Some Randoms...

Ok, so can I just tell you that I have been thinking about "crafting" a lot lately. First off I will say though that I thought I would miss all of our "stuff" at home a lot more than I have. I mean we only have a whole NEW kitchen's worth of stuff waiting for us at home. I missed it at first but have in general become fairly content with living simply (though there have been a few moments of frustration with cooking...seriously, you shouldn't have to do a load of dishes in the MIDDLE of cooking something. Yes, we do have that few of things...and yes, I am tired of cooking everything in a pyrex pie dish, haha) In general though...it hasn't been bad. Lately though I have been thinking about that lovely sewing machine, that new, beautiful sewing machine that my wonderful grandparents gave us as a wedding gift...who am I kidding, they gave ME as a wedding gift! haha. That sewing machine that doesn't have a sticky pedal that likes to randomly ZoooOOOm and ruin what I'm doing (my old one from the 70's had a tendancy to do that at times). Yes, I would love to craft right about now. What kicked this feeling off? A giant homemade blue ribbon that I made. haha. My kids are creating "cities" on a giant piece of poster paper complete with English labels and an English name. hehe. Anyways, there is a competition amongst the classes for the best, most creative one. So, I made giant blue ribbons for the winning posters. It's pretty bomb-digidy. And now I want to go home and be crafty. Well, I don't know that I quite want to go home...but I want to be crafty!

In other news...we are 3 weeks out from being done here in Copiapo. So weird. I am still teaching although Jason isn't as of now. What's a bit exciting is that we are 3 weeks out from TRAVELING! Woohoo! I love the anticipation of going somewhere new! I love how it's almost never the way you imagined it. I love finding those little "jewel" of a places like a great coffee shop, cultural differences, food, and the people. I love it all! Some possible places that we may hit after Copiapo are...(yes, this is for you parents) Pucon (the outdoor adventure capital of Chile), Chiloe, Viña del Mar, and Valparaiso. Hopefully we have the money! hehe. Anyways, that`s all for now. Here are a couple of pics pulled from the web of where we would like to go!

Pucon: A volcano that you can hike up! So beautiful!

Pucon: There is also white water rafting...how awesome!

Pucon: OF COURSE they have mountain biking! Yes Please!

Pucon: Here is a picture of the little mountain town...why yes, it does look NOTHING like what we have seen so far in Chile. It reminds me of Mammoth Mountain really. But, we want to go none the less. This would be by far the most expensive part of our trip so if we don`t have enough money this will probably be cut out first! :)

Now onto Chiloe (I`m super excited for this island!)...

Chiloe is known for it's many churches...so here are a couple.

Chiloe is an island and many houses are built on stilts becuase of the rising tides. It's a sight to see!

Chiloe: Doesn't this picture just make you want to explore and have some great seafood...mmmm. There is also another island nearby that is a penguin refuge and ALSO a super beautiful national park to explore! :) yaya!


Now onto Valparaiso!

Valparaiso is on the coast built on the side of a bunch of cliffs. The building are all different colors and there are miles of windy tiny streets to walk through and explore.

Valparaiso: Some of the hills are so steep that there are these trolly lift things to take you up to the next "level" of the city.

Valparaiso: There are a ton of old victorian houses to see and explore. It´s sard to tell in this pic but the blue house is built literally on the edge of a cliff...crazy stuff.

And now onto Valparaiso´s rich neighbor...Viña del Mar.

Viña: Pretty water. We figure if we run out of money at the end we will just relax and get our tan on on the beaches of Viña. Not a bad way to end our time in Chile :)

And now I´m done. Hope you enjoyed our little preview of some traveling to come!!! :) Also, pray for an end to the strike too if you think about it!!!

