The End of the First Week

EOD, class of 2010

The week spent in orientation for English Opens Doors (Ingles Abre Puertas) was a most rigorous and...interesting experience. Aside from the fact that I was back in the classroom again after a two year gap, the situation was uniquely problematic because the students were all soon to be "teachers" themselves. Teachers teaching teachers is frustrating to say the least because everyone has to get there two cents in, and before long the room is floor to ceiling with pennies.

We were fed a great deal of theory via powerpoint presentations that really isn't going to be useful at all, and the simple fact that government education is about as inefficient as you can imagine was reinforced ten fold. Things don't work in the US in the government schools so you can imagine how much more things don't work in a "developing" country like Chile. The former volunteers helping to instruct us did their best, and I actually do feel partially equipped to jump in front of classroom and yell English at kids. We had two days to actually plan "microlessons" which we then taught to the group as though they were our Chileno students. The exercise was particularly helpful. I have to pause here to mention an interesting facet of our group of volunteers. There are nearly fifty of us and we subdivide into two groups: those recruited by outside agencies and those who were recruited straight through the EOD program at the Ministry of Education (I fall into the latter category.) Those recruited by agencies split into a few other subgroups, the largest being the World Teach group at 13, who were all here two and a half weeks before us direct recruits. They received lots of additional teaching instruction and were near pros by the time we showed up (they paid out the rear for the privilege, however). As such, they are a very tight-knit group who know what they are doing. This meant they would nail their microteaching lessons and then act like total hooligans when the rest of us went up, they pretending to be hellacious Chilenos. They overdid it at times, but it was honestly very helpful to have to get used to dealing with discipline problems.

The orientation ended Friday, and we were all overwhelmingly relieved. They put on a nice cocktail for us after the last class on Friday, with a tolerably fine spread of hors'doeuvres including some insanely good bleu cheese. I was exhausted and went to take a nap, but apparently the wine kept flowing (this was in the courtyard of the hostel) and I was eventually woken by the sound of shattering glass as not one, but three people broke their wineglasses. It was a tough week and, I fear, merely a taste of the struggles to come; particularly for me and my fellow Calama-bound volunteers. On that front, the news just keeps getting worse. We already knew Calama was a tough mining town in the middle of the desert, and as such no one wanted to go there and we became the running joke of the group. We then went on to learn that the place is crawling with the araña de rincon, Chile's only poisonous spider similar to a brown recluse. Also, the water is contaminated from all the copper mining so they recommend we drink only bottled water as a precaution. Further, the next quake is expected to hit up there. And finally, my fellow Calama-ite Ryan and I ran into a man who mined in Calama for two years. He told us the best thing about Calama was watching it disappear in the rear-view mirror as you leave. He also said the only thing to do there is "tragos and putas." I'll let you google that, but let's just say I am not interested in either.

The next post will be more upbeat, because I got to take a day trip to the beach sister cities of Valparaíso and Viña del Mar.