Mariah in Chile

Safe Sex

2011-07-24T16:26:00.000-07:00

Last Wednesday I got to watch one of my girls giggle her way through putting a condom on a wooden model of a penis. It was, without a doubt, a productive day.

Talking about sex in Chile is a delicate endeavor. Although most soap operas here border on soft porn and mainstream culture is over-sexualized to the max, Chile is also an extremely Catholic country. Hogar San Francisco, where I volunteer, is a Catholic institution and the nuns wandering through the patio are a constant reminder of what we're allowed and not allowed to talk to the girls about. Volunteers spoke to the staff about creating some sort of Sex Ed workshop in the past but met resistance. For some reason, though, possibly including the fact that one of the girls recently moved to a home especially for pregnant teens, the staff was more open to the idea when Jamie, my co-volunteer, and I brought it up two weeks ago.

We recently discovered a clinic here in Santiago called ICMER (Instituto Chileno de Medicina Reproductiva, or Chilean Institute of Reproductive Medicine) that's quite similar to Planned Parenthood. By local standards, ICMER is a very liberal clinic, mainly because they provide emergency contraception, no questions asked. Normal pharmacies here carry the morning-after pill but often refuse it to customers or provide it with a side of judgment. ICMER also offers a free family planning workshop every Wednesday that goes over every birth control option clearly and thoroughly.

Jamie and I, with miraculous permission from San Fran, took the six oldest girls to this workshop last week. I expected the girls to collapse into piles of laughter with every diagram and mention of the word "penis," but they impressed me. They listened respectfully, asked thoughtful questions and, of course, let the occasional giggle slip out. Sandra, our bad-ass new midwife friend who runs the workshops, was great about helping them relax and ask questions, however basic. The girls took the workshop seriously and seemed to have a lot to think about when we left.

There was only one other person in the workshop with us, a teenage girl who had come with her mom, although her mom stayed in the waiting room during the workshop. The presence of this girl made me think a lot about everything our girls miss out on by not having supportive families. It's great that Jamie and I brought the girls to this workshop and we can follow up with them later on about these topics, but that's still light-years away from an ideal situation. Almost every girl we work with has been sexually abused--for many of them it's why they're in the home. We can tell them their options and laugh with them through a condom demonstration but we can't make sex be something normal for them, something that doesn't come with a lot of fear and confusion. It's confusing enough for kids who live with supportive families that communicate openly without adding a history of abuse into the mix. When I wish for safe sex for these girls, there's so much more to wish for than pills and implants and injections.

So we're just going to keep trucking! Everything we do with the girls is meant to help build their self-esteem and create positive self-images, so hopefully, although we'll never really know, one of these days one of the girls will make a decision that's good for her and not just what she thinks she should do. And, maybe, everyone once in a while we can remind that girl of how soft she said the lubricated condom made her hands feel. Bonus.

A newbie after two and a half years

2011-07-10T13:51:00.000-07:00

I distinctly remember the terror I felt the day I walked down Octava Avenida to Residencia Entre Todas for the first time back in December of 2008, totally unsure of what to expect from the group of 25 teenage girls just waiting to eat me alive. For the first few months I worked there, I felt a small percentage of that terror every time I rounded that corner. I was intimidated by the girls, constantly relied on my co-volunteer Chris to help me understand their Chilean Spanish, and struggled with feeling useless and unwanted. These struggles, of course, made the good days and even the smallest of breakthroughs an incredible reward and motivation to continue. When Entre Todas closed, I felt in part what someone might feel after a break-up or the death of a loved one: I didn't think I'd ever want to work with a different group of kids, both because it would be incredibly difficult to start the process of building those relationships over again, but also because how could any other girls be as bacán (Chilean slang for "cool") as my girls?

Time dissolved that feeling, of course, and I started thinking about which of the other VE partner institutions I might want to work in. Having had the opportunity to spend time at all of the institutions, I felt a bit guilty making the decision myself, choosing the group of children I preferred to work with. In the end, though, we made the decision as we would with any new volunteer, looking at both institutional needs and my skill set. Working for two years at Entre Todas made me a shoe-in for Hogar San Francisco de Régis, a home where 30 girls between the ages of 5 and 20 live and eat ice cream every day. Perfect.

It's now been about two months since I started work at San Francisco, which means I've spent eight eventful Wednesdays there. Not only does it feel important and exciting to be volunteering on a regular basis again, I'm already head over heels for the San Fran girls. There's a happier vibe overall at San Fran, and although the girls have all experienced extremely difficult circumstances in their lives, San Fran has many systems in place to make their lives as positive as possible. Like many residential homes in Chile, San Fran has both a full-time pyschologist and a full-time social worker. Among other staff members are a full-time teacher for the girls above age 11 and a part-time teacher for the girls under age 11. Study hour is actually a productive time at San Fran and it's clear to me that the girls are receiving significantly more support in this area that the girls did at Entre Todas. Another full-time staff member manages the girls' medical appointments and the girls all see a dentist regularly. There's even an aerobics/dance instructor who teaches an upbeat class twice a week for all the girls using the latest reggaeton hits to motivate them. And finally, as I mentioned, they eat ice cream virtually every day from a soft-serve machine donated by Leonardo Farkas, a well-known Chilean businessman and philanthropist. (He also donated two trampolines to the home but those have been long destroyed).

This doesn't mean that the girls behave perfectly by any means, in fact it's quite often the opposite. The difference with San Fran, though, is that I feel as though I have multiple people I could go to if I were really struggling with one of the girl's behavior. I've witnessed some of those difficult moments already, but my overwhelming initial feeling about San Fran is extremely positive. Perhaps I'm in the honeymoon phase of this particular brand of culture shock, but I think there's also something to be said for having operated in the VE community for so long. Not to toot the VE horn, but I feel as though I've picked up invaluable strategies and techniques for working with kids, helping kids with homework, and running a variety of workshops. Sitting down to help a girl with her homework feels like much less of a daunting task now than when I first arrived in Chile. Surprisingly, I haven't experienced much of that terror that was so prevalent for me at the beginning of my time at Entre Todas.

Above all, I'm having a lot of fun. I start each shift at San Fran by eating lunch with the staff members, who seem to truly make an effort to make the volunteers feel included. These lunches are sometimes serious and I get to hear the their thoughts on issues related to the girls and Chile's child protective services, etc.; sometimes, though, lunch is filled with gossip and off-color jokes as we serve ourselves second helpings of ice cream.

And last but not least, the girls themselves. At any given time, two of the little ones will be upside down, practicing their handstands against a wall, a table, or a near-by person. They're endlessly excitable and enthusiastic to join any workshop we introduce. The older girls hold the power in the home and have incredible influence on the younger girls. They have a clear sense of respect and justice and ensure that the younger girls respect us and the other staff members. Their love and care for the younger girls is also apparent and it seems that everyone at San Fran is invested in the well-being of everyone else.

I feel frustrated that I only see them once a week but I can tell I'm building bonds with some of the girls, slowly but surely. I had the opportunity last month to accompany a group of the girls along with Clem, another volunteer, to a heated indoor pool where Clem led us through a basic synchronized swimming lesson. On our way to the pool, I stopped for a snack because the evening snack at the home had been, of course, bread. Hand in hand with two of the girls, I explained to them about being Celiac and what that means. They seemed to feel suddenly responsible for my well-being and ushered me into a mini-market where they suggested a few snack options for me. "How about this yogurt, Tía?" one of them said. I told her it was a perfect idea and bought it. Continuing on our way, one of the girls took my hand again but then let it go and said, "You should eat your yogurt now, Tía, so it digests before we swim." She was clearly a little nervous about walking along the dark street without holding anyone's hand but wanted to show how polite she could be. "Take your time," she added, looking up at me with her killer smile.

In the two years and eight months I've been in Chile, I've gone through a number of phases, some more productive than others. I've lived in four different apartments, have run orientations for nine groups of new volunteers, and have experienced countless personal shifts and developments. Starting work with the girls at San Fran has reminded of why I came to Chile in the first place and has given me a chance to acknowledge the progress I've made, along with the goals I'm still working towards. It's easy to get caught up in the day-to-day here, but as a particularly wise 19 year-old volunteer reminded me recently, it's not about us, it's about them, the kids. Of course everything we do at VE is about the kids, but after six months without consistent direct contact at any of our institutions, I feel as though I've injected authenticity back into my experience. It's good to be a newbie!

Myrtle Beach, 2007

2011-05-04T05:57:00.000-07:00

(To Kate on her 26th birthday!)

“‘Who’s that?’ will be the caption for that one!” the man sitting at the table with his wife calls to the woman taking a picture. She’s pointing the camera at her husband who’s lying on a chaise lounge with his white terry-cloth beach hat over his face, belly pushing toward the sky.
“We don’t look like we used to in bathing suits,” she replies to the other couple as her husband pulls the hat halfway off his face and peers out to see who she’s talking to. “That’s life, I suppose,” she says and hands the camera to her husband who has a holster for it on his belt. “Do you have the key?” she asks.
“No, I thought you did.”
The woman throws her hands into the air. “I told you to get it,” she says. “I told you to put it in your pocket.”
The husband reaches into his pocket and finds the key. He doesn’t look surprised. He turns the camera back on and lifts it to photograph his wife. She stops her fussing and poses, asking, “Did it take?”
They leave the lounge area and the other couple stays at the table for another hour, not saying a word to each other, just looking around.

~~~

It’s March in Myrtle Beach, and although my friend Kate and I are here on Spring Break, we’ve seen more people over sixty than of our own age. When we swim in the pool, a few loose-skinned women in flowered bathing suits watch us, looking up from their paperbacks when we laugh particularly loudly. When we lie on the blue and white striped lounges, we’re occasionally gazed upon by couples with wrap-around sunglasses, the men’s caps balanced precariously on the tops of their heads. Even in the coffee shop where we check our email, men in their fifties and sixties huddle over laptops.

What baffles me at first is their contentment with just sitting. When two couples sit together under one of the umbrellas, they chat, but when it’s just a husband and wife, they barely speak. Have they run out of things to say to each other?
Kate and I, of course, are just like them. Though I’d like to think we always have hip, intelligent things to talk about, sometimes we just sit in the sun, enjoying one another’s company and wondering how our tans are coming along. I decide that I’m relieved we’re sharing the beach with these folks and not other people our age on “Spring Break AWOOHOO!”

