Hi!

Sorry its been ages and ages since the last time I have written despite the fact that there really is nothing to do here in the evenings!!

The second week of teaching was really hard, not being usesd to the way things work here and the language difference makes things a bit tricky! On top of this the frustrations of uteachings are now starting to grate, the english teachers really are pretty terrible and the fact that one of them doesnt want to learn or accept any help has been pretty hard! However I do have some fairly amusing anecdotes now so here goes:

The teacher in Pisco Elqui doesnt understand either Soph or I when we speak in English which is strange as she insists on conducting all her lessons in English...she then seems very confused when the students completely ignore her whenever she speaks, in one of her lessons one of the little ones threw a complete tantrum and refused to come out from under his desk for the entire lesson! To be fair I felt quite like crawling under my own desk in despair!

At one of the rural schools there are only six students and three of them are brothers and sisters (maybe I´ve written that before, not sure!!) Anyway at this school my job is to teach the littlest of the three, this has proven to be one of the most challenging lessons to prepare for as both children have severe learning difficulties and get bored very quickly. I dont think they get much support from their parents as they told me that they have ten children in their family plus about eight horses, chickens, dogs and cats, they also come to school in very dirty uniform and smelling as though they have slept with the horses which is quite sad. However it is hard to feel sympathetic when they have both dioscarded the board game I made by hand within about ten minutes of me getting it out my bag. I was trying to teach the numbers so a board game seemed a bit better than just learning by wrote, they wern´t having any of it though so I decided to take them outside to do a running game...this plan completely backfired however as they started climbing trees and generally rampaging round, in English I would like to think that I could have controlled them however it is a completely different story when you dont speak fluent spanish!

One of my favourite schools is up in Cochighuaz as I take my own class so I can take responsibility for what they are learning a bit more (i.e. not teach them usless words like hammer head shark as one teacher has been trying to do!!). One class was going really well and the kids enjoyed the board game and the other activities that we did, however when we were about two hours into the three hour lesson the kids started leaping up and down and pointing to the corner of the room, I looked over and to my horror discovered a little scorpion! We had to get the head teacher to come and deal with it. Twenty minutes later we had an earth tremmor, neadless to say I felt very traumatised after this eventful lesson!

At the end of the second week I was struck down by a tummy bug which wasnt great! We decided to go to the nearest seaside town on the weekend anyway as we had a day off for easter so it seemed silly to waste the long weekend by staying at home. The town, called Coquimbo, is renouned for its good night life, there are meant to be nice bars with live music so we picked a hostel that was within walking distance of the bario ingles (the road with all the bars and clubs). When we got to the hostel we met some quite strange people who offered to take us on a tour of the city. One of them had an anti Nazi tattoo on his hand and half a shaved head and another seemed intrigued at the clan situation in Scotland...I may have given the impression that everyone lives in mud huts and runs around brandishing swords but im not sure(this conversation was conducted in spanish!) at 10 O´Clock I started to feel pretty grotty again so we made a quick escape to bed and any plans of a night life were completely ruined!

The next week brought Gilberto´s Birthday (Soph and I are staying with a couple called Gilberto and Nena). I was watching Nena make his cake and was shocked when she poured in Coca Cola...surprisingly the cake was really nice! Soph and I bought him some Toblerone and mug as he likes tea!! He was really grateful but seems not to understand the point of the cup as he carefully put it back into the box it came in after he had opened it...we havnt seen it since!

Despite the birthday cake the week wasnt a particularly good one as I had to teach three full days at the main school which is my least favourite...the children are really sweet but the teacher (Katty) isnt very good at her job but doesnt want to accept any help from me. She also doesnt like speaking in English to me despite the fact that her english is fairly rubbish and this is a great chance to improve. It isnt just me who thinks that her English is terrible though as I recieved a phone call from the Mondo Challenge correspondant here in Chile who had been asked by Katty´s Boss to ask me if I would mind teaching Katty english for one hour a week. I dont mind teaching her at all however I am now in a bit of an awkward situation because Katty doesnt want to admit that she needs to improve so there isnt really much point in me teaching her if she doesnt want to learn...oh well I guess we´ll see how the situation develops.

Each week wte have English teacher meetings which amuse Sophie and I greatly as all the teachers are complete head cases. The meetings are lead by a lady called Yessica who seems like she would be a very good teacher but she doesnt seem to understand that teaching the kids in the valley is a completely different ball game to teaching in the city (where she teaches). Katty sits in the meeting understanding absolutely nothing (the meetings are conducted in English), Anita - the rural school teacher who I think is probably the best out of the ones that I work with - just sits there and looks absolutely terrified as Yessica obviously expects the standard to be much better thasn it actually is, Karina - who is the mental one who speaks terrible english but wont speak spanish in her lessons - just sits there and smiles serenely whilst blatently understanding even less than Katty and the other teacher who I dont work with spends the whole time trying out different coloured pens on a bit of paper. Phew, rant over!!!

The weekends have been quite nice here as they are mostly spent at Juanita and Alvaro´s house (the couple who live down the road and own a Bed and Breakfast - Juanita is English and Alvaro is from the south of Chile). Last weekend we were invited to lunch with some other friends. We ate lunch all sitting around their pool with glasses of Alvaro´s white wine fruit punch. We then realised that it was time for tea so we ate that too...then all the guests departed to get warmer clothes whilst Alvaro and a couple of others built a fire in the garden. We all sat round it looking up at the stars ountil the musicians brought out their guitars and drums and started to play. Juanita and I sang a couple of English songs which was nice and before we knew it it was three in the morning and we had run out of wood to burn...definitely time to leave!

Last week was alright, Katty is still driving me insane but working with Anita is quite good in comparison as I can actually make suggestions as to what we could do next and generally feel of more use in the classroom!

Right I actually CANT write anymore - probaly much to your releif - so I am going to go now, will write more soon!

Loads of love xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx