...y sigue la adventura!

¡vuelvo al mundo chileno!

2008-07-09T17:43:00.004-04:00

i think i had forgotten how much i love chile. well, let´s just say i´ve remembered. and being gone for a year has only made me appreciate it even more. i´d forgotten how beautiful it is here, how strong my ties are here, how many people i love and how much i love them. i think i forgot all of that to make being away easier, but now that i´m back... it´s all come back to me. i got here saturday evening and in so many ways i feel like i never left. i´ve been able to pick right back up with so many of my old relationships, i remember all the places i always went, i still know how to get around, and my spanish has only gotten better. even though the weather´s been cold and i really haven´t done anything super exciting, my first 5 days here have been wonderful beyond words. and then, on top of coming back to these people and places i love, it´s been so amazing coming back to christian community after not having any in bolivia. the whole experience of coming back has been one huge blessing after another. and it´s not over yet! yay!

so a run down of what i´ve been up to here... i got in saturday and seba (my chilean brother) picked me up at the airport. seba and i were super close when i was here last year, so it was really great getting picked up by him and having the whole ride to valpo from santiago to catch up. after beening so close while i was here, there´s been alot of catching up to do. we first headed to seba´s apartment in valpo where i´ve been staying. i was going to stay at the family´s house where i stayed last year, but my chilean mom has had to bring her parents whose health isn´t doing too great to the house to take care of them, so there´s just not room for me. so i´m staying with seba and his roommates noel and lisette (lisette is actually the director of the program i came to chile with the first time, so we´re good friends) which has been really great b-c they´re all so nice and there appartment is wonderfully located right in the middle of valpo. after dropping my stuff off at the appartment we went to the family´s house in viña. seeing my chilean mom again was a really sweet moment. she hugged me for so long... it´s been so wonderful to really be hugged by people who care for me so much. i missed that in bolivia. after seeing everyone at the house, we went to an asado (barbeque) that they had kinda organized as my welcome party. sunday we went to church and had lunch together with all the family. this week i´ve just kinda been doing whatever as plans present themselves. i´ve gone to the isa office a couple time to see all the ladies there again, tuesday i got to see my friend scott who´s a friend from home who´s here doing a summer program. the rest of the time´s just been spent doing random things in the city or hanging out with seba. today i went to the family´s house to have lunch and hang out with the fam and now i´m at eva´s house (eva´s my brother felipe´s girlfriend and a good friend of mine) with pipe just hanging out. so yeah, that´s been chile so far, nothing too earth shattering as far as happenings go, but to me it´s just been really wonderful getting to be with everyone again.

so, i think i´ll leave it at that. i may update again soon, but i may not have the time. either way, know that i love you guys lots and i´ll be home before you know it!

less than 43 hours left in bolivia!

2008-07-03T17:41:00.002-04:00

in 48 hours i will be in santiago, probably going through customs, with my chilean family waiting to pick me up at the airport. i can't even tell you how ridiculously excited i am to be there and to see them again. i have been missing them since the day i left just under a year ago and knowing that i will be there in just two short days is really surreal, but amazing. but going to chile means i have to leave bolivia which makes the whole thing very bittersweet. my time here has been so wonderful. the first couple weeks were definitely a challenge, but i've really found my place here in the last couple of weeks, in the orphanage, in the house, in the city as a whole. i've really come to enjoy being here. and now i'm leaving. i've almost cried a handful of times in the orphanage as i've looked into the kid's face and realized how much i've loved being there. how great it's been to get to know so many beautiful children, play with them, teach them, see them learn and grow. it's be so incredible just stepping into that place and slowly becoming part of it. hopefully the relationships with both the kids and the other people that work in the hogar will continue long after i leave the country. i just imagine getting to come back today and see how much the kids have grown and changed. oh how amazing that would be!

i don't have a lot of time to write this blog because i have a bazillion things to get done in the last couple hours i have her in bolivia, but i wanted to put up a quick update to let you all know all is well and that the next and final bit of my south american journey is about to begin. there's a million things i'd love to fill you all in on, a million stories to tell, but just no time! but i'll be home soon enough (just over two weeks), and i can't wait to see you all in person and hug your necks and share all the amazing things that have happened in this trip. the Lord has been good and His purpose for this trip is becoming more and more clear every day. well, i love you all. i'll hopefully have time to update while i'm in chile, but if not, i'll cya when i get back!

besos y abrazos!

viajes en bolivia

2008-06-25T16:32:00.007-04:00

i’m back! after five days, four nights, and countless hours (actually not countless, the estimate is around 25) spent on various forms of locomotion traveling through the jesuit mission circuit which is north, north east of santa cruz, i’ve finally made it back to santa cruz, the place that now feels like home here in bolivia. and man was it an adventure! three of the girls that are volunteering here in santa cruz and i took a bit of time off from volunteering to travel through this circuit of little towns that were there are beautifully restored jesuit churches from the 18th century and get the opportunity to see another side of bolivia outside of santa cruz. i actually almost chose not to go on the trip, but i’m so glad I did because we had a blast, made a ton of memories, and saw some really beautiful (and some not so beautiful) parts of bolivia.

it would takes pages upon pages to type out all of the stories that came out of our little trip, so instead of spending so much time writing out all the probably boring details, i’ll just give you what would be the chapter titles and a quick description if i were to write a book about the trip:

journey east on the death train- our journey from santa cruz to san jose de chicuitos on an eight hour train they call “the death train” for some unknown reason that only cost $3
a really cool picture i took while on the train (i think the train ride may have been one of my favorite parts!)

samuel, his classy taxi, and the town of san josé- in san josé we stayed an orphanage called padre alfredo (katie works at the santa cruz branch of the orphanage) for free and then went on a tour of the city with our taxi driver/guide samuel (see picture of him and his car)
the girls with samuel's sweet car. he jokingly told us that it was the latest model in san josé, but hey, it got the job done!

three flat tires and a three kilometer hike later…- turns out we missed the only bus out of san josé for the weekend so we had to negotiate a cut rate taxi ride to the next town on the circuit, san Rafael, with our trust taxi driver Samuel. the 130 km bumpy, incredibly dusty dirt road took us about 5 hours to travel, including three flat tires, and finally having to walk the last 3 km into town because we had run out of spares and the car couldn’t drive with all four of us on a flat tire. this was definitely one of the most memorable of our experiences on the trip.
the screams in hell must sound like roosters- we arrived (walking) to san rafael pretty late, got dinner, and then found a hostel. the hostel was really basic, but it wasn’t too bad… until the roosters started crowing 15 ft outside our door at 2:30 in the morning and didn’t stop until we left to catch our bus at 6:00 in the morning. none of us slept well at all and i now cringe at the sound of a rooster call.
santa ana: the underrated jewel of the jesuit missions- the next stop was santa ana, a very rustic village with a cool little lake. it felt genuinely bolivian and was one of our favorite stops, but we were only there for the afternoon.
luxury living in san ignacio… NOT!- next came san ignacio, the headquarters of the restoration project and the biggest town in the circuit were we stayed in a very cheap hostel. but we definitely got what we paid for. the pictures speak for themselves… but the town was really nice.
super classy place...

the church in san ignacio

i’m now a bolivian cowgirl- while we were in san Ignacio we went horseback riding around the outside of town and around a big lake which was really fun, and super cheap. a little over an hour for less than $3!
the first shower in four days!- the church in concepción was one of my favorite b/c it had really beautiful details, but sadly my camera decided to freak out just in time for me to not be able to take pics of it (luckily Aubrey got some great ones, but still really frustrating, b/c it’s still not working). we weren’t in concepción for too long, but highlights of our stay include the nicest hostel we stayed in (where we finally got to shower) and a couple great meals
a long bus ride home- and then we headed home and all of us were squirming to get off the bus by the time we finally got back

so there’s a few snippets of the trip! i can’t wait to tell you some of the full stories when I talk to you in person or when i get home in just over 3 weeks. oh how quickly the time has gone. i only have a week and a half left in bolivia. and in the mean time, the volunteer house has filled to the brim. i think we have 8 people in the house now and i’ve heard 3 are coming this week. a couple are leaving soon too, but still i’m not sure where everyone will go. i hardly know what to do with so many people around, but i think having such a full house will make for a fun last bit of time here. please keep praying for my relationships with my fellow volunteers and for the work that’s going on in the orphanage.

well i love you all and miss you so much. please stay in touch. i’d love to hear how life’s going at home!

finally pictures!

2008-06-18T17:43:00.006-04:00

i'm gonna keep the words short on this edition of "rachel's blog" but give you some long awaited pictures of the beautiful kids i've been working with. every day they steal my heart a little bit more.

this is angel. i think he's 2 and he has down syndrome and he's adorable! i play with him alot and feed him every day at lunch. he can be really grumpy at times, but i'm telling you, there's nothing cuter than his smile and laugh when he gets excited or tickled.

this is cristian, he also has downs, but he's 7 i think. he's so loving and sweet. lots of fun.

this is javier. he's actually the one who bit me a couple weeks ago. the woman in the picture is one of the mámas at the orphanage.

in other news, i'm going to do a bit of traveling this weekend. me and three of the girls i'm living with are going to do the jesuit mission circuit which consists of a string of towns that have what are supposed to be beautifully restored jesuit missions. it's going to be my only chance to see bolivia outside of santa cruz, so i'm really excited to see another side of bolivia. so please pray for safe travels and my relationships with the girls i'm traveling with.

well, i've been on the internet for too long now and i'm worn out, but i'll blog again when i get back. i hope you all are enjoying your summer. i really do miss you all, and i'll be seeing you in not too long!

packed like sardines

2008-06-14T15:03:00.002-04:00

i would like to dedicate the beginning of this blog update to the ridiculousness that is the transportation system here in santa cruz, bolivia. and may i just say, that i’d hate to see what the rest of bolivia is like, with their notoriously terrible roads, after seeing how bad santa cruz’s are, santa cruz being the posh, rich city in bolivia.

so first of all, there’s the fact that i’ve mentioned before that the concept of a stop sign only barely exists here. i think i’ve seen three the whole time i’ve been in bolivia, and those were all in places you can do i u-turn on the highway… so one may ask, how does one know who has the right of way in a four way intersection? good question, one that Ii myself asked for quite some time until one of my housemates provided me with the answer she had read in lonely planet. the way it works is that as a car nears an intersection, they simply honk their horn, and the first person to honk their horn has the right of way. simple enough right… well, this crazy system often causes mass amounts of confusion and near crashes along with an amazing amount of sound pollution from the never ending source of honks coming from everywhere in the city. even now, typing up this blog from the comfort of our house, with all the doors and windows closed, i can hear honks coming from every which way.

next, there’s the bus (or as they call them, micro) system. mind you, I spent a fair amount of each day on these micros. but anyway, the system is quite similar to that in chile, with the small difference that the busses are smaller and the rates are cheaper. the crazy thing about them is how many people the drivers like to squeeze into these busses that have no more that 15 actual seats. just this evening for example, ana and I were coming back from getting coffee around 6:00 and we ended up being the last people to comfortably fit onto the already full #65 micro that would take us back to our house. well, comfortably fitting isn’t how the micros function, so after we get on, a bunch more people end up cramming on as the driver urges people to keep moving backwards into some imaginary free space in the back where you can cram endless amounts of people, until the micro has given an all new meaning to the saying “packed like sardines”. we counted around 40 people crammed onto this little bus on the trip home. in situations like that, the notion of personal space completely disappears as the bus turns into a huge mass of bodies, all constantly bumping into each other in their attempts to keep standing over the bumps and turn.

and the insanity goes on and on. I could write pages and pages about the road conditions and crazy ways of driving, but I won’t bore you any more for one day.

in other news from down south, two new volunteers have arrived in the volunteer house. their names are shawn and megan and they both are from the northeast and go to Princeton. megan is actually only here for two days today before she heads up north to work with an orchestra in a little town, but shawn will be here the rest of the time I’m here. I haven’t really gotten a chance to talk to him yet, as he got in really late last night, but it’s nice to have new people in the house.
as for the orphanage, things are going great. this week I’ve started working on making flashcard/picture communication systems for some of the nonverbal children. I got together with one of the tías to come up with a list of needed pictogramas and now I’ve been working in any free time I have on the internet (which is difficult to come by b/c I have to go to a café with wifi to get wireless) to find pictures and format the cards. searching for pictures has proved to be really frustrating and tiring, but it’d be so great to make some really nice cards for them and have something to leave behind when I go.

so that’s life as of now. today’s friday so that means the weekend’s ahead. I think we may take a short bus ride south (or actually maybe it’s east… idk…) on sunday to a town called catoca where there’s supposed to be a lot of good authentic bolivian food and a good artesenía (pretty much an open air souvenir shop), so that should be really fun. I haven’t gotten to see any other town but santa cruz, so it’ll be great to get another taste of bolivia.

well, keep the updates coming and I’ll do the same. I love you and miss you all lots!

¡cumpleaños feliz!

2008-06-08T12:27:00.003-04:00

welp, i’m officially an adult now. 21 years of age. craziness. it’s weird that another birthday has come and gone with me out of the country, and in the winter at that (luckily the winter hasn’t been very wintery here, so i still felt like a summer baby!). the girls i’m living with really made it a great day though. here’s a rundown of the day’s events:

the day started with me waking up and walking out of my room to find katie and ana, my two housemates, stringing up to scream happy birthday with a house full of balloons and decorations. it seems that they got up early to decorate and then waited for quite a while until i woke up so that they could surprise me. then, moments later i was greeted by katia, our “mom” and her little boys to a great rendition of “cumpleaños feliz” (the song) and then a really beautiful birthday cake for breakfast that the girls had gotten me at a local bakery.

since there’s just girls in the house now, we’d decided it would be great to make my birthday into a girls’ pampering day, so after getting ready, we set out to look for some sort of a spa. we went to one that katia had told us about only to find that their most basic massage was $25, which by bolivian standards is ridiculously expensive, so we ended up going to another place that did manicures and pedicures that was down the street. we all got complete manicures and pedicures (my first manicures and pedicures ever!) for less than $15. after being pampered, we went to this Italian restaurant we’d read about in the lonely planet book called la bella napoli which was really really good. after that, we were tired from all the food and pampering, so we came home for a bit, then went to a café so that katie could meet a friend, did some souvenir browsing, came back for more chilling out, got pizza for dinner at our favorite little pizza restaurant, and then finally finished the day by taking turns pinning up our hair to sleep on so that we’ll wake up with curls (also a first for me). none of us are very girly girls and not accustomed to doing silly things like we did today, but it was really fun to just be goofy and girly for a whole day. oh how great living with girls next year is going to be!!!

so yeah, that was my birthday! it was just a bunch of little things, but my sweet housemates really made it a special day. they were so thoughtful in planning ahead and going the extra mile to make my day memorable and prevent any temptations to be homesick.
in other news, it seems that we’re supposed to get two new volunteers in this week. we don’t know much about them except they’re a boy and a girl and they’re supposed to get here wednesday and thursday. i won’t completely believe that they’re coming until they’re actually here, b/c they say people are coming sometimes when they’re not, but it will definitely be interesting getting new people here. it’s such a weird thing having this somewhat constant come and go of people. just as soon as you get used to a certain dynamic, it changes as a new person comes or old ones leave. keeps you on your toes I guess and keeps things from being boring.
well, i’ll leave you with a prayer/quote i read a couple of days ago in a.w. tozer’s book the knowledge of the holy:

“teach us, o God, that nothing is necessary to Thee. were anything necessary to Thee that thing would be the measure of Thine imperfection: and how could we worship one who is imperfect? in nothing is necessary to Thee, then no one is necessary, and if no one, then not we. Thou dost seek us though Thou dost not need us. we seek Thee because we need Thee, for tin Thee we live and move and have our being. amen.”

thank you Lord that you don’t need us, that you can do anything and everything without us, yet You still choose to love us and use us and delight in us, who mess up and are so imperfect, yet your grace covers all of that. that simple fact blows me away…

p.s. i got some photos uploaded! more to come, especially after i get some of the kiddos, but enjoy!

from the left, mauricio and joel (katia's sons), tom, ana, and steve on the boys' last night. we went to a big thing they had at mauricio's school for día del maestro (teacher's day).

steve and i on their last night.

ana, myself, and katie at a restaurant called la bella napoli where we ate great italian food for my birthday.

katie and ana in the plaze in the middle of santa cruz.

goodbyes are the pits...

