Sawadeeka

Sawaddeeka (or sawaddeekrub for men) means hello and goodbye in Thai. Thought you should know.

In light of the facts that a) I forgot some stuff last time, b) a lot has happened today, and c) I have a pile of time on my hands, IT'S TIME FOR ANOTHER POST!!

(It's so hard to write in English!)
Today I got up at 7:30. I told Mamá that I didn't feel so hot and was thinking about not going to Santa Cruz as planned. Before deciding not to go, we realized after a moment that I couldn't bow out. I was to accompany the two Thai ladies I had met Thursday and help translate for them - since Erika wouldn't be going this time to help out (I went with Pippi, who doesn't know too much English) I was the only translator. Not to disappoint the Miss Eva, I decided to go despite my misgivings.
I couldn't be gladder I did.
Papá drove me into town at 8:15, where we picked up the Pippi and went to the bus terminal. At 9:00, the Thailandeses arrived as well as the professor who was to accompany us with her boyfriend. Let me take a minute to describe everyone.
Nong - Thai professor of English. Short and rather stout, always smiling, excellent English. She lives in the North East of Thailand.
Lin - The other Thai teacher. Tall for Chilean standards, quieter than Nong, but still friendly and also very good at English. She lives in Bankok and teaches in the National School, which is huge and the royal family attends.
Profe Titiana - Profesora from colegio. Tiny in build, sweet, speaks a tiny bit of English.
Her boyfriend - Uh, her boyfriend. Nice?
Okay. So we set off in the bus, traveled for thirty minutes, made friends with the middle-aged lady sitting next to the Pippi, who gave us her crackers with manjar, and got off the bus in Santa Cruz. There, to my surprise, we were joined by another four Thailandeses. WHAT! I could barely keep up with two! Thank God, we were promptly joined by Carlos, a boy from the local school who spoke excellent English. Together, we conquered!
So, the Thai who were with us. We were joined by two men and a woman; one man had gone to Missouri with AFS, another spoke a little English, the woman spoke a lot, and the last man spoke practically none (and had no teeth). This last one was constantly pulling my sleeve to get my attention and asking me about the most random things in the museum that I totally could not explain. It was pretty funny, but a bit tough. I believe I neglected to say that we all met up at a big private museum. This was owned by the infamous, banned-from-the-USA arms dealer I mentioned in my previous post. It occupied an entire house, and had a huge variety of objects from all over South America and many from other continents as well. There were dinosaurs, Incas, antique cars, an old train, etc etc etc. It took practically all day and even more energy, and the Thai spent the entire time taking about a trillion photos of everything. Whenever we stopped anywhere, they all grouped up and took three or four pictures of the group with each camera (that's like 25 photos...) and generally took FOR EVER. But in the end it was cool. They gave everyone bills from Thailand (I got an extra for Pedro ;D) and other little things they's brought along.
After going through the entire museum (from 10 AM to 4 PM, not counting lunch), we got in a tiny private bus (furgon, again) to go to a huge vineyard. There, the tourguide spoke a hilarious dramatic and terrible form of English, but managed to take the attention away from Carlos and me, so we could finally relax. The vineyard not only had wine to taste, but also an area demonstrating each of the four native Chilean cultures. The Thai all took pictures with the llamas (everyone else stood back cautiously and watched the llamas' mouths, just waiting for them to spit) and tasted the wine (I don't think they drink much... They all looked super awkward. Afterwards the man who spoke a little English went around posing for photos like a crazy guy, saying, "I'm dlunnk I'm dlluunk!!" It was hilarious...).
Anyhow, today went superbien and I had a great time. Mom and Dad, you may be receiving something in the mail soon... Wink.

Now I can't remember what else I wanted to talk about...
Haha.

Well, anyhow, right now I'm in the Abuelita's house chilling with my prima Kony and the family. I've been enjoying spending the night here on weekends, as it's much more in-town than my house and makes for easy access to things worth doing on weekends.

I'm going to get a viola! Believe I mentioned this before.