~~~

“What I would do differently next time is add a layer of swiss cheese,” the woman in a strapless, skirted bathing suit and bright pink lipstick says. “It was delicious, but I would add a layer of swiss cheese. I would put the cheese, then the sauerkraut, then another layer of swiss cheese.”
The women on the lounge chairs around her nod, not even trying to get a word in. They’ve laid their beach towels on the chairs and rest with their legs stretched out in front of them, likely reveling in a brief break from their husbands.
“You know,” the woman says a little later. “Every morning I wake up and feel so blessed. I’m sixty-eight years old and I’m just so lucky to be able to come here every year. We come for three months every year. This is the best deal we’ve found. You won’t find this kind of a bargain down the street. I don’t need frills, I just want clean sheets and friends. So we come here.”
A few chairs over, Kate and I lay with our beach towels under us. A plane pulling an advertisement flies over the water in front of us.
“Domino’s,” I say. Kate groans.
Ten minutes later, the plane flies over again.
“Domino’s,” I say again. “Large two-topping pizza, $9.99.”
Kate digs into her beach bag for her phone. “We’d get it just in time for the 3:00 Full House,” she says.
I giggle as she leans back in her lounge chair and dials the number from the banner in the sky. We pack up our towels and arrive upstairs just in time to meet the delivery guy.

~~~

Kate and I aren’t discussing recipes yet but for some reason I see my future in the women at the beach and it puts me at ease. I can’t sit with just anyone, doing nothing, and feel completely content, so I take the opportunity to have a cheesy moment about this Kate of mine and acknowledge that I, too, feel lucky. Our hotel room came with a kitchen and a balcony, the guys at the dueling piano bar played our favorite Steely Dan song (“Peg,” obviously) and our biggest problem is that, as it turns out, getting into a hot tub with a sunburn is really, really painful.

Heading back to Baltimore in my ’94 Camry, we realize we’ve driven for an hour on the wrong road and feel, for the first time all week, a little grumpy. It’s not so bad, though, because we’ve got Fleetwood Mac on my iPod and we can go our own way and we’ve got a box of Reese’s Puffs and Puffs are flying everywhere and we’re Spring Breaking the Rules! (Not so much, though, because the speed limit down here is seventy miles per hour but we’re doing our best and I think we’re having a pretty awesome time.) In that moment I’m feeling confident I’ll still know Kate when we’re both wrinkly and worried about how many layers of swiss cheese is the right number of layers of swiss cheese and that’s a pretty okay thing to look forward to.

Is this Yerba Loca?

2011-05-01T14:22:00.000-07:00

Now that I've been in Chile for so long, it's tempting to spend my weekends drinking coffee and puttering lazily around Santiago, especially now that winter's on its way in. In this country, though, I have to remember that the rewards for getting out of the city are always incredible.

Last weekend I went with four friends to Yerba Loca, a nature reserve northeast of Santiago. It's accessed from the same road as the well-known ski areas outside Santiago but isn't famous enough (yet) itself to be in Chile guidebooks. In retrospect, a guidebook entry about Yerba Loca could have helped us, but being slightly underprepared allows for lots of after-the-fact giggles.

The theme of the trek, which from the parking lot to the campsite was about 18 kilometers, or 11 miles, became "Is this right?" There were moments of "Is this the path?" and "Is that where we have to go?" As the end of the hike became increasingly steep, bringing us to 3800 meters (12,500 feet) via a slippery, rocky, winding trail, I began to feel hopeless, stopping practically every 10 meters to give my heart a chance to slow down.

At the end of one particularly difficult hill, we reached an open area where a lone tent was pitched. "Is this the campsite?" we said. Thanks to the other hiker camping out, we learned that yes, it was, and we could finally take our packs off.

Here we are on a unique, forgivingly flat portion of the trail, gearing up to climb the mountain in the background:

Here's our incredible campsite, the most remote site I've ever experienced:

Our excitement at arriving at our resting place quickly faded as we noticed the cold. I can't say for sure what the temperature was that night, but I can say that I shivered the night away in multiple layers and a down sleeping bag supposedly good to 20 degrees Fahrenheit/-7 Celsius.

We had read that the water in the streams, although run-off from a glacier, was unsafe to drink due to a high content of minerals. The other camper at the site, though, told us that the snow was safe, so we collected it from along the stream and over the next couple of hours managed to heat enough water for tea and the most incredible lentils and white rice I've ever tasted.

The night was not the most enjoyable I've experienced. The tent we borrowed turned out to be a summer tent with lots of ventilation, which didn't work so well for a windy winter night. I was in better shape than my tentmates Faith and Lindsey, though, who survived the night snuggling between a comforter and a slumber party sleeping bag. One could say, though, that it's important to have these nights to appreciate a warm bed with an appropriately firm mattress.

In the morning, we were all too cold to sit around cooking breakfast, so we got up and immediately hiked the remaining 3 kilometers to the glacier (or what we're pretty sure was the glacier...). The sun was fully out by the time we got back to our campsite, so we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast before the 18 k return trip.

Here we are in front of the glacier, which the sun made difficult to photograph:

And a group shot: Faith, Meg, Lindsey, Nico and me!

The hike back down, although equally beautiful as the hike up, was a bit of a struggle as we were all pretty sore from the day before and didn't have any drinking water left. Much of the terrain was rocky, so the steady impact was rough on the joints, but we survived and made it to the parking lot, where the chlorinated Santiago water from a tap was the best thing I'd tasted in ages.

It took about three days for me to be able to walk normally again, but all the better to have a reminder of how great it feels to push myself and take advantage of what Chile has to offer besides a great café cortado.

Santiago Half-Marathon!

2011-04-19T11:08:00.000-07:00

I'm happy to report that on April 3, I completed the Santiago Half-Marathon! I wrote a blog post about the experience for VE Global's website, so please take a look here!

The End of Entre Todas

2011-04-17T13:04:00.000-07:00

Last December, the home in Santiago where I volunteered for two years called Entre Todas was forced to close down due to major funding cuts. The months leading up to the closing were difficult ones, the girls acting out more than usual, reminding me that children aren't built for such instability. Talking to a fifteen-year-old girl about not knowing where she was going to live, if it was going to be another group home or her own, chaotic, unsafe home, was a frighteningly hopeless experience. I felt worried for the girls who had lived at Entre Todas for seven or eight years together and were, for all intents and purposes, sisters. I felt worried for the girls whose cases were being expedited in a effort to get them back with their families instead of finding spots for them at other group homes. I felt worried for the eight-year-old who, as she watched the other girls leave the home one-by-one, still didn't know where she was going to live with just two weeks until the closing date of the home.

The girls began leaving in October and I quickly learned that I had to adopt a rather zen attitude about the whole process. The first girl was moved to her new home with no warning, leaving the other girls in tears, angrily demanding that the staff give them warning and some sort of recognition of the occasion. When the next two girls left, the staff provided a goodbye party, complete with balloons and Cheetos. Unfortunately, that type of celebration happened just that one time and it became the norm for me to arrive for my weekly shift at the home to find that someone else had been moved. I had to tell myself that the time I had spent with each girl was more important than saying good-bye. At a certain point I started to feel more removed from the process than anything else, knowing there wasn't anything I could do to change what was happening. As a co-volunteer and social worker reminded me, some of the girls were potentially getting the chance to move to a place with better care and attention. Although it had its bright moments, Entre Todas was never the best place for any of them.

The Entre Todas staff held a sweet good-bye party for the home itself, with dancing by some of the girls, slideshows of photos, homemade empanadas and speeches by staff members and a lot of the girls. Despite the leaky roof, the monotonous food and general chaos of the home, the girls had beautiful things to say about their time there. Although it may not always have been obvious, there was a lot of love and care there.

A few weeks ago, I went with Vicky, another former Entre Todas volunteer, to La Pintana, a municipality in the south of the city where ten of the girls live in two homes that are just around the corner from each other. It was the first time I had seen any of them since December, so it was incredible to see that they were doing well and that the homes they're living in seem, indeed, much nicer than Entre Todas. The girls we saw seemed happy for the most part and content to be where they are, which reminds me of their incredible resiliency and ability to adapt despite extremely shitty situations.

The younger girls we visited immediately asked when we'd be coming back to visit again, which made me think a lot about how to best support them without making promises I can't keep. Vicky and I will try to make visiting a semi-regular occasion, but with the three-hour round-trip journey and everything else we have going on, it's not something we can commit to doing every week.

A couple of the girls, including one of the girls I was closest with, weren't home when Vicky and I visited, which was frustrating as La Pintana isn't exactly around the block from the city center where I live and work. Last Tuesday, though, after visiting one of VE's partner institutions in Puente Alto, a municipality to the east of La Pintana, I heard someone yelling "Tía Mariah!" from across the street as I was walking to the Metro. I turned and saw the girl I had been so bummed to not see on our visit waving to me. I screamed and made a terrible scene as she crossed the street, an endearing self-conscious smile on her face. As it turns out, she goes to school very close to the home I had been visiting and, on this day, had forty minutes before her first class. We bought a soda and a snack and plopped on a bench, me bombarding her with questions about her new home and school, etc. She was quiet, as she always is, but answered my questions eagerly, smiling the whole time. She seemed happy and calm, is excited that her older sister is having a baby in a couple of months and that she herself is going to start studying nutrition and cooking next year. It eased my mind to hear her news and know that she has settled into her new routine and is getting good grades, etc.

Seeing some of the girls, though, has made me think a lot about the girls who went home to their families and how I have no way of contacting them to see how they're doing. I've heard through various sources that some of the girls are in pretty difficult situations at the moment. Even though I know logically that by continuing my work at VE, I'm contributing to the support of hundreds of kids, it's hard to think that girls that I knew for a long time are here in Santiago but no longer in a place where they can benefit from VE volunteers. I asked the girl I bumped into if there were any activities or volunteers at her new home and she shook her head, saying, "It's not like it was before."

I know that VE can't work with every child in Santiago--this is the nature of service work, there's always more need somewhere. I also know that sometimes it's impossible to separate this type of work from the emotional attachment it creates. I feel lucky to have known the girls at Entre Todas and to have memories of certain days there that still make me laugh out loud. I'm still struggling to find a balance between letting go and figuring out what more I could do for them in a sustainable way. There's no easy answer but I suppose that's just good practice for life in general and the decisions we all have to make at various difficult moments along the way. For now, I can try to find time every month or so to take a ride on the 205 down to La Pintana.

If you're interested in reading more, my co-volunteer, Alex, wrote a beautiful blog about the closing of Entre Todas for VE's website, which you can access here.

Running for VE

2011-02-13T11:39:00.000-08:00

In the past few months, I've somehow suddenly become quite interested in running. After so many years of tights and leotards, I sometimes laugh at the sight of myself in running shorts and sneakers, but so it goes, things change. I've dabbled in running for years, but for some reason I've been able to run longer distances and even enjoy the experience lately, which never happened before.

And, as it turns out, running is more fun with friends and concrete goals! In October I accompanied Josh, VE's Executive Director, and a few other VE-ers to run in Concepción, the city in Chile most affected by the February 2010 earthquake. Josh and a friend of his were raising money for VE and the American Red Cross and pledged that if they made a certain amount of money, they'd run the half-marathon. And run it they did! I ran the 10 k, but even as we picked up our numbers the day before the race, I had an itch to run a half. A few months later I ran another 10 k in Santiago, again with a group of other VE volunteers.

And now I'm training for my own half-marathon! I'll be running on April 3rd in my dear Santiago. I'm looking to raise $500 for VE with this run, so if you have an extra $5 floating around someone, I have a great place for you to put it! With the help of Matt Suggett, a computer wiz and former VE director who's training for the Madrid marathon to raise money for VE, I have this sweet donation page that makes donating to VE a cinch. Check it out! There's even a cool little feature on there that makes it possible to track my training through dailymile. Any support would be greatly appreciated! I've already been blown away by the support I've recieved, but I still have a little over $200 to go!

I'll leave off with a couple of visuals of the camaraderie I've so loved:

In Concepción with Meg, Josh, Marco and Meghan

In Santiago with Marco, Lindsey, Nico, Meg, Josh, Annie, Faith, and Stephen

Blog much?

2011-02-13T10:52:00.000-08:00

Soooo July 25th was my last blog. Yimes. I think, though, that this lapse in time is a sign of a significant and positive shift in my experience here in Chile. (Yes, I'm still in Chile!). Back in June and July I stopped feeling as though I were having an abroad experience and started feeling as though I were living my life, Santiago style. Moving out of the VE bubble and buying a bicycle really sealed the deal. One day as I was biking to my then-new apartment, I realized the amount of control I have over my own experience and decision-making process. I could bike on the wrong side of the river if I wanted, not caring if it took me longer to get home. I could stay in Chile longer, embracing the fact that life here is indeed reality and a happier reality than I've had anywhere else.

So that's what I've decided to do! I got a little promotion at VE to Director of Operations and in December signed on for another year. It was an easy decision. Student loans be damned, I'll figure something out.

As Director of Operations, my job includes a lot of what I did as Director of Volunteer Relations in terms of running our volunteer orientation program but also includes institutional relations, aka maintaining VE's relationships with the community centers, homes, and schools we work with. The new aspects of my job are quite scary to me but that's why I like them. Each call to the ever-intimidating Señora Ana, director of one of our girls' homes, feels like a small victory, for example. Plus I still get to work closely with all of our amazing volunteers, which is what keeps us inspired.

Last week I went with Josh, VE's Executive Director since June of last year, to visit Centro Comunitario Los Navíos to be interviewed by the three children participating in a journalism workshop with two of our volunteers. The kids each sat up straight at the table, nervously fiddling with their notebooks as they asked us questions from their thoroughly prepared lists. These kids live in one of the most at-risk areas of Santiago but had put on their best sweaters and flat-out dumbfounded me with their thought-provoking questions and insights about our answers. They were the definition of politeness and graciousness. I left feeling more convinced about the importance of our work than ever.

No life, however glorious, is without its ups and downs, but despite those downs, I feel grateful that this one is mine. Getting to help keep VE sustainable is most definitely a mutually beneficial relationship. I've even found a bakery that makes amazing gluten-free bread. It's neither cheap nor close to my house, but hey, it's progress.

Gut Instincts and Toddler Spittle

2010-07-25T19:03:00.000-07:00

I’ve recently begun making visits to the various institutions VE partners with to see how each of the volunteers is doing in his or her work environment. I began making the visits for a number of reasons, mainly to increase my support of the volunteers and to begin to more fully understand the experience of volunteering at the different institutions. Although I know very well the experience of working with the adolescent girls at Entre Todas, I previously had no real sense for the nature of the work at our other partner institutions.

So far, the visits have been even more successful than I anticipated. Even riding the Metro to the institutions with the volunteers has proved to be a great opportunity to chat about how work and life in general is going. I see some of the volunteers more than others, so this is a great way for me to get one-on-one time with everyone. In the past, some volunteers have only come to me if they’ve been having a problem, so this gives me a chance to catch up with them about the positive aspects of their lives in Santiago, too.

Now, whether this fits into my previous description of the visits as “successful” or not, I’ve been loudly reminded of the various delightful facets of working with small children. Last week I visited Hogar Esperanza, a home where the majority of the children are babies and toddlers. Within five minutes of my visit, a two or three-year-old girl noticed that the she and I had ended up in one of the playrooms alone, so she announced that she was going to leave me alone in the room and that I was going to cry. She then proceeded to leave, slamming the door behind her. She later hawked a lougie onto the back of my head and would have delivered another to my face had I not ducked. I was forced to remind myself of the advice I always give incoming volunteers: the kids will do things that seem like a personal attack but the motive comes from an entirely different place.

On my visit to Hogar Pléyades, where the children are between the ages of two and ten, I experienced a similar discovery of the ever-fluctuating attitudes of young children. Their behavior is simply an extremely honest reflection of their emotions at each and every moment. Painfully obvious, yes, but interesting to me as I’ve been chatting with a friend recently about our instincts as adults to feel guilty or unreasonable for reacting in a “childish” way to something sad or frustrating. Children haven’t yet learned the manner in which adults feel they should react to any given situation and therefore react to the events in their lives more authentically.

The honesty goes beyond emotions, as well. I spent twenty minutes with one of the six-year-old girls at Pléyades on the patio, helping her hobble around on her rollerblades. I was having a great time until she randomly stopped, put a wrinkly nosed smile on her face and said, “Tía, you don’t have any boobs, you’re a MAN!” She then laughed maniacally for a moment before she reached her hands back out and said impatiently, “Let’s go.”

Clearly I don’t think adults should go around saying things like that to each other, but I’ve definitely left these recent visits with thoughts about honesty and authenticity. With my departure from Chile in the ever-approaching future, I’ve been thinking a lot about what sorts of decisions I should make in the coming months. I’m feeling more content than ever right now, in huge part thanks to a beautiful new living situation. I feel more balanced and able to listen to my instincts now, even if the decisions they lead me to make take some courage. I’ve found that this only makes the results more rewarding. (Feel free to groan or roll your eyes here).

As for that ever-approaching future I mentioned, it looks like I’m going to be staying with VE through early December or so. Although any VE-er will tell you that I’m actually never leaving, I want to make sure I never arrive at a time in which I’m not feeling excited about the work. I want the person in my position to be energetic and fresh, so I'll just need to keep listening to my instincts about whether or not that person is me. For now, I'm still very, very happy to be where I am.

Caring about the World Cup

2010-07-02T18:10:00.000-07:00

I'm a bit baffled that I've just sat down to write a post about sports.

All bafflement aside, I must proceed and admit that I'm really into the World Cup this year. Now, "into" should be taken fairly loosely considering the number of Chileans who actually purchased flat screen TVs for the occasion and the fact that I didn't know until three weeks ago that soccer had rules beyond "Try to get the ball into your opponent's net."

Chile hadn't qualified for the World Cup since 1998, so when they beat Colombia to qualify, the celebrations in Plaza Italia looked like this:

I think I can safely say that every single person in Chile who's old enough to form opinions and young enough to remember their own name cares deeply about soccer, or here, fútbol. One of my first memories from Chile is looking out the kitchen window of my first apartment to Parque Bustamante, where a dad was holding his unsteady toddler's hands to help him walk, a miniature soccer ball bumping along in front of the boy's feet. I can't think of anything quite so universal in the United States, and I've certainly never seen fans in the US act like the fans in Chile.

As the World Cup began, there was an excitement in the air as if Christmas were around the corner. On the days when Chile played, schools opened late to allow everyone to watch the games. People selling fruit on the streets suddenly had TVs tuned to the game at their stands. In bars and restaurants, it was wise to order everything you wanted before the games started, as the waiters and cooks would file into the dining areas to watch, becoming increasingly more difficult to waive down as the intensity of play increased. In the VE office, we'd huddle around the TV in the living room, laptops on our laps just for show.

I've learned a lot in the past few weeks about the surprisingly complicated game of fútbol. I certainly couldn't explain the off-sides rule to anyone, but at least I now understand what's happening when the referee flashes those little yellow and red cards. On the down side, I don't think I'm anyone's favorite person to watch fútbol with. Although I've gotten better at recognizing good plays and bad plays, I'm normally more interested in making commentary that involves the players' facial hair. There are also a few traditions I can't seem to move past. For example, at the end of every game, the players exchange jerseys, sometimes putting them on right then! Jerseys that have been aggressively sweat into for the past ninety minutes by someone else, and the players just pull them right on. Sick.

Watching the Chile World Cup games here in Santiago was certainly a treat. Whenever Chile scored a goal, we'd open the office windows and listen to the immediate explosion of screams and honking horns. When they won their first two games, the celebrations that followed were on par with the best I ever watched from my old apartment on the 15th floor. As usual, the police started with water cannons, then brought out the tear gas. After one of the games, we watched from the office as the police cavalry chased some fans down the side street outside our windows. Even after Chile lost to Spain but moved on the the next round, the mass of people in Plaza Italia was as giant as ever. Even Telefónica showed its Chilean pride with a huge flag on its building in Plaza Italia:

