!Hola Providencia!

I am enjoying the second really quiet day since moving out of Oveja and actually feeling a bit lonely. Living alone for 7 years in Seattle was great and I never thought I could stand to have roommates again, let alone 21 who I never met before and who I’d be working with as well, but I guess I’ve been hungry for more socializing. I should have predicted it, given how long it always took me to break away from slumber parties at Samara and Mike’s - - bad TV, greasy breakfasts and shit-talking is always better with some company (yes, I shit-talked while alone in my place, but I think Luci might have been listening). Anywho, I am quite glad I didn’t opt to get a place on my own because I’ve reverted back to my social butterfly days and how sad would I be without even a cat to talk to at home???
Saturday afternoon, I took to wandering the streets of Providencia (my new hood) without much purpose except to find a grocery store and the closest bus/metro stops. Luckily it was a day off because I actually got lost for a bit. I was laughing too hard. . . “where do I live?”. Unfortunately that’s not something that any passerby could have helped me with, so I just wandered and wandered until I happened back onto Avineda Holanda and was glad that I only bought a small (and light) amount of groceries. I’ve since memorized the address (quick thinking, eh?) and know other neighboring streets really well so I shouldn’t be caught in the same jam again. After my search mission, I enjoyed a nap in the new double bed (good hell, I can’t tell you how AMAZING it is to sleep in a real bed!!!!) with the window open and some fresh, non-downtown air floating in and was slightly “disturbed” by noises unidentifiable in my half asleep/ half awake state, when I realized it was birds chirping! I was suddenly excited and surprised by said excitement until I realized that I hadn’t heard birds chirping in a VERY long time. Downtown life is fun and all, but I need me some trees and peace from traffic noise. Hola Providencia!
On Saturday night, some fellow-teachers had a house warming party and I stayed out until 7 on Sunday morning (something I thought impossible a month ago, but I haven’t lost my stamina!) so I slept away the better part of Sunday morning to early afternoon- a little embarrassing as a first impression to my new roomies but I remind myself that the Chilean social scene generally tends to be nocturnal so no worries. They are both easy going and I had a good long chat with Elsa. Rafael is always missing in action, though I’d rather that than a messy couch potato roomy. I’m also pleased to report that I moved in with the two people in Santiago who recycle, what a relief. I’ve been continuing a green effort here myself, with public transit/walking, line-drying clothes, short and cold showers (though not always by choice) and buying local produce, but there was NO WHERE to recycle anything at Oveja and certainly no compost bins, so garbage garbage garbage and it hurt a little.
Elsa was disappointed with my lack of experimentation with “real” Chilean food, pointing out that ‘completos’ (hotdogs or grilled pork/beef sandwiches with tomatoes, sauerkraut, mayo and other unidentifiable yet delicious ingredients), ‘italianos’ (sandwiches with grilled meat, avocado, tomatoes and HEEEAAPS of mayo) papas mayo, papas fritas are, in fact, not Chilean cuisine. What??? They are really abundant and cheap but not the best for your cholesterol. The sandwiches could be healthy, but for some reason mayo is a staple here and people apply it to recipes in disgusting quantities. Every time I have an italiano, I end up with at least 2-3 tablespoons of excess mayo scraped off the edge of the roll. Papas mayo is one of my favorites- I’ve consumed more potatoes in the last month than in the last 10 years. Seriously. Alejandra makes the best papas mayo for almuerzo at the Oveja. I balanced my massive potato salad consumption with giant heaps of tomato/cucumber/carrot infused spinach salad. Now it’s on to healthier home-cooked meals since I actually have access to a kitchen. Elsa told me where to get good seafood so I can try making some real Chilean food- seems that any nice seafood places in Santiago are ridiculously expensive, and I’d rather cook it my way anyhow. I can’t believe how much I miss cooking with a month of limited access to a kitchen. I already have plans for Persian BBQ night as well as a paella party and if I can find some ****ing coconut milk and curry paste, or ingredients to make from scratch, we’ll be having a spicy Thai fest too. As I expected, ethnic food is not easily found in Santiago, but the search will continue and for now a couple of great sushi finds are getting me by. Cooking healthy at home is economically advantageous too. Ironically processed junk food is more expensive than produce and fresh bread. So, I’ve been eating the crap out of tomatoes, avocados (paltas) and freshly baked baguettes.
So one last little note for all of you reading who go back with me to California. . . I found out one of the women in my group came from LANCASTER. How crazy is that?? Not as crazy as the fact that she moved there from New Orleans. How the hell does that happen? We had a laugh about it, because she gave the same answer to me that I always give people (especially non-Californians) when asked about where I’m from: “oh, some small town northeast of LA in the valley- you won’t know where it is”. Too funny, because I did know where it was and ALL about it. We get to share some inside, white-trash jokes now.
Now, I’m off to go explore the neighborhood with better navigation and shop for closet essentials- all my slacks are becoming more wrinkled by the minute and I need need need to not be living out of a suitcase.
P.S. To all my Seattle animal-loving homies, I’m pleased to report that little Luci is doing stupendously well at her new home and is currently going by the name of Mao Mao Chan in the spirit of being part of the family! Jeanne warned me to save some of my travel funds for kitty psychiatric care and a custody battle upon my return. . . I think I can hang with limited, supervised visits though.

