Our School

Well, I'm excited to show you pictures of our school. For a little perspective, we are teaching at a college called DuocUC. They have 13 campuses throughout Santiago and a few other Chilean cities. Rich and I were assigned to the same campus. It is called San Carlos Apoquindo. It is on the far east side of Santiago, literally at the base of their "foothills" (the foothills of the Andes). The city ends there because it runs into the mountains. It is also in the wealthies part of Santiago, called Las Condes. We were told that we are teaching lower to middle income students. We hope this is true...we really don't know. The college does charge tuition but were told it isn't too expensive. But, since it is located in the rich neighborhood it is a little wierd to us because we feel like we are in a really nice part of California or something, but we expected to be in a much rougher area. I guess the other 12 campuses are not as beutiful as ours. They are more inner-city. But, this is what we got so we are just going with it. When you see the pictures you will see how pretty it is! This campus seems to be focused on technical skills such as sound engineering, culinary arts, design, fashion design, ecotourism, etc. Actually, Rich got assigned a fashion design for English class! He has a whole class of girls he is teaching the terminology for fashion design. He finds this quite funny. Here are some pictures of our lovely school....we have had a good week and are getting used to our classes and enjoying the students:

There are two primary buildings at our campus. This one is in the shape of a semi-circle. It's pretty cool. Oh, I forgot to say that we both have afternoon and evening classes, no morning classes. It is different, but pretty cool. My latest class ends at 7:45, although there are classes that go until 10:45 (I'm glad I don't have one of those).

We use the train, bus, or walking to get everywhere. This is a picture of the buses we ride very day (and some local construction). Our commute is 45 minutes to an hour. We take the train to the end of the tracks and then get on a bus the rest of the way. The commute isn't very fun. A lot of times it is shoulder to shoulder and hot and stuffy. But, it's sort of nice not to be driving.

This is one of my classrooms.

One of the building entrances.

A hallway.

These are four of the five students in my wed/thurs class that is from 6:15 to 7:45. Oh, and the campus dog. He's there almost every day. He has a bum leg but seems pretty happy and fed well enough somehow.

To the right is a climbing wall, although you probably can't tell. This is for the "eco-tourism" students. The court is for playing soccer.

The view from the top floor of the semi-circle building (and some construction). It is beautiful.

More of the view.

Rich talking to one of the other teachers.

Where the people are standing is the bus stop we use to go home every day. Only by the time the bus comes there will probably be 35 people standing there.