Only Four Months Left

(8/13-8/16) Monday we had our first Donce of the semester! Well, before Donce, we had our first small groups of the semester! Basically, a group of really dedicated students come to the house on Mondays around 6:30 or 7 and we break up into small groups and discuss various topics. I think there are about 5 or so groups that discuss random topics. I am in Phil’s group and we discuss the charla or the talk from the Tertulia or Bible Study the Thursday night before. It was really great. The kids here are so opinionated and really want you to know how they feel about a certain topic and so on. They really care and really want to learn which I think is awesome. It was definitely a lot different from CCF back home where you have to pull teeth to get someone to talk. I liked it a lot though, I didn’t understand much, but I could definitely tell they were into it. After the small groups we had Donce. Donce is basically an event where the students come and have a dinner and dessert and hear a small talk. It’s really cute and the students love it. Phil asked me to come up with a game so I found a clip from the show Friends dubbed over in Spanish and came up with 20 questions about the clip. I found out the losing team has to do the dishes and the team I just so happened to be on was with all guys and of course they didn’t pay attention so we lost because I couldn’t cheat. It was fun though! Tuesday we were going to have Almorrica which is an all girls lunch but we decided to start it next week because Claudia (a staff member) and Eli wanted to pick out a book to discuss with the girls first. So instead we went to a book store in the city which was pretty neat. I saw a lot of my favorite books, well the Spanish version. It was cool though. Wednesday was a holiday and I’m not quite sure what it was celebrating but everything was closed, Eli and I tried to go to a restaurant but we were unsuccessful. I tried to go to a bread store close by but it was closed too, the only good news is someone stopped and asked me for directions and I was able to help them in Spanish, I was so proud of myself. That night some students wanted to go see a movie called NO which is a Chilean movie so Katie and I went. I didn’t understand it and the filming gave me a headache. It was fun to hang out with the students though! We played pool while waiting for the movie and it was awesome just interacting with them. When Katie and I got home we decorated Frizz’s (a staff member) desk because Thursday was his birthday. We were super cute and probably won best exchange student award. Thursday was Tertulia and from the time I left my bedroom which was around 11am, I did not stop working until 11pm. Claudia asked me to help her make some gifts she was going to hand out after her Bible study talk (charla) so I helped with those for a few hours. It was fun, Claudia is super nice and a really great person. After those were finished they asked me to decorate the chalk board upstairs which I didn’t mind and Eli helped me so it ended up being really fun. After that I had to help make brownies for the new people (every first El Oasis timer gets a brownie) and help cook a little. By then it was time for Café a lo Gringo. Café a lo Gringo is just a time for Chilean students to come and learn English. Katie did the first game which was the beach ball question game which the students seemed to enjoy, some questions where harder for them than others but it was ok. After that my game was Mafia so we played two rounds of that and the students seemed to really like that game as well. Then it was time for Tertulia! It was a blast! I really love hanging out with students and singing worship songs in Spanish. Claudia gave the talk which I’m sure was awesome. I’m just not super comprehensive quite yet. Then the students just hung out for a bit more after that. It was a pretty great week. 

Frizz's desk!

presents from la charla

Claudia, Eli, Greg, me, and some students