First Rotary Meeting

 Guess what I did this week?!

That's right, I went to my first Chilean Rotary meeting. 

For those of you who may not know, Rotary is the name of the program that I am doing my exchange year with. Part of the exchange student experience through Rotary includes attending events and getting to know the club in your new country, so that is exactly what I did on Tuesday evening. 

This Rotary meeting started at 8pm, which personally for me was a little too close to my bedtime, but that's neither here nor there. 

The purpose of this meeting was to celebrate Chilean independence, consume some traditional Chilean food, and to socialize with everyone in attendance. It was a bit more formal than what I am used to, but that's okay. All part of the adventure right? My understanding is that this event was a party meeting, not a get down to business meeting, which I appreciated because that means I get to postpone giving my presentation about my hometown for another month or so. 

To be clear, I don't mind giving presentations at all. If you know me, you know that I honestly kind of love them because I get to talk with good reason. However, in this particular situation I am a bit nervous because the whole presentation is in Spanish...wish me luck!

The event actually started with a cueca demonstration, which was very nice. I love watching the cueca, it never gets old. Then after that we had empanadas. Again, no complaints. 

If you're not familiar with the word empanada, they are basically a large hand pie and are traditional in Latin American culture overall. 

After empanadas, they brought out this dish that was heaped with a bunch of meat and potatoes. There was pork, chicken, beef, and this sausage thing that I tried because Claudia likes it. It is actually not sausage at all, but diced onions soaked in blood wrapped up in intestinal lining. Don't think too much about it, because I'm trying not to either. 

Then came dessert, which was a bowl of peach juice filled with wheat berries with a dried/rehydrated peach in the center. I learned that this desert is super common during September 18th festivities and is called "Mote con Huesillos". Definitely not as sweet as I am used to desert being, but it was still delicious and in my book, fairly healthy as well. 

After dinner, some of the gentlemen did a bit of a history session about Quillota during the independence era, and I think maybe a little bit about their Rotary club as well? Don't quote me on that, because it was nearly 11pm and my Spanish goes downhill fast after 9:30. 

Overall, an excellent experience. I got to meet some new people and eat some great food, which is always a win. 

Oh, I almost forgot to mention, I did meet another foreign exchange student named Tarek. He is from Quillota and just got back from his own exchange in Aspen, Colorado in June. It was nice to chat with him because he understands what I'm going through and also was super patient with my Spanish. 

I talked to him a fair amount about his exchange, and I learned some new things about my home country in the process. For example, Aspen is a super fancy and rich skiing town, insanely fancy and rich. Tarek told me about a girl who got a Porsche for her 16th birthday and then crashed it and I assured him that this was not normal American behaviour and that Aspen is a bit outside of the normal from the rest of the country. 

Well, I guess I'm not positive about that because I haven't been to all of the country. But it's safe to say that is not normal in rural America, and a lot of America is rural so that's my logic. 

Not much else to disclose about my first Rotary event, but please stay tuned to hear about my friend Angela's "junta" and about Chilean rodeo.

Much love always from South America,

Anna