Oyster Coyhaique 2017

The disorganisation of Oyster's administration was apparent from the start when two of the volunteers were left at Balmaceda Airport without an address to go to or anyone to pick them up, we were also told by Oyster ahead of going out that we could fly into two airports in Coyhaique, when in fact one of those is a local light aircraft airport.
As soon as we arrived we were sold the 4 day Marble Caves excursion for what was retrospectively way over the normal price (you can see this from the amount of local companies offering the same package).
Before the excursion we had what had been sold to us as '5 days of intensive Spanish lessons' (also incidentally described on gooverseas.com as a '10 day language course') which turned out to be receiving some grammar sheets and playing a few games, receiving less than 7 hours in total.

When I arrived at my host family (they had hosted last year), it became clear that the situation had changed a lot since the last time. When trying to arrange a new host family, the Oyster office in England offered very little help/ support, and it ended up being sorted out by one of the other host parents. I felt undermined and as though I was making a fuss out of nothing, when in fact it was evident that the familial situation was not only very different to the other volunteers' but also very different from last year's. I did have a good time at my new host family but the whole situation could have been easily avoided.
We were also told to bring smart clothes and shoes for teaching, which we didn't need as even the Chilean teachers didn't dress as formally as suggested In the kitlist.

Although I would say that the Oyster member 'on the ground' did what she could to help, the support and communication offered by the Oyster office in England certainly does not reflect the price charged for the trip.

Whilst I did have an enjoyable time in Coyhaique and my Spanish improved a lot, I think the whole experience could be improved a lot with a change in Oyster's complacency. I would suggest doing a course similar to this one but elsewhere.