Ciao Oveja!

Right now I’m enjoying some solitude, as I’m the last person left at the hostel. Being the procrastinator that I am, I left planning all my Friday and Saturday lessons until the last minute and had no time to move everything into my new grande departemento today when everyone else left. I am quite excited to sleep in a bed with a real mattress and no sounds of traffic to keep me awake. I must say, though, that as claustrophobic as this place was at times, there were never any blowouts or drama ensuing like you might imagine.
The last three nights our number was down to about 5 people and it was nice to have some last minute pow-wows before parting our separate ways. Last night we had a particularly funny revelation about the lovely Oveja Negra (the hostel). We were all hanging out with Alejandra (our beloved hostel queen) and heard someone vigorously clanging the downstairs bell. She went down to check it out and from the dining room we heard a man’s voice and something like a request for “attention”. When she came back up, we were informed that up until only two years ago, Oveja was a brothel . . . all the honks and stares of passersby made sense at that moment- - what with all the nights we hung out drunkenly on the street-side balcony. Luckily, no one was ever propositioned for “attention”. There should have been a memo on that one, but it certainly wouldn’t have been as funny as finding out under last night’s circumstances.
Tomorrow is the big move to a real apartment. I found a place with two Chilenos- one man, one woman. Both seem really laid back and are around my age. The place is unusually large for Santiago and has a pool table inside =), large kitchen =)=) and a nice sized patio with BBQ =)=)=). My room is large, with a real closet (a rarity, I’ve found in apartment hunting) and floor to ceiling window overlooking a park. Rafael speaks very little English, so I’m confident that my Espanol will progress muy rapido. Whenever I’m in situations where English just isn’t an option, I magically have more Spanish power, so it’s exciting to project a language progress chart!! Especially considering how much more I speak now after only 4 weeks even while living with gringos. My effort with Spanish has earned me a lot of respect with students and the dynamics in my classes change the more I speak with them- - today I got my first Chilean kisses from students (three to be exact, but they were only cheek kisses- - no Mary Kay Laterno here, for those of you who might have some fresh ideas in your head!) and a few “hello Miss”s or “hola profa”. Hooray, I might actually be the “cool” teacher!!! Check back with me after the first round of quizzes.
I hope you all are enjoying magnificent spring weather –I hear Seattle is getting some sun. Sorry to you folks still snowed –in in Utah. I will enjoy the last moments of summer heat and sunshine here for you, before the cold hits Santiago and the smog takes over my view of the Andes. Thanks to all of you who are keeping me posted with emails, it’s always nice to get a taste of home and inside jokes, since (as you can imagine) Carol isn’t the easiest person to get - - at least for the first couple years. . . Ciao!

Work hard, play harder

The second week of classes proved to be much more rewarding - - still a lot of work and some stress but I'm definitely getting the hang of recycling lesson plans and teaching more spontaneously so it's more and more enjoyable. The construction workers, in particular, straightened out a lot. I consulted the English department director and had him behind me, with permission to kick people out of class, so I went into the second class with a MUY GIGANTE attitude and talked to them like I do my misbehaving two and three year old neices and nephews. . . somehow, it worked beautifully and they do exactly as I say. As bad as it is to admit, I kind of like it . . . har har har.

Last week we went to Gringo central for a St. Patrick's day fiesta with a bunch of other teachers and some of our new Chilean friends. Before heading to the Irish pub, I'd been introduced to a Chilean "cocktail" (if you will) called Jote- - coke and red wine. Because the pub was INSANELY busy, I ended up loading up on boxed wine and coke at a nearby convenience store with plastic cups and had my own little bar going on just on the border of the pub's patio. I realize it sounds blasphemous but it's actually drinkable, so I enjoyed me some all evening.

After a short week (only two days, thank you Easter vacation) I went to the coast to the "cultural capital" of Chile - Valparaiso- for the weekend. It was great fun to be roaming as a tourist and seeing a new place besides Santiago, especially one where the air is SOOOO clean and fresh. Not once did I feel end-of-the-day grime from city pollution/exhaust. I spent one day at the beach in Vina del Mar, a neighboring beach town and read all afternoon, which was a much-needed day of doing nothing. I met up with some of the other women teachers and we did sight-seeing, checked out the interesting architechture of the town, enjoyed some fantastic seafood and FINALLY learned to dance salsa! Salsa was indeed the highlight of my weekend (well, second to enjoying clean air). After a couple of cocktails and failed attempts to get the moves, I partnered up with a really determined Chilean salsa master who proved to be a great lead and had me swaying and twirling all over the place. Latin fever comes out in a very beautiful way out on the dance floor and I'm so motivated to learn a fraction of the moves I witnessed last night. Give me a year and I'll be part Chilean. . .

