Since my last post, I've decided to stay put in this apartment with Chris, Jess and Paul. I've found the living room to be quite welcoming, and in June I'll move into Paul's room when he returns to the States. Here are a couple photos of the view from our balcony, the first of the view during the Santiago Marathon and the second, looking in the other direction, of the sunset a few nights ago:
In Entre Todas news, I've transitioned to one afternoon a week with the girls since I'm at the VE office the rest of the time. It has become a treat to go see them every Wednesday afternoon and I marvel at how positive each of these visits has been. I don't know if it's because I've known them for quite some time now, but I feel like huge steps forward have been made in terms of the girls' comfort level around me, as well as around the other volunteers. Chris continues to develop a fantastic rapport with them, and one of the new volunteers has a wonderful calm presence that the girls respond well to. There are quite a few new girls at the hogar and I think their coming in and seeing us as an established aspect of Entre Todas has helped the overall attitude towards us as well. We're also running the pilot of VE's English program ("Incredible English!") at Entre Todas, and the girls constantly speak to us in the bits of English they know. Sometimes that's limited to, "What's your name, baby?" but we take what we can get.I've continued the cooking workshop I started a couple of months ago and have now made chocolate chip cookies (twice), chocolate cake, and apple crisp with various groups of girls. They absolutely love being in the kitchen when it doesn't involve helping prepare a standard meal. Even the hardest-to-impress girls participate and declare the project "bacán," which is a Chilean-ism for "cool." Moments like this sometimes make me wonder where I am and why the girls are so friendly with me; I can only hope it means progress has been made.
As we did for Christmas, a few of us decided to spend Easter Sunday with the girls. Ann, who had dressed up as Santa on Christmas, dressed up as the Easter Bunny, which the girls found hilarious. One of the tías hid chocolate for them around the house, and we brought the fixings for make-your-own-sundaes. It felt good to bring some silliness and gluttony to their day, which they had been passing in front of the TV before our arrival.
A major lesson I've learned about relating to the girls is that I should just be myself. Crazy, I know. I think I used to try to make them think I was cool, but things have gotten a lot better for me since I've started making my usual bad jokes around them and generally being a big nerd. A few weeks ago, while playing a terrifying Chilean version of dodge ball with a few of the girls at a park, the ball hit me in the head. The girls laughed, of course, but started laughing harder when I started flapping my arms, squinting one eye and screaming "I had two eyes when I got here, I don't know what happened!" One of the girls stopped short and shouted "Tíííía, que foooome!" ("Fome" is another Chilean-ism that means "lame"). The girl and I exchanged a smile and I knew, even if she thought I was fome, it was the right reaction for me to have upon being slammed in the head with the ball. Lately, every time I leave the hogar I think, "Wow, that was such a good day." That almost never used to be the case, so something good is happening.
Yesterday the whole Entre Todas volunteer crew went out to lunch at a Chinese restaurant where one of the girls works. She's twenty and is moving out of Entre Todas soon, so we wanted to make sure we visited her at work before she moves away. We thought she was a hostess at the restaurant but as it turns out, she waits tables, and was our server! There were six of us and she handled it beautifully. As an ex-server myself, I was nervous for her--I always used to hate waiting on people I knew--but she was incredibly confident, poised and professional. She even tried to refuse a tip from us since we're her friends, but of course we insisted. We also insisted on taking a group photo, which embarrassed her to no end, but we were all thrilled to be able to provide her with that "there's a big group of people here who are proud of me" type of embarrassment.
In more general VE news, we had our Jornada weekend retreat two weekends ago in Cajón del Maipo, a gorgeous spot in the mountains about an hour outside Santiago. Here are the traditional Jornada group photos:
The weekend was brilliant. As I described after my first Jornada, the retreat is just my style, and probably my favorite aspect of VE. I had a few critiques of the last Jornada, however, and had the opportunity to make some additions to the weekend this time around. I felt strongly that the energy needed to stay positive throughout the whole weekend, so I inserted a few silly games including the classic "Ha ha" game where people lie down in a zig zag pattern with their heads on each others' stomachs and each add one "ha" until the whole group is in hysterics, every one's heads bouncing on each others' laughing stomachs. I also added an activity called "Human Knots" which, when translated into Spanish, becomes a hilarious false cognate: "Nudos Humanos." Here's an example of a fantastic Nudo Humano:
I also added a poster activity from a retreat I attended in high school. Each person had their own poster with two columns ("Something I learned about Volunteer X this weekend:" and "Something I appreciate about Volunteer X:") and other volunteers filled in the columns throughout the weekend. Although the additions I made were small, I think they were fairly successful in keeping the mood positive despite challenging group games that occasionally cause frustration.
In addition to the large group games, lively small group discussions and personal reflection time, there was lots of relaxing down time, delicious food, a few sing-alongs, and plenty of moments like this:
Outside of VE-related activities, we've managed to keep a jam-packed social schedule. Last Sunday, Lindsay, Jessica and I went to Pomaire, a tiny town outside Santiago known for its pottery. We each bought a bunch of traditional Chilean bowls for less than the cost of our transportation to and from the town. Other note-worthy events include an Easter egg scavenger hunt around Santiago organized by our very own Paul Mannix, an entertaining/educational/delicious Passover Seder hosted by a group of volunteers with varying degrees of connection to the Jewish tradition, and, of course, the usual theme parties and late night gchats, as if we don't see each other enough.Although my stress level has been high lately because of work, I continue to feel content here. My friends are an amazing support system, and although many of them will be departing within the next month or two, I have confidence that there will continue to be people around who make me excited to go to work every morning. Geek.
