Thanksgiving

Chilean food is bad. The drinks are exceptional, but the food is universally lackluster. Therefore my roommates and I decided almost immediately after moving in together that we had to redeem our gastronomically-deprived existences here by pulling out all the stops and cooking a real, honest-to-goodness, no-holds-barred Thanksgiving dinner. We also really wanted to share the tradition of Thanksgiving with all our new foreign friends, so we decided to host a Thanksgiving party at our house. There was only one problem—finding a turkey.

I think we United Statesians sometimes figure that big, fat turkeys just fall out of the sky come late November. We forget how rare of a food staple whole turkeys are (imagine looking for a whole turkey in your supermarket in August). Chileans do, in fact, eat whole turkeys around Christmastime, but because Thanksgiving is a month before Christmas, we couldn’t find whole turkeys anywhere and we were told by many people that we would never be able to find one in the supermarkets. They told us that we really had only one option—look for a live turkey out in the countryside and get someone to kill it for us.

Because I had offered to be in charge of cooking the turkey, I took it upon my self to be the lead on the turkey hunt. I knew that Dennis’ mom had experience with killing turkeys, so I coordinated the details of the hunt with Dennis (a Peruvian volunteer). I realized seconds into talking with him that finding the turkey was going to be way more complicated than I had imagined. I guess I just thought we would get in a truck, go find a turkey, kill it and then cook it the next day—pretty cut and dry. But it so happened that Dennis couldn’t go the night before Thanksgiving to get the turkey, so we ended up having to go on a weekend.

Going on the weekend meant we would have to either kill the turkey that weekend and freeze it until Turkey Day or we would need to keep the turkey alive until the night before Thanksgiving and kill it then. The easiest option would have been to just freeze the turkey and not have to worry about keeping it alive, but I have been trained that eating frozen turkeys on Thanksgiving just isn’t an option. So I stuck to my guns and said freezing the turkey was out.

In light of this we had no other choice but to go to the Santiago countryside to look for a turkey. Dennis warned me that we would need to go door to door at family farms asking for a turkey and that there was no guarantee we would be able to find one. I was a little worried about that, but soon I became more worried about where exactly we would keep the hypothetical live turkey before it went under the knife. Dennis didn’t want to ask his mom if they could keep it at his house because they had a dog and they didn’t want the dog eating the turkey. And I knew we couldn’t keep it at our house because my roommate, Emily, is a vegetarian and I figured she wouldn’t want to see the turkey walking around our patio one day and in the oven the next. So I asked Elliot, my coworker at Domingo Savio, if they could keep the turkey at the volunteer house (a house where eight or so of the volunteers live). Elliot was actually excited by the idea of having a “pet” for a few days, so he said there was no problem with the turkey staying there, he just had to clear the idea with his roommates.

I thought the turkey’s habitation was taken care of, but the next day Elliot came to work and told me that some of the girls in the volunteer house were not so keen on the idea of the turkey staying with them. They thought they would get too attached to it and would be traumatized by its death. I didn’t want to upset anyone but I also really didn’t want to have Thanksgiving without a turkey. I mentioned my dilemma to Dennis one day and he told me he would ask his mom if they could keep the turkey at his house. To my relief, Dennis’ mom pulled through for us. Now all we needed was lady luck on our side when we went and solicited people for turkey.

The turkey hunt commenced on a nice, balmy day the Sunday before Thanksgiving. The hunters were me, Parmella, Dennis and Brooke—the same group that went to Mendoza. We drove to the outskirts of Santiago and then Dennis began the painstaking task of asking where we could find turkeys. The first tip we got was a good one, leading us to a farm that did, indeed, have several turkeys. The problem was that it was breeding season and they didn’t want to sell them. But we couldn’t really stay mad at them for not selling us a turkey because they let us tour their mini-zoo for free, which included a vicuña, (a llama-like animal with the softest fur you can imagine and a penchant for nuzzling humans) a very pregnant donkey, sheep and all different kinds of birds.

A vicuña nuzzling Parmella

After our trip to the zoo I figured we would find a turkey pretty easily at the next farm due to the ease with which we found an assortment of turkeys at the first farm. Unfortunately we had to go to about 15 different farms before finding one, with everyone giving us different directions on where we should look for the elusive bird. Dennis did all the work on the hunt—driving ever so slowly along the rocky, dusty roads as we were jostled around and getting down at each stop to see if they had turkeys in stock (while us girls stayed in the car). Right as we were starting to lose faith in our search, we finally found our turkey on one of the farms. Once we had made our purchase they tied our turkey’s legs together and weighed him upside down, (he weighed about 9 kilos) causing him to throw up on Dennis’ shoes, much to our amusement. I disapproved of the turkey’s transportation conditions—we had to put him in Dennis’ trunk—but we really didn’t have much of a choice because he wasn’t going to be sitting on one of our laps. The turkey hadn’t moved an inch by the time we got to Dennis’ mom’s house and it seemed completely unfazed by the car ride and by its change of scenery.

Dennis, Parmella and Brooke with our turkey

Brooke, Parmella and Elliot all attended the turkey execution, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to see it die since I was the one who had to have my hands all up in the turkey the next day. Although I didn’t attend the beheading, I got very gruesome details about its eventful death. I won’t share all of them here, but let’s just say that chickens aren’t the only animals that run (or fly) around with their heads cut off…

With the turkey in our possession, we moved on to planning the rest of the party. We divided the lion’s share of the dinner amongst the three of us and asked the rest of the people who were coming to bring their favorite side dish/dessert (with the boys bringing things like wine and plastic silverware). I was in charge of the turkey and the mashed potatoes, Brooke was in charge of berry-apple crumble, chocolate chip pumpkin squares, cornbread stuffing and tangerine-glazed carrots (Brooke reaaaaly likes to cook!) and Emily was in charge of making green beans and butternut squash puree. We were all very excited about cooking our families’ respective favorite dishes and although we had trouble locating some of the ingredients we needed (such as pumpkin) we got all the grocery shopping done and somehow packed all the food we needed into our always-cramped fridge and pantry.

