The Call to Chile: Oh, We're Half Way There

(9/24-9/27) Monday was pretty good. During the day I spent a lot of time that morning reading a book called Through Painted Deserts. Then Katie and I made lunch and watched an episode of Criminal Minds. After that it was time to make the dessert for Donce. When I went to start making it I realized that the person who went shopping forgot some of the needed ingredients. It was my fault because I didn’t write it down. I felt bad about it and then Phil went to the store on his bike to get what I needed. I decided to make cinnamon bread because it seemed easy and I was still exhausted. Small groups started at 7 and Phil’s group didn’t have a topic to talk about because Tertulia last week was a fonda. Instead we watched a short film and it was awesome. It was so symbolic and just a really beautiful film. After that Donce started. We ate dinner which was this awesome chicken lasagna and then Phil gave a short devotional. The game that decides the cleanup crew for the night was guessing the TV show from the theme song, which was finally a game I could actually help on. We didn’t lose, but because a student on our team called the winning team cheaters we had to help clean up too. It wasn’t too bad though. Tuesday I woke up and read some more of that book. Then I went to the post office to mail a few letters and swung by the supermarket to pick up a few things. On my way back to the house I bought my first Chilean hotdog. It had tomatoes, avocado, and mayonnaise on it. And it was huge and pretty delicious. When I got back Eli and Claudia asked if I would help them with decorations for the new talk series on Matthew 6:9-13. We wrote the verses in a bunch of different languages and hung them upstairs to look like flags. It was cute and I love helping Claudia and Eli. A student met with me after that to practice English which is always really fun. She brought me a piece of pie too which was really sweet. We spent about an hour going over words in English and Spanish. We had our Café a lo Gringo meeting and our exchange student meeting which both went very well. I spent the rest of the night reading and finishing my book. Wednesday I went to the fresh market all by myself but everyone gave me a list so it was slightly more complicated than it should have been, but I made it out alive. When I got back to the house I made lunch and started another book. For lunch Eli, Claudia, Katie, Amy, Heather (girl visiting from Atlanta), Heather’s husband and I went to Barcelona for lunch. I love that place because it’s $6 for bread, salad, thin steak, French fries, dessert, and a drink. Crazy and I love it. After lunch Katie and I cleaned the windows out front. Then we helped Brent shoot the announcement video for the week which was crazy but some students came over so it was cool being able to spend time with them. I got a little cranky for a second because Brent doesn’t know how to communicate what he wants, but other than that it was good. I got to video chat with my friend Aubri that night which was really nice because I hadn’t seen her or talked to her in a while. Thursday was fun. I went to staff meeting and then read some more of The Hungering Dark and I helped Eli with the chalkboard, except my drawing looked really stupid. I made myself lunch and I did my chore after that which was to vacuum the two living rooms and the hallway. I guess I just got in a cleaning mood because I cleaned my half of the room too. I dusted and reorganized and vacuumed. Now everything is where it should be and it feels good. Oh well, I tried. After that I made the brownies for Tertulia which I love doing. Then I had to get ready for Café a lo Gringo. This week’s Café a lo Gringo went so much better than I expected it to. I had the idea of doing a photo scavenger hunt around our little neighborhood. The students really loved it and got really competitive with it running as fast as they could to find the scenarios on the hunt. It was pretty awesome. After that we had Tertulia and hotdogs were the dinner. Katie and I did the cover band and we preformed the song Livin’ on a Prayer. Want to know why? Because we’re half way there, literally, Thursday was our half way point of being in Chile. We choreographed a little and wore hats and sunglasses. It was hilarious! The rest of Tertulia was pretty cool too. Greg gave the talk and we started a new series about Padre Nuestro. It was pretty interesting and that’s the most I’ve understood from a talk so far. I was proud of myself. After that, the staff and a couple of students went to a restaurant called HBH to spend time with this couple that just came in from Atlanta to go to some wedding here in Chile. They were both former exchange students in El Oasis. It was cool being able to hang out with everyone. The whole time though I talked my friends Koke and Abraham about English because they both want to learn it. It was really fun.