Saint Geoge Madness

Ok, so we are now well into the second quarter of the school year at Saint George's here in Santiago and lets just say it has been an interesting adjustment for all of us. Saint Georges is Holy Cross school that is widely recognized throughout Chile in terms of being one of the better schools. It pretty much serves the upper middle to higher class people, many of which have rather powerful and influential positions. The school is loaded with money.

The school itself is rather interesting in that in order to walk from one classroom to the next you have to literally walk outside (the closest thing to a hallway is a canopy like the bottom left photo). Now that wouldnt be so bad if this school was situated in southern california. The summer here was fine, but it is winter now and so far our winter experience has been anywhere from nice to really cold and rain...lots of rain. Now it is not any colder than Philly or Chicago, but you never get warm here. We leave in the morning with our winter coats on and we dont take them off til we get home at the end of the day. But we hardly even warm up at home because we have no insulation in our apartment, and we havent turn on the heat cause it is really expensive and Brian is the most Jewish Catholic i know (no offense). So we really do teach with our winter coats on because the classrooms are not insulated, and hardly have any heat either. As one student of a nearby school put it, "saint george classrooms are like garages." Yet this school is LOADED, and they have one of the lowest salaries for a private school of its type.

Lets talk about another aspect of Saint George, the bell system. Its unique in that for half the classes during the day, when the bell rings to signify the end of class, it is also the same bell that signifies that the next class has already begun. Basically, when one class ends, at the exact same time the next class begins. That wouldnt be so bad if the students never left the classroom, but of course that is not how it works. So I have to leave my one class, and get to my next class about 3 - 4 minutes after the class has already begun, but chances are half the students havent made it yet themselves. But that only happens between half the classes. There are also 4 "recesses" built into the day that last about 10-15 minutes where the students have the opportunity to play soccer, socialize, vandalize, climb on top of classrooms and makeout. But with this recess time, they have time to get to their next class on time, right? Wrong! These are chileans; worst of all, saint george chileans. The scene is actually even more chaotic after the recesses because since there are no hallways, all the students lockers are in the classrooms. So after the bell has rung to begin class, that is when the students will come in to get their stuff out of their lockers and half those students wont even be mine. Class will probably begin at least 5 minutes late and on friday afternoons, 15 minutes late.

Dont even get me started on our boss...

Rather, lets focus on the events of the last two weeks...Sunday, two weeks ago there were some heavy rain storms but nothing too crazy. We get to school the next day at our normal time of 7:30 and there is no power in the entire school. Not too big of a deal as there have been times when power has cut out randomly. So class begins 45 minutes later and power still has not been restored and we are under the impression now that we probably wont get it back at all before the end of the day. So I teach my first two hours with my 12th grades using the light coming in through the windows and the door i have propted open to the outside (remember, no hallways) . With about 5 minutes left in class before the recess, a student comes to my door and starts telling the students seated near it (not that strange of a thing to happen) that if they call their parents, they can come and pick them up to go home. So 5 minutes later during recess, literally every high school and middle school student is on their cell phone calling their parents and no more than 10 minutes later, hords of parents are showing up, in suits and work clothes and all, to take their kids home. the line at the attendance office is way out the door and chaos has officially ensued. There is a mass exodus and for those students who dont leave right away, either their parents literally walk into the classrooms during class (because school was never cancelled) or they are the few that stayed for the entire day. For the last period class of the day, not a single eleventh grader showed up (out of 200). The administration did nothing to stop all of this. School never ended up being cancelled (probably never shouldve had it in the first place). Oh and at the end of the day, the teachers are told that if we do not get power back in time for the next day, classes will be cancelled but teachers still must come in for meetings all day. YAY

Fast forward to Friday that same week. The night before, the region is hit with tons of rain to the tune of 1 and a half inches over night, creates major problems through the city so the goverment shuts everything down for Friday; school was cancelled. So we get up at 6 and hear about what happened and call around to comfirm and end up going back to sleep til 8:30 when we get a call from a friend saying that our boss said we have to go in to school. Basically, it was too dangerous for the kids to go to school, but the teachers still need to. We confirm that a few of our friends with the same boss still arent going to school so we saw screw it and stay home that friday. Monday comes and i go into the english office and run into our boss... "so did you make it in Friday" "No" "Why not you guys live so close?" (three busses away) no response from me. "did you guys call the school?" "yeah we did" pause "Was there something wrong with the entrance" "I dont know" I still have no idea what she meant by this. She proceeded to ask several teachers if they came on friday, most said no and when asked why, they all gave some vague excuse that seemed to satisfy the boss. So the next day at our department meeting she tells us that the administration says that in the event that school is closed in the future, call the school hotline and unless it explicitly says that teachers do not need to come in, teachers are expected to make it to school. WTF???