We were having a really great time planning the party until we came across an unforeseen sticking-point—the food setup. We knew we were going to have to eat Japanese-style on the floor in our living room because we didn’t have enough tables and chairs to fit the 30 people who had RSVP’d to our event. That was a given. But we couldn’t agree on where we wanted to serve all the food. I figured we would just put all the food on our big dining room table and have people serve themselves buffet-style, just like we’ve always done it in my family. Brooke was very adamant that we put all the food on the living room floor/table in a bunch of separate bowls so that people would not have to get up and go to the next room to get seconds. I thought Brooke’s proposed setup of splitting everything up into a million bowls sounded like it would complicate our lives unnecessarily. We basically had a knock-down, drag-out fight about this (although Brooke insisted it wasn’t a fight) and although Emily was on my side, Brooke ended up winning. We made up like good roommates, though, and I pretty much ate my words when I saw Brooke’s vision come to life.

When the big day finally arrived, I woke up early to welcome the infamous Matías Pablo Pavo (that was the name Parmella and Brooke elected for the turkey—pavo is Spanish for turkey) to our home. To my horror and surprise, Matías still had his neck on and he also had a strange yellowish outer skin that looked very unappetizing. I had to peel off as much of the yellowish skin as I could and I also had to hack, saw, pull and twist the neck until I finally got it off. Before I had even begun to season the oddly-shaped, skinny turkey I was already sick of him. On top of that, I had no idea how much he actually weighed without his feathers, I didn’t know what temperature I was putting him in the oven at because we don’t have a temperature dial on our oven, and I didn’t have a meat thermometer to check his doneness. Because I really had no idea how long this stupid bird was going to take or how I was going to tell if he was cooked, my anxiety level was high as I stuck our turkey in the oven and said a little prayer that it wouldn’t come out either grossly dry or undercooked.

Me hating cooking the turkey...look how weird it looks!

Already fed up with the turkey, I set to peeling the 20 pounds of potatoes that we bought to be mashed. Brooke, Emily and I took the day off of work to prepare for the party and even though I didn’t stop cooking from the second I woke up in the morning, I had a really great time singing, stirring, tasting and laughing with my roommates all day long.

Sooner than we knew it, people started pouring into our house for the party. I was very preoccupied with getting all the food hot at the same time, and when all the food finally was hot, we set it out in the living room per Brooke’s specifications. But in all my preoccupation with heating food, I forgot that A) we were cooking for a bunch of 20-somethings who wanted to hang out and have a few drinks before sitting down to dinner, and B) the turkey needed to be carved. So by the time we corralled all the drinkers and got some turkey on their plates, the side dishes were lukewarm at best. But the smiling faces and merry laughter around me made me realize that the food, while absolutely delicious, was not what people would remember most about the night. What people would remember was the familial sense of togetherness we all shared around our 50-foot-long “table” made out of holiday-colored tablecloths. Brooke’s communal setup was so warm and picturesque, it was like something out of a movie. All in all, our Thanksgiving party was a big hit.

The infamous table setup

"Team Man" getting ready to cut the turkey

Everyone enjoying the spread

In the process of getting ready for my Thanksgiving extravaganza, I was asked by many people why Americans celebrate Thanksgiving—what’s all the fuss about? At first I didn’t really know how to answer them. I bumbled through explanations about pilgrims and Native Americans being thankful for their harvest. But it seemed like my answer was lacking. Thanksgiving means more than that, but I had never really paused to think about why. Well this Thanksgiving, thousands of miles away from anyone who knows what Stove Top dressing is, I realized that for me the holiday is about togetherness. What better way to give thanks than to actively be in the presence of the people who bear witness to your life?

I can’t say that I didn’t miss my family this Thanksgiving, but I can say that I was very thankful for the companions I’ve been blessed with in my journey so far.

The Wheels on the Bus

About a month ago I learned that Elliot—my fellow volunteer at Domingo Savio—and I would need to help some of our kids learn a song in English. The song was to be performed by the kids at the Chilean launch of the book Santiago’s Children, written by Steve Reifenberg.* Steve, a U.S. native, lived and volunteered at Domingo Savio in the 1980’s when it was a fledgling group home for abandoned and abused children. The kids’ performance was partially meant to demonstrate to event attendees that Domingo Savio is still very much a living, breathing institution; and it was partially meant to be a show of gratitude for Steve, whose resource development helped turn D-Sav from a place where no one knew where the next day’s milk would come from into the thriving community bellwether it is today.

The other tíos and tías elected five kids to learn the song, telling us to choose a song and then practice the song with the kids every day until the day of the event. We decided to teach them the old chestnut “The Wheels on the Bus” because it is repetitive and has hand motions to go with it, making it visually stimulating.

