This morning I woke up in Valparaiso with plans of hitting the produce market, heading home, grabbing my immigration documents, and booking it back to Valpo for round two of the Extranjeria before starting new classes and teaching existing ones until 8:30pm. That sounds like quite a day already... and then it became Chilean. By this, I mean that my carefully organized plans were totally screwed over by the working style of this country.
9:45am. I'm just finishing up at the market and I get a call from my boss.
Boss: Hi Allison!
Allie:.... Hi. (apprehensively.... knowing that when the boss calls rather than the secretary, things are likely in hysterics and I am certainly going to be dragged into it.)
Boss: So, I sent you a really important e-mail in the middle of the night. Did you have a chance to read it yet?
Allie: No.
Boss: Oh, well... I'm leaving the office at 11:00 and it would be great if we had a chance to catch up before then.
Allie: Alright, I'll be right in. (thinking: you don't pay me enough to have me on call 24 hours a day)
10:15am. I arrive at the office, arms filled with bags of tomatoes, cauliflower, and kiwis. Boss sits me down and explains that she really needs me to take on more classes, which I had agreed to do if she could alter my schedule so that I am not working between the hours of 8am and 8:30 pm most days in the week, as I am now. She explains that at this time, she can't change my schedule, but she would really appreciate it if I took on the new classes and she would have my schedule sorted out by the end of next week. I apprehensively agreed to this. Then she said that she might not have it figured out until the end of next month.
I was then asked if I could go with her and a group of other teachers to check out the classrooms at TPS, a port management company where one of my new classes was, at 11.... since my first class starts tomorrow at 8:00am. At this point, its 10:30, I start a new class in a building that I've never been to before at 1:00, I'm wearing clothes that I've worn all weekend, I have none of the teaching materials that I need for the day, and I have 5 kilos of fresh fruits and vegetables scattered around my feet. Because I am so dedicated to the teaching of the English language, I ran home and back within half an hour, and somehow managed to clean myself up and ditch the veggies.
11:00am. I arrive back at the office, out of breath. Of course, I'm the first teacher there. After waiting 20 minutes, the other two have trickled in and we are ready to go.
11:45am. We arrive at the port. At this point there is lots of talking in Spanish and I am too cranky to try to (or want to) understand it. For some reason we are all piled into a van and driven about 100 feet, then are taken into a building. More Spanish, more Allie not paying attention and then Boss tells me that she made a mistake, and that they actually don't have a class for me to teach there. Ooops!
As we are leaving TPS, some handsomely overweight fellow says "Hey pretty ladies." in English. Boss and Chilean teacher promptly turn around and start telling us how careful we must be at TPS because at TPS men might make comments like this to us..... I found this to be a strange warning, because this clearly happens to every white girl everywhere on this continent.
12:00pm. Leaving the port.
Boss: Pobrecita!!!! You look like you need a hot chocolate.
Allie nods and lets boss put her arm around her shoulder.
During our surprise attack/meeting that morning I had reluctantly agreed to take on 7 new hours of classes per week, all of which start this week. I knew nothing about the students, the locations, or the materials that I was going to be given/had to produce on my own. On top of this, I had another new class starting at 1:30 which she still hadn't provided the promised materials for. On top of that, I already had a full schedule. If I was a normal girl, I would have felt like crying, but since I have the tendency to be overly aggressive, I felt like drinking her hot chocolate and punching her.
12:30pm. New classes had been discussed, hot chocolate had been sipped, and croissants had been munched. There were no punching incidents and I felt much better.
Who knows what tomorrow holds for my schedule..... or lack of schedule. Still, I feel better now.
Besos,
Allie
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