Ok, fast forward to that Wednesday...It has been a normal day so far, class is chaotic at best, and I was walking to my 7th period class and i get there and there is not a single student in the classroom. I walk out and find my partner teacher who is also missing her class and we notice a mass of students going to the gym. so we walk over there as well to find the gym filling up with all the high school students and the only adult there is the dean of students. "what is going on?" we ask "I have no idea" thats not good. Turns out the student government decided to have an impromtu meeting with the entire high school in the gym without telling any teacher or administration person to discuss some law being passed in Chile. Eventually the principal shows up and has a rather heated discussion with the student council president that really leads to absolutely nothing. The students have their meeting for the next two class periods which ends the school day. I left and had an early lunch and was only told to write down the names of the 3 students that i had that did not go to the meeting. Nothing was said to the faculty about what happened and as far as i know, nothin happened. The students felt they had the right to do what they did, so they did and no one stopped them.

So, that is the last two weeks and Saint George in a nut shell. It is a very liberal school for the spoiled, with little discipline, so so education, but a really good name.

oh, and i dont edit my posts, so excuse the many mistakes

Patagonia

Ok, first things first, ignore the last 10 photos, they were repeated by mistake. Oh, and if you click on the photos it enlarges them, i think.

So, after taking about 2 days off in santiago to rest from our previous travels and to prepare for what layed ahead, we flew down to Punta Arenas, the southern most chilean airport and therefore southernmost in the world. Got to see Straights of Magellan. We stayed there for about 2 hours and quickly bussed it up to Puerta Natales, the gateway to the national park of Torres del Paine. It was a strange busride there as it was nearly completely flat the entire ride with nothin to see until we approached Natales where we had our first views of the famous mountain range. We stayed in Natales for a night and got up really early to catch a bus into the park.

Torres del Paine. Photo 2. we arrived at the park entrance amongst many other early birds and took the bus to a ferry (photo 3) which brought us across a large lake and introduced us to the rediculous winds that we had heard about. We immediately got off the ferry, ate quickly, and began our 5 hour hike with 30 pound packs to our destination. Along the way we approached and camped near Glacier Grey (photo 4 and 5). Basically every day we ate oatmeal for breakfast, peanut butter and jelly or tuna for lunch, and some sort of pasta for dinner with whatever we could find to put in it. Every night we fit all four of us in one tent (photo 3 second row) and squeezed together when it got too cold, or if the walls were caving in from some of the strongest winds i have ever felt outside of a hurricane. The rest of Torres was spent hiking a lot, seeing amazing views of glaciers (first pic second row), beautiful lakes, and the Torres/Towers themselves (pic 1 third row). We did what was called the W, or the 4-5 day hike in the park. THe really serious ones do the Circuit which is about 12 days and includes some much more difficult trails. Not that our trails were easy though, especially with the packs.

We left Torres, headed back to Natales for the night, and caught another bus early in the morning to Calafete in Argentina but still in patagonia. It is a very touristy town, a yuppy backpacker kind of place. The campsite was nasty but it had awesome showers. Our only full day there was a day trip to Glacier Porito Moreno which is the only glacier in the world still growing (photo 3 4 and 5 in row 3). It was a nice town to relax and regroup and get some new and good food.

