In LA!

I am once again living in Los Angeles, although this time I’m on the other side of the world!  Friday night the ministry threw us a big goodbye party and Saturday morning we embarked on our 7 hour bus ride down South!  We arrived in Concepción, a city about an hour or so Northwest of Los Angeles, expecting to be greeted by our Regional Director and then shipped off to our towns.  To our great surprise, though, we were greeted by our host families!  My host mother and her sister had a sign saying Kelly, Bienvenidos a tu casa! (Welcome home!) that I saw the minute I stepped off the bus.  We all went to the Ministry of Education’s headquarters in Concepción where we had a great big Chilean lunch and got to know each other’s host families a bit.  From there our WorldTeach group of five was separated – Jake and Hal went off to Chillán and Ryan, Katie and I headed towards Los Angeles.  On our way to LA we stopped off at a beatiful waterfall, called Los Saltos del Laja, and hiked over to take some pictures and enjoy its beauty.  Ryan, Katie, and I were pretty excited, to say the least!

Since I arrived yesterday afternoon it’s been a whirlwind of meeting people, eating lots of food, and speaking only Spanish!  My host mother, Vicky, and her son, Claudio, are wonderful.  They’re so nice and amazingly patient when I don’t understand something, and I couldn’t ask for two better people to live with.  Vicky works for the city and lives in what I think is comparable to government-subsidized housing (although there definitely could have been some words lost in translation).  The house is cozy, and I’m staying in Claudio’s room, which is a work in progress (the paint in the room was still drying when I moved in, for example).  My room’s relatively big, though, and they have cable and internet, so no complaints here!  This is definitely a more urban experience than I was anticipating, but I think I’ll experience my fair share of culture-shock nonetheless.  Vicky’s sister, Yane, is the Inspector General at my school.  She’s the one who anyone and everyone goes to when they need to get something done in the school – basically, she’s the best connection I could have.  She has a wonderful 8-year-old daughter named Coni who is already studying English at her private school.  Tonight I helped her practice for a quiz she has next week – she’s going to do great J

Tomorrow is my first day of school!  I’ll spend this first week observing classes and getting to know the students, and I’ll start teaching my own classes in a week.  I’m super excited and will probably have many stories to come!