my Colegio San Francisco jacket

So my friend Dan and I brought along our school jackets to Conce so that we could take a photoshoot looking bad-ass. We found the perfect setting on a railroad bridge.  Here they are, per request:

don't mess with us

Thank you to Caroline for taking the photos! There will of course be another round of photos as soon as Caroline gets her jacket : ) 

el Huáscar

Ok, time for ship photos!  As I said, this was a Peruvian war ship from the War of the Pacific in the late 1800s.  The Chilean navy took it in battle and then used it themselves, but now it is sitting pretty in the port at Talcahuano, beautifully restored and available for visitors. We had to show our Chilean ID cards to get into the navy base (the first time I've actually had to use that thing!) and waited for this floating platform thing to take us on board.  It was pretty damn cool. 

this dog waited with us

view back towards the street, with a cool old abandoned building in the back

sailor pulling us across!

he spoke English!

ooh la la

not too shabby!

Dan, Caroline and I

making a break for it 

this had to happen, obviously

So cool! Got my sea legs now. 

This week in: vicious animals barreling towards Maddie

I had two close encounters with Chilean wildlife this weekend.  Who would have thought I get out of my small town and into the big city and THERE the animals run the place?  But these are actually very funny stories. Allow me to share them with you. 

Incident #1: we are eating our heavenly ice cream on some benches in the plaza downtown, which is full of pigeons. I have already made my disdain for pigeons clear to the group, and our spot is unnervingly close to a pack of them, and so I am on edge. But I am, understandably, focused on the ice cream. My friend Joe, sitting next to me, gets quiet and turns to ask, "Is that a bird of prey?" I follow his gaze and see that, not only is it indeed a brown hawk creature, but it has taken off from its branch and is flying directly towards us. That bird looks me dead in the eye and I am stricken with a fear the likes of which I have never known.  I'm sitting in the middle of a crowded city square and a hawk is about to attack my face?! By the time I finish saying, "I think it is, and oh my god it's coming RIGHT AT US," I'm shrieking and my legs are pulled up into the fetal position and my arms are up to block my face.  Of course, the hawk is flying at the pigeons and not at me, which is good in that my face is safe but bad in that the entire flock of pigeons now takes flight to escape the hawk, coming at us and barely missing our heads.  The danger is past, but I am hesitant to return to a normal sitting position. Thank god my ice cream has not been harmed.  I barely have time to recover before it happens again, so I gather myself and head to another bench far away. The ice cream makes everything ok but does not negate the fact that half of the Chileans in the plaza are watching me and surely chuckling in amusement. 

Incident #2: we are on the waterfront in Talcahuano, having finally figured out that there is a BMX show across the way. We are standing on a dock (see below, on the left) but the view isn't good enough so we begin to make our way back out and around to get closer.

We soon perceive that people behind us are running off the dock, looking behind them like they are trying to get away from something.  What could it be?  My only thought is maybe a street dog going crazy or something.  Soon the crowd parts to reveal the perpetrator: A GIANT. EFFING. SEA LION. He is FAT but he is moving FAST, faster than I thought any sea lion could move. We rush to get out of the way, thinking that maybe he is just trying to get back to the water (he is coming from the dock, how is that even possible?? as I am writing this we still don't understand). But no!  He continues rampaging towards us, flailing his head around like he's just got a thirst for blood that cannot be quenched.  We run a little further and turn around to see that some kid, who can't be older than 14, has picked up a wooden plank and started whacking the sea lion. Just hopping all around him and bringing it down hard.  As you imagine, it makes a nice smacking noise.  The sea lion gets really disoriented and eventually turns and jumps back into the water. The Chileans are somehow not phased whatsoever, and everything goes back to normal within seconds, leaving my friends and I looking like crazy people doubled over with laughter for 5 minutes.  Here's the hero of the day- look how triumphant he is! 

he just looks like someone who looks forward to taking on sea lions, am I right?

We all agreed that being chased by a sea lion was one of the strangest, but funniest things that had ever happened to us. I wish to GOD I had a photo of that thing tearing across the gravel.  But my mental picture will last for a while, that's for sure. 

Concepción

This past weekend some other volunteers and I (3 others from Angol and 2 that met up with us) spent the weekend in Concepción! Conce (as the Chileans call it) is one of Chile's main large cities, and very important for trade since it's right on the coast.  There are also a lot of universities in Conce, and we were pleased to see tons of people our own age everywhere! (not the case in Angol).  We took a 4-hr bus ride there and stayed in a residencial, which like a hostel but even smaller/more personal, just a large house run by this lady and her family and 2 employees. They were incredibly nice, and it was incredibly cheap, so that was a great find!  

The first night we headed to a karaoke bar, and my friends Caroline and Dan and I attempted to enchant the crowd with our rendition of Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer," but it did notttt go as planned. We were really tanking, so much so that at one point a man at the front table was giving us the double-thumbs-down boo (very rude, but probably deserved).  I think we were a little too big for our gringo britches. BUT we got it together by the end!  And we made up for it later with a lovely "Hey Jude." 