Spelling Bee

Hola Todos,

Hi guys! How is everyone? Well, today is DAY 4 of the strike and there still is no end in sight. It is super frustrating that Anna is able to teach (some teachers at her school are not striking) and I´m left on my own with very little to do. I can´t go to the English Institute here in Copiapó to work because there is no exact end date to the strike...so, I could possibly get work but then have to quite when the strike ends. There is a possability that the strike could go until the end of our program which would mean I would never get to say good-bye to all the teachers and students at my school. Very lame. Yesterday I received an email from the Ministry of Education saying they may re-assign me to another school so that I have something to do and so they aren´t wasting their money. That option seems ridiculous to me because by the time I get started I would only have 2 weeks to teach! It would keep me busy, but what would happen if the strike ended after I had switched to a new school? Would I stay at that new school or go back to the one I have been teaching at for the last 7 months? All in all this is a lame situation. Anna and I have had an awesome time here in Chile, but one of our biggest complaints with working here are the constant strikes. I would love to come back someday and teach full time at a university, but since the educational system still has a few kinks in it I may choose another country. Please pray for a quick resolution to this mess.

Anyways, today I wanted to tell you guys about our day trip to El Salvador last Thursday. On Wednesday of last week Anna´s co-teacher asked her if she and I would be interested going to the town of El Salvador to help with an English Spelling Bee. We said "totally!" and that was the start to a last minute trip to that little mining town. The English Teacher from El Salvador contacted Anna and arranged a time for us to take the bus...7am! So, Thursday we woke up at 5:15 am, got ready, and went to the Pullman bus station to catch the bus. I asked one of the Pullman workers which was the right bus for El Salvador and he lead us to the one he thought was the correct one. So, Anna and I boarded the bus and waited for awhile trying to stay awake at least until we departed. All of a sudden the man I asked jumped on the bus and told us that we were on the wrong bus and that the one that had just started to leave was the one we wanted! So, we hopped off the bus and ran over to the other one, barely making it. I guess there are two buses that go to El Salvador - one goes along the coast which takes 5 hours and the other goes a more direct route that takes 3 hours!! So, thank God we made the right bus otherwise we would have taken a super long bus ride for no reason!

So, once we arrived the English Teacher, Valentina, picked us up and took us to her school. Her principle re-imbursed us for the bus tickets and then Valentina told us to meet her downtown at 1:15 since she had classes until then. So, Anna and I rolled up our sleeves and explored the giant town of El Salvador!

Ok, well El Salvador is not exactly giant. The town is pretty small, but as you can see in the photo above the streets are SUPER wide. The copper mine in El Salvador used to be owned by an American company so that is why the streets and houses have an American feel.

Since the town was pretty small Anna and I explored the majority of it rather quickly, so we found a bench in the shade and read for a bit.

Since we were tired Anna got bored with reading after awhile and decided to try out the swing set in the Plaza. I would have joined her, but there was some bird cacky on the other swing! At 1:15 we met Valentina and had a yummy traditional Chilean meal for lunch and then afterward went to her school to wait until the Spelling Bee started.

The Spelling Bee first started with the little kids putting on a demonstration to show what they´ve been learning lately. It was a cute little show where four kids had flash cards of a toy (written of course in English) and they each had to say "I have a _____". Then they hid their flash card and mixed themselves up and their classmates (to the right, outside of the photo) had to ask them "Do you have a bike, etc.?" and that student either responded "yes I do" or "no I don´t". It sounds simple, but for their age level it was pretty impressive. After that was the Spelling Bee with 5th grade to 8th grade.

After judging the Spelling Bee Valentina gave out prizes to the kids and a thank you gift to Anna, me and the other two judges.

The Principle gave me my prize which was a nice pen with "El Salvador" written on it.

Here are the famous judges plus Valentina (in the middle).

After the Spelling Bee there was a little party for the students who participated, the teachers, and the judges. Anna and I definately took the opportunity to fill up on yummy snacks. Since we live on a modest budget whenever there is free food we joke "eat as much as you can so we don´t have to eat Dinner!" :)

After the Spelling Bee Anna and I toured other parts of the city with Valentina and then ate a small dinner. Valentina was very nice and spoke amazingly good English. She kept thanking us for helping her with the Spelling Bee. For Anna and I it wasn´t completely an act of charity :), we did get to visit another place in Chile for free :). Anyways, so at 9 pm we boarded our bus and 3 hours later (12 pm) arrived in Copiapó. We were exhausted, but the day was super fun and well worth the effort.

