Vamos a la playa! (Lets go to the beach!)

Due to popular demand, it looks like i will be writing in English some again. Yall better appreciate this! Its only because i love you guys!

El presentación logrado

Ayer, tuve un presentación con mi jefa para un grupo de profesores de íngles en Chile que van a vivir en londres por 1 mes. Muchas de los profesores nunca han viajado a un otro país antes y algunas, nunca han viajado a santiago, la capital de chile. Todo salió muy exitosa....

Mi presentación tenía un juego ("All My Friends") donde los profesores tenian que correr a diferente sillas despues un persona dijó "All My Friends...that like soccer", por ejemplo. Ellos eran muy emociandos a jugar este juego y estaban reíendo mucho.

Después, mi jefa y yo teníamos un "skit" donde presentamos un cuento de este mes cuando estaba caminando con dos maletas grandes y buscando para mi dirreción de departamento en Huérfanos. No sabía donde esta y tenía que preguntar algunas personas. Pero, dijé el nombre de el calle como "Hur-af-anos" y no me entiendaron. Explique que es importante a tener errores cuando aprendiendo una idioma. (Porque ahora, no voy a olvidar como a pronunciar "Huérfanos" ni el significado...siempre jamás!!!)

También hicimos un actividad donde los profesoras pudieron descubrir su cultura y comparar la cultura Chileana con la cultura británico. Fue muy intersante y cómico a escuchar a los discusiónes. Paréce que esos profesores nunca han hablado sobre su cultura!

Y en el fin, escuchamos a un canción por la grupo "B-52s" se llama "Roam".
Roam where you want to
Roam around the world....
Todos estaban cantando y dando palmadas...y tomando fotos de mi jefa y yo. Sentí como un professora celebridad!

Estoy muy acaballo con mi trabajo ahora. Y estoy muy orgullosa a trabajar con la programa "íngles abre puertas".

El Roto Chileno

Este fin de semana, fuimos (con mi amiga de departamento y sus amigos) a una concierto y fiesta del baile La Cueca. Fue muy lindo y todos estaban muy barachos por los terremotos. (que fuerte los terremotos!) No sé como a bailar la cueca todavia pero me gustaría a aprender mas el tango.

Tengo suerte a tener algunos amigos durante mis primeros dias.

Primer semana en Santiago

En Santiago, otra vez

Hola todos.

Ahora estoy trabajando con el minesterio con la misma programa Ingles Abre Puertas. Estoy escribiendo un guìa pedologìa para el proximo voluntarios. Me encanta mi oficina...es super tranquila. Pero tengo que acustombrarme a 40 horas cada semana en la misma silla.

Tambien, estoy muy contenta con mi amiga de departamento y mi hogar nuevo. Estoy viviendo muy cerca al centro, muchas tiendas, supermercados, plazas, bars, restaurantes, etc. Puedo caminar a todos los partes intersantes tambien...a los museos, teatro y mas! Hay mucho posibilidades este verano! Por ejemplo:

La semana pasada, fui al centro a mirar un exposiciòn. Esperabamos por un hora sin idea que va a pasa...solamente sabiamos que vamos a ver algo spectacular...y era como asì.

Este demonstracion por un grupo internacional, tambien estuvo gratis. (bueno para mi) Moneda estuvo completamente lleno de personas y empezò con mucho ruido y fuego. Habian dos barcos, hacen de materiales metales.

El primer parte tuvo muchas actores bailando muy avante garde y soplando gasos..o algo, parece en una fiesta de un matrimonio. Despues, el otro barco, en lucio con fuego, cayó con este barco (como piratas) y tambien moviendo alrededor las personas. Todos estuvieron muy soprendidas por fuego arriba de las cabezas.

Entonces, todos estaban en el barco primero eran matados. Los fantasmas de las personas mostraron muy triste con banderas, velas, y con simbulo de algo creativo.

En el fin, las fantasmas andaron en su barco, circulando de nuevo....ganando contra la muerte.

The Volunteers Celebrate!

Cueca dancing...

food....

pisco sours....

coffee...and english learning buttons?...

smiles...

