Another End, Another Beginning

Hey there everyone,

I’m backkk… Sorry I might have seemed a little “MIA.”  Children are exhausting, but that’s no excuse not to keep you all updated.  Well, here is a grand update:  Today was the last day of my job at the summer camp.  Yesterday was the last day with kids, but today we did inventory and cleaned (and got paid! yippee!!).  We definitely went out with a BANG this last week.  Thursday night was the “sleepover” / “campout” and boy, was that exhausting.  We worked all day on Thursday from about 8am to 6pm, took a little break, then were back at 8pm that evening when the kiddos arrived with all their camping gear!  Honestly, before they arrived, I had a bit of an attitude – working all day Thursday, then all night Thursday, then all day Friday again.  However, once the kids started to arrive, I started to soften.  I mean, they were so excited to be spending the night and having this campout, which was complete with a bonfire and s’mores (first time for most of the kids!).  For a few, this was their first night away from mommy and daddy.  Awwhh… Plus, they are just so darn cute, except when it’s 2am and you are trying to sleep and they just won’t stop talking!!  Haha.  All in all, it was a blast for the kids and it wasn’t nearly as close to torture as I’d thought.  J  Friday, we even had a little performance for the parents.  And then, it was goodbye.  Saying goodbye to a few of the kids was kinda hard, I won’t lie.  I am really going to miss them calling me “tía” or “Miss Sarah” all the time.  Of course, I won’t miss the craziness and their ability to exhaust me, but we had some good times.

Sooo you’re probably thinking, “What’s next?”  Well, good question.  What’s next is quite the trip down to the south of Chile (i.e. the end of the world).  First, however, Gaby and I are taking a mini-vacation (if this isn’t vacation enough, eh?).  We are going to spend a few days at the beach learning to surf and just taking life easy.  After all that, I will be departing on Thursday night to make my first stop in Pucón, Chile.  Pucón is about 10-11 hours away by bus (hence, the night bus).  After Pucón, I’ll be making about eight more stops until my final destination, which is Punta Arenas.  It is quite the trip down to the South, especially by bus, which is why I chose to break it up with so many stops.  I will also be crossing over into Argentina a few times as well.  Ultimately, I should arrive in Punta Arenas on the 21^st (ish) of February, where I will spend a few days seeing the sites (like penguins!).  Then, on February 24^th, I will be hoping on a flight back to Santiago.  Whoa… it is going to be a long trip.  Please keep me in your prayers – good weather, safe travels, meeting wonderful people etc.  Oh, and if you all are thinking, “Wait, is she going alone?”  Yup!  Righty you are.  I will be flying solo on this little viaje (trip).  However, February is part of the “high season” for Patagonia and thus I will surely be surrounded by other backpackers like me!  Don’t worry, I will be sure to keep you abreast on all I am doing via blogging etc.

Well, I am exhausted and a bit hungry so this is it for now.  Next time we talk, I’ll either be at the beach or Pucón.  Get excited!

¡Ciao!

PS  I also failed to mention that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that I have.  You know, that feeling you get before you leave or someone leaves or before another big "change" occurs.  I have been having a lot of that in these past six months, let alone these past four years.  Change.  Meeting new people.  Saying goodbye.  Closing the chapter to one experience and starting another one.  That feeling that things will never be exactly the same.  Ugh, I dislike it.  Strongly dislike this feeling.  But it's a part of life, or my life at least.  I am a little sad, especially when it becomes time to leave the people who have been more than hospitable this past month+.  I have known some of these people since October, like the family of the woman who runs the camp.  They have been so accommodating and have completely opened up their homes and their lives to me.  Although I hope to see those who live in Chile before I leave-leave for the States, I won't see my boss or her beautiful children again for awhile. All in all, this was such an unbelievable experience!  My boss, who lives in California, also does this camp in Cali in the summer but with Spanish, so of course she mentioned that if I don't have anything to do this summer... haha.  Who knows, maybe I'll spend a month in Cali doing camp again... J

Camp! Camp! Camp!

Hello everyone!


I thought it might be time for another update since I recently started my new job for the month of January and am living in a new place etc.  As most of you should know, I am teaching English at a Chilean summer camp for the month of January at a school just outside of Santiago in a town (or suburb-ish) called Calera de Tango.   In short, I LOVE it.  I love living out in the campo, or country.  The air is fresh and clean.  The weather is perfect.  I fall to sleep to the sound of silence instead of honk-honk and I wake up to birds chirping.  I am very much a "city-girl" but I am kinda in love with Calera de Tango.  Luckily, I'm not on my own either.  Another girl, Gabriella, that I met during my study abroad program is here with me teaching English as well.  As much as we loved our host families and Santiago, we are so happy to be out in the country and to have a little more independence.  We do our own cooking and are in charge of our own schedules as well, minus having to be at camp five days a week for eight hours a day.


So the atmosphere is wonderful.  Now time to talk about the job... The name of the camp is Summer Land and it is run by a Chilean woman who lives in California but whose family lives in Calera de Tango etc.  Summer camps are not popular and are practically nonexistent in Chile.  So Ximena, the director, thought it would be a wonderful idea to bring the concept of a summer camp to Chile in order to give kids something fun to do during the summer as well as learn English, which is the main thrust of the camp.  However, these kids aren't sitting in a classroom for eight hours learning English.  Nope.  We try to incorporate English into all our activities - sports, relay races, art projects, music etc.  Everything is well-organized and thought out.  Honestly, if I were a kid again I'd want to go to this camp too!


