Viña del Mar

(8/24-8/26) Friday was Eli’s birthday! Katie and I woke up early and decorated her desk, it was pretty cute! We also bought her a dark chocolate candy bar and Starbucks coffee. I even made a banner out of recycled paper. We are the best exchange students. After that Friday took a turn for the worse. Katie, Claudia, Eli, and I went to lunch with some girls in the ministry downtown. By the way, I ate KFC, I think that’s relevant. About 30 minutes into our lunch Katie looks down and realizes her book bag isn’t there. Someone stole her book bag while we were eating. It had her i-pod, driver’s license, credit card, bike lock, cash, water bottle, and other various items. It was pretty sad. I felt very helpless. We went back to the El Oasis house and just hung out for a while and Katie contacted her parents to tell them what happened. After that we did Pilates, well kind of, it turned into nap time. Then Claudia gave Katie a chocolate bar because she was getting really sad. We were going to go dancing with Eli and some people for her birthday, but since Katie didn’t have money and I was feeling pretty sick we skipped and went to bed. I don’t regret it. Saturday was fun. I went to student’s football game, and yes I mean American football and that was really awesome. His team won so that was exciting for everyone. I went with Brent and it was cool getting to hang out with him. After that I came back to the El Oasis house and watched some Criminal Minds while Katie did homework. I got to skype my family back home which was really great to see them and after that a student randomly came over, her name is Camila and she is super sweet. We talked with her for a while and then she, Katie, and I watched a movie. She left after the movie was over so then we went to bed. I’ve been exhausted. Sunday was super fun! We woke up super early to go to Viña del Mar which is a really famous beach here in Chile. After Katie and I almost missed the bus, we met up with everyone else going with us to the beach for Eli’s birthday. It takes two hours by bus and it’s worth it. We got there and had a little breakfast off bread and cheese brought to you by Lider. Then we walked around for a while and went to the ocean. After about an hour or two of that we hopped on a small bus to the next town over which was Valparaíso another famous city in Chile. In fact, it was one of the first cities in Chile. It has a huge port with a ton of boats. We climbed a hill that over looked the ocean and the city, quite beautiful. Then we had to find a place to eat lunch because we were famished. Nothing super exciting about lunch, I got a sandwich and some fries, none of the good places to eat were open because it was a Sunday. After that Katie, Jorge, and I climbed further up another hill to check out this museum and house of a famous Chilean poet named Pablo Neruda. The house was pretty awesome looking (we didn’t go inside because you had to pay for that). It had a cute little garden too, a lot of statues of him as well that I took stupid pictures with. It was great. After that we went back to Viña to meet back up with everyone. They were lying on the beach watching the sunset which was quite beautiful. Katie and I decided to hit up some little shops nearby and I bought my sister a present! I bet she doesn’t read this, but I still won’t say what it is just in case. Merry Christmas Breanne! It was time to go back to the bus station after that, but we did stop by Starbucks which they managed to spell my name “Teka” I don’t know how that happened. Then we got on the bus and slept the majority of the way home. Once home, we did Insanity, I showered, did laundry, and then wrote this blog. It was a pretty good weekend. 