2008-06-06T14:03:00.004-04:00

sitting here in the super posh setting that is alexander coffee (a cafe near the main plaza in the center of santa cruz), my new home away from home due to the wifi access i can get here, i'm exhausted and at a loss to explain the weird mix of emotions that have been swirling through my head and heart all day. this morning tom and steve left our little volunteer family for the last leg of what has been eight months of traveling around south america. these two guys were two of the original three volunteers in the house when i arrived, and while that was only three short weeks ago, i feel like they really became my brothers in that short little bit of time. i guess that's not so hard to believe when you consider that for three weeks we spent almost every hour not spent in our separate volunteer projects together, living in the same house, eating our meals together, even sharing the same bathroom. and now these boys who i have come to hold so dear are across the country in la paz, and there's absolutely no telling when, if ever, i'll get to see them again. as they left this morning at the oh so early hour of 5:15, i felt what has become the all too familiar pain of goodbyes that may very well be for forever. not to be melodramatic or depressing, but these types of goodbyes, where you invest in someones lives and become so incredibly close, only to see them go with no guarantee of return, have become commonplace in my life since i've gone off to college, and while this situation is by no means new to me, i still feel like i don't know how to deal with the emotions that they bring. now, i'm torn between joy for the experiences i know the boys have ahead of them on their last bit of the journey and feelings of great blessing for having had the opportunity to share three weeks of my life with these super fun guys and feelings for extreme sadness as i realize how much fun and excitement they brought to our little volunteer family, how weird it will be without them, and how sad it is that today's goodbye may not be a "see you later". so for now, i feel a little numb, a lot tired, but i guess mostly grateful for the experience. every time this happens, as hard as the goodbyes are, i realize that investing in someone's life is always worth the heartache of leaving.

in other, less depressing news. yesterday was a really cool day at the orphanage because i finally got to meet the speech pathologist who comes in to work with the children on thursdays and saturdays. for the last two weeks i had missed her for various reasons, but yesterday we got to sit down all morning and talk about each of the kids, about being a speech pathologist in bolivia, and about the huge need the country has for more people trained in our field. it was so cool to see an in the flesh example of my career here in bolivia. and let me tell you, speech pathologists are ridiculously needed. at the moment, bolivian universities don't offer a degree in speech pathologists, so the few that the country has have to go abroad to get schooling and then face the daunting task of finding very scarce resources for their practice once they return to the country. eoneses (i think that's her name...) was practically begging me to come back to bolivia once i have all of my schooling done b/c the need is so great. we'll have to see about that... i can't even think that for down the road, but it was so interesting to get the perspective that eoneses offered. getting this perspective was one of the things i had really hoped to achieve in my time here, so needless to say our morning long talk was great.

in other news from the orphanage, the kids continue to crack me up and amaze me the more i get to know them. wednesday i came home with little teeth marks etched into my shoulder after being bit by a little boy named javier who has a tendency to freak out for no good reason (he's only 3, but man can he bite!). i also eat lunch at the orphanage every day and the food continues to be an adventure. today's meat was... well actually i have no idea what it was. and i'm always a bit shocked to look into my friend mauriel's soup bowl and see an alien looking slimy chicken leg protruding from the steaming liquid.

and then, there's the fact that today is my last day to be a kid. well... let's be real, i'll keep being a kid after today, but legally speaking, i've come to the end of my childhood (stop crying mom and dad, i'll always be your baby!) it is a weird feeling though, being on the brink of the great 21 years of age. it'd mean a bit more if i were back in the states, but it's still a pretty momentous birthday. it's weird celebrating it down here, so far from all of you that i love, but i guess that's just how it had to be.

well, i was going to upload some pics, but i'm having trouble with it so i guess i'll just try again the next time i update, i'll try to get some pics of the kiddos at the orphanage up as well! welp, i love you all. keep the updates coming!

chicken hearts!?!?

2008-06-02T19:37:00.003-04:00

so how's life in bolivia you ask? ha, it's still weird to me that i would even be able to answer such a question. i'm living in bolivia right now... that fact still shocks me. it's even crazier because i know that as soon as i get used to that fact, i'm going to be packing up and heading to chile (yay for chile!!). oh how life is never the same, always changing.

well, in recent news from bolivia. i'm starting to feel better. this weekend i finally realized that i was never going to get better if i kept convincing myself i felt well enough to go out and do stuff, so i made myself stay in the house all day saturday while everyone else went out and had fun and woke up with just a little bit of a headache sunday morning, a vast improvement on the aching body and dizziness i'd been experiencing for days. after waking up on sunday feeling alot better i debated back and forth for a long time about whether to go check out a church i'd heard about. it really took all the courage i could muster to decide to go in the first place, b/c i was going to have to go alone, but i finally decided that being around some christian community was worth enduring a potentially awkward situation, so i went for it. after making the last minute decision, i quickly got dressed and walked the ten or so blocks to the church. the church is called ekklesia and i'd been told about it by some bolivians i met at new heights back at home. i was honestly terrified as i walk all by myself into the building full of bolivians, not knowing a sole. i chose a seat on the end of an isle toward the back where i felt out of the way and just sat back and waited for the church to start. the church was pretty big and had a really impressive worship band which i really enjoyed because i knew alot of the songs from my time in chile. the pastor was kind of hard to follow, i think partly because i couldn't understand him very well over the PA system, partly because his talk was kind of all over the place, and partly because his sermon was about an hour and a half long. they then took communion, ended with a little bit of worship, and then everyone was dismissed three hours after the service had started.

those three hours i spent in that church service made me realize alot of things about church that i had never realized in quite the same way before. i've always known that church was about community. the very definition of what a church is is a body of believers, not a building or a service where people come to hear some guy talk and sing some songs. obviously those things are great, but they're not what it's all about. church is about participating in the body. we come to church on sunday to worhsip and share with our fellow believers. we come to learn truths about the God we serve and to be encouraged and spurred on in our walks. while it was great to get to participate in coorporate worship, i realized there was little for me in that church, sitting on the end of a row, completely alone, which was definitely not what i had expected to find there. i guess i hoped that by going to a sunday service at this little church i'd somehow experience a bit of the community i'm starting to miss so much, but i realized that community can't be experienced alone at the end of a pew. so... looks like i'll have to look elsewhere for that community.

today, i got up and went to the orphanage for the first time since last tuesday. it was really good getting back to doing what i came here to do, but i'm still a bit run down from being sick, so i only stayed a half day. mauriel, one of the tías that i usually work with the most, and i came up with a game plan of what i should do with the rest of my time in the orphanage. i think we're going to work out a therapy schedule of different kids for me to work with and we'll going to pick specific things for me to work on with each of them. this will be really great, b/c it will give me some direction where i've kind of felt like i've been wandering around for a while. i also talked to her about my thesis project and we talked about what kids would work best, so it looks like i'll be able to get started on that soon as well. then, my day at the orphanage ended with a yummy lunch of... chicken hearts. the kids always eat first, and when i saw these little, dark brown mystery foods on their plates my stomach started to churn. i asked a guy volunteer named robert what they were and he told me "corazon de pollo"... i think they all liked watching me squirm as i told them i'd never tried them before. finally, after freaking myself out about how band they were probably going to be the whole time the kids were eating, my time to eat finally came. i put just two on my plate, not wanting to waste any of course, and much to my surprise... they weren't too bad. i think i'll stick to the breasts, but they weren't nearly as terrible as i'd figured they would be. and now i have a cool story about eating weird food. yay!

well, that's about all i have of interest now. please pray that i would continue to feel better as i get over this being sick junk. also pray that my spirits would rise, as being sick has gotten me a little down in the dumps and lonely. i'm just trying to trust in the fact that i know the Lord has brought me here and i know that He has a reason and a purpose, even though i'm at times having a hard time seeing it.

bueno, i hope you all are well. please send me updates on your lives. emails and comments from those i love really do make my days!

hasta pronto!

a chicken heart. this is pretty much exactly what my lunch looked like today. yummy...

two brits, an española, and two gringas

2008-05-30T17:08:00.003-04:00

another week is almost over. crazy. two out of the seven almost gone. this week has been kinda funny. monday and tuesday were great days spent at the orphanage where i’m really starting to feel more comfortable. some of the tías were talking about wanting to take me out one of these weekends which really made me feel like i was starting to be truly accepted, yay! and then… i started getting sick L i guess it started tuesday evening when i started feeling a bit feverish and the headache that had been plaguing me most of the time i’ve been down here (probably just from all the change) started feeling more like a sick headache than just a normal headache. then i woke up wednesday morning with a fever, had to call into the orphanage to tell them i just couldn’t come in, and have pretty much been inside being really lazy and just trying to get to feeling better for the last couple days since. blah. but it’s presumably just a normal winter fluish thing that i guess goes around here and should be gone within four or five days. so, i’ve pretty much been really lazy, reading and lying around, and didn’t get out of the house for two whole days, but it’s been kind of nice to just relax.

it seems that learning to live in the volunteer house is going to turn out to be just as much if not more of a learning experience than what i’m learning through working at the orphanage. it definitely is a situation that is a lot more foreign to me than my work at the orphanage, as ironic as that is, considering that the other volunteers are all westerners like me, but i definitely feel more out of place there at times than i do at hogar san josé. not to say that i’m not accepted by the other volunteers, b/c that couldn’t be further from the truth, but working with children is something i understand, where i still haven’t quite come to an understanding of my house mates. they all lead very different lives than i do and come from completely different backgrounds, which at times is somewhat intimidating or lonely feeling, b/c they don’t understand much of who i am or i them. but it’s been really cool at the same time, b/c i feel like every day we come to understand and respect each other more. not because we become any less different as time goes on, but because everyone is really intentional about respecting one another, not just despite of our differences, but also because of our differences.

through living in this house, i’ve also had to seriously check my expectations and my motives. i’ve realized how much i desire the acceptance of those around me (not that i’ve never noticed this before, but it just became incredibly obvious of late). and i’m not trying to say that being accepted isn’t really nice, but i’m learning more and more that my okayness, my well being can’t be defined by whether or not i’m liked by others. and really, being confident in who i am, and not compromising that, regardless of what the people i’m around are like, or who i think they want me to be. in the end, all that really matters is that i’m living in such a way that in honoring to the Father , and as long as i’m honoring Him, everything else, all of the things of this earth, will fall into place.

so these first two weeks haven’t been the easiest two weeks of my life, i’ve been lonely and confused at times, but I can definitely see why the Lord has brought me here, and i really have had a ton of fun. the people i’m living with really are a blast. we’re kind of turning into some crazy mix of a family. we all look out for each other and learn from each other and just laugh a lot!

please pray for my relationships with people down here. pray for boldness, as sometimes i get timid do to my spanish insecurities or other worries that creep in. pray that i’d be a light, that i would be able to resist the temptation to judge others, and that i would truly just be able to love those around me with Christ’s unconditional love.

family and friends, i love and miss you. i hope all is well in your lives! let me know how things are going!

steve, myself, katie, and one of the little boy's a the orphanage katie works at. steve and katie are two of my house mates in the volunteer house.

tom, anna, steve, and i in the back of a taxi on the way to the plaza one evening. we're kind of a ridiculous group (especially steve and i's ridiculous faces), but that just makes things all the more fun!

no stop signs and lots of tías

2008-05-22T14:34:00.002-04:00

wow. it’s been four days now. four days in bolivia. that’s not very many, but i feel like i’ve done so much in these first four days. getting here, figuring out the city, meeting the family, other volunteers, going to the orphanage, working a full day there, really getting to know the other volunteers, tons of laughing, lots of being tired, lots of sweating, read an entire book in two day (the kite runner—i highly recommend it), had a day off for a catholic holiday, and the list goes on and on. all in just four days. it makes me wonder what the next six and a half weeks will hold.

obviously the most important thing that’s happened in the last days is my starting work at the orphanage, since that was really the purpose of my coming to bolivia. i went tuesday with ivone, one of the volunteer coordinators, to see the orphanage for the first time, learn how to get there (it takes about a half an hour, and i have to take two different buses), and meet the tías (aunts) and mámas who work in the orphanage. the orphanage is more on the outskirts of town, in a little bit poorer area, but as we stepped through the gates, i was amazed at how nice the facilities were and how peaceful the surrounding are. outside the gates, everything is really dusty and looks a bit desolate, but walking into the orphanage is a bit like finding a little oasis. santa Cruz is semi tropical, so there’re lots of green grass and tons of trees. the main house has a huge covered patio that surrounds it and many other buildings separate from the main one that have really sweet stories and pictures painted on them. ivone and i had to wait a while, but we finally met a woman they call tía rosario who took us on a tour of the orphanage, showing us all the different areas for therapy and play, introducing us to the kids, and explaining a bit of the philosophy of the orphanage and how they care and provide for the kids. i was at the point of tears a couple different times because the place was just so great—i couldn’t have dreamed up a better environment to do volunteering like this. i actually almost felt like I had stumbled upon a sort of equivalent to camp barnabas, just bolivian style. oh and the kids! they’re really incredible. i think there’s 22 total. rosario introduced me to one little boy who has down’s syndrome named christian. as soon as she introduced me, he immediately jumped out of his chair and ran to gave me a huge hug. oh how i love kids with downs! and let me tell you, bolivian kids with downs are especially adorable.

in my first two days at hogar san josé i’ve been really impressed with everything i’ve seen. i think i wrongly expected to find a place whose standards of care were far below what would be desirable, but that’s not the case at all with this place. first of all, they’re really big into integration, or helping the kids to function as “normally” as possible, so that they can attend normal public school, interact and make friends, and hopefully become fully integrated into society –definitely not the philosophy i expected to see from a place like this. also, all the kids receive a lot of attention, a lot of therapy that’s pretty individualized, and all around a lot of love.

