Mees Hannah Montana, love knows no age.

That is what one of my students said to me today when he asked me to date him. The Chileans love kissing cheeks, I have never felt so loved in my whole life, but it is a weird thing to have the students greet me with a kiss (which is probably why I am sick all the time). They are totally ridiculous and exhausting, it's a good thing they have won my heart already.
I started out the week by presenting a slide show of my life with information and photos of my friends, family, scenery, and famous people in the US. It was really fun and they think Zach is pretty darn cute. The girls all told me how handsome he is. Then I introduced them to a few choice country songs, the cha cha slide song, and Beyonce, I may have found my soul mates.
My classroom is in the library because the earthquake destroyed my classroom which has proven to be a problem because today I was yelled at by the Inspector (vice principal to the vice principal, much like Dwight from the office, so I am not taking it too seriously). He was pretty mad thought because he ended up yelling at me again for not making my debate team wear their smocks during practice. I'm sure you are probably thinking, "What is she doing coaching a debate team in Chile?" I am thinking the same thing. I don't really know how debate works because I was not a supportive sister and have never attended any of my siblings debate meets, so I am a loss. I am sincerely sorry Heather, Caleb, and Ben. Currently, I am having them recite poetry aloud to work on pronunciation and also debate why the Inspector should be fired. This leads me to my plea: Rather than me getting fired for getting them all riled up, please share any and all advice you have about debate. I promise upon my return to the promised land I will attend debate meets and even judge them.

Healthy, or at least well on my way

I think I may have won the battle against this South American virus that tried to ruin me. My host family was nothing short of amazing and gracious while I was sick. My host father drove to the nearest big city, Los Angeles, to pick up medicine for me. My host mother checked on me various times daily and their maid brought me herbal tea to strengthen me and calm my upset stomach continuously throughout the day. They also kept close watch of my intake and only allowed me toast and chicken and rice. They also didn't make fun of me for sleeping nearly 20 hours a day. They are amazing.
To celebrate my reclaimed health my host father made me a true American meal last night. Hamburgers, beer, and hashbrowns have never tasted so good. We toasted to my good fortune and then shared our life philosophies over some wine and brandy. We talked about the afterlife, the here and now, and what faith means to us. I cannot tell you how amazing it is to hear these perspectives in Spanish and how much more eloquent and beautiful they sound. We also read some Neruda aloud. It felt like an authentic Chilean experience for sure.
Today marks the beginning of Holy Week throughout the Christian world, we chose to celebrate it by eating out. The restaurant we went to did not have a menu and offered two options an asado (a piece of mysterious barbecued meat) or a sandwich. I opted for the sandwich which really is just a mysterious piece of meat smothered in mayonnaise and avocado. I am most definitely returning to the states with high cholesterol and type 2 diabetes.
I can't wait to update you on the events of the coming week, teaching, Easter, and the meeting the rest of their family.
I hope you are all doing well.

Painting!

The gods of saving someone from boredom have found me and sent me my darling, sweet host sister, Cata. She took pity on me today and came up with a pile of arts and crafts. We mostly painted and watched Emperor's New Groove in Spanish. It was such a treat to be doing anything other than lying in bed wondering how much longer until the nausea passed. I had to take several breaks, but she was so sweet she let me have the couch so I could nap during our time. Isn't she darling? She has the prettiest eyes I have ever seen.

Stephanie also gets the golden ticket award for saving me from my boredom with pictures of her sweet baby boy, Noah. Thanks Steph, upon my return to those United States I shall present you with a treat of some kind in retribution!

Free time

It seems that a virus has taken up permanent residence in my body and whilst all the fighting, negotiating, etc is going on I am bedridden. This translates into having quite a bit of free time for perusing the world wide web, here I shall share a few interesting things I have learned.
1. For the the first time since the 1800's a woman has been killed by a wolf, this completely changes my whole argument about wolves not attacking humans. Thankfully, I have plenty of time to form a new argument. It also creates another fear for me in the wilderness, wolves why you gotta go and make yourselves look so fierce and scary?
2.http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35999784/ns/world_news-weird_news/?GT1=43001
India is incredibly innovative. I think we should take this as a lesson, we could save millions by using our natural resources in such a way. Also, I feel a special place in my heart for anything having to do with chili or Chile.
3. Coyotes mate for life. Their packs are incredibly smart. As a general rule only the alphas procreate and the rest of the pack cares for their young.
4. The Chilean doctors are incredible. I have never been so well taken care of in my life. I am suffering from a case of the dizzies and they have been nothing short of gracious, kind, and attentive. We should learn from their health care system.
I won't start soapboxing on here about the health care debate, but I could if I only had a bit more ability to concentrate and the desire to offend people. I have neither currently.
5. Toast is a godsend.
6. The earthquakes are quite a bit stronger down here and rattle my bones daily. I try to think of it as a fair ride, a little bit nerve wracking, but that is why it is so fun.