The next day we headed further north to the town of Chalten (photo 6 row 3). I love Chalten and garuntee that i go back. It is like a old western town with unpaved streets, shops running along side of the streets, and mountains and cliffs surrounding it. The town was only founded about 20 years before. It literally is in the middle of no where with one road leading to it. It is the gateway to the Fitz Roy mountain range, and claims to have some of the best trecking in the world. We arrived late at night and had to set up camp in the dark but we got to see a Moon rising over the cliffs nearby that was absolutely amazing (photo 1 row 4 shows the moon about us and the next photo is of the campsite). The first day we hiked on our own, encountered an amazing bed and breakfast in the middle of nowhere and got our first views of Fitz Roy (pic 3 row 4 and pic 1 row 5). The next day we took a guided hike that left before dawn. We were up early enough to see the sun rise and hit the mountains with the moon still above them (pic 4 row 4) with the mountain tops covered in clouds as they nearly always are year round. We did some glacier trecking on the hike and a little ice climbing (pics 5 and 6 row 4). Leaving Chalten was a bit sad because I have never been to a place like that that was so rustic and beautiful and the views there and the mountains we better than those we saw at Torres or anywhere i have been. The mountain tops were really just unique.

Patagonia was hands down my favorite part of the vacation. We hiked and ate and camped like i never have before and made boy scouts seem tame. We planned for months in advance for the packing and clothes and it really paid off.

Finally updated - "Summer Travels" Part 1

Ok, I am finally updating my blog detailing the first half of our travels through south america, and a quick stop in the States. Basically, I will tell you about the trip through these photos and a few videos (i am moving up in the world)

My trip basically began with me returning home for a very short stint for Luke and Meghan's wedding (bottom right photo). Awesome to see so many people, spend time with my family and head up to NY to see my brother where we endulged in crocodile sushi (my new favorite food, sushi that is) and the most expensive beer at 11:00 in the morning in Manhatten with Ross. Got to celebrate a late Christmas with my family and I am pretty sure I dominated in the gift giving.

I flew back from the states basically straight to Buenos Aires to meet up with my roomates Brian, Katy and Molly (Lauren was back in the states). We spent about 5 days there where we saw Eva Peron's (sp?) grave (photo #1), a Boca vs. River soccer match (one of the biggest rivalries in sports in the world (photo #2)), ate some amzing BBQ and learned some tango at the same time (photo #3) and visited the Boca soccer stadium (photo #4).

From Buenos Aires we took a ferry to Uruguay to the town of Colonia (no photos of that) for the day before we moved on to Montevideo. To sum up Montevideo, it has a decent beach, I got sick for a day and a half and don't waste your time there. So moving along...RIO
Rio is amazing. Perhaps the only south american city that I have seen so far that is worth spending any real touristy time in (in my opinion the beauty of south american lies outside the cities).

The second picture in the second row in many ways sums up the beaty of Rio. There you have the beach, which lines pretty much the entire city, with rolling hills in the background basically covered in rainforests (all within the city proper). It is really a city where its beauty and richness contrasts with the extreme poverty as shown in the first picture of the third row with the Favelas (sp?) which a communities within the city where the poorest people lived in extremely crammed spaces with apartments stacked on top of eachother and drug lords running them. they are a world in and of themselves and are run by themselves. for expample, only 2 police officers exist in one Favela of 600,000 people and the two officers are not allowed to leave a little shack that was designated for them. We went up to the Christ statue with a great view of the city, saw a soccer game in the largest stadium in south america (third video below) and of course went to the Samba Drome to see the Carnival Parade. The parade began at 8:00 in the evening and didnt end til 6:00 in the morning (first video). Of course we also went out and partied our share during Carnival including being led around by our crazy hostel owner in torrential downpours still drinking a nearly pure vodka drink. We also spent a night watching the Gay Parade, and Molly even snuck into it for that picture (2nd row, third pic). We played the game, 'guess if that is a man or a woman' at the parade. I would easily go back to Rio, Carnival or not. It has everything there.

From Rio we went to the Falls de Iguacu (second video). They are one of the seven wonder of the world and are just unbelievably beautiful. We had perfect weather the entire time too (last two pictures row three). We took a boatride up to the falls (you can see one of the boats in the second pic). From there we also took a day trip to see Itaipu Dam, one of the seven engineering marvels, as i think it is the largest dam in the world right now until china finishes theirs (first pic bottom row).

From Iguacu we bussed it back to Buenos for one more day until we spent the night in the airport to catch our early morning flight back to Santiago to rest up for the second leg of our trip...