B.B. King - Lucille

this one's for you....Lucille

Worst teaching day followed by best campo day, El Torito

So I woke up today at 7 like every other tuesday and I already was in a bad mood because tuesdays are the worst days of the week for me cause I have to work from 8 to 4. So after my cold shower (cause we barely have hot water) I got dressed and see I have a stain on my pants from something I ate that had to much oil on it because Genaro dumps aciete all over everything. Entonces I had to wear my jeans which I don't like because its unprofessional. Well I get to school and am ready to start the day when I get an email from the other english teacher I work with only on tuesdays who tells me she is sick and if I could tell the Inspector and Principal she's not going to be there today because she's ill and she can't call because she has no more credit on her phone. Now this really pissed me off because this SOB pulls this shit like every other week and expects me or someone to teach her classes, and the school has had it with her. I tell them and they get pissed again and tell me how she aint ganna work there next year, and Don Rueben makes me laugh but half seriously says I should make her give me half her pay, which I should. They ask me if I want to teach the classes and of course I have to say yes. So after preparing for the other classes I was going to teach I have nothing. So I decide I will teach a tongue twister for the first 45min of class then take them to the english computer lab. This goes ok for the first class. The second class is a little harder because I have about 6 jackasses who never shut up and tap their friggen pens on the desk as loud as they can all at the same time just because they know it makes me mad. O and all day the school had the Simpson test which is like a country wide exam for all grades so they kids had to be extra quiet, impossible. Then the half of the class that doesn't want to learn or try annoys the other half so I can't teach shit. Then we get to the computer lab and half the computers don't work or can't get internet (teddy I never did AV but I feel like i could show you a thing or two, and all the computers are in spanish). Then the third class, right before lunch, 7th grade, smartass city. I make it short but no one stopped talking, didn't let them go to the computer lab, seperated several kids, had one kid stand in the corner facing the wall, cursed a little, yelled at some but then they just laughed in my face because they don't understand what I am saying, so I makes me want to literally take them outside and fight them one by one until they shut the f up. Pphhfffeeeww. Genaro made a great lunch, fettichini and meatballs. Then the last class I was like her learn this tongue twister say it a bunch of times let's go to the computer lab do whatever you want just sit down and be quiet. I basically was on google earth with one kid the entire time. When the day was done I crashed onto my bed and Genaro asked me if I could go to the campo with him to get some dry wood cause all our wood is wet. I was like fine whatever.

Although it has been raining a bunch the campo is beautiful still, everything is green and lots of water. We say hello to Genaros family friends abuelita and she talks the same if not more than Genaro so I'm like, god I hate listening to these two repeat themselves over and over, where are the dogs I want to wrestle them. Then Coco comes by he's like the Uncle, Abuelita's son, he owns the farm and is like yeah you can have some wood but Frank you want to help me with this thing first, he takes me over and there is a calf bull in the stable with a cut in between his toe so this other guys is holding him and Coco and I are trying to find the right injection to give him for antibotics, I think. It was so cool like a little bull cow I wanted to take him home. But that was just the start, then I got some dry wood for Genaro, loaded Coco's truck with some more wood big ass pieces, threw out some hay for the cows, moved the horses, then as we were going in for onces Coco spotted one of the cows going off to give birth. Now Coco artificially has his cows get pregnant so they all give birth around the same time. There were two calves already, 2 others died, and about 5 more cows that had babies, and humongous stomachs. When a cow is about to give birth you can see the stomach super concave and the mother goes off to be alone. So we rushed in and ate quickly, then went to go watch. It was the cows first calf so I think it was spooked and the dogs were messing with it so it took a long ass time. About 3 hours. I didn't mind Coco said you have to have a lot of patience to be a farmer which I like. We watched till it got dark then moved it into the stable to keep an eye on it incase it needed help and we had to pull it out which I was kind of hoping like that scene from City Slickers and then I could name him Norman or Herman I forget the bulls name. Anyways it was smooth just long, and a little gross but so amazing, I saw a baby bull take its first steps, really cool. I talked a lot about how I wanted to be a Vet or Doctor or something with Coco and I realized its the same shit here as in the US, the farm Vets get paid shit and have to work a shitload. But they only come when they are needed so its expensive, he knows a lot about his animals but he's not a doctor. It was a really cool thing to see. And all this gets me insanely excited to work on the ranch in Argentina, I don't care if I'm just building houses or whatever just to live the simple life is what I want, and to grow a huge mustache.

Rio de arboles.

Fwh
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Chiloé, Valparaíso con Jack, Los 33

Where we at Lunch Sunday Blue House

Some houses in Valparaiso

Graffiti Art

Graffiti Art

Vina Beaches

Palafitos of Chiloe, our hostel is the house furthest to the right, to the left of the yellow house

Sorry it has been a little while since I've shared my travels but I have been doing lots of things. About two weeks ago I went down to the island of Chiloé with some other gringo volunteer friends. It is a huge island in the south of Chile and has a lot of its own culture and customs. But I am sorry to have to say I didn't really see any of these customs. I did see a lot of the beautiful countryside, the Palafitos, and ate Curanto but for the most part it was a pretty gringo (drinking like a fish) weekend. The island has tons of rolling green hills that go straight into the ocean and this beautiful yellow bush flower that is literally everywhere and makes everything look fake like a painting. We stayed the first night in Castro in a Palafito hostel. Palafitos are the houses on stilts next to the water all different colors and really cool looking, and we stayed in a really cool one the first night right on the water, great find Rob.

