Thursday, April 3, 2014

Saturday, March 22

Today Sally and I woke up around 10 and then took turns taking showers before getting ready to go to the meeting we had scheduled for 11 with all the 5 exchange families in Rancagua. Sally and I went in collectivo and met my mom and the rest of the parents and kids at the restaurant. We were there to discuss the family changes. Basically, no one wanted to change except Sally and I, and they were so hell bent on not changing that although I didn’t want to go to Sally’s house and be the only child again, we had already agreed to just switch houses between us and not even involve ourselves in all the drama with Nigel, Katie H, and Katie W’s families. We all sat down and the moms started to debate all about the changes and whether they were necessary and whether there was a way to get out of them and how Monchito our counselor had totally dropped the ball and if he had just changed us all in December like he was supposed to none of this would have happened. We ended up calling Monchito and he told us that we should all have another meeting in the same restaurant that night with him. So we all left, and Sally and I went back to my house to eat a quick lunch and go back over to my cousins’ house for Laurie’s birthday party. We helped decorate for a little while, and then little girls started arriving, and Sally, Vale, and I were put in charge of painting everyone’s nails.
We painted a bunch of little girls’ nails with all the awesome nail supplies Nancy has, and then we painted each others’ nails too. We sat around and talked to the adults and watched the little kids swim in the pool. Then around 6:30 we sang Happy Birthday and had cake, and immediately after, Nancy, Sally, and I had to leave to go to the Rotary meeting.
We got there at 7 and then everyone sat around waiting for about 20 minutes before Monchito arrived. He sat down and basically told us that no matter what, everyone had to change. Sally and I were calm, and the rest burst out yelling about all the complications that the change would bring to their families and that it wasn’t worth it anyway because we would all be going home in a little over 3 months. The main concern was how each family would drive the exchange student to a different school (because we’re all in different schools) in the morning without making their own kids late. It really is pretty complicated because we all live so far apart and the schools are all so far out of the way. After about an hour and a half we figured out a possibility, and Monchito left. Then, all the moms got together and started thinking of ways to lie to Rotary and say that they’d changed without actually changing. Katie H didn’t like that idea because it meant that if Rotary found out they were lying, they would all be sent immediately home to their countries. Around 9, I had to leave to go to a party, but they all stayed talking until later, so I don’t know what they finally decided to do. Nancy drove me over to the Fusat, which is outside my cousins’ community, and she dropped me off to wait there for Fernanda to come pick me up and take me to the party. I felt a little awkward waiting alone in the dark on the side of the road without a cell phone, but I did it. Fernanda came like 20 minutes later and we went to the party. It was a birthday party for a girl in the year below us, so there were a lot of people there that I didn’t know. It didn’t matter though because they were all really nice and the party was open bar (I do not know how a girl turning 17 gets away with an open bar party but whatever) so everyone was in the mood to talk. I basically stayed with Fernanda the whole time. We talked to a few different groups, and then when Katie got there a while later, we went in and danced for a while. Then we went outside and talked to a whole bunch of people and I actually ended up meeting a lot of cool people and having a really great time. My mom picked me up at 3, and we went home and I drank some tea because my throat was killing me and then went straight to bed.

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