Nun-ing it up in Punta Arenas.

I’m the newest member of the teaching staff at Liceo Maria Auxiliadora, a semi-private all girls’ catholic school here in Punta Arenas. It should go without saying that I never thought I’d be able to say I work at a catholic school...but here I am.

When I first met my host teacher, Patricia, and I told her that I was from California she said, “Oh, the girls will be soooo excited.” At that moment, I felt immediate relief. My gut had been telling me that I’d get high school students. Big, rude high school students. I don’t know why...that’s just what the gut said. I suppose I was half right being that the school is K-12 so I will have at least a couple high school classes. But all girls? Really? I’m definitely not underestimating the challenge that managing a class of kids is, but girls HAVE to be easier to deal with than boys.

With this in mind, I arrived on Tuesday morning for my first day. I met Patricia out in front and she immediately took me to the principal’s office. As I walked into the office, I looked up and saw a tiny nun that has to be pushing 75 smiling at me. I shouldn’t have been surprised to see a nun there but I was. She was very nice (are they really allowed to be mean?) and decided to try speaking Italian when she realized I didn’t understand her Spanish. Unfortunately, I studied even less Italian than Spanish so we were left to just smile while Patricia translated for us. Her name is Sor Rina. Later that day, I mentioned her name but pronounced it ‘Sorina’. Many of you probably aren’t aware of the implications of this simple mistake...I certainly wasn’t. Patricia delicately explained that rolling the R sound when pronouncing it made all the difference. She didn’t give me details but I asked a guy I met later that day what it actually meant. Now my grandmother reads this blog so I’m going to have to keep it PG and completely scientific when I explain that ‘Sorina’ translates to...vagina. If I’m not careful when speaking, I will call a 75 year old nun a vagina. (shout out to my GMa, by the way. Love you!)

I’ve been able to visit quite a few different classes of varying grades and I’ve been really impressed by what I’ve found. The girls are incredibly well behaved and mild mannered. I’m sure the group of nuns and strict teachers have a lot to do with it. In any case, it really should help me help the students. I can spend my time actually making progress instead of wasting time getting kids in their seats. I’ve been equally impressed by the resources the school has available for me to use as well. The school itself owns 10 laptops with projectors that can be checked out using an intranet system. They also have 4 SMART Boards, which are projectors that allow the teacher to use a special pen to actually interact with what’s being projected. From what I hear about other schools in the country from fellow volunteers, I’m very lucky. They’ve given me my own room as well. It’s the old science lab so it has all kinds of aged equipment in unlocked glass cases that line the walls. I asked if there would be any problems with the students playing with anything and Patricia told me not to worry about it. She then walked to the other side of the room where there were cases filled with all kinds of chemicals and powders and said “Don’t worry. We lock the dangerous stuff.” So who knows? Maybe I’ll be able to add getting a chemical burn to the list of firsts while here in Chile.

Now as you may imagine, I kind of stand out at school. There are a couple other male teachers but they’re much older so the girls do get somewhat distracted when I walk by. Luckily, I’ve been stared at so much over the last two weeks that it really doesn’t bother me anymore. My walks through the halls are filled with “Meeester, Meeester...Hi!” I’ll take those kinds of exchanges instead of whispers any day. As I’ve had the opportunity to visit more individual classes and even lead a couple lessons, the “Meeester, Meeester” in the halls is turning into “Tio! Tio! Hola!”, which is quite charming. I’m glad I didn’t have to find out my sister got pregnant in order to start being called Tio. It was a life goal of mine.

I’m really looking forward to the experience of working with these students and teachers for the next 8 months. I have a lot to learn but much more to teach.