Yesterday marked exactly one week living with the new family. This week of work went smooth, but I didn't have to actually do anything, I just shadowed the two English teachers in their classrooms. Monday I will actually start leading short exercises in the classroom, and that will quickly lead to me taking half the class aside to work independent of the head teacher. Yesterday the principal showed me my new room, and it is baller. It's a new addition that, due to bureaucratic red tape and local regulations, can't be used yet as a permanent classroom. But I guess it's cool for me to use several hours a week. Plan is to have kids decorate the walls with flags of English speaking countries, their own projects, and I'll try to print out some big name Chicagoans (Oprah or MJ maybe?) and turn it into an ''English-Only'' classroom. We'll see how well that goes in a few weeks; for now I just have to come up with some short speaking and listening activities for the kiddies.
Thursday was an unusally sunny day that was actually fairly rain-free. The island and the views from the school are just absolutely gorgeous. I tried to enjoy the rare sunny weather and walked around town after school. I checked out the old Jesuit all-wooden church in the town square, chilled out down by the bay (everything here is built on rolling hills, so getting from the water to city center requires hiking up San Fransisco-like winding roads), and visited the open air market where locals sell wooden carved trinkets and wool-knit goodies. Also on Thursday, before school I met a fellow American. The mother of one of the students is a New Yorker who married a Chilean, and eventually settled down here in Chiloe. She was super nice and gave me her number in case I ever want to vent about life abroad or simply speak English to a native speaker. Additionally, there was a meeting for the English Opens Doors program on Tuesday at which I met Tyler, another volunteer who came here in the summer, did 6 months and returned home for a bit. Now he's back working until July. The fact that this is the third American who has either stayed in, or returned to, this rainy region of Chile is a bit comforting to me.
I'm finally finishing up the online course I should have done a month ago to be TEFL certified (qualified to Teach English as a Foreign Language), but since its not a requirement for the program my delayed response means nothing more than a slight inconvenience while living abroad. But of course now that this is done, I just found out there is another online course, this one provided through the Minestry of Education and the EOD program) that will help me get an internationally recognized certificate declaring my level of proficiency (or there lack of) in Spanish. So hopefully that'll help with eventual grad school apps and real-world jobs. Today the family is taking me to another one of the local markets full of artisan goodies. That, and we'll be buying fish for lunch. Everything here is either home-made or locally grown. Jams, cheeses, meats, etc. Yesterday for example, the vice-principal of the school gave me a ride home. First we stopped by his house (more beautifully scenic views from the living room) and he offered me home-made jams and spicy spreads. I asked him how people can live in such terribly rainy weather (apparently there is a tourism office here that offeres full refunds if it doesn't rain during your stay here), and he responded, ''by eating a lot.'' To drive home that point, we ate several sandwiches and crackers with cheese, at which point I was finally ready to come home for lunch. Ha, I can get used to this kind of living.
-Pablo
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