Last Words For Awhile

It has now been 3 weeks since my last blog post, and I can accredit that to an assortment of things. In the past three weeks I have experienced a Chilean Dia de Los Muertos, climbed a volcano in Pucon, crossed the Andes in to Patagonian Argentina, gone fishing in the ocean, played several games of soccer with my students, and have simply just tried to soak up every last bit of life here in Los Alamos. My last “official” day here in Los Alamos will be next Tuesday, and with only a few days left, my list of things to do before I leave has been growing and growing every day. One of the things on the list is a quick blog post, especially since I don’t know when Ill be able to make another one.

Teachers Strike = More Traveling 

Currently, the majority of Chilean schools are not in session due to a teachers strike that has been going on since the 25th of October. The strike is the result of a 30 year debt that the government owes to the teachers union but still has not paid. Regardless of the confusing details of the strike, my school was on strike for the first two weeks of the strike, which was essentially like a 2 week vacation for me. During those two weeks, I spent time relaxing around my house with my family, and I also took a few short trips to a city named Pucon, as well as across the boarder into Argentina to Bariloche, San Martin de Los Andes, and El Bolson. Ill let the photos do the talking for these places.

For awhile, I was worried that our school would be on strike until the end of my service here, but about two weeks ago the teachers at our school decided to stop striking, and continue with classes. This made me very happy as I now have the opportunity to wrap up some last things with my students as well as the opportunity to say goodbye to my students, but some of the other volunteers have not been so lucky. My school is one of only a few public schools in all of Chile that has classes right now, so many of the volunteers will be leaving next Tuesday without being able to say goodbye to their students.

View of the Andes from El Bolson, Argentina

From Volcan Villarica in Pucon

Volcan Villarica, Pucon

My kindergarten class

Saying My Goodbyes

With my last official day here in Los Alamos being next Tuesday, I have been slowly saying my goodbyes and preparing myself for leaving this incredible town that has accepted me as one of their own. I have been visiting all of my classes that I have right now as well as the classes that I had before to give them all gifts, and to say thank you and goodbye. After each speech I give, the students often start yelling “Don’t go Mr. Matt! Please don’t go!”. These visits have really made me feel good about the work that I have been doing here over the past four months. On one of my visits, a student stood up and gave about a 4-5 minutes speech about how great of an experience it was to have classes with me, about the importance of English in our world, how lucky they are to have classes with a native speaker, and about how much they loved my class. I know it sounds super sappy, but it was truly a special moment for me.

Today, after giving some students their final exams, I returned to their main classroom to give them their gifts and I arrived to a surprise going away party! The students had gone out and bought food and drinks to celebrate our last class together. It was pretty cool. 

More Travels Ahead

I have to say, I am one lucky guy. Over the next 2 months I am going to have three incredibly important people come to visit me for some travels. On November 27th, my brother Steve and my dad will be arriving in Santiago for about a two week visit. We plan to make a stop in Los Alamos so that they can see where I have been living for the past 4 months, and then we are heading down to Patagonia to do some backpacking for about a week.

I then plan to return to Los Alamos to spend Christmas with my host family, and on January 1st, my girlfriend Bridget Marie arrives in Santiago for about a 10-day visit. We plan to head north to La Serena and the surrounding area where the beaches are pristine and the view of the southern hemispheric stars are some of the best in the entire world! I cant explain how excited I am for these trips.

An Unmarked Path

Ahead of me is an unpaved and unmarked path with a several question marks. When I arrived in Chile, I had planned to teach until the end of November, then do some traveling for about a month and then return to the United States. I have recently made the decision to extend my stay here in Chile and South America until sometime in May of 2010! This has been an incredibly difficult decision to make, but this is one of those once in a lifetime experiences that I just couldn’t pass up.

I am not exactly sure where the next several months will take me, but Im sure they will be great. The next school year doesn’t start until the beginning of next March, so until then, I will be traveling around Chile, Argentina and Peru, taking intensive Spanish classes, and possibly volunteering as a farm hand on a potato farm in rural Chile. Who knows what lies ahead? Either way, I am greatly looking forward to the adventures I have ahead of me.


So… at this point, I don’t know when I will have the opportunity to make another blog post. Could be around Christmas time, or may not be until the middle of January. I guess we will just have to wait and see. Until then, I hope all of you are happy and well. Please send me your comments or send me an email just to say “Hi!”. I would love to hear from you.