Bracelets! Also, Leaving Campus in a Hurry

Last week started out pretty normal and relaxed.  Life here is starting to feel like life in the States, just in Spanish.    Monday, we tried to meet with girls we had talked to the week before and we got lunch with them, but we didn't get to talk long before they had to leave for class.  Continuing the comparison shots from this school, here's last Monday's church picture.  Here are all of them with the earliest on the right.

Last week, the pollution wasn't as bad as when we first arrived, but still not air I'm really happy breathing.

Tuesday, we had a table set up to have students make bracelets for orphans that we're going to go visit next week.  The plan is to spend a few afternoons at a local orphanage and help however is needed.  The bracelets are going to be gifts for the kids, but also a good way to get people interested in helping.  It took a while to explain this to almost everyone who stopped by, because most of them thought we were selling the bracelets to support the orphanage, but we got a bunch made, so it was a good day.

The girl on the right made about 15 bracelets (out of the 45 we made that day)

That night, a bunch of us went to dinner at a vegetarian restaurant so the vegetarian in our group could eat something other than a salad for once.  It was a little expensive, but really good.  I had eggplant gratin, which was basically ratatouille with lots of melted cheese on top.  We walked there and back, so it was a very healthy night all around, one of the few I feel like I've had.  I walk a lot here, but every meal has so much bread and very few  vegetables, so it's definitely not the healthiest I've ever eaten.

Things got much more exciting on Thursday.  We went to Universidad Alberto Hurtado, which was the most liberal school we visit, taking one of the other girls in the group with us because all of the schools she works at were protesting.  There were tons of students there and almost immediately after we got there, they left to march down the main street.

There weren't lots of people left, but enough for us to stay on campus, so we decided to wait for Isaías and talked and took pictures while we waited, as seen below.

The República Group

The main gates were closed to keep out protesters

We started doing evangelism once he arrived, and had lunch soon after.  We had planned on going over to the building where the English club is held and talking to people there before it started, but just as we were finishing lunch, Nathan, our team leader who was there to meet with Derek, came and told us that the police had set off a lot of pepper spray and we needed to leave.  We cancelled English Club, but weren't able to get a hold of people until we returned to the hostel, so several came anyway.  It was rather lucky that the protests were last week and not any of the others, because one of the staff members who helps with the clubs uses a wheelchair, so it would have been hard to leave quickly if she had come.  The pepper spray was really strong, but everyone had scarves to cover our mouths and noses to limit the exposure.  The protest had finished by the time we left, but we saw a lot of graffiti, broken glass, and the police were still around.  We all got back to the hostel safely, although sneezing a lot.

For campus outreach Friday, we went to UNAB, because it was one of the few universities our team has been working at (out of about 8) that wasn't striking.  Even then, there was a march through the campus.

Friday night, we had a Christmas party for the girls we've met here, because it's getting into winter and there has to be Christmas in winter.  Everyone we told was a little confused about this, but a lot of people came anyway.  There are Crusade staff members from the States, Germany, Mexico, and Chile, so we had traditional foods from each and a presentation of the Christmas traditions.  We also watched the first 20 minutes of "It's a Wonderful Life" in Spanish, which was a little hard to follow.  I didn't feel too bad because the native speakers said they had problems following it, too.  The party was lots of fun, and a few of the women from República came, so we got a chance to spend more time with them, which was great.

Within the next day or two, I'm going to try to get up to date and post stuff about our trip to Valparaiso, which was lots of fun, so get excited!