hola hola. my best buddy katie b put a flame under my butt to get me goin on a new blog entry... so here i am. sorry i haven't blurbed about my whereabouts in awhile... i've been a busy lil abeja (clue: an abeja says bzzz).

i'm going to try to condense this so you dont wake up in 2 hours with keyboard marks on your face wondering what the heck hit you.

fiestas patrias. chile's independence day, officially celebrated on 18 de septiembre. carretes usually start a week before the holiday and finish the weekend after the 18th. here's what i did to celebrate...

checked out a parade some of my kids were participating in, representing escuela espana. they were dressed so nice, all so professional and well behaved. i was glowing like a proud mama.

hung out with the kiddos in their decorated classrooms. they were amped to see that miss katie had a china dress (a traditional chilean dress worn around fiestas patrias).

ryan and i went to the parade in the plaza the day of the 18th. i've never seen so many chileans gathered in one place. you could feel the national pride glowing from everyone there. quite neat.

ate way too many homemade empanadas (which were delicious but after about 5 your stomach turns into an empanada itself).

ryan drank quite a bit of chocoli (drink made during the 2nd phase of the fermentation process of wine) trying to keep up with my insistent uncle and ended up being attacked by vicious street dogs in the plaza outside my house.

danced cueca on our patio. so fun.

next on the agenda. english week. throughout chile, english week is celebrated september 28th- october 2nd. here's what we did at my school:

i decorated a bulletin board in the hall of my school to display some of the kids work. they had to write why they thought english was important to learn, and why they liked english class.

i coordinated an english "acto" (assembly). it was a lot of work, and the show itself had a lot of technological hiccups... but overall, super bacan and so worth it. here are some of the things we did for the show:

michael jackson: thriller dance. these are mostly 5th graders who went all out for this dance. by far my favorite of the show.

reading of a shel silverstein poem (one inch tall) in english.

singing "The Way I Am" by ingrid michaelson. this kid learned the guitar notes overnight and the girls sang without music in the background. my students are superestrellas.

jon (my public speaking kid) read his barack obama speech. the other kids thought this was way cool and are now amped on participating in subsequent years.

dance to britney spears: circus. the audience was chanting "otra! otra!" after this one.

proud teacher.

english week. check! now, onto spanglish speakers. we had yet another successful meeting with our extracurricular chicos. this meeting was focused around food, and how to order at a restaurant.

we transformed the library into our own restaurant, the RKK Cafe and all the kids successfully ordered their lunch (andwiches, fruit, juice, and cookies). in english.

switching seats between each "course" they were able to get to know other kids in the group by answering questions provided at each "station"... this was a hit, and new friendships bloomed before our eyes.

ryan and i had the opportunity to celebrate "assistant's day" with some janitors and assistants from his school. we headed out to the campo, to a big farm-like house with random horses and chickens everywhere.

i tried to pet the thing, but she was skiddish...

we ate good food...

played by the river...

and basked in the beautiful spring weather.

so overall, we're holding down the fort here in los angeles. the weather has turned. flowers are blooming, the sun is shining, and its just absolutely rico outside. ryan and i have been frequenting the park for picnics under big old trees and just absolutely loving our last couple months here in chile...

september is in full bloom...

just wanted to touch on a few lil shananigans that are getting me excited during the month of september...

1. spanglish speakers. our new program which i introduced in my last post. after a stressful week of collecting contracts, finalizing horarios (schedules), trudging through the rain to find fabric paint, and shaking in our boots wondering whether the kids would actually come, yesterday our first activity was carried out with grace and awesomeness. we had a total of 15 kids show(7 high school kids and 8 fifth graders). we had them find their "teams" by giving a puzzle piece to each child, and they, in turn had to find the kids with their "matching" puzzle pieces. they found their teams, came up with some rockin' team names (including: the brave race, team awesome, the crazy team (who lived up to their name), and the princesses (our team of all girls)), painted t-shirts, and encouraged conversation amongst the different age groups which, otherwise, would be a bit unnatural. much of the meeting was held in english... the kids were all about it--- no puzzled looks, just faces with big fat grins, which us teachers love to see. it turned out to be a great success and i can honestly say that us LA (los angeles) volunteers have really dedicated ourselves to something pretty damn cool.

the activity was held at kelly's school... its over 100 years old.

all of the puzzles had english words... awesome, sweet, radical etc.

introductions in english. love how alexis (the older kid) is encouraging his 5th grader to use english!

girls from my school making their princesses sign.

bruno playing some soccer (with a plastic bag as a ball!) with the other boys at break... something we failed to work into the schedule until we saw the 5th grade boys getting ants in their pants after an hour of being in the classroom...

the girls and high school kids didn't have as much energy to expel...

everyone working on their spanglish speakers official t-shirts! group photos next activity...

