Santiago,
Chile
Sunday, June 26, 2005
Today I went to the school were I am going to teach english this semester as a volunteer. It is in a not so great neighborhood in the Southern part of Santiago. I was told those living in the South of Chile generally migrate up to Santiago to find work. They are too poor to live in the city so they move to Comunas like la pintana where I was today. It was very interesting to see the school where I am going to teach. It is a public school that is not funded very well. They pride themselves on there vocational programs, accounting, design, culinary, and autoshop. They had a band but it consisted only of recorders, a drum, and recorders. The school was very run down, broken doors, no heating, and graffiti everywhere. Despite this the teaching I am going to be working with seems very nice and is extremely enthusiastic about teaching the kids english. I spoke with some of the kids after and they seemed very nice. They all hate Bush a lot, beause he likes war and killing people. I have yet to meet someone here who likes Bush. Even the conservative people, the ones who are going to vote for Pinera in the upcomming election, really hate him and the American government. Not a big suprise though. Pinera is one of the conservative canidates for president. He is extremely rich and is the owner of LanChile. The other main canidate is Bachelet, a women. She is critisized though for being too liberal as she once was part of the communist party.
Yesterday, as part of university week, Catolica sponsered a trip to the beach for the day. It was a lot of fun to go and meet other people I am studying with outside an academic setting. It was basically one big party with a lot of music and drinking.
Well that is all for now...
I will write later.
CHAO
