English Power Music Festival

Big news! We had some winners in our family on Tuesday night, at a singing competition in the regional capital.  Franco and Francisca were both competing, so we all drove to Temuco with one of the English teachers from our school, Viviana. Vivi is not my usual head teacher, because she works with the 5th, 6th, and 7th graders, but I have gotten a chance to visit several of her classes and talk with her a lot, and she is a good friend in the school! We got there early, and it started late, so there was a lot of time for them to wait around and get nervous. They couldn't sit still, so I took advantage of their energy to make them take a bunch of pictures (which also served as a nice distraction).

very anxious Panchi and Franco

me and Vivi

Because the woman in charge of the competition had only arranged for one other judge, I was called upon to judge the singers as well (based on my wide body of expertise in how to speak English). I voiced my concerns that it wouldn't be fair for me to judge, that it wasn't a good position for me to be in to judge my own siblings in a competition between only 7 contestants, but they wouldn't hear it.  So I settled in with my folder to hear the performances! First was a little 5th grader, who did a wonderful job for being so nervous, and then Panchi was up!  She did a fantastic job, as you can see in this video that I finally managed to upload (even though the first few seconds are missing... Yeny wasn't quite sure how to use my camera at first):

Beautiful voice, beautiful Panchi! Then three more students sang, they did great too, blah blah blah, then Franco!  He sang the full version of the song snippet he sang at the last English festival, and it was wonderful!  He had everyone on the edge of their seats.

After Franco there was one more singer, who did a beautiful job (after he stopped a few lines in to say that it wasn't the right track playing, then started again). Then deliberations! Luckily, the other judge and I were on the same page immediately, no debate needed: Franco won first place and Francisca won second!  And the last kid won third place, but we weren't as excited about that, obviously.  Franco and Panchi were very happy, and we were so proud of them! They got some pretty cool prizes too, like a portable translator and free English courses, and a studio recording session for Franco and a guitar for Panchi. The family reaped quite a bounty!  Now we just have to convince them to go professional... 

Parque Nahuelbuta

This past weekend I finally got to the national park that's an hour outside of Angol! It's actually pretty close, but the road is through winding mountain valleys the whole way, so it's hard to get to. My whole host family drove out there for the day, and even though it was a little chilly, we had a fantastic time.

When we were first coming through the entrance, I hid behind my host sister Panchi in the car, because foreigners have to pay an entrance fee that is something like $15 whereas Chileans pay $2. I was Chilean for the day! (shhhh). We went up to this rock called La Piedra del Águila, which is so high up that you can see for miles through the hills and forests all the way to the ocean.  It was foggy, but that actually made for a really cool view, and we could still make out the coast! But I'm getting ahead of myself here.  The park is known for having forests entirely composed of Aracaria trees, which are the official tree of the region and legally protected. They are very recognizable, because they grow really tall but only have branches at the very top, and rather than leaves, they grow little succulent spike things (I have a picture later that shows them well).

treehugger 4 lyfe

we found a beautiful tree fairy!

it was a family effort to help Yeny deal with her fear of heights...

we could see the ocean through there!

<3 

Panchi giving me attitude because I wanted her to pose like me

Here is your wildlife break!  This first picture is some branches of a little baby Araucaria, so you can see their funky spikes. And the other one is just some pretty forest flowers covered in the moss that was all over everything. 

Our next stop, after a quick snack, was La Casa de Piedra, a cave-like spot that been formed by a huge flat rock falling on some little ones (I assume). 

WELCOME TO OUR HOME

 Next up, picnic lunch! We were getting cold so we huddled up under the picnic shelter and made ourselves some tea(/coffee) to warm up.  Then we followed a path that we thought led to a super old Araucaria tree with a huge hollow trunk you can walk through, but we were wrong.  Turns out that tree was in a completely different part of the park.  But we did see lots of digueñes, the local fungus that everybody harvests and eats this time of year (you may remember I posted some photos of them in a salad a while back). Now I know how they look growing in the wild! Nice and squishy. 

It was a wonderful day spent with my host fam! It'll be very hard to leave them in a few weeks...

Election update

This past Sunday was the much-awaited Election Day! Everybody was whipped up into a frenzy the few days in advance, but by Sunday afternoon there was nothing to do but wait for the results, so a little calm settled in. 

I watched some of the news coverage and vote-counting with my host family, and they helped by explaining more of the voting process to me.  You show up to your voting location, which is determined by when you registered to vote, not by address, with just your ID card.  You have to sign in and give your thumbprint, because all Chileans have their thumbprints on their ID cards and in the government system. Then you get your paper ballots, and you go behind a little curtain and fill them out.  Rather than filling in bubbles, you draw a little line to cross the T next to your candidate (all candidates have a "_" next to their name, you have to draw a little vertical line to make it a "+"). Then you seal your paper ballots, come out, and drop them into the boxes for the corresponding election (president, senator, representative, etc. each on different ballots in different boxes). The boxes have glass sides, so that you can watch them filling up. Then when the polls close, the counting begins, and we got to watch footage of a lot of the poll stations counting out their boxes. One person starts by unsealing the ballots and passing them to the next person, who calls out the chosen candidate and shows the ballot outwards, to the little crowd of people gathered, while someone else keeps tallies. There are actually crowds gathered to watch the counting at some of the polls, and they cheer whenever the vote is for their candidate. For the presidential race, there were a total of 9 candidates on the ballot, and a candidate must win 51% of the votes to call victory. This almost never happens in the first round of elections, so there are run-offs between just the first two finalists.  As predicted, it came down to the two women frontrunners.  Michelle Bachelet, who was the former president (before the current one), got more votes but not 51%, so she and her opponent Evelyn Matthei can now concentrate their forces against each other for the final battle... 

Graduating seniors

The seniors made it through! Last week they had their final festivities, and now they are unleashed unto the world (presumably to study for the big test they have to take in a week and a half).  First there was a special mass for them and their families. It's a Catholic school, after all. They each had a candle and did a little ceremonial donation of their uniforms to the church, then they each went up to receive a Bible as their graduation gift.  It was a nice service!

And then, on Saturday, was the graduation ceremony itself.  It wasn't really that different from any high school commencement back home, except without the cap and gown. They all filed in in their full uniforms, the director said a few words, and they distributed awards for the outstanding students in various categories.  My head teacher and I went up to pass out the medals for the 20 or so students who had received notable scores on the national English test.  Then they called each student up to receive their diploma, and a student delivered the commencement address.  There was some drama surrounding the commencement address, though... Apparently there seems to be a cultural tradition of students using the commencement address to stick it to the school one last time (possibly a side effect of the widespread student protest/education reform movement).  So the school had altered this student's original speech--not that it was vicious in the first place, or else they wouldn't have chosen it, obviously, but just changing some significant parts of it. But there is a joke among the students regarding the head nun, and when this student began to deliver his speech, he made a reference to that inside joke. It was the kind of thing that none of the parents would have noticed, but all the students caught it, of course, and some of them had trouble surpressing their laughter. Apparently there had been a bet... Now the student, who got wonderful grades and is the son of the librarian, is banned from entering the school ever again. Don't mess with nuns, I guess. But anyway, here are a few pictures. I took these from the school's fb page as well, because the ones I got on my camera did not turn out very great without flash : / 

so that you can see their full uniforms

the sisters. the director is the straight-faced one second from left

all the teachers who were there, including me! 

After commencement, we had a bunch of people over to celebrate for Franco (congrats, Franco!), and so all 22 of us squeezed into our house for a yummy meal. Then in the afternoon, we traipsed back out to go to Franco's confirmation ceremony. Two milestones in one day! 

Now that the seniors have no school, they are (supposedly) doing their final-stretch studying for the big test that they have to take on December 2nd, called the PSU. It's like the SAT, except way way way more intense. Everybody in the country takes it on the same day (or two days), and your grade determines whether or not you get into the schools you want. There's virtually no other part of the application process- no essays, no recommendations, no writing samples.  Either your grade fits the school's requirements or it does not.  And if you aren't happy with your grade, or if it's not good enough to get you in anywhere, you have to wait until the next year to take it again.  Talk about pressure! Most of the students (including my brother) have been preparing for this by going to additional classes 3-4 nights a week all year (some starting junior year!). I wish them all luck! 

English Festival

Last Thursday was a very long day.  Accordingly, this will be a long (but hopefully entertaining!) post.  At our school there were a total of 3 English Festivals for different age groups!  I was only involved in the preparation for the last one, but it was a lot of hustle and bustle regardless. Starting in the morning was the show for the 1st-5th graders. Each class dressed up and did a little dance to some very simple song in English about colors or shapes or something. I only got to see a few minutes of it, but it was very cute!

