Whoa

So, It´s sort of been a while. And, I have a TON of work that I should be doing. Therefore, settle in and get comfotable, because this will probably be long. :) So, the last you´ve heard, I went camping. It was so much fun. Imagine a smallish island, then add a few craters, a TON of Moai, a couple Rapa Nui Romeos (the male islanders who happen to appreciate the gringas), amazing beaches, and 16 gringos. That would be a pretty good description of our week. On my favorite day, we rented a ¨family van¨ and drove to all of the famous Moai platforms and visited a pink sand beach. Then we made up the rest of the food that we had left and had a big dinner, family style. So here we are in our family van:

And a group shot of us reading about the Moai. See, we even made the vacation educational! :) Apparently the Japanese helped fund the restoration of one of the platforms.

So that was Easter Island in a nutshell. The next big event, aside from school and studying and tests of course...was Halloween. It´s not really celebrated here, but we had a gringo costume party. I was an angel, ¡claropo! Nothing super exciting. I followed it up with some more studying, homework, tests, and papers.

We left for a city called Pucón on Thursday night. It´s about a 12 hour bus rideto the south, so we arrived early morning Friday. There were a bunch of activites planned for us to learn about the Mapuche culture. It´s the largest surviving native culture here in Chile and was exciting to learn about live...they gave us food... On Saturday I went whitewater rafting in the morning. Class 3 - 3.5 rapids, nothing too thrilling, just enough to get you a little damp. Then I went horseback riding through the lower parts of a volcano, beautiful scenery. And...they let me gallop...I´ve never been before. I ended my day at the hospital. One of my friends here had gotten sick, and she couldn´t keep anything down. The problem is, she´s allergic to sugar, so if we let her get too dehydrated, we couldn´t give her any of the normal juices and mixtures and such. So we went to hospital thinking it would just be a quick visit. It turned out that she had a gastrointestinal infection and needed to spend the night. So we did. She´s much better and home resting now, but it turned out to be a little bit of drama. And I´m fine, we think it was from a virus she caught earlier and then the stress of this month brought it out. So, Sunday I was exhausted all day but we went on a tour of the region followed by a long stay at the hot springs. Lovely! Not so lovely was teh bus ride back. Another 12 hours to arrive at 7:30am on a Monday morning followed by a full day of classes. Asi es la vida.

Let´s see, other goings on in my life...I´ve been spending a lot more time with my youth group here. We recently had some people from Texas here and they had some Michigan connections, and anyway, the talk turned to football, and it came out that one of the guys is an Ohio State fan. And so I will be receiving a humbled e-mail after the game. Which I unfotunatly am not able to watch.

Ok, I think I can head out now. I´ve spent enough time not doing what I should be doing. It is late for me, and I need to catch up on my sleep. Oh, and prayer request. So it´s taked me probably about two and a half hours to write this because I was mostly chatting with a friend of mine here, Lizzie, who will be returning with me next semester. She is very liberal, and very open about her beliefs with me, and they do not include Christianity. She knows that I´m a Christian though, and we´ve actually been able to talk about it some. Her experience with Christians hasn´t been great, so we were talking mostly about forgivness. Anyway, just pray that I can be the witness that she needs to see right now the next time you get a chance. And now...I will be going to bed!

Paula