2. fiestas patrias. chile's independence day (or should i say week!). september 18th is the "official" day of independence, but chileans go all out and celebrate the entire week surrounding the holiday. unfortunately for us, we are missing an entire week of school (shucks!). it should be a good time. apparently there are people everywhere in the streets just having a wicked time. while during 4th of july the police officers are working overtime to catch drunken crazies in the states, the cops work a bit differently here during chile's independence day...when ryan ask

ed my chilean sister, clau, what a carabinero (police officer) would say if you had a beer on the street during fiestas patrias (which any other day is illegal), her response was "salud!"

ry and i preparing our cueca rutine... i think we have a ways to go before september 18th...

3. my new ocd tendency: the weather. so a few weeks ago mother nature decided to play a little trick on us. she gave us about 4 days of absolutely beautiful weather... i'm talkin' sunshine, big fluffy clouds against a piercing blue sky, and oh yes, my favorite part: temperature: high 60s. mother nature then decided to stick out her tongue and throw us a "nanny nanny booboo." not nice. we're now stuck in the low 50s with rain pretty much every other day again. now you may think i seem a bit obsessive about this weather issue. well, you're correct. i have become an avid weather watcher. you'll find me on accuweather.com and freemeteo.com at least once a day looking at the

extended forecast ... praying (okay its more like begging) that i will find a slight increase in the temperature. well. today was the day! thanks to www.accuweather.com, i have found that the next two weeks are full of sunny, high 60s days similiar to mother nature's little joke. needless to say it pretty much made my day seeing this. if i've learned one thing since i've been here... its that i'm a desert rat and i feel terribly sorry for anyone who lives in this type of climate. they dont know what they're missing. bring on that heat baby.

so the combo of these fun or exciting things goin on here in LA and multiple little weekend getaways we have planned to ensure we're living up our last few months here in good ol' chile, i have a feeling these next 2 1/2 months are going to fly faster than the speed of lightening.

short funny story to end here. i have a passion for the street dogs here which others may think is a bit loony. i feel terrible for them. most of them are gimping around because they've been hit by an apathetic chilean driver. they sleep in the rain and freezing cold weather. they are thin to the bone and have never seen a dog bowl. worst part: they don't get any love! so anyways, you'll usually find ryan and i with a dog or two following us home because we took the time to give them some love and in turn, gave them the wrong idea that we were their new mom and pop. usually we give them some bread and water, and send them on their way. long story short, here i am with a little dog friend following me home... beautiful shepard mix. i do the usual, go grab some bread and a bowl for water and take it out for the lil pup. but... dun dun dun!!! BUSTED!! chilean mama came home to find a street dog in front of her house. not so happy. trying to hold back any sort of anger for her ignorant foreign daughter, she simply stated this was the last time this would happen. apparently not everyone has the same fondness for the street perros.

hope your septembers are blooming into something beautiful!

xo from chile!

a mezcla of goodies...

so here we are, exactly 100 days antes de the last day of school... and i'm on my way to antuco, a little town about an hour outside los angeles, to pay the chickities of their town a visit. kelly ryan and i were all invited to do so by raul. raul is a funny little man (who apparently was called "cutie.pie" in the US when he travelled there as a teacher. he now thinks this a term of flattery for a good looking male) who teaches english in the only elementary and high schools in antuco. we were greeted by hundreds of grossly excited children in both schools. at the elementary school, we visited a few classes (including the lil pre-k and kinder oobers who i absolutely adored), singing songs in english and just soaking up the pure joy of these kids. we held Q&A sessions with the high school students where we presented ourselves in front of hundreds of painfully shy students... but not all of them were this way... one girl raised her hand simply to tell ryan he's beautiful, and kelly and i had a handful of boys asking us for kisses!

we also visited with the children of a smaller rural school who were so welcoming. one kid asked if we would sing our national anthem. we couldnt disappoint them, so, soon enough i found myself hitting high notes that sounded worse than a nail dragging against a dry chalkboard as we sang our beloved country's national hymn in front of 30 sets of googling eyes. what an experience. poor kids are probably deafened, but nonetheless, happy as clams.

