First Week of the next 4 months....

I've spent the past week going to the school that I'm teaching at. It's called Divina Maestra. Luckily, I've had the other volunteer (my new housemate) helping me. Carolyn was in Peru my first two weeks around here so I met her for the first time on Sunday when she came back. Really cool chick. She was a Spanish teacher in the states so, again, I'm the only one clueless in Spanish where I am. We went to Viña del Mar yesterday which is about a 20 minute bus ride from Villa Alemana. Viña is essentially just another part of Valparaiso since they're right next to eachother, but it's cleaner and more touristy. We watched a futbol game of U. of Santiago vs. Chivas (Mexico) and Chileans are NUTS about this stuff. A futbol game is just one long chant. It was a little hard to handle actually especially since some idiot was whistling in my ear every other minute. I mean, honestly, how many times do you have to do one of those fingers-in-the-mouth type shrill whistles before people get the point that you really like soccer? Apparently about 50 times.

Anyway, class has been...interesting. I'm sure its just the first week but things are run differently here. Based off what I've seen, I'm not sure exactly how much teaching I'll be doing in front of the class. Everything is very last minute here. As in, "Ok..go teach something now Carolyn and Evan! Teach  what? It doesn't matter!" I'm not sure what the kids were supposed to learn today in English class but these are some of the things that they did practice during class:

1) How to make an elephant mask out of normal notebook paper.

2) How to yell at your friend from across the room, WHILE standing next to your teacher, and doing it without him noticing.

3) How to make random animal noises in class and pass it off as English.

4) How to draw up blueprints for a perfect butterfly shaped swimming pool.

I'm trying not to make waves since I'm just here to learn Spanish anyway, if I teach I teach, if not, I look over my spanish english dictionary during class so it's all good. In other news. I went to recharge my phone today (I have a prepaid phone that I just put money on) and the lady said something about not understanding Castillian spanish after I spoke. I think that was code for her saying that I speak Spanish like a retarded person. Either way, speaking the wrong dialect is better than speaking no dialect.....si?

I think I'm learning how to speak better but I still can't really understand what my parents are saying. Having Carolyn here is good since she can help me learn/translate for me. This weekend I'm going to Viña again to hang out with Carolyn and her friends. We're staying at a hostel since we don't want to worry about going home late. Hopefully I come out with all my internal organs intact...