Starting another Workaway gig...

Exterior of the Hotel

For the next few weeks, or at least until the end of the year, I will be volunteering in Valparaiso, Chile to help build a hotel made of recycled containers and materials. The project sounds super interesting so when I found it, it made me alter my travel plans a bit. They were the reasons why I cut my time in Spain/Europe short by a month because they originally said it would be finished in December and I wanted to get here in time to still help out with the construction. However, as any construction project goes, they are months behind schedule. They are nowhere near being done but I'm still glad I decided to come out here earlier. 

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The house I'm staying at is super cool! They have a sweet set up and really unique decorations. I share a room with another American girl from St. Louis but I have a decent size bed. Wifi is fast, showers are warm, a great view of the city, so what more do you need. The only issue is the food and cooking situation. As workawayers, we are guaranteed food as part of our job and they should be cooking for us and/or not expecting us to do everything. There isn't any set schedule so we just wait until it's late and someone makes the first move to start dinner. We also have to go out of our way to buy the food. We dedicate 5 hours a day to working on a construction site so we shouldn't spend another 2+ hours going grocery shopping and cooking. Anyway, It's actually not that big of a deal. The set up is great and the people are awesome so I can't complain much about it.

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The job isn't as glamorous as it sounds. We are on a construction site so our mains jobs are to help with putting together the building. During my first day, I moved rubbish from different rooms downstairs and then putting paste on the walls. I guess you can say these are life skills I'm learning... I'm just not sure when I'll be using them but hey if the time does come and I'm of use, I know who to thank. Anyhow, the job isn't terrible and the people are nice so I have no complaints. Now I've been spending my days painting railings under the Chilean heat. I'm definitely coming out of this with a huge farmer's tan but I enjoy painting, it's pretty relaxing and fun. Plus I am practicing with Spanish with one of the other volunteer. 

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I think I will be here until after Christmas. I'll spend Christmas here with them since it's the closest I'll have to a family. I think we plan to have a small white elephant and family dinner so that should be a nice evening. I will definitely be back here for New Years Eve. That's when all the fun will be... Lastly, I have regained my motivation to learn Spanish so I am dedicating 2 hours a day to learning and I am memorizing 3 verbs and 3 vocab a day. I hope I can keep this up.

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