Dia de Accion de Gracias

Ugh, what an awkward translation of "Thanksgiving Day," but that's what it is. Yesterday was Thanksgiving, and it turned out pretty well. I'm not that fanatic about recreating American holidays abroad, so we didn't plan much for this Thanksgiving Day. I did my volunteer work in the morning, and I brought along pumpkin pie to share. It was a hit! And even better, there were three other (Chilean) volunteers there who had lived in the States for 15 years, so they could explain to the girls about Thanksgiving, much better than I could obviously. I still doubt they will remember the story, of course, but spicy-sweet pumpkin custard=yum!

In the afternoon I cooked our dinner, with help from my sous-chefs Taylor and Tasha who were still frantically working most of the afternoon. We invited our friend Ryan over for the evening, so I cooked turkey breasts for 4. Plus stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, and of course, pumpkin pie. After a somewhat stressful beginning, everything turned out very well. Juicy, tasty turkey with all the fixins'!

Unfortunately I forgot to snap a pick of the table before eating, but here's the three roommates on our balcony during our pre-dinner cocktails:


There's definitely something to be said for short sleeves and 8:00 cocktail hour on Thanksgiving...

Semana Tres

In a couple hours I will start my third week of volunteering. I wonder what this week will bring. Almost every day before I go, especially on Mondays and Wednesdays when I have all morning at home, I kind of wish I didn't have to go because there are a million things I could be doing at home and I'm nervous about how the day will go. Usually once I arrive it's fun and the time flies, but last week was fairly uneven. I'm still trying to come up with a schedule for myself and arrive each day with activities in mind, but it's hard with so little organization on the part of the professional staff. It's also hard when other volunteers are there for the day--various school groups, church groups, etc. visit the Villa periodically--because then my normal role of support and special activities is accomplished by people who can actually communicate effectively. I think some of the girls are beginning to lose interest in me since they realize I don't understand them that well, which bruises the ego a little bit. At the end of my first week I was fairly confident that I was contributing to the Villa as much as they were contributing to me (i.e. allowing me to practice my Spanish), but now I'm not so sure. But regardless, I have 2 more weeks to make the best of it, so I'll see what happens.

Now that I'm busy 7 hours a day with volunteering, I'm also busy with a million other things outside of work too, of course. Lunch/dinner/drink plans with friends, this weekend I went to a national park for hiking and relaxing outside of the city, and I might be traveling the next couple weekends as well. Of course it's great to be busy and to be taking advantage of the travel and social opportunities here, but eek time is flying and I have other things to accomplish too--like finding something to do in Peru. I starting thinking about it over a month ago but haven't followed up that much--how is November almost over?!

Calbagata y Asado

Yesterday I went on another excursion to the Cajon del Maipo organized by Cristian. We went to the end of the Cajon, and we rode horses up into the mountains! It was by far the best excursion I've been on thus far. First of all, it was more or less efficient--Cristian had reserved a private shuttle to take us, so we actually left on time and made the trip in less than 3 hours. We spent more time doing the activity than in transit, which was a first. Secondly, the scenery was beautiful--once up in the mountains we were surrounded by snow covered peaks and brilliant colors. Finally, riding horses was fun! Initially I was pretty ambivalent about the horseback riding aspect of the trip, since in general horses don't excite me much. But it was great to relax rather than hike, it was easy to take tons of pictures, and trotting was fun too. Although today all the muscles in my torso hurt. It's hard to choose which pictures to post, but here are some:

Starting the ride up the canyon

group shot

a lovely pool and peak

almost at our lunch spot in a high valley surrounded by snow

Volcan San Jose from our lunch spot--apparently that whole ridge is a volcano, even though it doesn't look like it.

We arrived back in "town" (called Bano Morales--really more of an outpost) around 4 and we hadn't arranged for the shuttle to come back until 6, so we enjoyed some beers and the one restaurant in town. It was a fun group--Geert, another September Spanish school student from Germany named Sebastian and his friend Daniel, and three current students, including an American from San Francisco named Joe who just got certified to teach English down here. (a random aside--other than Terri and Ryan-the-other-poli-sci-grad-student, all the Americans I have met down here have been from California, in fact all from the Bay Area. Seriously, every one of them). By the time we got back to Santiago everyone, especially the guys who had bought six packs for the road, was quite happy and they wanted to have an asado (BBQ). Daniel invited us to his house, where he said he had a balcony and a grill and good times would be had by all. I had originally planned to go home and spend the evening relaxing, but an asado did sound fun and the group was pretty convincing.

