Hola!!!

Welcome to my Chile blog!  

I´ve been down here for 16 days now.  The first couple weeks were pure adventure.  I spent 4 nights camped out in Torres del Paine National Park, trekking on the world famous W trail.  I was incredibly fortunate to have clear weather for most of the hike and the deciduous trees were bright yellows and deep reds.  

From the southern Patagonia region I flew 5 hours north into the desert.  The dirt road, adobe lined town of San Pedro de Atecama came as a highly recommended place, and is considered a backpacker mecca.  There my hiking adventures continued in the canyons and valleys surrounding the small town.  Sorry, all of my pictures of these places are on a memory card not compatible with this computer.  Anyways, the focus of this blog is on my homestay experience and activities with the school, the entire reason LSU sent me down here.

Picture with homestay family at Laguna Grande, San Pedro de la Paz, Chile

This past Saturday I arrived in Concepcion, Chile with over a dozen other LSU students, mostly those studying education, and three of my Oceanography and Coastal Science comrades.  The weather was cold and rainy, so the days activities involved drinking tea and eating at home, sharing stories of travel and spending time with the family.

The Famalia Flores is composed of three boys, ages 16, 20 and 22, the parents and the housekeeper.  

Filipe, 16 is a pretty friendly kid who speaks rather profiecient English.  I write him off as a very typical 16 year old, nose to the cell phone and a homelife confined to the bedroom most of the time. He spent two weeks in Louisiana as part of a school exchange.  We´ve had some painless conversation but I don´t press him too hard for too much interaction.

Javier, 20, is my kind of people.  His English is slightly better than my Spanish (not saying too much).  He is studying Industrial Engineering and is very interested in healthy, sustainable living.  Today we have a plan on going for a run across the brige and along the river Bio Bio.  One of these days I´m going to lead him through a yoga session.

The eldest boy, Nacho, is studying law at the University of Concepcion and uses the house as a cafeteria, locker room and study space.  His English is pretty non-existant so our intereaction is pretty limited.

The matirach, Veronica, is an accountant and doesn´t speach any English.  She is super sweet and seems ditzy.  El Padre, ( I forget his name) spends his work weeks a 5 hour bus ride away as a professor at the main university in Santiago, the capital of Chile. He is extremely friendly, seems very excited to have another boy in the house and extraordinarily generous.  He told me he would host my parents at his home if I could talk them in to travelling down here.

Brothers Javier and Filipe in Diachato

Sunday I woke up to bright blue, sunny skies.  I went for a run (30 minutes longer than plan on the account of getting lost) and saw some sides to the city most visitors probably don´t see.  After house chores were finished we went out for a family day trip around town, to see the lake pictured above then up the coast.  Driving through the forested hills and colorful towns made me reminiscent of California and Italy.  Eventually we reached the smallish fishing village of Diachato where we went directly to a restaruant.  Shortly after arriving I was very happy for the extra time running that morning. 

THE SEAFOOD WAS AMAZING!  The shrimp and cheese empanada was one of the best things I have ever eaten.  I ordered a piece of grilled fish and my brother genrously shared bits and pieces of his seafood bowl pictured above.  

During the week I have been at a private school.  The first two days we took a tour and did a kind of group speed dating thing with high school students just to get interaction going and to fuel the excitement of the students to have a bunch of foreign people roaming the hallways.  There was a special welcome cermeony where 2 school rock bands put on aswesome performances for us.

The past 2 days I´ve been in a high school science classroom.  Yesterday, I was solely an observer and had the not so pleasant experience of reliving high school, sitting in a classroom all day getting talked at.  Education systems around the world seriously need an overhaul.  The teacher I am partnered with really seems passionate about her job and has a friendly relationship with the students.  The students say she is the strictest teacher in the school, which I beleive from hearing stories about other classrooms, but on a scale to most laxed to strictest ever, I´d put here between average and most relaxed.  Thankfully, we got out of the classroom for a period and I got to participate in a lab experiment where we extracted onion DNA with things you can find in an everyday kitchen.

Today I was on the other side of the classroom and took my place in front of the class.  At the beginning of four periods I did an Introduction/Biography/¨Science is awesome!!´ presentation.  I used the time to get the students to talk about their attitudes toward science and why I think science is a great field to study and work in, while sharing lots of pictures from working on rivers, lakes, canyons and praries.  Sometimes this converstaion lasted 30 minutes and branched off into endangered species, consumption reduction, professional paths and usually wound up back to how much I love being outside instead of in front of a computer,   In one class with advanced English students I tied in my thesis research with their lessons on anaerobic respiration.  Today I realized how much more I enjoy in front of the classroom instead of being in the class.