days should never begin at 4am (lunes, 2 agosto)

The only thing that motivated me to get up at 4am today was knowing that if I didn´t, I would miss my flight to Iquique. And if I missed my flight, I´d have to pay for a 30 hour long bus ride at my own expense and miss out on the first two days of orientation. I got out of bed and tried to make as little noise as possible in order to avoid waking up my roommates. I strapped on my backpack and carried my suitcase downstairs, where I handed in the keys to the place that had started to feel like a home this past week. By 5am, the three other volunteers and I were on the bus on the way out of a dark and rainy Santiago. We got on the interstate, and as we drove past Los Leones, I felt a pang of sadness to be leaving behind this wonderful city.

We arrived at the airport, got our tickets, and waited around for what seemed like a long time before boarding the plane. Near our terminal I found a Starbucks, but didn´t want to wait in such a long line. The flight itself was okay. I briefly fell asleep on the way to Antofagasta, and after taking off for the second time I read a newspaper in Spanish.

It was around 11am when we arrived in warm, sunny Iquique. Our regional coordinators, Paula and Mariangeli, picked us up at the airport. Paula doesn´t speak English at all, but I did my best trying to talk to her. They dropped me off at my host family´s house, and said that in an hour I had to be at the Ministry of Education building for orientation and lunch. No one had told us about having orientation until then, especially since we´d already had a long and tiring day.

When I arrived at my house, my host dad and host brother (Santiago, who is 21) were there. They were a bit surprised to see me because the Ministry had told them I´d be arriving at 6pm that night, and here it was almost 12 noon. Their house is on Pasaje Playa Chauca, and it has views of the ocean. It´s completely beautiful, and I love the views already. Both of them seemed very friendly, and all of a sudden I felt nervous speaking Spanish. I felt like I should be much better at it after all the classes I´d taken and effort I´d put into learning it, but I felt limited by my own lack of vocabulary. For some reason I felt like they were expecting me to know more Spanish than I actually knew. They asked if I wanted to take a nap or rest, but I had less than an hour before I had to be at the Ministry. I decided to unpack some of my things, dig out my sunglasses (which I hadn´t really needed much in Santiago), and go back downstairs to talk to my family and get to know them a bit more. Santiago talked about his job as a deejay, his college, his family, and what kind of music he liked. Before I knew it, it was time to go to the Ministry.

On the way there, Santiago pointed out various sites and told me a little bit about Iquique. At the Ministry building he said his family would pick me up arund 6:30pm, and I went inside to meet with the regional coordinators, and Eric and Elisabeth, two other volunteers in Iquique. After a short introduction, we walked to Bavaria, a restaurant where we had lunch. I ate some bread and spicy salsa, a salad, and french fries (that were cooked in vegetable oil). After lunch we had another long and boring session of orientation to sit through. At one point I felt myself nodding off a bit. I don´t think they were too happy about that, but when I explained I´d had to wake up at 4am, they seemed a lot more understanding. I met my host teacher. It turns out she had another volunteer last term, and she was rather critical of her when first describing her. It was strange because by the end of the conversation, she was saying how I should do everything the same way as the other volunteer. It was confusing and kind of made me wonder what this lady is going to say about me after I leave Iquique. At the end of the session they gave us our boxes of school supplies for our classrooms.

My host family (my mom, dad, and two brothers) arrived to pick me up. My host mother, Sonia, works as a chef in a restaurant called La Cioccolata. She´s very sweet and doesn´t speak a whole lot of English. Her Spanish is so fast and hard to understand. Hopefully I´ll be able to become more fluent and develop better comprehension skills while I´m here. My other brother, Artemio, is 18 and will be one of my students. He speaks English very well and studied in Virginia for three months last year. He is interested in everything relating to English speaking countries and their culture.

At home, Sonia prepared dinner for me (sauteed vegetables, bread and avocados, and tea), and more of the family came over. Their cousin, Manuel, also lives in our house so I got to meet him too. He´s 23 and a college student. I met some of their aunts, uncles, and extended family. It was a bit confusing trying to keep everybody straight and remember names, but I´m sure I´ll get used to it all eventually. After the extended family left I got more of my things unpacked and showed pictures of my family and boyfriend to my Chilean family.

Tomorrow I´m going to Colegio Inglés, my host school, to start my week of observation. I´m really looking forward to seeing my school and meeting my students. I really hope I like teaching.

written by

Sara Florecita on August 2, 2010 from Iquique, Chile

from the travel blog: año de dos inviernos (Chile 2010)

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