Bienvenidos a Lautaro, Chile!

I'm in Lautaro, living with the los Torres. Hernan and Deisi live with their son Pablo, daughter Nico, a 16-year-old German exchange student, Marje, my sister Nicole and bro-in-law Gene. Pablo's girlfriend, Barbara stays over on the weekends, but lives in Temuco.


Now I'm sleeping on their living room floor.


I arrived by bus at 2:30 a.m. Saturday morning. Lautaro has about 33,000 people, and is about 30 miles north of Temuco, which has about 240,000. The bus stop was a bench along the highway next to a sign that read "Lautaro."

The last time I talked to Nicole and Gene, they were going to meet me there at 11:30, but that was three hours ago, and fog and darkness kept me from seeing anything, so I got out my sleeping bag to settle in for the night. Then I heard someone calling my name in Spanish: "ha-Coab, ha-Coab."



It ended up being Gene and Hernan, so they brought me home.


Lautaro is a nice place. Small town South America, but it has a couple schools, a couple Catholic churches, a river and a small zoo with a cougar and some funny-looking ponies. The Torres' are great people, letting Nicole, Gene and I stay here for free. We joke that all the gringos in Lautaro are in this house, and we outnumber the Chileans in the family. It's not far from the truth... but we speak Spanish in the house, and I'm learning the customs, like greeting women with a kiss on the cheek, and men with a handshake, no matter what else is going on. When you leave, you say "Chao, no mas."


It is definitely still winter in southern Chile. I have been cold most of the time here, but I'm learning how many layers to wear, and what rooms in the house actually stay warm from the wood stove.


Last night Barbara, Nicole, Nico and I played nerts (a card game my family learned from Amelia). I was winning right up until the end, but Nico took the gold. This morning I went to Mass with Hernan and his mother. Chilean Spanish is difficult to understand, but I feel like I'm picking it up. Nicole, Gene, and I are considering spending a week or so in Argentina. We would be leaving as early as Friday, so I will spend most of this week probably hanging out with Nicole in her English classes. She teaches about 6 classes every day, with new students every hour all week long. She and Gene are here so the students can learn the American accent, but with one hour a week, the students don't pick up much, so I hear.


That's all for now. I'm still working on the videos and photos, but they'll be up when they're up.