Claus and I at his football game

me at Viña del Mar

our group

me and Pablo Neruda

how they spelled my name at Starbucks

It's Always Winter But Never Christmas

(8/20-8/23) Monday was busy! I woke up and spent just a few minutes reading before Claudia came and asked what dessert I wanted to make for Donce. I had forgotten the list and just remembered that banana bread was an option so I picked that one. While Claudia was gone Eli, Katie, and I made lunch and hung out talking for a bit. We also helped Eli make the announcement video which was fun because I got to yell in Spanish and hit Eli with a stick, don’t worry, it wasn’t very hard. After lunch Katie went to class Claudia got back with all of the groceries. I started on the banana which took about an hour to make. Once it was in the oven I started cleaning the bathroom because that was my chore for the day. Then I got the banana bread out and cut them up and placed them on the trays for later. Then I helped Eli cook the main dish which was Pastel de Papas. Basically mashed potatoes, beef (I think), onions, eggs, and cheese. It was pretty good. Small groups started at 7 which mine was good, I still wish I could comprehend more. Donce started at 8. We ate, listened to a talk, and then passed out the desserts. After that we played which table can guess the most soundtracks. Our table didn’t win, but we didn’t lose either so I didn’t have to clean the kitchen! Woohoo! While I was in the living, I taught some students how to play Ninja! We played that for about an hour and then everyone went home. Good night. Tuesday wasn’t really eventful. I read a lot. Some people came over for lunch, Phil’s girlfriend Eli, a girl named Fernanda, Edison, then the regulars Claudia, Frizz, Phil, Eli, and me. We had lunch and then people left. I played guitar for about an hour and then finished a book called Searching for God Knows What. Later that night Brent tried to do Insanity with us, but dropped out after about 10 minutes. Poor little guy. I also had some friends Skype me which was awesome to see them! Wednesday was very cold and rainy, the high was only 45. I liked it though. I started a new book called A Room Called Remember. It is a pretty great book so far. Katie and I took Eli to lunch because her birthday is Friday and we don’t have a lot of free time. Fernanda and Amy came as well. We went to Waya’s which is this salad place. It was good. We even played the game sweet and sour out the window waving at random strangers. After that I came home and started reading the Bible in Spanish. I’m trying every way I can to learn this language. It was a pretty low key night. We did Insanity and had dinner. I read to kid in English which was funny, he asked me to. Later that night I got to Skype Aubri which was very cool. Thursday I woke and couldn’t breathe out of my nose. I guess the cold and rain finally caught up with me. I pressed on though. I went grocery shopping with Greg with took an insane amount of time to do. When we got back I had to run around for two hours getting everything ready. I had to bake brownies, finish the Café a lo Gringo things and print them, and set up for Café a lo Gringo. It was hectic but still a good day. Café went very well. They enjoyed the two activities which were Bingo and coming up with skits. After Café, Tertulia started and it was a very awesome night. The subject was love so the worship band did an acoustic set with songs about love and heart. I loved it. David gave the talk and I understood it more than I’ve understood any other talk so far so that was a win. Afterwards we just hung out and cleaned up. Fun fun fun. Also, everyone said my brownies were the best!

my friends at Donce

teaching them the game Ninja

worship

Rainy Days

(8/17-8/19) Friday was a blast. The day started by me receiving a package from my mom and dad! It had slippers, candy, and Alfredo pasta in it. It was such a great surprise. I found out later that customs had taken the beef jerky out which made me sad. It was still a really great package though! It had been raining all week and was still raining Friday. The girls at El Oasis had planned a Pilates workout session. I’m not really big into Pilates because it’s just stretching and seems a tad pointless to me. However, I did it with a smile on face. I just want the students to know that I care and will do whatever I can to hang out with them, which includes doing Pilates. So Claudia started this video which was super corny, in English, and filmed in Barbados. The people in the video were so cheesy I had to stop listening. The Chilean students should feel lucky they didn’t understand. The video was about an hour and after that Claudia suggested we go for a run. Katie and I decided we were going to go ahead and get Insanity out of the way while they went for a run. When they heard we were going to do Insanity, they all wanted to join that instead of going for a run. Doing that made me feel great. The Chileans were dropping during the warm up, I felt so fit! It was one of the harder videos Pure Cardio which is 16 straight minutes off moving around. I only stopped twice for water. Some of the Chileans stopped for entire exercises. It did make me feel like my workout is improving a lot. After that some students hung out at the house talking to us for a while, but everyone eventually left. Katie and I had another video to do that day which was really short so we did that and then took showers. We were going to watch a movie but we were both exhausted so we made a list of movies we want to watch in the future and watched trailers for them and went to bed. Saturday was our Insanity rest day. However, we didn’t get much of a rest. Since it had rained all week, the sky was really clear and you could see the mountains all around. We decided to climb Cerro San Cristobal. We took the long way around the entire mountain which took over an hour, but the views were incredible so we didn’t mind. Once we got to the top it was completely worth it. The mountains were breath taking. It’s always so beautiful up there. After eating a small snack and resting for a bit we started to climb down. We took a much shorter path down. We got home and ate lunch. After that we hung out and Skyped our families for a while. I forgot I was cooking rice and accidentally burned it. The house was so smoky for a while and smelled like burnt rice. That was my bad. Then we watched a movie on our list called The Terminal. It was really good. Then of course we went to bed. Sunday was pretty relaxing. I got up and listened to a Podcast from Life Spring church in Statesboro. When Katie got home from Mass we went to Lider (Walmart) and a nearby market to grocery shop a little. A student had come over to help Katie with a paper she is writing for one of her classes. She stayed all day and even did Insanity with us. We hung out and ate dinner together. Then they went back to work on the paper and I watched some Criminal Minds for a bit. Also it was my day for laundry but the washing machine started leaking water so I had to basically wait in the bathroom turning the water on and off whenever the machine needed it, it was so frustrating! I did get my laundry done which was good because I hadn’t done it in three weeks and was running out of clothes. I had to clean the bathroom though because it was under like an inch of water, craziness! I pretty much just used like 10 towels to mop it up, and then I washed the towels, interesting experience. That night I also got to Skype my youth pastor and his wife for the first time which was really awesome! That concludes my weekend! 