..and sharing stories. It was beautiful to see how our experiences together merged into a brilliant patchwork quilt: every person had such a distinct experience, but together we were able to cover chile with our love, passion and effort. and....We have all made some beautiful friendships along the way.

El Fin

The end is finally here.

I am writing from Santiago, where i started my Chilean adventure. It is nice to be with all the other volunteers again to share stories, reflect, and celebrate. We also have the opportunity to give feedback to the ministry to improve the program. Tomorrow we end with a bang!...a formal ceremony at the UN. Afterwards, I will return to Curico to have a goodbye bbq with the family and pack up my things. Nicole and I are then taking a week vacation to Buenos Aires to reward ourselves for an awesome school year. I will be home on December 17th...in time for Christmas and to be a bridesmaid in my best friends´ weddings. It will be good to be home.

I am going to miss many things about my chilean experience:
my adorable chilean family, my energetic students, the lively community of curico, but most of all, the peace i found here.

Sure, there were difficult times, but i knew that i would encounter challenges with this type of independent program, not knowing the langauge or culture and having to adapt to a whole new world. I am now a stronger person for sticking it out through the more difficult moments.

I learned so much about life and about myself. I came here to teach, but in reality, i think learned the most of all.




ps. and good news....i was asked by the English Open Doors program in chile to work with them to finish a 2 month project: the volunteers´teaching curriculum. I will be returning mid January. So my chilean experience is not quite over.....

Thank you all for your encouragement along my journey. Besitos.

Talent Show!

My coteacher and I planned a school activity for all of my students (grades 5-8) on my last day (yesterday) We had an English talent show that included singing and dancing acts and dialogue performances. It was a riot to see the kids practicing their dances all day, in all parts of the school. ( i have no idea how they escaped from their normal classes all day long)

The show was a complete success. And afterwards, we celebrated with free! icecream. It was a truely rewarding day.

before--->

after--->

los ultimos dias en mi escuela

My last two weeks at school were insanely fun. We played and played and played some more. We sang kareoke in english, threw the frisbee (for hours), danced, and exchanged plenty of love and laughter. I am going to miss these kids like crazy. Im amazed by their energy, how they have progressed with english, and how they have positively affected my life. They are all little treasures.

Maybe my students didnt learn a heckofalot of english, but i think that my presence in the school brought out many smiles. It's more important to me to know that i have made a difference in their lives. maybe some will speak english fluently in the future. but many wont.

I wanted them to walk away with knowing one thing: that miss corissa believed in me.

Many students asked me to write "recuerdos" or memory notes. Yes, i always preach "keep learning english" but also...

follow your dreams.

because i did, and it lead me here.

Llico (gee-ko), que rico!

'Volunteering' in Chile isnt exclusive in any means.....to giving my time to one area, but also, i am asked to spread my knowledge over and beyond the limits of my school walls...just ask Nicole!

But usually i am quite good at dodging those unwanted questions that make me shiver and hide behind the nearest object..such as when i am asked by random people on the street: "Could you tutor me in English for free?"

However, when Marcela, my newly adopted aunt, invited me to make a school visit to Llico (pronounced geeko), I signed right up.

A group of students from Llico had performed in the debate competitions last month in Curico. Petra, Nicole and I were the judges at the competition. We ALL remember the students from Llico, because their speeches were amazing........ly incomprehensible. Their English was gibberish. I felt terrible about my quiet giggles...i was judge after all! And I wonder how my spanish sounds to so many Chileans!

So I was gun-ho about making this road trip to allow these students the opportunity to hear real spoken English. It was not their fault that their pronunciation was lousy. In rural areas, it is almost impossible to find english speakers to interact with and thus, english teachers lose their english or make catastrophic errors when it comes to pronunciation.

Warren, Emma, Caitlin (all other volunteers from Curico)and I with Marcela drove 2 hrs to reach this bucolic, beach side town, where we were soon welcomed as the visiting english-celebrity-teachers.

