Temuco and the first week of work!

    Well, my first week here in Temuco has come to an end. I really need to write in this more, so hopefully now that I'm a bit settled and things are starting to develop routines, etc with the family and school, I'll be better. 

    Meeting/getting to know my family here in Padre de Las Casas (the town I'm in-which is essentially a neighborhood of Temuco here in the region of La Araucania)  has been great. My dad-Jorge is really a bit of an enigma to me still, but I'm slowly figuring him out. He is such a cute, sweet man. Also taking the time to explain things to me, and he's the one who wants to take me to all these places and show me Chile. It seems as those he has had many different jobs, the main one being the Chilean Air Force, which he retired from. I'm not sure what he was doing, but I think he was an officer? A year or two ago, he went to Haiti for six months to help with rebuilding. Now, he has a negocio-business- near the supermarket selling ice creams, churros, etc. It seems like he likes to keep busy and is opening a small restaurant or catering business or something as well? He seems to be very enterprising and just happy. My madre, Eva, is a stay at home mom. She is very caring, and is really working to make me feel comfortable. She is originally from Santiago and speaks with a different lilt than the people here, with slightly different slang words that sometimes make it difficult to understand. She seems the bit of confusion on my face and she adjusts for me. Haha. 

   Now Eva and Jorge have four kids, all girls. Two of them live in Santiago, and I have only met them through pictures. The other two, Damaris is 15. She has dyed purple red hair, and a bit of a punk side to her. She is kind of awesome. A bit different according to Chilean standards, but I think she'd do really well in the US. And Francisca, who is 12. She's a bit of a guagua (baby), at times. As said by all members of the family, though she is the baby of the family in reality. She likes her sugar and her chocolate cereal. She's cute, but speaks so fast. Even her parents don't understand her sometimes. Sounds a bit familiar, eh Pa? Hahaha. 

  Family time has been really good. Definitely the best host family I've had, as I can tell so far. All my host families I've had in the past have been really great, and interested in me, but with my other families, I was there you know, 13th or 14th host kid, whereas for this family, I'm their first. There is definitely a noticeable difference in the interactions. They're interested in speaking spanish with me, they're interested in taking me places and showing me new foods and new places and sharing their culture. It's really quite nice, I'm normally a bit hesitant to do host families, because you do lose a bit of freedom and sometimes feel a bit isolated with a family who isn't your family, but so far, I'm really glad to have a host family. I do lose a bit of freedom, especially with being their first host kid, they aren't used to some of American's nasty habits like my other families were. hahaha. Overall, we're getting along really well and I think the host family is adding so much to my experience, particularly just my knowledge of the real Chile, and it's definitely helping my Spanish. 

            I’ve also started my first week of work. This first week was more or less simply observing and getting the feel for the classes and the Chilean education system. I met my head teacher, Pamela, she speaks English really well, is fairly young (has two girls, 6 and 3), and is really fun and energetic. I also met my other head teacher (I am going to be working at two schools, Dariolasalas and Liceo Forestal (a school in the countryside)). Cesar, the other head teacher, is a nice young man, whose English isn’t quite as good, but what he lacks in English, he seems to have a bit better control of his students and teaching English. He teaches here at the school in Padre de Las Casas, Dariolasalas, an escuela basica, or elementary/middle school. At Darriolasalas, I’ll be teaching on Monday and Tuesdays in the morning to 5^th through 8^th grade.

            At Liceo Forestal, I’ll be teaching 9^th through 12^th grade. This is where I’ll be spending most of my time, out in the countryside. Many of the high schools here have specialties, to train people for work instead of college, and this school’s focus is in forestry/agriculture. They have a greenhouse and trees all around the school, it’s rather pretty. I haven’t sat in at Dariolasalas, yet, but man, I do have my work cut out for me at the Liceo. The students are full of energy, and that’s the nice thing to say. From my understanding, the classroom culture here is very different from the classroom culture in the US. First, like we have public and private schools in the US, they do too, but to a further extreme, to the point that the public schools are really not good at all, and if you can afford it, you send your kid to either a private or semiprivate school. This is part of the reason that the government has started this program in their public schools, to really help get those extra resources in these schools that just don’t have as much access to great resources for the students.

            My first day working there was an interesting sight to beheld. After beso-ing every teacher and the principal, (kissing on the cheek in greeting and departure, as per custom here in Chile), I sat in on my first class. They had just gotten back from a two week break and have calmed down a bit since then, but my god. Picking up their desks, moving around, chatting, listening to music all the time. Overall, all the students are really great, their English sucks, but they are nice and just kids who have a bit tougher life thrown at them. They all have so many questions for me, it’s cute. I walk down the halls to go anywhere really, and the second glances and shy curiosity is great. Of course there are those who aren’t quite so shy, yelling out “Hello!” or “Hola!” or asking me if I have a boyfriend. Hahaha. Little 16 year old boys thinking they have a chance with me. It’s great, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked that by the boys. Promptly followed by, “How old are you?” Somehow in their brains, 22 and 15/16 is close enough. I know this because of the big smile and them chatting with their friends that follows this exchange. Pretty funny. I’ve gotten one “I love you!” (who had to write it on a note to remember and read from it), and a few tell me how beautiful my eyes are. Not very many blue eyed, blonde foreigners here in Chile, especially not here in Temuco or out in the countryside.

            As the week has passed, things are really getting into the swing of it. I taught my first mini-lesson on Friday. So the program is set up as 45 minutes in the class teaching with the teacher, and the following 45 minutes we split the class and I take half of them and work on their speaking and listening skills, while s/he teaches them grammar or writing, etc. At Dariolasalas, it sounds like I’ll be taking around 13 or so of the best students, and at the Liceo, we’ll be switching the groups and on some days, we’ll just switch right away and not spend the first 45 together.

   Anyways, on Friday, we split one of the classes up and did about 20 minutes with each group. Their speaking English there is really poor, so with each group, I spent 20 minutes teaching them a casual meeting conversation between friends, so hello, how are you doing? Good, and you? Type of thing. In the end, they got it, but we had to go over pronunciation,  and the actual exchange multiple times. Overall, I was really pleased. I was nervous about discipline, and it was something they really stressed at our orientations because we are working at the tougher schools, but it went really well. I kept their interest, and we had fun. If they were misbehaving, I did it in a good joking way, which I hope gained me some points. I really think the English program here can really benefit from me being here. Pam’s really great, but I can tell she gets kind of overwhelmed by the students sometimes. I heard this from Cesar too, but the students here play down their abilities, so now she doesn’t push them as hard. Moreover, apparently the students will laugh at other students who are trying to speak English, and not only that, but they’ll laugh at the teachers too. She spends a lot of time explaining in Spanish, and they don’t get very far because she speaks in Spanish, but gives them activities like big open-ended questions that are too hard for them to answer, especially if she can’t even talk to them in simple sentences in English. 

I know it’s going to be really hard to get these kids to understand or get a bit excited about English, but I’m still optimistic and excited. More than that, I’m really hopeful about my interactions with the teachers in that I know there, they are going to be teaching English for a long time after this and hopefully their interactions with me and practice of speaking with me will really benefit them, and in turn, benefit students for years to come.

This morning, mi padre and I went to the Feria, the big market with all kinds of fruits and veggies and grains, etc. It was awesome, all kinds of food and people out! Just finished helping cook some lunch, and this afternoon/evening, we’re off to visit a lake, so more to update later! Hope everyone is well!!