because i have some (although not much) professional training in the area of speech pathology, one of the orphanage’s therapy areas, they’re having me work with one of the tías that works a lot with the children’s language as her aid, and also to give her pointers and new exercises to do with the kids. i was a little bit overwhelmed by them putting me in somewhat of a teaching position (in that i’m teaching another teacher!), and i repeatedly explained that I was only in my third year of a six year program, but they just repeatedly explained to me that i still probably had a lot more specific training than a lot of the tías, because most of them have training as just teachers, but not much specific training in therapy areas. i really doubted how much i’d be able to help, but i think even in my first days, i was able to explain a lot of concepts and programs that we use in the states that tía mauriel (the lady i’m working with) had never heard of and was really excited about. from what I understand, there’s a professional speech pathologist that comes in every once in a while and evaluates the progress the kids have been making and lays out objectives and suggests activities to the tías, but the day to day therapy is largely up to them, and they have little specific training. so what the kids get is definitely 1000 times better than nothing, but there are methods that may be more beneficial. so... i really feel like i’m being used, and helping a lot! i feel a little out of place sometimes, like i don’t quite belong b/c i’m the only foreigner there, but hopefully i’ll feel more at home as the weeks progress.

so yeah, now that i’ve written an entire book… i guess i’ll leave you with just a couple random things about life in bolivia.

traffic=ridiculous. there are very few lines for lanes on the road and even when there are, nobody pays attention to them, and apparently they haven’t figured out the concept of a stop sign… there’s some stop lights that are more or less obeyed (more or less being the operative words), but i think i’ve yet to see a stop sign… it’s pretty much chaos... i’m glad i’m not driving
a huge percentage of the time i spend walking down the street is spent blushing at the piropos (cat calls, whistles, random, undecipherable things said under one’s breath) that come from practically every bolivian man i pass
it’s hot here! and I’m so glad since i’m missing summer at home. i actually feel a bit like i’m at camp because i’m always kinda sweaty from the heat and humidity. shoulda brought more warm weather clothes. woops, but i’ve heard we’ll be getting more cooler days soon, which i guess is kinda bitter sweet, but will be kinda nice.
even with the really hot weather, we still eat soup (as in hot soup) every day at lunch. today i was sweating like a pig as i ate my lunch of soup and a bolivian version of spaghetti in 85 degree heat with alot of humidity
ok, i’m drawing a blank on more, but i’ll add to this list soon!
bueno, hasta pronto!

safe and sound!

2008-05-20T11:05:00.005-04:00

welp, i made it. after about 22 hours of travel, from home to tulsa to dallas to miami to la paz to santa cruz... i finally made it. i got into the santa cruz airport yesterday (monday) morning at about 8:30. the whole trip went great, there were some weird parts, like how i had a connecting flight to miami through dallas and i was the ONLY passanger that stayed on the plane in dallas (kinda awkward...). the layover in miami was really long, and then when our plane stopped in la paz (elevation around 14,000 feet!) i almost thought i was going to puke on the plane as we waited for more passangers to board, i guess from altitude sickness and the nasty smells coming from the bathroom right behind me as they cleaned it... it was then, as i fought back sickness, i starting thanking God that i was going to santa cruz (elevation-low) instead of la paz. His hand is definitely in me coming here.

yesterday was spent getting settled in my room, meeting katia, the mom or woman who cooks and cleans and takes care of the house for volunteers, her kids, and the three other volunteers that are here right now. one is a girl in her mid twenties from colorado and the other two are british guys who are around my age and have already been in south america for 6 months, traveling around. katie the girl from colorado will be here almost the entire time i´m here while the boys, thomas and steve, will only be here for two more weeks. the living situation is less of a family situation than i had expected, as the volunteers have their own seperate living area away from the family, but we still see the family alot and it seems like the other volunteers have gotten especially close to katias little boys who seem like really fun kids.

after eating lunch and taking a nap, one of the ladies from the volunteer organization came and met me to show me the ropes. we walked to the plaza in the center of town while she filled me in on all of the does and donts and a little more of what my responsibilies would be. she then took me back to the project office and showed me a really long slide show all about hogas san josé, the orphanage for children with special needs i´ll be working with. i really think this project is going to be perfect for me. it seems like they´re doing really cool things for the kids that live there, helping them in all areas of their development, with their ultimate goal being to integrate them into normal life and school as much as possible. today ibón, the lady who showed me around yesterday, will take me to the orphage and we´ll figure out even more of what my schedule will be and what i´ll be doing. i´m really excited to see more than just pictures and see how i´ll be able to fit in to this home that they´ve made for these kids.

so yeah... i´m here, and i guess pretty settled in for only being here one full day. bolivia´s definitely alot different than chile. alot less modern, and i´m even in one of the richest areas of bolivia. there aren´t as many american-like supermarkets and american restaurants which is really cool. there´s still alot of questions about what my time here that are unanswered, but who ever said that i´d ever have all the answers. so i´m just taking it one day, one hour at a time. trying to resist the urge to plan everything out and the desire to know exactly how things will be. it´s so obvious that the Lord has brought me here, obviously for a purpose, so i really just want to stay open to what He´s doing, which is really alot easier to do when i don´t have a checklist of plans of my own, so i guess i´m in a really good place!

well, that´s about it for now! i´ll update again soon, after i have more time to figure things out and see what´s going on. in the next days, pray for my relationships with the other volunteers, as i figure out how to relate to them, yet still be completely myself. pray for the place i´m going to volunteer and that i´d be put in a role where i´d be most used. also pray for wisdom in what to do with all my free time, as i think there will be quite a bit of it.

bueno, les quiero mucho! (welp, i love you all lots!) i hope all´s well. please write or comment and let me know how you´re doing!

my bags are packed, and my computer's... dead?

2008-05-17T03:27:00.002-04:00

well, the day has almost arrived. just one more sleep and a car ride to tulsa in the morning are all that's between me and my trip to bolivia now. i can't believe it's finally here.

so some snippets of my last full day at home: this afternoon i met up with the accountability girls and another friend named megan for lunch and then free tickets to stomp at the walton arts center which was a blast. i've always wanted to see them, and they were really spectacular. then i came home, dreading it all the while, because i knew coming home meant packing, which i've put off until this evening. so i got home and pack i did. and it took quite a while, interupted only by the awesome french toast my mom made as my last taste of american breakfast food. finally at somewhere around 11:00 pm, i fit the last of my clothes in my internal frame bag WITH LOADS OF ROOM TO SPARE! i was amazed and shocked at how easy it ended up being to pack. i had figured i'd have to pack, only to find i had too much stuff, and then have to scrutinize over what not to bring, etc. etc. but no. it all worked great. the first time around! praise the Lord! seriously though. i definitely think He alone made that possible, b/c i'm the worst overpacker ever, but i think he gave me some good discernment!

and then... tragedy struck. you see, my computer, my good ol' trusty computer, has been making some pretty icky noises lately and freezing up every once in a while, which isn't really characteristic. so today, as i was packing, it was making some exceptionally terrible noises followed by extended freezes=bad news. so i decided to turn it off, to give it a rest. i said a prayer over it b/c i really think the Lord even cares about computers, especially when they're going to serve as my only connection to home over the next two months. but sadly, when i turned her back on, some strange error message came up, telling me to ctrl+alt+del to restart, and when i did that, the same message, over and over again, broken up only by more of the terrible noises. upon calling matt, my trusty computer go to, he informs me that i should probably say goodbye, it's probably dead, or at least not fixable before i go. all, less than 10 hours (many of which need to be spent sleeping) before i need to be leavin the house tomorrow. and i now believe the devil can even target our computers to try and stress us out and distract!

but all hope is not lost. tomorrow, i'll try to turn it on again, and if that still doesn't work, i may be able to talk my way into borrowing my mom's laptop while i'm gone, even though i know that's alot to ask and wouldn't blame her at all if she doens't let me. and if all else fails, i'll just become very well acquainted with the local internet cafes!

so yeah... i leave tomorrow. it's really surreal. but i think i'm finally starting to feel some real excitement, not that i wasn't excited before, but the getting ready to leave had put a serious damper on my excitement. transition times are really hard for me, and this one especially left me feeling really blah and not myself. but now that there's hardly any more preparations that can be done, and the hours and minutes are ticking away, what i'm about to do is finally starting to hit me, and the reality isn't scaring me or freaking me out, but rather i feel more confident and sure now than ever (even after the huge computer setback). the Lord has definitely affirmed this trip over and over to me, showing me in little ways that this is where He wants me this summer. so knowing that, it's really exciting to finally be at the point where i'm puting all the plans into action and finally about to see more of what's in store for the summer.

well, it's off to bed! my next update will probably be from way south of the equator! yay!!!

¡chao chao chile! ¡nos vemos!

2007-07-14T02:54:00.001-04:00

Viña del Mar, the place i've called home for the last five months. i took this picture this afternoon. it shows the canal that runs through the middle of town and goes out into the ocean and is taken from a bridge only about two blocks from the beach. beautiful, i know. now you know why it's hard for me to leave.
i don't really know why i'm writing at three o'clock in the morning instead of sleeping (except that i figure it's better that i'm a little tired tomorrow, b/c then maybe i'll actually sleep on the plane), but i kinda wanted to keep my loyal blog readers posted as this journey comes to an end.

the last few days have been kinda rough, slightly depressing, but today i think i finally starting to come around, thanks to a conversation with my mom and some divine revelation. see the thing is that for the last two years of my life, every semester has been radically, drastically different, this semester obviously being the most different of them all, and now i face yet another jolting change. and while i really do love the change, and i've learned so much from it about where my dependence should be (in the Lord) and not on people and things and places- because those are always changing and coming and going- sometimes i'd just like to be able to have do the same thing for more than just 4 or 5 months... and this has been such a sweet time of my life, probably my favorite thus far, it's even harder to leave it and move onto something that i know will be so drastically different. but, at this point in my life, i'm being called to live a life where the seasons are constantly changing, at times ridiculously drastically and rapidly (like winter to summer in less than a day...). but then i've always like the changes in seasons. the Lord shows us a different part of Himself in each of them, and i have complete confidence that He'll do the same in this change. so i've committed myself to not just go where i know He's leading me, back home that is, but to delight in the journey He's sent me on instead of grumbling about having to leave this place that i love so much. and i leave with every intention in the world of coming back some day, hopefully not too far in the future.

sooo, this concludes the posts from chile (tear...). geez, i can't believe it's over. it's been so good... words just don't quite do... thank you all for supporting me while i've been here! i think i'll probably keep up this blog, at least for a bit to document the readjustment process, and maybe longer... we'll see.... well, nos vemos pronto (we'll be seeing each other soon!).

from winter to summer in < 24 hours

2007-07-11T20:01:00.001-04:00

trying not to freak out. fighting back tears. trying to keep my mind off of it. in denial that people are leaving. cuz i leave in three days. three days... and i don't know if i've ever had such conflicted feelings. i'm so excited to go home sometimes. i miss people and places and things so much. i know that it would be wrong for me to be here longer. i know that the Lord's faithfulness will follow me, b/c it never ends. but i still hate that i'm leaving. i hate that i will soon be thousands of miles from people i love, from these cities that i love. that a new student will soon be moving in with my family (although i'm happy for them at the same time... just jealous...). that even my gringo friends will be far from me. i'm about to leave everything i have grown to know and love in the last five months. and it absolutely breaks my heart.

mia, one of my best gringo friends, left today. i've been in complete denial about her leaving. i think it's because she's just going to the states for two and a half weeks and then she's coming back to chile for the second semester. so for some reason, since her goodbyes with everyone in chile aren't final, i feel like our goodbye isn't either. that i too will be coming back too, that we'll see each other in a few weeks after going home for a bit. but no. i'm not coming back. and it's ok. but still......

so i made cookies today. lots of cookies. to keep myself busy. take my mind off of leaving. it was pretty fun. pipe hung out with me while i was making them. he helped quite a bit and we got to talk too. geez i'm gonna me having big brothers. i'm gonna miss my big brothers. pipe keeps telling me i should stay... but i can't... i think they're pretty nervous about having a new student move in soon too. i was there first exchange student, so it's going to be an interesting transition for them too.

but as much as leaving is killing me, i'd rather it hurt that be dying to go home. b/c the fact that it hurts is a testament to how wonderful this experience has been. geez it's been a blessed experience. so i'm just going to have to learn to praise the Lord for this beautiful season of my life that He's given me, and accept the changes in the seasons, b/c they're always changing. i just kinda with that there was a spring between this winter and summer. i have a feeling that the change is going to be quite the shock. but the Lord will provide even in unnatural season changes. He will always provide. so i rest in that. until i see you all. which will be oh soo soon!

las despedidas

2007-07-02T18:47:00.000-04:00

the goodbyes have started... well i guess the goodbyes actually started at the end of last week, but today i had to say goodbye to three of the people who have been some of my best friends here. and it was really weird. really sad. these are all people who have been a huge blessing to my life here, who i've spent alot of times with, shared a ton of laughs with, maybe even a couple of tears with, and who have just been with me in this awesome experience. and now we all go in our separate ways. maybe our paths will cross again, but then maybe they won't, and if they do it's doubtable that is will be in this city, and it will never be with all of us together. sometime this friendship thing that we do seems so weird... how we make these close friends, share our lives, maybe little pieces of our hearts with them, and then after weeks, months, with luck years, our lives take us in different directions and the relationship comes to a close, never to be the same, even if they do hang on by a few thin strings of communication. at times i've asked myself why we do it. why we're friendly with people we know we will only have such a short time with, in some cases just hours or days (like the people you talk to on a plane or when you're traveling). but i always come to the conclusion that it's worth it. no matter how short the time, or how painful the goodbyes, investing in the life of another human being is always worth it. it's worth it b/c every person i meet and the moments i get to share with them, change me just a little bit. add to who i am, what i know, how i see the things around me, and how i relate to everyone else. i know this may seems completely simple and probably cliché, but sometimes it's easy to lose sight of the importance of these relationships that seem to always be coming and going. plus i'm left with so many memories that will always make me smile. thanks friends... words just don't do justice to explain what a blessing it's been to have you in my life! so here's to my gringo friends! ¡les quiero muchisimo!

juanito (o aaron) y lianna

barrett y la mia, they're debating whether to let me into barrett's house as they gaze out the window at the top of his stairsme y lianna :)

the sad part is that this is just the beginning of the goodbyes, and the most difficult ones are still to come. but i've know that this would all have to come to an end at some point, so i think in a way i've kinda been preparing myself for it all along. so i'll deal with these goodbyes as they come, and try and not let the knowledge that they're coming put a damper on my last two weeks, or really less that two weeks, that i have here. plus, as the day of departure draws nearer, i find myself getting more and more excited about coming home and all that awaits me stateside. the Lord's preparing my heart for the next season He has in store for me. well, that's about all for now! i love you all and would love to hear how life's going. and mark your calendars for july 15th, cuz that's when i get back!

i'm lacking inspiration for a title...

