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"We gotta get out of this place. If it's the last thing we ever do."
--The Animals

I blinked my eyes and November had arrived.  My last month as a English Volunteer in Calama came rushing upon me with a surprising lack of subtly.  I was caught up through the month of October in so much activity that I barely had time to stop and reflect on one event, before the next was overtaking me with a vengeance.  I met many new people in a short amount of time, to include Daniela, a young math teacher at Ryan's school, and her pareja Ricardo.  Both of them are so genial and fun to be around that it will remain one of the great tragedies of my Calama experience that I didn't meet them earlier.  A group of we Calama volunteers met them, along with another young math teacher from Ryan's school named Natalia, as we camped again in San Pedro.  We all proceeded to have a grand time in true, bilingual fashion.  We made another asado (number seven or eight in the month of October alone) as well as rented bikes to ride out to a large public pool at a place called Pozo Tres where I swam for the first time in months, getting a good reminder of what I missed by not being stateside during summer.

Poolside Party Cat.

We had found a much better campsite the second time.  It is a place called Buenas Peras and is essentially an ancient pear orchard run by another old Chilean woman who was the complete opposite of the curmudgeon we had dealt with previously.  The vieja made sure we had a good site (complete with table, parrilla, and ample shade beneath a gnarled old tree) and even cut us a group discount.  We were told we could have a fire, but it needed to remain in the parrilla.  That night however, the cold proved intense and the parrilla too limiting.  Thus, inevitably, we ended up huddled around a campfire that had been moved out of the parrilla and onto the ground.  When the charcoal was almost gone, Ryan and Matt Dowdell (a four month volunteer in Calama) climbed the low wall that separated us from the lot next-door and recovered a large chunk of deadwood.  The wood served to keep a nice fire going most the night, which also attracted the attention of the old woman.  She came over to good naturedly chastise us, but Daniela and Ricardo came to the defense saying we dumb gringos didn't speak Spanish and hadn't understood the restrictions against fires.  The old woman clearly didn't buy the story, but she left us alone saying we would just have to clean up the ashes in the morning and replace the wood (how she knew where the wood came from is beyond me.)  Thus, come daybreak, I borrowed a shovel and wheelbarrow to scoop the ashes and Ricardo and Matt climbed up into one of the campsites dead trees to cut free some replacement logs.  The woman joked with us saying we had misbehaved, but all was forgiven.  She had no problem with us staying another night (but she did, in fairness, make us pay full price the second night.)

Daniela y yo.

The next day was Halloween, which I never celebrate.  However, the Steelers were playing the Saints and, since both Ryan and Matt Dowdell are Steelers fans, we decided to get together at our friend and fellow volunteer Sarah's house for yet another asado and a viewing party.  Matt and Ryan had during our camping asado figured out how to roast peppers on the parrilla, and on Halloween night they provided a repeat performance to delicious effect.  Equally delicious was the Saints victory.  Monday was All Saints Day (coincidence?) which is a national holiday in Chile and also the day we had picked to celebrate Carlos' birthday with--you guessed it--an asado.  As I have already mentioned, Carlos' birthday wish was to cook up chicken grilled in ketchup.  He told me how he had gone to the TGI Friday's in Antofagasta and tried the "barbecue wings" there, but he found them "too spicy" preferring instead his simply ketchup basting.

The following Friday was the Regional Final for the debate competion and as such I was able to get out of classes to try and work with the kids.  However, for reasons only known to the mouthbreathers in charge Liceo Luis Cruz Martinez, I wasn't able to have all of the team out of class on a consistent basis, resulting maybe three or four hours of practice spread over three days.  Boarding the bus to Antofagasta on Thursday, I was not at all hopeful about our prospects.  Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion to the Debate saga in the next chapter.