DAY 65- WEEK 9 Update

NOTABLE EVENTS OF THE WEEK:

Aside from the fact that this week marked two months of my stay here so far, highlights included:
· Dancing all Saturday night, er, into Sunday morning with friends!
· Oh and I finally found the apostrophe on the Spanish keyboard!!! I have been using the accent mark all this time to make due: ´ Which is much different than ' (not to mention unrecognized by Microsoft Word when used for the function of an apostrophe, haha)

WEATHER:

During the week the weather was pleasantly warm, if not hot, in the low to mid 80s on some of the days, and just nice with a little wind towards the end of the week. Friday, however, it was very cold and overcast. The prediction was for it to rain, but amazingly, it didn't! It was just cold! The weekend trip away on the coast that we took this weekend was a bit warmer with warm breezes, and yesterday on Sunday it was blazing hot with no breeze!

MISSIONS PROJECTS and EVENTS DURING THE WEEK:

Jim was able to use the "blue computer" for editing some stuff, like interviews we have done and other footage that we’ve recently filmed. However, Paul and Jim are still in the process of working out some more issues that are vital to the ministry work. So this week, I have been working on making some copies of DVDs on another computer.

Late Tuesday night, Jim, Steve, Paul, and I worked on updating the "need list" on the JTV website. We had a late-night conference and discussed all the changes and updates that need to be made. I played secretary and took down all the notes. Then the next day, all day, I worked on making all the changes and descriptions of all the items on the need list. Paul has been working on updating all the html computer language for the site now, copy-pasting my descriptions and changes into the website design program.

I also did a lot of office and computer work, organizing all of the Thurstons' contacts for their update letters that they send out. That involved a lot of scanning, digitalizing, editing, and review work, but I liked it of course... organizing and such! We also finalized some other update-letter work and today I’ve begun the Christmas update report.

I’ve also started a girls' Bible study with a friend I met here, and a couple of her friends, and so I have been organizing all the materials for this little study and we should be meeting regularly soon! Good little outreach and also a social time for me here to speak more Spanish, utilizing it more on the mission field.

On Tuesday, Jim, Elías (a guy who works in the ministries here at the house during the weekdays), and I drove Paulo César down to his ministerial retreat-intensive study week down south about an hour. The camp was nice and near the Maipu River. (see picture at left. This is Paulo César shaking an apple tree in the orchard at the camp.) He was there until Friday studying with other pastors. It was nice to get out in the afternoon and drive out of the city of Santiago and see some of the surrounding sights. Plus, Tuesday was a very nice day out, so it made it all the more enjoyable (see scenery in right-hand picture)!

K, now for the report on the big weekend... On Friday I packed and we left in the evening to go see Marcos Witt, the first singer who really brought Spanish-Christian praise and worship songs to Latin America (to the right, see the large, but dark, picture of Marcos Witt onstage). The group that "we" consists of is Jim and Lina's daughter Mary Jane and her husband Paulo César, and two of their friends, José Luis (he drove), and Carlos (who is the man who took me around Santiago the first month I was here. He’s an engineer...). Anyway, Marcos Witt is pretty much THE most famous and well-known artist here in Chile among Evangelicals. The concert was to start at 9 pm but we arrived at 9:30ish and were completely fine. There is usually another singer or lesser-known band before the main attraction (in this case it was a Christian artist by the name of Alex Campo), and plus, 99% of events in Chile begin at least half an hour late. So we were basically right on time. I had a headache all day Friday, and experienced carsickness on the way there, so by the time we reached the concert and had to sit outside in the cold and wind for the duration, I was already physically wanting to leave! I was wearing two shirts, a zip-up hoodie, and two sweatshirts, a scarf, and two layers of socks and of course I was still frigidly and thoroughly "ice cubed." It was pretty sad. The concert was held in the city of Viña del Mar, in their famous, long-time outdoors amphitheater called Quinta Vergara. There were thousands there at the concert, but we avoided the crowds pretty well by arriving late and leaving before the last song. The music was good, and there were dancers entertaining during the songs as well. I did get a tad bored, but nothing like the 5-hour long church services I’ve been to!

I´m learning good ways to deal with boredom and think of things like the language, praying and communicating with God, and thinking on other issues have become good skills. I have also advanced in my daydreaming capabilities, to some extent! hehe.

Oh! And on that note, Jim received this email the other day that is absolutely hilarious... about things to do in church services when you´re bored. Click on this link here to read it: http://www.esnips.com/doc/d8e0a23b-764b-4690-a6c9-f1af9e918726/THINGS-TO-DO-DURING-A-DULL-SERMON

Anyway... I’m glad to say that I saw the most famous singer live in concert and experienced the event, even though I wasn’t feeling the greatest.

We drove back to the beach house in Quisco that the Thurstons own and we stayed the night there after pulling in around 2:15. I finally got to bed at three. We slept til nearly mid-day and just hung out. We had a little asado and the guys messed around playing with bugs, er rather killing bugs (see picture at right of Paulo César killing the hugest living beetle I have ever seen in my life! They want to sell it since that sort of thing is really popular down here), watching cartoons, and singing annoying songs to the guitar. Mary Jane and I cleaned up after them, and dealt with the food and kitchen stuff. It took us forever to get out of the beach house and on the road to "Val-po," as they say, and Viña del Mar! Oh a side note: the girls in the States have nothing on the men here in Chile when it comes to taking extended amounts of time to prepare themselves. The shower, the shaving, the hair... I honestly just don’t know what takes them so long.