after our adventures in the schools, raul drove us up to antuco's volcano which overlooks a beautiful dammed lake. we smiled at the camera a few times in front of the chocolate chip mountains (the volcanic rocks slightly covered in snow look scrumptious!) and started on our way back to los angeles.

this week we find ourselves quite busy with a new program we are initiating for some of our kiddos. its called "spanglish speakers." kelly and i both chose 5 elementary kids from our schools whom we think, for whatever reason, could use a good role model to hang out with once a month or so. we are pairing those 10 kids with 10 students from ryan's high school. its kind of like the big brothers/big sisters program you find in the US communities. we are planning at least one activity per month so these kids can establish a true relationship with their new "buddy;" we're hoping that during these activities, the students will be practicing english as well as talking about what the future holds for them. our goal is to help these kids see that their future lies in their own little hands and with motivation and a good role model, nothing is out of reach. we are absolutely thrilled to be starting this program in our town and hope it continues forward after our time in chile is up.

speaking of time being up in chile. 3 more months. so crazy that we're on the downhill slope of such an amazing adventure. its still winter and still colder than ever (and rainier!) and i can definitely feel my mood reflecting the weather. but i'm keepin my head up and looking forward to springtime which should be peaking its colorful head around the corner in september sometime.

ryan and i have been diligently planning our after program travel plans... we've decided on going to a few of argentina's quaint little towns before soaking up patagonia's natural beauty. we're then heading north to cabo san lucas for one last hoorah before heading back to normality. our return date is scheduled for... drumroll please... december 20th! back in time for christmas. we couldnt stand the idea of being away from family during the holidays. consider us the ultimate, living christmas gifts wrapped in chilean love!!

love and miss you all dearly. xoxo from chile

what a BIG BOY!

just had to give a little shout out to my BABY brother... chrisobal, who today, is the big 2-0!

i love you and i'm so proud of the strapping young man you've become!

have such a happy birthday...

xoxo from chile, katie

a little time to thaw the bones...

ahh yes, a tank top, sunshine, and good company. what more could a girl want?! first of all i want to give a huge shout out to ryan and i's good friend becksters for coming out to visit during our winter break. overall, a stellar trip with some marked highlights: please note there is a pro and a con to each of these highlights.

1. beach in la serena... named perfectly for its beautiful beaches and serene atmosphere...

pro: superb views of a mountain range from the beach which appeared to

have been painted into the distance. frisbee playin, ocean jumping at 12:30am, oceanside condo. the pros could go on forever.

con: i spent 2/3 days here in my fleece. we did have one amazing day which leads me to our next highlight:

2. bike ride to coquimbo

pro: fun little bike path/boardwalk ru

nning from la serena to coquimbo, a small fishermens town just south of la serena. goregous

sunny day, almost empty boardwalk, and fun company

con: we rented some old squeeky rusted over bikes. ryan's chain broke on the way home... he hitched a ride from becky the remaining bit of our ride

3. cruz del tercer milenio

pros: awesome huuuuuge concrete cross finished in may of 2001 which has many symbolic meanings behind its structure (including 10 columns to represent the ten commandments amongst others). this huge structure is 103 meters high and considered the tallest monument in south america. we were able to view the church below as well as walk out onto the arms of the cross. awesome panoramic views of the bay!

cons: we dragged our bikes up lord knows how many stairs to

get to the cross. but definitely had fun riding down after... especially with breaks which failed to work in the most important moments!

4. Vicuña, valle del elqui

pros: oh so many. first our hostel. so beautiful. run by an old fat argentian man named ricardo. he thought ryan was to die for handsome and one morning, after ryan rose and shone quite late as usual, ricardo insisted i bring him breakfast on the patio. he even went to the effort of picking a rose from his garden to place on his tray... explaining "love isnt simply a word, we must show our love through actions my dear." great advice.

mamalluca observatory. aka space. the northern part of chile is known for having some of the

most amazing places to view the stars, and boy were we blown away. i rode windowside in the van on the way up to this observatory (at about 1030pm) and you could see them multiply by

the minute. once we arrive, our heads were looking up until we left. the milky way was at our fingertips and we all saw countless shooting stars. our tourguide had a "star pointer" which is a laser pointer that is able to point damn far, and he could show us individual stars from the sky. some of us were more amused with this fancy tool than the stars themselves! we were also able to enter the "dome" and use the huge expensive telescope to see other galaxies, jupiter, and other phenomenal natural wonders. by far one of the best adventures of this trip.

cons: hard to think of any really. people were wonderful here, and overall had a really amazing experience.