I am not sure exactly when the kids started to see our singing lessons as playground sessions, but every time we practiced I felt like the substitute teacher whose kids go wild the second the “real” teacher leaves the room. It seemed like pushing our buttons became the kids’ favorite pastime. Needless to say this led to a lot of frustration on our end. We tried everything to get them to behave—punishments, calling in our bosses to lecture them, praising them for good behavior and accomplishments, yelling, reverse psychology, giving them creative license, threatening to not let them perform in the final show—literally everything we could think of. None of it really worked. They never wanted to practice the song because it cut into their recess and we never wanted to practice because we dreaded the disciplinary problems. But none of us really had a choice in the matter. We had to get the performance ready for the book signing…or else.

About a week before the event, the kids really started to get serious about performing the song (mostly because they were scared into submission by the other tías); and by the day before the event they all pretty much had it down.

D-Day finally came—November 19. I arrived at the event separately from the kids, but when I saw them I was thrilled because, for once, THEY were really excited about the song. Instead of acting like we were forcing them to do something totally lame, they were giddily hamming it up for the crowd in their matching D-Sav shirts. The pre-show jitters, the special outfits and the special-occasion hairdos reminded me of my own choir, pageant and play performances as a kid. But this time, I was on the other end of the performance—the proud teacher with the videocamera watching from the rafters.

Elliot and I pose with our suddenly loving apprentices at the book launch

When the performance was over I felt a combination of relief, pride and fulfillment: relief that the whole ordeal was over; pride because the kids had been such energetic crowd pleasers; and fulfillment because I helped make the kids feel special, talented and important…even if just for five minutes. After my work with the song was said and done, I realized that that same frenetic energy that had made for such hellish practices had also made for a performance that embodied the fiery, indomitable spirit of Domingo Savio’s children.

The kids performing the Wheels on the Bus. (The video quality is bad, but you can still hear them singing and make out some of their hand movements.)

*I would like to use this space to unabashedly promote the book Santiago’s Children. It is funny, touching and it really got me thinking about Chile’s social issues and what my job here is about. Plus, it paints a very vivid picture of where I work day-in and day-out.

Mendoza

A couple of weekends ago I went to Mendoza, Argentina with some fellow VEGlobal volunteers—Brooke, my roommate, Parmella, a Danish volunteer who speaks better English than me sometimes, and Dennis, a Peruvian who understands, but won’t speak English. The trip was a whirlwind, to say the least, and although we only got a small dose of Mendoza, the taste that it left was memorable.

We did not take the trip to Mendoza purely for pleasure. Brooke, Parmella and I all have tourist visas, which last for 30 days. After 30 days you have to go out of the country to renew the visa, so the majority of volunteers go to Mendoza because it is touristy and close to the Chilean-Argentinian border. We were hemming and hawing about when to go to Mendoza because we had several weekend conflicts, but we finally decided to go late on a Thursday night with the intention of leaving the next day (Friday night). We were planning to take the bus, but we didn’t know how to get bus tickets or which bus to take. We also didn’t know where we would stay when we got to Mendoza, so when Friday morning hit we all frantically sent out e-mails trying to get hostel reservations. I figured out how to get bus tickets, but when I got home from work Friday night we still didn’t have a hostel reservation, Emily was sick and our morale was fading fast.

Mendoza is very famous for its wines, so we really wanted to do this wine-tasting tour that included stops at a chocolate factory and an olive-oil factory (sounds amazing, I know). The problem was that we didn’t have reservations for the tour and we knew we wouldn’t be able to make it to the tour on time if we took an 8 a.m. bus the next morning. Just when we were leaning toward canceling the trip, Brooke mentioned that Dennis had offered to drive us. So I called Dennis at about 11:30 p.m. on Friday and asked him if he wanted to drive us to Mendoza the next morning at 4:30 a.m. People don’t wake up early in Latin America, so he laughed a little at us wanting to leave so early, but he good-naturedly agreed to take us. With transportation covered, we still had no place to stay and no wine tour reservations. We went to sleep (more like napped because we only slept a few hours) excited to get out of the Santiago bubble and ready for an adventure.

I woke everyone up the next morning, pumped coffee into their veins and then flew out the door, hoping I hadn’t forgotten something important like my visa (which I almost did forget even though renewing it was the whole point of our trip). Parmella and I got cheese empanadas (think, best hot pocket you’ve ever had) at a gas station, and we hit the highway singing and loaded with road trip jitters. Our frenetic energy lasted until we hit the Andes, which were more breathtaking than I could have imagined.

I see the Andes from afar every day in Santiago, but driving through them is something I hope I will remember forever. As we entered the cordillera, I was awe-struck by the sheer scope of the imposing hazel-colored mountains. Then, as we were all craning our necks to look out the windows like five-year-olds, I saw a thin stream at the top of a mountain and yelled, “WATERFALL!” Sure enough, we had entered waterfall territory—the water barreling down the mountains, dropping hundreds of feet at a time. Who knew melting snow could be so awesome? Then we hit the best part…the peaks. Although it is springtime in Santiago, the Andes still have snow on their peaks. I felt dwarfed as our little car wound its way up mountains that got bigger and whiter as we climbed—taking us from Spring to Winter in less than half an hour. With mountains and snow unspoiled by humanity as far as the eye could see, I was reminded of one of my favorite childhood movies—“In Search of the Castaways.” In it, a small band of travelers makes their way through the Andes in search of, well, a castaway. I remember the movie made the mountains seem so silent, and yet so powerful—able to swallow Hayley Mills and her comrades up in an instant. I couldn’t help but smile that I was, in a way, living out my favorite childhood movie—the one I watched every Saturday morning for about a year without fail.