2007-06-24T23:18:00.000-04:00

3 weeks from this very moment i will be home. i can't even bring myself to count the number of days that is. one, b/c i'm really excited about it, and two because the fact that i'm leaving breaks my heart a little bit every time i think about it. alot of my gringo friend leave either for home or for travels in a week, which i'm hoping won't make my last two weeks here fome (boring), but i think it will be a really good opportunity to spend some good quality time w/ my family and chilean friend before i leave the southern hemisphere.

well, the last week, or really weeks, have been pretty eventful. the trip to the isla de pascua was very enjoyable, albeit short. it was so good to see my feet after the months they've spent hidden under two pairs of socks (my feet were soo happy in my chacos, this cold weather and lack of being free just isn't good for them!) and just to be warm all over for once! the isla's also beautiful and definitely has something mysterious about it. i wish i could have stayed longer, but the four days i was there were definitely enjoyable!

since when i got back late tuesday night until now i've been really busy working on end of the semester projects, attending cenas de despedidas (goodbye dinners), and having other adventures in valparaíso. in the last couple weeks i've spent alot more time w/ some of the gringo friends i've made, sometimes b/c of projects and stuff we have to do together for our classes, but often just because i've come to realize that i really enjoy the company of alot of them. i've been amazed at the form our friendships have taken, b/c all of us our so completely different, but yet we have the coolest relationships. completely different from the friendships i've always had in the past, but really good at the same time. they've made me think so much about how i look at the world and the people in it and they've also really challenged me in my faith, even though that definitely hasn't been there intentions. it's been really good although at times really uncomfortable stepping outside of my naive, sheltered bubble that i've kept myself in for so long. and it's also been an incredible challenge to do this while still remaining true to who i am and what and who i believe. but through the grace of God and His abounding provision, i feel like my experiences have been all good. and the Lord has been using me and teaching me in situations where i never would have expected to find Him. i also feel like the Lord's really been preparing me while i'm here for what He has in store for me next semester, especially in my position as an RA. i think before i came here i often fell into being very judgemental of many of the choices that people make in how they live their lives, but i've been learning that i have no place to judge others. i'm here to love and to be the Lord's hands and feet, something i continually screw up, but luckily He's a bazillion times bigger than my biggest screw ups and shortcomings.

ohhh, there's so much i've been learning and processing. right now i'm really really tired, so i may leave you for now with the beautiful pictures of la isla de pascua, but as i continue to process all that's going through my head in these last weeks, i'll try and keep the posts coming. i love and miss you all and i'm really excited to see you all in so short a time! mark your calenders. july 15th's the day. i want to see you all PRONTO (soon!) after i get back.

les quiero y extraño muchisimo!

me attacking laurie w/ my lei (sp?) in the airport when we first arrived. me and the chicatito (little) moai. kinda a my size moai really. i liked his hat too.the sunset one night. this wasn't even the best part of it, this is just when i finally decided to go get my camera, which i've finally learning how to utilize to capture sunsets (yay for manual functions and actually knowing how to use them!)super cool flower that was all over the island.me and laurie sitting on a moai that was never completed. the carved shaped them while they were still in the earth and then somehow cut them out and set them upright. these are the 15 moai that are quite famous. i didn't get all 15 in this pic ( i have another that has all of them) but you can get an idea of how big they are in this picture b/c laurie and amy are standing in the middle of them. they're pretty huge if you haven't noticed by now.the sky at sunset one night, yet again thanks to the manual function of my camera which i've grown so fond of :)me in playa anacana (sp?). you can't tell in the pic, but it was raining while we were there (and all day for that matter), hence the wet hair. but it was quite beautiful nonetheless.

i'll be home in a month! that's crazy!!

2007-06-16T00:41:00.000-04:00

well, i should probalby be sleeping or at least packing right now, considering i have to be on a bus to go to santiago to catch my plane that's going to take me to la isla de pascua (easter island!!!!!) in just over 4 hours (....), but i feel like it's been far too long since i've updated, and there's so many things i feel like i should be sharing, so... maybe i just won't sleep. i can sleep on the bus and the plane!

so, since my last post, geez, alot's happened. here's some of the event highlights:

my dad came to visit me for a week. translating and being a guide was definitely an adventure and at times really tiring, but it was really a great experience to spend a week solid with my dad, something we've never really done before. it was really a joy to see him interact with all the people down here, especially considering the fact that he knows maybe... 20 spanish words. but he handled what could have been potentially frustrating situations incredibly. way to go dad! i'm really glad you came!
we celebrated a couple birthdays. my mom's birthday was at the end of may so we threw her a fun little party and then i turned 20 while my dad was here. it was really a great birthday. started out w/ my brother seba sending me a text message at 12:30 am from his bedroom (i.e. we were in the same house when he sent it) wishing me happy birthday and telling me i should come search for my b-day present in his room. he gave me the worship cd from the church, which was a really thoughtful gift. about an hour later, pipe came home and greeted me with a rendition of "feliz cumpleaños" and a huge hug. and that was all BEFORE i even went to bed, the morning of my b-day. the rest of the day was wonderful too. my dad and i did some exploring in my favorite hill in valparaíso (cerro alegre!) and then seba organized a get together/birthday party with alot of my friends. we ate pizza and talked and watched movies. it was really fun! yay for birthday parties and awesome family!
i got back some of my grades on tests and papers in some of my classes this week and they have all been surprisingly good! i have really decent grades in some of the classes i was really worried about, so that's a relief. and i finished my literature class that has been a huge weight on my shoulders, which feels so good. haha, but that's only after i read 110 pages of a novel in spanish in one day to get ready for my final test in that class. but it's done now. YAY!
in my chilean culture class we have a final project to make a video, and after a couple changes to our topic, we settled on shoes in chile. super random, i know. but i'm pretty excited about it. mia, barret and i went to the beach today to get footage of people on the beach with shoes on. but while we were "working"on our project there was also a fare bit of goofing off and foot fighting (don't ask... you'll just have to see the video when i get home). good times, good times. it's really nice to actually be excited about a school project for once.
and then a bazillion other really fun moments, but it would take me all night to tell you about all of them.

and then, another big event, too big for just a bullet point, is that i reached the one month left mark yesterday. one month left... the reality that i will very soon be leaving this place and returning home is starting to hit, and as it gets closer, i get more and more uncertain about how i feel about that fact. i've enjoyed all of this experience, but lately i've really starting to love it here. i'm starting to get comfortable in my way of life here, starting to become more independent, getting more and more things figured out, and most importantly, i've developed some really precious relationships. and in a month i leave it all. almost five months of living and loving and learning and growing and hurting and being comfused and being amazed and so many other things... that i have to leave. and while i have every intention of coming back it'll never be the same. and part of me right now hates the idea of letting it go. but then, on the other side, i'm really excited to be home. to see my family, my friends, the place and foods that i love, and for it to be summer (i'm sick of winter!). i'm excited about the things the next school year has in store, but... i'm just torn. but regardless of whether i like it or if i'm ready for it, it's coming. i'm just starting to realize it's not going to be as easy as i originally thought it would be come home. on top of leaving everything here i'm gonna be hit with some pretty serious culture shock in the form of being ridiculously busy with the school year that will start far too soon (especially b/c i have to move into the dorms aug. 2 for my RA position) and coming back to the university missing some of my most treasured friendships there (brittney, laura, josh). but i have faith in the Lord's provision. this experience was really hard at first, but it was soo good, and i know that coming home will be the same. life can never really just be easy, but it's definitely more interesting this way. and despite the fact that it's really difficult and confusing and complicated at time... it's so good. i continue to be amazed at how blessed i am as the Lord continues to rain down His blessing on me and i know that the rainy season of His blessing won't end when i leave the rainy season here in chile! (corny, but sooo true!)

well, i'm starting to get tired, which will soon cause me to start rambling, so i think i'll cut off this entry before that starts happening too much. i'll be sure and post my isla de pascua pics when i get back! les quiero y extraño muchisimo!! (i love you all and miss you tons!)

i really enjoy this picture! this is my chilean mom blowing out her birthday candles :)the kiddos (o chiquillos) at my b-day party. a couple more showed up after this picture was taken, but it's a fun one. in the picture are my brothers sebastian and felipe, my sister maría jesús, cata, eva, and diego.

me blowing out my birthday candles, and yes, that is a pizza.

eva, my chilean mom, my real day, me , and my friend dani eating at brighton cafe, which is this wonderful little cafe with an incredible view of the city and really great food on one of my favorite hills in valparaíso.

chiquillos en el collegio

2007-05-25T17:11:00.000-04:00

the andes mountains near mendozakatie and i on the horses in the foot hills of the andes

i got up this morning at 6:50, struggling to motivate myself to get out of my warm bed because our house is so cold in the morning (well... and now for that matter, but it's worse in the morning). i got ready (without showering...) and then took the bus to meet another another gringo student and a teacher who's in the ISA office alot in the town center of viña. we met up, because robert (the other gringo) and i had volunteered to go to class with david, who's an english teacher at a high school here, to talk to his students and help them with their english. it was quite an adventure! the schools, or collegios as they call them here, are a little wild. you would have thought two celebrities had walked in when robert and i arrived. we went with david to all of the morning classes he teaches, four in total. one was segundo medio (sophomores), another was tercero medio (juniors), and the last two were primero medio (freshman). in the first two classes, with the older students, were relatively calm. there's always the student or two that talks the whole time or cracks all the jokes, but nothing too crazy. but the third class that we went two, the only one that was an hour and a half (the others were just 45 min.), was loca (crazy). robert's not exactly a bad looking fellow (i'm not personally attracted to him like that, but i'm not gonna lie), so all of the girls were practically swooning for him. it was pretty funny. it was also interesting because i had felt like in the other classes that the students at least somewhat understood what we were saying, but the younger ones... no cacharon nada (the didn't understand anything). i really did enjoy it though. it was cool to talk to people about our culture and hear their questions and their curiosities. so that was my morning! i then went to the ISA office for literature tutoring (yuck) and then came home and here i am now!

so i don't have too much else to tell, but i did realize just a couple of minutes ago something terrible simple, but so important. soy bendecida (i'm blessed)! definitely wasn't the first time i've realized that, don't think that that's what i'm saying. i try to realize that every day. but sometimes the blessings of the Lord just hit me. all the things He's given me. that i've done nothing to deserve. that i could do nothing to deserve. yet He gives them abundantly none the less. just a few minutes ago i read an e-mail from a dear friend (one that i just happen to share my name with :) and it was just so... good. reminded me of all the wonderful friends i have at home. and then that got me thinking about all the other blessing i have. my family, who i'm not nearly as thankful for at times as i should be, but i'm so thankful for them (i'm so thankful for you! and i'm not just saying that!!). all of the great people i've met here, and the ways they've all touched my life in sooo many ways. all the things i've been blessed with. yeah, things aren't that important, but i've still been blessed with them in abundance. money, clothes, education, books, house, dorm, job, scholarship, and so many other things. so few people have those. and experiences. geez. i've experienced in my nineteen years of life (almost 20!!) more than so many people get to in an entire lifetime. blows me away. and i know that really, the experiences have just begun. so thank you for all of you. i know that if you're reading this, you've probably blessed me in more ways than you know. what a great God we serve that He gives so abundantly. He is good!!

so that's all. i don't really know what the weekend has in store, but if anything of note happens, i'll keep you all posted. hope your summers are off to a wonderful start for those of you who are done with school and for those of you who are now traveling to all parts of the world, i pray for safety and beautiful, blessed experiences!! love you and miss you all!

border crossing in the andes mountains

2007-05-21T17:41:00.001-04:00

i added some stamps to my passport this weekend. four to be exact. two more from chile and two from argentina (you get a stamp from the country you leave and that you enter here). we had a long weekend, with today being a national holiday in chile, so me and two other girls got on a bus and crossed the andes into mendoza, argentina. i normally don’t enjoy long bus rides that much, this ride was really incredible. it’s about 6 hours in the bus, plus border crossing, but about 3.5 of those hours are spent literally in the andes mountains. beautiful doesn’t begin to describe. i think the pass we went on reaches a peak of 12,000 feet, with snow covered mountains still towering all around even at the highest part of the pass. the border crossing it actually pretty close to the top of the pass, which is quite interesting. sadly i have no pictures for you at this time b/c i forgot my camera, so i just had to soak it up with the mind’s eye, but i probably was able to enjoy it more that way anyway. but all is not lost for you my friends b/c my friend katie did have her camera and she took tons of pictures, so hopefully i’ll get those from her and share them with you.

well we arrived to mendoza friday night after an exceptionally long ride b/c we took 3 hours crossing the border. but we were all safe and sound, so that’s all that really matters. we checked into our hostel, found a restaurant, experienced a mendozan “tenedor libre” (which translate to free fork, but it’s a buffet) complete with a mariachi band and lots of fresh meat, and then crashed for the night. saturday we got up and took a micro out of town to an area where there’re tons of vineyards (mendoza’s the 8^th most important wine producing area in the world) for a wine and bike tour with the intentions of learning about the wine industry that’s so important to mendoza and madding doing a tasting or two. we kinda got a late start and after lunch which was our first stop i managed to get a flat tire. so we made friends with some locals, one being a very talkative, but hard to understand, old man who called the bike place to get a new wheel and by the time we got done we had no time to see even one bodega (where they produce the wine), so no worries, no drunken rachel on a bike in south america. there was actually no alcohol involved. that night we made dinner in the hostel for $2 a person (dinner of ravioli, yummy sauce and bread, pretty great price i think) and went to bed cuz we were all pooped and had sore butts. sunday katie and i got up early and headed toward the mountain to go on a horseback ride in the mountains. the view of the andes is quite incredible from the argentina side b/c there aren’t as many hills to obstruct the view of the actual mountain as there are in chile. we ended up getting a private tour b/c no one else had signed up for the day. our guide was this wonderful argentinean man of probably 40 something who has spent all of his life working in the mountains and was really nice and helpful and knowledgeable. i was so cool to just talk to him as we rode along and took in the sights of all the beauty around us. it was also really exciting b/c we were all talking in spanish and i understood 99%. understanding is such a great feeling. so we went on about a 4 hour horseback ride and then headed back to town for a little souvenir shopping, dinner and another kinda early night b/c we had to catch a bus this morning at 8:45. the ride back across the mountains was pretty uneventful but still breathtakingly beautiful. parts of the mountains had more snow than they had just 3 days before and it was snowing a bit as we came out of chilean customs. i also watched the guardian on the bus in spanish, which i was also able to understand, much to my surprise and delight!

