oh. my. goodness.

since my last post, everything has been a whirlwind. i have a hard time remembering what i did last. on thurs many of us were able to buy tickets for the futbol (soccer) game between the university of chile and argentina. it was pretty fun to go, but definitely crazy. we took the metro to the farther parts outside of chile, then had to walk 20 min and finally found the stadium. the game was fun to watch but i got kinda bored and very tired so some of us left early. friday went as normal, well for most of the day. classes in the morning, and then we were to have our final dinner banquet at the hostel. unfortunately i found out the night before one of my friends i had gotten close to had been robbed and mugged the night before. he was sleeping at the hostel on friday but i was really worried in my classes. i wont go into more details of what happened because i dont need to worry anyone. i am perfectly safe, i just need to be smart. unfortunately he got into a bad situation. he came to the banquet with all of us but he was just semi aware of what was going on. whatever drugs he was given did not wear off for days. i spent all day saturday and the hostel trying to help him get things taken care of such as seeing a doctor and filing a police report. he met a wonderful chilean man named gino who was such a help in all this mess. from all the stress and events of the week i was exhausted. sunday was my last day in santiago, and i spent it looking around town at the sites i had not been able to see.
sunday night, my group, all of those who were going to the atacama region north of santiago loaded on a bus to take us to the bus station. when we got there we were the last to load the bus and 4 people from our group could not get their luggage on. they had to return to the hostel while the other 5 of us loaded the bus. if you can picture this, because i was too overwhelmed to get a picture, its a large double decker bus. the top has semi-camas, which are seats that partially lean back. that is where all the chileans sat. on the bottom were the camas, which was very spacious and had nice seat that fully reclined so we could sleep overnight. it was like first class on a bus. we left santiago at 1030 pm on sunday and on monday we arrived in copiapo at about 8 in the morning. other volunteers in the region and 2 coordinators met us at the station. we then headed to the ministerio de educacion in copiapo. there we had a wonderful welcoming and found out our host families were there to meet us. unfortunately since some of us were left in santiago, a few families were dissapointed. the teacher that i am working with at my school was there, along with the principal and another administrator i believe. my teacher speaks pretty good english, thank goodness, so it eased my mind. at this point i got another surprise. i truly was the only volunteer in my town, Vallenar. i had heard that on thursday but i was not certain. others had said i would have another volunteer with me. the second surprise- instead of teaching basico, or elementary, i was told i would be teaching high school! first thought-holy crap!
i must say i really cannot explain all the emotions running through my mind during this past week and most recently. its a mix of excitement, nervousness, frustration, and despair. lonliness also comes into play.
when i arrived in vallenar, 2 hours south of copiapo, i met my teacher´s mother, whom i am going to be living with, as well as her grandmother and cousin. the grandmother is a little scary since she only has one eye and is very fragile. haha. that sounds horrible doesnt it?
i had lunch and a meeting at the school shortly after i arrived. i met all the teachers and had to give a quick introduction of myself in spanish. i know it was horrible but at least i am partially nieve to how bad i am saying the phrases.
last night was very hard when i could not get skype to work at the internet cafe. i started crying there. i was just so overwhelmed and exhausted i broke down. my teacher took me to her sisters house to use the computer. it took awhile but i finally was able to talk to my mom! i have not been so happy to hear her voice in quite a while!
i got rest last night. today has been much better. i observed my first 3 english classes. that is another story all by itself which i will explain later. lets just say education here is comparable to inner city schools where no one is learning anything. i am going now to have tea with the other english teachers. i will try and post pictures on a blog soon. pics can explain more than i can! chao!