On the one hand, it's great to see so many people fired up about one thing, celebrating together in such a no holds barred way. On the other hand, I wonder how they don't get sick of the same routine every time. Perhaps that's the difference between me and a true fútbol fan. Although I might tire of jumping around with thousands of other people a few times a month, knowing I'd be blasted with water and tear gas and potentially chased by horses, the Chilean fans can't seem to stop themselves from celebrating, no matter the consequences. I guess that's passion for you.

Now that Chile's out of the running, I'm less inclined to check FIFA's website, but it's certainly been an interesting foray into the world of international soccer. At the very least, it's been a reminder to keep an open mind about what I might or might not find interesting. And at the very most, it's been great fun to experience the festivities with my VE colleagues. As for office productivity? Better luck next month.

Bolivia!

2010-06-26T18:34:00.000-07:00

Sometimes working a full-time, almost un-paid job in South America can be frustrating in that some of the most amazing travel opportunities in the world are right in my back yard, but I'm too much of a broke volunteer to get to experience them. Sometimes I decide to borrow money and go experience them anyway!

At the end of May, seven of us from VE traveled up north to San Pedro, Chile, a town alongside the Atacama Desert, then continued on to take a Jeep tour that would finish in the world's largest (4,086 square miles) salt flat in Uyuni, Bolivia. I flew up to San Pedro with my friends Annie and Ashton, where we met up with the other four of the group who had opted for the cheaper 24-hour bus. Although the Jeep tour was our "final destination," we took our first day in San Pedro to explore the famous Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley) in the Atacama Desert. Here are Annie and Ashton and I at the first stop of the tour in the tour of the Desert:

The tour took us to various famous locations in the desert and concluded with watching the sunset over the Moon Valley. At this point we met up with the other half of our group, then watched as the sunset reflected an incredible set of colors on the mountains surrounding the valley.

The next day we were off on the tour, which brought us immediately to the Bolivian border and 4800 meters (15,748 feet!), so it was coooold. Here's the Bolivian Migration building in the middle of the desert:

After some questionable interchanges in the migration building, we piled into our Jeeps and were off! Because we were a group of seven, and only six could fit into a Jeep, we had to separate into two vehicles, but met a cool couple from Scotland and one from Germany as a result. The first day we drove until about 2:00 in the afternoon when we arrived at the first refugio, which was an unheated, very simple building with beds and a large room with tables for eating meals. This location was at 4370 meters (or 14,337 feet), so the drivers told us to rest up to avoid getting headaches, etc, from the altitude. On the drive to the refugio, we stopped at incredible place after incredible place. There were a few lakes with distinctively colored water, geysers, and this hotsprings:

At the refugio, we ignored the advice of the drivers and went exploring. Although most of us felt fine aside from minor headaches, we found walking up even the smallest of hills extremely difficult. The place was too incredible not to explore, though--it was one of those places with huge sky and landscape like nothing I've ever seen before. When the sun set, I realized I hadn't ever seen a 360 degree sunset. It wasn't too bad.

That night, though, was one of the only nights in my life I've ever had trouble sleeping because of the cold. In long johns, sweats, my L.L. Bean down sleeping bag, and the bedding on the bed, I was still freezing. With my face outside my sleeping bag I seriously feared for frostbite. With my face inside my sleeping bag, at an altitude with so little oxygen, I just couldn't breath. I was glad for the early morning wake-up call just for the excuse to get into the heated Jeep.

The second day of the tour brought more and more incredible sites. It became comical, almost, each time Ruben, our driver, would stop and say "Foto, foto," with slightly less enthusiasm each time. We started off at Laguna Colorado (Colored Lake) where we saw lots of flamingos!

There were more incredible lakes, an oddly beautiful stone tree, a volcano, and non-stop photogenic scenery. For the second night of lodging, as we neared the salt flat, we stayed in a hostel made almost completely of salt. The picture below is of the dining area--all the tables and stools are made of salt, along with the walls. It was salty (I licked it).

The next morning we drove to the salt flat. On our way in, while trying to wrap our heads around what we were looking at, we drove past a man on a bicycle with a baby on the back. The surreality was thick. Here's a photo I snapped of the other Jeep while we were driving quite closely to each other on the salt flat:

The classic tourist activity on the salt flats is to take goofy pictures because something about the seemingly endless salt makes playing with perspective extremely easy. We took lots of pictures such as this one:

The tour also stopped by the first ever salt hotel, outside of which were these piles of salt:

The Jeep tour ended at Uyuni's one other attraction: a train cemetery. After three days of unbelievable natural sites, ending at the resting place of a bunch of antique trains seemed strange, but interesting nonetheless. The trains were used mostly by the mining industry, apparently, but when the industry collapsed in the 1940's, the trains became obsoletes. For us, exhausted at the end of three long days of riding in Jeeps, the trains were simply a cool place to climb around for a minute before we moved on.

After the tour ended, our group went separate ways. Annie, Ashton, Madinah, and I continued on into Bolivia for a few days. After discovering that juice-in-a-bag was the best thing Uyuni had to offer beyond the salt flat and the train cemetery, we decided to take the next bus to Sucre, a beautiful introduction to Bolivian cities. Sucre has, in my opinion, an excellent balance of beauty and grit. The main square, pictured below, is charming, filled with manicured gardens and surrounded by gorgeous buildings.

There seemed to be a fair amount of tourism, but there were also plenty of opportunities to see the vast differences between Bolivia and Chile. Living in Santiago, I sometimes forget what South America is really like. With it's big business and Wi-fi everywhere you go, Santiago is very much a modern, developed city. Sucre, although a beautiful city with everything you could need, was a reminder of a different way of life. A large percentage of the Bolivian women we saw, for example, wore traditional dress. Street stalls such as the one pictured below were much more common than grocery stores and seemed to be the way most people purchased all of their goods. It was difficult to find a soda or bottle of water that was refrigerated, but very easy to purchase fresh, unpackaged foods on the street. We were there on Bolivian mother's day and on the night before, it seemed that one in every twenty people was carrying an uncovered cake amidst the crowded streets.

On our last full day in Sucre, we took a half-day hike along a portion of the Inca Trail. The four of us had a private tour with a Bolivian guide who, along with being fascinated by his first all-female tour group, told us lots of interesting information about Bolivian culture and history. Bolivia's current president, Evo Morales, has declared himself to be the first indigenous president, for example. He's also apparently known for the striped sweater he always wears, which has become a popular style in Bolivia since he took office.

The trail itself, which dates back to pre-Columbian times, was incredibly beautiful. The colors of the landscape were unlike colors I've seen elsewhere--the greens were almost muted, the dirt and clay orange-y and purple in places. Along some parts of the trail we walked on new paths but in some places we walked on the original stones that has been placed there thousands of years before. Here's a photo that shows a new dirt road which we later drove up to get a view of the valley, which includes a massive crater in which you can see original dinosaur prints. Nutty!

For the last two days of my trip, I travelled alone. Madinah headed further north to La Paz, while Ashton and Annie headed to another Bolivian city, Potosí, where they took a tour of a grim operating silver mine. Because of limited time, I needed to head back down to San Pedro to catch my flight back to Santiago. Transportation in Bolivia is much less efficient that in Chile, we learned, so I wanted to leave myself plenty of time. Although I was initially a bit overwhelmed at the prospect of traveling by myself, even just for two days, I found it quite relaxing and got a lot of reading and writing done, which was lovely.

Bolivia was a fascinating place and definitely one that I'd like to revisit. Perhaps I'll WWOOF there, who knows! Regardless, the trip was well worth going a bit further into debt for.

Smog Season/Fresh Starts

2010-06-20T18:42:00.000-07:00

Winter has most definitely arrived in Santiago. As I write this I’m perfecting the art of typing with my sweet new alpaca fingerless gloves with mitten flaps from Bolivia! Fun, perhaps, but necessary more than anything else. I’m also writing this on a Saturday night, which normally wouldn’t happen, but I’m sitting home with what was a flu but morphed into a sinus infection with a bonus side of pink eye! Thanks, Santiago, your smog has done me well, yet again.

There is also positive news to report, however! We’ve just finished the orientation program for the June class of VE volunteers, a class of ten, none of whom were welcomed to Chile by an 8.8 earthquake. Orientation went smoothly and we’re all quite enamored with this set of newbies. Anther exciting newbie at VE is Josh Pilz, who will take over for Brooke as Executive Director. We LOVE him. As sad as it is to see Brooke go, we’re all thrilled that Josh is the replacement! I first met Josh on our earthquake relief trip to Retiro and was thoroughly impressed with him as a human being. He has started his training in the VE office, even taking part in the majority of the June class’s orientation week. He’s even excited about Vanessa and Edmondstone, the tiny little VE turtles he’ll inherit as ED.

A very exciting detail that deserves its own paragraph is that one of the newbies doesn’t eat gluten. !!! I’ve already taken her to one of my favorite restaurants, fed her my from-scratch gluten-free pizza, and generally overwhelmed her with my excitement about having another of my kind around VE. She has stated repeatedly her gratitude that I laid down all the groundwork in training the VE staff on the art of gluten-free cooking, which is valid considering I ate lettuce and rice with tomato paste sauce during my orientation week.

In other new news, I’ve moved! We decided it was time to move on from cozy apartment 1505 (one cushy block from the VE office) and venture into the world of living with Chileans. I’ve found myself a perfect little quirky apartment three metro stops from the office in the very happening area of Providecia. I live with Jose and Max, two wonderful/terribly cool Chileans who are both in film. (I know). The apartment is great fun—the two boys live upstairs and downstairs are the kitchen, living room/dining room, and my room, complete with my own bathroom. The rent is cheaper than 1505, and I get to speak Spanish every day. I moved the Monday of orientation week, so was literally in the apartment only to sleep for the rest of the week, but now that life is returning to normal, I think I’m on my way to figuring out the rhythm of the casa.

And, because apparently I forget to tell people, I’m staying a bit longer than planned here in Chile! I guess I meant to leave some time this month, but for many reasons, including that there’s no one to take over my job yet, I’m staying a few extra months. My priority is to do what I can to help the transition for whoever takes my job go smoothly, and since the huge transition from one Executive Director to the next is currently happening, I want to be around and help in any way I can with that as well. The plan as of right now is to find someone for my job sometime in July, train them for the month of August, help them with the orientation for the September class, then head off to a farm to WWOOF for a few months. WWOOF-ing is something I’ve always wanted to do, and something I would love to do in Chile or Argentina or Bolivia, so this seems like the time. If all goes according to plan, I’ll be home for Christmas and a great big reality check!

All in all life is going wonderfully, as usual! There’s never a dull moment with VE and rarely a free one (it took me staying home sick to blog, apparently), so time continues to pass at an alarmingly quick rate. There have been a few tough good-byes recently with long-term volunteers moving on, but this new class of volunteers has given me very high hopes for the next three months.

Construction Trip to Pencahue, Chile

2010-06-20T17:12:00.000-07:00

After such a fulfilling trip to Retiro to help with post-earthquake reconstruction, four of us decided to repeat the experience back in early May. We joined a group of students from the Universidad de Chile for a weekend of building in Pencahue, another tiny town about 5 hours south of Santiago. We brought our own hammers and measuring tapes on this trip and thank goodness we did, as not long after we pulled out of Santiago, the trip leader passed around a laptop with a spreadsheet into which each person was filling in their name, what tools they brought with them, and how much construction experience they had.

We thought nothing of the spreadsheet until the morning when, over clumpy powdered milk, we discovered that the group had been divided into teams of four people per mediagua (the pre-fabricated temporary housing we were there to build). There were 16 mediaguas sitting outside the school where we were sleeping and the plan was to finish them all by Sunday afternoon.

“That can’t be possible,” I said. “The guys in Retiro said 12 was the ideal number of people to build a mediagua.”

The 16 mediaguas in waiting

We were not in Retiro anymore! Still recovering from the 3:30 a.m. arrival in Pencahue and the 6:30 a.m. wake-up call, we all piled on to a bus that delivered us each to our worksites. Unlike in Retiro where the worksites were all within the “downtown” area of the town, we were each at least a mile from each other, most of us on family farms.

My team, luckily, was comprised of three Chilean students, each of whom had some significant construction experience. I was able to help a lot in the first phase—digging holes for the foundation pile-ons with iron rods! As we got into the more complicated building stages, I became an expert wall-holder and nail-hander-to-er. On Sunday evening as the sun set and the boys finished the roof, I was “in charge” of taking pictures.

Our team, plus a few members of the family, working on the foundation

The land around our site was absolutely beautiful, with mountains visible in the distance 360 degrees around us. As we worked, we were surrounded by cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, cats, dogs, sheep and horses. At one point on Sunday morning, we saw the stream of run-off from the house flow red after the mother slaughtered one of the turkeys for lunch.

The best part, by far, of the weekend was getting to know the family for whom we were building the mediagua. Because all of us from the group were all so separated throughout Pencahue, we didn’t meet back up for lunch or breaks, we simply ate lunch with our families. When I told the family that I didn’t eat meat or gluten, I became an instant topic of conversation. I was presented with a beautiful bowl of lentils instead of the turkey soup everyone else was eating, and the mother cooked a batch of potatoes for me on the second day. Throughout the course of the weekend, each of the couple’s four daughters showed up, two with their children, so I got to explain my fascinating dietary requirements each time.

The welcome they extended was so warm, I didn’t notice until the end of lunch on Saturday the condition of the family’s house. It seemed to be combination house and grain barn, and I’m still not sure if they were only living there because their house collapsed in the earthquake or because they had been on the list for a mediagua and their time finally came. The house was put together with various materials, in some places just plastic sheets, and was thus incredibly drafty, so once the sun went down, they all huddled around a bowl of coals from the oven to keep warm. They were incredibly generous with us and incredibly appreciative, offering us hot coffee and tea and fresh homemade bread (an egg for me) each evening so we could take a break from the cold.

The father helping out with the foundation

The matriarch, looking adorable as usual

Handing up the zinc roof panels

In the end, our group of forty-eight people completed twelve mediaguas. A smaller group was planning on staying until Tuesday to finish the remaining four. Although I thoroughly enjoyed our trip to Retiro, I feel incredibly content to have gone on this trip, which felt infinitely more productive, and to have met that family. Hopefully they’re enjoying the new addition to their home!

With the family in the finished product!

Earthquake Relief Trip to Retiro, Chile

2010-04-18T23:36:00.000-07:00

Five minutes out of Retiro and the Chileans at the back of the bus had already cut open a melon, filled it with wine, and drawn a Jack-o-Lantern face in red Sharpie on one side. Eight hours later, we pulled into Santiago.

Since the February 27th earthquake in Chile, we at VE Global have struggled to find tangible ways to get involved and help the people in areas that were harder hit than Santiago. As I mentioned in my last post, we helped out briefly at the Red Cross warehouse, but wanted to make a more significant commitment of time and labor. After investigating several options, we were lucky enough to snag spots on a bus with a student organization from the Universidad de Chile to Retiro, Chile, a town of 3,000 people 335 kilometers south of Santiago. Seven of us from VE joined the huge group of students, fairly unclear about how the weekend would play out but hopeful that we'd be able to make some sort of concrete difference.

From start to finish, the trip was a delightfully Chilean affair. First, we left Santiago about an hour after the stated departure time. After arriving in Retiro and standing around for 30 minutes, we got word that there would be an organizational meeting at 6:30 and that we would be free until then. Happy with the opportunity to stretch our legs, we decided to take a walk around the town and take a look at the damage.

Seeing the state of Retiro reminded me of walking through the intensely poor neighborhoods of Guatemala City where I volunteered with Safe Passage--both situations were so extreme, I had a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that I was physically there, seeing the conditions in front of me, not in a newspaper or a movie. The damage is incredible, and I can only imagine what the town looked like a month ago before any debris clearing had been done. We described it to our friends back in Santiago as looking like a war zone, holes where buildings used to be everywhere you looked.

We were welcomed to Retiro by this house, which sits directly across the street from the old school building where we stayed. While our building had only cracks, this house was absolutely destroyed:

Walls such as this one fell all around the town and those left standing have "Peligro" (Danger) spray-painted on them.

The most incredible site was this fallen water tower, which had knocked a second water tower down as it fell. We kept trying to imagine what the sound of this cracking and smashing to the ground was like.

In addition to the damages we saw, we also saw a lot of evidence of the work that's already been done to begin rebuilding the town. Two of our friends who had taken a previous trip to Retiro two weeks earlier told us that this house had been destroyed when they saw it on their last visit but had been rebuilt in the past two weeks. The wooden portion of the house to the right had previously been made of adobe and had completely fallen but was rebuilt beautifully to look like this:

We also saw quite a few "mediaguas" already completed around the town. Mediaguas are pre-fabricated temporary shelters that are currently being built all around Chile. They're 6 meters long by 3 meters wide and are meant to temporarily house a family of four for approximately one year, though they're meant to last up to ten. It was clear to us, however, while walking around Retiro, that these mediaguas would be in no way temporary for most of the families living in them. With winter fast approaching, the mediaguas are clearly better than the tents many families are living in, but picturing a family crammed in the tiny space for years and years is a hard thought to sit with.

It didn't take long for us to meet the precocious children of the town, who were both adorable and thrilled to meet some gringos. It's much less common for people in a town such as Retiro to hear English, especially as compared to Santiago, so they begged us to speak to them in English, laughing hysterically at the sound of it. They were also eager to have their pictures taken and showed no shortage of sass:

Upon returning to the school where we were staying for the "meeting," it became clear that a meeting was not going to happen any time soon, so we broke out a deck of cards and made friends with a few military guys who were finishing a week-long stint in Retiro building temporary houses. Although we could have gotten in a few hours of work that night, nothing seemed organized, so we played. Our two friends Meghan and Josh, whom we know through WorldTeach, had taken a bus to Retiro on Thursday evening and so had started working on Friday morning. At 10:30 p.m., they were still out working. This seemed crazy to us, the new arrivals on this trip, but Saturday would show us that logic was not exactly a factor in the weekend plans.

On Saturday morning, we headed to the property of a family who's house now looks like this:

Meghan and Josh had spent the evening digging holes for the pile-ons that made up the foundation of the "mediagua" we would build for the family and were excited to participate in the more exciting work of putting up the actual house. We started the day by nailing the floor into place, and by about 2:30 in the afternoon, the house was complete. Although it was gratifying to see the house finished, we were all a bit frustrated with our lack of skills and, due to the large number of people working at our site, the chunks of time we spent standing around feeling useless. There were moments in which it was important to have a lot of people, for putting up the walls, etc, so in some ways it was valuable for us to be there. Once we finished, we all felt confident that we would know what to do on the next mediagua and would be able to provide better assistance.

One of the best aspects of working on this house was seeing the family watch the progress. They were also extremely generous and put out fruit and snacks for us, even making incredible homemade empanadas (a traditional Chilean snack that's similar to a calzone but smaller and in some cases deep-fried).

Here are a few pictures of the process:

Here's our group, including the students from the Universidad de Concepción who were leading the project and the family that now lives in the house:

Once the house was completed, we headed back to the school where we were staying and realized that we had no plan for what to do next. It was early in the day, we were still eager to work, but there was no one to tell us where to go. So we ate a snack and played cards. We laughed about it because we had to, but it was ultimately frustrating that even on an earthquake relief trip we could feel confused about how to help. After an hour or so of hanging out, we decided to set out and see if we could find any of the other groups and see if they needed help.

After some aimless wandering, we finally got word from Meghan and Josh that the students we worked with earlier that day had found a poorly constructed mediagua that needed to be taken down and rebuilt. We all met up there and began the process of carefully taking down the walls and marveling at all the mistakes that had been made during the initial construction. Among the more amusing mistakes: the floor was not nailed down to the pile-ons in any way and, once we lifted up the floor, we found the instructions for building the mediagua on the ground underneath. By this point, of course, it was getting dark, and although logic might suggest that this type of work not be done in the dark, Chile suggests otherwise:

Once we decided to stop work for the day, we found Meghan and a couple other VE-ers who had gone to work on a different project digging holes for pile-ons for a temporary house for a little old man with a swollen knee who was currently living in a bus stop with a plastic sheet for a wall. They had found a few lights and were digging holes with heavy iron rods. There were close to 30 people at the worksite, it was past 9:00 p.m., and they were attempting to measure and dig holes that were meant to be evenly spaced. We attempted to get involved, and at one point were sent on a mission to gather a wheelbarrow full of rocks from a pile of rubble a few blocks down, but after completing that task and standing around for a while, it became clear that some of us should just leave and get some rest.

At about 10:00 that night, the meeting that was supposedly going to happen the night before finally began. For over two hours they went around and around in circles talking about issues that were occurred throughout the weekend. Of course the "issues" they were discussing weren't things such as "We shouldn't work past dark" or "We should organize our projects more efficiently to utilize the people we have," but rather, "People shouldn't party during the weekend, we're here to work," versus, "People should party because it's such hard work." I couldn't tell you much more about the meeting, though, as I was outside playing ping pong the whole time. Whoops.

On Sunday morning we headed back to the site of the poorly constructed mediagua to begin taking out the pile-ons and digging new holes. Before a few of us began work, however, we went to deliver a few boxes of donations to a family for whom the students from the Universidad de Concepción had built two mediaguas earlier in the week. The boxes held food, winter clothing and blankets, along with some chocolate Easter eggs we had brought with us. Watching the family open the boxes was one of the highlights of the weekend for me, especially watching the girls try on their new hats and look through the baby clothes and blankets for their little sister:

Here's the family along with a few of the students who built their mediaguas:

Back at our worksite, we spent our last few hours of work time finishing the new holes and putting in pile-ons. It was tiring work but we were all thrilled to feel as though we were actually doing something.

After cold showers and one last maté in the park, we got on the 3:00 (er, 4:30) bus back to Santiago. Despite the long ride and an extremely stiff neck, I felt energized by the weekend. Although we didn't do quite as much work as we thought we would, it felt like a good balance of work and play and by far a cooler weekend than we would have had in Santiago. I loved participating in the weekend with my VE friends, with whom I work every day but in a very different way. I was impressed by everyone's energy and sense of humor throughout the weekend and feel extremely lucky that I got to be part of the trip.

I'm hoping to get down south again soon, maybe even to Retiro. It can be tricky to find chunks of time to get away from our hectic lives here, but there's still a lot to be done in Chile and although we may not be great with hammers, we can learn and could probably spare a couple of fingers.

Thanks, Retiro, for a beautiful weekend!

Earthquake 2010

2010-03-21T19:44:00.000-07:00

It’s been just over three weeks now since the magnitude 8.8 earthquake hit Chile. In some ways, here in Santiago it feels as though nothing happened. City life appears to be functioning normally: bars and restaurants are open and full of customers, joggers trudge along running paths and couples spend afternoons canoodling in the shady pockets of grassy parks. I spent my day yesterday reading next to a fountain and now sit in a café sipping coffee while I write this.

At VE, we’ve mostly returned to our normal daily routines, as well. Our volunteers head to their institutions every day to help the children with homework, organize sports and arts activities, etc. Outside of work we cook meals together, play games, and gossip, carrying on as we did before the earthquake.

Despite this normalcy, there’s an underlying sense of tension and exhaustion here. Perhaps it’s only in my head and I’m projecting it onto the entire city, but I get the sense that everyone feels a bit emotionally rattled (bad earthquake humor not intended). Among my friends here, I’ve seen a huge variety of reactions, ranging from no reaction whatsoever to mild emotional turmoil. Navigating the rollercoaster of emotions has been a huge challenge. Although my VE role as Director of Volunteer Relations suggests that I should be tending to the emotional needs of all the volunteers, I’ve been left feeling overwhelmed and under-qualified to handle the variety.

That the range of reactions is so vast should come as no surprise, as the earthquake was undeniably terrifying. It hit at 3:34 on Saturday morning, February 27^th, while my roommates, Chris and Annie, and I were all sleeping. I woke to the sound of the wooden painting hanging at the foot of my bed clanking against the wall. Once awake, I realized my entire room was shuddering and swaying, my door repeatedly swinging open and slamming shut. There was the unfamiliar sound of cracking plaster and the rumble of shifting furniture as my nightstand and desk slid away from the wall. The items close to the edges of the desk and nightstand danced their way to the floor and the one, highly embarrassing thought I remember having was that I felt as though I were on the sinking Titanic. I’ll never let go, Jack.

The first earthquake lasted for a staggering 90 seconds. I had fallen asleep with the lamp on my nightstand on, so I was extremely aware that about 35 seconds into the shaking, the power went out. The shaking became so severe near the end that I didn’t feel as though I could get out of my bed and walk in a straight line to my doorway. Not that the logical thought of getting to a doorway even crossed my mind. So I stayed in bed. Our apartment is on the 15^th floor and the swaying was so extreme, I was convinced the building was going to topple over. Tall buildings are built to move that way in the case of an earthquake, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to feel like a joy ride while it’s happening.

Not even five seconds after the shaking stopped, Annie came running into my room, saying, “Are you okay? Are you okay?” Chris was right behind her and I sat up, staring at them, saying, “Yeah, yeah,” trying to process what had just happened. We made our way into the living room where our floor-to-ceiling windows showed us that the entire city was out of power. We live just across the Mapocho River from Barrio Bellavista, one of the main “going out” neighborhoods with blocks upon blocks of bars and nightclubs, so we got to witness the mass exodus of the Friday night partiers making their way out of the darkened clubs. 3:30 is prime party-time in Santiago, so the streets were quickly filled with inebriated people who suddenly needed a ride home. Buses drove past the overflowing bus stops, causing a few desperate individuals to run into the street to try to make them stop.

After about an hour of watching the scene on the street and surveying the relatively minor damage in our apartment, we decided that going back to sleep was the next logical step. As I drifted off, however, I received a call from my friend Matt who informed me that we should leave the building for a couple of hours in case of a big aftershock. We took the first of many trips down the fifteen flights of stairs and found about twenty other people from our building sitting outside. While we waited, we sent text messages to everyone we could think of and confirmed that, although everyone was freaked out, we were all safe and sound.

At about 5:45, we decided to leave the grannies and their doggies and headed back up to the apartment to try to get some sleep. At 7:30 I was awoken by the first big aftershock and decided to give up on sleeping. At 8:00, our friend Meghan came over, as she had been alone in her apartment and had received a phone call from her mom who saw the first news reports in the US with pictures from Concepción, a city to the south of Santiago that was practically destroyed by the earthquake. She told Meghan about the tsunami warnings and, having no sense for the situation in Santiago, was an understandable wreck.

By the afternoon on Sunday we had electricity and cold water back, so much of the remainder of the day was spent reassuring family and friends that we were safe. Although I was extremely relieved that we were safe and had electricity and water, the city was quiet in an unsettling way. The Metro wasn’t running and we found only two convenience stores open for buying snacks and water. We heard from a Chilean friend that sometimes the water can be unsafe to drink after a big earthquake because of excess minerals. Knowing that, then being unsure of how long the water supply would last at the two open stores, was an interesting, albeit tiny, taste of the panic one must feel when he or she don’t have access to basic resources. We concluded the day on a positive note, however, as a group of us spent the evening in the VE office playing Catchphrase and Pictionary, happy to be together and laughing.

Each day after the earthquake brought us both a little closer and a little further from normalcy. Restaurants and select grocery stores re-opened, but the shelves were increasingly barren each day, raising concerns about when they’d be able to re-stock. We had gas back in our apartment by Sunday afternoon, but had friends who were still without gas over a week later. Chilean schools, meant to open the first week of March, were all delayed at least a week.

Then, of course, the aftershocks. When a huge earthquake hits, it’s normal for aftershocks to occur for weeks or even months after the main quake. We began following the earthquakes on the US Geological Survey website and by six days after the earthquake, there had been over 200 aftershocks. Just when a day would feel normal, a big aftershock would hit and we’d all be reminded that we were in the middle of something quite nutty.

On the VE side of things, our tiny March class became a blessing in disguise as we were forced to postpone, and ultimately cancel, the orientation week that was meant to begin March 1^st, the Monday after the earthquake. One of the two new volunteers had arrived a few days before the earthquake and the other spent hours on the phone with his airline, finally able to secure a flight that arrived on Friday the 5^th. We decided, after spending hours organizing and re-organizing the orientation schedule, that we would just give both of the volunteers a mini, personalized orientation.

In the midst of the craziness, we still managed to have VE Palooza, the celebration to close each three-month cycle of VE, although it was a cozy, modified version at my apartment on the Sunday after the earthquake. We also held a modified version of Café, the celebration with skits, etc, at the end of each Orientation week. In the interest of sending positive vibes to Chile, Matt and I donned our cueca garb and introduced the new volunteers to the national dance. In the interest of keeping it real, the VE women reprised their performance of Soulja Boy from Festival de Arte.

As the first couple of weeks after the earthquake passed, we found that another huge challenge was figuring out how we can help in the earthquake relief effort. Just a couple hours south of Santiago the situations are extremely dire, but finding an effective way to contribute in a meaningful way proved quite difficult. The few well-organized options were flooded with people wanting to help and we didn’t want to just hop onto something to feel good about ourselves. We ended up helping out in the Red Cross Chile warehouse here in Santiago, making care kits and helping load and unload trucks of donations. Although they seemed to have a lot of volunteers, it felt good to contribute at least a tiny bit in a concrete way.

We’re also working to raise money to repair the damage that our partner institutions faced. A couple of the institutions came through almost unscathed, while others suffered severe damages. And here I shamelessly say that if you’d like to donate to VE to help in this rebuilding effort, you can click here.

Now, if you’ve made it this far in this grossly long post, I’m going to end on a sappy note. I always feel lucky to be a part of the VE community, as I’ve gushed about many, many times in this blog. It’s during times like this, though, that I feel even more fortunate to have so many people around to freak out with and laugh with and eat cookie dough with when that seems like the only possible solution. It’s been a crazy few weeks but I’m still content to be where I am.

I’ll leave you with some pictures:

Here’s some of the damage from our apartment, just a bit of missing plaster:

The worse damage is in the hallways of our building:

At the VE office, the turtles (Vanessa and Eddie) had a wild, almost-fatal ride (Thanks to Matt for the photo):

Our friend Meghan’s apartment suffered much worse damage than ours. In her kitchen, every single dish and glass broke. Here’s a shot she took:

Around Santiago, there are a few instances of damage that make me shocked the city didn’t suffer more. Thanks to my friend Lucía for these shots:

At the Aldea María Reina, a home for adolescent girls and one of our partner institutions, the entire front wall collapsed, leaving the barbed wire hanging alone:

Matt and I dancing the cueca at Café:

The VE women doing what they do best:

New Campaign Video!

2009-11-12T08:59:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in my last post, VE has kicked off it's 2009 Unite. Act. Engage annual campaign. Alexandre de la Biche, a member of the September 2009 class created a video to be shown at various campaign events. We're all extremely impressed with the video, so I'd like you to see it! Enjoy!

It's November?

2009-11-08T12:55:00.000-08:00

Yes, it's November. Somehow we sailed through September and October, and all of a sudden we're planning for the December class of volunteers to come in! Yimes.

I would say that October was pretty much as euphoric as September. The new volunteers continue to make my job (and life) a huge joy. For that reason I was incredibly excited for their Jornada. And as it turned out, I was excited for good reason! From start to finish, the weekend retreat was filled with positive energy. The September class was game for anything and handled the group-building exercises and challenges with more zest than I've ever seen.

As usual, the weekend was filled with beautifully ridiculous moments. Firstly, a cat ate one of our quiches. The event was dramatically re-enacted in one of our group photos:

Secondly, the owner's daughters, one of whom is named Genesis, spent the majority of the weekend attempting to join and/or modify our activities. At one point, all 20-something of us found ourselves walking in circles like monkeys and elephants and whatever else Genesis came up with, freezing when she yelled "Paren!" and changing when she yelled "Cambio!". As Chris eloquently describes in his Jornada-related blog post, it was an important, no-one-gives-a-shit-about-what-people-think moment. It became a theme of conversation, about the importance of being silly and comfortable with ourselves so we can help the kids we work with feel comfortable with themselves. They're all trying so hard to be cool, and as I discovered with the girls at Entre Todas a while ago, my favorite way to behave around them is to be incredibly uncool. I think VE does a great job of helping people over that hurdle of self-consciousness, regardless of who's running the activity.

In the end, Genesis walked off with our frisbee, but we won't hold it against her.

I was a bit apprehensive about the new additions I made to Jornada, but everyone dove right into the new games and seemed to have a fantastic time. I heard nothing but good things about people's experiences in their small groups, and, although someone pointed it out specifically on my personal poster, I was not the only one to "get really huggy" at Jornada.

Here's the traditional group photo, as well as a now practically requisite jumping photo featuring all the antiguos (old volunteers):

Back at the VE office, we've begun a new tradition: Friday lunch! Although we almost always eat lunch together, now we each take turns cooking a beautiful meal for the rest of the office staff (and whoever else is smart enough to schedule an early-afternoon meeting) every Friday. Normally the person who's cooking gets no work done as they cook all morning, then we gorge ourselves, impressed by everyone's ability to come up with creative gluten-free vegetarian meals.

In other office-related fun, I made this video after a particularly productive afternoon (the day after Jornada is not built for productivity). Ann's mom sent her a care package that included Halloween-themed parachuters. We launched them out of the office window and ran into a bit of an issue with some potted plants a couple floors down. Enjoy!

We also celebrated Halloween with impressive costumes. Here's a sample, as you'll find Matt dressed as a box of Gato wine and me as, well, gluten.

In other VE news, last night we held the kick-off event for out annual Unite. Act. Engage. fundraising campaign. The event was a trivia night held in a beautiful backyard in Ñuñoa, a more residential area of Santiago. With about twenty white-tableclothed tables, twinkly lights, a lit swimming pool, DJs from Santiago Radio, ten donated cases of wine, raffle prizes, traditional Chilean barbecued sausages, and a gaggle of happy VE volunteers in their matching t-shirts, it was a classy event. We even had an accordion band playing during the cocktail hour before the trivia started. It seems like every gringo in Santiago was there, and they all seemed to have a fantastic time. Rumor has it we made more money than expected, so the event was pretty much a smashing success!

And finally, I've purchased a plane ticket home for Christmas! I'll be in New England from December 22nd to January 6th. I'll be in Connecticut for Christmas with my mom's family, New Hampshire for a few days to check out my dad's new digs in North Conway, then in Maine to sit in front of the woodstove, sled, and eat my weight in gluten-free products. I suppose I should go to the dentist as well. Regardless, I'm beyond excited to see all you lovely New England-ers and have a little vacation!

Oceans and Mountains!

2009-10-19T15:19:00.001-07:00

One of Santiago's greatest attributes is its proximity to both the ocean and the mountains. Within a month, I was able to enjoy both sledding in El Colorado, a tiny town in the Andes, and sunbathing in Isla Negra, a tiny beach town where one of Pablo Neruda's houses is located.

In late September, one of our new volunteers, Angel, invited us up to her roommate's apartment in El Colorado. She did an incredible job organizing transportation, food, and a fresh snowstorm; all we had to do was drag ourselves out of bed a little earlier than we might have otherwise. Bruno, her roommate, picked us up in Las Condes, a northeastern municipality of Santiago, in his trusty Chevrolet Luv. We had way more people than seats, but Bruno said that as long as those riding in the bed of the pickup ducked under blankets during the police check, we would be fine. The boys chivalrously offered to pack themselves into the back, with a little assistance from Bruno:

At the end of the curvy ride, Angel met us in the cozy apartment with coca tea to nip any altitude sickness in the bud. We recovered for a while by sprawling on the heated floors, then headed out into the snow. Here's a view of some of the apartment buildings in the little town:

Most of our time was devoted to beating each other up:

It was a fairly perfect day, and although the boys (and Angel) had to ride back down in the freezing cold, we were all thrilled to finally get a taste of the mountains we [occasionally] gaze at [through the smog] from Santiago.

In mid-October, under very different weather conditions, four VE women headed to Isla Negra, a beach town south-west of Santiago. We started the day by touring Pablo Neruda's house. I had already toured Neruda's houses in Santiago and Valparaiso, so this completed the trio for me. Although the house wasn't my favorite aesthetically, there was something thrilling or magical about being in it. It was Neruda's favorite house, and where he kept the largest of his collections (seashells, tiny guitars, figureheads, etc). There are fascinating details in the house; for example, in one room, there are brown and green glass jars on the windowsill facing the garden, and green and blue glass jars on the windowsill facing the sea. I would probably be fascinated by anyone's house, but Neruda provides a lot to look at.

We spent the rest of the day lounging on the beach, eating a picnic and watching tourists pose with the stone sculpture of Neruda's head. We saw some creative ideas, but no one else bothered picking his nose.

The rocky beach reminded me of Maine, so having the chance to hang out there, with no agenda, just three wonderful people, was superb.

Life in Chile is not too shabby.

September at VE: Alive, Awake, Alert, Enthusiastic!

2009-10-19T01:19:00.000-07:00

It's safe to say that there's been an explosion of happiness into my life since the arrival of the September class of volunteers. I have always loved VE (obvio, po) but I feel that the level of excitement I feel about my job has not been this high in months.

It all began with the airport pick-ups. Three days in a row of leaving the house between 5:10 and 6:30 a.m. sounded like a terrible way to spend a weekend, but each time I left the hostel after dropping off a new batch of newbies, I walked toward the Metro feeling absolutely giddy. At the welcome dinner on the Sunday evening before Orientation, I savored the buzz and chaos that comes with a large group of people in one room, all learning that they're going to seriously love each other.

The actual Orientation week went remarkably smoothly. Monday, with the energy of eleven new volunteers, was a blast. I could tell when the class got back from the scavenger hunt around the city that something magnificent was amongst us. In order to accumulate bonus points, one of the teams constructed this human VE, which just about made me cry.

On Tuesday I woke up early with a bit of a stomach issue, but didn't want to miss giving my presentation at 10:00. I managed to drag myself through a shower and a Poweraid purchase at the market downstairs, but didn't quite make it to the gate of the office building without breaking a FIFTEEN-YEAR no-vomiting streak. Ouch. On the bright side, a sweet woman walking by held my hair back, stroked my head, and asked if I had eaten something strange. Another man walking by asked if he could call anyone, as did two men in a delivery truck a little farther down the street. I explained that I worked in the building, so they went to tell the sweet little doorman who came out to walk me inside.

Needless to say, I was sent home and was horizontal for two days. I was SO bummed to be missing Orientation days and my newbies, but the VE team got to show off its strong suit: rising to the occasion and working together to make things happen! Everyone was amazing; between bringing me Gatorade, bringing the newbies to various corners of the city for Orientation presentations, and calling to make sure I knew everything was going well, the team made me feel extremely lucky and proud to be amongst such wonderful people.

By Thursday I was back in action and on Friday at Café, I was lucky enough to witness perhaps the most epic newbie skit in the history of VE. Traditionally at Café, some of the old volunteers put together silly skits or songs, and the newbies present a skit of their own. Usually the newbie skits are comedic and centered around making fun of the "locura" (madness) that is a VE orientation. The September class's skit, however, began with one of the volunteers entering with his guitar and strumming a mellow tune. As he began to sing (in French, his native language!), the newbies came out one by one, each making a letter with their bodies. For the second time that week, I almost started to cry as we realized they were spelling "Gracias." After the song ended, one of the volunteers translated the chorus of the song into English, then they all sang it together in French (some holding note-cards). The song was an original, written by our resident Frenchman for VE, and spoke of making children smile and making the world a better place, etc. We were all a little floored.

Of course, that wasn't the only brilliant part of Café. The office staff had planned a now-traditional for the September Café cueca competition. The cueca, as I've mentioned previously, is the national dance of Chile. September 18th is Chile's celebrated independence day, and when September rolls around, the cueca abounds throughout the country. A few of us in the office took classes at a local YMCA, and to make the whole experience more authentic, we all purchased traditional garb. Here we are, about to perform:

For a clearer visual, here are Emily and I in our kitchen, modeling our new purchases for Chris:

Although my partner (Brooke) and I didn't win the competition (despite our obviously superior dancing skills), the competition was extremely well-received and gave the newbies a taste of the experience they'd have the next week when the festivities really began.