most of the trip can be summed up in accounts of places and sites and silly interactions, but there was one experience that struck in a whole different way. i was on the micro on the way to the vineyards when one of many passengers boarded the bus. as he got on and told the driver where he was headed, i remember thinking for the millionth time how many attractive men there are in argentina, when all of the sudden, i caught a good look at his face, and i could hardly believe what i had seen. he headed back to about the middle of the micro (i was pretty close to the front) but i could still see him in the rearview mirror, and as i looked back, i was again struck by his appearance. he looked like josh. i think i had prepared myself to see people that had some resemblance to josh in the states, especially in places and situations i was used to seeing him in, but this was completely unexpected. when i first saw him, i thought it was some trick my mind was playing on me, but as i continued to glance at him, his features kept popping out at me. the shape of his face, his light hair (not quite as light at josh’s but similar by south american standards), his height, and his eyes. i could hardly take my eyes off of him. it was like, by looking at him, i was seeing josh again. i couldn’t process it all in the moment, b/c i was trying my hardest not to freak out and stop crying, but i had this almost uncontrollable urge to talk to him, ask him his name. as if somehow he would be josh. that talking to him would somehow be liking talking to josh. i’m sure i just imagined it, but i felt like he kept looking at me (maybe because i looked distraught), and i imagined some weird connection between us… as if he were josh and not just a random argentinian man that bore his resemblance. right when i was about to break down, we reached our stop and quickly got off. i saw him watching us as the bus pulled away, and i broke down. i was overwhelmed with grief. i was struck with how much a missed him and the fact that i can’t see him now, and that all the look alikes in the world will never be him, no matter what my mind tries to make me believe. i composed myself after a couple of minutes and we got on our bikes and headed off, but i couldn’t get him off my mind all day. as we rode our bikes at the foot of the beautiful andes mountains i couldn’t help but think how much josh would have loved that. bikes, mountains, what more could he has wanted.

i’m continually surprised and confused by this process that they call grieving. xuan said it well in her blog when she said it comes in waves. but it doesn’t seem to make much sense sometimes, but i guess that is life. who are we to understand it. we just have to live it. and as i remember josh with tears or laughs or smiles or heart aches, i remember who he was and how he lived and what he lived for. and i miss him like mad. but i can’t help but be ok b/c he’s with our father, and the idea of him worshiping up there is even more beautiful than all the memories and it makes him not being here easier. i makes it ok. i even makes it good. i also am continually encouraged by him. encouraged to live as he lived, love as he loved, and accept my faults and screw ups as he did and live unashamed in the Lord’s grace. Lord to be unashamed! to live in that freedom. live in that love. that’s my desire.

as a closing note, i left the states three months from today. three months. it seems like no time at all but then again it almost seems like years sometimes. it still amazes me that worlds apart from home, life still continues. you all have gone on living your lives while i’m here figuring out how to live mine, apart from yours. and while we’re thousands of miles and a continent away, we keep living, keep learning, keep struggling, keep rejoicing, keep smiling and laughing and crying, and while our worlds are soo far apart right now, soon we’ll again share the same land mass and we’ll get to share all these unique experiences with each other. how glorious that day will be! for some that day will be longer coming than for others, but know i look forward to it! so keep living, keep making discoveries and having adventures and learning and drawing nearer to the heart of our Father, and i’ll do the same

lobo marinos y manos congelados

2007-05-12T23:27:00.000-04:00

i am yet again dumb struck that another week has gone by. they go so fast! but it was a really good week. some highlights:

discovering a spot really close to the university where i can go and watch a whole bunch of lobo marinos (sea lions) just off shore. there's this big concrete structure just off the coast where there's aways about 6-12 sea lions and they're terribly fascinating to watch, watching them get up onto the structure (quite the feat), fight with each other, and all kinds of other sea liony things. maybe pictures to come soon.
made a new friend who's from argentina, so she talks way different from the chileans, the argentinians pronounce their "ll" really different. it's quite amusing.
playing random games with seba in an attempt to warm up my cold hands (my hands were cold b/c our house is cold b/c none of the houses here have central heating, and we don't use our little space heater thing much), including the hand slapping game (where you put your hands about the other person's a the person who's hands are on bottom try to slap the ones on top) and also the chilean version of rock, paper, scissors, which includes some pretty intense punishment when you lose (involving licking fingers and slapping the other person's hands really hard). so pretty much seba was beating me up b/c i'm terrible at both games (i don't know how you can be terrible at rock, paper, scissors, but i am...). classic brother sister time. especially considering it was really late and i was laughing uncontrollably but trying not to wake the whole house. you probably had to be there...
getting two 7s on some of my essays (which are like A+s)
seeing spider man 3, even though it wasn't that great
getting mail from friends at home
discovering a REALLY funny chilean show called "casado con hijos" the idea's taken off of the american show "married with children" which i really have never liked, but the chilean version is hilarious. it's really really chilean, with all the slang and everything, i'm gonna try and find a way to record an episode or something, just to show a bit of chilean culture

in other big news, i found out my dad's going to come visit me which i'm REALLY excited about. he's coming in june for the week of my b-day. so now i'm trying to come up with fun stuff for us to do while he's here, which i think will be pretty easy. it's gonna be an adventure for the both of us, but i think it'll be really cool!

so the books i've been reading while i'm here have really been great (not the spanish ones sadly... but still...). i've been reading the normal christian life by watchman nee for a while now. i think the title's a little misleading for this book, but it's mostly a book about romans 6-8 and all that Christ's death and resurrection does for us. it's a really incredible book. it presents alot of the foundational truths of our faith in a really incredible way i think. so here's a couple excerpt from things i read this week that i really really liked, and really talked about alot of the exact same things i've been thinking about and learning about alot lately.

"a brother who was trying to struggle into victory remarked to me one day, "i don't know why i am so weak." "the trouble with you," i said, "is that you are weak enough not to do the will of God, but you are not weak enough to keep out of things altogether. you are still not weak enough. when you are reduced to utter weakness and are persuaded that you can do nothing whatever, then God will do everything.." we all need to come to the point where we say: "Lord, i am unable to do anything for thee, but i trust thee to do everything for me.""

"have you despaired of yourself, or do you hope hat if you read and pray more you will be a better christian? bible-reading ad prayer are not wrong, and God forbid that we should suggest that they are, but it is wrong to trust even in them for victory. our help is in him who is the object of that reading and prayer. our trust must be in Christ alone."

"...the old habit of "doing" reasserts itself and we begin our old self-efforts again. then God's word comes afresh to us: ït is finished" (john 19:30). He has done everything on the cross for our forgiveness and he will do everything in usf or our deliverance. in both cases He is the doer. "it is God that worketh in you.""

food for thought. how wonderful is it that all that Christ asks of us, He himself accomplishes. He does it all... that's just a pretty incredible thought. learning to live in that prevision is sometimes so against my nature though, but i've been learning alot about that and it's been really great.

well, i'm super tired, so that all for now folks. i love and miss you all!!

riding in a sardine can

2007-05-03T20:14:00.000-04:00

picture of mi kissing a rapa knui, the trademark guys from the isla de pascua (easter island, where i'll be going in june!!) seba took this of me in a restaurant on his phone and i think he messed with the background a little bit on photoshop. pretty fun though :)oh how the weeks continue to fly by. i only have classes monday through thursday (with only one class mondays and tuesdays) which means three day weekends every weekend (rough life i know), so the time has seemed to be passing at an almost alarmingly fast rate. it's amazing how even three day weekends can feel short! next semester will definitely be a shock for me as i jump back into the insanity that is my life at the uofa: into marching season, my new job as an RA, and a full load of upper level classes (but they're all either communication disorders classes or spanish, so they should be pretty good!). but all the craziness of next year aside and plans for when i come home, i still have almost two-and-a-half months left here, and i don't want to waste away the time i have here thinking about things for when i get home.

so the last few weeks have been really good. i feel like the Lord's really been showing me and teaching me alot as i've kinda come to peace about alot of things. i'd gotten really frustrated with myself for a while because i felt like i wasn't doing much here, and in the years past i think i've picked up the twisted way of thinking that if i wasn't doing stuff, that i was wasting my time and something was wrong. while i generally go out with my family or friends on the weekends and occasionally do stuff during the week, alot of times if i'm not in class i'm just hanging out in the house working on homework or reading the endless amounts of spanish literature i have to read (or more accurately-thinking about how i should be reading spanish literature and how i don't want to be...). but i've realized that while sometimes i may be a bit lazier than what's called for here (sleeping in has become a bad habit), i really think the Lord's calling me to a time of rest here, which is a concept pretty foreign to me, but it's been really great, especially since i've allowed myself to be ok with it. i've been reading rob bell's book velvet elvis (incredible book-if you haven't read it, DO) and in one part of it he talks about how he learned that he had to take a sabbath, b/c if he didn't he would lose his soul in all the doing. i feel like this time is kinda like an extended sabbath for me. not to use that as an excuse to not do anything, but just in the sense that the Lord's calling me to learn to rest in Him and learn to just be, instead of always feeling like i have to be doing. plus i'll have plenty of doing to do when i get home.

and now, i think i'll leave you with a story/description of something that has become a very big part of my life here in chile-las micros. so every morning/afternoon when i go to valparaíso for my classes, i take the micro. i flag one down three blocks from our apartment and then ride it to my university. the micros are a huge part of life in chile. they're everywhere and almost everyone uses them at least sometimes, even if they have cars, just because they're super economical, especially if you're just going around town (because parking at times can be a hassle and gas is even more expensive here than at home). supposedly there are bus stops, but really you can pretty much flag one down anywhere and they'll stop to let you off about everywhere, which is great except that it makes for some pretty interesting traffic situations and a longer ride. luckily there's a part of the ride to the university that goes right along the beach, so it's a pretty ride. when i come home i take the micro as well and it drops me off just a block from our apartment, which is pretty nice. ok, so today i got on the micro coming home from my class in viña (so it was a much shorter ride than when i come from valparíaso) and i happened to get on a micro that was jammed with people. i could barely get inside the front door, let alone make it the two feet to where you normally pay the driver. but no big deal. the crowds like that are relatively common and usually the number of people on the bus equalizes people fast. well... this time that didn't work out so well. more and more people just kept getting on. i have no idea why the driver kept stopping to let people on. at one point, i was holding on to a rail by the front door when the driver opened the door and i managed to get my arm caught between a lever for the door and the rail... so here i am trying to move out of the way so people can get on with my arm wedged betweens these two bars, looking very much like a gringa... gotta love situations like that. luckily the door closed after a minute or so and i was "free" again. or as free as you can be when you're wedged in between so many people, so close that i'm continually bumping into 3 random people i've never met. so when it comes time to get off, i've managed to make it to about the middle of the bus, which means i have to try to squeeze my way out without killing 5 people on the way with my backpack... it's a hard task. i definitely took a huge sigh of relief when i stepped off the bus and no longer felt like a sardine. so welcome to chile, where the micro drivers are crazy and at times the concept of personal space gets through out the window of the micros!

this is a great picture. i've probably ridden this exact same bus. i tend to favor the "2 viña buses" as they always come close to my house and are easy to spot. there's a ton of different micros that go all over the place, so you have to be careful to get on the right one (once i got on the wrong one and had to ride it for about an hour before i could get off and get on the right bus, and that was after going about 1/4 of the way to santiago...).

well, now you understand just a little bit better my life in chile (cuz the micros really are a big part of it!). until next time, i love you all and wish all of you that have finals the best of luck!

cada día me atraias hacia tí

2007-04-22T21:22:00.000-04:00

mi hermano seba and i discovered this mexican singer named marcela gandara who i've pretty much fell in love with. she is a christian singer who sings in spanish (and i can actually understand almost all of what her lyrics say!), and i've been listening to her almost constantly for the last couple weeks. this song especially seems to be relevant of late:

Desde el principio cuando te necesité,
from the beginning when i needed you
desde el momento cuando la mirada alzé,
from the moment when i looked alway
desde ese día, cuando sola me encontraba,
from that day, when i found myself alone
cuando tu mirada en mi se fue a poner.
even then you turned and looked at me

Supe que me amabas lo entendi,
i then understood that you've always loved me
y supe que buscabas, mas de mi,
and that you looked for more of me
que mucho tiempo me esperaste y no llegue,
that you waited for me for a long time, but i never came
supe que me amabas, aunque huí,
i know that you love me, although i ran away
lejos de tu casa, yo me fui,
far from your home, i went
y con un beso y con amor,
but with a kiss and with love
me regalaste tu perdon, estoy aqui.
you gave me the gift of your forgiveness, and now i'm here

Y cuando lejos me encontraba te senti,
and when i was far away i felt you
sabia que entonces me cuidabas y te oí,
and so i knew that you you cared for me and i heard you
como un susurro fue tu voz en el silencio,
like a whisper was your voice in the silence
cada dia me atraias hacia tí
every day you pulled me toward you

and then it repeats the chorus.

so that's a pretty rough translation, but the song's about the prodigal son and it's really quite a beautiful song, for a beautiful story. how great is the love of the Father that even when we run away from Him and squander all the blessings that He's given us, when we finally come home to Him, expecting to work as a slave, He welcomes us back into Him arms with rejoicing and throws us the biggest party imaginable! who great is His grace! i have found myself very thankful for His grace this week and for His never ending, never wavering love and provision. how great is it to live in the grace of our Father!?!?

in other news... i slept through an earthquake that was a grade 5 on the richter scale. i woke up this morning and my family asked me if i felt the super strong earthquake and i had no idea what they were talking about. i guess it happened a little after 6 this morning and was really strong. down south, it was quite catistrophic with a number of people dieing from huge waves caused by an earthquake saturday afternoon. i'm really not afraid of them at all, but i guess there's been quite a bit of seismic activity in the last month. they're still almost fun for me, which probably is a sign of my naivety of how terrible and destructive they can be, but i kinda hope i don't learn to be scared of them...

below are some pictures i took yesterday. ISA went on an excursion to some towns a little north of here called hurcón y zapallar. zapallar especially was quite beautiful. enjoy the photos!

me eating a camaron y queso (shrimp and cheese) empanada! yummy!!

pretty shot of some boats just off the beach in zapallar as the sun just starts to peak out of the clouds.

i feel like every picture with a random dog in it is a classic chile picture. i especially like this one!me by the beach!on top of a super cool rock by the beach. i wish we could have stayed to watch the sunset because it was BEAUTIFUL last night and this would have been the perfect place to watch it. but i got to see it, and that's all that really matters!!

pack your bags and go!

