Sunday, February 14, 2010
Santiago
Most of you guys already know, but for those that I didn’t get a change to tell before I left, I have moved to Chile to teach English. I will be living in Chile for ten months and teaching for eight months of those months in Patagonia with a program called English Opens Doors. This volunteer teaching position is part of an initiative by the Chilean Department of Education to have fluent English speakers teaching in their public schools. For the first month of my stay I am taking a Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) course in the capital Santiago. In the time between my TEFL course and when I start teaching I hope to do some traveling.
When you tell people you are going to live in a different country they have all different kinds of reactions. I went to my bank to let them know I was leaving the U.S. and a nice old lady told me that if I found a Chile girl to not bring her back. She had such a warm smile that I didn’t know how to respond. I simply smiled at her, nodded and walked to my car. I made the twenty minute drive back to my sister’s house with the windows down savoring my last few days of winter before the summer of South America and pondered what places and people I will meet on this adventure. I can see mental pictures of myself on the peak of a volcano, trekking in the Andes, and gazing upon the granite spires of Torre Del Paine. These; however, are only possible highlights, mere snapshots of what will most definitely be a much broader journey. I can study tourist destinations but when I am there they will look like their photographs. The mountains and glaciers and fjords of Patagonia are not going to change. I will change, and this change that will happen is why most people’s reactions to my move to Chile is that it will be a great experience.
I wasn’t thinking of what a great experience I would have when I embarked on my journey. True to my procrastinating nature I had waited until the last minute to buy my plane ticket and in order to save some money I would fly all night and arrive in Santiago at 6:45am, only 2 ¼ hours before my first class. Three days before my flight I got an email that there was a high likelihood I wouldn’t be able to board the plane because I didn’t have a visa. Chile doesn’t require a visa unless you are staying for more than 90 days. I would be staying for over 300 days. I couldn’t get a visa in such short notice so all I had was a letter from the Chilean Department of Education stating my purpose in the country. Luckily, I never even had to pull that letter out of my bag. Due to the prayers of friends and family the airline never asked for a visa and I actually made into Chile 45 minutes earlier than planned.
Even though I had slept under eight hours in the past two days I felt energized by being in a new country and looked forward to arriving early for my first TEFL class. I was supposed to be one of those fortunate travelers with an airport pick-up. It turned out I was not that fortunate. It soon became apparent that my airport pick-up wasn’t there and calls to the school went unanswered. Finally, I connected with the school at eight and was told that yes my pick-up wasn’t there and given a list of instructions on how to take a shuttle bus to the school. I wasn’t very happy so I ended up taking a taxi and told the driver to walk inside and have the school pay him. Instead of being early I got to the school less than ten minutes before class started.
The TEFL course has the intensity of a full semester class compressed into four short weeks. One advantage of this TEFL course is that they require four 45 minute and three one hour student teaching lessons. The downside is that on top of having lecture time many hours are spent preparing lesson plans. Classes are from 9am till 5:30pm and then most “free time” is spent preparing teaching lessons and doing the reading assignments and papers. My personal method for staying sane is convincing myself that the weekend is not far away and remembering that the course is for only four weeks. One of the students from Australia found the course to be too consuming and decided to drop out after the fourth day. Not even the $1,995 he spent for the course was enough motivation to finish. Now there are a total of five people left in the class, a dating couple from Portland, Oregon, a college graduate from Wisconsin, and a woman from Calgary, Alberta.
I live about a 20 minute walk from the school on the fourth floor of a ten story condo building. The place has the feel of North American suburbs with only a more urban setting. The whole area is high rise apartment or condo buildings with mostly families and older people. The host family I am staying with is a widow so it is pretty low key whenever I’m at home. She is nice and always gives me a ton of bread with every meal so I’m rarely able to finish all the food. One disadvantage to coming to Chile is that the food is pretty bland. It is no surprise to me that you don’t see many Chilean restaurants in the States. Most salads are only lettuce with tomatoes and for salad dressing they use olive oil and vinegar. A couple of cultural differences I have already experienced are that putting your left hand in your lap when eating is rude and not wearing shoes in the house is frowned upon.