And so they did! Dieciocho, as September 18th is called, is a huge deal for Chile. There are gigantic public barbecues with live music all throughout Santiago, and people spend the whole weekend celebrating. On the evening of the 17th there was a huge concert outside the presidential palace where famous band after famous band performed. Here's a shot of the stage as well as a shot looking back at the sizable crowd:

A few days before the 18th, Entre Todas had its own celebration at the home, during which the girls performed dances, including the cueca and the hula-style dance that's traditional to Easter Island. Because those of us who work in the office as well as Entre Todas (Chris, Ann, Matt and me) had learned the cueca, we decided to surprise the girls by performing it for them at their celebration. We donned our costumes and enjoyed the squeals as we muddled our way through the dance. After we performed by ourselves, we danced again, each dancing with one of the girls. Not only was it incredibly special to share that with the girls, Entre Todas's new director, as well as the other members of the staff, seemed totally taken aback and thrilled that we would make fools of ourselves in this way. For your viewing pleasure, here's a video of us dancing, courtesy of one of the girls' excellent filming skills!

Unfortunately, my Dieciocho was not perfect. On my way to a "fonda" (a large public barbecue/party) on the night of the 18th, someone stole my bag. It was frightening for many reasons, mainly because the man who stole it ripped it fairly aggressively off my arm. Not only did I lose money, a debit card, my Chilean ID card, my cueca handkerchief(!!!) and my keys, the bag and wallet inside it were both purchased during my time in Guatemala and were therefore quite special for me. Worst of all, though, my brand-new camera was in the bag. I had ruined my good camera during the June orientation week (death by drowning in the bottom of my backpack after a water bottle spill) and had received this camera in the mail from my dad (it was on loan-- sorry, Gilman) three days before the incident. Uff.

The events that followed, however, showed me once again what extraordinary company I'm in here. Emily, without missing a beat, bought me a new Metro card and took me home to help cancel my debit card. In the morning, while I went for a run to clear my head, Chris planted gummies and cheesy chips (people know me too well) on my bed. I received emails from three other VE folks saying they were sorry about what happened, and when I arrived at the newbies' barbecue the next day, Matt greeted me with a t-shirt from the fonda I never made it to. As if all that weren't enough, about an hour into the barbecue, the song-writing Frenchman announced he had a performance to make. We all gathered around as he sang a song for me (what??) expressing his condolences. Again, I started crying, and was speechless for the next fifteen minutes at least. Here are the lyrics to the song, which Alexandre wrote in English:

I know it's only words
But these are the best that I can say
Just to try to erase bad luck you found
On your way
Life can be so unfair but you know "c'est comme sa"
And I know that this song won't bring back
Your camera

I know it's only words
And they may last for just a while
But they want you to know that VE's nothing
Without your smile
You give us the will to be the best volunteers
And we're the orphans when you're not here

There are many things
That bad guys could never
Take away from you
That you're a crazy dancer
You're enjoying life like everyone should do
And generosity should be a second name for you

I know it's only words
From a man not very strong
I hope you're not upset
If it's not a love song
It's just a little tune and I hope you'll like it
So please keep it where nobody can reach it.

The barbecue, by the way, was on the roof of the building where we now rent three apartments. The apartments, right in the city center, are a huge improvement on the old volunteer house, which took an hour to get to from pretty much everywhere. At the new apartment building there's a [tiny] pool on the roof, as well as a great grill area with a sink and tables and chairs, etc. Plus, the view of the mountains from the roof is incredible. Here's a happy group shot from the barbecue, followed by a shot of all the VE ladies with the Chilean flag and the mountains behind us:

The newbies have generally brought a lot of "buena onda" (good vibes/energy) to VE and I feel as though the organization has woken up after a little winter nap. I also feel as though we've made a lot of progress in the past few months in terms of organizational structure, so VE runs more smoothly and can provide a better experience for incoming volunteers. We may still have a few computer monitors in our office's bathtub for lack of other storage space, but how boring would we be if our bathtub were empty?

If there's anything that's a struggle right now, it's saying "no" to hanging out! Those newbies are always up to something fun, and although I hate to miss out on any time with them, I need to carve out some Mariah time every once in a while. All in all, it's a good predicament to be in.

When the smog clears...

2009-08-23T20:14:00.000-07:00

I meant to post these earlier--it rained heavily a few days ago and we woke up to a clear Santiago. Here's what I saw from my bedroom window:

Chileans call the YMCA the "eem-ka."

2009-08-23T09:35:00.000-07:00

Let me begin by saying that the other day at the gym, I was on an elliptical machine next to a man eating a granola bar nine minutes into his workout.

The longer I'm here in Santiago, the more I'm tickled by Chileans and their culture. This weekend has been filled with moments that make me really, really happy that I'm here. On Friday night, I went to a cueca class at a YMCA with a friend of mine. There were probably forty Chileans at the class, all of whom seemed baffled that gringos would want to learn the national dance of Chile. Because Chile's independence day is approaching, there's a great demand for cueca classes so people can brush up for the big event. The class reminded me of the contra dances my parents brought me to when I was little, where children would run around creaky grange halls while their parents danced to live fiddle music. The cueca class had the same homey feel to it, with a mix of ages, loud Chilean music, and people dancing enthusiastically, regardless of their skill levels. Of course, we were relegated to a corner of the room where a second teacher was going through the basic steps with beginners. A small crowd watched us, not hesitating to approach individuals with advice. "No, twirl your handkerchief like this." I caught on fairly quickly, causing one of the men who works at the Y to say to my friend, "She has the steps down but she's SO tall!"

By the end of the class we were completing the entire dance, rotating partners frequently, allowing me to dance with a variety of old men, feet-flapping instructors, and a few amazingly patient teenage girls. As people filed out at the end of the (two hour) class, we were approached by countless people asking where were from, what we were doing in Chile, and would they see us at the next class? We left feeling content, and for just under $2.00 US, the class was a steal.

Last night the Chilean shenanigans continued as a group of VE volunteers headed to Domingo Savio, one of VE's partner institutions. Domingo Savio was founded as a children's home, but is now an after-school community center located in La Granja, one of the poorer areas of southern Santiago. Steve Reifenberg, the Program Director for Harvard's study abroad office in Santiago, the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, lived at Domingo Savio for two years in his early twenties, starting in 1982, and continues to be very involved, even keeping in touch with some of the children who lived at Domingo Savio when he lived there. He has been living in Santiago for six (?) years now with his wife and three children, and recently published a book called Santiago's Children about his experience living and working at Domingo Savio. You should all read the book, it's a fantastically entertaining read, and you can buy it on Amazon! Half of the profits go to Domingo Savio, so it's a win-win.

Last night Domingo Savio celebrated Steve's 50th birthday, as well as the inauguration of its new theater. A donation was made with the purpose of building a theater on the property and we got to see the first performance! Each of Steve's own kids said a little something (in their incredible, practically native Spanish), then the Domingo Savio kids performed a few acts. One of our volunteers, Fabianne, is a musician and runs a singing workshop once a week with the kids and had re-written lyrics to a song and played guitar while six or seven girls who are probably seven or eight years-old sang confidently with huge smiles on their faces. All of the children performed a dance with incredible homemade constumes, then a Domingo Savio alum/success story, who's going to college and has become an impressive baritone, sang four songs. His voice was powerful; so powerful in fact that a few very small boys sitting in front of me couldn't stop giggling throughout the entirety of his performance, especially during the silent pauses in the middle of songs. The singer held himself together, though, and the crowd seemed to appreciate both his talent and the children's tittering.

At then end of the show, in the middle of Tío Steve's speech, Tío Jorge, the reason Domingo Savio functions, carried a huge birthday cake along the aisle of the theater toward the stage. While the children screamed "Cumpleaños Feliz (¡FELIZ! ¡FELIZ!)" the fifty tall, thin candles began to fall toward each other and became a fireball by the time Jorge reached Steve. It was an appropriate finale.

I felt lucky to have witnessed the occasion, and was impressed at how much work the tíos of Domingo Savio had done to prepare for the event and make the place look incredible. There was cake and fondue and champagne and the 500(!) cookies Fabianne had been asked to make. The turn-out was also fantastic and included the U.S. ambassador, many of Steve's Harvard colleagues, Domingo Savio parents, almost every VE volunteer who's here in Santiago currently, and even some of the children, now grown up, who lived at Domingo Savio when Steve did. Steve was thrilled with the occasion, reminding the children to dream big like the boy did who became the incredible singer who performed for them. He also wished that everyone in the crowd would have the opportunity to have a birthday as incredible as this one.

I can't stop thinking about what a huge impact Steve has made on the Domingo Savio community for multiple decades. At the end of Santiago's Children he gives an update on where some of the children are today. Some of the stories are happy and impressive; some are sad, as the children, as adults, have been unable to break out of the cycle. I appreciate the realism of this conclusion and feel quite affected by how Steve has led his life. One of our goals at VE is to provide as long-term support as possible; Steve, for me, is the example of how that's possible. I don't want to set unrealistic goals for myself, but I can admire Steve's accomplishments.

I didn't get any great pictures during the night, but I'll leave you all with this one (the sign says "Feliz Cumpleaños, Tío Steve!":

And, of course, the fireball/cake:

Sopaipillas! Acrobats! Palooza!

2009-08-16T13:17:00.000-07:00

Because time is passing faster than I can comprehend, last night we held our traditional celebratory event, VEPalooza. It was a more intimate Palooza this time around, with just four despedidas, or good-bye speeches for those volunteers leaving in the following months. As with Jornada, however, we all agreed that the smaller group made for a more relaxed and silly evening. I felt more relaxed as host and made sure to take note of feeling content to be in a room with some of my favorite people, all of whom have all been doing the work of multiple people in the past few months due to our small numbers. We forgot to take a group picture before people started leaving, but this is most of us:

In other VE news, last weekend, thanks to a donation from a local company, we took thirty-five or so VE kids to the circus! The circus was, as my friend Matt so eloquently stated, "a mixed bag." The show began with all twelve circus performers muddling through a hip-hop style dance to a reggaeton song, the vernacular of Latin American music. I cringed as the performers each danced to their own rhythms at their own times, knowing the Entre Todas girls were all thinking (rightfully) how they themselves could do a better job. Things looked up, though, upon the entrance of various trapeze artists and magicians, some more impressive than others. We volunteers squirmed through the trained-dog portion, exchanging winces when a tiny poodle wearing a superman cape galloped to the top of a 15-20 foot ladder, jumping into the arms of the trainer below without hesitation. The tent full of hooting Chileans demonstrated a slightly different attitude. Overall, the kids had a fantastic time, so the outing was a clear success. It was the eleventh birthay of one of the Entre Todas girls, so I was thrilled she got to do something special. Note the mountains behind the tent in this photo:

On a different theme entirely, any of my fellow volunteers will tell you that street food is one of Santiago's highlights. To name a few classics, there's the completo, which means a hot dog with all the fixings, the sandwich called as (pronounced ass) that allows for endless jokes among English speakers, mote con huesillo, a juice-like drink filled with large grains of husked wheat and a re-hydrated peach, and sopaipillas, disks of fried dough made from flour and pumpkin. Unfortunately, all street food has one of the following defining characteristics: wheat or meat. Until a few weeks ago, I had never had the joy of a greasy sopaipilla drenched in mustard. Luckily, my culinarily adventurous friend Suemedha decided this should change, and we conquered the gluten-free sopaipilla. They were incredible. So incredible, in fact, that I made them again by myself last weekend and took pictures:

Rolling out any type of gluten-free dough is usually about 12% as successful as you'd hope for, but a few of the sopaipillas actually behaved.

Deep-fried goodness.

And finally, on the apartment front, we have a third roommate once again! Emily, a VE volunteer since September 2008, returned from a month or so in the States and is now living in the glorious 1505. Not only is it great to have someone in the little bedroom off the kitchen to chat with while cooking, etc, it's great fun to have another girl around. Plus, now the apartment is completely meat-free! Three vegetarians in one apartment--that must be against some sort of Chilean law.

Transitions, awoohoo!

2009-08-06T18:54:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Smog-tiago! It's been quite a while since I blogged, but I'll try to slog my way through the news! Although it's apparently been a mild winter with moderate amounts of smog, I've found it pretty difficult to keep myself healthy the past few months. It's quite an adjustment to live without heating, and even though the temperature rarely dips below 35 degrees Fahrenheit, on some days it's hard to shake the cold. The upside of the smog, though, is the crazy effect it has on sunsets. My new header (above) and the photo below are evidence of polutions's silver lining:

Winter has found VE to be shrinking smaller and smaller, but we're all looking forward to greeting eleven new volunteers in September! The new volunteers hail from the US, France, Germany, Scotland, Italy, and Australia. I'm incredibly excited for them to arrive and for the beautiful chaos they'll bring. We're more prepared for this class of volunteers than VE has ever been, I think. We determined their institution placements (meaning, which children's homes, community centers, or schools they'll all work at), along with their VE committee placements about two weeks ago, and pretty much have their housing squared away. Starting in September, we'll be renting two apartments from my landlord right around Plaza Italia where the office (and my apartment) is, which should be quite exciting for the newbies, as they'll have the entire city center at their fingertips. I've also starting putting the Orientation schedule together, contacting the speakers who so generously donate their time to us every three months. We've got our chats lined up with the Santiago branch of Amnesty International, the director of Harvard's international studies office in Santiago, a Chilean history professor, and a social worker who gives a great presentation on the rights of children in Chile. I'm also working to develop a new workshop on behavior management, so I'm feeling positive about being able to provide that kind of training to the volunteers when they arrive. It's certainly not time to start getting anxious yet. Eeks.

The upside of having a pint-sized VE for now is having a cozy, pint-sized winter Jornada. I was nervous, of course, because it was the first time I was solely responsible for the weekend retreat, but everything went smoothly, and my only mistake was not making time for myself. Next time I'll know to get up early and make a point of sitting and enjoying the mountains and pomegranate trees. It was cold in Cajón de Maipo this time, but because we were a small group, we could all huddle around the huge stone fireplaces and enjoy good conversation over s'mores and mulled cider. Normally at Jornada, everyone splits off at night when the official activities are over and I always feel a little disjointed, wishing we would all hang out together. To my delight, that's exactly what happened this time. There were rousing games of spoons in which my abnormally long arms were mocked ceaselessly when I never seemed to lose. The joke got so out of control, it became our theme for the traditional goofy group picture:

Another highlight of Jornada: the food! Brooke, my Entre Todas co-worker and an incredible cook, went all-out for her last act as VE's official chef. Not only did she go all-out, she went all-out GLUTEN-FREE! There were brownies, banana bread, empanadas (a Chilean "specialty" I'd never gotten taste), curry, Mexican lasagna, tortilla soup, quiche, and Brooke's famous pumpkin-chocolate squares. It was out of control. Once again I had that overwhelmed feeling I experience so frequently with VE: sometimes the high quality of the people around me is just too much to bear. Every single dish at Jornada didn't need to be gluten-free, but it was. Ah, but I gush.

The weekend was relaxed, full of buena onda, and complete with a couple of intense games of ultimate frisbee. Although I took a few good notes for changes to make next time, I felt good about how the retreat went. Here's the group of us that stayed after the activities officially ended on Sunday afternoon to hang out and enjoy the good company (read: leftovers):

Even though I didn't take all the time I needed at Jornada, it was a good chunk of time to spend with good people and remind myself that life goes on even after your core group of friends leaves the country. It's been a harder transition that I thought it would be, adjusting to life without a few of my first best friends from my own class in December. Two of my roommates and closest friends left, followed by my friend Lindsay, who had really been my go-to, all around fastastic friend here. I've realized how much I relied on these folks for affirmation since they've been gone. It's become an office joke (with a lot of truth) that I take things personally, and without Linsday to say, "You're doing such a good jobbbbb," I do seem to question a lot of what I do. At least this is something I'm realizing about myself and can aim to work on. That doesn't mean it wasn't brutal to see my friends go, though. Here are Lindsay and I at her good-bye party the night before she left, she wearing the get-up I bought her, giving her a taste of her own medicine:

In terms of my Chilean pals, the girls at Entre Todas are challenging and amazing as ever. During one of my recent afternoons there, I danced along with them as one of the tías taught a dance she choreographed to Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean." The tía was a dance teacher at one point, so it was practically a real jazz class, which was a hoot. My attempts at these types of dance moves are endlessly entertaining to some of the girls, so really everybody wins. Plus, trying to explain to a group of teenage girls what the lyrics of "Billie Jean" mean was another top moment in Mariah history.

I'll close this post with a few visuals! In my last post, I talked a bit about the riots that occur in Plaza Italia (aka 15 floors down and a few yards to the right from my apartment) after important soccer games. Here's a photo of the crowd in the middle of the intersection, followed by one of the riot police using some type of water blaster, as well as tear gas:

And finally, because keeping life a little silly is very important to me, here are a few photos from our good-bye party for the VE volunteer house (to be replaced by the two VE volunteer apartments). It was very traditional for residents of the house to take photos of themselves in this spot in the kitchen with various funny props, then post the photos in this same spot. We had quite a collection, though it had already been taken down in these photos. As another way of saying good-bye, we took a final series of kitchen photos. Here are a couple favorites of mine:

The guy with the broom? He's my boss. Life could be worse.

Settling in.

2009-06-21T21:39:00.000-07:00

As I write this, I'm sitting on a real bed in a real bedroom with my own photos on the wall. After three months of sleeping in the living room of my apartment, I have my own room! Sadly, this means that two of my lovely housemates have left Santiago. If I try not to think too hard about that, I can focus on enjoying luxuries such as a bedside table with a lamp and a little desk with drawers. Oh and walls. Although I didn't mind my previous arrangement, setting up my room has felt wonderful and I think I'll be able to have my head on a little straighter now that I have my own space.

In VE-Land, we had our traditional VEPalooza celebration at the beginning of the month, which Lindsay and I co-hosted. To open the event, Lindsay and I led a sing-along of Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" with new lyrics we wrote, entitled "Don't Stop VE-ing." The new lyrics pertained to various aspects of volunteer life here in Santiago. To give you a sample of the caliber of the lyrics, we changed "Some will win, some will lose, some were born to sing the blues," to "Some will pee, some will poo, some will make you look like fools." Obviously, it was a smash hit. At Palooza volunteers give good-bye speeches for other volunteers who will be leaving in the next few months, and we give out superlative-type prizes, such as "Most skilled on the dance floor," and "Most adventurous." Somehow I tied for "Most mysterious," although the uproar in the crowd when Lindsay announced this result speaks for itself. Here's a group photo from the event:

After Palooza, Orientation Week began and although I was a nervous wreck at the beginning of the week, everything went incredible smoothly. There are only four newbies in the June class, and two of them had been in Santiago for at least a month when the week started, so they were an easy-going bunch. It didn't feel like an actual Orientation Week because there weren't a million airport pick-ups to make and there were no crises, which I found a bit unsettling. At least now I can be confident that I know how to get to all the various places around the city where we take the newbies over the course of the week. We already have a staggering TEN volunteers confirmed for the September class, so I'm glad I got to go through the motions of an Orientation with such a tranquil group because I have a feeling September will be anything but tranquil. And I will love it.

The week started with a welcome dinner at the office on Sunday night and I was quite taken aback by the effort all the current volunteers put into the meal. It was, I think, the most elaborate dinner ever held by VE. At one point I ran over to my apartment to grab a pot (for mulled cider, egad) and I got a bit emotional thinking about all the people working away in the office making soup and pizza and gluhwein to welcome the new class of volunteers. I felt and continue to feel incredibly lucky to be surrounded by so many committed, good-natured, hard-working people. Despite the fact that the honeymoon has in some ways ended, I still feel overwhelmed by the VE community. I thought for some reason that I wouldn't be able to generate the VE "onda" or vibe during Orientation, but the VE onda just happens.

