A 21 Year Old Song

Hello all! As many of you know, my 21st birthday was last Wednesday. Leading into my birthday I was feeling a little down about being away from family an friends for the big event--everyone I know here I have known for only 2 months, so how could they care that much? Well although these friends are new, they are friends of gold just the same. They made my 21st birthday very memorable and special.

The actual day of my birthday I got to sleep in, and spent the morning opening cards from home, skypeing with my Mom, and working on homework. I ate lunch and then got a call from the CIEE office that there was a package for me, so I went to pick it up and found myself a box of dark chocolates from my Aunt Janet and her family. After that my Human Rights class met to visit the Museum of Memory and Human Rights here in Santiago, and the class greeted me with a muffin with candles and sang Happy Birthday (picture below)! From there I went straight to an interview for a paper I'm working on.



Thursday night my friends took me out for the "21 part," and we went to a bar and danced and sang karaoke and I had my first 21 year old drink (a raspberry mojito). Perhaps most special of all, my host family threw a party for me Friday night at our house. We had a Chilean "Choripan" (a type of barbeque) and about 20 of my friends came. It was so fun to have everyone there together, and I think people really enjoyed the party. Everyone sang Feliz Cumpleaños to me as I blew out all 21 (can you believe how old I am?) candles on my cake. I am so thankful for the 21 years I have had, and marvel at how blessed I have been in my life. I have a wonderful family, friends who love me, good health, a God who cares for me, and many opportunities to see and experience other parts of the world.

Anyway, now that the birthday is said and done, the real work begins. In the next three weeks I've got two essays to write (one is a 20-page research paper on Human Rights during the Pinochet dictatorship), 2 exams, and 2 presentations. This would stress me out in the States too, but the added difficulty of doing all of this in Spanish makes it harder. Also, all these assignments are worth between 30 and 60 percent of my final grades! Yikes. I think starting this week, time is going to begin to race by and before I know it the end of June will be here, classes will be ending, and I'll be preparing to return home.

I have plans for the next four weekends, so I'm sure it will be hard just to find a time to rest while trying to get everything done. This coming Friday I'm going to Talca, where the epicenter of the earthquake was, to help build homes for Chilean families still living in tents in the wake of the terremoto in February. They really need homes going up as winter is coming! The weekend after that I fly to San Pedro de Atacama with CIEE to see the desert and the highlights of the north of Chile. Then, the weekend after that my Mom, Aunt Janet, and Mom's childhood friend Natalie will all be here visiting. I can't wait! I will spend that whole week with them and then we're going to Viña del Mar/Valparaiso for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of the week they're here. It is going to be a crazy month of May, but I know it will be amazing. I'll try to update at some point, although I'm not sure when that will be.

To those of you in the States who sent cards or facebook greetings for my birthday, thank you so much. Feeling so loved from so far away was one of the most special parts of my birthday.

Love and blessing to you all,
Amy