English Opens Doors. That, rather than English Open Doors, is the name of the Chilean Ministry of Education-sponsored program I am working with. Go figure. It makes more sense grammatically, I guess. But I'm thinking that after all the typo's in my application, I probably should not have gotten the spot. Anyway, point is that the Ministry of Education is responsible for bringing hundreds of volunteers into the country annually and placing them all over the place. BridgeTEFL, the org through which I got this opportunity, is one of many private orgs that bring volunteers to the Ministry. So the barage of e-mails with contact names, addresses, and events that I have been half-skimming is starting to make more sense. Two separate places from which I'm supposed to get a little bit of help figuring out whats happening. And clearly I need the help. I've figured out that in my 'pack light' mentality, I have neglected to bring a laptop, hiking boots, rainproof gear, or a winter coat. Still, my mentality remains 'I can shop where the locals do, or screw that noise I'll do without.'
Yesterday, I spent the day in and out of waiting rooms at the hospital getting check-ups on the sore throat and new prescriptions just to make sure things wouldn't hit the fan at a later time, when I'm say...half an hour off the coast of the mainland with no real doctors to speak of. Point is, the strep throat, while very much still there, is much better and I've finally starting chowing down on some amazing food. Also, the private high-end hospital my insurance hooked it up with, which for the money I'm paying they better, was more like a hotel than a hospital. Didn't even have that hospital smell. And apparently the entire country operates like a deli. From the hospital, to the place where you pay your bills, to I'm guessing a real deli, you take a number and wait until they call it out. The main room at the ER was more like a row of bank tellers than anything else, super clean and fast. Now I'm ready to be done with being sick, and finally enjoy the weather.
The people here are super kind and helpful. And smokin hot. Like ridiculously beautiful. I'm beginning to understand why that whole 'South American girls are hot' stereotype exists. And I don't mean that in some chauvinistic way, I'm simply sayin that even the 'feas' here would light up a room in the land of the free and the home of the Double Down sandwich. Speakin of the States, my politics rant of the day (expect more to come, sorry) did you know a new Souther Poverty Law Center study shows 1,002 active hate groups in the US in 2010. A rise of 40% from 2009. I figured, being an immigrant in a Latino country, I can´t not put that out there. We need to stop worrying about our border and start worrying about what´s happening to the American citizens living deep inside the country, legally or otherwise. Random quote from some Republican angry white guy, and a petition to make sure people like that can't decide public policy. Because no matter what your opinions are, if you say things like this in public, you do are not fit to write laws.
http://act.presente.org/sign/dumppeck/?referring_akid=.323406.CPjo3e&source=taf
Going back to how this whole thing works. I figured 7 of us were staying in this hostel for a week for orientation and then moving south. I have now learned that in addition to us 7 from Bridge, there will be like 100 other folks from all over joining us in the hostel starting tomorrow. Crazy fun stuff. I just stopped mid-blog to FB add a Japanese girl that studied in Malaga, Spain (a very short bus trip away from Granada) the entire time I was in Granada. Not surprisingly, we've been to many of the same cities. I'd like to think that there was a day when we were on the same bus, or getting drunk on same beach, speaking to friends in broken Spanish or our respective languages. Small world, I'm sure it happened.
-Pablo
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