So, that was our trip to El Salvador...I hope you enjoyed it! Ok, well I am going to go explore the Library now so have a great day!

Día de Recreación

Hola Todos!

Hey Guys! How are you doing? Well, I am here at the Public Library in Copiapó using the free internet. Why am I here you ask on a Monday when I should be in class? Well, once again the Professores in Chile are on strike over the money that the government owes them. This time only 50 % of the teachers are striking...unfortunately the professors at my school are a part of that statistic. Anna's school has decided not to strike and to continue classes so that is why today she is teaching and I am visiting the Library. So, with all this free time on my hands I thought I would post and tell you guys about the event at my school last Wednesday called "Día de Recreación."

But first, have you guys ever seen or tried this fruit before?

This is a Chirimoya or "Wood apple" in English. It is a common fruit here in Chile and Anna loves them! I think that they are ok...they kind of have a funny flavor and a ton of seeds.

Anyways, so last Wednesday I didn´t teach because once again we had a celebration. AGAIN!! I swear, Chileans celebrate everything!! Wednesday´s celebration was called "Día de Recreación" or "Recreation Day." The whole day was filled with recreation games and activities.

Here are some of my 7th grade students playing ping pong while waiting for the activities to start. I thought that they were pretty clever to convert a table from the cafeteria into a ping pong table with a card board strip as the net. They talked me into playing a game or two with them, so I hung out for awhile and tried to dust off my ping pong skills. It was fun to connect with the students outside of the classroom.


The first event of the day for the young kids was an Aerobic Class. I watched a little, but I did NOT want to dance so I hung out in the back and talked with the kids. After that the PDI, or Chile´s FBI of sorts, came with their Canine Unit and put on a demonstration for the kids. The kids loved the show and kept chanting "Canela, Canela, Canela", the name of the dog, over and over again. Whenever the dog came near them they lunged forward and tried to pet it. A few times they charged the field to pet the dog and the Director or Principle had to shew them away and tell them to sit down (only in Chile :).

One of the things that the PDI Detectives did was have their search dog look for a "drug" that they had placed in one of the kids backpacks. Or course the kids loved being a part of the show and seeing the search dog at work. The demonstration wasn´t super long, but it was fun to watch the police interact with school kids just like they do back in the U.S.

After the PDI demonstration I watched some of the kids play "baby fútbol." Baby fútbol is a smaller version of soccer with 5 players on each team that play on a smaller concrete field and with a smaller soccer ball. While I was watching some kids from my 6A class asked if I wanted to play some Jenga. I said "Yeah!" and found myself battling it out with 6th graders to see who would win at Jenga.

Here I am taking my turn at pulling out a block. Just like with Ping-Pong it was fun to connect with the kids outside of the classroom. They really didn´t care who won or lost, they just wanted to hang out and spend time with the strage Gringo, me!

Here are the 5th and 6th grade classes battling it out. You guys would be amazed at how good these kids are! They play very seriously and with a lot of passion which make it a lot of fun to watch.

Well, that was basically "Día de Recreación"; lots of games and activities. Some of you are probably thinking the same as me "don´t they ever have class and study?!" But, then you have to look at things from their perspective...they´ve asked me "Why do you guys celebrate so little in the U.S.?" When you really think about it what do we celebrate in the U.S. at school? In Elementary School I remember dressing up for Halloween (Kindergarten), dressing up with my classmates as a Pilgrim or Indian for Thanksgiving, having a class party for Christmas, Easter, and Valentines Day. That is a lot of fun activities, but we always did things on a smaller scale from what I remember. When I compare the funnest activity I did in Elementary School it pales in comparison to the celebration of the "Aniversario" or "Día de Independencia" at my colegio. Both of those activities involved the whole school and in the case of the Aniversario each class was pitted against the others for a championship.