Speaking of the VE onda, on the Friday of Orientation Week, we had Café, our traditional closing dinner and skits at the volunteer house out in the suburbs, but this Café was unique in that it would be the last in the volunteer house. We decided, for multiple reasons, that it was time for a change regarding volunteer housing, and will be renting two apartments for our volunteers right in the city center rather than the house an hour outside the center. A lot of volunteers, although no one likes the commute to the house, have high levels of attachment to the house, so we held a toast circle for the house after Café. We sat in the living room and went around the circle sharing memories of the house. It was hilarious and sad and wonderful and, like everything else with VE, ended with a dance party. The rest of the weekend was spent, unfortunately, cleaning out the years of accumulated crap in the house and selling it in what may have been Chile's first yard sale. It wasn't always fun, but it needed to be done, and we managed to make a bit of money for VE in the process.

Outside the VE bubble, I've seen a couple of really great Chilean bands this past weekend. On Thursday we went to a little salsa club and saw Banda Conmoción, who were incredible. There were eighteen members of the band crammed onto a tiny stage and way too many people in the audience crammed together and jumping as a single entity. So fun. Last night we saw Teleradio Donoso at a theater in an upscale part of town. They were also incredibly fun, in a more alternative-rock, funk-y sort of way. It had been a long time since I'd seen live music, so it was good to get a fix this weekend.

And finally, my roommates and I witnessed a fascinating display of Chilean culture last week after the Chilean fútbol team beat Bolivia. Fans always gather in Plaza Italia after games, win or lose, and make a huge scene. This most recent time was the most extreme I've seen, and ended with the police spraying water and eventually teargas. There were probably a few thousand people in the Plaza who moved themselves into the street, filling the entire enormous intersection right outside our apartment. They were ecstatic, chanting and singing and using huge Chilean flags as trampolines, flinging people into the air and catching them. The police started by asking them to leave through the PA systems in the riot vans, then started inching the vans toward the intersection. This caused a few people to run, but the majority stayed. Fans started getting angry, breaking bottles and ripping street signs out of the ground to hit the riot vans. Once the police started with the water and tear gas the people cleared out quickly. We watched this all from the safety of our 15th floor balcony, but rushed inside as soon as we started feeling the effects of the tear gas. It was absolutely wild.

Well, that's all for now. Hope you're all doing well and enjoying the beginning of summer up there in the Northern Hemisphere! Off I go to snuggle into my down comforter. Brrrr.

Tourism and Abandonment

2009-05-28T13:29:00.001-07:00

When I arrived to Chile in December and discovered I'd be the only member of my VE class staying for longer than six months, I knew there would be a brutal few weeks in May/June when all my friends would file out. These weeks have arrived. After June 26th, all but two of us will be gone. This is the nature of an organization such as VE--volunteers are constantly coming and going, so those of us who stay for longer periods of time end up saying good-bye a lot. I've already seen a few volunteers leave, but in the next couple of weeks the people who I spend the majority of my time with will be heading home. It's going to be an interesting transition, and I'm sure I'll feel a little lost for a while, but I'll survive! As for the other December Class survivor, my friend, roommate, and Entre Todas co-worker Chris just signed a contract as our new Director of Institutional Relations through the end of June 2010, so we're in in for the long haul together! It's reassuring to know such a good friend will be here through the end of my time in Chile.

As for my last few weeks with the other December folks who will soon be abandoning me, we've made it a priority to do some of the things we've always talked about doing. Last weekend we decided to conquer a few tourist sites in Santiago, so we started by visiting the Cementario General (General Cemetery), where all but two of Chile's presidents are buried. It was a beautiful, quiet place to explore, full of sculptures and streets lined with ancient trees. The cemetery seems to model itself after Santiago in that the rich and poor are distinctly separated. There are parts of the cemetery, especially where the presidents are buried, that feel like a miniature village with elaborate mausoleums modeled after churches and other ornate buildings. Other more "proletarian" areas feel typical graveyards, strewn with plastic flowers and broken flower pots. Near the entrance to the cemetery, the streets are lined with large "pavilions" like the one pictured below:

Our next stop was the Natural History Museum, where we found a variety of lackluster, disorganized exhibits. Museums are certainly not Santiago's strong point, and this one was no exception. One of the high points for me, however, was this whale skeleton:

We then headed to "La Chascona," Pablo Neruda's Santiago house. I've read some of his poetry and thoroughly enjoyed it, but I didn't expect to be so taken by the tour of his home. As we learned, his Santiago house was a bit of a hideaway for him and his third and final wife Matilde--Neruda hadn't yet divorced his second wife when he and Matilde moved into the La Chascona (named after Matilde's wild, tangly hair). Hearing stories of their relationship while exploring the rooms with all their quirky art and accessories was more thrilling than I had anticipated. It was all impossibly romantic.

The next day we headed to Valparaíso, the port city about an hour and a half from Santiago by bus where Chilean congress meets. The city, long past its prime, is now known for its funiculars, colorful houses built high up on the hills overlooking the harbor, street art, and its New Year's Eve fireworks display. Valpo is also home to "La Sebastiana," another of Pablo Neruda's houses. Unfortunately, it was incredibly foggy while we were there, so in lieu of enjoying the views of the ocean, we were forced to make our own fun:

We also explored a few neighborhoods to enjoy the street art:

Another noteworthy recent event: the coffeehouse! A few of us decided that VE folks would appreciate this sort of venue, so we baked muffins and banana bread, made coffee, hot chocolate and tea, rearranged the furniture in my apartment, and let the snapping begin. A few folks read poetry, I read a non-fiction piece, and a few songs were performed. It was quite satisfying to have an event that felt completely different than the typical Friday night activities. And, of course, it turned into a sing-along, which turned into a dance party, so in the end, we returned to our roots. Here's Chris reading a poem at the beginning of the coffeehouse:

In meteorological news, "winter" seems to have finally hit Chile. This means it's cloudy, extra smoggy, and cold. I hear there's going to be rain, but I don't know if I believe it yet. The effects of the smog, however, are obvious and terrifying. Lately I wake up each morning and wonder if I picked up smoking in my sleep. We haven't seen the mountains surrounding Santiago in weeks, and some days, like today, I can't even see Cerro San Cristobal, a large hill about five or six blocks from our apartment that normally dominates the 15th floor view from my bed in the living room. Yikes. Our unheated apartment, usually warm because of sunlight coming in the huge windows you can see in the above picture, has started to get a bit chillier, so it will interesting to see how the next few months play out.

And finally, because VE is cyclical, not only will there be a mass exodus in the next few weeks, but the June class will begin their Orientation Program on June 8th. It's a small class, but my first solo-led Orientation, so I'm anxious nonetheless. I'm trying to take it easy this weekend because the next month is going to be a wild string of good-bye parties, welcome dinners and, because I wouldn't have it any other way, late nights in the office. This month's goal? Tranquility.

Nudos Humanos and other Delights

2009-04-12T19:10:00.000-07:00

I've realized over the past few weeks that life here just isn't going to calm down. I've learned that I need to shift my line of thinking with this new job of mine and accept that due to the cyclical nature of VE, our work is never done. This is both overwhelming and exciting to me and I'm on my way to learning how to leave the office at a normal hour even if there's more I could be doing. There's always more to do, but it's important that I leave time for myself. And for blogging!

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.

She means we're bouncing into [Santiago]

2009-04-02T21:47:00.000-07:00

Tonight I found myself on a miniature trampoline, surrounded by Chileans on their own miniature trampolines, bouncing along to American techno music while a toned Chilean man shouted garbled Spanish instructions into a headset. As most of you know my affinity for trampolines (and garbled Spanish, for that matter), this was pretty much an ideal situation for me.

My friend Lindsay has a gym membership here in Santiago and as a result has the pleasure of attending "Powerjump" classes a few times a week. I was so jealous when she told me about the class that she called the gym and asked if her friend who's "looking for a gym" could try a class. They obliged, as Chileans usually do, so there we were, two red-faced gringas trying desperately not to fly off our little trampolines. I don't want to say that it was the most amazing and/or ridiculous moment I've had thus far in Chile, but I couldn't help but think as I jumped and shouted "Hey! Hey! Hey!" along with the other participants that I'm doing something quite right with my life right now.

Patagonia! (Please pass the band-aids)

2009-03-27T15:51:00.000-07:00

On March 12, my friend Ryan and I headed to Patagonia for a six-day trek in Parque Nacional Torres del Paine in the southern tip of Chile! We completed the "W," a famous route that brings hikers to a glacier, through a rocky valley, and to the Torres del Paine themselves. We flew down to Punta Arenas, then bussed to Puerto Natales where we took another bus into the park. This map shows all three locations, all down at the end of the world!

After entering the park, we took a ferry across Lago Pehoé:

From there we hiked to our first campsite near Glacier Grey. We had hail for our first ten minutes which made me laugh as people had warned me about the crazy weather in Patagonia. The wind there is unlike anything I've every experienced. I was blown fully over twice during the trek and had quite a few close calls, especially with my balance thrown off by my big backpack. Here's our first site of the glacier from a distance:

I was pretty excited:

Along the trail the first day we met an extraordinary man named Ian from New Zealand. He's sixty-nine years-old, has one fake hip, and maintained about the same pace as we did wearing Teva sandals. Sigh. We camped next to him at our first campsite and in chatting with him I discovered he'd lived in Maine for two years and went contra dancing every Saturday at the Wescustago Hall in North Yarmouth for those two years. Yimes!

Here's a view from the first campsite, complete with icebergs from the glacier:

Also along the trail on that first day I developed some fierce blisters on my heels. I thought my hiking boots were broken in enough, but I was sorely mistaken. Here's a shot of my heels a few days later:

The blisters made the trek painful, but when I look back on the trip, I think more about the incredible place and the incredible people I met than about how much my feet hurt. Which they certainly did.

On our second day we headed back to the refugio and campsite by the lake where we got off the ferry. Before we headed back, though, we took a quick hike to a viewpoint to get a better view of Glacier Grey:

We ended up staying our whole third day at the campsite by the lake because it was pouring when we woke up and a few people who headed out on the trail came back because the weather was so miserable. There's a quincho at this campsite, which is a little enclosed gazebo-style hut where campers can cook and hang out, so it was a lovely day playing games and socializing with other trekkers in a dry, relatively warm environment.

On the fourth day we headed to the French Valley which makes up the center prong of the "W." We didn't actually make it to the very top of this climb because it started hailing and was getting dark, but the views we did get were stunning:

On our fifth day, we headed toward the third prong of the "W," at the top of which sit the Torres themselves. This hike took us along Lake Nordenskjold with its other-worldly green water:

On the morning of our sixth day, we woke up at 5 a.m. to try to have the traditional sunrise-on-the-Torres experience. We opened the tent door to a snowy, cloudy day, but decided to make the forty-five minute climb to the base of the Torres anyway, just in case. We passed many disappointed hikers shielding themselves from sleet on the trail, but when we arrived, the clouds parted a bit and we were able to see this much of the Torres:

I was glad we hiked up, even if our view left a bit to be desired. It poured for the rest of the day so we were soaked by the time we hiked down to the refugio near the park entrance, but a wood stove, a cup of hot chocolate and switching to flip-flops healed all. That night, back in Puerto Natales, we returned to the amazing vegetarian restaurant we had found and shared a beautiful meal with a couple of people we had met on the trail. Climbing into a real bed that night, complete with a down comforter, will be among my highlights of 2009.

Overall, it felt wonderful to be back in a place where I was in awe of everything around me. I love Santiago and all its smoggy personality but a reminder of the epic possibilities of nature is always welcome. I also found myself feeling incredibly nostalgic for the camping days of my childhood. As soon as I heard our tent zipper for the first time, I felt this visceral yank into my memories and suddenly wanted to be sitting around a picnic table with my parents by the light of a lantern, drinking cocoa from my purple camping mug with its matching spoon and fork. The nostalgia travelled with me for the duration of the trip and I felt a strong sense of gratitude to my parents for providing the outdoor experiences they did when I was so young. Though the trip was not without its ups and downs, I feel extremely lucky to have had the experience.

Orientation! Couch surfing! Business cards!

2009-03-25T19:05:00.000-07:00

Today I became the type of person who can say, "Here, let me give you my card." Brooke, VE's Executive Director, surprised me this afternoon with a field trip to a swanky graphic design firm in Las Condes, an upscale part of Santiago, to pick up our new business cards! Check it out:

Life has been pretty wild since the last time I posted here! First off, I've moved out of my first apartment and am currently sleeping on a fold-out in the living room of my friends Jess, Paul, and Chris's apartment. Though my apartment in Ñuñoa was beautiful, the situation grew increasingly uncomfortable with the couple who lives there. I wasn't allowed to have more than one friend over at a time, and didn't feel welcome to be in the living room when they were home. Also, it can't go unsaid that when my friend Julia and I both lived there, we got reprimanded for having a holiday cookie party. I simply can't live with anti-cookie types.

So even though I'm living out of a suitcase, I'm much happier and more relaxed living with Jess, Paul and Chris. I can sing in the shower, sprawl in the living room, plus the apartment is as central as one could hope for, right in Plaza Italia, about a three minute walk from the VE office. Now that I'm full-time there, I couldn't ask for a better location.

My move came at a bit of a crazy time: I told the couple I would move out on March 1, the day before Orientation began for the new class of volunteers. They told me to be out before noon, so I ended up moving on February 28th as I needed to pick up one of the new volunteers at the airport at 6:45 a.m. on the 1st. February 28th also happened to be VE Palooza, a traditional VE event where good-bye speeches are given for volunteers leaving in the next three months. Palooza also includes silly prizes, such as "Best Fanny Pack" (fanny packs are cool in Chile, I promise). Though the day was hectic, Palooza was thoroughly enjoyable. The Director of Volunteer Relations traditionally hosts the event, so Daniel and I co-hosted. Here we are presenting Paul (left) the prize for Best Dance Moves:

The next day, whether we were ready or not, Orientation Week took off, starting with the traditional welcome dinner at Hostal de Sammy. The six new volunteers, hailing from England, Austria, Hungary and the United States, are pretty much fantastic. I loved getting to know them over the course of the week and felt even more fortunate to have the opportunity to closely watch the Orientation Program knowing I'll be running it the next time around. Over the course of the week I accompanied Daniel and the newbies to the majority of the presentations, being introduced to the speakers as the next Director of Volunteer Relations. After the days' official activities would end, Daniel and I would work on tasks for the next day, revising our own presentations while attempting to keep up on other work, such as the March budget. It was a happy marathon--by the end of the week we were giddy and delirious, hovering ravenously around the coffee pot. Ann, our Director of Programs and Operations, laughed at my naive excitement as I gushed about working in the Office after midnight and spending three hours in a public health clinic with one of the new volunteers. "Oh, the honeymoon stage," she said.

The week assured me further that this is where I want to be. Despite the sleep deprivation I felt thrilled to be doing such important work. And halfway through the next week I took off for a ten-day trip to the southern tip of Chile to take a trek in Parque Nacional Torres del Paine. But that's a topic for my next post!

Big news, small victories.

2009-02-22T19:57:00.000-08:00

First things first, it appears as though I'll be in Chile a bit longer than I initially planned! It was always my hope to stay longer, but I had no idea that I would stay for such an exciting reason. Tomorrow morning I'll be signing a contract, good through the end of June 2010, as VE's next Director of Volunteer Relations! As I've made quite clear throughout this blog, I've been over the moon for VE since I got here, so the opportunity to be involved on this level feels like yet another glorious piece falling into place. There have been many instances over the past three months where I've had a strong sense of being where I'm supposed to be, not only because of the work but because of the connections I've made with people here. To be recognized as having the potential to do this sort of job shows me not only that I am where I'm supposed to be, but also that I've made progress building confidence and maintaining "Mariah-ness" in all areas of my life. My dear best friend mentioned noticing this shift in me a year or so ago, this ability to relax and maintain my authentic personality around people I'm not completely comfortable with, and I've since realized just how significant a shift it's been. When I arrived in Chile, I made it my goal to maintain Mariah-ness from Day 1 and for some reason, something clicked and I've felt a sense of contentment from the very beginning.

That being said, I'm still terrified! But it's a good kind of terror. Daniel, the current DVR, does a truly fantastic job, and I can't quite picture anyone else in the role. I'll learn as much as I can from him in the next two months before he leaves, then I'll make the job my own. My schedule will change completely, as my time will be spent in the VE office rather than at Entre Todas, though I'll still get to see the girls about once a week. The job itself is basically my dream job at this point in my life--in a nutshell, the DVR makes sure the volunteers are happy, trained, supported, and motivated. Of course there's a long list of actual responsibilities, among them organizing the arrival of new volunteers, running Orientation and Jornada, coordinating the bi-weekly general VE meetings, and much, much more! The position will challenge many aspects of my personality, I'll get to be my goofy, fired-up self all the time, plus I can walk around the office barefooted. Happiness.

In other news, my co-workers Chris, Brooke and I recently went on vacation with the Entre Todas girls in El Tabo, a little coastal town near Isla Negra, where Pablo Neruda had a home. Though the girls and three tías stayed in El Tabo for a full week, we went for four days, knowing the experience would be a bit on the intense side. Though I felt apprehensive going in, the trip ended up being much more calm and pleasant than I expected. We stayed in a "colonia," which was a large house with three rooms of bunk beds, a kitchen, a large common space for sharing meals, and an asphalt area outside set up for soccer. The colonia was a fifteen-minute walk from the "downtown" of El Tabo and the beach. A group of boys from another hogar was also staying in the colonia, so there were plenty of hormones flying around. On our first night, we had a "dance" in the large common space (with the lights off and everything!). Couples were forming and dissolving left and right. We had never really seen the girls flirt before, so it was truly a trip. During this dance, I had a bit of a breakthrough with one of the seventeen-year-old girls who doesn't usually open up to me--we started dancing together, doing silly ho-down dance moves alternated with a few Chilean(?) steps. We were seriously cracking each other up, then all of a sudden we were alone in the center of the dance floor, swinging each other 'round and 'round for all to see. We "performed" for a few fantastic moments, then it was over, but I was ecstatic.

When it came time to go to sleep that first night, one of the tías sheepishly told us there were no beds left in the room with the girls and that we'd be sleeping in the room with the tías from the other hogar as well as the younger boys. It was all fine and dandy when we went to sleep and the little ones were all already sleeping; however, when 8 a.m. rolled around and I was convinced I was in a rowboat in rough seas, I opened my eyes and realized I was just on a wobbly top bunk with a few small boys bouncing on the bunk beneath me. The boys were harmless, although one of them did tattle on Brooke for not making her bed neatly enough.

The contrast between the two groups was fascinating. The boys prayed before every meal, sometimes singing an “educational” song as well. One of the songs simply cannot go without repeating. Chris, Brooke and I stared at each other in disbelief as one the tíos led the boys in a song called “The Little Bird,” about a little bird that wants to fly but keeps getting into trouble. At first, the bird drinks too much whiskey and gets cirrhosis. Then the little bird smokes five hundred cigarettes and gets cancer. Then the bird uses cocaine and overdoses. Finally, the bird tries heroin and dies of AIDS from a dirty needle. The song, of course, had a bright, cheery melody and all the boys merrily sang along. My, oh my.

We ate our first dinner and breakfast with the girls, then after breakfast sat down with our tías for tea and ended up having a lovely conversation with them. I think we passed some sort of test by doing this, because for every meal after that, we ate with the tías after the girls finished. There’s not usually a lot of communication with the tías when we’re at Entre Todas, so to have this time to get to know them a bit felt significant. By the end of the four days, I felt we had developed some semblance of a rapport with them and even hugged them good-bye.

Eating with the tías also gave Brooke, Chris and me some down time with each other to read or play cards, which definitely eased the stress of the trip. We walked into town with the girls on the second night and had more down time with each other when the tías let the girls run free for an hour and a half. The three of us decided to reward ourselves with some ice cream. We stood in front of the ice cream cooler, gazing at the flavors indecisively. We finally asked the slouching ice cream shop employee if we could try a couple of flavors. He sighed and reached for a spoon, scooping some mint chocolate chip for me to try. Brooke asked to try the Swiss chocolate and the employee looked at me impatiently, reaching out for the sample spoon in my mouth. Now, mind you, I had a nasty cold during this trip, so my initial thought was, “Oh, I don’t want to give Brooke my germs.” The employee held out his hand insistently, though, so I handed him the spoon. I tried to suppress a gasp as he dipped my sample spoon into the Swiss chocolate and handed it to Brooke. We looked at each other, smiled, and she popped it in her mouth. We each received, of course, a fresh spoon with our dish of ice cream.

Overall, the trip was what I expected: not traumatizing, not amazing, but not without it’s small victories. It was great to see the girls enjoy the beach, crowded as it was, and generally nice to see them constantly over the course of a few days. Brooke and I leapt into action when one of the girls had bad cramps, and we tried as best we could to comfort one of the girls who had her heart temporarily broken by one of the boys from the other hogar. I love these day-to-day happenings. When nothing we do feels like it makes any difference, I always hope that these times of just being with the girls give them a sense of worth.

