Today was our last day of orientation at TLC(the Language Company). We met Garrett, Andrew, and Ellen, some teachers who began working here last July. We spent part of the afternoon house hunting with Emily, our boss, and then went home exhausted.
However, before we got there, we took a little side trip to the Lider market (owned by Walmart, fyi), which is sometimes expensive, sometimes super-barato(cheap).
Sadly, chocolate leans on the more expensive side, and fruit, which I
can't enjoy, is waaaaaaay cheap. They have a member club but it's only
open to people who have a carnet de identidad, or residency identity card, which we won't get til May or even June :( Instead of cestas (like in Spain), baskets are called canastas.
There are some lines meant for express 15 items or less, some for
canastas, and others are just regular. Little old Chilean ladies are
allowed to cut whomever they want in whichever line they prefer! Chile also has a great program called Pathfinders, in which university students work part time bagging groceries to help assuage the cost of their education. Emily brought it to our attention in class one day when someone asked about tipping. You can give these students the small change of pesos that you receive from paying at the register. They can then save that as well to put towards school. However, the cashier also asks you if you'd like to donate those pesos to one cause or another, but we found out that they do this sometimes because they can claim it as a tax write-off. Not as nice, but if they mention the bomberos then it's worth it because the firemen here are solely volunteers. They live off donations received from the public.
What are your thoughts? Would you donate?
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