A shot of the Andes

Somewhere near the top of one of the mountains we came to a border patrol stop…one of three we would encounter. I really don’t know what the purpose of that first border stop was, but Dennis had to fill out some paperwork for the car and we went on our way. Then we came to the next stop and, to our dismay, we were told we couldn’t cross yet because we didn’t have car insurance. They said we would have to wait for two hours for the car insurance agent to come and sell us the insurance before moving on. So there we were, stuck in the middle of a snow-topped mountain with nothing to do and nowhere to go for two hours. As if that wasn’t enough of a buzz-kill, being held back that long made us miss the wine tour. But just when it seemed like nothing could go right, Parmella found a travel bingo game stuffed under one of the seats in Dennis’ car and we had ourselves a 7 a.m. bingo marathon using rocks from the top of the Andes as chips. (How many people can say they’ve been there, done that?!) The insurance agent showed up an hour late, so we were actually trapped at the Argentinian border for THREE hours, but once he got there we got our insurance without a hassle and peaced out. We went along the road for about 30 more minutes before coming across the last border stop and finally getting our visas renewed. I am not quite sure why it was necessary to have three border stops so far away from each other, or why buying car insurance was such a SNAFU, but I am realizing in my stay here that Latin American bureaucracy/organization often doesn’t make sense to me.

By the time we got to Mendoza we had suffered through several sweaty hours driving through the Argentinian countryside without air conditioning (they don’t really have air conditioning—for cars or houses—in Chile) and we were dead tired. Thankfully, we found a good-quality hostel right away for a great price. After grabbing lunch at a nearby café, we walked for several blocks (around 10) to go to a grocery store to buy drinks for that night. We bought a few bottles of wine that were actually cheaper liter-for-liter than Coca Cola and then we bought this mysterious chocolate liquor—also dirt-cheap—that seemed very popular. We got back to our hostel and took a power nap before we went out. I am not sure what was in the chocolate liquor, but let’s just say it did a number on all of us. When we got home after going out, we made a plan to wake up the next morning at 8:30 a.m. to reevaluate whether we still wanted to go on a 9 a.m. wine tour. The next morning, my alarm didn’t go off and we didn’t end up waking up until 8:45. When we awoke, Parmella was feeling sick and unsure about going on the tour and the rest of us were looking at our pillows pretty longingly, but we ended up deciding to go on the wine tour despite our…delicate states.

Dennis, Brooke and I dragged ourselves out of bed and went to take advantage or our complimentary breakfast. We were sitting around enjoying a leisurely cup of coffee and bread with jam when the hostel front desk lady came into the room and in a very nonplussed tone told us, “The bus is here, you need to get downstairs.” We flew back to our room and threw all our belongings into our bags and ran downstairs. While we were running around our room like chickens with our heads cut off, the hostel lady came in and tersely said, “If you don’t get downstairs right now the bus is leaving.” We all ran downstairs and made it to the bus just in time. The tour bus stopped at several other hostels on the way to vineyard country and we guiltily noted that all of the other tour-goers were waiting for the bus bright-eyed and bushy tailed, while our motley crew had stumbled out ten minutes late. Almost immediately after we boarded the bus, Parmella started to get really sick to her stomach. She didn’t look good at all and because I was sitting right next to her, I was praying she wasn’t actually as sick as she looked. Just as we were rounding the bend into the first vineyard, Parmella spit out, “Oh crap, oh crap, I think I’m going to be sick. Does somebody have a bag or something.” I frantically looked around for some kind of receptacle, to no avail. Then, for lack of knowing what else to do, I got up and went to the front of the bus.

When I reached the tour director I lost all sense of how to speak Spanish in my panicked state, blurting out, “Ella, inferma…pare!” or “She, sick…stop!”

The tour director said, “Okay, hold on just a second. We’re about to pull into the vineyard right now.”

I turned around and said to myself, “Alright lady, you asked for it.” I sat back down in my seat and just prayed that Parmella would be able to hold it for ten more seconds. I realized that wasn’t going to happen as she picked up her water bottle and started trying to regurgitate into it. Seeing as how water bottles have very narrow mouths and vomit trajectory knows no bounds, the water bottle didn’t exactly do the trick. Poor Parmella was absolutely mortified.

After doing my best to help Parmella get cleaned up, I got off the bus and the tour guide said, “Is your friend okay?”

“No,” I said, “she vomited.” Half of me felt really bad for the tour guide because I knew she was going to have to clean up the mess; but half of me didn’t. I have been on enough throw-up laden school buses to know that when someone walks panic-stricken to the front of a bus while it’s moving, you pull over as soon as is humanly possible.

The first few minutes of the tour were a blur, needless to say. But once we got out of our shockened stupor, we had quite a laugh about the whole throw-up situation. We visited two vineyards on our tour and they were both very different but very beautiful and interesting. The tour guides told us everything from how the wines were made, to the history of their vineyards and why they plant the grapes the way they do. At the second vineyard we had a proper wine tasting and the tour guide took us through several different wines and told us what tastes, smells and sights to look for in the wines. I really loved the guided tasting because I know absolutely nothing about wine and it was very intriguing to experience how aesthetically different they are.

The first vineyard we went to

We got back to Mendoza and left shortly after visiting the enormous and beautiful Parque General San Martin. If I thought Santiago’s parks were impressive, this one put them all to shame. It has a mini forest, a lake, several restaurants, a huge playground and much more amenities I’m sure we didn’t see. We made our way back to Santiago exhausted, but full of memories of Mendoza’s wide, tree-lined streets, its extremely attractive inhabitants and a certain treacherous chocolate liquour.