2007-04-16T20:14:00.000-04:00

well, i officially feel like a world traveler. i survived my first completely independent, self planned, self managed, no-one-helping-me traveling experience to distant parts of the world, without bodily harm, emotional scaring, or anything of the sort. the freedom to go where we pleased, do what we wanted, without having a schedule of events to tie us down was really awesome. if you ever want to travel just to get to know a place, buy a plain ticket and a guide book, pack your bags and go (and of course call someone every night to tell them where you are in case something goes wrong, like i did, but that's beside the point)!

the trip consisted of a week down in southern chile, just north of patagonia in the southern part of the lake district and the island of chiloe. we (being myself and my friends katie and mia) flew into puerto montt monday afternoon and then started our traveling in the island of chiloe. we stayed in hostels (or hospedajes), traveled by bus, and met alot of really cool people. i think that meeting the people from all over the world was my favorite part. at one of the hospedajes we stayed at we met people from australia, holand, england, and lithuania. some of them were literally traveling the world, and it was really cool to hear some of their stories. a couple of them had what's called "round the world" plain tickets, something i didn't even know existed, but apparently includes a ton of different flights, literally all around the world. it was also really nice to be in a place with a much slower pace, much fewer people, and wide open spaces just a short walk away. one of my favorite parts of the trip was when we went on a tour that was guided by the owner of the hostal where we were staying. we went with 4 english boys and the guy from lithuania to parque nacional chiloe where there is one of the two temperate rain forests in the world. we also went to the beach on the west coast of chiloe which was really beautiful (really windy, but i really enjoyed it).

below are some of my favorite pictures from the trip. i have more, but these are my favorites. i figured out how to use the manual function on my camera, so i think the quality of my pictures is improving.

haha, this is my starbucks cup from the airport. i took a picture of it for two reasons, 1-note the way my name is spelled, and 2- to show how desperate i am for coffee that i even resorted to drinking starbucks (i figure it's not that bad here, b/c you just can't get good coffee... you know it's bad when starbucks is the best coffee around. chile needs a kennedy's...)

this is a picture of the church in chonchi, chiloe where we stayed for two nights. chiloe is full of these super cool old churches. each is considered a national heritage sight so something like that.this is also in chonchi. these little boats are all over the island of chiloe and make for some really cool pictures.

this are the swans off the coast of an even smaller island to the east of chiloe called lemuy. we went on a wild goose chase one day (get it!) to see these swans and took some wrong roads and didn't exactly know where we were, but we ended up finding them and finding where we were supposed to be so it was all good. just alot of walking (about 7 hours!) and we didn't exactly bring lunch, so we were starving by the time we got back to the hospedaje.this is in the rain forest walk in parque nacional chiloe. it was really different than anything i'd ever been in before. from what i hear, if you get really deep into the forest it's really quite incredible, but we were only on the edge.looking up through the trees in the rain forest. i like this pic!

this is on the beach on the west coast of chiloe. it's more exposed than the beaches here in viña and valpo with alot more wind and much stronger waves. we hiked along two different beaches. i really enjoyed it!katie and mia on the beach.

all three of us girls. i really like this picture too!katie and i took a boat ride on this big lake in mainland chile. the lake was near a town called petrohoe. we went there for a little while one day. the lake is surrounded by mountains and volcan osurno, but we couldn't see all the volcano b/c there were alot of clouds, but it was still quite beautiful.

katie on the boat with the volcano behind her.

the volcano with clouds wrapped around the top. we finally did get to see the top when we flew out in the airliner!this is the church in puerto varas where we stayed for two nights before we flew out.

so that was my trip in a nutshell. i really enjoyed it but i'm also glad to be home. it was weird being gone for a whole week. i have so little time here that i felt like i was wasting the precious time i have to build relationships. i think i'd definitely go again if i was given the chance, i really did enjoy the trip, but i realized that i don't want to spend all my time here traveling, even though there are a million cool places i'd like to go. but really, not traveling now will just give me a good reason to come back!

so for now i'm back home, needing to hit the books again. it's getting harder to motivate myself to study, but i need to more than ever. i also know that, while reading in spanish is super frustrating at times, everything i read will help me learn the language that much better, so i push on! i feel like i have so much to learn here, about the language, the culture, life in general, and the promises and the love the Lord has for me, but processing it all is at times really difficult. well, i'll update again soon, but for tonight, i'm out. i love you all!

anduvimos por valparaíso

2007-04-05T23:05:00.000-04:00

what a week! today i finished what has probably been the most difficult week i've had so far. not so much in an emotional sense, but just in that fact that i had a ton of school work hanging over my head for the last week, really really weighing on me. i had a project due monday, a presentation in one of my classes wednesday that's the most important grade for the whole semester, and an exam in my literature class today. i definitely read 100 pages in spanish (it was a play so there weren't quite as many words on one page...) yesterday, yes, all in one day... i really haven't hardly stopped studying since saturday (that's 5 days solid...) but today it all ended and i'm free for a week and a half!! that's right. next week's what they call "semana novata." i'm still a little confused of all the details of what this week entails, but it has something to do with the first year students and all the classes after about noon are canceled, and since i only have one class that only meets twice a week before noon, i'm going to travel to southern chile with my friend katie for the week to chiloé (a big island right off the coast) and the area surrounding a town called puerto monte.

seba and i wandered through the streets of valparaíso thursday taking pictures. while we really didn't take that many, we got some good ones. these are my favorites:

me, looking down from a hill in valparaíso and out to the ocean

looking up one of the steep streets

window of a housea latch on a doorperfect example of the dogs in valparaíso, they're everywherethis picture is the jem of the photo shoot, this is probably the coolest cat i've ever seenseba outside an old jail in valparaíso
seba making some sort of pensive face that turned kinda goofywe played the act out emotions game (which i'm terrible at...) i believe this was... crazy? no sé...muy triste... (very sad)

i kinda got out of the habit of giving prayer requests, but i think that should change, so here we go...

pray for a safe, fun, but also God glorifying trip south
pray that i'll be able to truly enjoy and make the most of every moment here, because sometime i stuggle a little bit with missing home, not that i want to leave, but sometimes thinking about home so much makes it hard to appreciate all that's going on here
pray for the relationships that are developing with my family and my friends (chilean & american)
pray that the Lord would teach me to worship and learn of Him in another language, b/c i feel like things are getting lost in translation sometimes right now

so that's yet another glimpse into my life at the moment. all i can say is i'm blessed, here and at home :)

¡bienvenidos a mi vida!

2007-04-01T01:24:00.000-04:00

well, life just keeps on flying by down here in chile. i've been here almost a month and a half. crazy! i'm beginning to think that five months is not nearly as long as i originally thought. i miss home like crazy sometimes, but i have a feeling it's going to be hard to leave here too. but i have plenty of time before i have to worry about that, so for now i'm just trying to soak everything in, experience all i can, and really rejoice in the time i have here.

i don't have anything terribly profound or interesting to share, so i thought i'd post some pictures instead or long ramblings like usual. enjoy!

seba and i drove out to reñaca and con con (smaller towns to the north) sometime last week or so and took these pictures at this really pretty look out spot. i played with the color on the bottom one a little, that's the chilean flag, in case you were wondering.

¡mi primer pie de manzana en chile! i made an apple pie yesterday, and i had definitely forgotten how much work it was to make, but it was fun. it turned out beautiful except i guess i didn't put in enough corn starch because it was SUPER runny, i was really disappointed. but it tasted really good, the crust turned out great, and the fact that it was runny gives me an excuse to make another one later and show my family how good apple pie can really be!
me cutting the pie... not that exciting, but whatev...
me and mi hermano seba
me and my other hermano felipe (he was a little sick when this picture was taken...)
me and mi mama chilena
this picture's a little bit blurry, but i still kinda like it. we had a mini salsa dance party in our living room tonight. this is my brother seba and my mama.
maría jesús, mi hermanita (little sister)

well, that's all for now folks. i love you, miss you, and as always would love to hear about your life! p.s. i could use your prayers especially this week. i have a project, an oral presentation (all in spanish of course), and a lit test this week, not to mention some papers do coming up, so prayers for strength and wisdom would be greatly appreciated!

no puedo creerlo...

2007-03-24T23:51:00.000-04:00

(the title means: i can´t believe it)

ok, it´s always good to get the bad news over with first, right? well, i was walking home from the metro station today after a long, fun day of hiking in la campana parque nacional when i looked in my backpack to find my keys and realized that my cell phone wasn´t in the pocket were i always put it. i decided not to worry about it, because there was nothing i could do standing on the sidewalk outside my appartment, so i went ahead and went in and got a shower. afterwards i thoroughly looked through my backpack and sure enough-no cell phone. so at this point there were too posibilities. a) i forgot it on the metro and one of my friends had it, b) i was robbed as i was walking home, which was quite possible because i noticed my zipper was unzipped when i looked for my keys and i never leave my zipper unzipped. so i decided to mention to my mama chilena and my sister that i´d lost my phone, so they decide to call it. sure enough, so random chilean guy answers. daní tells him that he´s got my phone and he insists that it´s his mom´s so she hangs up. we then confirm that we sure enough had called my number so we call back and a lady picks up and says she´d just bought a new chip for her phone-my chip (which is like a SIM card). so apparently this is what happened. i was talking back from the metro with my backpack on my back. i´ve been told a million times to watch my stuff when i´m walking places because petty theft is very common here, but i thought that because it was the middle of the day and i was in well populated areas and being very allert of my surrounds that i´d be fine. plus i thought that i´d surely notice if someone were lurking behind me or that i´d feel someone tugging on my zipper to open it. well i didn´t. someone got in my bag and took my cell phone without me having the slightest inclination. and i really wasn´t walking with my head in the clouds, i sware! then what happens is these thiefs take the phones, take out the chips and sell both the chips and the phones and they get more money. so some lady, less than two hours after my phone was stollen, had already bought my chip and was using it. crazy, huh? and the worst part is that people buy this stuff, knowing full well that it´s stollen goods. people wouldn´t steal if other people wouldn´t buy. ugh! i think my brother calls the people that do this ¨flietes¨ or something like that, and it´s really a shame because this small group of people give chileans a bad name because they have made these acts of theivery so common that you almost expect to be robbed. well i´ve been robbed. hopefully that´ll be the one and only time. i´m a little more educated now and i know how to be more carefull....

now, i want to be optimistic. sometimes i use my blog as an outlet to blow off some steam when i get frustrated (as i did below), but i want all my readers to know that aside from the at times negative things i discuss here, there are a bazillion wonderful things happening that sometimes go left unsaid. so here´s a list of some of the wonderful blessings thus far. and let me say that the blessings far outway the frustrations and dificulties. sometimes i forget that and let myself get weighed down, but that´s not the reality of the situation. ok, here are the things i have to be thankful for (yeah, i know it´s not thanksgiving, but we need to make lists of these things all year around!):

my amazing family. i couldn´t possibly ask for a better family. and that´s the complete truth. i love every single one of them and i´ve been blessed with some really great bonding time with every one of them. they daily bless my life. my brothers and sisters have become my best friends. they´ve been willing to share with me their friends, their spare time, and are always willing to help me with my school work. i could go on for days about all the fun things, both little and big that we´ve all done together ranging from watching hours of 24 with seba to translating song lyrics with felipe to long conversations with my mom over tea to trips to the beach with daní and dancing and tickle fights with maría jesús. they are truly a gift from the Lord.
las pololas de mi hermanos (the girlfriends of my brothers). both cata and eva have helped me feel so incredibly welcome here and have been wonderful friends to me. eva´s in santiago now so i don´t get to see her very much, but i get to see cata quite a bit and she´s quickly becoming one of my closest and most charished friends here. both girls speak english quite beautifully so when i just can´t express myself in spanish i can use english, so my feelings and emotions don´t get so lost in translation when i´m with them. cata´s also become a friend who will hold me accountable and tell me when i´m being dumb and need to snap out of it, something that i need dearly and am SO thankful for.
american friends as well. i´m starting to develope some really great american friends too that i can hang out with and talk to about the things only we gringos/extranjeros understand.
classes where i can learn. some of my classes are hard, but i know that i´m going to come away from this knowing so much more spanish. the teachers are very knowledgable about what they teach and also eager to help.
a church to go to with a body of believers and opportunities to make chilean friends. sometimes the church overwhelms be because it´s just so much spanish, but all of the people have been so welcoming and understanding of my igorance at times.
family and friends at home who love and care about me. i´m so thankful for the people that leave comments, send faceboom messages, write e-mails, answer cell phones, talk on skype, whatever because i really do miss you all and i can´t tell you how much it brightens my day to know how life back home is going.
a beautiful country full of new people, new opportunities, new places, and new adventures.
being surrounded by the beauty of God´s creation. from the beautiful beaches and seemingly infinite expances of the pacific ocean, so the excentric beauty of valparaíso, and the tropic more distant beauty of the surrounding towns in chile, i´ve really been in awe of God´s creation as i´ve been here.
the fact that even when i feel most alone and most lost, i know that the Lord is with me. yeah, it may sound cliché, but that is really something to be thankful for. i have purpose in Him in all that i do here. that makes the day to day worth it. makes everything worth it.
and so much more, but i´m getting tired...

well, it´s time to go to bed, so that´s all for this addition of rachel´s exploits in chile. love you all!

"the things no one tells you about studying abroad"

2007-03-19T13:27:00.000-04:00

have you ever watched a movie, or maybe even been in a real life situation, where there was a person in the scene that was constantly putting themselves in such an awkward position or doing something incredibly ridiculous, that you almost hurt for the person and it’s almost hard to watch what’s going on. and the worst thing is, the person has no idea what’s going on, or that the other people around them are squirming or laughing on the inside because of the awkwardness of the situation. or even if they know, they can’t do anything to change that situation. well, my life has become one of those weird movies and i’m all the sudden the queen of these incredibly awkward, ridiculous situations.

luckily, i’m not the only one going through this. i was talking about this to some of the other girls in the study abroad program, and they were feeling the same way, but geez it gets frustrating sometimes. there’s nothing like sitting in a room full of people and not feeling like you can talk to anyone. or knowing exactly what you want to say, and then say it in the most ridiculous way possible. or get stared at as you walk down the street and have lord only knows whispered to you by the random man walking past. or my favorite, is when you try to say something, and you say the right words, but you just know that you sound completely ridiculous b/c the words come out completely forced b/c you’ve had to translate them (nothing like watching a movie and trying to produce exclamations of surprise or disbelief in a different language… they never come out right…). i say all of this not so much complaining, or in a “woe is me” manner, but i just wanted to illustrate the reality of my life at the moment. i completely understand that all of this is just part of it, and that being a foreigner who is learning a language is going to be awkward at times… but i really think i thought i’d left all the awkwardness behind me… oh how wrong i was. i think i’m going to write a book titled “the things no one tells you about studying abroad.” its chapters will be as follows:

1. forget being independent, prepare to feel like a kindergartener again.
-having to rely on other people for everything b/c you know nothing!

