Wow, it has really been a long time since I updated my blog… oops… Where to start… I will highlight some of the important events that have passed and activities that I have done.

September 18th: this is Chile’s 4th of July and it’s a BIG celebration! In reality the celebrations go on pretty much all week at different community centers, churches, etc and on the 18th is a day to celebrate with family. We went over to an “aunt and uncle’s” house and helped make empanadas. And then spent the rest of the day until after midnight eating and talking. Unfortunately nobody danced cueca (the traditional dance) but there was plenty of cueca music blaring from the surrounding houses. At this point the parents went home and I went with Evelyn to visit a friend whose birthday is the 18th. After visiting with her and her family we all went out to a dance (we got there around 3am) and stayed there for a couple hours. Some of my neighbors were in the band that played at the dance so it’s always fun to go see them play.








24th Birthday: For my birthday I invited friends over for “onces” and cake. Here in Chile they generally have onces instead of a full dinner. This usually consists of bread (good and lots of it!) with jam/cheese/deli meat/ butter/ avocado/etc plus something sweet like cookies or cake and tea. It was a relaxed night but it was perfect. I got to share my birthday with the friends and family that have been most important to me so far on my journey in Chile.





Laura Visits Chile: In November Laura came to visit me in Chile :D She spent almost 3 weeks here and the time flew by! First we went to Viña del Mar and Valparaiso for a few days and had a great time wandering through the colorful hills of Valparaiso, chilling on the beach in Viña and sandboarding just up the coast in a town called Con Con. Then we went to Talca and Laura got to spend lots of time following me around to Domodungu, the orphanage, the tennis courts and Vilches. We really confused a lot of people this week, it was funny! The next stop on our trip was Easter Island!! It was really cool to be there and we explored the Island by bike, 4 x 4, horse and by foot. There were tons of Maoi (the big head statues) all over the island and it was great to learn the history behind everything. The whole island was very calm, the people were friendly and it was a lot more peaceful than I expected. It probably helped that it wasn’t peak tourist season. We also went to a traditional dance show, ate great tuna empanadas (fresh tuna) and enjoyed a little snorkeling. After Easter Island we toured around Santiago and saw all the sights it has to offer.







Christmas: Christmas was spent in family. All five of us were home so that was great. We had a really great barbeque for dinner (around 11pm) and opened gifts sometime after midnight. Then we went to a family secret santa exchange and after spending a long time chatting over wine and snacks we got home around 4:15 am.

New Year’s: For New Year’s I decided to go to Viña del Mar/Valparaiso because I had always heard that it is THE place to spend New Year’s. I went up on Friday unsure that I would actually make it because I only had a bus ticket to Santiago and then had to try and find a ticket somewhere close to Viña del Mar. I was lucky and got a bus to a nearby town only 1.5 hrs after I got to Santiago so I was very relieved. When I had purchased my ticket to Santiago the day before I was told that pretty much everything north of Santiago was completely booked which made me worried! After a little lunch and checking into my hostel I headed to the beach and spent the late afternoon there just relaxing and reading a book. On Saturday I slept in and prepared for New Year’s by busing some silly string and other such necessary items for the evening. I relaxed a bunch in the hostel preparing for the long night ahead of me and around 8pm I left the hostel to go meet up with a friend in Valparaiso where a lot of the action is. In the end my friend’s phone died right as I went to meet her and it was impossible to find her in a huge plaza full of people so I enjoyed the live music in the plaza for a while and then went to the best lookout I knew of to watch the fireworks. There I met a really nice grandma and her granddaughters so I chatted with them until the fireworks started. They shared sparkling wine and grapes (a Chilean tradition to bring good luck for the New Year) with me at midnight. The grandmother and the little granddaughter then went home but I stayed with the older 2 granddaughters and 2 cousins that were sitting next to us for the fireworks and we all headed down to the big plaza again and danced until the music stopped around 330 am. Our next stop was a party that one of my friends was having not too far away and then we finished the night in a nice bar that was pretty much empty (a nice break from the hordes of people in the plaza, streets, and all over in general). After a long but very fun night we took the bus back to Viña and I got to my hostel around 7:15 am. All in all it was a great New Year’s even though my original plan of meeting up with a friend totally failed!! I am very glad that I made the last minute, impulsive decision to spend New Year’s in Viña del Mar and Valparaiso :D






Domodungu: Things at Domodungu are all over, well workshops are anyway. We are still working doing evaluations and other end of the year things but it’s not as crazy as it had been. All the final events such as presentations for guitar, choir, painting and theater went well. There was a dance which was a lot of fun too. There were not a ton of people that actually came but the people who did show up sure had a good time!