5. pisco elqui

pros: beautiful pueblo located in the heart of the valley... everywhere you looked you saw

snowcapped mountains. the weather was gloriously warm. our hostel was more of a retreat. we laid out by the pool and soaked up the sun. the chapel here was also very beautiful.

cons: we had to share our cabin with a little creature called an arana de rincoln (aka a very common deadly spider here in chile). ryan was less than thrilled and i woke up to him twitching throughout the night. these deadly spiders are known to hang out in corners, so almost every chilean bed is pulled out from the corner about a foot. fun! also, we enjoyed a delicious spaghetti dinner one night at the hostel which subsequently came right out of me in its true form the next morning. luckily it was out and we were back on track quite soon after.

6. santiago (yea yea, whats so great about santiago? you've been there!)

pros: yeah i know we've been here, but we headed to some new attractions we had yet to hit. numero uno: santa lucia (a hill located in the center of santiago which boasts a

mazing castle like buildings and a great path for walking any time of day). at the top of this hill we were delighted to watch some metallic loving men play with swords as if they were in medivial times. gave us a laugh.

our main reason for coming back to santiago was to introduce ourselves to the new group of volunteers that will be here with us until december. we held a forum for them and ryan, jake, and i answered any questions they had regarding the program they were entering... including the good bad and ugly. we were instructed to be "positive but realistic." job well

done team. we amped em up for volunteering and re-energized ourselves for the second semester. these 22 new volunteers will be dispersed within the 8th region (same region i'm placed), but in smaller pueblos (towns). bring on the english!

for our second week of vacation, ryan and i headed east for some snowboarding in the andes, at a resort called termas de chillan. ryan had a fabulous time floating over fresh powder and i had a blast falling in it! we completed the longest run in south america, called "tres marias" which measures 13 kilometers or almost 8 1/2 miles!! super bakan. we stayed at a hostel placed in an a-frame cabin... it was very family oriented, but every day ate home cooked meals and if we were lucky, a hot shower after skiing all day. last day of chillan we went to the natural hot springs (termas) which were smelly but toasty!

overall grade for winter vaca: A++ hope your guys' summer vaca is the same!

trees

i have a park near my house. it stretches across the entire city along one of the main roads. when i first arrived here in los angeles (3 months ago) i couldn't help but notice the green everywhere in this park. granted i'm used to cacti and that sort of landscape, but these trees were just so beautiful! then came fall... every day i would walk through the park and kick the yellow leaves around and wonder when the last leaf would fall. and now... at the half way point, it's winter and the trees are bare. although the bitter cold and rain don't suit my taste, i still find an odd beauty in the bare branches against the grey sky.

ryan and i were walking through this park the other day... and i had to stop him. i saw the trees and said, "i can't believe we're halfway through our adventure." time has flown. the trees are a simple sign that time here in chile is passing as quickly just as the seasons change year after year. i find myself refreshed by the idea that primavera (spring) is coming around the corner. but i stop myself and wonder, what after that? summer? that means its time to go. not sure i'm ready for that just yet.

we were taught in orientation that there are three phases that volunteers (and other go abroaders) go through when abroad. first, the excitement phase. everything is new and exciting and there is little time to think about everything you're missing back home. second, there's what i call the "i want to go home just a little bit" phase. everything you thought exciting in the beginning is now mundane and sometimes annoying. i can definitely say that i have been going through this the past month or so. ryan and i found ourselves often presenting questions such as these to each other: "if you could eat ANYTHING you wanted right now, what would it be?" or "if you could hang out with 5 people tonight who would it be and what would you do?"... we found huge smiles on our faces talking about friends from home, favorite pizza joints, and family that we have been missing for quite some time now.

during this time, i found myself on a bus to santiago for our midservice conference with meghan and thomas (worldteach directors). we had a bunch of sessions about "long term planning" in our classrooms, and figuring out what in the heck we should teach for the 17 weeks we had left of school. 17 weeks! ah. may seem like a long time, but in teacher time, its nothing. i have so many things i want to teach my kiddos, and so many things i still want to do in my community here in chile that i have yet to begin! i started thinking of how i'm going to spend the second half of my time here in chile... what could i do to finish this year off right, and really accomplish what i came here to do? well its been a week since that conference. i've had my kids one last time before winter break this week... i said my "nos vemoses" (we'll be seein you) and started wondering how it would be when i have to say "adios" for good. kinda breaks my heart a little. i dont know how all you teachers do it... get so attached to a group of kids then turn around and have to give them away. seems like torture to me.