Chili for Chile!

2009-02-08T06:38:00.000-08:00

Since arriving in Chile a little over two months ago, I've had a lot of time to ponder the concept of family. Some of the most powerful moments for me with the girls have involved my realization that their life at the hogar is not summer camp but rather real life. Many of them would prefer to live with their families despite whatever factor requires them to live in the institution. Daily exposure to this situation creates for me a growing sense of gratitude for my incredible family and for my unlimited access to them. I feel like I gush to my friends about my family a lot, and maybe that's annoying, but I think the gushing is warranted.

Along this vein, I'd like to share some photos with you of an event my dad organized. He's a minister at a UCC church in my hometown of North Yarmouth, Maine and recently helped the youth group organize a fundraiser for me called Chili for Chile! I'm giddy from seeing the photos and feel utterly overwhelmed by the love and care and hard work of the community. Although the idea of the kids organizing a fundraiser for me made me a little sqeamish at first, Dad reminded me that it's also about educating them and raising their awareness of the world around them.

So here we go! Here's the amazing cake!

Here are the organizers themselves, what an adorable and festive group!

Dad had his computer set up for a slideshow of my pictures thus far and displayed the binder filled with the print-outs of my blog he's been making and posting on a bulletin board at church.

The chili! It was a chili cook-off--I'm sure the competition was stiff to say the least. There were EIGHTEEN different types of chili, plus cornbread and rice, etc. Egad!

Raffle table!

The kids limbo-ed!

And a piñata, of course!

Mmmm.

I don't know how I got to be such a lucky person! I feel absolutely floored by all of this. I feel refreshed and almost as though I have a renewed sense of energy for the work because of this wave of love I've received. Time to pass it on.

Jornada! Argentina! Progress!

2009-02-02T04:30:00.000-08:00

As much as I love learning about Chilean culture and slang, sometimes the highlight of my day is learning a new British term or custom from my dear co-worker at Entre Todas, Chris Wiggins, or as we've taken to calling him, Lord Wiggins. "Oh look, that car is driving with its bonnet (hood) up," he'll say, or "You Americans are so obsessed with peanut butter, I just don't understand it!" His hates the way we say "awesome" so much and insists that things like a dish of ice cream or a choice '80s pop song simply cannot be awesome. This weekend, however, when a group of us headed to Mendoza, Argentina, Chris allowed me to use "awesome" to describe the scenery we saw from the bus along the way. The road cuts right through the Andes, so everywhere you look you see raw, rugged beauty. It's always good to be reminded of just how awe-inspiring nature can be. Here are a few shots from the drive:

Lovely parks and outdoor cafés fill Mendoza, which is also one of the eight wine capitols of the world (according to whom, I have no idea). We relaxed, ate good food, perused an artesan market, took tours of two wineries and an olive oil factory, and enjoyed the challenges of coordinating multiple groups of people in a foreign country with no cell phones! We spent two and half hours in a long line of buses at the border on our way back, but we managed to make our own fun:

The previous weekend also took place in a beautiful spot, Cajón del Maipo. The entire VE family headed to a beautiful retreat center for Jornada, our weekend retreat that takes place about a month and a half after each new class arrives. Over the course of the weekend we worked in groups, both large and small, discussing why we had come to Chile and VE, as well as relevant issues such as poverty and social exclusion. We also had time to ourselves to reflect on our experiences thus far. Sitting on a bench surrounded by mountains and flowering trees, I thoroughly enjoyed this opportunity to get my head on straight. We also participated in various group-building activities and challenges that brought me back to the days of summer camp, youth group, and a singing group a bunch of my closest friends and I were in throughout junior high and high school. It felt really great to revisit this type of activity where people are made to be a bit vulnerable but are therefore more open to learning about themselves and each other.

There was also plenty of time for enjoying the relaxing atmosphere of the retreat center and, of course, the pool! No shortage of silliness here:

On Friday night, right after midnight when it was officially my birthday, three of my friends presented me with a birthday Jornada survival kit including a loaf of gluten-free bread, a gluten-free cake mix, a pack of Starburst, a mix CD and two cards made by Entre Todas girls! I was pretty much floored and felt completely happy to be where I was. On Saturday night Brooke, one of the volunteers who cooked for us all weekend, made the cake which was presented to me complete with birthday candles and a roaring rendition of "Cumpleaños Feliz." Happiness.

My favorite activity of the weekend came on Saturday night at the last meeting of our smaller groups. We took turns holding a candle, each person making affirming comments to the person holding the candle. My group had great energy and zest from the get-go, so although this activity was really just a formal version of what we'd been doing all weekend, it was a wonderful time to share together.

On Sunday morning we took the traditional Jornada group pictures:

Woot!

Finally, in Entre Todas news, I've been feeling really pumped about the progress we've been making. This past week we implemented a few of our projects quite successfully. On Tuesday Chris and I took six girls to a large park with a soccer ball and frisbee in hand. Though the girls weren't all participating the whole time, each one participated at one point with a smile on her face! Taking the girls out of the hogar always garners positive results to some degree, but to see them running around, throwing a frisbee, etc, was really exciting. They had a blast running through the sprinklers set up to water the fields at the park and at one point all eight of us played a fierce game of Monkey in the Middle with the soccer ball.

On Wednesday we held the first installment of our cooking project with three girls. I started by telling them we would be making chocolate chip cookies and asking them to brainstorm on a piece of paper what ingredients they thought we'd need. To my surprise, they did this quite enthusiastically! After I handed out copies of the recipe, we had a discussion about why certain ingredients are important. As we calmly discussed the purpose of baking soda, I marveled in my mind how patient and engaged the girls were being. When we moved to the kitchen and began the actual cooking, I was shocked at how well the girls listened to me and how they allowed each other to participate equally. They were absolute gems throughout the whole process, and although I couldn't eat the cookies, Chris informs me they were "absolutely lush!" There was drama with some of the other girls who didn't get to participate--a couple of the girls who never, ever give us the time of day came up to the kitchen window and yelled at us for not telling everyone about the project. It shook me to have them yell like that, and we're still in the process of figuring out how to choose the other group we'll work with in the kitchen, but I know I need to not let their uneven emotions get to me. I have to remember that for those three girls, it was a brilliant day.

On Thursday, Chris and I stopped at a grocery store on our way to work to buy cookies and juice for a silent reading hour. I made a little sign for the door of the room where we read that said "Zona de Leer" (Reading Area) and for over an hour (!!!) we had three girls reading silently with us. They were excited about the juice and cookies, but they stayed long after the supplies had dwindled. Two of the girls even thanked me when they left the room! After the reading hour, the girls practiced a couple of their dances for the upcoming VE Art Festival. At one point they made me get up and dance with them which, of course, resulted in me getting made fun of a lot, but it felt really good to be silly with them in that way. I danced around for a long time with the six-year-old, spinning around on the floor, etc, generally giggling and being crazy with her, which she loves. After we danced she was clingy and snuggled with me for about twenty minutes--when she's sweet, she's unbelievably sweet, and I'm reminded that she's just a six-year-old who needs to be hugged. At Jornada I thought a lot about human touch, a theme I've frequently considered for a few years now. It's so complicated with these girls who live outside a family setting and don't have access to the kind of nurturing physical touch they need. They also most likely have had negative experiences with human touch and therefore have walls up to protect themselves.

Things have been feeling better, overall, though. A few of the girls I had trouble interacting with at first have really warmed up to me and a couple of the girls now greet me with hugs everyday. It's not perfect, of course, but for the moment I'm in a good place about it. Next week we'll be going on vacation with the girls for four or five days, so that will be a completely different experience, but I'm excited about it. Keep the progress coming.

Swimming Pools and Rooftop Dance Parties

2009-01-19T18:17:00.001-08:00

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?

2009-01-18T11:57:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-01-01T08:32:00.000-08:00

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!

A Chilean Christmas

2008-12-27T06:40:00.000-08:00

Between the 85-degree heat and a midnight BBQ at Entre Todas, this Christmas was a world (or at least a hemisphere) away from my past Christmas experiences. Here in Chile they celebrate on Christmas Eve with a big dinner and gifts, then Christmas Day, though no one works, seems to be more of a normal day, perhaps with a special dinner. Chris and I, along with a couple of veteran volunteers, Ann and Quique, arrived at Entre Todas late in the afternoon on Christmas Eve. Quique’s parents and brother had traveled to Chile from Spain for the holidays and came along for the celebration. Quique’s family jumped right in, talking and playing beautifully with the girls. It became obvious how deeply they crave that family energy and atmosphere, so I think having them there made a significant positive impact on the day.

We spent the evening drawing with sidewalk chalk, playing with Frisbees and taking pictures of the girls who all got dolled up for the evening with fancy hair and make-up. They were, for the most part, in great moods, so playing and goofing around was really fun. A few of them had teary moments, but by the time Quique and his parents started firing up the grill, everyone seemed happy. At about 11:45 p.m. we sat down for dinner. After dinner Ann dressed up as Santa and handed out the girls’ gifts. It breaks my heart a little to see them open presents here—there have been a few rounds of presents already throughout the past week—since the gifts are all, for the most part, the same. Once the first girl opens her present, the rest of the girls know basically what they’ll receive. They still open them excitedly, though, and love receiving new clothes and chapstick, etc.

After gift time, the tía on duty told the girls they could stay up until 4:00 a.m., an announcement which was met by huge cheers. Chris, Quique, and Quique’s family made their way out the door at around 1:30 or 2:00, then Ann and I stayed and watched Shrek the Halls in Spanish with the girls and left around 3:00. During our cab ride home we marveled at the day, wondering how it would have gone without us. It seems to me that the single tía on duty simply could not have managed the meal preparations in the kitchen as well as running the grill outside, let alone spending time with the girls. By bringing the chalk and Frisbees and, most importantly, seven(!) extra bodies, we helped the day be more fun than an average day at Entre Todas, and that feels really, really good.

On Christmas morning, Ann, my friend Lindsay and I made a pancake breakfast and watched A Christmas Story. It was the perfect way to spend the morning—it even felt a tiny bit like Christmas! I then went back to Entre Todas for a few hours, although the girls were exhausted so we mostly just watched TV. Chris and I headed straight from Entre Todas to the volunteer house where we held a hilarious Christmas dinner. The plan was to make a vegetarian, gluten-free lasagna, have roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, and everyone else would bring sides and desserts. For some reason, everyone thought grocery stores would be open on Christmas Day, but everyone was wrong. Paul, who had been in charge of providing chicken, did not get to the store before Christmas Day and so instead ordered Dominoes pizza for his contribution, which mysteriously came with two quarts of ice cream and four liters of Coke. I had managed to buy the gluten-free lasagna noodles (finding those here in Chile was a Christmas miracle in and of itself) the day before, and Chris and Jessica, the other vegetarians, bought sauce and veggies, but no one bought cheese. Lindsay had purchased ten pounds of potatoes but no cream or milk to mash them with. Needless to say, we were all a little concerned about feeding the twelve to fifteen people we had promised to feed. By the grace of someone or something, however, we managed to find a tiny little market open and bought cheese for the lasagna and milk for the potatoes.

Though she had never mashed potatoes before, Lindsay’s potatoes were beyond delicious. And the lasagna, which I was convinced would be a disaster, ended up being not only the world’s first round lasagna, but also amazingly delicious. While assembling the lasagna, we couldn’t find the rectangular pan but found a sufficiently deep round one, so set about trimming noodles to fit and made a beautiful creation. When we opened the oven to light it, however, there sat the rectangular pan. Ah, Chile. Everyone else who came brought chips and ice cream because gas stations were the only stores open by the time they headed to the house. There was certainly nothing traditional about the meal but we were well fed and well amused. After dinner we held a lively Yankee swap, then gave in to our food comas. It really was a lovely day.

Multiple Victories

2008-12-23T20:02:00.000-08:00

Despite having unidentified Chilean floor-cleaner splashed all over my body by the six-year-old at Entre Todas, today was amazing. First of all, I made killer gluten-free pancakes from scratch this morning, so the day was bound to go well. Secondly, when I first arrived at Entre Todas, I sat with one of the girls who has seemed extremely depressed lately and tried to engage her in conversation. She’s fifteen and normally a quiet girl but lately has been more withdrawn than usual and I’ve noticed spots on her wrists where it appears she cuts herself. At first she just answered my questions with one-word answers and I could have left it at that, but I kept going, wondering which question would be the one that would make her tell me to shut up. But all of a sudden I think she realized I actually cared about what we were talking about and she smiled and started speaking in full sentences. A minor victory!

We had a special Christmas lunch, then the girls who would be leaving for the holidays packed up their bags and said goodbye. Chris and I were sitting on one of the couches on the patio around this time when the newest girl wandered over. She’s a sweetheart, probably about fourteen. She was carrying a stuffed animal and looked a little teary, so I asked her if she was feeling sad. She nodded so I lifted my arm and invited her to sit between Chris and I. She collapsed into my arms and started sobbing, burying her face in my neck and squeezing me with intense desperation. For a long time we just sat there, not saying anything, me stroking her hair while she cried. I was struck by this incredible feeling of doing the most important thing I could possibly be doing. This is the first time this girl will spend Christmas away from her family and no one around her is acknowledging how hard that is. The girls normally have walls up and never allow anyone to see them in moments of weakness, so I felt absolutely overwhelmed with gratitude that this girl could come to me in her vulnerable state. I also felt smacked in the face by the reality of her situation. I’ve said over and over that I’m glad to be spending Christmas with the girls who can’t go home to their families but it hadn’t actually hit me until I found myself as the sole provider of support for a crying child. I can’t stress enough how happy I was to be that person in that moment.

To close the day, Chris and I took one of the girls for a walk around the neighborhood and to a nearby playground. She was the girl I took to the psychologist my first week but on this walk she acted much more comfortable and relaxed. We shared lively banter and conversation—for an eleven-year-old she has a great sense of humor. We even ended up having a sing-a-long to one of the songs the girls all love. The song is called “Niño de tus ojos,” meaning “Child of Your Eyes,” (they sing some seriously religious songs) but the girls love changing the lyrics to “Niño de tus piojos,” which means “Child of Your Lice.” The three of us laughed and laughed as we walked and sang this song and I felt absolutely content.

Fallen angels/All in a day's work

2008-12-23T04:57:00.000-08:00

Yesterday morning my friend Lindsay and I returned to the Vega, Santiago’s huge meat and produce market, much to the delight of the men lounging amid the avocado pallets. Though I was sporting my usual grubby jeans and tank top, Lindsay looked pulled together as ever in a breezy dress and between the two of us we received the typical barrage of catcalls. My favorite came from a man sitting in front of large bins of pet food who said, “The angels are falling.” It just warms the heart right up, doesn’t it? Yeah.

Later on, at Entre Todas, my sunburn was the hit of the day. I loved flashing it and watching the girls cringe. “Tííííaaaa!” they squealed. One girl told me I looked like someone had painted me. She then lectured me on the importance of buying a high quality sunscreen.

The day felt like a success as one of the girls who I’d never had a conversation with called me into one of the dormitories, offered to share her candy, and told me about the Christmas party she’d just gone to at her psychologist’s office. We hung out and chatted for probably a half hour, sometimes with other girls and sometimes just us. It felt like a huge step to be invited into their private space, and felt great to just plop down on the floor and chill out with her. Later in the day, the girls began an impromptu water balloon fight on the patio. It was great to see them be more relaxed as they’ve finished their exams and are out of school for the summer. It was also great to see them running around and screaming rather than sleeping on the floor of the TV room in the middle of the day. Eventually the girls resorted to dumping buckets of water on each other, which was also great to watch. Chris and I were in no way dry when we left work.

And finally, because no day at Entre Todas passes without at least a minor storm, Chris and I had a rough moment with the six-year-old. Her moods change with no clear reason and with no warning, so she took us by surprise when she followed us out to a quieter portion of the front patio (the water-balloon-free zone) and began throwing small rocks at us. She refused to listen, screaming that we aren’t her parents, throwing rocks harder at the wall and into the yard next door. At one point she even threw a rock out the front gate at a stranger walking by. It's difficult to know how to handles these situations. When we use firm voices with her she shakes her head and hits and kicks us. There seems to be no way to discipline her except to walk away, telling her we don’t want to be around that type of behavior. She prevented us from doing this yesterday, however, by closing both doors that lead inside from the front patio--both must be opened from the inside so we were trapped outside with her. It pains me to see her behave this way; clearly her short past contains serious trauma. It’s also brutal to see her in this home with no one her age to play with and only the influence of teenage girls. At the end of this rock-throwing incident, one of the older girls calmed her down by sharing her headphones. The six-year-old danced a bit alongside the older girl, then began kissing the wall next to her, fluttering her eyelids and twirling her tongue around. Apparently the social worker at Entre Todas is searching for a more appropriate home for her, which in my opinion couldn’t happen soon enough.

I’m looking forward to today as we’re having a special evening snack for Christmas—some of the girls will be heading home to their families tomorrow so this will be the time for all the girls to celebrate together. Hopefully it will be a smooth and happy day.

Aloe, please?

2008-12-21T19:11:00.000-08:00

I’ll begin by saying that I am, at this moment, possibly more sunburned than I’ve ever been in my entire life. Bending my legs and sitting down are simply out of the question. But these are small prices to pay for the weekend I just had! Five other volunteers and I traveled to Zapallar, a small beach town north of Viña del Mar, the most popular coastal destination in Central Chile. Friends warned us that Viña was overcrowded and dirty and recommended Zapallar, a much quieter and pristine town. We heeded their advice and found an oasis that seems practically undiscovered by mainstream tourists. Here’s the scene that greeted us:

Also per a recommendation from our friends, we spoke with a woman who owns the supermarket in town about renting the apartment above the store for the night. Because Zapallar is a fairly exclusive town complete with well-dressed, towheaded Chilean children, budget accommodations are non-existent, so for about $10 each, we were thrilled with the place. The apartment included a full bathroom (though they forgot to turn on the hot water heater for us until after we winced through cold showers), a semi-equipped kitchen, and enough bed space for the six of us.

We stayed on the beach until well after 8:00 last night and spent the majority of today there as well. We also took advantage of a beautiful walking path that wraps around the harbor and marveled at the mansions built into the sides of the steep hills along the water. Most of our time, however, was spent on our towels or in the [freezing!] water. Relaxing with our books, eating ice cream and listening to the sound of enormous waves crashing on the gold-flecked sand was the perfect reward for our first two intense weeks of work with VE.

Here we are after climbing a huge rock structure near the end of the walking path, and here are the rest of the pictures from the weekend:

And speaking of VE, I have a bit of exciting news! Last Thursday I had a brief meeting with Brooke, VE’s executive director, who told me that he and Daniel, the volunteer relations director, want to give me more responsibility within the organization, specifically within volunteer relations. First of all, it feels amazing to be recognized as having potential within an organization I feel so excited about, and secondly, the idea of working in volunteer relations feels really right. I’ll be learning the process of recruiting and accepting new volunteers as well as the process of orientating and supporting accepted volunteers. Excitement! I feel like something within my universe is aligning, telling me I’m doing something right. We’ll see how it goes!

Finally, my work with the girls at Entre Todas continues to challenge me. I feel impatient to develop a rapport with them but I know it will take time. On Tuesday I continued the sewing project by myself as the veteran volunteer for Entre Todas had headed back to the States for the holidays. I found myself sitting with seven girls (a record, for sure!), all stitching away at little felt snowmen. At first I felt great—without the veteran volunteer there for me to lean on, I was forced to use my Spanish and felt better about it than I had for days. However, as the girls grew increasingly excited about finishing the snowmen and therefore increasingly impatient, they each began pestering me for help, each wanting me to tie a knot or start a snowman eyeball or cut a different color hat. I began to panic slightly as they seemed to lack understanding about a human’s inability to do multiple things at once. The girl who on my first day showed me her poetry told me she didn’t like me, that I was annoying because I didn’t understand her. It began to feel that they were all talking about me and laughing and my brain was too fried to figure out what they were saying. The situation culminated with one of the girls stealing the snowman I had made. I don’t know who it was, but that small action made me feel like a huge outsider. The day was a bit brutal and I left the house feeling terrible, not knowing how I would ever grow skin thick enough to deal with the girls. The next day, of course, felt completely different as a group of volunteers from a local university came to throw a birthday party for all the girls born in November and December and actually managed to engage them in an hours-long sing-a-long with their guitar. Even the too-cool-for-school girls participated, showing their dramatic flair and well-honed senses of humor. It was amazing to see that side of those girls, to actually share belly laughs with them. If only every day garnered such participation. Sigh. It will get easier with time.

