In Spanish class, we are starting to learn a new tense, the subjunctive. I have never learned it before, so I’m struggling with it a bit. The part that is hard about it is that we don’t really have this tense in English, so it doesn’t exactly translate. Learning Spanish is a lot harder for me when there isn’t a clear translation, but I’m slowly getting the hang of it. Class has just been hard on my brain, but it’s good! So we’ll see how that goes.
I learned a new phrase this week: Estar en las nubes. It means to be daydreaming, but the direct translation is: To be in the clouds. I think that that is pretty cute.
One of my roommates, Isabelle, moved out this week. So sad to see her leave, but I’ll still see her a lot since we work together and take classes together. Our new roommate, Bri, is one of the old volunteers and she lived in this apartment right before we all moved in. We actually made an Atlanta connection. She’s from Boston and she has met a family that went to Marist, the Long family. Claire Long was in the grade above me. Any who…just thought that was interesting. She’ll be living here for two months. I’m excited that she’s living here now because she knows the area really well and will be able to give us good information about the area, like where good restaurants are and what not. Hopefully that goes well!
Tuesday night we went to go move Isabelle in to her new apartment and we had dinner with her new roommate and some of his friends. That was so much fun! All the guys are from Chile, so it was a great night of practicing Spanish. I had been a little stressed out about my Spanish after class that day (because I was struggling with the subjunctive), but it was really easy to carry on a conversation with all of them during the night. I was so excited! We talked about a lot of random things, so it was just nice to be able to see that I can actually be conversational with people around my age. For me, talking in class and at work are very different than when you’re conversing with people your on age. So to say the least, it was a very exciting night for me! Ha oh man I’m such a nerd sometimes, oh well ☺
On our way out of the building, I found this lovely surprise in the hallway:
I got really excited! I love their pizza and the garlic sauce…mmm mmm mmm! It’s just nice to know that there is a piece of home here. I’m going to try not to order from Papa John’s while I’m down here, but maybe I’ll just save it for when/if I have a really hard/bad day.
Algarrobo:
Wednesday morning, Isabelle and I got on a bus and headed to Algarrobo. It’s a beach town that is about an hour and a half away. It had been really nice to have four days off from work, but I got kind of bored. When I saw the girls for the first time, I suddenly realized that I had really missed seeing them. The girls greeted us with hugs and excitement, which was just lovely. By the time we had gotten to the house, it was time to go to the beach. The first time the girls saw me in my bathing suit they kept touching my stomach and talking about my boobs. It was kind of funny, but a little weird. The next day, one of the girls who is around 10 years old started talking about my boobs while we were laying on the beach and she was like, “I’m starting to get boobs just like you.” It was funny. It’s about a 30-minute walk to the beach, but took us a little bit longer because we were with young girls. The beach was beautiful!
The water was absolutely freezing (obviously not important to the girls), and the weather was perfect. The girls were pretty self-occupied, so we didn’t really have to do much while at the beach. Every now and then I would help a girl with digging a hole, which is always fun to do. I tried showing one of the younger girls how to make a drizzle castle (because they are so awesome!), but she was not impressed ha. Some of the girls who I taught the Hannah Montana dance to wanted to go over it on the beach, so I did that with some of them. We stayed at the beach till about 8:00 and then headed back to the house. The sunset was pretty:
Once we got back to the house, we ate dinner, the girls all showered, some colored before bed, and Isabelle, Allison, and I read bedtime stories with some of the girls. There was some more Hannah Montana dancing going on that night as well. We slept in one big room that had a ton of bunk beds in it. I was a little worried about how well I would sleep, but that night I slept like a rock.
The next day we woke up around 10, ate breakfast, colored, made bracelets, read some books, had lunch, and then went to the beach. Before the beach, we did a little more dancing too. I’m so happy that I knew about that dance, the girls love to dance and they are all really good at it. One girl in particular is amazing at dancing. She doesn’t just copy me, she makes the moves her own. She could really go far with her dancing, I hope she’ll be able to take classes or become part of a dance team while she’s in school (unfortunately, this could just be wishful thinking on my part though). She’s so good at it, and it would be really great for her to be able to do something positive with it. That day during the beach, one of the older girls, who is 13, asked me to help her look for shells and cool rocks. That was a fun way to spend the day. Later on she hooked arms with me while we were walking. It’s so great when the older girls do this to you. I know it’s something really small, but to me it’s special. It shows me that the girl feels comfortable around me, that she has some kind of trust in me. The girl sees you like a friend, someone she can count on. Whenever small gesture like that happen, it makes me happy. It probably doesn’t mean all those things to her and might not be that special to her, but I think it’s a great step forward in the relationships we are trying to building with these girls. On the way back from the beach, one of the girls who is 10 years old, but very mature for her age, told me, in English, that she loved me with her whole heart and that she would never forget me. My heart sank after she said that. She’s one of the girls I taught the dance to, so I’ve spent a little more time with her. It was just so cute to hear her say that, plus it was in English, which was so precious to hear her speak. I had a pretty great day at the beach that day.
Isabelle and I left late Friday afternoon to head back to Santiago. There were some struggles through out our time there. A few times some of the girls wouldn’t listen to me, I struggled getting some of the girls to do whatever I needed them to do, and of course there were a few tantrums. Something that I find super frustrating is that I have the skills to talk to children when they are acting out to figure out what is really going on behind the tantrum, but with me the problem is that I can’t express myself like I can in English with Spanish. There’s only so much that I know how to say, and what I know is not helpful at all. If I do get a girl to respond to me to tell me what’s really going on, most of the time I don’t understand what she is saying so I can’t take the conversation further. It’s really frustrating because I really want to help these girls and use the skills I have, but my Spanish ability limits me greatly. During these situations I have to really dig deep to use every ounce of patience I have within me. However, it is really great to see the social workers talk to the girls and calm them down. They never need to raise their voices and the problem almost always gets resolved (unlike when the Tias try and handle a situation, there is almost always a lot of yelling involved). Hopefully, while I’m down here my Spanish will improve enough for me to put my skills to practice.
Before Isabelle and I left, the same girl I looked for shells with on the beach, had given us signs with our names on it that said she loves us a lot.
We were sooo happy! We rarely hear the words please and thank you from the girls (we do hear them, just not in every situation), so when one of the girls tells you they love you, tells you something really sweet, or gives you something that shows you they appreciate you, it’s really special.
These past few days were a really great experience. A lot of frustrating things happened, but again, there were a lot of good things that happened as well. We were able to get closer to the girls and I thought that it was really great that we were able to read them bedtime stories. Something almost every kid gets while growing up is having their parents read them bedtime stories. However, these girls don’t get that opportunity, so Isabelle and I really enjoyed the fact that we could give that to them, even if it was only for two nights. Every child deserves to be read to at night, to know that they have someone in their life that cares enough to read a few books to them before they go to bed. I think that was one of the really special things that Isabelle and I were able to offer the girls while we were there.
On a completely different note…the weather is starting to change here. Instead of the high being in the mid 90s, it’s now in the low-mid 80s. I am a big fan of this change. Fall is just around the corner :)
The other night, when we were taking a bus to a friend’s house, at one of the bus stops a dog got on the bus, stayed on for a few stops, and then got off. It was hilarious. I really wish I had had my camera with me. The dog just plopped down in the aisle, and laid there for a bit. Some of the Chileans were taking pictures and laughing at the dog as well, so I was glad to see that that isn’t a common thing to happen. Only in Chile…
Until Next Time,
Liz
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