Then after lunch was a vocal competition for the 6th-8th graders.  There had been several previous stages of the competition, so for Thursday it was narrowed down to the 12 best performances (in English, of course). This was the competition that my host sister (Francisca) competed in, and she won!  I was on the judging panel, yes, but I swear I did not pull any strings. There were five of us deciding the winner and it was a unanimous decision! That's how good she was : ) I did get it on video, but unfortunately this blog will not let me upload it.  So you just gotta trust me on this one!  And actually, both of my host siblings will be going to the regional capital to compete in an English singing contest next week! Wooot wooooot best of luck to them, though I don't think they need it. 

And then it was time. The high school festival was after school, starting at 6:30, to give the classes enough time to get into costume and makeup and set up their scenery and everything.  Just to remind you, the theme this year was US states, and each of the six classes had to set up a booth at the back of the gym (with their state flag, general info, typical food, other representative things, etc.) and also perform up front. They had to present their class and their state with two MCs, sing a song in English by an artist from their state, and perform a dance (or multiple dances) to music by an artist (or artists) from their state. They had been working on props, scenery, and choreography for over a month, so it was quite the production. 

The stands were first, and just to give you an idea of what they looked like, here are two examples from Indiana and Texas. Indiana had a little racecar driver, an Amish family, a basketball player, and one of the students even dressed up as me! (by curling her hair and wearing a striped sweater haha). They were serving popcorn as the typical Indiana food. The Texas booth had a bunch of boys in their checkered flannel, with a little cowboy and vintage postcards for the audience, and nachos and chili. *I did not take these two pictures, they are from the school's facebook page.

First we had California, represented by one of the freshman classes. They created the Hollywood sign and the Walk of Fame, with stars for each classmate (and one for me and my head teacher!). It looked great! For their dance they channeled LMFAO and some other artists, and sang a Katy Perry song.

The other freshman class was New York, and they created a cardboard skyline and a student dressed up as the Statue of Liberty.  They danced to Lady Gaga and Christina Aguilera, and two girls sang Alicia Keys' "Empire State of Mind" song.

From our juniors we had, first, Texas. They had a band performing ZZ Top, a saloon shootout, Usher and Beyonce, and an astronaut! This group did really well, and ended up tying for second place.

The other junior class was representing Florida. Some students dressed up as Mickey and Minnie, others recreated an opening scene for CSI: Miami (complete with theme music!), and the class danced and sang to music from Flo Rida.

Now for the sophomores. First we had Hawaii, represented by a volcano (complete with a fog machine eruption!), an airplane and leis for the disembarking tourists, hula dancers in full costume, and a tiki hut. The class danced to Bruno Mars and Nicole Sherzinger, and two girls sang a really nice acapella medley of Bruno Mars songs. They even had boys dressed up as the monkeys from a specific Bruno Mars music video. This group also did really well, and tied for second with the Texas class!

this is also from the school's fb page, I just wanted to show the volcano and tiki hut!

And lastly, Indiana (woo!). The sophomore class that had my Hoosier state devoted their entire performance to Michael Jackson, and it was fantastic.  They went all the way back to cover the Jackson 5, his skin transformation, and Thriller (complete with a light-up coffin, smoke, and zombies that came out from the audience). 'Twas quite the spectacle.  They won the competition! The prize was a cake, obviously (it was delicious).

this was printed on a big panel behind the dancers. I wish I knew how to use photoshop like this, damn

zombie preview. they went all out with the makeup!

yes, my students used blackface. and also whiteface...

this was amazing

this MJ moonwalked on a light-up runway! he also has a bejeweled glove on his other hand

before and after captured on every face haha

that's one smooth criminal

and here come the zombies...

and the fog...

they ended with everyone frozen in this pose, it was awesome

Every class surpassed my expectations! They did a fantastic job. I was really truly proud of them all, and I could tell they were proud of themselves too, which made it even better. In between the acts we had a student band performing songs on stage while the next group set up, and about halfway through the show my head teacher had a surprise for me! She called me up front, and the principal, another teacher, and the student association president all took turns saying a few words for me and giving me little gifts! It was so sweet, I got a little emotional. And then of course it was my turn to say something, and I couldn't think of what to say, but I managed to stumble my way through a little thank-you speech in (hopefully comprehensible) Spanish.  

After the festival was over, came clean-up time.  We finally left around 10pm.  I had gotten to school that day at my normal 8am, and aside from a 20-min nap in the teachers' lounge and a quick 20-min break at home, we had been busy all day. Naturally, I was exhausted.  But it was worth it!