my package from my parents!

the skyline at the beginning of the climb

where else can you see a palm tree and a snow capped mountain?

the Virgin Mary

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

Great Weekend

So this weekend Katie, Greg (intern), Brent (intern), Kamilo (student), Carlos (student), Jorge (student), and I went to a little town called Iloca. The town is located about 5 hours south of Santiago…long car ride. We went to help build a house for a family in need there. Just some history about what happened and why we were needed. On Saturday February 27 of 2010 an 8.8 Earthquake rocked the country of Chile. The earthquake then triggered a tsunami at 3am which devastated several coastal towns in the south. Iloca was hit pretty hard. Houses were completely destroyed, several people died, and lives were forever changed. The people there are so terrified of the ocean now that when building houses, they refuse to put windows that face the ocean in their house. It’s so beautiful there it seems like a crime, but I would probably be terrified too. So that’s why we went. Almost two years later and you can still see and feel the effect of what happened. We arrived there Friday afternoon and after eating a delicious homemade plate of spaghetti and checking out the beach, we went to work. We took all the needed supplies to the site we were building the house at and unloaded all of the lumber. By that time the sun had set so we had to call it a day. The family we were building the house provided all of our meals for the weekend which was super sweet of them. They were very nice people! After dinner we went to our very small rental house, hung out for a bit, and went to bed. We woke up early Saturday and went to breakfast. After we ate we started the construction. They asked me take pictures all day which was ok with me; the house we were building wasn’t very big so a lot of people weren’t super needed to put the walls up. I really wanted to help though, but I think that was God humbling me a little bit. We took a break around 2 (because 2 o’clock is when Chileans eat lunch) to have lunch and after lunch we climbed a little mountain close to the family’s rental house. I was terrified because I was climbing the side of a mountain in Sperry’s (boat shoes). At one point a shoe fell off and I had to go back a little to retrieve it. I was scared the majority of the way up but I made it. The view was incredible, absolutely beautiful, completely worth the climb. Of course once we all got to the top, Katie pointed out on the other side of the mountain there were stairs. What the heck!? Oh well I enjoyed the climb. We went exploring a little at the top of the mountain and found a giant pasture with roaming cows everywhere. We eventually caught a calf that had just been born, he still had the umbilical cord attached. He was precious! After taking a few pictures with him, all the boys rolled down the hill while Katie and I walked. Dummies got cow poop all over them. It was hilarious to watch though! After that we went back and literally finished the entire framing of the house and about half the roof. We insulated it a little too but ran out o supplies, I’m sure they’ll get more in before the drywall or cement goes up. It was instant gratification seeing our work standing there. Then we watched a gorgeous sun set. After dinner we got invited to a benefit bingo raffle fun night thing that was for this baby who was really sick and has been really sick for a couple of years. It was like the whole town came out, it was pretty awesome. We played bingo for like 3 hours and someone in our group won a vacuum cleaner which we donated to the church. It was fun but I was ready for bed. Sunday we got up, had breakfast and were going to go finish the roof of the house. It was already done so they gave us the day off. We just went to the ocean and walked around for a little while. After lunch we went and cleaned up the church a little bit, and then we went to our cabin, packed up, and headed home. On the way home we stopped at this huge suspension walking bridge that looked like the San Francisco Bridge in California. Took a few pictures and jumped for a little bit and then finished the 5 hour long car ride back. It was exhausting but a really great weekend! 