Hiking: A couple weeks ago I went on a weekend hiking trip with my friend Sarah. We went up to Vilches and hiked to El Enladrillado and La Laguna del Alto. El Enladrillado is supposedly a UFO landing sight. Believe what you want… the Laguna del Alto is a lagoon at the bottom of a crater. We camped by the lagoon and had a good time. It was quite the hike and for me the most intense part was the hike back because it was mostly downhill and quite steep… needless to say my calves hurt for various days later! It was all very pretty and I really enjoyed the weekend!







Brazil: January 20th I will be leaving for a workshop in Sao Paulo, Brazil. I am going with 2 others from Domodungu and one other young lady from Talca. We have been busy getting stuff ready, confirming travel plans, etc. It is a 3 week course and we are all very excited to be going! I will update more about all my adventures there when I get back in mid-February.

Well, that's all for now folks... I will update again when I get back from Brazil. Happy 2012 Everyone!!!

Time for a post...

The time just keeps flying by especially since I’ve been busier lately. Workshops have all started up again at Domodungu so that is keeping me busy. I am participating in crochet, biking and guitar. I Last weekend I finished my crochet project from last semester and it ended up being a sleeveless shirt mostly because I was out of string and the store didn’t have all the colors but also because I was just ready to be done with it! My next project is a poncho. I bought my yarn this week and it was quite the adventure. Back in November I believe I bought some yarn at a feria that I really liked and decided I wanted to use it. When I decided to make a poncho I knew I’d need more than what I had so my hunt started. The problem is the yarn was artesian yarn and thicker than your normal yarn so finding a yarn that matched/complemented in color proved to be very challenging. I went to 6 different shops one day and ended up buying a grey yarn but wasn’t really satisfied with the color combo so the next day I went back to the last yarn shop that I knew of but was closed the day before and ended up finding yarn that matched well. So now I have all my yarn to make a purple poncho and am very excited to actually start crocheting!! (I need a pattern… I plan on asking Evelyn if I can borrow her poncho this weekend and maybe start). Guitar is going good but it’s not easy learning a new instrument! Today we learned a new strumming technique which required a lot more concentration so I could either strum or change notes but not both at the same time, haha. I pretty much have “La Petequita” mastered but I tend to speed up as the song goes on… but that’s nothing new, happened all the time when I played cello too… the whole cello section had a habit of speeding up all the time. I am teaching healthy cooking again and it’s been going well. I’m also teaching a baking workshop in Vilches on Monday afternoons. The women there are enjoying both learning new desserts and having a “social hour.” In both classes we’ve made some really yummy things such as pumpkin bread, chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream frosting, turkey burgers, quiche (loaded with veggies with a wheat crust), broccoli soup and oven roasted sweet potato fries. I continue going to the orphanage but have a more complicated schedule this semester and can only go on Fridays. Last week we decorated the house with red, white and blue ribbons because the Fiestas Patrias are coming up (sept. 18). Fiestas Patrias is Chile’s Independence Day celebration.

At the end of July I went to Vina del Mar and Valparaiso for a weekend. I meet up with a couple friends I met while studying abroad, the family I stayed with during the semester and also with a professor from Saint Ben’s who is from Chile and was visiting her family. I had a good time meeting up with everyone and the weekend flew by!

One of the newer things that is keeping me busy is the fact that I’m going to Brazil at the end of January through mid February. I am going with 5 others from Domodungu to a workshop. Every year they give a workshop with a focus on gender. This year’s specific theme is myths and rituals. We will explore how myths and rituals shape a society, where they come from, consequences, etc. The course is for people from all over South and Central America and the people who went last year had an amazing time and learned a lot. As a result we have been busy fundraising for the upcoming adventure. Another lady and I have been busy making brownies and muffins (banana, pumpkin and zucchini) every Monday and Wednesday. On average we’ve sold 8 dozen per week over the past three weeks. Yesterday and today we were busy all day preparing breakfast, lunch and a snack break for a group that came to use Domodungu for a workshop and they hired us to do all the cooking and serving of meals. Other plans include a raffle, garage sale and a fundraising event (Set for my bday complete with live music, dancing, food and drinks).

The rain has not stopped yet but at least it’s getting warmer out! I’ve been able to play tennis is a tshirt several times and in general during the day it’s pleasant outside but the mornings still are chilly. The 5 day forcast does not include rain so that is good but I was told today that usually it rains on either the 18, 19 or 20 of September for the Fiestas Patrias. If I remember correctly it rained last year on the 19th.

On September 1st Kym and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary in Chile. After playing tennis I went over to Kym’s house (which is only a couple blocks from the tennis courts) and we hung out chatting a bit about the year and later some of her friends came over and we had a good night.

The other day I just realized that half of 2011 has already passed!! When did that happen?? Seriously I can’t believe it’s already July!

