The Rotary District Conference in Los Angeles (Chile, not California)

Last weekend was the Rotary district conference, and as part of our scholarship duties, Diane and I had to go. It was located in Los Angeles, which is a small city/town about an hour and a half away from Concepción. Overall it was a good experience. As with all conferences, though, we had to suffer through boring talks and be chatty with a lot of people. I like meeting people and being chatty, but it gets old after you talk to, like, the fiftieth person. I sound so antisocial right now, sorry.

The first day, things ran pretty much on schedule. We heard an interesting talk by a Mapuche Rotarian about bridging the cultural gap between the Mapuche and the winkas (that's mapudungun for Chileans, or white folk. He didn't use that word; I learned it in my Mapuche lit class, and I like it). We heard other talks as well, which I am having a hard time recalling right now. There was one about the environment, but the guy spoke (or yelled, rather) into the microphone half the time and away from it half the time. He also quoted Genesis a lot...

The meals were probably the best part of the conference. We had full-course meals in a nice social club down the street (the conference itself took place in a high school), complete with delicious red wine. They have a special type of wine here called Carmenere (as opposed to Merlot or Cabernet Savignon--it's not the brand name). It comes from a grape that used to be in France but died out in a grape plague of some sort. It lived on in Chile (where I think the French planted it. Either that or it was native), and it is the only place that makes that type of wine. It is very smooth and is my new favorite tinto. Sorry, I will stop talking about wine now.

We also got to sit with different Rotarians at lunch, which could be fun, depending on who we sat with. The Coronel group was lively. Many people also took advantage of the opportunity to practice their English. They don't get so many chances to do that in Chile.

Saturday night there was a dance following the elaborate dinner, but dinner didn't end until about 12:30, and I heard the dance went on until nearly 3. Oh, Latin Rotarians. I was exhausted and left at 1:00. Diane and I had to give speeches the next day, and I didn't want to be a zombie onstage. Our speeches went well, and we were probably the only ones in that entire conference that stuck to our time limit (of 5 minutes apiece, which was a lot shorter than other people's time limits). On Saturday night, one man gave a ridiculously long diatribe renewable energy. Renewable energy is very important, but he didn't dumb the science down for anyone, and he talked for 35 minutes, while I am sure his time limit was 15-20 like the other speakers'. The session had already been running long, and Diane and I just started laughing (discreetly) after he kept showing slide after slide when we thought he had surely finished his talk.

We did meet a lot of nice Rotarians and racked up invitations to speak at clubs. The only problem is, some of those clubs are 2 hours away or more, so we will have to stay overnight during the week.

Speaking of clubs more than 2 hours away, I went to give a speech at the Parral Rotary Club on Tuesday. The president and I had had it planned for about 3 weeks, but he never mentioned that Parral was 2 1/2 hours away from Concepción. I'm sure he just assumed I knew, but I thought that it was just the name of the club! Our host club is called Rayen, after all (well, Rayen de Concepción, but they usually just say ''Rayen''). I thought it was in or near Conce. I was on my way to the gym the day of the talk when the president called me, asking me how and when I would be arriving. I told him that I did not know where the meeting was, and that I could go in taxi or colectivo if I knew the address. He said that someone would pick me up at the bus terminal if I were coming by bus. Then, I realized that this place was farther away. I told him I would be arriving by bus and would call back with the time, and then I dashed home and asked Tía Lucía where Parral is. She told me, and then told me to change clothes and pack an overnight bag, and she would take me to the bus station. I did so, and I got a ticket in time to get there in plenty of time for the meeting.

On the bus, a cute little eight-year-old girl named Esperanza (Spanish for ''Hope'') sat next to me. I was listening to my iPod, and after a while, she asked me what it was. I let her listen to music and play games on it. She had been learning English in school and decided to quiz me on my Spanish-to-English vocabulary. The problem was, she had been learning about the planets, and she asked me what stuff like an axis was. I felt like I was on Are You Smarter Than a Fifth-Grader? I know my sciencey friends will laugh at me, but seriously, I haven't talked about that stuff since middle school! Still, it was a memorable experience, and it made me even more excited about teaching English to kids.

The man who picked me up from the bus terminal was Jorge, a retired pilot-turned-notary public. He was very sweet, and he let me stay in his house. We went to the meeting, which was at a very nice restaurant. We had pisco sours and appetizers before dinner, and a little old man, who is actually the retired judge, talked to me at length about his children and his visits to the United States--in English! He had been to Nashville, as had Don Jorge.

The meeting included a full-course meal, wine, and a homage to the Carabineros, or police. Many of the police were there, including the chief, who is a young guy who speaks English, French, and Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (he was in that area in the late 1990s). He and I had privileged seats at the head of the table. I also sat next to a man who had been to Wisconsin in the 1960s with some kind of farming program started by JFK. Oh, and I was the only female in the room!

They seemed to enjoy my talk, and they were welcoming and friendly. The last of us finally left at 12:30 (I'm telling you, Latin Rotarians). I returned to Concepcion the next day, vowing to always check about a club's location plenty of time in advance.