What you have to realize is that here in Chile they love to enjoy life and be with friends and family and so they have lots of holidays and celebrations. Part of me sees the inefficiency in that, but then part of me wishes I had grown up that way too.

Well, I hope that you guys enjoyed today´s post! :) Since the Strike is "undefined", meaning there is no exact end date, I may be able to post again soon. But with only 4 weeks left I would prefer to be teaching so pray for a quick resolution between the Gov. and the Professors. Thanks and ¡Hasta luego!

El Salvador and Coming Back "Different"

Jas and I are in the GI-NorMous town of El Slavador. haha. jk. It´s a tiny town and for those of you who want to google it...probably only our parents, you will find that it has a huge copper mine that sustains the town, the US copper supply, and a large part of the Chilean economy. Not bad for a town of like 7,000.

Anyways, we were invited here to be judges in an English Spelling Bee. Basically, they have a volunteer but she went out of town during this week and they needed a couple of people. The teacher here is BF´s with my co-teacher and so she asked my co-teacher if she could steal me for the day. She needed Jason too and so it worked perfectly. They paid for our travels and lunch and we were able to see yet another place in Chile for FREE! Free is very, very good. We had to wake up at like 5:15am and travel for 2.5 hours but it´s been nice none the less. The competition starts in about an hour.

So, yeah. Not much else is going on down south of the equator. We have 4 weeks left. That kind of wigs me out but what can you do? I´m trying to think of what I can change about myself when I come home to show that I´m "different" now. haha. Really though, it´s like the guys that are in the program who are not cutting their hair the whole time they are here in Chile so that they can go home and look "different"...like they have changed. I don´t know if you know what I mean. It´s like you WANT to be different now then from when you left and for people to think, "Hey wow, look what that experience did to him/her." Maybe I´ll get a tattoo or some kind of peircing...or dye my hair...or binge eat majar and cookies and come back really fat...hahahaha. Ok, maybe not. Or maybe I´ll know a little more Spanish than I did, be a little more aware of the greatness of God then I was, love my handsome husband even more now then when we left, and be a little more aware of what the world is REALLY like. I guess that will have to do! hehe. See you all in 6 weeks then! :)

Street Dogs

Hola Todos!

How are you all? Well, today I want to tell you guys a bit about the Chilean Street Dog. I have always thought that when people say there are street dogs all over Central and South America that it is an exaggeration. Today I can honestly say that there definately are street dogs all over Chile. These dogs are quite annoying because they think they own the sidewalk, eat trash and spread it all over the city, need to be avoided when they´re excited over a dog in heat, follow us when we walk to school, chase after cars, etc. I´ve lost count how many dead dogs I have seen on the side of the road...too many. They love to chase cars, bikes, and runners and unfortunately many die when they get too close to a car and get hit. Anna and I have also seen a lot of abandoned puppies and it breaks our hearts to not take them home or take care of them in some way. I am not sure why the government doesn´t round them up and put them in a pound, but they are a part of daily life in Chile.

On a more positive note many of these street dogs are really sweet, they just need a home. There was one Anna and I met in San Pedro de Atacama that was so sweet and would have made a great "home" dog. Believe it or not many of the nicer street dogs make it into the schools and it is totally normal to see a dog wandering around the school campus looking for someone to pet them and for a little food. The picture that I included is of one of the "regular" street dogs that comes to my school, but there are many others that come and go. I´ve had to guard the door as my students walk into my classroom so that one of the dogs doesn´t sneak in too! I know that for many of you guys this is hard to imagine-picture :) since we fix all our dogs to control the numbers and round up any strays.

