Dont forget to pack the meat

Sooooooo its been a busy week Tuesday we took another trip to Vina. whooped Male and Manuel at bowling 3 games won by team kerry and Ella and the final game stolen from us when Ella somehow managed to forget how to bowl completely and sent a lot of balls straight into the gutter. I then managed to fall up an escalator in a slow motion running fashion right in the middle of the shopping mall, much to Manuels amusement. Took a gash to the leg and now probably have escalator aids. embaressing.

Wednesday was party day at the school. Some very interesting gladrags were put on. Im told floral is in fashion at the moment but not so sure about grass skirts on boys.. The kids looked adorable in their traditional dancing outfits. There was a bit of stage fright from a few of the kids. My fav girl wouldnt dance at all and stood with her arms crossed in the middle of the stage.. hilarious. After the dances the family got on stage with some guitars and sang a couple of songs. Followed by a bbq by some of the parents and the misses. MEAT MEAT MEAT. meat on sticks. meat in pastry, meat in bread. MEAT. We ducked out of the party to get some of our favourite bread and ice creams from our new favourite shop run by a little old lady who is very helpful. We're trying to get her to be our new best friend. Shes brilliant. Once the party was over we took to the trampoline for some bouncing fun with a few minor injuries and some impressive backflips from ella.

Thursday night after almost managing to fall asleep on the sofa we were taken to a dance in the park. and it was cooooold. but pretty fun. Highlight being the weird old man that came over to me and asked me to dance, I pretended I didnt understand him and apologised for my lack of spanish. He then came back ten minutes later and worked his magic with ella. She caved and danced with the very energetic crazy man. He took every opportunity he could to kiss her on the cheek then once the longest song in the world had finished he kissed her some more then showed his gratitude by giving her an empanada. TRUE LOVE. unfortunatly he left without giving her his number. Rejected.

Friday - Independance Day.. Lets see what the fuss is about.. well I would tell you but we missed the parade, due to numerous people sending us to the wrong place (ill name no names) So instead we took a long walk in the wrong direction to the park. and not the stadium. and then a long walk back. with a pit stop for ice cream again. mmm ice cream. half an hour later cars appear and people begin bustling around the house.. beach time!! ooooh yeah. Load up the minibus.. thats right maria we probably do need all those pots and pans. Do I think we need polenta?? erm maybe.. why wouldnt we need polenta maria? (turns out we didnt need polenta) but we DID need those two bags of meat. phew. Glad the meat got packed. right everyone in... 17 people later we all hit the road...

HOLD UP.. 17 people... one beach house.. I began to get a little worried and wondered whether we were infact going to ron weasleys magical house with lots of bedrooms or if this was going to be a super cozy shed. Not to worry two beach houses, 14 beds, two sofas and an extra mattress. phew. and grandma shotguns a bottom bunk. BQQ lit. music pumping.. and a huge beach to explore. ooooooh yeeeeah. 3 days of sunning ourselves on the empty beaches and exploring ( we found horse bones.. gross. oh AND we saw a boy surfing in a bouyancy aid.. hilarious.) time to pack up and head home... maria promises a meat free week ahead.. we'll see. Ive actually grown to quite like a lump of meat.. not too sure whats happening to me.. quite enjoy a bit of salt too. uh oh.

Oh and bread has officially been banned. the bread binge is over due to the health risk it was causing us. Buff and brown. buff and brown. not fatty boom booms.

Over and Out

CIAO CIAO

x x x x

"I just nearly killed a child"

What a week!

School is buzzing with excitement.. its independance day next week and I think its bigger than Christmas, there has been a lot of preparation and lots of dance practise! AND theres a stage in the garden, much to our delight!!

Wednesday we hit Vina for the day, watched Manuel whip the football pitch into shape and score some goals for his team they were also playing against a team sponsored by durex, much to our amusement.

The girls teams were terrible, now I realise why girls football isn't as big as mens.. they run round like fairies looking scared of the ball. Hats off to the bitch fight though for a bit of entertainment. There was a lot of over dramatics with fake injurys.. very unconvincing, however, the football proceedings came to a halt when the goalkeeper hit the ground. A deadly silence, then a lot of shouting for an ambulance. Hold up guys, lets check the situation here, theres been a lot of dramatic tumbles and your all fine, why does he need an amblance.... oh yes i see, his foot shouldnt bend that way, right you are!

In the afternoon we hit the zoo and got to touch the animals!! This was awesome, we got to stroke the above animal which I have no idea as to what it is (not the elephant, i know what an elephant is.) which rolled over onto ts back for a belly rub. The tiger (through its cage) but still pretty awesome, I actually think he was my favourite, closely followed by the escape monkeys, who distract you with their frollicking ways and when your backs turned they are almost certainly digging a tunnel out of their cage. Male informed us that various animals escape on quite a regular basis, the penguins were seen swimming down the river to freedom, a seal escaped once. I think its safe to say all the animals are pretty intellegent and hatching masterplans for freedom.

However the best moment was when ella went to stroke the penguin and it projectile pooed at her. VERY amusing. The elephant was also pretty interested in sniffing her.