Dennis, Parmella and Brooke at Parque General San Martin

Smiling Faces, Open Places and Three-legged Races

I find parks in Santiago absolutely amazing—partially because their beauty and scope stop me in my tracks, but mostly because I just can’t get over how much people utilize their open spaces here. Sure, we have plenty of barren parks with dead grass in Phoenix, but they only seem to get utilized on Sundays when Latinos go to play soccer and have barbeques. Here it’s a totally different story. Pass through any park at any time of day and you will most likely see people canoodling (apparently the canoodling can get very aggressive, but thankfully I haven’t seen any of that…yet), running, strolling or just chilling with friends.

Some of the parks seem to stretch for miles and have huge, colorful trees, acres of green grass, fountains, sculptures and mini-lakes. And it is at these bigger parks that you can see droves of people on the weekends. Some people appear to be gathering for family events, others go for a lazy, romantic outing, others go to hang out in big groups. Park patrons really run the gamut, but the common thread amongst them is that they all seem to be having a great time enjoying their city.

Because parks seem to be such a big part of the culture here, it is only natural that I’ve had a couple of park experiences while I’ve been here. Some were enjoyable, others less so, but they were each memorable in their own right.

My first park outing was with the youngest group of kids at Mi Club – Fundacion Domingo Savio, the community center where I work. (To see the blog for Domingo Savio, click here.) Domingo Savio (or “D-Sav,” as we call it) is in a part of town called La Granja, which is a ghetto of sorts; so you would think that in a poorer area of town the parks would be run-down and unimpressive. But just a 10 minute walk from D-Sav is Parque La Bandera, which turned out to be an oasis in a desert of dilapidated buildings.

To get to the park, we had to walk a dozen wily 5 to 7-year-olds across several busy streets—a daunting task considering there was always some little boy trying to run as far ahead as he could go without getting yelled at. When we got to the park, little Tamara immediately had to go to the bathroom. The tía in charge, Tía Carola, was busy organizing a game with the kids and my fellow volunteer, Elliot, was helping her out, which meant I was on bathroom duty. I had no idea where the bathrooms were or if there was a fee to use them, so we headed in one direction and I hoped for the best.

When we got to the bathrooms they were all locked, which brought a look of agony to Tamara’s face. I was almost positive that she was going to pee her pants within seconds, so I rushed her to a little alcove with bushes and told her to pop a squat there. She hesitated, worried someone might see her, but I told her, “I’ll block you, just go.” Tamara took care of her business and I patted myself on the back for being so quick on my feet in finding an alternative restroom. And yet, in the back of my head I couldn’t help but wonder if peeing in public is illegal in Chile or if condoning public urination would get me in trouble at work. I reassured myself that wetting one’s pants is a lose-lose situation, so I had probably done the right thing.

We got back to the big field where the group was playing and I found them having the time of their lives rolling down a little green hill. After they got sick of that, Elliot led them in a game of catch, which they ate right up…all except for one. Diego, one of the youngest kids at Club, spent the entire hour in the park running away and hiding from us, which didn’t seem to really concern anyone but me. As I was keeping one eye on Diego I started assisting a bunch of the girls in jumping off a ledge about 5½ feet tall—I stood on the ground while they jumped into my arms. Some of the girls jumped off with devil-may-care confidence, saying, “No, Tía, don’t help me, I want to do it alone.” And some of the girls wouldn’t even touch their toe to the edge of the ledge without my help. I remember finding it so interesting that, faced with the same situation and the same abilities, some kids were fearless and some nearly smushed me with their weight they were so scared to make the jump alone. I think it will be good for me to remember how differently kids view seemingly harmless situations.

D-Sav kids rolling down a hill at Parque La Bandera

Earlier on that day I had tried to teach the kids Butt-ball, but my attempt at integrating a new game into their repertoire crashed and burned. So when I saw Tía Carola had started leading the kids in wheelbarrow races (walking on your hands while someone holds your legs), I was a little hesitant to try to teach them leapfrog, for fear it would be as unsuccessful as Butt-ball. But I decided to grab Elliot and make him demonstrate leapfrog with me anyway. Turns out the kids loved leapfrog but, as with every game our kids play, they immediately found ways to cheat and then everybody started cheating and soon it was a free-for-all. Usually I would find people not following the rules annoying, but for some reason I just laughed and laughed at how they were making it their own.

Then it turned into piggyback time, and as we were exiting the park I attempted to take a big lunge up an amphitheater step with one of the heaviest girls on my back. I guess I underestimated the strength of my thigh muscles because my legs gave out on me and both of us almost face-planted. Luckily, I caught myself and we were both fine, but Tía Carola and I couldn’t help but laugh hysterically at my lack of coordination.

When we were almost home and past all the busy streets, everyone toned their car-watching vigilance down a little bit. Consequentially, three of the girls were walking along arm-in-arm and forgot to look both ways before crossing the street. I panicked as I saw a small white truck making a beeline in their direction, unbeknownst to them. I yelled at the girls to stop, and at that exact moment, the white truck driver screeched to a halt and promptly stalled in the middle of the road, stopping up traffic behind him and eliciting a chorus of angry honks. Even though we had narrowly avoided disaster, all of us burst into laughter at the predicament our oblivious girls had put the poor driver in.

That day was the funnest day I have had in a long, long time. Not only did it feel amazingly liberating to run around and play in the grass, it was so funny to watch the kids play their games and to see their little personalities come out. That was the first day I really felt a connection with the kids at Domingo Savio, the first day I felt like maybe they could see me as someone more than the boring tía who can’t speak Spanish.