I did see a program on T.V. here where the government did round up a bunch of dogs that someone had on their property but wan´t taking good care of them. The government fed them, got them medical attention, and then found homes for all of them. One of the people who came to take one home was an American lady who flew all the way here for a rescue dog!! I find that kind of crazy! Anna and I have taken in three kitties, but they sort of fell into our laps so to speak (we didn´t pay over a 1,000 dollars to fly here and pick up an animal!). I have also heard the the gov. is trying to inact a law or some sort of initiative to cut back on the street dog-cat problem. Hopefully they are successful!

Well, I guess since I´m talking about street animals I should tell you guys that our poor Mamma cat died! It happened about three weeks ago :(.....I went out one morning to turn on the Calefón and discovered Mamma cat dead with her three little kitties snuggling into her. I am not sure what happened, but Anna and I know that she was in perfectly good health the day before. I talked with my English co-teacher and she said that some people in the city put out poison the get rid of street cats so that is most likely what happened. Very sad :(. But the three kitties Toby, Rocky, and Lucy are doing great and growing fast. I feel like one of those mom bloggers when I say they are growing too fast! ;) They were semi-wild, but we´ve got them so that they start purring before we even touch them, ha ha. Unfortunately we don´t make much money so we feed them only when we can...so, em, yeah feeding time is like World War III!! We practically throw the food bowl at them and they tear into it like savages. It is funny to watch but annoying at the same time. I will try to post a picture of them now that they are older.

Ok, well I´m not sure if that was interesting or not but it is part of our life here in Chile so I thought it would be worth including. Have a great day and I´ll talk to you all soon! ¡Hasta luego!

It´s all about ENTHUSIASM!

Hola Todos,

Well, thankfully I have a break right now! You know those mornings where you sleep past the alarm, have hardly any time to get ready, and the rest of the morning feels chaotic? Well, that was how I started this lovely Monday morning. I always set two alarms here (I know I am a bit OCD) so that Anna and I wake up with enough time to get ready at a reasonable pace and get to school on time. Well, last night Anna and I went over to Lorena and David´s house after church to have "Tecito" (a "light" dinner) and when we got home it was midnight. So, I set my alarm on my cell phone, 6 am for the 20th, which I thought would wake me up this morning. Well, I didn´t even realize that when I set the alarm it was already Monday technically so the date I should have set the alarm for was the 19th! Does that make sense? I am a bit tired so I am by no means eloquent right now...:). So, yeah I woke up and raced around the house to get ready, rode my bike quickly to school, and barely had enough time to put away my lunch and bike before the bell rang.

So, there I was at 8am with my 8A class (8th grade) with my mind in a whirl trying to psych myself up for teaching. Well amazingly I was able to pull myself together and feel enthusiastic about the lesson (which wasn´t all that interesting). The class was a little chaotic because we did a reading and then I asked them questions, but all in all it went well. After the class I was thinkng how funny it is that sometimes I feel super prepared and have a great lesson to teach, but the lesson comes out lame because I didn´t get into it and feel excited about it. I remember that some of my best teachers-professors in High School and College were passionate about what they were teaching and about connecting with the students. I guess what I am saying is that one of the many things I have learned from the crazy experience is that when you teach you have to teach with passion and express enthusiasm for the lesson of the day even if you really don´t feel it. The students play a HUGE role in how the class turns out and one of the best ways to motivate them to make the class fun and exciting is to be fun and exciting yourself. Does that make sense?

So, yeah that was my lesson for the day...or at least for the morning since it is only 10 am! Thankfully my second class for the day has a Test so I get a break to drink some nasty Néscafe, prep. for the next class, and write you you all. Ok, well that pathetic excuse for a cup of coffee is calling my name so I will talk to you all later!

We are now members of...

the Copiapo LIBRARY! Yes! I´m so excited! I have been wanting to go to the library for a while now and we finally made it there. It´s kind of lame that we are just now getting around to it...being that we only have a month left. haha. Oh well. When we first arrived though I wouldn´t have been able to read a THING! Jason has been using his school library since we got here. I checked out today though "Mujercitas." Can you guess what that is? Yep, Little Women. Kind of funny. I thought that it would be best to check out something that I am familiar with. Anyways, I´m reading it and for the most part understanding it. Yay! During my 7 months here I in fact HAVE actually learned something...though sometimes I really wonder! :) Anyways, it´s exciting. I read that book sooooo very long ago and so it´s fun to pick it up and give it another go...pero en español!

