the days of my life

The Casa Ursulina started up again at the beginning of March, and Andrea and I are now settled into our new routines.  About a week or so after getting back to Chile at the end of February, we moved out of the Casa and in with families.  I am living with Carola and her family, about a block away from the Casa.  So far I've been very happy with my decision - I'm getting to practice my spanish a lot more, and it's nice to feel like I'm part of a family.

Our new schedule is as follows:

Monday:

9:00 breakfast

open morning to plan, run errands, etc

cook lunch

3 - 5 pm Reflection and Art class (Andrea teaches this, but I participate and help in any way I can, such as running to get more paper or scissors :) )

Tuesday:

9:00 breakfast

10 - 12:30 we teach creative arts at San Rafael, a vocational center for young people with special needs.

Lunch

Yoga/planning, running errands, etc.

Wednesday:

8:30-10 we tutor the 4th graders at Libertador, the school down the street.

10:15-12:15 we do home visits with their parents to make sure the kids and their families have the support they need to do well in school.

Lunch

1:30-2:30 we go to the chapel up the street to spend time and do activities with the abuelitos (elderly people) who have lunch there.

3 - 5 I teach oil painting at the Casa

5 - 6 (once a month) we attend the parent-teacher meeting at Libertador

6:30 - 7:30 or 8 we have a meeting at the Casa for all of the women who volunteer and are kind of like lay missioners.

Thursday:

8 - 11:15 (every other week) we go to Los Heroes to do creative arts with their special education program.

Cook lunch

Eat lunch

3 - 5 Circle Dance/Babysit in the front room.  Andrea and I take turns with Ale, a woman who works in the house, to make sure that we all get to participate in dance.

Friday:

9:00 breakfast

House Meeting

Lunch

3 - 5 Andrea and I have our class with the young girls (about 10-13 years old) at the Casa.  this class deals with the issues they will face as young women (social responsibility, family, self-esteem, peer pressure, etc) using all kinds of art (music, dance, theater, visual arts, creative writing, etc).

In the evenings we usually stick around and plan for a while and do other house things before heading home to eat onces with our families.  The weekends are always busy with other events - this Saturday we're going to a nearby town to visit the artisan fair that Carola is participating in!