so here i am. gettin' ready for my winter vaca and as amped as ever to make the second half of my adventure the best it can be. kelly ryan and i are stoked to start on some community projects when we return from the north. one includes a sort of "big brother/big sister" idea, amongst others including a health fair and various clubs. as much as i have grown to hate spanish, i am more determined then ever to learn as much as i can while i'm here. i want to hang out with my host family more. learn what the chilean culture really has to offer.

so all in all... time's flying as it always does. but i'm comforted by the fact that my life will never be the same after this adventure is over... looking forward to spring a whole new gaggle of fun experiences.

is it vaca yet?

so every school year, ingles abre puertas (the program hosted by the chilean government who hosts us volunteers) puts together a "public speaking competition" for the public school students. here's the lowdown. each kid has to put a speech together about one of two topics: 1. an english speaking person or 2. an english speaking country. the speech needs to be three minutes in length, and ah ha... small catch. has to be in ENGLISH! now i don't know about you, but when i was in 8th grade, there was no way in heck you'd see me up in front of an audience speaking in spanish for three minutes. especially with the limited vocabulary we are taught in an elementary language class! so, pardon the expression, but it definitely takes balls for these kids to get up and perform a speech in english.

as part of our requirement in this program, we are required to participate in a student's preparation for this competition. this includes choosing an 8th grader to participate, editing their written speech, and practicing pronunciation prior to the competition. i ended up choosing a student named john. he has an awesome understanding of the english language and was eager to participate. low and behold, john ended up winning the provisional competition with a speech about barack obama. i couldn't believe it! what an awesome experience for the students. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places from the provisional competition were then asked to participate in the regional competition in concepcion (2nd largest city in chile, about 2 hours west of us here in los angeles). john did incredibely well in this competition with a speech about jamaica (they have to use the other topic for the 2nd competition) and was asked to participate in the national competition in antofogasta sometime in july! its amazing what these kids can accomplish when they put their mind to it. plus, many of these kids have never even travelled outside of los angeles... just to travel to northern chile is opening such a huge door for them. que bakan!

so overall, class has been good. i will say that teaching would be a lost easier if all of my students had the motivation john has for learning english. the kids often get restless in class (especially while they are learning the material and not playing games!). sometimes its difficult to maintain a fun atmosphere when there are kids in the class who choose to be disruptive, and not follow one of my cardinal classroom rules: respect! but, from what i understand, this happens all over the world, so i just breathe and try not to rip their heads off. during one particularly terrible class, i was co-teaching with the other english teacher, and the kids were just talking to one another, not listening to a lick of anything, and i was about to blow my lid. but instead i gave them a little chit chat about respect, and a lackthereof is unheard of in my classroom. after class, leticia pulled me aside and proceded to tell me that its very difficult to discipline in the classroom in chile, becauase the parents of the children get very upset when we take matters into our own hands. she even brought up that a week ago, a parent was furious because his child had been disciplined in class, and he proceded to hit the teacher while they were talking about the incident. it seems so rediculous to me that we, as teachers, are just supposed to take disrespect in our classrooms. obserd. i don't understand it, and i will continue to teach respect in my classroom. hopefully i have all my teeth by the end of this trip!

so aside from the bumps in the road, i've had an awesome experience teaching... the kids always get amped to say "hi" to me in the street after school, and that alone makes this whole experience worthwhile.

in two weeks, the other volunteers and i will be heading up to northern chile for winter vacation. i'm so stoked to have my friend from the states, becky, come along with us!! who knows where that trip will lead us... but i believe our goal is to hit san pedro de atacama and the bolivian salt flats to name a couple hot spots. i'm just excited to be somewhere where i'm not required to wear 15 layers of clothes everywhere i go!!

speaking of homelife here in los angeles... its freezing. i mean, call me desert rat, but 40s is just a little too "chilly" (hahaha get it??! chilly...chile) for me. in our house (and most houses in los angeles, soley have stufas, which are just little wood burning stoves that warm the house. so i wear many layers at all times. and i think my toes are permanent icycles. they always feel like they're just going to snap off. fun feeling. never thought i'd learn to appreciate the 110 degree weather of good ol' phoenix. but bring it on.

just so you all know, i have squished 4 hormigas (ants) on my computer while writing this posting. the hormigas have recently determined that their refuge from the cold is my room. the other morning, there were ants covering the bristles of my toothbrush. yummy.

i'm fully recovered from my ailment and feeling good as new. i hope you're all having a wonderful warm summer. run around naked in the hot sun for me. but wear sunscreen.

love you all, xoxo