Swimming Pools and Rooftop Dance Parties

Summer in Santiago is in full swing! I know most of you are shivering in front of your woodstoves and radiators, and I do feel for you, but I’m going to complain about the heat for a little while. Feel free to skip to the next paragraph if you don’t care to expose yourself to such unappreciative rubbish. So okay, Santiago is so hot, I’ve started having the following experience on a daily basis: I’ll be sitting somewhere with my legs crossed and feel a little bug crawling on my leg. I’ll look down and notice that no, it’s not a bug, it’s a bead of sweat dripping from my knee pit. Yum.

However, Entre Todas knows how to beat the heat. The girls have a pool on their patio that’s some miracle of tarp-like material and PVC piping. It’s about six feet by ten feet and about three feet deep. Though the water becomes the color of phlegm within an hour of changing it, the girls spend hours swimming back and forth and splashing water onto unwitting passersby. One day last week, the tía who lives at Entre Todas led an activity with the girls using the pool for water games. The girls all whined and moaned about having to do an organized activity but it was amazing to see the benefits of the structure. The tía put on music and had the girls playing musical chairs with water balloons and running relays to find coins tossed on the bottom of the pool, etc. Though they’d never admit it, the girls loved the activity, and I was reminded that so much of their behavior is a result of the chaos of Entre Todas.

To supplement the little patio pool, we’ve taken a few pool-related field trips. The first took us to Peñaflor, a middle-of-nowhere town outside Santiago, to a bizarre camping/picnic site with a freezing, un-chlorinated pool. Tía Maggie, the cook at Entre Todas, came along and prepared an astounding feast for the girls on one of the little grills in the picnic area. Our next two trips were to a pool on Cerro San Cristobal (there are two pools on the hill, the other is the one my friend Ryan and I went to a few weekends ago). Entre Todas has some sort of deal with the pool people, so I think it was almost free for us to get in, but the pool normally costs almost ten U.S. dollars per person, so you can imagine the quality of the location and the excitement of the girls to be exposed to such a beautiful place. The girls behaved very well for the most part, with the exception of the six-year-old who started beating on a random little girl who clung to the edge of the pool, wide-eyed. When Chris and I tried to explain why she shouldn’t smack strangers, she went ahead and smacked us and splashed water in our faces. Warm fuzzies.

The second time we visited the pool, we took the teleférico (cable cars) up the hill with the girls as a special treat but the girls were all absolutely terrified. I'm sure they're all glad they got to experience the ride, but the two girls riding in my car clasped their hands together, screeching and frantically reciting prayers the entire time.

We got some big news at Entre Todas today during the tía’s meeting: one of the eighteen-year-olds is moving to a different hogar. She has severe learning disabilities and is frequently excluded and made fun of by the other girls, so Chris, Brooke, and I end up spending a lot of time with her. A change of location should be really good for her but trying to picture Entre Todas without her feels impossible. The tías called her into the meeting today to tell her and I couldn’t believe I was witnessing such a momentous announcement. She seemed overwhelmed but happy—I think living at Entre Todas has been really stressful for her. The tías said she’ll have the opportunity to go to school and maybe even work once she moves to the new hogar, so it’s truly an exciting time for her. We’ll miss her, though--none of the other girls ever talk about cannibalism or horror movies, it's a shame.

Chris, Brooke, and I have developed a schedule for the rest of the summer at Entre Todas that we’re all quite excited about. We’ve written project proposals and are in the process of acquiring funds from VE to execute the projects. On Mondays we’ll attend the tías’ meetings and work with the girls on VE’s reading program, “Vamos a Leer,” then on Tuesdays we’ll take six girls to a large park just outside the city center to play sports and generally get them out of the TV room and moving around. On Wednesdays we’ll do a cooking project with three girls at a time in the kitchen at Entre Todas, then Thursdays and Fridays will be consumed by R.O.A.R., a project designed to get the girls out of the hogar and into the city to help them learn about where they live. On Thursdays the girls will use the computers to research the week’s location, then on Fridays we’ll visit the locations. This week we’re going to a really cool interactive children’s museum, woot!

In non-Entre Todas news, this past weekend I had a joint birthday party with my roommate Julia and my friend Lindsay. Their birthdays are the 12th and 30th, both also in 1985. We lucked out on our location—the people who drove Lindsay and I to Valparaiso for New Year’s Eve live in an apartment building with a rooftop terrace outfitted for BBQ’s, complete with two huge grills, two sinks and a bathroom. They were kind enough to reserve the terrace for our party. The views from the terrace are amazing and the party was a huge success—we probably had forty-five or fifty people there. Those numbers just wouldn’t have fit in a tiny Chilean apartment! Below you’ll find pictures of the view and also of the birthday girls, complete with our matching MC Hammer pants. These types of pants are a) heinous, b) huge here in Santiago, and c) incredibly comfortable, so we decided having matching ones for our party was a must. The party also served as Julia’s goodbye party as she leaves for the States on the 22nd. But I don’t really want to talk about that.


That's all for now, I hope you all are doing well and staying warm!

Bagged yogurt, anyone?

Now that I’ve been in Chile for about a month and half, I’ve had time to observe some of the quirks of the environment around me. I’ve collected a few of my observations here for your reading pleasure.

~Chileans like to package condiments and other squishy foods in bags. It’s uncommon to find mayonnaise, tomato sauce and ketchup in any other type of container and not unusual to see bagged yogurt or even bagged cleaning products. Some of the bags have spouts; many others seem to expect that the consumer will use sixteen ounces of mayo in one sitting.