?Como se dice DISASTER?

School started on Monday but I didn't have any classes until Tuesday so I sat in on a class to get an idea of how a "real" English class was run. Pretty smoothly, I thought, until my first one on Tuesday evening - - hence the disaster notice. The university I work for has several campuses that are specific to different majors and apparently I'm stuck in the "construction"/"engineering" one. Soooooo, my first class was full of 30-35 year old male chauvinistic pigs who quickly learned enough english to make comments about my ass and other unmentionables. . . I played dumb, but made a point to face them the rest of the hour, as hard as it was to write on the white board without turning around. Definitely a case of karma giving me a swift kick in the ass- - pun well intended- -after all my whining about deprivation of male attention since I got here (it doesn't help that all the women in my group sport double Ds). The 90 minute class was dismissed after 45 and I was off to a rough start, but fortunately the class immediately after clase de assholes was really fun and motivated. I've had three classes since and it's been a much more positive experience, although the amount of work involved in lesson planning was sorely underestimated. Such is my new life as a teacher. In the next couple of days I'm hoping to secure a Spanish class for myself so I can make some more Chileno friends and break out of my gringo bubble. . . not to mention get some ideas for teaching. It's amazing how quickly I lost the student perspective after so many years spent in school.

lost in translation

Since everything finally slowed down after training, I have been doing more serious apartment/house/room hunting. Seven years in the same Seattle apartment made me forget what a gigantic pain in the ass it is to find a new place, particularly when roommates are involved (worse yet when we don’t speak the same language). Fortunately, there will be no moving of furniture involved, wherever I go. Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting Gaston and Macarena, two Chilenos who own a house with a beautiful garden and patio. I ended up hanging out for a few hours to get to know them and find out about the area and it seemed like a perfect match until I asked her about how safe the neighborhood was at night. . . She told me that it was pretty safe except for some Friday nights the “dark people” come out to their club and are really loud and scary. Assuming she was talking about black people, I expected to hear the N word blurted out next and I was thinking how disappointing it was that they were not, in fact a perfect match for me. I must have had a weird expression on my face because she attempted to clarify, convincing me that it wasn’t such a bad neighborhood. She then demonstrated a vampire sucking blood and I realized that “dark people” actually meant goth. So, if I can negotiate the price down a tad, a seemingly perfect match will have been made!

Hola Santiago

After 22 hours of grueling travels, complete with three flights and two long layovers, I arrived in Santiago at about 6:30 AM on the 29th. Much to my disappointment, the sun was not yet up and I didn't get a view of the Andes from the plane. From the hostel, they look just like mountains in SLC, but still I remind myself they are the Andes and hold an appreciation for it since I might not have the view for long.



There are 22 TeachingChile participants here at the hostel and we all spent the last week wandering around trying to familiarize ourselves with the area, looking for the cheapest food and wine (both easily and commonly found). I got lost many times, but it's always good for me and never stressful as long as I have time on my hands. After two days I had the Santiago Centro and a small part of one more barrio down, but then took a little tram ride up to Cerro San Cristobal, which is the highest point in Santiago and from the view, I realized just how little I'd seen all week. So, a whole lot of exploring is in store for this weekend. . .



I was really inhibited with my Spanish the first couple days and was on mute, but that got old really fast. Dad and Dave would've appreciated it - - too bad they weren't here to experience Carol on quiet for themselves! Alejandra and Marcos are the couple who run the hostel Oveja Negro and are super cool. They hang out with all of the gringos eager to learn Spanish, very patiently engaging us in painfully choppy Spanish. It's pretty amazing how quickly things are starting to come together and how many new words I'm picking up everyday. I feel like a 2 year old on show with new vocabulary, only it's all in my head, reciting words for things as I recognize them. Ah geez, what fun.




This last week we were all busy with beaurocratic crappity crap with the school, sitting through training "briefs" for 8 hours a day to learn about the DuocUC way of teaching. Most of it was really helpful but it was difficult to get into a serious mode after being in such an excited, vacation mindset all weekend and only two days to decompress after a month of pure mayhem in preparing to get to Santiago. We had training 4 out of 5 days this week and one "free" day to get all of our legal documents notarized which ended up taking several hours of waiting in lines, messy finger printing and dealing with grumpy old policemen. We did get to visit our campuses and meet the English department crew. They were all really laid back and seeemed to have a strong rapport with each other- - always a good sign.



The weekend is here and full of promise, so I hope to return with a good story or two. Hasta!