---> Back in time

Since I havn't had a lot of time to update lately I'm going to skip back to two weekends ago and write about then!

So . . . what did I get up to then?

First things first. Friday night:

I was re reading the email about the AFS activity that was going to happen on Saturday, when I came across a word I did not yet know so I asked my host brother and to my horror, discovered that I meant I had to make a poster about New Zealand. In three hours, but first I had to go into town and buy paper and glitter pens. (The latter being very essential). Frantically I phoned the other exchangers to ask and Krista, from Finland, was already in town looking for the things, so I hopped on board a colectivo and flew downtown. We went to a good stationary shop where the assistant was incredibly helpful and bought all our necessary items, then decided to go and have something to eat while we were in town. 

I returned home and started making my poster, frantically because my counsellor was coming by in a few hours to pick me up (I was staying in her house for the weekend as my family went to Coquimbo). She arrived (luckily all my bags were ready!) and we drove to her house, where I finished making the poster and ate a really good alfajor (biscuit with manjar in the middle, coated wth chocolate) and a glass of milk. Then went to bed with the poster finished!

Saturday:

The day started sunny and full of promise. The other jeep-loads of AFS affiliated people arrived to the house of my couseller, (where we had arranged to meet before we drove to Caldera to sell things in the market). Krista arrived but with a really pale face and told me that something horrible had happened. It was such a difference from how she was the day before. I followed her to find out what was wrong and it was so horrible. Her host brother had been in a horrible accident and passed away, her parents had gone to the city where we was studying and her exteneded host family was all at her house. All of us AFs people were really really shocked and upset for her and her family.

We arrived to Caldera and set up the stall for selling clothes and the easels with the posters about our countries.

Me, Giulia, Krista, Fabian and Ananda with our posters

This whole 'selling clothes' thing was to raise money for a national scholarship to send one student on their exchange for free. Us students talked to the people about exchanges and a nice couple from the south of Chile wanted a photo with people from other countries! 

I had fun telling people that The Lord of the Rings was filmed in NZ and The Last Samurai too, and that the latter was filmed a five minute walk from my house! (Yes, I did see Tom Cruise!)

After, we had a barbeque and Fabian had to go for a swim in the freezing cold water as a kind of punishment/dare, due to the fact that his poster was just a little bit smaller and well... with just a little bit less information! 

With Giulia and a girl who's going to France we had a look in the market at Bahia Inglesa, the market there is one of my favourites (even though I love just about any market in Chile!)

We drove back home in time to watch the soccer game in which Chile bet Columbia 4-2 and qualified for the World Cup! Chile is an extremely patriotic country and with my temporary hosts we drove to the centre of town to fly the Chilean flag and honk the horn a lot, which about half the city was doing! It was amazing, everyone was crazy and walking round with the flag, or in the car with their flag, hugging and cheering and shouting 'Chi-Chi-Chi-Le-Le-Le Viva Chile!'

This took quite some time, but while we were in town we decided to watch a movie at the cinema, and watched one called La Nana, which is about the life of a maid in a Chilean household. My counsellor didn't like it but I found it interesting. 

Sunday:

Tacos for lunch! I hadn't realised until then how much I missed mexican food!

After lunch we went to the church to pay our respects to the family of Krista, giving flowers like it is the custom to do, and sitting for a while in the church. It was a sad moment.

After that, I was dropped of at the house of my chapter president to stay for the other night. There were cousins from Santiago visiting and I helped them make an advert for a project they had to do. It involved me saying something like 'spanish spanish spanish OH MY GOD spanish spanish spanish'. It's really funny in Chile when the gringo say 'oh my god' because it is said so much in the Hollywood films, it's like a stereotype.

We were called to have onces right after the video was finished. Completos and torta for onces, yum! Then because this is Chilean and Monday was a holiday, we prepared ourselves (or the younger ones) to go out to a party and that is what we did!

Monday:

After getting up late (which everyone did that morning!), we ate lunch and then I watched TV for a while with Javiera (the daughter of my chapter president, who went to Denmark) and the we went to the funeral of Marcelo (Krista's host brother).

The funeral was pretty sad, it was such a contrast to Saturday, which was full of laughter and fun. But in exchange you have to really prepare for everything and that's one of the things that can happen. It shouldn't though.

RIP Marcelo