. . .

The next park experience we had was with Liga de Deportes, a monthly outing VEGlobal organizes for the kids of the orphanages, group homes and community centers it aids. Usually Liga is held in an indoor YMCA field and the kids from the different institutions play soccer together, along with the volunteers. But September’s Liga was different—a game day in the park. I hadn’t gotten very much sleep all that week, so by the time Saturday rolled around I was pretty tired. I got up that morning, went to a conference, walked all over hell’s-half-acre trying to get back to the metro after the conference, and then I had to take a 45 minute metro ride to pick up the kids from Domingo Savio. After we picked the kids up, we took them on a one-hour metro ride to Parque Quinta Normal. Even though there were three volunteers in charge of getting the kids to and from Liga, corralling eight kids who are high on freedom turned out to be a draining task, so by the time we got to the park I was ready to go home.

Parque Quinta Normal itself is just as big as it is beautiful (and it’s pretty big). It has a mini lake filled with paddle boats, a kid-sized train the drives around playing reggaeton (latino hip-hop), and low-rider rentable bikes roaming everywhere—to name a few of its amenities. There are old, weepy trees there and green grass as far as the eye can see, stuff I would normally eat right up, but when I arrived there for Liga, all I could do was think about going home and going to bed. Needless to say I was not thrilled when our kids started running away as soon as we got there and kept refusing to participate in the games we organized. We had an egg-on-the-spoon race where you can’t drop the egg, a three-legged race and a water-balloon toss contest. Rules were not really enforced because Chilean kids don't seem to follow them so, once again, everything was a free-for-all, which really annoyed me this time around. Despite the fact that I was annoyed with our kids not being little angels, I did try my best to pump them up and get them involved, and I even participated in the three-legged race and the water-balloon toss.

Once the organized games were over, some of the kids from Domingo Savio decided to teach everyone how to play their favorite game, Alto Allí, which I played with them for awhile. It was really nice to see our kids getting invested in the event, but after awhile I just ran out of gas and stopped playing. Somehow I made it through the metro ride back to D-Sav to drop off the kids, but by the time I got back on the metro to take the hour-long ride home I was just thankful my second day in the park was over.

Playing Alto Allí with the kids at Parque Quinta Normal

Even though I know I was just really tired on the day of Liga, it still frustrated me that I didn’t motivate and discipline the kids better. And it worried me that I had gotten frustrated with them. I just couldn’t believe how much they had misbehaved when given an ounce of freedom, because in the confined space of Domingo Savio they had all seemed to be fairly well-behaved. Liga day was probably my first bad day with the kids—the first day I felt like I was useless, the first day I felt like the kids could have cared less whether I was there, and the first day I couldn’t wait to get away from them. I certainly hope that I’m in a better frame of mind for the next Liga now that I know what to expect and now that I see how excited they get to go on an outing.

. . .

The last park experience I had was at a Santiago landmark, San Cristobal hill. From the top of San Cristobal, you can see pretty much all of Santiago, so it has some stunning views. My roommates and I had heard that it was a good sight to see, and my new Chilean friend, Matías, had offered to take us there. When we got there, Matías said he would just drive us to the top of the hill. This was easier said than done because the narrow, winding street to the top was packed to the gills with runners, bicyclists, walkers, tourists and drivers. It was absolutely insane! I don’t know how Matías managed to maneuver through the throngs of people without murdering someone, but somehow we made it to the top. The topmost view of the city was excellent, except for the fact that Santiago’s infamous smog was out in full force that day. However, the biggest impression San Cristobal left on me was not its view. I was much more impressed by the masses of people who went out on a Sunday to make good use of their city’s niceties.

Parks are built for people to enjoy nature while enjoying each other. The people of Santiago get this, and I like that.

My roommates and I exploring San Cristobal hill with our Chilean tour guide

Everyone and their mom trying to get up San Cristobal hill on a Sunday

Lessons in Humility

Ask any of my friends or extended family members to describe me and they will probably tell you that I’m sweet and easygoing and I have school smarts but no street smarts. Ask my mom to describe me and she would probably agree with all these assessments but then she would say, “Try living with her—she’s no walk in the park.”

My mom sees my defensive side, my impatient side and the side of me that needs to be right all the time. She observes, “You used to be so sweet and have such a sense of humor about yourself. What happened?” Well, I can’t answer that, but I think my experiences here may help me get back to the “old Carmen.”

My Spanish ability is intermediate at best. I’ve been here for a month and although I am getting better at understanding Spanish day by day, I stammer and doubt myself every time I try to speak Spanish. Sometimes people are really patient with my painfully slow and incorrect Spanish, but the kids I work with are less tolerant. They don’t want to have to repeat themselves, talk slower, or wait around for me to get out a sentence. So because the kids are nonplussed by my lack of Spanish-speaking ability and because I don’t really feel comfortable chiming in on conversations with adults who are speaking very fast Chilean Spanish, I tend to do a lot of listening. I also tend to ask a lot of questions, because it is way easier for me to carry on a conversation with a Spanish-speaker if they do all the talking. So being a foreigner in a strange country has made me open my ears and really listen to what people are saying, rather than always trying to think of what I’m going to say next or how I can prove my worth to them. I am thirsty to learn what others know rather than prove what I know because I want gain a rich understanding of their culture.

The other thing that being bad at Spanish has taught me is that I make mistakes all the time. Usually mistakes are a four-letter word in my book. I don’t like being wrong and I definitely don’t like making mistakes—I’m a perfectionist. Being bad at Spanish shows me every day that I have volumes to learn.