the Pacific Ocean

destruction from the tsunami

view from the top of the hill

baby calf

the house

the bridge

First Week of Events

(8/2-8/9) Well I haven’t written in a week now but that’s because last Thursday to Sunday I pretty much did nothing. The students were coming back Monday so we used this time to clean the house and just kind of relax and get our mindset ready to start off the semester on a great note. David and Claudia came back Friday and it was really good seeing them. Monday was really awesome. I went to class which was still pretty boring, but after that, the entire class went out to lunch which was super cute. We went to a pretty fancy restaurant but it was neat looking inside. After the restaurant I went back to the El Oasis house where I got to meet Greg for the first time. He is another staff member from the United States who is going to be here for about 2-3 years. He is super nice and friendly. Katie and I had to help make the dinner because we had our first event as El Oasis which was basically just a dinner to meet and great everyone. We helped to make the pebre which is a Chilean salsa. It was a little harder than I thought it would be because we had to peel the tomatoes before we diced them. Peeling tomatoes is hard work! After that we sliced all the bread and by that time a lot of students started showing up. The guys started grilling the sausages because the meal was these little sausage things on these little buns with pebre. It’s apparently a really authentic Chilean meal and I know it has a name but I’m drawing a blank on that. The meet and great went really well. I met a ton of students and had a blast trying to understand them and have them understand me. I’m starting to get the hang of this whole Spanish thing though. I found out that a lot of students travel 30minutes to an hour to get to El Oasis. That was just really cool seeing how much time they are willing to give up just getting here and how much of an impact this place makes if students are willing to travel so far. It was just awesome. It ended probably around 11 and then Katie, Eli, and I did our Insanity workout which is like our roommate bonding time. Tuesday was a pretty great day. I had my last day of Spanish class at least for a while and then came home to just hang out with everyone doing random things and just getting to know the staff. After a while a student at El Oasis came over to start cooking for a fundraising dinner that she had planned for that night. She is going to be an exchange student in Thailand, how awesome is that? I helped her cook and then went to the church to help set everything up. The night was so special, she gave a speech about why she felt God was calling her there and you could tell her entire heart was in it. It was great to get to be a part of something like that. She leaves in January and will have a few more fundraisers to help meet her goal. I can’t wait to help with those as well. Wednesday was pretty fun. It was my one month of being here and Brent took Katie and I to lunch to celebrate. It was so good too! We went to a place close by and I had a thin steak with French fries, a piece of bread, salad, soup, and a chocolate mousse for dessert…and it was only $6! Awesome and Brent paid which was even more awesome! After that we just hung out at the house for a bit, I read and cleaned my room a little bit. After a while Brent asked us to help him with an intro video for Bible Study (Tertuilia). So we spent about two hours with that which was a complete blast. After that we just hung out did our workout and went to sleep. Thursday was amazing. I woke up and went to the store with Eli to buy supplies for dinner which was sloppy joe’s, nice right? We had to wait like an hour though because the store had to make more bread but it was cool. After that I got back to the house and Claudia asked me if I could sing a song at Tertuilia and I said yes even though I was so nervous about it. We each have chores we have to do before events so I started on those and finished up pretty quickly. After that it was time for Café a lo Gringo which is an event that we’re kind of in charge of that helps Chilean students learn English. It went really well and the few that were there seemed to enjoy it a lot. Tertulia started after that and we ate first and then I did my cover song which was Hey Soul Sister by Train. They were very encouraging and seemed to enjoy it even though I messed up a little. The real band came up after that and played a couple of songs which were incredibly amazing. They are all so talented! They did songs that I know in English but they were in Spanish obviously. There was a short skit after that and then Phil gave the talk which I’m sure was good but it was in Spanish so I only caught a little bit of it. The band came back up and did a few more songs to close us out which were just as incredible as the first set. Then we hung out in the house for a little while before going to a student’s going away party. His name is Matias and his church is sending him to a Bible college in Texas to study there for four years so eventually he can take over the church as the preacher. Isn’t that awesome? I think it is incredible. We went to eat at this little restaurant and hung out with him until about 1 am before going home and completely passing out. It was such a great week.