The next day we all set out walking towards the center of downtown, and happened upon this little flea market set up near the University of Concepción. So many cool things! A little camera crew interviewed us for their project about the arts & cultural events in the city. 

handmade doll outfits! there are even little nurses' uniforms

caught spinning MJ. ain't nothin wrong with that

Then we made our way to the downtown shopping area and Plaza de Armas (there is a plaza de armas in every Chilean city; it's just the main square). I gave some kids a few hundred pesos (only about 50 cents) towards their school's Harlem Shake party, and we all watched a belly-dancing performance. 

chalk drawings in the plaza!

Then we got lunch in the market (empanadas! delish), which, coincidentally, burned down the morning after we ate there! I would never celebrate a fire, but no one was hurt and I must say I don't mind that these things went up in flames: 

NO THANK YOU

jesus christ

don't worry, mom, I found this picture on Google

After lunch we got some de-LICIOUS ice cream to eat in the plaza. It was a huge two-flavored cone dipped in chocolate. You have to eat it with a spoon because it's so much to handle (in a good way). This photo captures my excitement well... 

Then we took a bus out to one of the ports, called Talcahuano.  There is a navy base there where you can go on board this ship that Chile took from Peru in the War of the Pacific in 1879, the Huascar.  It will be getting its own post, because I took so many pictures of it! But before we got to the ship, we were trying to figure out why there was such a large swarm of people along the water.  It was the busiest I've seen anywhere in Chile!  We soon caught a glimpse of a Red Bull BMX show in full swing, and it was AWESOME.  We actually got up pretty close! 

Conce is on a major fault line; this is where the 2010 earthquake hit hardest. that also means tsunami waves!

just look at these tasty treats

at this point we are still trying to figure out what the hell everybody is looking at

... and then we figured it out

yeah that's pretty cool

That night we ventured out to one of the bar districts near some universities, and of course there was more karaoke. This time Cher's 'Believe' and some 'Bohemian Rapsody.' There weren't many other people in the place but WE thought we did wonderfully, and the DJ agreed so he let us keep singing.  Practice makes perfect! 

Then on Sunday we took it easy and just enjoyed some breakfast and tv before we caught our bus back to Angol. It was a great weekend!  My host family is planning another long weekend in Conce, and I'm already looking forward to seeing even more of the city : ) 

here's the group, plus the daughter of the residencial lady, who came out to karaoke with us!
apparently gringos make her laugh

News

First, the bad: my host dad broke his ankle! Playing soccer.  He's ok but they will operate on it on Wednesday to set everything straight.  He's been a great sport about it though!  Quite admirable.

Also we have new volunteers in Angol!  They got here last weekend, so we met up with them to introduce ourselves and then did a volunteer cookout together on Friday.  I learned the cueca!  It's the traditional Chilean dance that's very popular here in the South, and the idea is that the man and woman imitate mating chickens.  We had a group lesson at our cookout because one of the volunteers' host parents used to win awards in cueca competitions! Very fun.  I have a ways to go until I'm a convincing mating chicken, but at least I know what I am supposed to do.

Also I made a brilliant purchase: the P.E. uniform that all the kids at my school have to wear. I know what you're thinking, but you're wrong--it's awesome.  It's a super comfy track jacket in the school colors, with the name on the back.  I don't know if I can wear it out of the house but I'm sure as hell wearing it all the time in the house. 

This week there's a English teachers' network meeting, and my school is hosting it so I have to do an activity for everybody that they can then use in their classes. I've been dreading planning it, and have been procrastinating for several days.  Thank you, blog post, for eating up some extra time for me. 

Chile on Facebook

So I caved in and made a separate facebook account for myself just for students at my school to be friends with me, because so many of them wouldn't stop bugging me about it.  I learned quickly that most Chileans (not just kids) are obsessed with facebook, way more than any Americans I know.  Little 4th graders are posting statuses about being at school with each other and then everybody likes every single status and photo that anyone else posts.  Needless to say, every time I log on I am bombarded with notifications and chat messages.  For most of them, their limited knowledge of English cuts us off after "Hi Maddie! How are you? What are you doing?" but if I'm lucky they will try to an online translator to send me entire sentences of mis-translated nonsense.  Not that I'm complaining! I love them!  And I have been learning about online slang and different emoticons.  Yes, they use different emoticons! Who'da thought?  They make this funny little faces using letters and a period (where the letters are the eyes and the dot is the nose).  You kind of have to use your imagination; I was reallyyyy confused until someone explained it to me.  For your enjoyment:

u.u    (sad)

e.e    (squinty?  so I guess that means expectant/wary or disgusted)

n.n    (happy)

So now everyone in America can start using these. You're welcome. 

Rainbow(s?!) over Angol

This is a little late, but I have some pictures from last Tuesday.  Every Tuesday after school I do karaoke for whatever freshmen want to come, and there's a good group of 10-12 that are there every week!  Now we're also in the habit of walking (partway) home together after karaoke since most of us are going the same direction.  Last Tuesday I was having a bad day, just general grumpiness, and was not looking forward to having to stay after school to sing songs for an hour, but it turns out that was just what I needed to cheer me up!  That group never fails to put a smile on my face : ) 

On our walk home one of the boys pulled out his guitar so they could all sing me one of the Chilean songs that they are trying to teach me ("Quien fuera" by los Bunkers- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFhPknjnvTM ) and I couldn't resist taking some pictures.  And then we noticed that there was a rainbow and I got all excited and once I was almost home I caught a glimpse of an (albeit very faint) DOUBLE rainbow. So yeah my grumpy Tuesday turned around! 

can you see the double?!