Intercambio

Las Condes, Santiago de Chile. 21.28.

Four days into my teacher exchange and I’m still blissfully without a timetable as such. As a matter of fact, that’s actually quite a relief – because I keep running into new opportunities every day, and it’s helpful to be able to say yes to everyone for a change.

Today I spent the entire day in the Senior division of the school, with the equivalent year groups 10-13 (1°-4° Medio by Chilean standards). I also got my eye in on a PAES class, a preparatory class for students preparing to sit the national exams required to enter Chile’s university system, which functions much like the “seventh term” that was once offered by some British schools for Oxbridge hopefuls.

It was a bloody useful class to watch. I even had a go at the paper myself, and got only one question wrong over a 30-minute assault of two reading comprehensions. It’s not that the chosen literary texts were hard – though I’ll admit there were some words I’d never encountered – but the questions were tricky with frustratingly similar choices of answers, and often required really careful reading to decide between two of a possible four.

For the record, the texts were El barco de vapor (which I’m sure I’ve come across somewhere) and El leve Pedro – in case I decide to use them myself as part of my Language A course design. Which I very probably will.

It’s raining again. My trips to South America seem to involve a lot of rain. Since I still have no timetable set in stone – and this is a very ad hoc exchange – I’m hoping to get away early tomorrow and make for the coast, as the weather is likely to be worse next weekend, and I will be off on my travels at the end of the last week – location TBC. For now, at least, the weekend looks like Valparaíso.

Provided the fog that is rolling in off the Pacific doesn’t come sooner than expected, Saturday will see me set out on a small ship into the Pacific Ocean in search of the only bird on the planet with a wingspan larger than a condor: the albatross. I expect the sea will be more than a little choppy, but I’ve always wanted to do a proper pelagic trip, and since the days of working one’s passage on ocean liners is well and truly dead and gone, this is the next best thing.

If the weather puts a stopper in my Pacific plans, there’s plenty to see and do in Valparaíso – including the city’s resident fur seals and its plethora of seafood options. It’ll also be good to get out of the capital for a bit. Host families are lovely and all that, but eight years of living on my own have made me into a very independent sort of creature.

Someday, somebody will shake me out of that. Maybe. For now, this social battery of mine needs the solace of the sea.