For now I’m still high on my gorgeous weekend, prickly red tooshie aside. Hopefully this coming week, the week of Christmas, will be a positive one for the girls. I’m spending both Christmas Eve day and Christmas day at Entre Todas, so likely I’ll have interesting tales to report! Though it feels nothing at all like Christmas here in the 80 degree weather, I hope you all are enjoying these days of anticipation!

Produce Joy

2008-12-14T12:04:00.000-08:00

Welcome to fruit season in Chile! For the second week in a row, my roommate and I walked the three or so blocks to the feria, or fair/market, that comes to our neighborhood on Sundays. Little produce stands line the sidewalks for a few blocks selling outrageous produce at ridiculously low prices. I'm so baffled by this and so excited about the strawberries I'm eating right now, I just had to tell you about it.

Here's what I bought today:

1/2 kilo (about 1.1 pounds) cherries
1 kilo (about 2.2 pounds) strawberries
1 huge zucchini
7 bananas
2 red peppers
3 hass avocados
4 tomatoes

All for the grand total of 2400 pesos, or, drum roll please, $3.96. Gah. I love Chile.

And for you visual learners out there:

Victory.

Stuffed Penguins and Jackhammers

2008-12-14T05:34:00.000-08:00

A fascinating first week at Entre Todas! Wednesday began with a bit of drama as one of the girls’ mothers came to talk to the social worker because her daughter had run away the night before. As I forgot to mention in my last post, not one but four girls ran away on Tuesday. At the evening snack time the tías (staff) asked the girls if any of them knew where the missing girls were but ten girls yelling quickly in Spanish was too much for me to understand. The veteran volunteer at Entre Todas told Chris and I, the newbies, that this happens all the time and that the tías don’t really do anything about it because it’s so common. Apparently the girls usually go home to their families when they run away but since they’re all legally in the custody of Entre Todas, there are only specific times when they’re supposed to go home; some of the girls, though, are never allowed to go home because of whatever dangerous situation waits for them there. However, the girl whose mother came to talk to the social worker never went home on Tuesday, so God only knows where she spent the night. Egad.

After lunch on Wednesday I had the opportunity to take one of the eleven-year-olds to an appointment with her psychologist. The tías told me she knew her way, which she absolutely did. She led me to the Metro, told me when to get off, then led me on a fairly long walk to the psychologist’s office. I asked her lots of questions about herself on the way, which she answered fully and politely, but she never really engaged in conversation. It seems to be her personality to be so quiet, though. During her appointment the receptionist put Ice Age in English on the TV for me, though I was too fascinated by my surroundings to pay much attention. There were signs in the office noting its affiliation with SENAME (Servicio Nacional de Menores, or National Service for Minors), a program developed after Chile signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (interesting tidbit: Somalia and the United States are the only countries who haven’t ratified the convention). I won’t bore you with more details on this, I just find it interesting to see how Chile actually attempts to follow through on programs that protect children’s rights. On our way out of the psychologist’s office, he helped the girl pick a lemon from the tree in the front yard, which she proceeded to eat without a grimace on our walk back. We must have made a ridiculous pair walking down the street, a stylish Chilean girl with a long, gorgeous ponytail and me, an awkward gringa approximately twice her height. She’s like, so much cooler than me, it’s not even fair.

On Thursday we made Christmas cards with about four of the girls. As I’ve come to realize, our only real project time is between lunch and the evening snack, and a lot of the girls follow specific telenovelas that air during that time, so they don’t seem to consider participating in our activities. On Friday, though, we made stuffed felt penguins—the veteran volunteer at Entre Todas had brought all the materials for these little stuffed Christmas ornaments—and the day felt like the most successful of the week. Although we only had four girls with us, again, the girls were really engaged and did an amazing job sewing the little critters. We only had dull, fat needles because it would be dangerous to give them real needles, so it was a challenge to push the needle through the felt, but the girls did it, two of them completely the entire complicated project that day. Of course the day was not without the usual challenges. There’s a girl at Entre Todas who’s been dubbed the house piercer, and whenever she can get her hands on a needle or pin, someone’s nose ends up pierced soon after. She managed to sneak into the pins and steal one and run away with it, laughing and screaming, not listening to us at all when we asked her to give it back. She then told us she “dropped it” and “couldn’t find it,” but we know what that means. The day also ended with a physical fight between the six-year-old and the eighteen-year-old who they describe as “Special Ed.” The six-year-old clearly started the physical aspect of their disagreement, as she quickly resorts to violence when she doesn’t get her way. The eighteen-year-old began to fight back a little and then it erupted, to the point that one of tías came out to the patio to put an end to it. Interestingly enough, her lecture was to the older girl about how the younger girl was just a little girl who didn’t know better. It’s frustrating to see how they treat the older girl, but I can’t change their system, so for now I’ll just focus on learning what I can do to help her feel treated fairly by at least the volunteers.

Yesterday all the VE volunteers came to Entre Todas for a repair day. VE holds a repair day at one of the institutions at the beginning of every three months. I was thrilled ours was at Entre Todas so I got to see the girls in a bit of different setting. We painted the walls of the patio white so the girls can paint a mural there, put up a mesh shade across one side “yard” which is really just a cement area, put up a new wall in the laundry room, weeded a small garden in the other side “yard” and used jackhammers to remove most of the cement from that side yard so that grass can be planted there. It was a really fun day and we worked really hard. The male volunteers (they refer to themselves as “Team Man”) and one brave chica absolutely rocked the jackhammers. Some of the Entre Todas girls even helped scraping and painting the patio. And, because you never know what’s going to happen at Entre Todas, the girl who showed me the poetry she’d written on Tuesday told me that she didn’t like me, and a girl who’s never given me the time of day showed me how if you pull out a certain part of one of the plants in the garden, there’s a little bit of honey-flavored juice that you can drip onto your tongue. This is how it goes.

We celebrated last night with a disco-themed party at the VE Volunteer house out in the suburbs. I absolutely love this group of people! They’ve really got the whole work hard, play hard thing down. Also, on Wednesday night my housemate and fellow volunteer spent a few hours chatting and she’s just fantastic. We are absolutely kindred spirits. It will be a huge bummer when she leaves at the end of January, but for now, yay!

Entre Todas: Day 1

2008-12-10T06:17:00.000-08:00

My housemate describes Entre Todas as both the most difficult and the most rewarding institution in the network of VE institutions. I’m sure she’ll be right about the work being rewarding, and I see right away how difficult it will be. We visited Entre Todas briefly last week with the veteran volunteer who works there and were able to get a sense of the place, but yesterday we spent our first full day there. It’s clear that the first major obstacle will be to get to know the girls and gain their trust. Besides going to school and eating meals at certain times, the girls’ days are utterly unstructured. They’re not required to participate in any activities we set up and since Entre Todas is their home, not a school or community center where participation is the point of going, if the girls want to sit and watch soap operas, they can and do.

Thanks to a recent VE repair day, the walls at Entre Todas are cheery bright yellows, greens and oranges. Apparently the girls used to write and draw on the walls, but the newly painted areas seem, for the most part, clear of such graffiti. The offices of the director and a social worker line the front hallway, which leads to the kitchen and the rest of the house. The kitchen is incredibly old fashioned and usually off-limits to us. Beyond the kitchen is an open area where a Christmas tree currently sits, and the comedor, or cafeteria, where the girls eat their meals, do homework, and where we do crafts and other activities between meals. The rest of the building wraps around a patio where the girls hang out a lot, dancing to their favorite reggaeton songs and checking each other for lice (they consider this a fun activity). Around the patio are their dormitories, each room housing four to six girls. In the very back of the building is the TV room and the computer lab, the latter being open only at specific times.

When we arrived (and when we left), we did a round of left-cheek-kisses, which will be the routine every day. Every girl, every tía (staff member), every day, twice a day. Some of the girls return the greeting sweetly, while others, especially those watching TV, don’t move their eyes or say anything at all. This is fairly representative of the girls’ attitudes—some show interest in Chris, the other new volunteer at Entre Todas, and me, while others act as though we’re the last people they’d want to associate with. Some of the girls display their anger readily, while others seem like average cheery teenage girls until they start cheerily punching each other at full strength. And finally, a few of the girls are so sweet, it’s hard to remember that they’re in the home for a reason.

The girls are between the ages of eleven and twenty with the exception of one six-year-old. They took her because they theoretically take girls ages six to eighteen, but it really makes no sense. She flits around the older girls, lets them smack her around, then lashes out by swearing, biting, and flailing her arms until she hits someone. She’s adorable, however, and always shows her sweet side first. She spends a lot of time with us, along with another girl who is eighteen and has been described to us as “Special Ed.” She’s an incredibly interesting person who clearly wants to learn but isn’t allowed, for some reason, to go to school. Yesterday the subject of the female president of Chile came up and she stated that she doesn’t like the president because she continues to keep abortion illegal. She then asked if abortion was legal in the States or in England (Chris is from Manchester). Sometimes what she says doesn’t make sense and then she hits you with something like this. Whoa.

During the “study” hour in the early evening, I sat with a seventeen-year-old as she made a heart-shaped love note for her boyfriend that said “Carlos, I love you with all my heart.” I showed her how to make bubble letters and hesitantly asked her about the boy. She told me they’ve been together for nine months, then brought out a notebook and let me read some poems she had written for him the day before. They were incredible. I was absolutely blown away and honored that she let me read them. I left the house feeling overwhelmed but great that already a girl had shared a little piece of herself with me.

Minor hilarity/The potential for bread

2008-12-08T14:15:00.000-08:00

After cooking my first meal and washing the dishes in my apartment, I had to laugh as I realized I was seriously slouching to reach the sink. The counters are probably ten inches lower than anything you’d find in the States, so for this tall gringa, it’s going to take some getting used to.

In other news, we made our way to a Jumbo today, which can only be described as a Chilean Super Walmart. To my delight, I found a gluten-free bread mix, gluten-free all purpose flour, rice flour, and gluten-free muesli! The bread is currently in the oven and my fingers are crossed as there's no way to tell what temperature the oven is set for. As with the burners on the stove and the hot water heater, we have to use matches to light the oven. It's terrifying as the flames come flying up toward your hand and make a huge whooshing noise, but surely I'll get used to it. So yes, I have absolutely no idea what temperature the oven is cranking away at but I smell bread, so something good is happening.

Gluten-free Chile?

2008-12-07T16:36:00.000-08:00

Orientation is over! Today we all moved out of the hostel and into our respective permanent housing. Though I’m looking forward to not living out of a suitcase anymore, I feel a little sad to not have the other members of my class with me. We’ve been together constantly for the past eight days, so we all (or maybe just me) have a little separation anxiety.

I’m excited, though, about my new casa! I’m living in an apartment in a fairly hip residential area of Santiago called Ñuñoa. I’ll be living with a couple—Ana from Argentina and Carlos from Cuba—and, for the first month and a half, another VE volunteer. Carlos and Ana are actually on vacation in Buenos Aires for December and most of January so I’m living in their room until they return and the other volunteer heads back to the States. A Chilean woman named Daniela is also staying in the apartment while Ana and Carlos are gone and, considering that she made fresh strawberry juice for us within an hour of my arrival at the house, I think we’ll get along just fine. The apartment is a quick walk to two different Metro stops and a 25 or 30-minute walk to the VE office. I think, also, it should be a fairly easy commute to Entre Todas, my institution, but this I’ll find out on Tuesday!

Now that I’m settling into my apartment, I can take control over my ever-so-complicated food situation. Vegetarianism is baffling enough to Chileans, but Celiac is virtually unknown. If there’s one thing I’ve learned this week, it’s that Chileans love their meat. It’s everywhere, in everything, and usually accompanied by gluten. My first trip to a small grocery store near the hostel warranted a small panic attack, as my options seemed to be nuts, potato chips, wilted iceberg lettuce and mysterious sliced cheese. Thankfully, that turned out to be a horrendous grocery store. I’ve since discovered the beauty of La Vega, an enormous produce/meat market that rivals the Central Market in Florence, as well as Lider, a huge chain of supermarkets that carries most of the items I’d ever need (with the exception, of course, of actual gluten-free products I would normally buy at Whole Foods). Additionally, and miraculously, two of the veteran volunteers took me to an amazing organic food store in one of the super-affluent neighborhoods that has gluten-free pasta, real goat cheese, and tofu! It’s crazy-looking tofu but it’s tofu nonetheless. I’ll see how it is tonight. Going out to eat, eating at other people’s houses, and eating at Entre Todas are going to be huge challenges, but right now I have a cupboard full of food I can eat, so my spirits are high. I also have to mention how great the veteran volunteers have been in accommodating my food issues over the course of the week. Of the nine new volunteers, three of us are vegetarians, I’m gluten-free, and one has major food allergies including nuts, soy, and peas. It’s become a running joke that none of us can eat anything, a joke which made a significant appearance in our class’s skit at Café, a VE dinner with performances of skits and songs held on Friday night.

As fun as this past week has been, I'm looking forward to settling into a routine and diving into my work with the girls at Entre Todas. And for right now, my half-unpacked suitcase awaits! Buenas noches.

I'm in love.

2008-12-02T18:35:00.000-08:00

Okay, it's decided: VEGlobal and I are two peas in a pod. It's early, still, but after three long days of orientation, I feel more sure than ever about this decision. I don't mean to gush, but I can't quite contain how excited I feel!

VE devotes an entire week to orientation, making sure every volunteer not only feels comfortable with logistical details like learning the Metro (I feel like a pro already) but also understands the ins and outs of the organization itself. VE is unique in that volunteers and and former volunteers completely determine how the organization runs--both the administration here in Chile and the board of directors outside of Chile are comprised entirely of former and/or current volunteers. Former volunteers are also responsible for reviewing applications and interviewing potential volunteers. In other words, every single person involved with VE believes very strongly in what we're doing and takes a serious interest in the future of the organization. VE's structure is self-perpetuating as the new volunteers serve on committees and learn how to lead the core projects of the organization. The veteran volunteers are incredibly committed to their work and have given their time generously this week, cooking lunches for us, imparting wisdom and answering our endless strings of questions.

In processing the beginning of this experience, I realize that most of the frustrating aspects of my volunteering experience in Guatemala are non-existent here with VEGlobal. VE, whose selection process is more competitive than I first thought, accepts no more than ten volunteers per class every three months to ensure that each member of the VE family feels sufficiently trained and supported. VE wants to make sure its work is done well, so rather than accept thirty volunteers at a time who may or may not take their work seriously, they choose a small group of people who will commit fully to the organization and work to make as much progress as possible. The administration has been honest with us about how challenging our work will be, but openly and frequently expresses its gratitude to us for making VE's work possible. I could not be more thrilled to join such a caring, passionate community.

On a lighter note, VE has this orientation week down to a science, to the point that I have to laugh at how successful some of the activities have been in helping my class of nine newbies to bond. We're all living in a room together at a hostal for the week before we move into our permanant housing, so it's one big sleepover until moving day on Sunday. Our ages range from 18 to 29 and we're getting along famously. Because this is Chile, and nothing quite happens as you expect it to, we already have a handful of shared jokes and stories. We've all had run-ins with the grouchy, bitter expat who owns the hostel, as well as adventures with Santiago's transportation system. Today, sadly, it appears that someone jumped in front of a train in the Metro, closing that direction of the line across the busiest part of the center of Santiago during rush hour. The crowds of people were absolutely unbelievable--the hundreds or even thousands of people that would have been taking the Metro were forced to try to crowd onto buses and into taxis, most of them left standing frustrated on the streets. Though the Metro system functions efficiently and beautifully, it barely holds the quantity of people who utilize it. The train cars fill up like Guatemalan chicken buses with people standing shoulder to shoulder and squished up against the doors and windows. So today, with no metro, the crowds were a sight to see.

Overall, I'm feeling really, really hopeful. To close, I'll mention a Chilean custom that I've come to love. Every time you greet someone or say good-bye to them, you kiss their left cheek. We do this amongst ourselves at VE and with all Chileans we meet. Not only is it the polite thing to do, for us it accentuates the affectionate atmosphere of the VE community. We've been told to absolutely follow this custom with our kids and the staff when we go to our institutions, every day, no exceptions. Because I've been so interested for the past few years in issues of human touch, I love this daily reminder that every human is worth being greeted in a warm, physical way. Hurray.

Welcome to Chile: we don't want your cranberries.

2008-11-29T11:50:00.000-08:00

¡Hola de Santiago de Chile! And welcome to my very first blog, eeks! I'll be chronicling my year here in Chile as I work for VEGlobal (Voluntarious de la Esperanza, or Volunteers of Hope), a non-profit organization that empowers volunteers to guide children at social risk toward productive and meaningful adulthoods. VE works with fourteen different institutions around Santiago including schools, orphanages, and community centers. My personal assignment is at a home for girls who have been abused and/or can no longer live with their own families. I'm thrilled about this opportunity to work at Residencia Entre Todas, as well as on the Corporate Relations Committee, where hopefully I'll learn something about the money/business-y side of non-profits. Overall, I'm feeling very positive about the potential of this experience.

I arrived in Santiago early this afternoon and am grateful for a bit of down time before my orientation starts on Monday morning. My trip was smooth for the most part, complete with an unexpected round of applause. I flew LAN, Chile's principle airline, and felt immediately submersed in a culture not my own. The flight attendants spoke only Spanish and sometimes announcements weren't translated into English. We stopped in Lima and upon touching down safely, the entire plane broke out in ferocious applause. No hooting or hollering, just vigorous, purposeful appreciation. I thought this was great fun and couldn't wait to land in Santiago for another round. I mean, why don't we applaud every time a plane lands? Much to my disappointment, however, no clapping in Santiago. My hands were raised and ready, but no go.

After collecting my bags and thinking everything was going perfectly, I slid the luggage through one final scan in Customs. They stopped my large suitcase and asked if I had chocolate in it. Likely story, I know, but I had none. They looked closely at the screen then said, "Cereal?" Then I remembered, my gallon ziplock back of homemade gluten-free granola with cranberries was in the suitcase. We went back and forth as I tried to explain the concept of granola in Spanish, then finally they removed the item in question. Marcos, a slightly cocky employee of the Servicio Agricola y Ganadero (Agriculture and Livestock) pointed to the cranberries and asked what they were.
"Cranberries...?" I said, not knowing the Spanish word for them.
"Granola con cranberries?" Marcos asked.
"Sí."
"Granola con cranberries?" He asked again. I nodded.
Marcos pulled out a form and began filling it out. I peeked at the title: "ACTA DE DENUNCIA Y CITACION." Denunciation? Citation? After a lengthy lecture about how I didn't declare my granola con cranberries and an explanation of the scary form, Marcos sent me to sit outside a little office. I sat there for about fifteen minutes before another man called me in. I sat down across from him as he typed furiously. He asked if I spoke Spanish and announced he would be asking me a series of questions, such as what my occupation was and where I was traveling from. Finally, he got to his most important question: Why didn't I declare my granola con cranberries? If I hadn't been so close to crying I might have laughed at him, but I managed to answer that I had simply forgotten about the granola con cranberries. He then gave me an even lengthier lecture about the importance of declaring animal and vegetable products and how I could be charged a $4,500 fine. He explained that I wouldn't be charged the fine this time, but that if I ever tried bringing cranberries into Chile again, there would be no escaping the charge. He photocopied the four very official-looking, government-stamped forms detailing my infraction and handed them to me, muchas gracias y adios.
In the time these shenanigans took, my ride from VE had left the airport thinking I had missed my flight. No big deal, I took a taxi, but let me tell you: Marcos missed the small bag of granola con cranberries in my carry-on and I'm munching on it right now.