jungle fever

a lil tease of peruvian and bolivian jungle... more to come

Iquique and outskirts

desert on all sides...than suddenly, the Andes mountains, Iquique, and the Ocean.

hello feet.

Parapente.

we´re not in Kansas anymore... random dinosaurs on the side of the highway in the desert.

parapente

I did it. I took my fear of heights, challenged it, and ran off a mountain cliff off the coast of Iquique with a giant parachute behind me....and up i soared. Yes, my knuckles were white and my stomache was in my throat. True story. But my guy Christian who took me was incredible and coaxed me through the whole experience...with occasional moments of laughing at me when I´d ask incredulously.... You really expect me to run off that cliff right now? you gotta be kidding me, I´d prefer being pushed out of a plane when you have no choice, rather than voluntarily run to the edge of a cliff and take a big step into the air.

But, I did it, and it was incredible. Although I sat slouched back in my harness between Christians legs the entire time becuase I refused to break body-contact with him...it was the only thing keeping me confident; that i could feel his legs around my waist, and there was NO way I was sitting straight-upright when i would be suspended by two ¨strings¨, and nothing else.

We glided for about 30 minutes, thankgoodness no longer. Ive heard about other people staying inthe air for 2 hours if the winds are warm, which is NOT what i was looking foward to. 30 minutes was long enough. We landed on the beach- beautiful peaceful landing as I was watching the sand approach incredibly quickly and got nervous I would take a crash landing. But, all was smooth and tranquil. My first AND last experience of paragliding, but I´m glad I did it. Iquique has been a great few days, the city is terrific. Not much to do other than Surf, Paraglide, and Sandboard. Does life get any better?
Pictures will be posted soon.

isla de pascua -pics

Tia Lisa

I had my last day of classes today. After 6 weeks of working at the colegio and residencia, I have gained incredible respect for people that do this for a lifetime.

My days consisted of Kindergarten class, Art class occasionally, and english class. However, the majority of my time was spent with the 5 year-olds in K. I should really stress that I don´t love kids, at least as a total genre. Certain kids, yes- i want to take them home with me because they are fantastic...but 20 hyper snotty crying kids isn´t necessarily my ideal job.

With that said- every day provided me constant entertainment. For my last and final day with the rugrats, we managed a pretty dece bloody nose, 20 dirty kisses from every kid as I said goodbye- (and some of them go for the lips when you reach in for the kiss...i realllllly don´t like dirty mouths near mine, especially when I see what these kids put INTO their mouths during recreation... eeew) and our new kid, who I´ve nicknamed ¨the pincher¨managed to make just about every single kid cry at one point from pinching them throughout the morning. Whew. I´m exhausted just thinking about it-.
I did have several little boys in my class who are also in our residencia- our transient foster home that the Y runs, and which I also work at during the afternoons. THESE 4 boys are my pride and joy of the day...i love them. In fact, I would take all 4 back with me to NY and adopt them all if it was possible- although, Bruno cries all the time and doesn´t listen to anything you say to him, and Eduardo beats everyone up- Regardless, Angel is the cutest thing I´ve ever seen, and they all are in need of someone to love them- So, saying goodbye to them was actually much harder than I expected.

This afternoon after school was over, I headed over to our OTHER residencia, for girls age 11-14. These girls are kinda bad-ass, but also very sweet at the same time. Two of the girls in particular I´ve taken a real liking to and developed a great relationship with them-- this was also more difficult than i expected saying goodbye.

BUT- I am now done working at the school and foster home, although still helping out with activities taking place in the Y. Wednesday I leave for Easter Island for 8 days... more to come on that upon my return.

My story of the week: I have this infactuation with one of the guys who teaches classes at the gym here at the Y- I´ve been seeing him since I arrived in january, andalways am somewhat googly-eyed when we pass. We manage the usual hellos, and how are you conversation, but never anything more (probably because I´m trying to close my gaping mouth everytime he walks by...) ANYHOO...I´m in the gym the other day and he comes up to me and asks my name... we start chatting and he asks me how long ive been doing different exercises, etc.

--now let me mention before this that I have tendencies of not fully understanding everything when I am talking to someone new- because I´m adjusting to their accent and rate of speach. My friends and other people who I am familiar listening to isn´t difficult, but new voices trouble me sometimes...
So, as I´m listening I´m concentrating super hard on what hes telling me- because I usually can get the main concept, but miss out on the supporting details.. WELL, i was concentrating so hard on the details, that 5 minutes after we finished conversation of what he was asking me to do...i realized I had no idea WHAT it was I was supposed to do!

