Today on my way to class I happened to leave my house at the exact same time as a girl  across the street. We were practically walking side by side for a few minutes when I decided to utilize my Spanish and start up a conversation. Her name is Sandra, she's very friendly, studies something involving pharmacies, and we have a mutual friend in common! Plus, she will be at the Un Techo Para Chile construction thing this weekend, so I'll see her there too. I feel really good about the fact that even though I won't be with any of the other exchange students at the construction, I'll go into it knowing a handful of people. 

For my class on Chilean culture we took a tour of Valdivia to get a feel for the city as a whole. I realized that I live in conditions that are above the norm...and feel really spoiled now when I think back on when I first arrived and felt like I was camping a little. It was just because the house seemed so cold all the time, and I only had hot water when I fired up the water heater for my shower. Now of course I am completely used to it, and it makes sense to only heat hot water when it is needed or put on a sweater instead of crank up the heat for the entire house. During our tour we went to the campamentos and walked around to get a sense of what life there would be like. To get electricity, the residents fasten wires to the main telephone cables and feed off of the main supply without paying for it. Technically they are stealing the electricity from the city, but no one brings it up because it seems heartless to leave this community without something as basic as lights in their homes. A lot of the houses don't have bathrooms, there are just communal outhouses with big holes inside. I can't even imagine what it would be like to live there my entire life. As challenging as Un Techo Para teaching thing is for me, I think it is really good to put myself in that kind of environment on a consistent basis. 

I had my conversation Spanish class today, which I always enjoy because the subject matter is so applicable to my life right now it's not even funny. Three Chileans studying English with our same professor joined our class today to chat with us and spice things up a bit. The whole time, I was thinking how cool it would be if I did the same thing in an English class here at the university. When I talked to the teacher about it afterwards he seemed really excited so hopefully that will work out. It would be a great way to meet more people and help out, since native English speakers are harder to come by in Chile.