Since it’s been a long time since updating I will just highlight some bigger events in the past month (plus some)…

One of the bigger things I did this past month was go to Costa Rica and Panama. This idea came about because one of my good friends Susan decided to do a summer course in Costa Rica so she proposed the idea to me and some other friends that we meet up in Costa Rica and travel a little. At first it was just a crazy idea but in the end it became reality :D It ended up being just three of us who all lived together last year. Susan, me and Laura. We all came from different places and hadn’t seen each other for almost a year. Laura S. his volunteering in Honduras and I’m in Chile and Susan has been going to school in Milwaukee so it was great to reunite! I took a crazy flight plan to Costa Rica and had a layover in Atlanta so Susan met me there and we flew to Costa Rica together. Laura joined us a few hours after we got to Costa Rica (after a long bus trip from Honduras). In Costa Rica we went to San Jose (capital) and Monetverde. We decided that San Jose wasn’t very interesting as we saw pretty much everything you would care to see in less than one day! We went to the central market, a museum, saw a bunch of plazas, a few churches, etc and still had time to waste. Monteverde was a small town about 4 hrs outside of San Jose. We had a good time there and did canopy and a coffee tour. Both of those were a lot of fun. For the canopy you were actually flying through the jungle which was really neat. We learned a ton on the coffee tour. In addition to coffee plants they also had sugar cane, bananas and plantains. We got to see the whole coffee process and taste some at the end. We also got to see how they process the sugar cane and make some candy :D On our last day (after coming back from Panama) Laura left early in the morning and Susan and I went on a tour that took us up to the top of a volcano and on a river boat ride. The volcano was neat and had a real cool blue green pool in one of the craters. On a clear day you can see both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans but unfortunately the clouds rolled in as we were reaching the top of the mountain. On our boat ride we saw lots of animals such as huge crocodiles, a sloth, some monkeys, lizards and birds. We also got to go on a short horseback ride, see some cool frogs and snakes and eat lots of delicious traditional food.

We made the 15 hour bus trek to Panama and spent a few days there. The bus ride itself wasn’t too bad, especially on the way there when they fed us breakfast and lunch. We also took the overnight bus so we got to sleep a lot. We stayed in Panama City were there was a lot more to do than in San Jose. We spent the days touring different neighborhoods and going to the Panama Canal. We saw lots of stuff such as the presidential palace, ruins of the old city center, hiked through the Metropolitan park (didn’t see as many animals as they claimed to have!), went to a big international artisan fair, the Bridge of the Americas and lots of other buildings and plazas. The Panama Canal was neat and we got to see a cruise ship and an oil tanker go through so that was fun. It makes a lot more sense when you actually see the canal in action rather than just reading about it. We also road on the Panama Canal Railway which goes along the canal and has a glass domed ceiling so you get a really great view. A funny anecdote about Panama is that it is one hour ahead of Costa Rica. We didn’t know this fun fact until about 6 hours before we were leaving Panama!! Good thing we eventually figured it out or we may have missed our bus back to Costa Rica!!

By the time our trip ended we had ridden just about every form of transportation possible: plane, train, buses (public and coach), taxis and a boat. Not only did we ride all forms of transportation but in many different ways. For example: on the bus back from Monetverde we got standing room only tickets and ended up camping out in the wheelchair ramp area. It was actually pretty comfy and we could stretch out our legs. Also, on another bus ride there weren’t any seats left so they just pulled out these stools and we sat in the middle aisle on our stools (which were really 5 gallon pails covered with fabric and a cushion).

Recently Sarah and I celebrated the Fourth of July. We made all sorts of good food (hamburgers, chicken wings, baked beans, potato salad, broccoli salad, veggies with dip, cheesecake and a red, white and blue cake). We invited some friends over and had a royal feast. Luckily it was a sunny day and we actually took off our jackets and enjoyed the meal outside. It was not the same as celebrating at home but it was a good day.

I continue to play tennis and we had another match a couple weeks ago. This time we played at the Montessori School where my first Chile coach is now working. It was different because they have cement courts there and now I’m used to playing on clay courts. Also it was right after I got back from my travel adventures… I didn’t win my games but the coach said he liked how I played so it could have been worse. After that match it rained and the courts were a mess for a good week and a half (almost two weeks) so we just started playing again on Thursday. I was very happy to start playing again! I played a set today against the coach and almost beat him!! (at one point I was 2 points from winning but then he started pulling out all these tricky shots with different spin and such so he ended up winning). Oh well, it was a good match and a couple months ago I would not have been close to beating him!

We just finished up a semester of workshops at Domodungu. Everyone left my cooking class very content. Last week we had the end of the semester celebration and many of the classes participated by singing, showing their paintings, modeling crochet garments, a yoga demonstration, several dance performances, taste testing food, etc. It was a good celebration and a lot of people showed up! We were pleased by the number of people who came because it was a very chilly afternoon and that tends to make people stay at home.