We had a nice but awkward day traveling from room to room to share our voices with the students. We were greeted very warmly. The debate team took us on a tour of the town, which lasted about 5 minutes because it was only one street, which dead-ended into a tranquil beach.

And in the afternoon, the students took us to Lago Vichuquen (a lake) on the other side of town. We walked down a hill on someone's beautifully cut garden full of exotic birds to reach the lake water. When we reached the water's edge, i had realized that I had left my swimsuit in the car. Though, a swimsuit isnt necessary when your clothes are drenched...

MARCELA! used her kind words and cute smile to persuade me to walk ankle deep with her into the water. Who would have known? that was when she would make her surprise attack...and dunk me under with all my clothes on! But we had a hellish battle afterwards, with all the Llico students silently watching the two crazies splashing as if they have never played with water before. ...and I somehow tempted the other two girl volunteers to get in!

...You are now probably thinking * "What exactly ARE you teaching these Chilean students, Cori?"....I'm sure i was shrieking in English when I was play fighting with Marcela.

So even though we sometimes look exploited, it never really seems that way. haha. There have been wonderful perks for being an english volunteer.

Good til the last drop

I cant believe 6 months are almost over. Time is flying by even faster because I'm packing my last days with friend outings, weekend trips, family time, and end of the year school projects. I am trying to make the most of my last few weeks in Curico.

Last weekend update: (thanks to nicole's handydandy camera!)


Last weekend, I went with the girls (Nicole and Petra) on a getaway weekend to Santa Cruz and Pichilemu. We visited the Montes winery, which to our surprise, was quite breathtaking. The vineyards laid on rolling hills and the actual winery had an incredible modern design. We were very impressed when we heard soothing monk music in the barrel room. It reminded me of how pregnant mothers play classical music for their baby's intellectual growth..thus the music helps age the wine. plain brilliant.


We hit up Pichilemu for the night. This small beach town is known for its surfing waves, yet it was a quiet evening because of off season. We sat in our room, drank wine with cheese and crackers, and a much needed girl chat. I love my girls!

I will write more about my adventures in Llico and my school updates...for now, im exhausted! And its getting very difficult for me to think in English! besitos!

Putting a little more meat on my volunteer title

I was asked by the Ministry of Education of Chile, or more specifically by the English Open Doors Program to help write the curriculum for next year's English teaching volunteers. I was honored to be one of the three volunteers out of about 200 to help on this project. And I will be getting a little extra pocket change and padding for my resume as well!

I love the idea that I will be a small, but essencial ingredient to the development of this young program by helping to improve the quality of english language instruction... and by making a stronger impact overall.

If only this project could give me a good lead...I'm still in deep thought about what i will do when this program ends.

Numb to the bizzareness: nothing is shocking anymore

"And it was just another day in Chile....". Petra was eating a picnic lunch withanother Chilean family in a park near a dried-up lake, clearly deprived of its beauty and luster, but for some reason, a boat arrived to the scene. Her and the family watched 2 men take a small, inflatable boat into the middle of the mud-flat surrounded lake. It became known later that neither of these men knew how to swim nor were they properly prepared for what was to come: a puncture in the boat. The picnic-ers were all watching the two non-swimmers slap the water, the panicked mother cry, and the multitude of volunteer-rescuers that jumped into the dirty waters to save them. Petra noticed that no one was really very alarmed at the sight of 2 grown men nearly drowning in the lake. Petra wasn't alarmed either.

All of us North American volunteers have come to accept the unusual in Chile.

The other day, when I was walking home with Nicole at around midnight, I looked back and saw a car behind me. I thought, "oh, its just a car". But I was on the sidewalk. In the United States, i might have had a heart attack. Here, in Chile, coming across things like this is quite normal.
And the list goes on....

It was almost normal to see a woman dancing with a shish kabob meat stick the other day at the anniversary of Curico city fair. no wait, that was still pretty surprising. and funny.

mi vida personal (or not so personal)

My students like to ask me personal questions.

