Thursday, September 6, 2007 Happy 17th Birthday Jammer!

Thursday, September 6, 2007 HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAMIE!!

I woke up at 6:15 AM, wondering why on earth I agreed to volunteer so stinking early in the morning. I left the house at 6:50 and took the metro to the High School where I’ll be helping out with the English class. I met the teacher, Mabel, at 7:30 and as we walked to class, she turned and said, “Welcome to hell”. It is her first year teaching and she is way in over her head. I think she will be ok eventually, but she definitely needs some help.

I spent from 7:30 to 12:00 in three different classes telling kids to sit down, keep working, put their MP3 players away, and trying to help them with their English. Some of them haven’t learned anything beyond, “Hello, my name is…” but they are pretty receptive and respectful to me. I think I will be able to really make an impact and it is great to feel useful. They ask me funny questions, especially about my boyfriend in the United States.

At one point I was helping a group of girls with their King Arthur story and worksheet. The 4 of them had a look of complete desperation and I could tell they were about to give up. I decided to break the English only rule and got down on their level (literally and figuratively. I was on my knees.) and spoke Spanish with them. I told them that I’ve been studying Spanish for 7 years and I still have a lot to learn. I told them that I know how hard it is to learn a foreign language in a classroom and that it seems nearly impossible. But if they want to learn English and if they are willing to study and work, they can. We talked for a while and after the little bit of motivation, they kept working and ended up finishing the entire worksheet! I was very excited and honestly, if that is the best thing I do down here, I’ll be happy.

There are plenty of more funny, interesting, sad, and hopefull stories of my 4.5 hours in San Lawrence Colegio and I’m sure I’ll have thousands more by the end of the semester, so I’ll spare you. But as I was leaving, Mabel thanked me profusely and asked if I wanted to get together and have a beer this weekend. I told her I’d love to and that we can work on lesson plans! She seemed relieved and excited and I left exhausted but happy. Its great to feel useful and needed and its worth waking up at the butt crack of dawn (literally!)

I came home and had almuerzo with Olga, then laid down to take a quick nap. I wanted to finish my homework on Thursday so I wouldn’t have to worry about it all weekend, but I ended up sleeping from 2 to 4:45! So much for getting my work done! At 5:15 I walked to a meeting for the English Opens Doors program (what I’m doing in the High School) about how to help in the classroom. It was very informative and they gave up lots of great worksheets and ideas. The best part was that afterwards they had sushi, pisco sours, and a cueca dance! I passed on the pisco sour, but enjoyed some sushi and cueca.

I walked home and about an hour later headed out to meet some friends in Providencia. We went to a really nice bar, but I had no desire to drink (and I’ve been taking cold medicine) so my friend Hanna and I shared a dessert! Around 10:45 we took a cab to La Católica. They had a huge party called Noche de las Naciones or Night of the Nations. Its basically a big cultural exchange event where Chilean students that have studied abroad in the past or current exchange students can have booths about their country with food, music, activities etc. It kind of reminded me of a Girl Scout event at first, but with college students, music, and alcohol! Around 11:45 there was a Chilean music and dance show with live Cueca, then dancers from Easter Island (it looked like the hula from Hawaii), then a meringue couple, then a Brazilian drumming group. Everyone was dancing and singing; it was a blast! When the show/dance fest ended, they had a DJ that played until about 3 am.

But I was tired, still a little sick, and ready to head out around 2 am. I didn’t want to pay to take a Taxi home by myself and Courtney was going to walk home by herself, so we decided that I would just walk home with Courtney and spend the night at her house! So Courtney and I walked together and had a slumber party! We laid in bed talking and giggling until about 4 in the morning until we finally crashed. Wow, what a great day!