. Nuestra Casa works with homeless men and women to help them get back on their feet. They have a house where the men can live for up to one year, another house that is open during the day for them to socialize, cook, shower, look for jobs etc. And on Thursday nights they have an outreach program where they go to the streets and bring the men coffee and bread and try to get to know them. They ultimate goal is not to only feed, clothe and shelter the men but to help them break out of their cycle of poverty, addiction and homelessness. It’s quite an impressive organization and I’m really excited to be a part of it. I had a meeting with the Volunteer Coordinator, Javiera and another woman who is also starting. She gave us a tour, explained what and how the organization works. I think what I’ll be doing is an English language workshop. Apparently the guys always like learning English. I am also hoping to do something with public health, but we’ll see.

After the meeting I walked home and home my first experience buying cosmetics from the pharmacy. In the pharmacies everything is behind the counter and you have to tell the employees what you want. Unfortunately I need female hygiene products and when it was my turn, I got the only male employee in the store. It wasn’t as awkward as I thought, but next time I’ll probably just ask Olga to get them for me!

I got home around 5, studied until about 7:30, and then went to hang out at Christian’s house. It was me, Christian, his brothers Emilio and Emanuel, Emilio’s girlfriend Maria Paz, and their friend Marcelo whom I had hung out with all day at the beach on Thursday! We had a great time chatting, eating completos (really good hotdogs with tomato), and playing karaoke, basically the Chilean version of Gin Rummy. Around 1 o’clock they decided that they want to speak English, so for the next hour or so I relaxed while they had to rack their brain every time they wanted to talk. It was amazing how much my entire continence changed when I started speaking in English. It was the first time I’ve switch from Spanish to English with native speakers and I realized how much harder it is to converse in Spanish. In English, my entire body relaxed, I took deep breaths and I laughed a lot more. I don’t even notice that I’m slightly more tense when everything is in Spanish, but there is a definite change. It was a good break but at the same time I learned a lot. Emilio and Christian drove me home around 2:30 am and I crashed.