Last Saturday I took the metro to the downtown area and did a tourist walk outlined in my lonely planet book. I was surprised that there were only a few gringos in the downtown area. I’m about six inches taller than the average person and with my blond hair and blue eyes I really stand out. I visited a lot of the main tourist attractions and chatted with a juggling street performer for a while. Last Sunday I stayed at the house and worked on the first lesson I had to teach. It was a grammar lesson on when to use don't and doesn't in the present tense. There is a lot more to teaching then I would have ever thought! My first lesson when alright and my lessons on Wednesday and Friday were much better. Just practicing being in front of students and learning your teaching style seems to be a huge part of the class. I have one more 45min teaching lesson and then the three one hour lessons.
On Friday I went out with some of the people from my class. We started off the night hanging out at an apartment downtown with a rooftop terrace and then at 1:30am we went out. Like in most Latin American countries people stay out later than in the U.S. We went to barrio bellavista which is a part of town with a ton of little bars and clubs. We just went to a restaurant and hung out having a few beers. I had to wait at a classmate’s apartment until the metro opened to go back to my house and then I crashed till 2:30 in the afternoon. That afternoon I took the metro to an electronics store and finally bought myself a cell phone. It cost 18 bucks for the phone and 45 minutes. Then you buy pre-paid minute cards that you put in the back of the phone like a sim card.
This morning I went to church for the first time since I’ve been here. Fortunately it is an English speaking church and has a more non-denominational feel because of the variety of people that go there. They were really welcoming and it was nice to find other English speakers in Santiago. It is only three blocks from my school and only a 25 minute walk from my house. They are going to have a pancake dinner Tuesday night that I’ll probably go to. After church I was going to go up to the top of San Cristobal hill which is the highest point in the city and has great views of the Andes but the weather is pretty cloudy so I decided to do that another day.
I plan on posting new note every few days so the next time there shouldn’t be so much to read. Plus I’ll try to post more pictures of Santiago when I get a chance.
Hasta Luego
When you tell people you are going to live in a different country they have all different kinds of reactions. I went to my bank to let them know I was leaving the U.S. and a nice old lady told me that if I found a Chile girl to not bring her back. She had such a warm smile that I didn’t know how to respond. I simply smiled at her, nodded and walked to my car. I made the twenty minute drive back to my sister’s house with the windows down savoring my last few days of winter before the summer of South America and pondered what places and people I will meet on this adventure. I can see mental pictures of myself on the peak of a volcano, trekking in the Andes, and gazing upon the granite spires of Torre Del Paine. These; however, are only possible highlights, mere snapshots of what will most definitely be a much broader journey. I can study tourist destinations but when I am there they will look like their photographs. The mountains and glaciers and fjords of Patagonia are not going to change. I will change, and this change that will happen is why most people’s reactions to my move to Chile is that it will be a great experience.
I wasn’t thinking of what a great experience I would have when I embarked on my journey. True to my procrastinating nature I had waited until the last minute to buy my plane ticket and in order to save some money I would fly all night and arrive in Santiago at 6:45am, only 2 ¼ hours before my first class. Three days before my flight I got an email that there was a high likelihood I wouldn’t be able to board the plane because I didn’t have a visa. Chile doesn’t require a visa unless you are staying for more than 90 days. I would be staying for over 300 days. I couldn’t get a visa in such short notice so all I had was a letter from the Chilean Department of Education stating my purpose in the country. Luckily, I never even had to pull that letter out of my bag. Due to the prayers of friends and family the airline never asked for a visa and I actually made into Chile 45 minutes earlier than planned.