I haven't been able to teach this week, heck, I haven't been able to get out of bed this week, but next week I hope to bring many many stories to the website. I hope you are all doing well.
Que te vaya bien (Go well, I will try to teach even from my bed, I am so dedicated.)
If anyone has a research paper due and is lacking research time, send me your subject, no lie I would love it.

Me as a teacher

I don't know if you can picture me trying to capture the attention of 45 Chilean teenagers for 1.5 hours at a time, but that is what I do. I cannot believe I am a teacher. The future is in my hands, crazy.
The school I am working at is a really great school. The kids are all really nice and the other teachers are also extremely kind. Here it is pretty different because the teachers change rooms and the students stay in the same place. I am the only teacher I know of at my school that has their own classroom and they don't hold it against me, God bless them.
I will write more later, but now I must go and prepare a Power point presentation for tomorrow's meetings, I am such a professional.
Funny quotes from students:
"Do you murder psychopaths?"
"Mees, are you the real Hannah Montana?"
"Mees, do you have a boyfriend? I will be yours in Chile. I have twenty years old." He is 15.
My response "That's called the Oedipal complex, you should read Freud." I don't think he understood.
"Mees, do you go to the concert of Metallica? I very sad because I had study and not go. I eat banana."

Angol-home, sweet home.

After much confusion, various earthquakes, missed flights, canceled buses, collapsed bridges, and many goodbyes I am finally in Angol and I love it. It is a lovely town surrounded by rolling hills, volcanoes, and lush forest. They also boast the best apples and tomatoes in the world.
Angol was pretty devastated by the earthquake. My host family here suffered minimal damage, but all their best wines were ruined along with many of their dishes. I love that they told me the worst thing to happen was their wine collection was destroyed. They immediately made me feel at home. Jorge, my host father is an anesthesiologist, just like Juan my host father in Santiago, apparently the program thinks I will need to be put under at any given moment. The hospital here was completely destroyed so he is currently working in a field hospital and has to sleep in his car when he does twenty four hour rotations. My host mother is a midwife and works at my school (I too am confused as to why a school would need a midwife, but my response is, hey, it's Chile). She is so nice and has made me feel like one of her own. They have four children, the older two, Jorge and Cristian live in Osorno a few hours away. The younger two, Makarena and Catalina live here. Makarena is 18 and awesome. She has a daughter named Amanda who is 1. They are super fun and Makarena has shown me around the town and given me tons of advice about what to do. She has also given me permission to be rude to the men that talk to me on the street, she actually ordered me to. She's radical. Catalina is 10 and super sweet. We went on a hike yesterday and then went rock hunting. She is a doll and I am so excited to have a sidekick like her. I also attended a benefit for Chile in the park and it was the most bizarre benefit I have ever seen. There were clowns, a band, an exercise class that only did one exercise, jeeps driving through the river, and what appeared to be a monster truck rally, but I can't be sure and no one else was either. It was pretty hilarious.
When I arrived they immediately showed me my school, the town, and then we had an incredible breakfast. This house is a refuge for this town. There are constantly people dropping by to say hello, have once (pronounced ohn say, it is like tea in England, but at 6 in the evening), share stories, and have impromptu asados (barbeques). I feel right at home here and can understand most of what is happening. I am now officially Hannah Montana and am certain I will be for the remainder of my time here.
Last night Chile suffered a blackout throughout 90% of the country. Our house really came alive then, neighbors came over terrified, and we lit candles all around, pretended we were camping and laughed a lot. We also had the most spectacular view of the stars I have ever seen. It was like whole galaxies were coming alive before my eyes.
Here a few photos of the devastation here.

Another earthquake, seriously?!?

Today was quite the eventful day in my life. I don't know how I keep getting myself into these ridiculous situations in Chile, but I hope they never stop, as long as I continue to stay safe (I said that for you, Mom).
This morning started with orientation for teaching. I know, it seems like I should have done that oh say 2 months ago, but in true South American fashion I have been taking my time getting to work. We started the morning with the seminar leaders being 30 minutes late and then we decided to watch the outgoing president, Michelle Bachelet take her final drive from La Moneda to Valparaiso (a lovely coastal town where the Congress is held), It was a very emotional moment for the Chilean people because she has an incredible approval rating and people lovingly refer to her as "the Grandma." She is a pretty incredible modern woman, she is divorced, a Socialist, and an Athiest, and still loved by this conservative, Catholic country that only legalized divorce 5 years ago. People were crying in the street and marching after her screaming, "We love you Bachelet" followed by obscenities directed towards the new President. The new President, Pinera, is the first Conservative since Pinochet to be elected into office, so it was a very historic day. The Minister of Health came over to greet us as he was leaving office and gave me a kiss. I wanted to tell him about the swine flu, but seeing as how he is leaving it seemed like a moot point. The Minister of Education also came over to greet us and knew immediately that we were the English Opens Doors program. It was pretty incredible to be in all the excitement and be recognized by someone with such power.