Jason also checked out some book of Chilean poetry that seems SUPER hard. What a smarty I have on my hands! He wants to focus on Chilean literature becuase it´s so plentiful and accessible here. There is a decent Spanish section in Barnes and Noble at home and I´m sure in the SLO county library too. He can read the more general novels and books in Spanish at home.

Anyways, that´s what we did today! Now we are going to go home, read our books, and I´m going to make some homemade chicken noodle soup. Yummers!

Cheap As Dirt

Hola Todos,

Hey GuYs! How are you? Well, after this week Anna and I only have 5 more weeks of teaching! Crazy! We are looking forward to going home, eating lots of American food, and seeing you all, but we are sad to see that we have so little time left. That said, there are a couple of things we won´t miss! One of them is being VERY frugal. Yeah yeah, I know what you are probably thinking "But you guys have traveled!" Yes, we were blessed to do a bit of traveling, but while we have lived here in Copiapó we have lived off what the Chilean Gov.-United Nations has given us (which isn´t much!!!). I think when we crunched the numbers we found out that we make something like 2 dollars an hour :). Here are a few ways we try to save money to make it to the end of the month.

Laundry in the Tub

This sure isn´t glamorous work! We live in a great location (inbetween our schools and close to a Supermarket), but there is no laundrymat near us. So, instead of hauling all our heavy laundry across town we clean it in the tub and then hang dry it. It is time consuming, back breaking, and no fun but it saves us money!

Pepper Mill

Ok, so Anna had this great idea to poke a hole in our plastic pepper mill and refill it to save a little money. It is cheaper to buy the pepper corns and refill our old mill than buy a new one each time. We could of course buy ground pepper, but fresh ground tastes better. So, with Anna´s bright idea we get cheap fresh pepper!

A close up of the hole Anna made.

So, as you guys can see we do what we can to try and save money. The end of each month is a pain and we barely scrape buy, but in case you are worried we don´t suffer. Anna is a great cook and makes each meal super yummy and in our budget we get 10,000 pesos each as an allowance(about 18 or 19 dollars). Of course, that personal money goes super quick since it is only about 4-5 dollars a month to spend. Oh, and we have a "Fun Money Envelope" for weekend fun to do internet, get ice cream, rent a movie, etc. But, all that said we are looking forward to getting jobs that pay more and not being so tight on funds each month.

Other Fun FREE Things We Do:

-Check out Spanish books from the School Library

-Go hiking in the hills behind our house

-Hang out with Chilean Friends

-Play with our three kitties

-Watch programs like "The Amazing Race" (S. American Version), etc.

-Run

-etc.

Ok, well I hope you guys are doing well and will talk to you later! Chao!

Oh, the Benefits!

Well, I am here to tell you that being married officially RoCkS! So, I have had a cold for the last week. I was getting better and then kind of relapsed. It´s no longer in my nose but some where between my nose and my throat...weird and gross! So, I was feeling a little puny. I decided to take a shower in the evening. Jason noticed that I wasn´t lookin´ to spunky and said, "You shouldn´t go to bed with a wet head since you are sick. Do you want me to brush your hair and blow-dry it for you?"

Um...YeaH!!!!

You see, I love having my hair brushed and just my scalp touched in general...but to throw in some nice hot hair at the same time. Yes Please! You don´t have to ask me twice. And yes, it WAS amazing. Soooooo, relaxing. While he was blow-drying my hair he said, "I guess this isn´t very manly huh?" Ha! I think that we can all agree that there is nothing more manly to a gal than a husband serving his wifey. So, being married is grand. I´m a definite fan!!! :)

Can you guess how much 1 peso is worth?

