First Day of Camp

Well, I am in melipilla. We had our first day of English Camp yesterday and it was...a long day. Things are very unorganized to say the least. It has just become known and expected. Everything is last minute in Chile....and you just have to say, ok.

When we all got together in Santiago on the 4th, we were put into groups and asked to make a supply list. And, we were told 60 students were registered. Sounds great, eh?

Well, we arrived to Melipilla, to the one and only hotel in town, Hotel Truncas. Because not everyone was here, me and another volunteer who lives here went for a walk to the mall for something to eat. For the most part, this is a nice town, a bit bigger than Santa Cruz, or maybe alot bigger. They have a mall and a movie theatre. I have been craving a trip to the Cine. Then, we walked by the school we would be working our Camp out of...I realize now that I have been truely spoiled with my placement in Santa Cruz.

We came back to the hotel around 5pm to meet up with the others. Turns out, no supplies were ordered and our 60 students were 15! The program had asked students to reapply, making them take a test. Most students had already started their winter break when this information was relayed to the schools where the students had applied. ARgh! So, two things annoy me right now...why was there a reapplication process? Why would you deny students, who wanted to take a week of their winter break, a chance to learn English? I would rather start at square one with learning English with a group of students than denying them the right just because they didn´t pass some stupid test.

So, we are 5 volunteers working with 18 (a couple of others showed) students. We are stepping all over each other, piping in comments that I believe only confuse the students...things are just chaotic...and we all talked about it yesterday, with hopes that we have come up with a better plan for today. We started camp yesterday at 8am and ended at 6pm. Then, during dinner, and after dinner, we reorganized. Today we are starting at 10am and ending at 5.30pm. We have a solid schedule of events for today and I have high hopes. Yes, we will still be winging it a bit...but it is better.

Luckily, we have a very cool coordinator in our group. He just got back from being in England for a year. When I say just got back, he just got back two weeks ago. He is Chilean, not English. But, he has apologized for the lack of organization of the program and he is just as frustrated by it as us. Knowing that, we are all working together to pull something off. We have to...I don´t want to have these kids walk away thinking they wasted a week of their vacation. Of course, they might not have had anything else to do...as kids here don´t work when they are high school. Their job is to go to school. And, many of them have a good English base...so they are easy to work with and they truely want to be there, otherwise they wouldn´t take an hour long bus ride everyday. But, I think the other kids would have truely wanted to be here too.

Where has my time gone?I better get ready to go to school. I had a little bit more for breakfast this morning as I could hardly eat the food we were given at school yesterday. It is terrible to say...but I couldn´t handle...first of all, the mass of dogs in the field out back taking turns humping the bitch...(the term bitch for female dogs just took on a whole new meaning in my mind)...then, the toilets that don´t flush but have a giant blue PVC pipe connecting them all (they hose out the bathrooms in my school, and now I know why...thank God for the teacher´s bathroom), then the dirty walls in the cafeteria. That was enough for me... AND, remember the warm coke I thought I drank on the bus going to Puerto Montt? Well, it really was coffee...they just put in so much sugar it tastes like warm coke! Aye...my teeth!

Alright, all is good though. You just smile and keep going on...The kids are too nice to not want to keep moving ahead...

Cheers! Jami