Sitting at work with nothing to do on a Friday afternoon...must be time for a blog post about Thanksgiving!
Time is winding down here. Only two weeks left in Chile! A couple weeks ago we all went out near our apartment. It was the first time in a while, and we had a blast.
I finally made it out to the Museo de Memorias which opened earlier this year. It's a museum devoted to the protection of human rights. You follow an audio tour taking you through the dictatorship from beginning to end noting the violations of human rights during Pinochet's reign. It's very powerful.
Pictures aren't allowed inside. Outside they have this display with all the dictatorships in the various Latin American countries along with NATO's declaration of human rights displayed artistically. I'm really glad I got to visit before leaving, and I'd recommend it to anyone in Santiago.
This is a video I showed my PK and Kindergarten classes last week. I think it nicely captures the spirit of Thanksgiving, and since there's hardly any audio it was easy for them to understand.
Thanksgiving Day was a lot of fun. I had the kids sit all together for snack time and we learned all about the holiday.
In the older groups we made these cool turkeys. The body is made of two footprints (mine and their head teacher) and each kid cut out their own hand print for the feathers. Obviously they all made hand turkeys of their own as well. Whoever says working on Thanksgiving is a drag hasn't worked with my kids, they're awesome!
In the evening we went to St. George's school for the Holy Cross Priests' annual Thanksgiving Dinner. This might be the last picture of all the ChACE 12s together. We've had some good times--thanks for everything, guys!
I made no-bake cookies for the event.
The usual pick-up game of football ensued. We had beautiful weather.
The exciting news this year was that we had real, complete turkeys for dinner. They were delicious. Apparently eating the dark meat is a Franske thing, and I'm fine with that because there was plenty of it for me!
Something always seems to get lost in translation for the meal prep. Cranberry sauce is impossible to come by (blueberry sauce is the substitute), and salad options consist of cold corn and tomato with palm hearts. It's always delicious!
On Friday, San Nicolás put on a great surprise lunch for me and Ciara as a thank you for our year of work here. We had paella and it was fantastic. Kevin, the new gringo in the ChACE program teaching at San Nicolás, is pictured here on the left. He put together a great video of our students and colleagues saying goodbye.
On Saturday I was invited to the end of the year party for Sala Cuna, my youngest students. We spent the day eating off the grill, enjoying the sun, and swimming in the pool.
The little kids were adorable all day. They're such little balls of energy!
The Christmas-when-it's-hot thing is still weird for me, but everyone in Chile is sure accustomed to it. Santa came to the party and brought toys for all the kids.
I've been wanting to cook for my host family all year, so on Tuesday it finally happened. My host dad has Celiac so it had to be an easy gluten-free meal, and unfortunately most things I love to cook involve gluten. Chicken Parmesan was the winner, and it was delicious.
We also had a Thanksgiving dinner with our gringo friends organized by the Bridge girls. It kind of doubled as a goodbye party for Ciara, who left last Sunday. It was great getting to know her this year and I wish her all the best with her upcoming wedding!
And now for my shameless plug. I entered a photo contest online and if I'm in the top 5 come Sunday night I think I have a good shot at winning. So if you have Facebook, click the link below, "Like" the page, and vote for my picture. Thanks so much for reading my blog and helping me out! http://bit.ly/19UD8DE
Hopefully I'll get one more post in before leaving on the 20th. What a great adventure!
