Friday, October 11

Today was Friday, but it was a really stressful day at school because they had two tests. First period we had history, and I took the test. I had been planning to study, but since I got home so late last night I didn’t have time, and I didn’t do very well on the test. I don’t know if I’ve made this comment before, but learning history in another country is incredibly interesting. When we learn in the US, it is always about how the US intervened in one country or another for the good of our country and for the good of the world. However, not all countries or people believe that the US has such noble intentions. In the Chilean presidential election of 1970, the CIA secretly donated large sums of money to the candidate from the right to ensure that socialist Allende wouldn’t win. Once he did win, the CIA continued to fund parties from the opposition to ensure that Allende’s government would be a failure. It seems to me that Chileans view this meddling as uncalled for and they resent the US for sticking our nose where we don’t belong. It is the same history we learn in the US, but with a very different spin. The rest of the day passed uneventfully, except that I ditched Language class after lunch to go watch a movie with Katie’s class (they had Philosophy and even though I had already seen the movie with my class, I was not in the mood to go to Language). I really like the girls in Katie’s class. They are always so sweet and eager to talk to me.

After school, I came home to meet our aunt and uncle from Brazil who were staying with us only for the afternoon because they had a flight to catch back to Brazil. My aunt speaks Spanish, but my uncle speaks less than I do. It was nice not to be the only one who didn’t understand everything, and we basically spent the whole time teaching each other phrases in Portuguese, Spanish, and English and trying to communicate between the three languages. It was really cool to talk to them and actually be able to understand a little Portuguese (because it’s kind of similar to Spanish). After they left, I Skyped with Cristobal for a while, and then Maxi and I watched the Chile soccer game. We Skyped Cristobal and he watched the game over Skype because it wasn’t on TV in the US.

To qualify for the world cup, they just had to win this game. At the end of the first half, they were up 3-0, but in the second half, Colombia came back and tied the game 3-3. Now Chile has to win their last game on Tuesday against Ecuador to qualify. Everyone was heartbroken when they lost. After the game, my friend Jose (the one I met through Rotary who went on exchange two years in a row) picked me up and we went over to his house. We went for a walk around his neighborhood, and he told me really great stories about his exchanges. I really like talking to him. Then we went upstairs and he played me some music on his guitar. We chose a movie and sat down to watch it.  Around 1, he asked his dad to drive me home. I got home super late and went straight to bed without even taking my makeup off.