April 13th, 2011-

To add to the menagerie, today we crossed a pack of (seemingly) wild mountain goats.

We made it to our first volunteering class today. Unfortunately we were asked not to take photos of the students (and post them on the internet), many of whom were ex-political prisoners, for the sake of their safety and the safety of their families (many of whom are still in China-controlled Tibet). But I did manage to snap a photo of some instructional role-playing by the other volunteers—in this case, two blokes from Scotland and Ireland—with the wonderful volunteer teacher Amanda, from England.

Brenna was still feeling nauseous. Even plain white rice and a banana lassi wouldn’t go down.

The traveler who shared our dinner table was a woman from Chile named Macarena (“yes, like the dance”) who just finished medical school. She had three months off to travel the world before getting psychiatry training and starting full-time work in Santiago. We chatted for an hour. It felt great to use my Spanish again, like the first run weeks after a marathon (i.e. the Unschool Adventures South America trip).