~The Metro stations here, as in New York or elsewhere, feel like saunas in the summer. However, here in Chile they’ve rigged up fans that blow a fine mist of cool water onto the travelers below. At one station in a more affluent area there’s an entire heavenly hallway of them.

~Chileans serve little cookies at every meeting and event, yet I’ve found it impossible thus far to find a cookie sheet to purchase.

~I see at least three pregnant women every day.

~Though making actual coffee does not take a whole lot of effort, Chileans are head over heals for Nescafé, or instant “coffee.” It would be okay if Nescafé were actually coffee-flavored, but it’s more like a distant cousin. That the rest of the family tries to avoid.

~Shirts with English text are quite common and always entertaining. Here are a few examples:
“I’m the most beautiful star in the firmament”
“Menthol. Cologne. Perfume.”
And, of course, various illogical uses of the words "sexy," "baby," "party," etc.

~Speaking of shirts, every teenage boy in Chile seems to own an Iron Maiden shirt.

~Chileans will go out of their way to give you directions or help you find what you need. Their hospitality is generous, almost to the point of aggressiveness. They’ll also tell you that the place you’re going is too far and too dangerous. They’ll tell you that you’re going to freeze, so here, take this jacket. Some of the paranoia may stem from the circumstances in which they lived during the Pinochet dictatorship. The focus, though, should be on their generosity. If a shop owner doesn’t have what you’re looking for, he or she will step out onto the street to point you in the direction of where you’ll find the desired item. But please, be careful on your way there.

~All Chileans have one or two sizable pockmarks on their left arms from childhood vaccinations. This was utterly fascinating to me until my co-worker at Entre Todas, Chris, who’s from England, showed me his left arm and told me that all English people have the same marks. It still blows my mind, though, to think that a simple shot could leave such a significant life-long scar.

More of these to come!

Chi-Chi-Chi-Le-Le-Le, Viva Chile!

Happy New Year from Santiago!

I celebrated New Year's Eve, along with the rest of South America, in Valparaiso, a port city about an hour and a half from Santiago. Getting to Valpo took some creativity as my friend Lindsay and I, through no fault of our own, missed our bus. When we purchased our bus tickets a few days before New Year's Eve, the woman at the counter told us the last available bus would be leaving at 2:00 in the afternoon. So we believed her. When we arrived at the bus station on the 31st at around 1:45, however, we took a first glance at our tickets which noted the departure time as 1:40. Foiled! Dear Counter Woman, 1:40 ≠ 2:00. Love, Mariah. Every bus after that time was completely full. Luckily, resourceful Lindsay called her Chilean roommate whose friends had rented a car to make the trip and had two extra seats. Because of the traffic the drive took four and a half hours but the fireworks at midnight made all our troubles null and void. I have never seen anything quite so magnificent--the fireworks lasted for twenty-five minutes and each minute was like a grand finale. The Chileans around us proudly chanted "Chi-Chi-Chi-Le-Le-Le, Viva Chile!" over and over after the fireworks ended. The crowds were overwhelming but we all managed to have a great time.

Back in Santiago, my fellow volunteers and I have been doing a good job of seeing some sights and experiencing Chilean life. On Friday night, after Lindsay and I briefly joined some street musicians dancing around in a circle, a group of us accidentally took over a table at a street café temporarily abandoned by two Chileans. When the guys, Carlos and Ignacio, returned to their table, they happily joined us and we all ended up having a lively discussion about U.S. politics. Carlos thinks electing Obama was a step in the right direction but that one person can't work miracles. How interesting.

On Saturday, my friend Ryan and I walked up one of the large hills in Santiago called Cerro San Cristobal to go swimming at the public pool on one of the crests of the hill. It took us about an hour to get to the top but the views of Santiago on the way up kept us entertained. About halfway up was a beautiful Japanese garden. In the picture below you can see part of the garden, Santiago to the right and the mountains above the buildings, behind the smog of course.


Here's the pool at the top. It was expensive to get in, but as you can see, it was well worth it, especially after climbing for an hour in the Chilean summer heat.


On Sunday, a group of us rode the teleférico, the system of cable cars that brings passengers up Cerro San Cristobal. The cars are up pretty high and are a bit ricketey, but that's all part of the fun! Here are a couple of pictures to give you a sense of the experience:


On the Entre Todas front, the girls are settling into their summer [lack of] routine. Usually they go on vacation during the summer but this year Entre Todas doesn't have enough money. We will, however, be taking four trips to the pool pictured above! None of the girls have ever been to that particular pool because it's so expensive, so they're all excited, furiously picking the lice out of each other's hair so their heads will be deemed clean enough to go. Our first trip will be this Thursday.

Chris and I attended our first Entre Todas staff meeting yesterday. Each Monday the tías meet to discuss what's been happening with the girls, their schedule of events, etc. Chris and I proposed a couple of projects we've been planning, including a cooking workshop, and the tías seemed pleased. It's hard to read them--sometimes I wonder if they'd rather not have us there at all, but I think they appreciate our efforts. I felt pretty sheepish about trying to explain projects in Spanish in front of six Chilean women but, although my face was surely bright red the entire time I was speaking, I managed to get my ideas across.

Right now I'm going to the Banco de Chile to attempt to deposit my rent money in my Cuban roommate's Chilean bank account. Wish me luck!