So after a somewhat annoying trip to the grocery store to buy supplies (grocery shopping in big groups is never fun, especially when some are a little tipsy and loud and we all stick out because we're speaking english), we arrived at Daniel's house. Which he shares with his Chilean girlfriend and her roommate. And apparently he never called to tell he we were coming. And they had been fighting recently. We walk in (there were 6 of us at this point, 4 of whom had never met the occupants), and most of us are introduced to/greet Daniel's girlfriend and another male friend of theirs who is there. The other roommate is sitting in the couch, already looking kind of grouchy.

Now, some important background info. In Chile it is customary to greet everyone when you enter a social event, men-women and women-women with a kiss on the cheek. It's a nice, friendly custom that I generally enjoy. But sometimes it can be excessive--once at a party I was talking in a group of 4-5 people, and we were interrupted by people who just entered the party who wanted to greet us. I thought that was kind of weird. So, even though I've lived here for 2 1/2 months and I know the custom, I still like to follow the lead of others and I don't like to march up to people who aren't also approaching me just to give the requisite kiss. So, as a result, I didn't greet the roommate sitting on the couch because no one introduced her and she was just sitting there. Neither did the others, and I'm pretty sure that neither Joe nor Christina (from China) knew the custom because they hadn't been in the country long enough.

After arriving, I went out on the balcony because it seemed like a nice place to be. I chatted with their guy friend, and that was fun. Suddenly I felt that I could finally spit out my schpeal about who I was and what I was doing in Chile relatively completely, coherently, and with minimal grammatical errors! I also started chatting with Daniel's girlfriend, but soon he came out and they talking, so I felt I had to leave. By this point it was 10:00, the grill hadn't even been started, and I decided I should just leave so I could catch the last metro (10:30) and go home to bed. I went into the kitchen to tell the rest of the group I came with that I going to leave, and it turns out they were discussing how uncomfortable the situation was and how they wanted to leave too. Just as we were about to tell the apartment occupants that we were tired/didn't want to impose/etc., the grouchy roommate on the couch came up to us and told us, in English, that she was very upset with us because we showed up unexpectedly, didn't introduce ourselves to her, and then were hanging out in the kitchen instead of socializing in the living room. The circumstances of our arrival were definitely rude and uncomfortable in any culture (which is why everyone wanted to leave), but it was clear that in her eyes our biggest sin was not greeting her with a beso (kiss). We then had a somewhat awkward conversation about how we didn't mean to offend, how obviously this night wasn't planned very well, how we were sorry to impose, and perhaps we could try to get together again another night. The strangest thing was that, after being mad at us for coming there in the first place, the roommate said "now that we've had this conversation and you've apologized, you all should stay and we should have an asado and have fun." And then she was further upset by the fact that we still wanted to leave, as much as we tried to explain that it was nothing personal we just were tired, etc. We finally extracted ourselves, but the whole thing was a truly bizarre intercultural/interlinguistic miscommunication experience.

At this point I really did want to go home and go to bed, but due to my compatriots' inexperience with the city and slow walking, I missed the last metro. I was annoyed, and I was planning to ignore Cristian's insistence that we join him and his friends and his girlfriend's house for an asado, but then Christina (who happened to live near me) said that we could take a taxi home at the end of the night and her company would pay for it. Ok, free taxi and finally some dinner, I couldn't say no. And it turned out really well. Cristian's girlfriend's family was super nice, the food was great, and it was a lot of fun. So the evening ended on a high note, but wow what a long, interesting day. I was out of the house from 7:00 am to 1:30 am, and I experienced the full range of Chilean outdoor adventure, cultural rigidity, and wonderful hospitality. Oh, and I spent almost the whole day talking in Spanish, and it felt ok. Maybe I've learned something here afterall!

Las Niñas

I completed my first week at the Villa. It was fun, scary, interesting, and discouraging at the same time. Monday and Tuesday I visited several of the casitas to meet the girls and just hang out. I played on the outside equipment, colored, and sort of chatted with some of the older girls. To be honest, those first two days were a little boring and discouraging, because we couldn't communicate well enough to "get to know each other" verbally. Moreover, one of the girls was upset about her family, and I could only partly understand what she was saying and I certainly couldn't offer effective words of comfort. I decided I definitely need to come armed with an activity or a plan for the day, or else it's too easy to get lost.