My point is that I am doing a lot of learning, making a lot of mistakes and I am not being particularly good at anything. I am out of my comfort zone, but I hope that whatever zone I settle into, I take my lessons in humility with me.

Repair Day

I was recently tapped to help VEGlobal with their public relations efforts and my first job was to write a blog post for the VE Web site. This is what I wrote:

After an orientation week that included a plethora of talks explaining what VEGlobal is all about, new volunteers got a chance to get their hands dirty in the organization—literally and figuratively. On Sept. 6, new and old volunteers alike gathered along with representatives from corporate partner, Business News Americas, to spruce up one of the VE-supported institutions, EntreTodas. Volunteers painted the worn-out white walls vibrant hues of orange and green as the girls who live in the institution flitted around helping to paint, chatting up the volunteers and performing choreographed dance numbers to their favorite songs.

When volunteering your time, it doesn’t always follow that you will see the results of your handiwork. But on this Repair Day, volunteers got to actively serve children in need and see how much their work paid off. Just a little TLC gave a whole new life to the hogar (group home).

At the same time, the girls of the hogar got a chance to be the center of attention of a day totally devoted to them. They were able to break up the monotony of everyday life in a constructive, fun way. And, perhaps most importantly, they had the opportunity to put a little piece of themselves into the institution they call home.

Painting a house can feel kind of superficial when you are doing it for yourself, but painting to brighten the surroundings of children who don’t have much to smile about feels quite the opposite.

Repair day teamwork

To see this blog on the VE Web site, click here.

Orientation

Orientation week was a delightful blur. We went straight from the airport to Hostal Sammy, where we stayed for the first week. There are really only three things you need to know about Hostal Sammy:

1. They serve free homemade apple and banana pancakes every morning (a plus).
2. Every inch of the place is covered in dirt that looks like it’s been there for a least 100 years (a big minus).
3. It has community showers, meaning two shower heads with no curtain in between them (minus).

Yes, it was the first time I showered with other girls, but the showers were hot and it really wasn’t so bad having company in the shower after awhile (just as long as you kept your eyes forward). There was terror in my eyes the first time I realized I was going to have to be naked or half-naked in front of all my classmates (six of us girls shared a room and we all saw each other in various states of undress), but once I realized they had no problem with it, I decided it was best that I have no problem with it. I’m sort of still working on that…

Orientation week was filled with charlas, or workshops, on various topics from recent political history of Chile to the rights of children and the educational system of Chile. All the charlas were given in Spanish, which was definitely a good thing, except for when the person giving the charla was a Chilean. To give you an idea of how impossible it is to understand Chilean Spanish, we had an entire charla about Chilean slang and several pages in our volunteer handbook dedicated to deciphering it. Making matters worse is the ever-popular arbitrary abandonment of “S’s” in words, for example: “ecuela” of escuela, “noma” in stead of no mas, “entonce” instead of entonces…you get the picture. And how could I forget the placement of “po” as a punctuation of almost every sentence, with “po” meaning pues, or well? Chileans also have their own words for everything, so avocado is “palta” instead of aguacate and peanuts are “maní” instead of cacahuates. There’s a million more where that came from, but basically it’s very annoying because not only do I not really understand the language as much as I thought, but I find it next to impossible to decipher the Chilean accent. I was hoping to learn Spanish similar to what I might use back in the States, but looks like I’m going to have to kiss that wish goodbye and embrace the Chileanisms that permeate all too many phrases. (At some point I know I’ll lose my frustration with the accent, but for now it’s super fome—Chilean slang for lame.)

One of the first (and most memorable) orientation week activities we embarked on was a city-wide scavenger hunt. We basically broke off into two groups and went to a bunch of famous sites throughout Santiago. We went to the top of Santa Lucia hill, which is where Santiago was founded. We went to the Mercado Central, which is supposed to be a great place to eat fish but, really, it just smelled awful. And then we had to complete tasks like selling a single egg to passersby in the street and getting a bunch of Chileans to take a picture with us in a park. Along the way, we made a couple of Chilean friends, one of whom told us that we had to go to this very typical Chilean bar called the Piojera. We had our first pisco sours there, officially turning my drink of choice from the vodka tonic to the pisco sour. Pisco is kind of like tequila but definitely much less tasty then tequila. Yet, somehow, when you mix pisco, powdered sugar and lemon it makes this amazing and delicious drink called the pisco sour. Kind of like a margarita but sooo much better. We ended up being the winners of the scavenger hunt, which was a great bonding experience with my classmates.

Me looking over Santiago from Santa Lucia hill

Drinking pisco sours and Escudo as part of a scavenger hunt task!

As part of our orientation we also went to Parque por la Paz, a memorial park that is on the grounds of Villa Grimaldi, a detention and torture center that operated from 1973-79. During the regime of Pinochet thousands of people were tortured and disappeared for speaking out against his government or holding Leftist views. At Villa Grimaldi alone, 4,500 people were tortured and 226 disappeared or were executed. Villa Grimaldi was at a perfect location for making people “disappear” because of its proximity to a nearby airfield. Detainees were tranquilized, tied to rails of old railway tracks and flown to the ocean. Their bodies were then dropped in the ocean, with the rails ensuring that their bodies would not resurface. These atrocities did not happen very long ago—Pinochet was in power from 1973-89—but according to a recent survey discussed by one of our Chilean lecturers, many of today’s young teens really don’t know who Pinochet or Allende were. Surprising—and yet the Pinochet years are not totally forgotten. September 11 is not just a tragic day for the U.S., it is also the anniversary of the Pinochet’s military coup, which brings about yearly protests and mini riots throughout Santiago. We have been told not to go out on that day because it could be dangerous and I even have that day off work. Chileans are apparently infamous for thinking that everything is dangerous, so we will see if their fears are well-founded or exaggerated.