Carlitos drives me nuts. That would be the little boy who can't remember the names of his vowels yet and is six years old... Have I told this story? I don't remember. We were all sitting at Onces drinking tea and Carlitos was whining his little head off because he couldn't do his homework alone. So his mom sat down to help him.
“¿Con cuál letra termina ‘vaso?’” (what's the last letter of "vaso?"
“¿La ‘e?’”
“Vasooo.”
“¡¿La ‘i?’!”
“¡Vasooooo!”
“¡¿La ‘u?!’ ¡¡¡No séééé!!!” (I don't knowwwwww!!!)
This tickled me pink, to use an expression I don't use. It was even better because in Spanish, not only do the vowels have only one sound, but that sound is their name as well. So when Tía Tína said vaso (with an "o" like "go," Carlitos was being really stupid to not realize that it was an "o.")

Nong had some questions for an English teacher here, and their conversation (which I had to translate, as the English teacher did not know English) was interesting. Nong, as an English teacher in Thailand, works 14 hours a week and makes about 1600 US dollars a month. An English teacher in a public school here, on the other hand, works upwards of 30 hours a week and makes about 800 US dollars a month. Pffffeeeewwwwey!
Of course, this changes as you transition to teachers who have gone to college for English, or work in private schools, or live in bigger cities.

I have asthma here! I am dying!

I just read a bunch from two other AFS blogs (definitely check out http://clairegoestodeutschland.blogspot.com/) and I have two things to quote from another Chile AFSer. One, that everyone drives fast and stops; there is no such thing as slowing down. This is so true! SO true!
Also, that classes don't start and end at the bell. Far from it. They start (depending on how strict the teacher is and exactly how unpunctual he is) whenever one feels like going to class (which might be on time and might be five minutes after the profe arrives - about ten minutes late in all). They end when the teacher leaves. This means that in the case of my math class (I have never met a lazier professor... He's young and fairly grumpy.) class is about twenty minutes of the possible 45. And we don't ever do anything. There's really no such thing as homework here, although the Chileans will insist that there is... All of our grades come from tests. I like Chile! Hahaha.

I just finished all of my books. War and Peace, Crime and Punishment, Doctor Zhivago, and The Brothers Karamazov. My conclusion after so much Russian? I hate Dostoevsky! I hate his with such passion that I sat down last night and wrote a thousand word essay about how sucky his writing is. I don't deny he's a brilliant philosopher. I don't deny that his books are... Interesting. But I don't understand why he chose to express his ideas in such a torturous way! He really should have written soap operas instead - with his dramatics, he's well up to the task. I mean, really -- who but Dostoevsky thinks it's smart to write ten pages of hysterical, stereotypical, and wildly over-exaggerated characters followed by another twenty of philosophical ramblings? May I ask, WHAT?! Blasjsadhsldgh sorry.

I'm getting my second carnet soon! That's my ID card. The second photo is so much better... It almost makes me a little bit happy I lost the first one. No, not really.
I also have my "new" phone -- that translates to: I have Pedro's old phone with my memory chip in it to give it my phone number. It's super ghetto. But the games are better than my old ones ;D

Everyone loves Obama here, although whenever they say so they always hitch something onto the end of the sentence to the equivalent of "even though he's black" and I'm like wuuuuuttt he just won the Nobel Prize dudes
Speaking of which BARACK OBAMA WON THE NOBEL PRIZE!!!!!

I can't count anymore the number of times I've gotten compliments on my lack of gringo-accent-ness... It makes me a happy camper...

Kony is sleeping on my shoulder... her head is warm

The Abuelita is getting an in-house pedicure... And now Carlitos is getting an in-house haircut...

They peel tomatoes here and never ever eat the skin...

Upon trying Ramen, Kony stated how spicy it was (Ramen?!! Since when?? Olvidale...)

I'm confused by le, lo, la, and se, and I need Pedro to explain it to me because I have asked pretty much everyone else...

Our school is founded by a Freemason and is uncommon in its unreligiousness...

I know a kid who's going to be a Freemason (I think... It's kind of secret and I can't ever be sure what he's talking about)

I know another kid who MADE PEANUT BUTTER. YES MADE PEANUT BUTTER. YES I SAID THAT. He tried a PB&J I brought to school, went home, researched, threw some peanuts, salt, and butter in the blender, and I never got to try it...

Blah blah bsdalfihsgt



Alkjsdflkj what else??
I don't know!


Chao chao, no tengo mas que decir, disculpame
Love, as always,
Emily