Sunday August 31, 2008

So this weekend was rather fun, pretty event filled. Friday night we went over to Paulina’s house for dinner and a little get together with some of the other professors. It was nice to get to know the other teachers in a non-school sense. The language was a bit of a barrier but all around it was fun. I learned how to salsa a bit, the teachers have told us that they will teach us how to dance a little bit. It was fun to see everyone dancing the Quaka sp? Which is the typical dance here is Chile involving both of the dancers using handkerchiefs. Brian actually knows how to dance the Quaka so it was fun seeing him dancing this typical Chilean dance with some of the professors.
Saturday was pretty low key and we just laid low and did some laundry and what not, then after mass on Saturday night we went to Bingo night at school. One of the kids that I teach was in charge of the events so he elected me to participate in a round of musical chairs. Being the typical competitive person that I am I brought my A game and brought home the gold (the prize was a set of 6 glasses). Then after Michelle and Leah came over and we went out dancing with some of the ChACErs. The ChACErs are also Americans that teach at the St. George’s which is our sister school. Or the richer school that funds a lot of what we do at Andacollo. So, that was fun blowing off the steam a little bit and going out. I did have a pretty profound little moment waiting for the girl to come. I was outside checking to make sure that they knew which house it was when one of the neighbor kids ran up to me crying. His name is Fabien and is 3 years old. I crouched down to be at his eye level. (I habit I have noticed that I do a lot in school.) He immediately sat down in my lap and started to account for all the reasons why he had ever been sad. It was weird to experience absolute faith and trust, the trust of a child. The kids just run around the street playing soccer or some make believe game using hunks of abandoned cars as weapons or whatever. Here is Chile they call everyone Tio or Tia, which means Uncle or Aunt, and at the same time it seems that everyone does have that type of relationship with the kids, even if you have just met them for the first time. It has taken some getting used to, being called Uncle by over a thousand kids at school. Even by kids that are only three years my junior.
Then on Sunday we slept in and had lunch and watched a movie and just relaxed. There were also some purchases made for the house, which was pretty exciting. For example we just got an iron, which is nice.