Friday, April 25

Today was a great Friday.

Nice little note my friend Pablo left on my desk... here, writing on the desks in completely normal and not even a punishable offense. The teachers see us writing and don't say anything, and because of that the desks are all completely trashed on the inside and the out. The weird thing though is that they don't have hardly any gum under them. 

After school, I went home for a little while, and then took a micro all the way from my house in the middle of nowhere to Katie W’s house in Machali. It was about a 45 minute long bus ride, but at least it was direct and I didn’t have to change buses! We hung out at Katie’s house for a little while before taking another micro down to the Tottus (a grocery store nearby) where we met up with Rosario and she drove us over to Mery’s house. We hung out there for a while and made pancakes for dinner. We ate them with manjar because Katie forgot the maple syrup, but it was still a fantastically gringo dinner. I had a lot of fun with those three because although Mery and Rosario are in my school, we don’t hang out at school, so it had been a while since I’d really caught up with them. Around 8:30, Rosario drove me back to the Tottus so I could get a micro home. It was already dark, and walking along the main road was a little sketchy, especially after the two rapes that have happened in the last month here in Machali. I got into the first micro that passed by and asked if my house was on its route. The driver said no, but that he could take me to a place where I could get that micro, so I got in. The one other woman that was on the micro got off, leaving me alone with the driver on the big bus. On the way we talked, and I told him about how much I love exchange and all the great places I’ve been to in Chile. He drove way out into this part of Machali that I don’t know, and then stopped on a corner and told me to get out and wait for the micro to pass that will take me directly to my house. I waited for a little while on the corner, but there was almost no one around on the streets and I felt very vulnerable, so I decided to hail one of the collectivos and ask if they could take me to another, less dangerous place. I called the first one I saw, and as I was leaning in the window to ask where he was going, this large man with his shirt unbuttoned down pretty far came up to me and told me not to get in the collectivo because it wouldn’t take me where  I wanted to go. I was so scared that I almost jumped into the collectivo to get away from him before he laughed because I didn’t recognize him and told me he was the micro driver that I had been talking to. He had parked the micro at the corner and come to wait with me. A scary situation was quickly turned into more proof that Chileans are such good people. He waited and continued talking to me and smoking his cigarette until my micro came, and then he put me in it and told the driver where to take me. I got home around 9:30 safe and sound. Sally and Lilian got home around the same time, so we all sat down to eat once together before going to drop Sally off at her house. Lilian and I arrived home at like 11, and then I showered, packed up my stuff for the Rotary function I had tomorrow, and went to sleep around midnight.