Even though I had slept under eight hours in the past two days I felt energized by being in a new country and looked forward to arriving early for my first TEFL class. I was supposed to be one of those fortunate travelers with an airport pick-up. It turned out I was not that fortunate. It soon became apparent that my airport pick-up wasn’t there and calls to the school went unanswered. Finally, I connected with the school at eight and was told that yes my pick-up wasn’t there and given a list of instructions on how to take a shuttle bus to the school. I wasn’t very happy so I ended up taking a taxi and told the driver to walk inside and have the school pay him. Instead of being early I got to the school less than ten minutes before class started.
The TEFL course has the intensity of a full semester class compressed into four short weeks. One advantage of this TEFL course is that they require four 45 minute and three one hour student teaching lessons. The downside is that on top of having lecture time many hours are spent preparing lesson plans. Classes are from 9am till 5:30pm and then most “free time” is spent preparing teaching lessons and doing the reading assignments and papers. My personal method for staying sane is convincing myself that the weekend is not far away and remembering that the course is for only four weeks. One of the students from Australia found the course to be too consuming and decided to drop out after the fourth day. Not even the $1,995 he spent for the course was enough motivation to finish. Now there are a total of five people left in the class, a dating couple from Portland, Oregon, a college graduate from Wisconsin, and a woman from Calgary, Alberta.
I live about a 20 minute walk from the school on the fourth floor of a ten story condo building. The place has the feel of North American suburbs with only a more urban setting. The whole area is high rise apartment or condo buildings with mostly families and older people. The host family I am staying with is a widow so it is pretty low key whenever I’m at home. She is nice and always gives me a ton of bread with every meal so I’m rarely able to finish all the food. One disadvantage to coming to Chile is that the food is pretty bland. It is no surprise to me that you don’t see many Chilean restaurants in the States. Most salads are only lettuce with tomatoes and for salad dressing they use olive oil and vinegar. A couple of cultural differences I have already experienced are that putting your left hand in your lap when eating is rude and not wearing shoes in the house is frowned upon.
Last Saturday I took the metro to the downtown area and did a tourist walk outlined in my lonely planet book. I was surprised that there were only a few gringos in the downtown area. I’m about six inches taller than the average person and with my blond hair and blue eyes I really stand out. I visited a lot of the main tourist attractions and chatted with a juggling street performer for a while. Last Sunday I stayed at the house and worked on the first lesson I had to teach. It was a grammar lesson on when to use don't and doesn't in the present tense. There is a lot more to teaching then I would have ever thought! My first lesson when alright and my lessons on Wednesday and Friday were much better. Just practicing being in front of students and learning your teaching style seems to be a huge part of the class. I have one more 45min teaching lesson and then the three one hour lessons.
On Friday I went out with some of the people from my class. We started off the night hanging out at an apartment downtown with a rooftop terrace and then at 1:30am we went out. Like in most Latin American countries people stay out later than in the U.S. We went to barrio bellavista which is a part of town with a ton of little bars and clubs. We just went to a restaurant and hung out having a few beers. I had to wait at a classmate’s apartment until the metro opened to go back to my house and then I crashed till 2:30 in the afternoon. That afternoon I took the metro to an electronics store and finally bought myself a cell phone. It cost 18 bucks for the phone and 45 minutes. Then you buy pre-paid minute cards that you put in the back of the phone like a sim card.
This morning I went to church for the first time since I’ve been here. Fortunately it is an English speaking church and has a more non-denominational feel because of the variety of people that go there. They were really welcoming and it was nice to find other English speakers in Santiago. It is only three blocks from my school and only a 25 minute walk from my house. They are going to have a pancake dinner Tuesday night that I’ll probably go to. After church I was going to go up to the top of San Cristobal hill which is the highest point in the city and has great views of the Andes but the weather is pretty cloudy so I decided to do that another day.
I plan on posting new note every few days so the next time there shouldn’t be so much to read. Plus I’ll try to post more pictures of Santiago when I get a chance.
Hasta Luego
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