Hola Todos,

Hey Guys, how are you? Ok, so I took these pictures when we first arrived, but I don´t think that I ever posted about them like I wanted to. So, today I wanted to show you guys that there does indeed exist a coin that is worse than the penny...the Chilean 1 peso! Not only is it smaller than the penny, but it weighs practically nothing and is worth 0.0018 cents!!!!

Here are all of the Chilean coins. There is a 500, 100, 50, 10, 5, and 1 peso coin. The 500 and 100 are the most useful and the 50 helps, but the rest are practically worthless.


Here is my comparison of the U.S. penny and the Chilean peso. It is crazy how small the peso is!!!

And to help you see the difference, since you can´t hold the peso, here is a picture of the peso on the penny to show how much smaller it is.

Well, I know that I always complain about the penny in the U.S. and how useless it is, but I am now thankful for it. I rarely get pesos because at the supermarkets they ask you if you want to donate a few pesos to the Firefighters or some charity. That way those groups make a little money and they can give even change. A couple times I have said no so that I can bring a few pesos home, but normally Anna and I say yes.

So, hope that was interesting. If not, too bad!! :) No, really for me those kind of things are interesting. I like discovering cultural differences because it is fun to see how others live and it makes one reflect on his-her own culture. For example, now I like that little copper penny :).

Ok, well talk to you all later!!

Finally!!!.....HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!

Well, I FINALLY made it to a computer with internet access. There are two things that are very unreliable in this country. Internet and electricity. haha. Of course the internet decided to not work at school on Mon...when I actually really needed it. It was down yesterday too. Today the electricity was down at school. For the love! I fortunately had half the day off today so I was able to walk downtown to use the internet at the cafe...sooooooooooooo....

HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY BirThDaYYYYYY Mother Dearest!

I hope that you had a wonderful actual birthday...on Monday!!! Love you and miss you so much. I wish I could have celebrated with you guys but ´tis not the case. There is also a card in the mail but who knows how long it will take. Maybe a week like the packages? Not sure. That´s going to be late though. haha. You see there is no "mail" envelope with money so I had to wait and send it with my "allowance" money I receive every month. I had to wait till we got paid though which is at the beginning of the month. Does that make sense? Good ole Dave Ramsey. He has taught us well.

200 Pesos, Plus a New Friend

Hola Todos,

¿Cómo están? Well, today is Thursday with only one more day to go until the weekend!!! I like teaching, but it is one of those things that you enjoy while doing it and don´t want to when you are off of work or the weekend is approaching. I guess that is just plain work...even if you have the most amazing job. Anyways, so today I wanted to tell you guys about my friend Jonathan. I met Jonathan near the Sodimac Homecenter (very similar to Home Depot). I usually walk by there to go downtown and one day I went he was there selling his little sweets. Well, me being a sweet loving fellow I decided for 200 pesos I could give his little invention a whirl. He told me the batter he uses is like Pancake batter, but instead of cooking it on a gridle he puts it in the oven and bakes it. He also puts chocolate or manjar in the middle and when they are done, dips both ends in chocolate and coconut. Surprisingly they are quite good and for only 200 pesos (around 36 cents) they are VERY worth it. I like the manjar ones and Anna likes the chocolate ones.

Here I am with my new friend Jonathan. He is trying to learn English and I am trying to learn Spanish so we talk to each other in both languages. He is super nice and a hard worker (it isn´t easy making a living the way he does).

Here are the yummy treats. I don´t really know if they have a name since Jonathan invented them. I think he might call them panqueques since they are made with pancake batter. As you can see the white ones on the left are filled with manjar and the ones on the right are chocolate flavored and have chocolate in the middle.

Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed another small peek into Anna´s and my life here in Copiapó, Chile. Thanks for checking out our blog and please keep praying for us! Pray we continue to work hard and teach well, love the kids and continue to get to know them better, stay safe and healthy, and share the Gospel. Thanks!! ¡Hasta luego!