¡Viva Chile!

September was Chile's "Mes de la Patria" the month in which they commemorate the proclamation of their First Governing Body of 1810. September 18 is their Independence Day and September 19 is their Armed Forces day. As a result the whole country has a whole week off of school and work.  We attended several parties and learned some fun things about the country.

This is us at the elementary school where Andrew volunteers. We ate the traditional holiday empanadas, which consist of ground beef and onion, half a hard boiled egg, and an olive with the pit.  The olive part seemed a little weird to me because you sometimes don't realize you bit off the part with the olive so then you bite down on a hard pit...

These are pictures from our ward party. We took a trip up to some church-owned land in a town called Casablanca, about and hour from us in the mountains. We spent the whole day playing field games, eating food, and watching some dancing.

 

 

The other party we attended was put on by UVM, Andrew's university. We watched students dance a lot of the traditional dances. There was even a competition among the exchange students to do the Cueca, or Chile's national dance(the video is some other dance, not cueca). Andrew even participated in a game... he tripped a little on the second chair so he lost, but he looked hilarious!