Analog Time Sand

Well I forgot to mention that Chile has “sprung forward” one hour. Currently we are two hours ahead of CDT (one hour ahead of EDT). When USA time “falls back” there will be an additional hour in between the USA and Chile.

time - is marching on
and time - is still marching on

this day will soon be at an end
and now it’s even sooner
and now it’s even sooner
and now it’s even sooner

this day will soon be at an end
and now it’s even sooner
and now it’s sooner still
(From TMBG - Older)

IMGP3515

Well it happened over a week ago, but I may as well let the world know. My television set has died.

Several friends came over to hang out on a Saturday night and they brought their Gamecube in hand. While I was cooking some grilled beef sandwiches, I heard a yelp, and glanced over to see the TV tip forward and smash to bits on the floor. The floor is ok. There was a small electrical fire inside and in the smoke I saw a little tri-colored dot matrix soul dissipate in the air.

Oh well. I don’t have cable.

After our Bible study tonight, several of us stayed at the church building to watch the Chile - Perú soccer match. As you can see, Chile won (which is great in the face of a loss to Argentina, of course, on Saturday). I was in charge of the food and ended up buying WAY TOO much. Well, at least we have plenty for next week. Thank God for freezers.

Wednesday was the birthday of Perla, one of the university students; and Friday was Scott’s birthday. Wednesday we celebrated egg-free, Perla is allergic, with some delicious ice cream. Today we celebrated Scott’s birthday with an asado. Remember my dieciocho post? Chileans love bbqs; and I do too. It was quite good. I’ll let the photos do the talking. I finally loaded some. Enjoy.

Last Sunday was a gathering of local churches to celebrate Fiestas Patrias, as I mentioned previously, worshiping together and with an ASADO! Woo! It was superb. Choripan (sausage in a roll) by the dozen! I love Chilean asados almost as much as Brazilian BBQ. I saw Melissa and Manuel Soto and their little new baby. I find myself saying to babies “Dame un beshito.” Rocío is to blame for that. That afternoon I headed out with Scott, Holly, and their kids to southern Chile. We had a good time. Scott can talk, so long car rides are perfect for some good discussion. He also has pretty good taste in music. We stayed the night at Salto del Laja.

The next day we went to Temuco to meet up with an old youth from the church that moved there with his family, Jean (’Jon’) Franco. Oh man, his mom made some excellent pino empanadas. Delicious! We hung out for a few hours and then took off to Trailanqui.

A typical day at Trailanqui was: waking up to a typical Chilean breakfast, a small devotional with the families, some activity with the kids, a round of disc golf, lunch, maybe more disc golf or kite flying or something, hanging with Mark and Jeff, card/dominoes games, devo prior to dinner, dinner, goodnight kids, then more games, bed. Yeah. It was fun. Sprinkle in an evening of prayer, two massages, Rook, Boggle, and Farkle - you’ve got a superb retreat.

We came back Friday. We listened to The Muppet Show, Paul Simon, that girl the sings “Put Your Record On,” and I think that was it. Oh we painted the youth room upstairs and installed some shelves in the intern office Saturday. Fun stuff.

Saltos del Laja

I came down to the retreat site with Scott and Holly Emery. A bit, over half the trip to the south we stopped at Salto del Laja. Salto del Laja is a waterfall in the eighth region of Chile, north of the town of Los Angeles. It’s a spectacular gem off the highway and was quite calming to fall asleep to. Our hotel room was probably 100 feet from the falling water.

The 18 of September is the day Chile celebrates their independence, it’s patria. It is the equivalent to Fourth of July. Celebrations usually last a week, some schools are out for two! Along with Christmas, it is one of the most important times of the year for Chileans.

It’s a great time of the year. Chileans seem to be happier and friendlier, not to say that they are not friendly people. I love it because we get together with some of the other congregations of Santiago and have a BIG BBQ. Choripan, pebre, and pollo asado, can I say more? It’s a wonderful time to fellowship.

What’s funny about Fiestas Patrias? Well, all apartment buildings have flag poles and Chilean law requires that the Chilean flag be flown during the dieciocho season. Odd.

Well the mission team is taking advantage of the holiday and going on a week long retreat to the south. Should be fun.

Feliz fiestas patrias!

Falling back in to place in my Chilean life was not so hard. I am in the same apartment working with the same people, so it’s not so difficult to hop back in the groove of things. Of course, it was a change of weather - it’s still a bit cool most of the days, but if the sun comes out it warms up nicely. It’s a bit like Texas in weather change sometimes - morning:cold, afternoon:warm, evening:cool.

