For the 4th this year I will be most likely be watching Chile play Mexico in the Copa America tournament rather than pulling several all-nighters to set up a massive fireworks show. Curiously enough, I think that actually bums be out. Our semester here is pretty much over. The students will be presenting their PowerPoints on various English-speaking cities or countries as a final assignment I came up with and we're doing our English Show this Thursday, or at least half of it. Though we first mentioned the English Show at the beginning of April, and we've been more or less trying to get the kids to rehearse for the last two months, the English teacher of the younger grades randomly decided last week that the kids weren't going to be ready in time for Thursday. Without consulting anyone, including the other English professor --who is in charge of the show alongside her and also her freaking roommate she sees daily--she decided to simply tell the principal the entire show would be delayed. If I hadn't gone to get Mauro (the other English teach) then I think the show would have been postponed, but only one of two teachers would have realized it. In a nutshell, that's how life works in Chile. Basically, this chick had over 2 months to get the little kids to memorize a 3 minute song and literally the week before decided to bring up her very first complaints/doubts, saying she couldn't do her job because the kids are sick too often and don't come to school.
Another example of how smoothly things here work: I went to the bank a few weeks ago to open up an account (for direct deposit purposes) and was told that I couldn't...because the bank ran out of the form I'd need to fill out. They simply didn't have physical copies of the form needed for anybody to open up a new basic account. So this past Friday I went to the bigger location and waited 30 minutes in line, only to find out I was in the wrong line. Honestly, I wasn't even upset because for the last half hour I was anticipating just that scenario. Of course, in order to ask anyone if I was in the right line I would have had to wait in that line anyway, so I just sat there thinking "I'm probably in the wrong spot." I walked over to the correct desk and was told that opening up a basic account takes about a month. The paperwork (which this location did have) has to be sent to Santiago and probably transcribed into Latin by a monk or something before the account can be opened. Of course, when I asked my host family about this, they explained that they have never had to wait that long for a bank account to open so....I guess we'll see what happens.
After this week is done I'm catching a 15 hour bus up north to Santiago to work at a winter camp for the EOD program, which is basically a day camp where students can practice their English and participate in run of the mill camp activities. Then I'll have a few days to myself to travel or whatever before my mom flies in. My mom will be here for about 10 days, giving me a great opportunity to re-up on some much-needed things from the States, drop off with her random souvenirs I've bought, and get over any homesickness by simply chilllin with my mommy. Before you know it, it'll be August and I'll be back on the island.
Last weekend two friends came down from La Serena (24 hour bus ride away!) and stayed with me at the house. My host family was super nice, as usual, and took us all over the island to see places I hadn't even been to yet. Check out the photos here.
-Paul
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