It's Pronounced "Jama."

This is going to be a short post, and has literally nothing to do with educating young minds. Sorry!  : PP

Today was my host mom's birthday so we all went up to El Colorado to snowboard. I'd never seen actual snow before (I doubt LA's brown mud snow counts) so they literally gave me 3 trash bags in case I vomited on the way up. Literally.

The view on the drive from Lo Barnechea up to El Colorado

There were something around 48 curves (which they gleefully counted down, waiting for the hurl that would never come, HAHAHA, FRANCESCO, IF YOU'RE READING THIS!). It wasn't even slightly bad but the height did freak me out. I kept my eyes turned inward to the mountains. Francesco kept trying to trick me, saying there were foxes or bunnies to the right side of the car so that I might look down. It took 1 time of that for me to learn my lesson!

As we neared curve 38 or so, Francesco said to look to the right which I didn't do (I'd learned my lesson, remember?). He kept insisting though, so I did.

THERE. WAS. A. LLAMA. 

Imagine this is a llama.

Of course, my first reaction was to scream like an idiot. "OH MY GOD, THAT'S A LLAMA! HOLY CRAP, IT'S A REAL LLAMA!!!" (I was saying "lama," as we do in the U.S.) At this point, it was to our far right and too late to grab a phone to take a picture but as we rounded the curve, Fernanda (my host mom) asked, "What was it?" I roared, "It was a llama!!!" She still looked confused.

Then, from the backseat, I hear Francesco: "Una llama." (He pronounced it "jama.")

"OHHHHH! Where??"

We've been pronouncing it wrong the whole time. And after 4 years of Spanish, I never made that pronunciation connection. Guess who feels like an idiot?

I saw a llama. On the side of the road with a little old man selling something. Take that, Lael!

My host brother and host mom stopping for a photo op on the way back down