Chile

When writing my last post 3 or so weeks ago I had no idea that the next post would be written from Chile! My school has a regular 'cultural exchange' with one of its sister schools in Con Con, Chile & I was asked if I would be willing to go on the trip less than 2 weeks before it departed due to one of the members of staff having to pull out at the last minute. I wasn't about to turn down a free 3-week trip to Chile, even if it did mean going with 20 girls & another member of staff as well! We arrived Saturday afternoon after a reasonable flight with LAN airlines. It didn't get off to the best of starts when several of the girls, as well as Lucy & I, were given boarding passes that already had people sitting in those seats! The cabin crew eventually got it sorted & we were able to take-off. I didn't manage to get any proper sleep on the flight, but enjoyed watching 'The King's Speech' which I had never gotten around to seeing at the cinema, as well as some other movie which can't have been too compelling as I can't even remember what it was! Once we arrived in Santiago we had a coach waiting to take us on the 2-hour journey to the school where all the host families were waiting for us. I was staying with Consuelo who is a 24 year old infant school teacher at St Margaret's. She lives in a huge house in the Recreo area of Vina del Mar with her mother, mother's husband, & a variety of siblings ranging in age from 22 down to 2 years old! The whole family have made me feel very welcome & Consuelo & her sister Maria Jose in particular have been looking after me very well indeed.

On Sunday we headed out to Consuelo's dad's place for a BBQ which is very popular in Chile. Her dad used to play rugby for Chile at half-back which is pretty cool, & he presents a TV programme on the game. He is the one in the green above. Consuelo is on my left in the pic below.

The BBQ was a very pleasant way to while away a few hours in the afternoon & I fast developed a taste for pisco sours!

On the way home we stopped at the beach in Renaca (another part of Vina del Mar) to wander around the market stalls. There were a couple of different people doing some quite impressive sand sculptures.

On Monday it was off to school... They have very long hours at St Margaret's, the first lesson begins at 7:50am & they finish at 4:25pm. The girls will be spending some of their time attending lessons with their host sisters, so Monday was mostly an organising day, sorting out their timetables.

On Monday night we had a party to celebrate the birthday of Consuelo's grandmother. A whole lot MORE family descended on the place & it was an entertaining evening. Chileans sure love to party!

On Tuesday I observed an IB maths lesson which was quite interesting. Despite being a bilingual school (the girls all speak excellent English) maths is taught in Spanish from about year 7 onwards (& in English before that). With my very limited Spanish I couldn't really follow the content being taught (it was statistics & involved very few numbers), but it was still interesting to observe. It was very different to the way that we teach at QMC.

Today we had a full day excursion to Santiago, taking in a few of the sights. The cathedral was most impressive.

Outside the cathedral was a guy doing some pretty cool artwork with chalk.

You could take a picture like the one below in nearly every major square around the world...

This was my favourite sculpture in the cathedral square.

The other major sight we visited was the Presidant's Palace where we had an interesting guided tour. Below you can see some damage from last year's big earthquake in Chile. During our tour we were lucky enough to meet the First Lady who happened to be walking through one of the rooms we were being shown around. She stopped & had a brief chat to the group.

All the flags in Chile are currently flying at half-mast as one of their top-ranking politicians was killed in a road accident a couple of days ago. This flag below is one of the biggest I have ever seen!

We had met at school at 7:30am, & arrived back close to 7pm so it was a long tiring day. This wasn't helped by the fact that I have a stinking head cold at the moment. My sinuses are all blocked & I have headache & a sore throat. I sometimes get like that after a long-haul flight. Tomorrow I will probably stay at home & get lots of sleep & that should hopefully sort it out. On Friday we have another full day excursion. We are visiting the house of Chile's Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda, as well as apparently visiting a pottery place.