"Estas usando ropa interior?" (are you wearing underwear?)
"Miss, tienes un pololo?" (do you have a boyfriend?)
etc etc etc

Whatever i do outside of the school is noticed, passed ear to ear, and somehow gets back to me. For example, if i go out to the grocery store, i always run into a student. If i am walking on the street, the next day 5 students will tell me they saw me. I am constantly being watched. I am a gringa-celebrity-teacher.

I was asked an even more surprising question this past week during taller
(though not entirely alarming)
"Miss, estas embarazada?" (are you pregnant...not to be confused with are you embarrassed?)

I was standing with my stomach forward (my horrid posture) and looking at my tummy when my student asked me. I burst into laughter...thinking that i have put on some weight (damn chilean bread and yummy sweets!) and that i had missed 2 weeks of school.

1 hour later, I was walking back from buying a sackful of bread for the family to have once. A frazzled woman in her 40s asked me in passing: "Como esta su gua gua?" (How is your baby?)

"Que?! No tengo una gua gua!" (What! i dont have a baby!)
*some spanish sound like "hmp or ohh!" and then she continued on her way.

What an odd coincidence! My Chilean family tried to comfort me by explaining that she must have confused me with someone else....but what other gringa is in my neighborhood?

true or false. the stories of my life are not so personal anymore.

Have I enticed you to come yet?...

Mis padres en Chile.

My parents came to visit and it was fantastic. I was so thrilled to see them that i was actually running around the airport like a child, jumping to peek at them through the windows of the second floor airport landing. It was emotional for me to see them, especially when my parents greeted me in Spanish with "hola hija" (hello daughter). And my parents couldn't speak Spanish if their lives depended on it! haha

We had a special time together. It was short but sweet. We went to the beach, a winery, waterfalls, and the German town as planned. We also hung around Curico so that my parents could get to know my Chilean family, friends, and see my every-day life. The best part of their trip was to see the interaction between both sets of parents: permanent and temporary.

If i was in the other room, for example using the bathroom, both families would be calling for me to promptly return and translate. They were absolutely hopeless without me! But i wanted to give my parents a taste of what i went through for my first 2 months....

I also thoroughly enjoyed translating incorrectly to my parents on purpose. I would alter the meaning of my Spanish speaking friends´ words for fun. This was very amusing for me, because my parents were so clueless!

But sometimes i had to step-up as the Super Translator Daughter!!!

I think my most proud moment would be the night of my dad´s dog bite.

My parents, Nicole and I were all leaving our hotel in Valdivia our first morning there, and we were confronted with a ¨gang of dogs¨. My father was trailing behind the group, obviously not bothered by their ferocious barking and walked right into a dog´s mouth. The dog pinched his jeans and left 2 teeth holes in his sock. But it was more a scratch than a bite. There was no blood.

SO don't think we were being insensitive to his bite. But I say he was asking for it. Dad you should have kicked him..you should have walked faster..you should have...etc etc. I think we were more annoyed than worried for my father´s health. We continued our day as planned: went on a boat ride. It was later that night when i was sitting at a pleasant cafe with Nicole (because my parents had decided to stay in the hotel for dinner), drinking alcoholic coffee and reading magazines, when i received a call from my mother.

¨Cori, can you please come home!!?¨

¨Sure mom, whats up?¨

¨Its your father. I'm really worried about him. His dog bites looks worse...¨

So Nicole and i immediately went home (after stopping to buy a few cookies..haha apparently we thought his bite was VERY serious)

I found my parents frantic because they had read something about rabies in a travel book. *damn those overly helpful travel books! haha. but actually all possibilities went through my head and i couldn't have my father die of rabies in Chile! So i put on my Super Translator Cape, called a cab, and we rushed to the clinic.

My dad got a rabies shot and is now perfectly fine. However, he couldn't walk near the hotel without a stick in hand in case there was another dad-dog combat. My Spanish cant save him in that very rare circumstance. Or can it?...the dogs here must understand Spanish commands.

I felt very proud to translate for my parents, buy them food, pay for their bus tickets, save their lives etc. Of course my parents spoiled me while they were here, but it was more rewarding to share my Chilean experience with them, because hearing my stories on skype or reading them on this blog just doesn't do justice.