The next day we walked around the Artesian markets and stuff then got some great Curanto at a restaurant right on the water. Curanto is this seafood dish in which they bake like a tons of different shell fish, potatoes, sausage, pork, steak, in a giant pot like a meter tall all different layers of these foods for hours. It is amazing and delicious. Ha not realizing how big of a serving they actually give you many people ordered one for themselves, in the back of my mind I was like these are going to be huge so I wanted to share but oh no Corey you said we should get our own, i was stuffed to the max, nobody finished their serving. That night we stayed and hung out with one of Laura's host teachers friends who was so nice and hospitable. He fed us great snacks and dips and went out with us and was just awesome. I don't want to get into the story about getting home Sunday but I didn't, probably some of the worst traveling I've ever done in a health and preparedness sense, I will never make that mistake again. Ok, I pretty much didn't sleep saturday night, we all woke up top late Sunday missed the early bus back to Osorno, which ultimately means I missed the last bus to Pucon from Osorno. Anyways we got the 2 o'clock bus made it back to Osorno, Corey worked his spanish magic, we got to stand on the same bus until his town, which was like another 3 hours, eventually found some seats but the entire day more hungover than ever, on a bus traveling 8+ hours trying to speak spanish, not ending up in your own bed, but Corey's brothers bed was awesome, shit it was just a longass day. But I did make it to my first class Monday morning, was wiped. Pretty fun weekend.

This week Big Jack Dunn came down to Pucon for the end of his travels of South America. It was weird at first because it was all to familiar seeing one of your old friends in a different place, but a good weird. He met the host padre, saw some waterfalls, termas, met the host teachers, he even helped me teach one class. It was funny he had to help a small girl who like came up to his knees, was very fun. We then traveled up to Valparaiso together for the weekend. I had been wanted to go up to Valpo forever because I had been hearing the best things. Dermot and I made plans many weeks ago to go up this weekend and it ended up being Dermot, Jack, and Evan another volunteer who would haven't seen since the beginning of the program. It was so much funking fun. The first day we went to Vina Del Mar to look for Dermots camera on the bus, sucks he lost it. Then we walked around the coast and drank beers on the beach, in shorts and a t-shirt. Something I really needed, even got a little sun burned. Evan went into the Pacific where your not allowed to go swimming. Had Churrillana for dinner which is fries, cut up meat, hot dog, onions and deliciousness. And lots and lots of beer. We partied at a club called Huevo that had like 5 floors and lots of different party disco rooms with different rooms but really wasn't that sweet. Actually got up relatively early and went for a long walk up and around los Cerros, the hills. I feel in love with Valparaiso, the houses are all up the hills, millions of different colors, bohemian style, every spot you can see the whole city, there is sick ass graffiti on every corner, like a small little food hut thing in the middle of now where will have like the best view, it was just amazing, super chill, I could see myself living there up in the hills. But then when you go down to the bottom of the hills its like a really city fast and stores and lots of cars and buses and people. Really cool. We saw Pablo Neruda's second home in Valpo, pretty cool. On the way back we found a second hand store that Evan was looking for and bought some sick ass threads. He bought a sweet blazer, I an awesome orange leather jacket, Derm a shirt from Saratoga Springs, weird right. We went to a friends birthday party that night and met some other volunteers and some oldies. They must have thought I was weird or a jackass cause I wore that leather jacket but I looked good so funk them. Got back to Valpo on a crazy bus ride, and partied it up there for a little longer before watching the sunrise. Sunday we walked to the other side of the city with the ports and had a sick lunch in a house restaurant literally hanging off a cliff, with some wine and seafood, sat there for like 3 hours. Thanks Jack. Hung out a little before I had to head back home but it was by far my favorite place I visited and most fun weekend I've had so far. Haven't laughed that much or that hard in some time.

If you haven't seen on the news for the last 3 months or so there have been 33 miners trapped underground in a collapsed mine about two empire state buildings down. There was no word about how they were the forst 17 days and when everyone thought they were gone they reached them and all 33 of them were alive. They built tubes and tunnels down for food and water and approximated they will be out at the end of November. The plan was to dig a big enough hole all the way down to have an elevator type machine bring them up one at a time. They worked around the clock and the president actually did a very good job with it. After 70 days, ahead of schedule, the last miner came out of the ground, all 33 were alive and fairly well. It took about 21 hours to get all of them out but the job was well done. It was a historic moment for Chileans and pretty incredible. The horns in town were going off and you could hear people cheering. Chile is very put together and has huge patriotic pride, they are very united for their country but there still are some major gaps. But Chile is awesome and fuck yeah for those miners,

C-H-I, CHI, L-E, LE, CHI CHI CHI, LE LE LE, VIVA CHILE!!

Miss everyone mucho,

Franklinito