A little bit of playtime

Yesterday Alison and I went for a brief tour of Concha Toro Vinyard.
Aperently the are rated in the top ten in the world.

It wasn't much but still very interesting none the less. We had two
glasses of wine included in our tour and then sat on the patio of the
onsite bar there and tried a few more. Everything tasted fantastic.

The founder of the winery used to store some his best wines for his
own reserve in a section of a huge cellar under the winery. But some
of his private reserve was growing legs and walking off. So, he
started a roumor that the Devil himself lived in the wine cellar. And
for the supersticios thieves that was enought to keep them away.

I will post more pictures of the vinyard and everything else when I
get home.

Hugs

Chile is almost over! Wow

I can't believe my chile trip is almost done. I have to get on here
and write about my weekend. I won't be able to put pictures up but you
guys will have to google the towns I was in. They where super neat.

Back to class now. I will catch up soon.

Sent from my iPhone

The orphanage

There is a total of 42 kids in this orphanage. Most of them are over two-years-old. The group that I am working with is 0 to 6 months. There are nine babies in a little room. And that is baisicly their life. They rearly leave the room and I am pretty sure that the only fresh air that they get is from the open windows. It stinks that we can´t take them out for walks but I understand that bringing them outside could be a safety issue.

Most of the kids there were left by their parents because they just don´t have the means to take care of them. A few of them, this is really sad, where just left at the hospital after their mothers had them. They just left their babies there. It breaks my heart. One of the little boys in my group was abandond by his mother and the hospital has kept him there for over a month now. I am not sure they have the proper papers and funding in place for him but the nurses are just so in love with him.

Today I saw a young dad there waiting to take his son home. He looked so afraid, but relived as well. What an ordeal for a family to endure.

The older kids are all downstairs. There is a huge play area with an opened roof where they spend most of their day. I don´t work with them because my spanish is still really bad. Maybe I will come back here. It is a nice thought now, but I know I probably wont.

Well I am off to dinner with some other students, and I may not get to write again until Monday. I am spending the weekend at the beach with Alison. We are just going to stay at a hostel and veggitate on the beach all weekend. I cant wait! I'll miss the kids though.

Hugo

Hugo in his bath.

Michelle

And this is Michelle from Newzeland. And that little cutie is Hugo. It
was bath day today. Hugo loves baths. He laughs and laughs the whole
time.

Jillian

I forgot to write the caption for the picture below.

This is Jillian, one of the other volunteers here. She is also a
Canadian. But she is scooting off to Peru on Saturday. The little one
she is holding is Christiana.

Sent from my iPhone

I think I am in love. Yesterday was a lot easier at the orphanage.
This little guy just wanted to snuggle all day. It was so nice. I got
there right at feeding time.

Gotta run.

Chile so far

I have no spell check and I am a little rushed. So please excuse any silly typos.


Ah, now I have a little more time to tell you what I have been up to. As I said before the first to days where pretty mellow. It took me a while to find a bank machine that would accept my card and then another while to figure out how to use the damn thing. After I had money I finaly felt like an independant human being again. American dollars work in a few places here but I wasn´t sure about the exchange rate and I also did not want to be misstook for an american. I managed to buy a few bottles of water with american money and paid for my wine and fries at the little pub with visa.

Once my uneventful weekend was finally over I started school. My house mum drove me yesterday morning but I walk now. Which is nice, because she feeds me way too much, and I could use the excercise. Really way too much food, its crazy. I think she is catching on that I can´t eat that much. Any way, yes school. I started yesterday morning at 10:30. There was one girl in my class, Allison from London. I am now taking private classes because my spanish, um, well my spanish sucks. But I have been hanging out with Allison. We are going to spend the weekend at the beach. I am so excited to relax for a while. I really havent done much but it has still been a stressfull few days.

I also went to the orphanage for the first time yesterday. And I was suprisingly less comfortable than I thought I would be. I am totaly comfotable around babies at home but these babies where scary. They are little strangers. I guess when I am handeling kids at home I have some ties to them. I know their parents or caregivers. I have no idea who these babies are. Don´t get me wrong, they are adorable, but scary. I am sure that I will be okay in a few days.

Oh, I also got lost on my way back ot the school after Allison and I went for lunch yesterday. Then I walked right past the school trying ot find it. Silliness. Oh and lunch was great. We went to this little italian place and ate at a table on the sidewalk. We had some really nice wine but I forgot to make note of the brand. IOt was good anyway. Actually all the wine that I have had is great so far.

Well I should go find some stamps and some post cards. I need to send Ethan a Chilian post card. (Hi Ethan, big hugs buddy. I hope you are having a good time at school.)

I miss everyone, I hope all is well.

Signing out,
JW

Well so far I have been taking it easy in Chile. The weekend was spent
mostly catching up on sleep and going for short walks to get to know
the area that I am staying in. On Saturday, after a long nap I walked
to a little pub and sat on the patio with small bottel of wine. I also
managed to order some fries in my choppy spanish. It turns out that
the owner of the bar speeks pretty good English. It was area relief to
speak some English and understand someone.

Class is starting. I'll write again later today or tomorrow morning.

Sent from my iPhone

In the air...

4:00 am came much too swiftly this morning. After hitting the snooze
button twice, a quick shower and loading my gigantic bags into my
aunt's car we were off to the Calgary airport. I could sure feel my
anxst building. But Auntie made sure that I got all the forms filled
out and got through the check in line for my flight to Dallas.

From about the middle of last week I

have been turning into a bigger basket case each day. My cousin spent
yesterday shopping and doing my running around with me. And thank god
for her. I kept forgetting what I was supposed to get and getting off
track. I forgot what I was saying mid-sentance a few times. Yup,
basketcase would best decribe me yesterday.

I am quite suprised that at my very low stress level now. I thought it
would take at least until I was on my Miami to Santiago flight before
I mellowed out.

This is a picture of the pie shaped fields I am flying over. A few of
them looked like giant packmans.

The stress is on...

Well I have most everything that I need to do done here in Peace River and now I am heading to Drayton Valley for a visit with my aunt, uncle and grandma. Wednesday I head to Drumheller or Calgary to see Todd. Then Friday at some ridiculous time in the morning my Uncle Ricky will drive me to the Calgary airport and at that point I will likely be scared witless. I am already terrified.

But chickenshititis aside, I am sure I will be just fine. I got a write up from the volenteer agency about the lady that I will be staying with in Chile . Her name is Carmen and she is retired from running a bakery with her late husband in Santiago. She likes reading, cooking and walking. I think she sounds like someone I will get along with famously. Does anyone have any ideas what I should bring her for a hostess gift?

I have had a few hiccups with insurance. I lost my policy papers and when I called AMA to send me new ones they just sent me information on travel insurance. Yup, I was choked. But I am dealing with it. My car, of course, just thad to eat $411 of my travel money. The steering column jammed up while I was moving everything into storage. So I think that is enough to go wrong, everything will go smoothly now. Right? It better.

Thanks for your support everyone!