Orientation and First Days Teaching!

Well it's been another crazy week! On Tuesday I had a full day of orientation with the other volunteers in my region. The regional coordinators for EOD met us at a hotel downtown and introduced us to our co-teachers. My co-teacher Carolina is great. She's young, enthusiastic, and (thank God) knows a lot of English. Her English is much better than my Spanish. After being told time and time again that our co-teachers may not even speak much English, this was a huge relief. We spent the first half of the day getting to know our teachers while playing icebreaker games and working on mock lesson plans. After a super fancy lunch of salmon (delicious! And I don't even like seafood), we got on a bus for the part of orientation I was really looking forward to: a short hike in Petrohue, at the foot of Volcan Osorno. The hour long bus ride was gorgeous. It's hard to put a finger on the scenery in Chile. At times it reminds me of the American west, at times it reminds me of Honduras, at times it reminds me of pictures of the Alps, and sometimes it even reminds me of North Carolina! But I suppose it make sense; with the driest desert in the world to the North, Antartica to the South, and everything else in between, Chile is a chimera of a country. Even still, as we approached Volcan Osorno I realized I had never seen anything like it before. From the base next to Lago Llanquihue, it's a steep 2652 meters to the snow-capped peak, which seems perpetually shrouded in clouds. When we finally arrived at the park I could hardly contain myself! I wanted to run around like a kid but I managed to calm myself down and have the patience to take some pictures. We were blessed with a beautiful day, but even still I don't think the cerulean blue of the river comes through in the pictures. It was just incredible!

                                                         Approaching Osorno in the bus

 Google Volcan Osorno and you'll see photos taken from this exact spot!

 Reppin App State of course!

 This was just unreal. I spent a good ten minutes watching trout rise to feed in this pool. If only I had a rod....

 Pretty intense rapids. And they do rafting on this river! Maybe later in the year...

 As we were leaving the park the clouds started to part. Not the best timing, but it afforded me this shot

Just as I was starting to consider moving to a cabin on Lago Llanquihue I remembered I'm actually here to teach English! I had to get up at 6:00 Wednesday morning (earliest I've been up in a long time) to get ready and head to the school with my host mom, who is an English teacher there. The school, Antuquenu, is actually in a town called Alerce situated halfway between Puerto Montt and Puerto Varas, but it's only about 10 or 15 minutes away by bus from our house. The school is comprised of two separate school buildings and a gymnasium on a small campus. One building is for basica, which is Kindergarten through 8th grade. The other building is the media or high school. When we arrived the school was a whirlwind of students, teachers, administrators and staff running to and fro. I would learn later that this is the norm. As soon as I set foot on the property I was being introduced to teacher after teacher in a non-stop barrage of handshakes and kisses on the cheek (how men and women greet each other here), ever conscious of the gawking of hundreds of students passing by. But when the chaos subsided and everyone went to their classrooms, my day had just begun! I spent the first half hour or so going from classroom to classroom with Carolina to introduce myself to the students. For the rest of the day I shadowed Carolina in her classes. We reviewed some basics, played a few games, and the students asked me some questions. My favorites: "Do you like the Chilean womans?", "Do you know Obama?", "Do you live in Miami?" and "Do you know Justin Bieber?". Overall the first day was overwhelming, but fun. Over Thursday and today I've started to get more comfortable with being in front of a class, and the kids are slowly becoming less shy. Today we taught in my classroom for the first time and I gave a presentation on the United States and myself to one of the high school classes. They asked lots of questions, seemed genuinely interested, and Carolina said she was very pleased with the students' response. Maybe I can do this after all! Planning a trip to Frutillar tomorrow, more on that next time!