mi vida normal

So much to catch up on!

The weekend before this past one, Andrea and David and I went dancing Saturday night.  We stayed out all night and then went back to David's house in Chillan to talk and rest for a few hours before heading to his house in the campo to ride horses all day!  Dancing was.... fun... I guess...  We went to this place called Bronco, where we were surrounded by a younger, chain-smoking crowd illuminated by erratic strobe lights and smoke machines.  We were also treated to several young women shaking their bare asses on the stage.  We almost slipped on all the drool from the men in the audience hahaha:)

Riding horses was a different story, though.  We rode through vineyards, fields of cattle grazing (including the tiniest calf I have ever seen!), and pine forests.  After a while we got off our horses and scaled a large rock to check out the view.  When it started raining we hurried down and mounted the horses again.  As we galloped down the hill it started hailing!  We were all hooting and hollering as the rain and hail pelted down, and it was truly exhilarating!  Needless to say, we returned to Chillan completely exhausted but feeling enriched and fulfilled.

This past weekend we spent several hours hanging out with a couple of the women who come to yoga and danza circular, and ended up going to a stunning dance performance.  We also went to a fiesta costumbrista (like a traditional festival thing) on Saturday, and back to the town of Lota and the botanic garden on Sunday.  Andrea and I are hoping to have a quiet weekend sometime soon!

So I realized that I've only been talking about weekend excursions.  For those of you who think all I do here is party and go to festivals and ride horses, here's an idea of what my days look like:

MONDAY

breakfast at 8:30

I go to Carola's to practice Spanish for a couple of hours

Lunch

Reflection and Art class (right now the women in this class are making Christmas cards to send to our donors, but last semester they made some absolutely beautiful books of art projects).

English class for the girls at the Casa - Kristy and Caryn do this, but we sometimes help out or sit in on the class.

Dinner

Kill slugs

TUESDAY

breakfast

go to Libertador (the school nearby) to teach English to 1 and 2 grade with Kristy and Caryn

Andrea and I make lunch, and we are really amazing cooks

lunch

Yoga

work in the greenhouse

dinner

Kill slugs

WEDNESDAY

breakfast

Carola's for Spanish, and as of tomorrow the other volunteers and Ruth and I will be going over there to learn how to do macrame.

Andrea and I make lunch

lunch

Go to the church to hang out with elderly adults and play games

danza circular

Ursulina meeting (this is where all of the women who are really involved with the Casa come together to reflect and discuss any important issues or upcoming events, and eat onces - a light dinner).

Kill slugs

THURSDAY

breakfast

Libertador to teach grades 3 and 4

Lunch

Reflection/baking class

Dinner

Kill slugs

FRIDAY

breakfast - on Fridays we eat garlicky scrambled eggs with bread

House meeting

Carola's for Spanish

Lunch

weaving/photo project with girls

dinner

Kill slugs

In the free hours we weave, work in the greenhouse, devise new ways to kill slugs, run errands for the house, and do anything else that needs to be done.

Life feels pretty busy, but I know that it will only get busier as we start and become involved in our own projects.  Right now we are looking into volunteering at a residential home for teens who are addicted to drugs, as well as doing something at a special-ed school.  Some of the students came to visit the Casa and they were awesome, so it would be really great to go and do some art-therapy inspired projects there.  I think it would be beyond fantastic to do a vegetable garden at the residential facility!  We're going there on Friday for another meeting and to observe some of their activities.