Finishing up round two of high school by Madeline LeBlanc

The life of waking up early to catch a bus full of high schoolers and be in one place all day, every day was really easy to forget, and this glimpse back into it has certainly worn me out. I was really grateful to have a bit of time to sleep in this weekend, but then we went into our last week in Chile full swing! My restful weekend included more time at the mall and my first ever manicure. I love how my nails look, but the broke college student in me will certainly be painting my own nails next time. On Sunday, me and my host family met the extended family at a barbecue restaurant that was probably the food highlight of my trip. The barbecue restaurants in Chile bring out platters with hot coals resting under a plate of potatoes covered in a variety of slabs of meat. They place the sizzling plates in the middle of the table and everyone reaches across with their fork for their choice of chicken, steak, or pork. It was incredible. The potatoes sit beneath to catch all of the meat drippings, and I ate quite a few of them.

Piles of meat ft. my host sister Cata and my host mom Pamela

Josefa and I went from lunch to the mall again to watch a band from the school compete in a battle of the bands, or as they said when trying to translate it for me, a "rock fight." Hearing Chileans sing a variety of english music in their accents was wonderful and the band from Colegio Concepcion ended up winning.

On Monday Kate and I went to Carla's university, the Universidad Andrés Bello. We talked to the english education students about LSU, differences in Chile and the US, food, and whatever else they could think of. While we were there, I felt my first ever earthquake! It was a 5.7 with an epicenter about 2 hours away, and being on the third floor of the building, we could feel it really well. The students saw my eyes light up and told me not to worry, assuming that I was scared, to which I promptly yelled, "No! I'm excited! This is my first one!" They all laughed at me a bit and told me it wasn't much of an earthquake for them. They did seem to get a little more worried when it wouldn't stop for a while and told me to follow them if we had to evacuate, but it should be fine. It stopped eventually and we went on with our english discussion.

The next day we drove out through the mountains along dirt roads to a K-6 school that had only 11 students. The area around the school had been ravaged by the recent wildfires, which gave the tree planting we were doing there extra, tangible meaning. It was a lot of fun romping around in the freezing cold with the kids as they ran to kick dirt into the holes, plant the trees, and put up bunny guards. One of the kids I was working with, Sam, spoke excellent english for his age and was an expert stick finder.



It was definitely hard to believe that my time in Chile was coming to an end, especially with how hectic the last days were. We went to another barbecue restaurant with our teachers for an awesome dinner and then had a barbecue the next day at the mason lodge, complete with pisco sours and karaoke. My flight out was that afternoon, so I had to miss out on most of the karaoke and the english song festival. I was really disappointed to miss them, and I know I'll really miss Concepcion and tall of the incredible people I met there when the chaos of travel settles down. The whole trip was such an incredible experience and I'm so grateful to have been able to go.

My awesome host family. I miss y'all already!