So Wednesday, I cooked pizza with the older girls. We made individual pizzas with store-bought crust, tomatoes, onions, and oregano. It was really fun! It was a concrete activity, and it encouraged conversation. One of the most interesting things was their reaction to the olive oil I brought to flavor the pizza crust--for the most part, they hated it! They said it was too strong, and they prefered regular vegetable oil. But, on the other hand, most of them did end up liking onions on their pizza, even though they had never done that before and thought it was strange. I told them that putting ketchup on their pizza was strange, so we were even!

Thursday was more mostly hanging out with the girls, but it was still better than Monday and Tuesday. I definitely felt like even after just a couple days, I understood them better and could communicate better. Next week I want to create for myself a schedule of which casita I visit when, because the hardest part is remembering who is who, who lives where, and trying to hang out with each girl approximately equally. The adventure continues!

Natacion!

Taylor and I were in a swim meet today! The pool where we swim hosted a Master's meet, and the coach asked us to participate. The events were strange--400 free, 200IM, 100 breast, men's and women's medley relays. I didn't feel in shape enough to do the 400, so I only swam in the relay--butterfly--although retrospect I probably should have done it because I was far from the slowest one. But the relay was fun! And Taylor did great--he came in 3rd in the 400, and he won the IM! (we think--both races were close, they had hand timing, and the medals were awarded by age group so Taylor got medals in both events but we're not sure of the official order of finishes) All in all, it was a good morning :-)

Here are some pics:

Taylor swimming butterfly in the IM

Me starting in the relay

At the pool after the meet

Taylor receiving his medal with some other swimmers

Villa Santa Maria

Yesterday I visited the Hogar (Home) where I will be volunteering for 4 weeks starting next Monday. It is called Villa Santa Maria, and it is located in Maipu, a comuna on the opposite side of Santiago from where we live. It's a home for girls who have been taken away from their parents, mostly for reasons of domestic violence and abuse, I think. It is literally on the edge of the Santiago metro area--the paved road stops a few blocks from its front door and on the other side of it are open fields. The "villa" model is that the girls are divided into distinct "casitas" (little houses), each with it's own "tia" or house mother (although literally it means aunt). Each casita has a kitchen, living room, dining room, and bedrooms, and there is a maximum of 9 girls per house. The idea is to make it as much like a home and a family and as least like an orphanage or other institution as possible. There are 10 casitas on the property, so there are a maximum of 90 girls on site at a time although usually there are less.

I had originally planned to start volunteering this week, but since Monday and Tuesday were holidays I didn't go for orientation until yesterday. I'm glad it worked out that I can postpone my official start date until next week, so I can get 4 full weeks in (both so I can have more time with the girls and because since I'm paying for this experience, I want my money's worth!). It was great to have a full orientation yesterday, and then have time to plan for when I start on Monday. I have tons of ideas! I tend to forget about all the things I have done in my past, especially when being asked about them in Spanish, so when Boris (the volunteer coordinator) and the Villa folk (Joanna, Monica, and the Padre) asked me about my past work with children, all I could think of was some volunteer tutoring I have done. I completely forgot about all my years as a camp counselor! But when I met the girls and they started climbing all over me, all my experiences came flooding back and I suddenly realized that I kind of did know what I was doing. Well, except for the fact that we can barely understand each other. But still, I can't wait to go back on Monday with some fun games in mind.

After meeting the professional staff and some of the girls, Boris and I stayed for the Wednesday afternoon Misa (Mass). I'm glad I learned that word in my first Spanish class! I'm also glad that I got to start on Wednesday, meet the Padre (who only comes to the Villa on Wednesdays), and go the Mass. The Padre introduced me to everyone, which was nice and will hopefully make things easier down the line. He told them to speak slowly for me, for what that's worth! The Mass was interesting, but I don't have much to compare it to having been to any church only a handful of times in my life and having been to a Catholic Mass exactly once, over 15 years ago. There was lots of singing, praying for loved ones who had died, and asking/commanding the girls to respect the Villa and be thankful for their lives there.

Since I only met the girls briefly yesterday, I'm sure I'll have lots more to say once I get to know them better. So I'll sign off for now...