Another Manic Monday...and Tuesday...

On Monday, I went over to the school at Puente Alto to meet with the occupational therapist that I am going to be observing for my research project for my Medical Anthropology class. He is very nice and willing to help, but he has to talk to his supervisor before I can start observing his patients. This school is awesome for my research because not only are things going well with the gastronomy class, but this school is one of the first in Chile to integrate children with motor difficulties/disabilities into the classroom with the other children. There are 8 children with disorders ranging from parapalegia to Down's Syndrome to Aspergers, and these kids participate in all the same activities as the other students with some differences...one being that they have to work with this occupational therapist once a week. Because this is a relatively new concept in Chile to incorporate these students in the school and not to isolate them in a school for children with discapacidades, I am lucky to have the opportunity to do research at this school. After meeting with Erik, I went over to Meg's apartment and we cooked dinner together and planned trips to far-off places and then watched a movie that my new Chilean friend had recommended. Unfortunately, the movie was one of the hardest to watch in my entire life, but it was still a great night. This morning I headed back to Puente Alto even though it took every ounce of energy I had to leave Meg's house, take a bus for 20 minutes to finally arrive at the metro, take the metro to the end of the line which takes 30-40 minutes, and then hail a collective taxi to finally take me to the school. But I got there finally and hung out with my gastronomy class for like 3 hours interviewing the kids and getting their unique opinions on topics such as the importance of food in the Chilean culture, the concept of the ideal body, exercise/gym culture in Chile, body image in relation to what one eats, the popularization of the course of gastronomy, and many other interesting topics. There is a guy named Miguel in the class who has way too much energy for his own good but him and Jose are HILARIOUS! They are always so nice to me and they can seriously make me laugh. Today I was talking to a girl named Connie and the boys came up and started dancing but Miguel was in front of Jose and started to full-on body roll and Jose like grabbed his waist and was basically freak dancing with him for a second. It was hilarious. Then the girl I was talking to mentioned that kids today would rather eat processed food than eating spinach or tomatoe...and Jose heard this and said (imitating a little kid): "Mama, no quiero comer espinaca. Mama, no quiero comer tomatoe." I will never forget that voice impression. Connie and I didn't stop laughing for 5 minutes at least. I am going back on Thursday to do more interviews but I'd say all-in-all, tuve exito. I even talked to the teacher afterwards and he told me that he was very impressed with my Spanish because in years past when extranjeros have come to the school, they had such a hard time understanding their Spanish that they had to call in one of the school's English teachers to translate. Luckily, I am really progressing in my Spanish and every day I learn something more. After Puente Alto, I returned home for a nice lunch and then a 2 hour nap because estoy resfriado y tengo que dormirme muuuucho para recuperar. I am looking forward to tomorrow because I am going to the cycling class in the morning, studying at Starbucks, returning home for lunch, going to Medical Anthropology, and then going to have dinner/study night at Megan's house with Annette and Casey. I might try to go over to El Tunel to bitch out that lady at the coat check who GAVE AWAY or STOLE my jacket on Saturday night. But that is something that I don't want to think about right now. C'est La Vie, no? Last two things I will say before I finish this entry is that 1) today before I left Puente Alto, I was in the bathroom and ran into Miss Lily who is the sweetest Chilean woman ever. She teaches the little kids English and I spent time in her class one day helping her with the instruction/pronunciation. She always asks me to speak to her in English because she wants to practice, and it was so cute today because she told me that she has to write a book review for a class she is taking at the university. Then she asked if I wouldn't mind correcting the page that she had written and of course, I had no problem so after this and before I finally get to bed, I am going to read through that and offer my corrections. I just think it is great that a Chilean woman of 30 years would look to me...a 21 year old California girl...for help just because I was lucky enough to grow up speaking a language that most of the world wants to know. The last thing that I wanted to say was that I was waiting at the bus stop today and this guy ran by me looking like he has someone super important to be. I was like: dang that guy is in a hurry to do something important. Well I stayed at that bus stop waiting for the bus and wouldn't you know that 5 minutes later...that same guy runs back by me with the same necesity of hurrying. But with a bag to chocolate chip cookies clutch in his hands. Only in Chile. Chao :-D