First Couple of Days

I have to say, despite it being difficult to get here, Chile has really impressed me so far. (Well, at least the parts of it that I've seen.) Here are some of the highlights:

My host mom is kind, makes amazing food, and understands my limited Spanish. (She doesn't speak English, but she understands a lot of it.) She is also understanding when I make mistakes. Like yesterday, when I thought she said she was going to meet me after work at the nursing home, but she actually said her home, which resulted in my being very late, because I waited around, not wanting to miss her.

The other coordinator, who is my Spanish teacher, does speak English, so she is able to translate when I don't understand. She is also hilarious, and cracks me up every day.

The Spanish here is very different from other countries. Everyone speaks really quickly and some letters fet dropped off the end of words. I thought my Spanish was ok(ish) before coming here, but I only understand maybe one in five words in every sentence. (So I try to listen for the important words.)

I started working at the nursing home on Monday. Everyone there is fantastic. The staff are very patient with me, and the abuelos seem to understand my Spanglish. (Or maybe they're humouring me, which I don't mind at all!)

I get to do things like serving breakfast and lunch, help with washing hands and faces, blowdrying and styling hair, washroom support, and more. Yesterday I got to go to the market to buy food with one of the nuns from the nursing home, and a local volunteer. That was fun. I didn't have as much trouble understanding Sister Margarita, and I told her that. Turns out she's from Mexico, so she doesn't speak the same way as people here.

Yesterday I got a tour of the area with my host mom and Spanish teacher. I took quite a few pictures, but am having trouble downloading them. I'll see if I can post a couple below.

Those are taken at three different churches.

We also went to the beach. There was a lot of damage done by the earthquake and tsunami a few weeks ago.

Speaking of earthquakes, there were two yesterday. One in the middle of the night and one in the morning. They were not big, but my bed was shaking, which woke me up!

Going to walk to and from the nursing home today. Should be good exercise for me!