Where we live, La Serena, Chile

Out the front door.

Out the back door.

Full moon out the back door at night.

 

Down the road.

We just love the ocean and are so enjoying this beautiful place God has blessed us to live in for a little while.

Teaching Cupcakes

Cata and Cherith

This is my friend Cata (short for Catarina) and me making cupcakes. Cata and I met when I put up a sign in the basement of my building (in Santiago) asking if someone would like to exchange English conversation for Spanish conversation (they call it "intercambio" and it is a free way to practice languages). Anyhow, Cata is my intercambio partner and a wonderful friend! And, they don't have cupcakes in Chile, but she had some in Australia and she wanted to learn how to make them. Well, all Americans know how to make cupcakes, right!? Well, at least I sure did. I love to bake, and I've taken a bunch of cake decorating classes so I love to decorate, too. So, I told her I'd teach her how to make cupcakes. She was a natural from the beginning. Here are some of the final products:

Ecuador!?!?

 OK, the last big news in our little world....to yours : ) Weeeell, the Peace Corp has offered us the option to go to Ecuador instead of Africa! Wow! For those of you who don't know, we wanted to go to South America in the first place but they told us we couldn't because our Spanish wasn't good enough. Instead they were going to send us to Africa. We weren't very excited about that but we were going to do it. Anyhow, I guess since we are now in South America already and we are learning the language they changed their minds! We didn't even ask them to do so! This is a very pleasant surprise! We'd much rather keep learning Spanish and stay here in South America. And, everyone says Ecuador is beautiful and has a wonderful, warm climate. We don't know - we've never been there! So, the plan is that we will finish here in La Serena at the end of November. We will return to Denver at the beginning of December for a month and a half. We'll be living with Cherith's family and maybe with a friend for a little bit in Denver, as well as traveling to see Rich's family. Then, we'll leave from Ecuador, from Denver, on January 18th, 2012. Although we are happy here in Chile, we are a bit homesick and very excited to come back in December, even if it isn't permanent yet.

Education Protests in Santiago

Although I'm not 100% sure we have an accurate understanding of the education protests in Santiago, it seems that the protests are because of inequality in education between the lower/middle and upper class. This picture is from a school next door to our apartment in Santiago. If you look close, or click on the photo to get a better view, all the student's desks and chairs are stuck in the fence of the school. Kids stopped going to this, and many other, public schools around the beginning of June 2011, and they haven't been back yet! There are daily parades and protests in Santiago and some of the smaller towns. They say that for every 10 upper class students that get into the good colleges, only one lower or middle class students gets in. This isn't because of lack of intelligence, but lack of education. Even in the public schools, which are open to all, education is not as standardized as it is in the US. The students in the poorer neighborhoods get a worse education, and therefore can't pass the entrance exams to get into the good colleges (as easily). So, they are protesting this inequality, which seems totally legitimate. If you have seen anything in the world news about this you probably also so videos of looters, etc. Really, we lived there very close to the protests for 5 months....the looting is minimal. And, it is not the protesters that do it. They know they have to be peaceful. But, other persons who like to cause problems get into the crowds and do it sometimes. Anyhow, I'm still not totally clear on the inequality, or if all their protest requests are legitimate, but I'm sure that some or most of it is. It is interesting to watch and occasionally get to talk to a local about. We have a student right now who hopes to graduate from college this Fall but isn't sure if he will or not...depending on if the strike ends in time or not. Viva Chile!!

This is not the Peace Corps.

So we have moved about 6 hours north up the coast from Santiago to a small town called La Serena. Cherith did a great job of finding us work as English teachers in La Serena. Basically, once we learned that we couldn't do another semester at our school in Santiago we started considered all our options. Cherith made many inquiries at schools in smaller towns up the coast from Santiago. In mid-July we decided we'd try to just move to La Serena and see if we could find work. Then one of schools she had contacted said that they would have part-time work for us.  And then a few days later they told us that they got their grant money so that they could hire us full-time. So we left for La Serena on July 23rd.

We spent a week living in a really nice hostel close to el centro (downtown) in La Serena while we looked for a place. We also did two weeks of intensive spanish at a little spanish school. This really cute older couple have the school in historic building in el centro. This was really good for our spanish.

La Serena is Chile's second oldest city. It was originally founded in 1544. A few years later it was destroyed by the natives and most of the inhabitants killed.  The city was re-established in 1549 by a Spaniard named Francisco de Aguirre. (His name is all over everything.) They are celebrating the 467th anniversary of the founding of the town this month.

Though it's very old it isn't very big. La Serena has a population under 200,000 and it sits right on the coast of the Pacific ocean. To say that we are happy about our move is an understatement. La Serena has no smog, it's much smaller and it's warmer than Santiago.  And to our great surprise we found (and can afford) an apartment on the beach! Our new apartment is bigger than our apartment in Santiago and it costs less! Basically, the center of La Serena sits up on hill above the beach and in the 1980's they began developing a restaurant, hotel and condo zone along the beach for use during the summer months. And this is why we can afford to live here…it's the off season. Come mid-December, summer in the southern hemisphere, these places rent daily at rates that 3 days would be higher than we are paying monthly.

So more big news to follow. I just wanted to get this much posted because we haven't posted in so long. We just got our internet hooked up in our new place so stayed tuned...