So then that Saturday evening, I got a little tour driving around Valparaíso (which is about an hour away from Quisco where we spent the night at the beach house). It was around 18:00 by the time we got driving back to the Valparaíso-Viña area. We have to drive by the little town of the oh-so-famous Casablanca too. I took many nice pictures of the drive and the sun setting and the sights of the area (see pictures to the right (vineyards near Casablanca), and the left *Hey Audrey- do you think those cows BELONG to anybody???*). In Valparaíso I saw the buildings, the port (it’s a port city on the Pacific Coast), and the night lights. We took a cable-car ride up to the top of the hill there (see vertical picture on the left; in the center-leftish side of the picture those lines going upwards are the cable car, leading into the dark, wooden station building at the top there) and saw the sights of the city below us (see picture to the right) before taking an "once" (the early-evening meal eaten around 6-8 here) down at the marina. The day had been nice, and a warm night breeze was blowing.

After "Val-po," we drove the 10-15 minutes that it takes to find a hotel (see photo of the hotel below on the right ) in which to stay the night in Viña del Mar, unpacked, and the boys took more showers and got all ready for a night on the town. MJ and I waited forever for them to get ready... Then we went out in search of places to go dancing, since that is on my "to do list" while I’m here in Chile. SO much fun! We were out all night.

After a couple hours of sleep Sunday morning, we had a small breakfast and then waited on the boys, once again, to get packed up to drive home to Santiago, three hours away. On the way out of Val-po and Viña I snapped some more pics of the area (photo on the top left is of downtown Valparaíso Sunday morning, the middle left is of me with the famous flower clock in Viña del Mar, and the bottom left one is of the regetta boats in the harbor-I thought of Gabriel and his sailing with the Macaulays). I tried sleeping in the car, but once again was jolted around a bit and got carsick, despite even sitting in the front seat. I was just barely able to contain my displeasure. The car rides throughout the weekend were the downside of the trip, as I experienced a lot of carsickness and nausea due to the skills of the driver and the sensitivity of the auto. But it was fun to get out and about and see some more sights of places outside of Santiago. Paulo César, Mary Jane, and I had to take a metro from the airport home to the Thurstons' because the owner of the car that José Luis had borrowed was flying in and José had to return her car. So with all our luggage, we finally got back into Santiago and ate lunch around 2:30 pm at a nice little pub that specializes in hot dogs and beer. I just had some mini cheese empanadas and a cool jugo de chiramoya (fruit juice of this sweet fruit that is very popular here called chiramoya... I explain it and there is a picture of it under a previous entry; the post is entitled, "Chilean Foods").

Today, Monday, I thoroughly unpacked, cleaned, and reorganized all the stuff in my room. It was such a mess when I flopped into bed last night! I also have been doing a lot of work today though as well... Aside from gathering the information and writing the rough draft of the Christmas update report, I started working on the chat room project again. This is the project that will bring members of the integridad.com chat room together, those who are in Santiago at least, in a safe environment that will have speakers, music, and activities for them to interact. Marcos, a man who is in charge of the "Wi-Fi" tv show that’s being put together, will be helping me now instead of Johnnie, whom I mentioned in a couple posts before. Marcos is a youth leader who works in media-communications and other stuff and is very familiar with Santiago and how to go about helping me organize this event. So we met this evening and talked over all my plans and to do lists. The ball is rolling once again and I am the "delegator" in the project and he is just going to be getting stuff done that I organize and plan... That is the plan at least for now. The project is still in the beginning stages, and we plan to conduct the event the second weekend in March, which sounds like it is a long ways off, but things need to be done in advance for it, of course!

AROUND THE HOUSE:

The "Wi-Fi" team has been building sets for the tv show filming in the studio so we´ve had those people in and out, in addition to unexpected guests and friends that just drop in, or those who have meetings set up with Jim or Lina as well.

When we arrived home to the Thurstons, (Sunday was a blazing hot day by the way) at around 16:00, three women from Argentina were visiting for a late lunch, and Lina’s niece and her boyfriend were over, and so it was a very full house! After dropping my bags, I just took in many glasses of water and chatted with the argentinas-two younger girls (more my age) and Maria Eugenia. (I will probably stay with Eugenia when I have to renew my visa in December by going to visit Mendoza, Argentina.) Chatting was good. In the afternoon, I checked my email for the first time in days! haha, began to unpack, but mostly just rested. Jim and I made his weekly pancakes for everyone who was in the house, as is tradition.

LANGUAGE UPDATE:

All weekend long it was good to converse in Spanish and just be out and about in the culture, of course. But it was also good because we talked a lot about cultural differences, linguistics, customs, music etc. And we exchanged a lot of lessons too. I taught a lot of English words and phrases, and talked about my past experiences at home, traveling, etc. And they said I was a really good and patient teacher. I learn by experiencing the culture here. And they want to learn from me, so I end up doing a lot of slow, repetitive explaining over various topics, which I really don’t mind and actually quite enjoy!

Also, this evening’s meeting I had with Marco about the chat room reunion event was very good for my Spanish, since he speaks almost zero English. It is good to be working on a project that requires my Spanish, and I am learning more words and advancing in communication skills and direction-giving in another language. Oh and I will also have to translate all my previous notes I have made concerning this event into Spanish for Marco. So that’ll be good as well!

The Bible study I will be starting is also in Spanish... so, all my notes, studies, and the Bible of course, are all in Spanish. I mean, I have translation tools and the materials in English too, so I can facilitate the study and understand completely all the materials, but the skill of translation and communication with the girls is totally in Spanish. So this is fun!

Check out the new pics I’ve uploaded from this weekend out: http://s78.photobucket.com/albums/j96/Chile_girl/CHILE%20PHOTOS/Days%2062%20to%2064%20Quisco%20Vina%20Valparaiso%20trip/ from the bin labeled "Days 62 to 64 Quisco Vina Valparaiso trip."

(all my pictures are in labeled bins at: http://s78.photobucket.com/albums/j96/Chile_girl/CHILE%20PHOTOS/)