2. you’re about play the staring rold in an awkward teen movie!
-dealing with the awkwardness your very existence will create
3. conversation skills with a 100 word vocabulary
-how to get pack “me llamo ____, soy de los estados unidos, y tu?” with the
volcabulary of a 5 year old.
4. yes i have blond hair.
-how to walk through the streets when it’s obvious you’re a foreigners
5. nice to meet you, can i give you a kiss?
-learning that in some cultures it is ok to kiss on the first date… or the first time you
ever meet someone.

ok… so that’s all i’ve got so far, i’m sure i’ll have more to come soon. i guess i’ll stop being cynical for now. sorry, i just had to get it out. i really do love it here and in some ways i don’t really mind the awkwardness of this situation, but it was all just bubbling up and i though sharing it might help.

in other news, i’ve been reading “through painted deserts” by donald miller, which is pretty perfect for me right now b/c it’s about a trip he took when he was younger across the country. he pretty much leaves everything he knows for an unknown journey to an only vague destination. anyways, here’s some of my quotes i’ve marked so far:

“it’s interesting how you sometimes have to leave home before you can ask difficult questions, how questions never come up in the room you grew up in, in the twon in which you were born. it’s funny how you can’t ask difficult questions in a familiar place, how you have to stand back a few feet and see things in a new way before you realize nothing that is happening to you is normal. the trouble with you and me is we are used to what is happening to us… well, it isn’t normal. nothing is normal. it is all rather odd, isn’t it, our eyes in our heads, our hands with five fingers, the capacity to understand beauty, to feel love, to feel pain.”

in the month i’ve been here, being exposed to so many things that are outside my normal, but are so normal here, has definitely made me think about a lot of things i have always known and accepted. not to say that everything here is better, or everything back home is better, neither in the case. but like donald miller says, it’s so good to step outside of all you know, to get a chance to look at your life from a little bit more objective viewpoint. to look at your “reality” or your “normal” and see it from a different perspective. i haven’t formulated too many specifics yet, so i’ll leave it all at that, but it’s definitely an interesting experience to almost be able to see all you believe from a different set, or at least altered set, of eyes.

“[talking about everyone’s need to leave and what it will be like] and you will not be alone. you have never been alone. don’t worry. everything will still be here when you get back. it is you who will have changed.”

i just like this quote, not too much explaining required.

well, that’s enough rambling for one night. chao mis amigas y mi familia. ¡les quieren y les extraño mucho! (bye my friends and family. i love you and miss you a lot!)

¿¿¿¿el no sé QUÉ????

2007-03-15T12:20:00.000-04:00

so the ridiculousness of this experience has reached an all new high (ok... it´s really not ridiculous, but my brain can hardly hold all that just happened, so for the moment, it´s ridiculous). about an hour ago i got out of my second installment of ¨literatura española 3." yesterday´s class was rough, but the teacher was just lecturing about naturalism and relativism and who knows what else, so it wasn´t too bad. today, she gives us a piece of work called "el no sé qué" that we were supposed to read, comprehend, and analize, in 15 minutes (i could barely read all the words, let alone understand them in this amount of time). we then continued to all get in a circle (oh, btw, this class is a class with chilean students, so it´s about 1/3 extrajeros like me and then a bunch of chileans that actually know what´s going on) and discuss all the complexities of the story. i was having a hard enough time understanding the words that were coming out of people´s mouth, let alone even beginning to comprehend the ideas behind them, and then the teacher wanted to know what all us extranjeros thought. i wanted to laugh, or cry... i´m so tired now after an hour and a half of solid concentration that seems like it got me no where. then, at the end of class we stay after to talk to the teacher, to find out where we can get copies of the works so we can read them before class so we know a little more of what´s going on, and we realize the extent of the works we´re going to have to read. i´m talking whole, complex, long, intelectual book EN ESPAÑOL. say a pray for me folks, because i´m going to need all the prayers i can get. oh, did i mention the fact that i also missed the first two classes because one of the isa ladies promised me that the classes didn´t started until this week? ugh... i would just not take this class, but i´m afraid if i don´t, i won´t be able to transfer back enough hours. plus this class will give me a credit i need for my spanish major. so i really want to take it, but it´s just going to be ridiculously dificult.

but there´s a little light at the end of the tunnel, because we have a tutoring session set up already and the professora is very nice and seems to want to help, so hopefully all will get easier as my spanish skills increase. i really don´t think it can get harder anyway. ok, well i´m going to stop complaining and go eat some lunch. hopefully i´ll write a more optimistic post soon. many great things have been happening besides this one terrible class. i miss you all. remember to be greatful today as you sit in class (if you´re in class of course) that you can understand the words coming out of your professors mouth. it´s really a blessing!

sledding down a volcano on your butt? who comes up with stuff like this?

2007-03-12T10:36:00.000-04:00

what a weekend. i got back to viña this morning at about 8:00 after a weekend spent down south in the lake district of chile in a small little touristy town called pucón. ISA, my study abroad agency, took all of the students there this weekend to see all the beauty that the area offers and do some fun outdoorsy stuff. we left thursday night at 9:15 and drove 12 hours south. they housed us in these little "cabanas" that were a bunch of little houses all clustered together in what looked like a little jungle. the cabanas were connected by a maze of wooden platforms amid thick almost bamboo looking vegetation and trees. it was like something out of a fairy tail, or fern gully. i really enjoyed being in a little town for a few days where there wasn't tons of traffic. the town looked like many of the mountain towns i've seen in the US in alaska or colorado, if it weren't for the fact that it's super touristy, i would have loved to live there.

friday, we spent the day driving around to many of the beautiful waterfalls that are nestled in the hills and mountains around pucón. while hemmed-in-hollow back in arkansas is quite beautiful, these waterfalls are absolutely incredible. the pictures say more than i can, so i'll leave you to look at those. we finished out the first day with a soak in natural thermal baths and then some pretty good pizza back in pucón.

me at "salto la china" which is this super huge beautiful waterfall. supposedly it got it's name because some cow who's name was china fell off the top of it or something ridiculous like that (i'm not ever kidding). i decided that if i were a cow and i had to die, i'd much rather die falling off this waterfall than at the butcher block!this is "ojos del caburgua" which are these three beautiful waterfalls that run into this crystal clear, blue reservoir.this is "luguna azul" or blue lagune i wonder if this is where they filmed the movie... ok, probably not, but it's pretty beautifulme trying to act like i'm walking on water at lago caburgua, but the guy who took the picture didn't exactly do what i imagined, but it's still a cool pic!

saturday was the big day i was planning on climbing the volcano, but we'd been told that the past four days before they hadn't been able to climb because of poor weather, so we weren't sure if we'd be able to climb after all. we woke early to be ready by 7:30 to meet up with lizette (the program director) to find out if we'd be able to go. we all gathered to hear the bad news that they were calling off the trip b/c the forecast for the day was questionable. very disappointed, we all went back to our cabanas only to have lizette come knocking on our door telling us we may be able to go after all. ten out of the original fifteen decided to take the ride to the volcano to see how things looked from there and make the final decision when we arrived. so our group hurriedly went to the tour agency to get suited up in all of our equipment. we then took the ride to the volcano. as we drove out of town we got our first glimpses of the volcano that had been covered in clouds the day before. little did we know, the entire town of pucón in nestled in mountains, but you just can't tell when the low clouds come in.

the view of the volcano as we were hiking to get onto the chair lift. the volcano is called volcan villarrica.

when we arrived at the volcano, the weather looked good, so we decided to take the risk of possibly having to turn back half way up and lose our money. we rode in a chair lift for the the first 500 vertical meters up the volcano. this greatly helped reduce the time the journey takes and helped our chances of making it to the top before clouds had a chance to roll in and make us turn back. the first stretch of the climb was on loose volcanic soil/rocks. the boots that we were making made the already somewhat difficult hike much more difficult because they were so heavy and cumbersome. as we hiked on, the soil soon turned to snow as we zig zagged our way up the mountain. we stoped after about 30-45 minutes for lunch where i encountered my first incidence of a string of bad luck. as i pulled out my lunch sack, i realized i had grabbed the wrong bag in my rush out of the cabana. so instead of having a yummy turkey and avocado sandwich, i had a bag of uncooked spaghetti and kool-aid mix. luckily my generous friends gave me some of their lunches, so i had plenty to eat, but i still lugged spaghetti all the way up the volcano and back. after eating, we strapped on our clamp-on spikes onto our boots which greatly helped hiking in the snow and but also made the boots even heavier.

this is a view of part of the volcano, you can see the little people hiking down.

after lunch, we had about two more hours of pretty intense hiking before we reached the summit. as we got closer to the top, the wind picked up and the incline got steeper and i began to wonder if i was going to be able to make it all the way to the top. with about an hour left, my legs were beginning to feel like jello and every step was a struggle. the prayer, "Lord, be my strength" became my constant plea as i climbed the volcano literally one step at a time. i had known before i started that the climb would be physically difficult, but i didn't know what a mental battle it would be. i had to convince myself that i could take a couple more steps, that i would be ok if i lost my footing, that i could make it to the top. but the Lord provided all the mental and physical strength i didn't have myself. the journey up wasn't all toiling for nothing though, b/c every time our guide would stop to give us a 30 second breather or so, i'd be blown away by the all the beauty that surrounded me. off the volcano were views of distant mountains jutting up out of the clouds and large lakes and tree covered hills below. if i had gotten nothing else out of climbing the volcano, the views i was able to see would have been worth it.

this is my favorite picture. i don't know what the old structure used to be used for, but it made for a beautiful picture!this is a view off the mountain, you can see the mountains that are even taller than the volcano jutting out of the clouds in the distance. the pictures really don't do the beauty of it justice.

after about 3 hours of hiking up, we finally reached the top and the relief i felt to have made it all the way was incredible. i felt the most amazing sense of accomplishment after working so hard to get to the top. of the 14 of us that started out in our group, there were only 10 that made it all the way to the top. as we crested the top, the reality that we were indeed standing on an active volcano hit us as we breathed in the sulfur fumes spewing out of the giant, rugged crater. a couple people in our group decided to hike a little more through the thick sulfur fumes to try to see some lava, but i could have cared less about lava at that point (plus they didn't end up seeing any lava, so it's all good). we took many victory pictures at the top as we rested and prepared for the decent.

this is the ISA group that made it to the top.
this is me after conquering the volcano!this is me barely catching myself before i slid all the way down the volcano... ok, j/k, but it was fun to pretend.

i was a little bit nervous about the decent b/c the accent had been so difficult and steep, i didn't know what it would be like to hike down. we hiked down the first little bit with not too much difficulty, but i was definitely a little nervous about losing my footing in the snow. we soon stopped and our guide told us to take off our cramp on spikes. we all thought we had misunderstood or that he was going crazy, but he convinced us by telling us that we'd have to walk all the way down if we didn't, so we followed suite (he's been climbing the mountain for 20 years, so i figured he knew what he was talking about). we soon realized that the rumors we'd heard about sliding down the volcano were true. see, the way it works is a guide from another group would go down before everyone else and make a sort of tobaggon track, then all the rest of us would follow after, literally sledding on our butts down the mountain. here i met another bit of bad luck because i didn't have in my pack the extra thing the other members of our group had to strap onto their backsides to help keep their butts dry as they slid down. it ended up being fine, i just got a big wedgie and a cold, wet butt. but anyways, sledding down the mountain was probably one of the funnest things i've ever done (sledding at home will never be quite as cool). their were probably almost 10 different runs down the volcano. we'd slide down and use our ice picks to slow ourselves down when we gathered too much speed (i actually lost my pick on one run, another bit of bad luck, but pepe, our guide got it back). it was really crazy to zoom past all the ground we'd hiked up with so much difficulty just hours before.

our guía (or guide) pepe, who had been climbing this volcano for 20 years. i think he has a pretty sweet job!

the decent took only about 1 hour compared to the 3 it took to get to the top. we slid down probably about 2/3 of the mountain, but the last bit was hiking on the loose volcanic soil down a wide, but somewhat steep path that was easy to walk on compared to all we'd done earlier. at some point on this last leg of the trip i ended up a little behind the people i was walking with because i was a bit slower. here i got a chance to process alot of what had been going on in my head throughout the day and days past. as i climbed the volcano and also in the days earlier, i'd been really missing josh alot and had been thinking about him constantly as i saw all the beautiful mountains and waterfalls and went on these crazy adventures. as i saw all this beauty and did crazy things like sledding down volcanos, all i really wanted was for him to be by my side. to be able to hear his laughter and his exclamations of joy and awe at all of the beauty. of course this is ridiculous, b/c even if josh were alive, he wouldn't have been on that volcano with my, but i wanted so much just to call him or write him a letter, to be able to share that experience with him b/c i knew how much he would have delighted in that, and the reality that i couldn't do any of those things hit me really hard. i cried as i walked down the mountain, grieving the loss of my friend, but i think i needed to let myself grieve. i need to remember. it's ok to be sad. but in the sadness, i still know that as beautiful as that volcano was, and as grand as that adventure was, it's nothing compared to what josh has for eternity in heaven. so i find my solace in that, and i'll live my life following after what he started!

needless to say, after climbing the volcano, i was exhausted, so i showered, at some pizza at a cute little place in pucón and then crashed for the night. sunday morning i woke to rain in time to go white water rafting. rafting was really cold but it was alot of fun. it was a pretty short trip, i think we were barely on the river for an hour, and there were only rapids that went up to class three, but it definitely made me want to do more rafting when i get a chance. at the end of the day, we got back on the bus to make the overnight trip back to viña.

well, i'm sick of writing (i've accidentally deleted large parts of this two different times and had to rewrite it) and this is the longest blog ever, so i'm gonna call it quits for today. i love you all and i'd love to talk to you and know how you life's going (get skype! my name's rachel.dton ). i'll update again soon!

oh p.s. i found out this weekend i'm going to be an RA in yocum next year. whoop whoop!! i'm pretty excited

¿rica, linda, o tiene algo?