So for the kids it's a good time.  For us as camp counselors... it can be exhausting.  Obviously.  Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my job and I am so happy I am here, but at the end of the day, sometimes I can't even think or move and all I want to do is sleep.  As many of you know from experience (being parents or babysitting etc), children have an unlimited source of energy.  Overall the kids are great but every once in awhile when they just won't listen or are running around like chickens with their heads cut off you just want to throw the towel in or yell or cry or all of the above.  But patience is a virtue, I suppose, and something you must have with children.  Patience.  I am also learning to embrace sticky fingers and globs of paint in hair etc.  It's all good fun and at the end of the day I really don't have to clean them up, I can just send them home to their parents.  (hehe)


No, but really we are having a blast.  The entire Summer Land team is a lot of fun as well.  I am meeting a lot of new Chileans and able to practice my Spanish.  The idea of the camp is English, English, English but it truly is a bilingual camp.  Most of the kids don't know a whole lot of English so they need things explained in Spanish occasionally etc.  The goal at the end of the day and at the end of the month is for these children (110 in total) to know substantially more English.  Knowing multiple languages is something I am obviously passionate about and support so I am definitely enjoying my time working at Summer Land.  Plus it is a good break from study abroad and just allows me to remain in Chile longer.


Okay, that's really all I have to say for now.  I hope you all are staying warm back at home.  (Although I have heard it has been absurdly warm for January).


¡Ciao!

I'm Dreaming Of A White... Chilean Christmas?!

First and foremost... Happy New Year, Everyone!!!  ¡Bienvenidos 2012!

Okay, now for my Christmas update.  I hope you all had a very, very Merry Christmas.  I heard the weather wasn't too cold, which is a plus, but the fact that there wasn't much snow is kinda a bummer.  If there's one time a year, ya'll want snow it's around Christmas, right?  Nonetheless, I hope you all had a wonderful time celebrating with friends and family (and ate lots of yummy, delicious food that we'll all have to work off with our "new years resolutions" eh?).

As for me, truth be told, my Christmas was a little less than merry.  I don't think I've been quite so homesick in my entire life.  Don't get me wrong, my Chilean family is amazing, the best.  But they aren't my family and around Christmas time...  We spent the holidays at the beach, which I think was one of the reasons it was hard.  I wasn't even at my "home" in Santiago with our decorations and everything so it honestly didn't even feel like Christmas.  I won't go into excessive details but in my opinion Chileans just don't celebrate Christmas quite like people (or my family, at least) in the US.  In the States, it is something special.  Now maybe that's the obscene amount of marketing that I'm feeling, but there is just something about snow and lights and Christmas music and a fire inside drinking hot coca or something with the tree in the background and the smell of Christmas cookies coming out of the oven.  All the things I have taken for granted once or twice, all those things I missed like crazy.  Not to mention, my family, whom was definitely the biggest reason for my tears on Christmas.  (And if you know me at all, you know I am not someone who cries often.  Thus if I shed a few on Christmas day, you can assume that it must have been tough.  Haha)  So let me be the first to confess that I have definitely taken my family for granted once or twice, as I'm sure we all can admit to as well.  But, in accordance with the theme of the number one lesson I am learning in Chile, I am realizing how much I have and I am learning to appreciate every moment exactly as it is.

Sooo I would be a hypocrite not to realize how lucky I was to be in Chile for Christmas with a family I adore.  Other than the moments that I was shedding a few tears or whining about wanting to come home to my parents, we had a blast baking Christmas cookies, listening to Christmas music etc.  As you will see from my Chilean Christmas photo album on the left, we baked a TON of cookies.  Thus, to get rid of some, we made cute little bags of our goodies and took them to neighbors and friends.  ((US cookies are a HIT in Chile so my backup plan in life is to come back to Santiago and open a bakery with my host sister who also LOVES to bake.))  Other than the baking, we took life pretty easy, especially when we got to the beach.  Although the weather was a little cool, it was a nice break from Santiago, which is still an oven.  We did get some sun time though.  You know me, gotta work on my tan, which my host sisters tell me doesn't exist; they tell me I am "salmon" colored.  Ha..ha..  One of the highlights of our time at the beach, not Christmas related, was making sushi.  We hit the jackpot because the family in the cabana next to ours was from Japan.  So mom and daughter came over to help us out.  Thanks to their help and not our "expertise" we had a mountain of delicious sushi to share one evening!  Can't wait to come home and make sushi with Jared and Gina  (so you two better be ready!).  Anyways, we really did have a good time at the beach.  Christmas was just so-so but I think New Years Eve took the cake.  We grilled out and had some delicious food.  Then we watched the fireworks over the beach.  Ideal, right?

That really sums up my Christmas at the beach.  I am still missing home like crazy, which makes me think that in two months I will be MORE than ready to come home.

Two months, Sarah?  Why so long?  What are you going to do now?


Well, as it turns out, I have a sweet job teaching English (and art and sports and crazy camp songs) to a bunch of little Chilean children for the month of January.  The gig actually starts tomorrow so this evening I will be packing up my life and heading over to a little "suburb-ish" of Santiago called Calera de Tango where I will be living for the next month.  More details to come once I get started.  After that I could totally take the next plan home to the States, but I wouldn't be able to sleep at night if I didn't go all the way to the "end of the world" (i.e. Patagonia) before I left Chile.  Thus, February will consist of me (sola) backing packing down to Tierra del Fuego and seeing some penguins, glaciers, volcanoes etc.  I am trying to swing a cruise to Antarctica if my budget can handle that (although I doubt it can..).  Although I have at least two more months here, I can tell you all one thing I will be more than ecstatic to climb aboard that 747 (or whatever) and take off for the US of A.  Sure it'll be a little bittersweet because I don't know when I'll return but it will be nothing like Spain, which was heartbreaking indeed.

Okay, ya'll, I better start packing!  I hope your new year of 2012 is off to a great start!

¡Ciao!