Since the Earthquake on Febraury 27th there have been more than 350 "aftershocks." I say "aftershocks" because almost all are over 4.0 and are actually technically earthquakes. This is a good thing because the theory is that it means that the pressure is being released and it will not result in another large earthquake. That theory gave me quite a bit of comfort until today when I was in three consecutive earthquakes ranging from 6.0 to 7.2 within 30 minutes. It was really bizarre to be sitting in a seminar on teaching and look up at the lights and think, "I really hope those don't fall on my head." We were immediately evacuated from the building and there was a sense of panic around because this was definitely the strongest and longest since the Febraury 27th one. We were evacuated to La Moneda (the President's office) and as if it wasn't busy enough with the Inauguration and all it was then full of every business person and tourist in Santiago. It was madness. To add insult to injury I got sunburned because I didn't have time to apply sunblock. I am going to come back from Chile looking like this, awesome.

Some recaps.

In light of recent events I have not given proper respect to my traverse through the Torres del Paine in the Patagonia, I will attempt to give it the respect it deserves.
I will start out by admitting I had no idea what to expect, certainly I was unprepared for the surprises that I encountered. The W is a pretty popular hike and we met lots of really nice people. I also encountered a bug that wanted to blind me, but thankfully my eye won that battle. The hike itself was more than 50 miles and we went on a few extra little trips, one that involved me spraining my ankle. I felt like such a city slicker in that wild abyss. My body hated the Patagonia, but my heart and soul loved it. It was gloriously beautiful and where you can find your soul and discover God. It was incredible and I highly recommend it to everyone, but I will let my pictures tell the story.

*Whilst composing this post I felt a huge aftershock, Chile is just full of nature, natural disasters, and surprises!

This is a river next to our campsite, the water was divine.

The Paine Towers from the backside.

This was near our campsite and when the glacier would fall at night it made the most spectacular noise.

My face after the bug and a lot of medicine. It was worse than this. You may call me Quasimoto because I do look like a hunchbacked man in this photo and for most of the hike.

That is Grey Glacier in the background. It was beautiful.

The view I had for about 7 miles.

The goods.

Grey Glacier again.

Possible proof that God exists?

Santiago, oh how I love thee.

I am so happy to be back in Santiago I could write an ode to Santiago, in fact I just might do that after this post.

I got back yesterday and the airport scene was a mess. The runway is functioning, but the airport is not so we landed, got off the plane, and waited on the ground for our baggage which was just a free for all once off the plane. It was insane. We took a bus into the center of town and went a very strange way because the normal road is too damaged to drive on. It was quite a scene.

I am back at Marilyn's house and so far have experienced three quite strong aftershocks that last between 10 seconds and 1 minute. It is pretty crazy. The apartment has quite a bit of damage, but it's standing.

I would recommend hiring Chilean architects next time you build a house, these buildings are meant to last.

I am off to get my Visa figured out and to explore the city. I have so much to tell you it's hard to know where to start!

Ciao.

Update to an Update to an Update

I actually have no news, but made you look, didn´t I?
I am still stuck in Puerto Montt, we gave up our seats to people who have family in Santiago so we are stuck here indefinitely. What a strange time to be living in. This town is really dangerous so we are not really supposed to leave our hotel, especially at night. I have been watching lots of bad television, but it is either dubbed or has subtitles, so I am considering it homework.
Today I gave blood and the needle was the largest thing I have ever seen. I´m not really scared of needles, but this thing was massive. It was like they stuck a straw in my arm, I got pretty sick having it in there, but it sure got my blood flowing. It took less than 6 minutes to fill my blood bag.
Also the phlebotomist (I believe that is the correct term) said he has never seen such white skin and that I am a dream to prick because my veins are so easy to see. I feel strangely honored. It was a pretty hilarious experience being asked all the blood donation questions in Spanish, but really sweet. Everyone was so happy we were there, we definitely stick out here, and hear the word gringo quite a bit.
It´s amazing how kind people have been to me here. I am amazed at their gracious attitude and behavior towards me and that the waitstaff remembers my name, Hannah Montana. It is also really interesting and a bit scary to be here because it is so chaotic. I don´t think it compares to New Orleans, but that is what I reminded of when I see videos and also some of the things I have witnessed on the streets. I assure you that I am safe, but I wish everyone else in this town was as well.
I will probably continue to be bored here, so if anyone wants to update me on their life, ask questions, or just amuse me with their college essays I would be more than happy to read them. In fact, I would be ecstatic.
Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers, I really appreciate it.
Apologies for misprints, I am a mess without spellcheck.