Copiapó...

Well, we are here...in Copiapo that is. This is "home" for the next 8 months. That is so strange to say. In Santiago we were always aware of the fact that we were going to leave it. Not this place though. Hopefully we will get to know it well.

We left Santiago last night at 11:30pm on a bus. The Chilean long distance bus system is really nice here. It's nothing like America's scary Greyhound system. Everyone travels by bus and it's pretty cheap. We pulled into Copiapo at about 11am. It was actually pretty funny. We had been told by a previous volunteer that Copiapo isn't exactly...pretty. I had only seen pictures though and it didn't look too bad. We were originally told that the bus trip would take 14 hours. At the 12 hour mark we were driving and saw this barren ugly city. I said, "Hey Jason, it's Copiapo. hahahaha." At that moment one of the guys that hands out drinks and snacks on the bus walked down the isle and said to us, "Copiapo?" We were a little confused. Well, about two minutes later we pull into the bus terminal and guess what? Oh yes, that lovely city was in fact Copiapo. I pretty much laughed hysterically. Jason didn't think it was so funny. All this to say, the city isn't actually that bad. The outskirts look a lot like Tijuana. Just very barren with a lot of poor people. The inner part of the city was pretty nice though. I think that there is a big difference between the have's and the have not's here...definitely nothing like we're used to in SLO.

After we got into Copiapo the district coordinator met us and took us to meet host families and co-teachers. We were given our placements. Jason's teacher and director (our "principal") were so nice. They already have high hopes of winning the English Debates this year (it's a big deal in Chile and the students that win recieve an all paid trip to any where in their country...including the teacher). I was given my post too but my teacher wasn't there for whatever reason. Anyways, Jason and I are at a nice hostel right now. We tried to find a house to live in today but it was Sunday and so we didn't have much luck. You can definitely please be praying that we find a house that we can afford and that is centrally located as we don't have a car to get groceries and do laundry. Hope everyone is doing well. We'll try to post more pics soon!

--Anna