I have a friend in town already. Well, that is, he’s here on business. Erich is my sister’s husband’s sister’s husband. As Erich said, If you told someone you were hanging out with your brother-in-law’s brother-in-law, it would sound as if you were just hanging out with yourself - loser! It’s been good getting to know him more since Meredith and Kelly wedded. His wife and he have two cute children. He’s been out of the country for going on three weeks now. Not easy I am sure being away from the family that long. Makes me think of my dad’s time on TDY in foreign places when I was younger. You miss him and are excited when he comes back with interesting stuff from abroad.

Yesterday was an excellent day. It was a long day, but an extraordinary day. The Deans, one of the five missionary families, announced their decision to return to the USA in March. It was impressive to hear Mark say, “No volvemos a nuestro hogar, porque no es nuestro hogar. Aquí, Chile es nuestro hogar. (We do not return home, because it (USA) is not home. Here, Chile is our home. That was quite an emotional time for many of the congregation - many tears. Afterwards, as we always do, the jóvenes (young people) lunch together and then we headed to a local children’s home on the other side of town called Luz de Cristo to make decorations and decorate the home for upcoming Fiestas Patrias or Dieciocho or Fiestas Dieciocheras or Celebraciones de la Chilenidad or whatever you want to call it. More to come as the holiday approaches. It was great fun playing and making the decorations with the kids. Afterwards we played a little Guitar Hero where I rocked out on Ballroom Blitz. Scott, one of the missionaries, did a pretty good job too. I thought he would crash. In the evening I was able to see Federer win the US Open and with all the male missionaries watch the Cowboys game - not my favorite thing to do, but it was a good to hang out together.

Mondays are my days off. So after bumming around at the apartment all day, I got out and bought some groceries. More importantly I carried them home in my cloth bags brought all the way with me so I don’t have to tote my groceries around in plastic. Plastic bags suck!

And at the moment, I am watching the Dean and Hatcher kids while they’re out dining with friends in town. Pride and Prejudice is on in the background.

Cheers.

The infinitive of the past participle “committed” is “commit.” And that’s what I am going to do.

¤ I commit to keep you updated through this blog.
¤ I commit to update this blog as often as possible.
¤ I commit to say more than just what is happening wherever I may be.
¤ I commit to be open and upfront.

These I submit to you, valued reader of garrett.wisch.org.

On that note,

I am now in Santiago, Chile. The last time I flew Delta, I was a small child and, honestly, no impressed (my childish intuition). But my goodness, although delayed, it went well. For a company that is recently restructured after two years in bankruptcy, they dish out the amenities on their passengers. No less, the ticket was cheaper than any other airline. American Airlines, I love you, but I may be converted.

Written quite a while back…

Much has happened since Buenos Aires. I mean A LOT!

BA

We had a pleasant stay in Buenos Aires. Honestly the place is a superb place to visit, but the people are so hard and cold, it would be a difficult city to live in, even less to work in. But it was a good stay and we were warmly welcomed and sent on to Chile.

BA Airport (from Hell)

We arrived at the Buenos Aires International Airport and ended up staying seven hours to get to the front of the line to be told we were not flying, slept four hours in a nice hotel on the main avenue of BA, 9 de Julio (all on Aerolíneas Argentinas’ buck), arrived at the airport around 5A to wait 14 hours for our 7:30A flight to Santiago. Oh the joys of world travel.

Santiago

Well because of the delays with the airline we missed the retreat we were going to start our time off in Santiago. Our first week was visiting a local private school, St. Gabriel’s, to do language and cultural exchanges with classes, i.e. telling who we are and the playing games for two hours. Well to make it short, our time in St. Gabe’s went very well. Our second week was focused on visiting university campuses to meet students interested in English study. We invited those we met in the daytime to activities we had in the evenings. Lot’s of fun - balloon soccer, most disgusting pizza contest, etc. Good fun.

We also had times of play in Chile. Skiing, AFCSA vs. missionaries soccer, a flop of a 42 tourney, El Oasis, sight seeing, trip to Valparaiso/Viña del Mar. Great fun. Chile was fantastic.

Cochabamba

We had the opportunity on the flight in to go in to La Paz, the highest capital city in the world, for lunch before catching our next flight to Cochabamba. We were received well by the team there. We worked on several small work projects and passed out some flyers near the church. It was a great place to transition back in to the return to Texas - more freedom and warmer weather.

AFCSA was superb and all who went, received us, supported us are very much thanked by me for making it a top-notch trip.