Friday we watched each class pratice their dance for independance day, however, became distracted messing around with a few of the kids. There we were happily doing rollie pollies and such and ella decides to lift a small boy in the air, he kicks off her hands and does a mid air somersault. Our hearts definately stopped but her quick reflexes managed to spin his shoulders so he landed on his feet, happily bouncing around. that was the end of playtime.

After this escapade Manuel picked us up and drove us down to the beach to get the surfboard fixed. We watched the surfers for a while until we got too cold then wandered around the mall trying to find the right shop. after we hit up mcdonalds where they had a V.I.P section.. you what?? We then went into vina to get some mobiles and look round the shops. mainly at shoes. Picked up Male from the vets who was waiting with empanadas for us. yum. and debated over whether we were going to the discotech or not. This debate lasted longting and I cut my losses and hit my bed for sleepy sleepy time.

And finally Yesterday we thought it would be a brilliant idea to ramble/rockclimb up a hillside dodging various tramps that had taken up residence... and yes it was. the views from the top were amazing. Once at the top we noticed a nice steady road that led up to the top but decided it would be more fun to go back down the way we came up.. most of the way down we slid on our bums with a lot of comical trips and falls. Followed by a trip into town to stock up on curry ingrediants, well sort of, near enough ingrediants anyway. We soooooo want a Curry.

over and out x x x

Jesus is on the phone

CHILE NEWS

Headlines

So two more days have passed.. but not too much news to declare.. except that Gap Chile is now online! Have a peek for yourself and pass the news onto anyone looking for a pretty awesome adventure in a faraway land of excitement. http://www.gap-chile.com/

The key to the locked away chocolate supply may have been lost by me. Whooops. much to a very unhappy ella who was desperate for some of the good stuff. After 20 minutes of searching followed by a further 10 minutes of trying to break into the locked suitcase, I finally got in and recommend people against loackable suitcases as they are very easy to get into if your THAT desperate for the contents. We're now down to one set of 5 dairy milk bars. This is not good. So if anyone wants to send us some chocolate it would be greatly appreciated. Although maybe its a good thing we're nearly out. We should probably go cold turkey. Id also like to take a moment to "suggest" that ella definately stole more than her fair share of the 2nd to last bar. but I have no proof.

We managed to escape dancing again for ice cream instead. Although Manuel did pull up outside the church but carried on driving past after our protests. Hopefully we've wormed our way out of it altogether.. but Ella did answer the phone to jesus earlier and I think her heart may have stopped for a minute (hahah Jesus on the phone.. what an image!)

School News

Fridays lesson was a Friday Funday game of bingo. Using a prince and princess theme from thursdays lesson. This was interjected with a p.e lesson with the misses. They laid out an abstacle course followed by tug of war.

My new favourite child this week is a little girl in the youngest class who talks about her mum constantly no matter what we are teaching. Im starting to think her mum is wonderwoman who can relate to any topic. "me mama es un princessa" ofcourse she is.

Maria Watch

Maria watch hasnt brought up any exciting stories but no doubt they'll be more on the way during the week

Sport news

Yep we still havent done any exercise. Technically we did schedule it in for today but film time seemed like more of a priority. We definately need to get on this before we turn into massive lump of cheese or a loaf of bread.

Donde esta Elisa?

Well following on from Ella's blog.. yeah thats right you have to read both..

Lunch was another classic. Sand soup... erm does your soup taste sandy?? yes is the answer. We tasted the delights of mussel soup, with added sand, I think it might be an aquired taste. Shortly followed by more meat. They certainly love their meat. So we'll probably hit the bread again soon.. we cant get enough of the bread. and cheese. and toffee stuff (yes ella I still cant remember what its called. no matter how many times you tell me. bla blah bla)

Today we got our paint on. Literally. a few of the kids clearly thought we needed a good coat of paint too.. which of course im delighted about. lucky its washable.. I hope. One boy decided paint on his potato (potato painting, they're not deprived of paintbrushes in case you started to worry) wasnt enough so proceeded to paint his hands arms face all his clothes and inside his ears... not so easy to get off.

I dont actually think I can top ellas story of maria pulling out random objects all day long my favourite being ellas pants. although in other maria news she did manage to spray a little polish in her nose earlier whilst trying to smell it. It doesnt smell very nic either.. the polish.. not marias nose.. cant say ive actually sniffed her nose...

......ANYWAY ciao for now

xxx

The Adventures of the Boy Who Eats Carpet..

A small update on los niños we've discovered a girl who eats playdoh.. and the rug has been turned over in the classroom but carpet boy is still finding ways to munch on his favourite snack. Ive also been informed by Ella's aunt that as a child she used to eat sheep poo..(shes definately going to kill me when she reads this but it was inevitable that it would end up somewhere on the internet.) So maybe all children find strange things to eat...

All that aside we had a productive day yesterday teaching the kids about healthy eating.. although should possibly consider teaching some of the adults a thing or two about the effects of too much salt on their dinner. We also thought we'd make keeping fit fun by building an obstacle course in the garden.

We've also somehow been roped into being dancing partners for some dance in a week or two... not quite sure how this happened but i hear we have to wear leotards and do in front of 300 people, I think they were joking.. or at least I hope they were.. its difficult to tell what we're getting ourselves into..

Over and out

x x