View from the Top

(7/27-8/1) Well Friday I enjoyed some much needed me time. Katie went to hang out with her exchange student friends and I was more than happy to stay here by myself. I watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics and watched some movies on Netflix. It was great. Saturday was incredible. Our friend Kari and her roommate took us hiking at a Nature Reserve in the Andes Mountains. We had a picnic before and then just took in all of the incredible views. There were mountains completely surrounding us and it was beautiful. We started the hike up which wasn’t too bad until we decided we wanted to go to the very top. That part was pretty difficult. My shoes had absolutely no traction whatsoever so I was sliding everywhere. Plus my thighs were on fire! We eventually made it to the highest point and it was totally worth the climb, absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. The sun was hitting every mountain for miles and we could see the moon at the same time. We could see some of the snow capped mountains in the distance as well. It was gorgeous. After we soaked in the views for about 30, while also trying to take a group picture by resting the camera against a cactus, we decided it was time to start the descent. We thought it would be fun to try a different way of getting down the mountain. That was a terrible idea. We got so lost and there wasn’t a path. We were ducking under trees, having to snap braches off, sliding on our butts, and just had to go through some crazy obstacles. I took the lead because I was ready to get off the mountain. The sun had gone away and I was freezing. So I just pushed through and eventually found a path that lead us back to the car. I was proud of myself! Sunday Kari had a going away party in a beautiful park that I went to. We didn’t have a grill so we made a fire and found an old drain cover that we covered in tinfoil and cooked on that, pretty ingenious. We also made some smores which was probably my favorite part of the picnic. We had a great time! Monday was pretty uneventful. The usual class and then just hung out at the house for a bit. I got hungry and wanted a pizza from my favorite Chilean pizza place. A Chilean student went with me because he was curious of where it was. It was pretty far, but it was so good! That was the highlight of Monday. Tuesday was pretty fun. Katie took me out to lunch since I paid for her to go hiking because she didn’t have any money on her. It’s a good little place around the corner where you can get bread, salad, main dish, and dessert for only $5. Later some people decided to go to the movies to see Batman so I went with them. We were going to see it in English but it had sold out so we had to wait for 2 hours and watch it in Spanish. During the wait, everyone wanted pizza so we went to a nearby Papa John’s and got some pizza. My first American food in Chile and it tasted the same, except here it is extra greasy. Then we saw the movie, I didn’t understand very much of it but I was able to follow it mostly. It was fun though. Today (Wednesday) has been pretty calm. Went to school and ate lunch. I bought a frozen chicken hamburger from the store the other day and tried it for lunch. It looked really strange, but it tasted pretty good. I was kind of expecting a chicken patty, a little disappointing but I will live. Phil returned to Chile today, he should be stopping by later to say hey and hang out for a bit. The roommates and I have decided to start working out every day and decided we were going to go through the insanity program since I conveniently have it on my computer. So we’re doing the fit test tonight. I feel like I’ve already lost a lot of weight from walking everywhere and not eating near as much sugar as I did in the states. I should drink more water though, that’s my downfall. I just hate the taste of tap water here so I have to buy it by the liters and then carry it home which is just a hassle. I will be better about it though. 

view from the top

my smore