Heres what I got.... after asking me how long I work out for he said they are doing something that they need people for, and wanted me to do it. I said I´m only here for 3 more weeks, and he said its not a problem... its just a oneday thing. I asked how much it was- he said free. He told me to come in tuesday to the office during the afternoon, no specific time and.... thats what I got.

I feel like George when Steinbrenner tells him ¨It´s just like the song george...Downtown...¨ and now I´m on this search trying to find the meaning of all this. I COULD have asked, but the problem is I sometimes need a few minutes to grasp things, and by the time i realized I missed the main point, it was too late and I felt stupid asking. However, now my friend are all laughing at me because its even stupider that I have no idea what I´m supposed to do tomorrow. Ah, the life of a stupid gringa being overwhelmed by good looking spanish speaking chilean guys. :-)

pre birthday funnnn

monday night...watchin the gators carry out a second national championship... and prebirthday funmidniightttt

we dont know whoooo this guy was, but he hopped into my picture as i was dancing, and i was NOT happy...he was weeeeird!

santiago...in shambles?

After two concerts in Santiago in a 8 day time span, I would say that I´m getting fairly comfortable navigating myself around the city. However, Thursday afternoon brought plenty of unexpected sites.

Wednesday was the Il Divo concert. I brought my friend Jon along because I thought it would be more fun to have someone enjoy the show. Little did we know that IL Divo is a total boy band for women over 50. I think it could successfully be compared to a backstreet boys concert, but instead of 15 year old girls screaming and crying, its middle aged women. WHOA. I wasn´t expecting that. I envisioned a classy theatre with older couples who payed the expensive ticket, but instead I got psychotic women waving signs and screaming the whole time. I thought Jon could´ve killed me for dragging him along. However, the show rocked, and I became a loyal fan, and admirer (because they ARE super cute...)

Thursday, a friend of mine from Argentina came to visit, so we spent the day walking around the city before heading back to Valpo. However, their was a bizarre feeling in the air, and we shortly found out why. Throughout all the main streets of Santiago, kids were rioting- breaking phone booths, smashing glass, it was totally chaotic. We happened to just be walking down thestreet when we stumbled upon this. Armed police with total riot gear where EVERYWHERE in the city, and we couldn´t seem to get away from the crowds. People throwing rocks, bottles, and anything else they could get their hands on AT the police- it was rediculous. And then swarms of these kids would go sprinting down the street as the police chased them. Their were armed tanks crusing down the main avenues, and all the stores were closing down early.
We kept trying to avoid the mayhem and taking detours, only to find gates not allowing us out. We felt completely trapped, but eventually managed to squeeze our way onto a side street.

Than came the huge tanks- the armed vehicles were riding down the street spraying streams of water at the people on the sidewalk, and it didnt look like a friendly shower. (pictures below). Later on we learned that this is a yearly event. Apparantly 25 odd some years back, during Pinochet´s ruling, two kids were killed by the police (the government) for unjust reasons. Ever since, this day of the year results in rioting and chaos in the streets of Santiago. One guy told us that 10 years back it was a lot more violent than it is today,but another lady said that usually its confined to the university these recent years, and this was a little nuts.
SO; at least this wasn´t just random rioting, which could have been abit scarier, but it would have been nice for our hostel to warn us about walking on the streets this day. Instead, we found ourselves in the middle of a mini-war zone. I took some pics that are posted below. Along with a few pics from Il Divo, Bela fleck, and some otherrandoms.


ooh Il divo... soo cute

Valparaìso.

who doesnt love a sunrise

Vic....wailin on the bass

bela fleck...wee

a great thing about being in other countries is enjoying the live music that can still find its way into random cities. Last week, Bela fleck and the flecktones graced Santiago with their presence.
Even though I´ve known about the concert for 3 months, I´ve procrastinated a bit in buying tickets. When I bought them a week before the show I was somewhat weery that tickets may be scarce. I opted for stage right (which I confused and thought was stage left...on Víc´s side..) got a confirmation, and was told to pick up my tickets at willcall the night of the show. Jon and I hopped on the 90 minute bus and arrived into a city that is nothing like Valparaìso. We were back in a REAL legit city, where I can´t jaywalk across 20 lanes of traffic, and the sidewalks are lined with people.