2007-03-07T21:21:00.000-05:00

so my brother sebastián took it upon himself today to describe to me some very important terms chileans use alot (they have alot of weird terms that no one else understands, so it was an important conversation). after explaining the meaning of "piola" and "pillín" he asked me if i understood "rica." this is a word that the chileans use all the time to mean that something's delicious, or beautiful, or they really like it, or it's really nice, etc so i thought i'd pretty much figured at least that word out. but apparently there's another meaning when it's used to describe a woman. he continued to tell me their are three classifications men use to describe women. 1. is "rica"or hot. 2. is "linda"or pretty or cute 3. is "tiene algo"or she has something (this one i don't really get, cata seemed to think that it was someone who was nice, but it seems like there's some other connotation i wasn't quite getting). i'm pretty sure that my brother also told me that if a boy calls me "rica" that that means "danger danger" he said. it was pretty awesome, a pretty classic big brother/little sister talk about the way things are. i thought i'd share it even though it's probably not half as interesting to you as it was to me...

in other news, my first classes started this week. i only have my spanish grammar and culture classes this week, and then next week my literature and history classes start. i had expected that the spanish classes would be pretty easy because they're entirely with extranjeros (foreigners), but i think i may have been wrong. i ended up in advanced level ones, and it seems that when they said advanced, they meant it. it's not that i'm lost, but often i just feel like i'm not smart enough to be in these classes. everyone seems to speak better than me and understand more, but it's only the first week. i think once i get comfortable with the people and the professors i'll feel alot more confident about them. it is nice however to feel like i have at least something that i'm doing here, some reason, something to fill up time. after two years of barely stopping to breathe, it's now weird for me to have times when there's literally nothing i have to do. college has made me somewhat of a busy body, i'm not so good at doing nothing anymore. it's not so much that i don't like not doing things, it's just that sometimes when i'm not doing things i feel like i have no purpose, like i'm wasting valuable time. please pray that i'll be able to fill my time with things that really matter, but also that i'll be able to learn how to rest and just be. i think learning how to be is something i need to work on, or maybe not work on, maybe that's the point...

anyways... the reality of this situation sinks in more and more every day. the fact that i can't communicate like i want to hits me like a brick every time i have try to have conversations with my family and we all struggle to be understood and understand. communication is a very delicate and wonderful thing, but it takes a lot of work. to speak you have to be able to formulate words that tell what you're thinking or feeling in a way that the other person will understand. to hear you have to be able to comprehend not just the meaning of the words, but also the person's thoughts behind them. this is often difficult enough in solely english, but for a spanish speaker and a spanish student... oh it can be excruciating. i generally understand at least the gist of what's going on or being said, but in alot of cases, just the gist isn't enough. and i can express myself in very basic ways, but often basic ways can't convey what i want to convey. so my family and i are continually struggling to understand and be understood, but we're getting better. yesterday i had a conversation with sebastián about this very same thing. it seems he has a friend who had studied abroad in the states or who was a study abroad student from the states (it's stuff like that that i'm never clear about) who had told him many of the difficulties they experienced while abroad, that were very much like mine. it was so good to know that he at least understood my desire to be understood and understand and how frustrating and difficult it can be to be unable to do these things we so often take for granted. but in all of this frustration and the loneliness that not being able to communicate sometimes creates, i understand that this is all part of the deal. this is how it works. i can't expect it to be any different. and it'll get better over time, but i can't expect it to be some magical occurrence like i think i sometimes convince myself it will be.

oh, on a lighter note, i've failed to mention in previous blogs an aspect of the chilean culture that has taken some serious getting used to. my first encounter with it was as soon as i got through customs and was greeted by the ISA director lizette with a huge hug and kiss on the cheek, and then the same thing happened with the other ISA ladies. i then realized that they're one of those kissing cultures, women kiss cheeks (or it's usually more like air) when they greet, no big deal. well, then i meet my host family, more kisses on the cheeks, this time by boys too, but they're my family that i'm going to be living with, no big deal. well, not too long after that, i realized the full extent of the kissing situation: everyone you greet, whether you've known them for your whole life or never seen them before, you great with a kiss. and there's no getting around greeting people either, you greet everyone! and then when you leave, well, it's time for more kissing! when chileans enter a gathering of friends they literally go around the room greeting and kissing every single person, and then again, before they leave, they kiss every single person again. it's pretty intense for the girls who was once (and in some ways still is) a kissing virgin. brittney, if you're reading this, it's probalby better that you never visit chile b/c i think your personal boundary lines would be ridiculously violated!

well, that about wraps up most of what i have on my mind at the moment that i wanted to share. this weekend i'll be traveling with ISA to pucón, a town about 12 hours south of here to climb a volcano, go river rafting, some sort of canopy thing, and all kinds of other fun adventures hopefully, so expect some pretty awesome pictures when i get back. i love you all and would love to hear about your life as well b/c i really miss that!

am i going crazy or was that an earthquake?

2007-03-02T17:00:00.000-05:00

the last two days have been absolutely beautiful here. as eva (felipe's polola-girlfriend) predicted, the cloudy day we had wednesday was followed by two beautiful days of sun and warm temperatures. i don't like cloudy days too much-they make the homesickness worse. so these pretty days have been really wonderful.

yesterday i registered my visa at el registro civil which is like the DMV times 500. it was ridiculous. i'll never complain about the DMV ever again. i think i was the 5th person in our group to go and i was still there for over 3.5 hours. ugh. but then i got to sign up for my clases which went pretty well, except for one scheduling conflict that was resolved today (yay!). so i'm going to take gramática 3, español comunicacional y cultura chilena advensada, literetura española 1 o 3 (i'll decide which ones once i try the classes out), y historia de latino american en siglo XX. my schedule works out really well b/c i won't have any classes on friday. i'm sooo excited about that.

after my kind of hectic day of DMV visits and scheduling classes, i came home and my sister daní invited me to go with she and her friend ricardo to the beach. we drove just north of viña to a little town called renaca (don't know how it's spelled) where the beaches are better. it's less protected by the bay so it has beautiful waves. i think it's by far the most beautiful beach i've ever seen (which isn't saying too much because i haven't been to a ton of beaches, but it was really great!). i took some pictures and played some paddle ball and just played in the sand, and then we ate empenadas as a little place right off the beach while the sun set. it was pretty amazing (see pictures!)

i was able to sleep in this morning b/c i didn't have to be at the university till about 12:30 or so, so i woke up at about 10:20 ish. as i was laying in bed i thought i felt something a little peculiar, like my bed was moving. sure enough, the moving got a little stronger and i even thought i was my light swaying. everyone else in my house was either asleep or out, so i wasn't able to ask about it, but i was pretty sure i'd just experienced my first earthquake (or temblor as they say here) or i was going crazy. and then, sure enough, this afternoon my little sister asked me if i had felt the earthquake, so i was excited to know i wasn't going crazy! i talked to mi mama about it and she said that the little ones are pretty common and we can feel them in our apartment more since it's taller. nothing was hurt at all, it was just a little one, but it was kinda exciting!

tonight, i'm going to visit the church my family and the ladies that run the ISA office go to, which i'm really excited about. i think it's going to be a wonderful way to meet other chileans and make some good friends. i just hope i can kind of keep up with what's going on. the spanish is just so hard to understand here! so sometimes it's even harder to connect with people b/c i can only partly understand what's going on and only partly express myself. it definitely gets frustrating, but i just have to remind myself that it's all part of the deal, i'm gonna get frustrated, but that's just part of learning a language; learning to do anything really. you're gonna be bad at it before you get good. so many things have come easily for me in my life, that sometimes when things are harder i get more discouraged, but i'm trying to stay upbeat.

well, that's all for now, i'll update again soon! love you all!

i'm excited about the beach!the sun's setting!que lindo (how beautiful!)!

life in "the vineyard of the sea"

2007-02-27T20:56:00.001-05:00

my first view of my new home, viña del mar, as we drove into the city for the first time. the picture is looking across part of valpo (i think) to viña

i can't believe i haven't even been in chile for a week. three days in santiago and now almost three days with my family in viña del mar. i really seems like i've been here for months. so many things to tell you all about in the last couple days, i couldn't possibly remember everything (and you probably wouldn't want to read it all), but i'll do my best!

by the time sunday had rolled around, i was really ready to leave santiago and meet my family. i was tired of living out of a suite case and feeling like a tourist in santiago, and i really wanted all of my questions about my family to be ready, so the ride to valparaíso was both really exciting and a little nerve racking. that is until we crested the hills around valparaíso and i got my first glimpse of the ocean and of valpo and viña. "muy lindo" as they say here, "very beautiful." when i saw where i was going to be living i was completely sure for the first time that this was exactly where i was supposed to be. there's something almost enchanting about the way all the buildings and homes stretch from the beach up into the steep hills.

and then, i met my family. it all happened really fast, but one moment i was a random kid wandering around chile like i was with some big tour group, and the next i was part of this beautiful family. a part of a family where i sometimes understand very little of what's going on, but a part of family none the less, not just a random foreign girl living in the house. i'm considered their daughter, or sister. it's really wonderful. our household consists of mi máma, nancy, mis hermanos (my brothers) sebastian (30) y felipe (almost 21), mis hermanas (my sisters) daniela (26) y maría jesus (7), and often times las pololas (the girlfriends) of my brothers, cata y eva. they're really a beautiful family. my mom is very caring and at times really funny. daniela generally lives in santiago and comes home on the weekends, but she's on vacation right now, so she's at home as well. she's learning english and is really great about helping me understand when i get confused. the two boys are very different but i like them both alot. felípe is hillarious while sebastian is much quieter, but i think he has a huge heart. maría jésus is also hillarious of usually full of energy, always dancing around the house. she's probably the hardest to understand b/c she talks really fast and doesn't pronunciate more clearly when she talks to me like most of the family does. i've also really enjoyed getting to know my brother's girlfriends. eva, the younger of the two, is so patient with me. we sat for hours yesterday talking, and she never gets impatient with me as i struggle to come up with what i want to say. she also speaks beautiful english, which is really helpful when i don't know a word or get confused. in a sense, we're both teaching each other when we talk, b/c i help her with her english and she helps me with her spanish. the same is true with sebastian's girlfiend cata. i think cata and i have alot in common, we like the same kind of music and i think even have really similar personalities. all of them are just wonderful. words really don't do them justice. especially english. it's funny, b/c when i try to explain them, only spanish words come to mind.

our apartment in viña is small, but really really comfortable. i have a really little room and bathroom all to my self, and yesterday felípe spent hours putting together a wardrobe for me, so no more living out of my suit case!!! i actually realized today how much i enjoy being in this house when all i could think about when i was in valpo doing stuff with the ISA folks was how excited i was to get home! we have wifi in the house and most other conveniences one would need.

some big differences i've picked up on in our two cultures/worlds since i've been here:
*everything runs at a slower, later pace. 9:00 am is really early for them, and 1:00 am isn't very late at all. meals take much longer and are less about eating than spending time together.
*it's not only common for kids to live at home, but it's actually a little weird for them not to. even when kids go off to a different place for school, they come home on the weekends.
*the city layouts are completely different. while there are some "supermercados" there are little shops/restaurants/bars everywhere.
*public transportation in big here, i'm having to learn how to use it which is a little scary, but really fun
*you have to be careful about flushing toilet paper... the one convenience i'm really missing from the u.s.
*there's fresh food everywhere, fresh fruits, vegetables, fish, meat, everything. it's really wonderful. alvocado (or palta) is a staple food here too so it's really cheap and they eat it with everything, and i've been eating a ton of it and loving it.

oh man... so many things, but i'm getting really tired, so i think i'll cut it off here, but i'm going to include some funny pictures of when. the ones of my host family were taken when i gave them their gifts. the boys decided to act like urkel... i'm still not completely sure why, but it was sooo funny. anyways, i really do miss you all and would love to know how things are going in your lives as well as inform you about mine, so your e-mails or letters or comments or whatever are always welcome!

i'll update again soon. love you all!

my sister daniela and my brother sebastian. sebastian put on his t-shirt and then pulled up his pants and started acting super dorky, we were all rolling on the floor and i just had to get a picture!this is my other brother felipe. when sebastian was being goofy, he quickly followed suit and suddenly cam out of the bathroom with his hair slicked down, shirt tucked in, and stole his brothers glasses. there was much more uncontrollable laughter as i got my camera and they both hammed it up.

this is my little sister, maría jésus who is a beautiful child, but can be quite ornery and hilarious. she was a little shy in this picture but that is not usually the case!

tres mil cinco cientos pesos para almuerza!?!

2007-02-23T22:15:00.000-05:00

my first chilean sunrise!

thirty-five hundred (tres mil cinco cientos) pesos for lunch!?!?! sound kinda crazy. well, welcome to the world of chilean money. it’s crazy because they use commas instead of periods so it looks like 3.500, which is actually a little less than seven dollars. plus, like most foreign countries there’s a large amount of coins, and it turns out many that have the same value look very different and are even different sizes. it make my head spin at first, but it’s getting easier.

actually, a lot of things made my head spin at first, but it’s amazing how fast you start accommodating. oh man, the spanish here is crazy. i’d been warned about it before i left, and let’s just say everything i was warned of was true. supposedly chilean spanish is the fastest spanish in the world, plus they don’t pronounce a lot of their s’s and d’s and train off their endings. but, they say that if you can understand chilean spanish you can understand any spanish in the world, so it’s not all bad. it’s going to be rough for a while, but i’ll catch on.

the last two days we’ve spent in santiago, touring the city, getting to know one another, and learning some about what will happen once we get to valparaiso/vina del mar. santiago is such a modern city, i’ve been so surprised, i actually forget i’m not in america sometimes. they have many of the same brands of products and most of the same modern conveniences. if you look close, it’s easy to spot the differences, but i’ve still been really surprised.

it’s incredible how diverse our group is and how different from everyone i feel. i never realized before how much i surround myself with people like me. my friends and i always seemed so different before, but now i realize we all have the same foundation, but that’s not true with most of the people here. don’t get me wrong, i really truly like them, they’re terribly interesting, fun people, but we're all so terribly different. most people want to go out to drink every night which something so new to me. it’s pretty cultural to go out late here too i guess. so i’ve been confronted a lot with having to figure out where i fit into all of this. i want to experience this country and it’s culture, but i don’t want to compromise who i am. it’s really just a lot to process.

and then i’ve also been amazed by the Lord’s provision. in the times i’ve felt most alone, i’ve been so comforted by the fact that He’s continually with me, watching over me, and it’s in His plan for me to be here, doing what i’m doing, with the people who are here. luckily, i have found some people i can relate to. the girl i’m rooming with is named laurie and she’d fit right in with my friends at home. also, almost all of the isa directors are christians, and they speak very highly of my host family, and i’ve been told that they are involved in a church and whatnot, so i’m really excited about that. i’m excited to experience chilean fellowship. it’s so fascinating to learn about all the differences in the cultures.

well, i could go on for days, but you’ve probably already stopped reading, so i’ll sign off for now. i love and miss you all and would love to hear how life in the states is going! i’ll post again soon!!

standing on the edge of something bigger than i know

2007-02-21T11:46:00.000-05:00

today's the day. in less than 7 hours i will be leaving northwest arkansas, not to return for almost five months. i think the reality of all of this is slowly beginning to seep in. i'm no less excited or glad that i'm going, but there's alot of other emotions that are being added to the list.

i feel kind of like i'm standing on the edge of a very big bluff, and the beautiful, deep river is below me, and i've gone out to the edge to jump. any of you who have ever seem me bluff jump or been around me on a high dive know that that is not the most comfortable place for me. it always takes me a while to get up the nerve to push myself off the edge, and then i love it, but that time spent at the top... man, it's pretty nerve racking. well, i'm standing up there right now, and it's even more difficult, b/c i can't see the water below me. i know with complete certainty that it's there, but i can't see it and i don't know all that it holds. but i'll jump this afternoon, and we'll see whether i scream the whole way down or cry or just take in the scenery.

in other news.... a huge blessing came to me in the form of a cd a dear friend made me which included a sermon by a guy whose name i don't know (i'll try and find it out though, b/c everyone should listen to it). here's three excerpts that have really hit home and encouraged me:

"the most wonderufl thing that you will ever do with your life is to trust it to the nature of God; to put it into the hands of a God who totally loves you, an dhe's deeply committed to you, and delights in helping you."

"He is the great God who sends us out as lambs amongst wolves. why? b/c the lion is padding by our side."

and i really like this last one.

"you cannot find security in what God is doing b/c God commits you to the impossible, He asks you to see the invisible, He calls you to do the outrageous. there is no security in that place. there is no security in what God is doing. there is only security in who God is!"

so i'm standing up on my cliff, nervous, but confident that this is where the Lord has placed me, and while i don't know what's at the bottom, He does. so i'm going to jump and i can wait to find out what's at the bottom. and i'll be sure to share it with you all!