In the rose garden of Parque por la Paz (notice the name on the memorial placard)

Another thing that struck me about Chile after a week of being there was the political protests. The VE Global office is near Plaza Italia, a part of town where many protests are held. A volunteer said that a wave of tear gas wafted through the VE building once during a protest, and we actually saw a small protest being held during orientation week, although I’m not quite sure what it was about. There was also a mini riot near Hostal Sammy while we were staying there and we’ve heard that 9/11 can get ugly, as aforementioned. And recently, in 2006, there was a very large protest called the Revolución Penguina which was a student movement aimed at increasing the quality of Chilean education.

After collecting these snippets of information in my mind, it seemed to me that there is a sort of culture of protesting here in Chile. But, interestingly, when I asked one of our Chilean lecturers why this was, he said that Chileans really aren’t a protesting people. He said that protesting had gone way down in recent years and that compared to the surrounding countries, Chile is mild. This is interesting. Why would he want to downplay this aspect of his culture? Maybe the weird thing (to him) is not that Chile has protests but that the U.S. doesn’t. Of course we have protests, but, at least in Phoenix, they seem few and far between. I wonder if protests are just a natural part of Latin American culture. Or are the absence of protests an unnatural part of the U.S. lifestyle? Do our people find more mild-mannered ways to get their voices heard by our government or do they just not really care about getting their voices heard? I hope in my time here that I gain some insight into how Chile’s political system works and the extent to which Chileans participate in civic life.

First Impressions

People say first impressions last forever, but most of the time my first impressions are way off. I tend to seriously over/or underestimate people. My arrival in Santiago makes me wonder if it is fortuitous. Will the ‘trials’ I faced when I touched down in “Santiago de Chile” tell me a little something about the place I’m going to be inhabiting for the next year? Or will my first impression be wrong like it usually is?

The actual plane ride from Dallas to Santiago went off without a hitch, although I got almost no sleep on the overnight flight. After I got off the plane I had no idea where to go first (surprise, surprise), so I played the trusty follow-the-masses card and got in the Immigration line, seemingly without a hitch. As I was in line, I noticed a younger-looking male immigration agent at one of the dozen or so available service booths. I got to the front of the line, and when my number was called I ended up at the booth of the young agent I had noticed. He told me that I HAD gotten in the wrong line, so I trumped over to the Reciprocity Fee line (Americans have to pay a $131 fee upon entering Chile).

I went and paid my fee and when I got back in the Immigration line, I was mysteriously herded to the same agent’s booth again. He asked me all the normal questions about how long I’d be staying, where I was from and where I’d be working. Then he said I would need to get a residence visa if I was going to be in Chile for the year. He ripped my carbon copy tourist card in half and on the government copy he asked me to write down my e-mail so they could send me some information about the residence visa. It seemed a little weird to me that I would have to do this—write my e-mail in a random blank spot, only on his copy of the card—but I figured he’s a government worker, he can’t abuse his power, right?...Wrong. Later that day he sent me the following e-mail with the subject line “Hola, Hermosa”:

Hola Maria, espero estes muy bien, soy Rodrigo del aeropuerto de Santiago, ojala me recuerdes, bueno este es mi mail y cualquier cosa que necesites escribeme, me encantaria saber mas de ti y quizas invitarte a salir un dia si es que lo deseas, un beso, eres preciosa, cuidate, respondeme.

In other words, I got asked out by a random immigration agent who now has my personal e-mail. What can I say, I have a tendency to trust everyone I meet. Works pretty well for me in my hometown, but I have a feeling Chile might be a little more back alley than what I’m used to.

After I got past the immigration step I figured out that I needed to get my bags next. So I went to what I thought was the only carousel with outgoing luggage and waited there for about 15 minutes. At some point I started to realize that no one else at that carousel was speaking English and all the bags seemed to be coming from Madrid…probably not the right place to be.

I knew they had not told me a carousel number for my flight and there were no fancy LED signs with flight numbers on them. So I went to what I thought was the next busy carousel and waited there for a few minutes. Just as I was thinking to myself, “I might not find my luggage in this madhouse,” a 30-something man came up to me and asked me in Spanish if I had been on the flight from Dallas. I didn’t know if I could trust him either, but I told him that, yes, I had been on the Dallas flight. He told me I had the wrong carousel and needed to go to the very last and, seemingly empty, room. Thank goodness somebody had pity on the confused-looking gringa.

I got a hold of my bags just as some airport worker with a walkie-talkie was about to have them taken away. I somehow got myself and my obscenely oversized luggage out the exit and was bombarded by a huge crowd of people, most of whom were holding bold, professional signs with people’s names, hotels or businesses on them. I looked hard for my name, or any other affiliation that could be associated with me. It seemed that I had struck out again. No one was waiting for me. I thought I had noticed another exit and decided to look there for my contact. Through the melee I saw a long-haired young guy holding a piece of lined notebook paper with ‘VE Global’ scratched on it in pencil. Safe at last.

My first impression of Chile: A sketchy encounter with a Chilean man, a complete lack of logical organization, contained panic on my part, help from a good Samaritan and a feeling of safety when in the care of my organization. We’ll see if these events are an exception to the rule or if they rear their heads regularly…