We got to the show to find we had FRONT row seats, on the end. WOW. talk about kick-ass. The view was phenomenal, and the flecktones rocked out with their combining melodies of the sax, electric drum, banjo, and of course...victor wooten (i dont think i spelled that right). He is just a freak of nature...a machine. Totally mesmerizing watching his hands, his creativity, his invention of a total new way to use the bass as an instrument. wowzers. At one point when they were doing introductions, in English (I think they said buenos noches, and thats as far as the spanish got) they spoke ofbeing from NY so I scream out in the front row, and they all look at me and smile...haha. Nothing like making myself more of the gringa than I already am when in other countries.. Awesome pictures, soon to be posted.

As for my other activities, I had this totally intense Salsa class last night with difficult spinning and counting steps in my head. I´m not made for these things- I have something called A Lack of Coordination. However, its fun, and we change partners every 2 minutes so you get different styles of guys to dance with.

I´m back to Santiago tomorrow to see Il Divo perform- I can´t wait. I´m so lucky to have a next room neighbor (jon), who appreciates musicals and operatic singing as much as I do, because we spend MANY evenings singing Les Mis, Rent, Celtic Women, and many other great songs. Why can´t my life be a musical? That would be fun. and entertaining.

plentiful pennies

since the only people who read this are my parents and sister (I think), its more of a family email... SO, i will take this time to express my frustration with the Chilean Coin system.

To begin, everything is is millions. Now, just when I thought I was comfortable with numbers in spanish, i´m dealing with tens of millions of pesos at once, and it can get slightly overwhelming at times.

However, I´ve conquered my number woes, and have moved onto much deeper things that frustrate me when using the local currency, such as...small change.

It is very rare to receive change in denominations below 50 pesos. Occasionally, they´ll hand you 10 pesos, equivelant of the dime. Now, I should stress that the dime is totally useless, and occasionally I will gather all my loose dimes up and pay for my busfare (which is about 250 pesos). The driver always gives me a dirty look, and I just want to yell YOU GAVE ME THE DIME ON MY LAST RIDE!

However, the real issue pending here, the underlying problem where all my anger and frustration is rooted at lies with the Chilean Penny. One Peso. It resembles a piece of sturdy tinfoil, that with slight energy can be broken into two pieces. It is also worth .002 of a US Penny. Thats right, 2, ten-thousanths of a penny. I am fairly confident it takes more money with energy, man power, and distribution to create and produce this chilean penny, than it is actually worth. This could result in devestating losses for the government of Chile. Do they realize this? If I was more confident in spanish (and more conversational, which I´m not), I would write a letter of concern to the Treasury department of Chile, informing them of my queries. However, several things come to mind when I contemplate this. 1) I don´t know if they HAVE a treasury department in Chile 2) I could risk deportation, although I don´t actually live here, and am managing to ¨live¨ on a tourist Visa which must be renewed every 90 days. 3) I must assume that no one cares, because there MUST have been SOME person in the past who agreed with me and mentioned this...yet nothing was done

Inflation does terrible things to foreigners who have to use the local currency. I think its a decoy because its really easy to get confused and overpay- which COULD explain why Chile has the most stable economy in all of South America. This looks like a conspiracy to me

YMCA...my life

They call me the ¨gringa Chilena¨

I´ve really become a true YMCAér... My life revolves around this place. Not only do I sleep shower and exercise here, but I also eat, work, and and go to functions FOR the ymca. Its taken over my life. This past week, I joined my fellow Y peeps to attend an International Conference that was taking place at our sleepaway camp in the mountains, about 2 hours from Valpo. We had about 35 people total, 15 being our local chapter- and others from lower south-america-including Peru, Brasil, Argentina, Uruguay, and of course, myself and another girl living in Uruguay represented the US.

I felt like I was in JCY all over again, except the ages varied from 17-30 this time, instead of being in Highschool. However, everyone had the same spirit and similar attitiude that we had in JCY when I was younger. During the days, we had lecturers on the Services, Mission, Progams, etc for the YMCA´s at a local, and international level. However, during our free time, we played the same games that we play iwth the 8 year olds at camp, and truly, had just as much fun as the kids do.

At night, we had campfires and group activities, that were so stupid and silly, but just made us laugh for hours. Its great when adults (well, I don´t consider myself an adult...so SEMIadults) can still play like children, and enjoy simple things in life.
The entire lectures were (obviously) in spanish. I understood the main concepts, although some specifics were a little fuzzy for me. I had to give a ¨presentaion¨on international night, when each country presented something about their culture. Hmm, the US? Well, we don´t exactly have a SPECIFIC culture, or dance... but it was my first time having to speak spanish in front of a large group bymyself...I did OK!

After 4 days of no sleep, I am back in Valparaiso preparing for school! First day is tomorrow, which means I will be teaching classes real soon. oooh. New things keep coming my way.