Tabo Wabo

Thanks to my best friend Megan, I had the pleasure of going back to the U.S. around Christmas/New Year’s time. I was a bridesmaid in Megan’s wedding on Jan. 3, so I got to go home for a couple of weeks to enjoy the festivities and spend time with my quality time-deprived family.

Two weeks at home passed like a snap of the fingers, but apparently it was enough time to alter my comfort zone. When I got back to Santiago I felt like a stranger in what I thought had become my home; and I suddenly felt the poignant absence of my family even more tangibly than the sweaty wall of humidity that pervades Santiago’s metro this time of year. I had never expected to feel so jolted by my return to Santiago. I didn’t have much time to feel jolted, though, because I was immediately whisked away to the Chilean beach town of El Tabo.

El Tabo is about an hour and a half from Santiago and is surrounded by a chain of other small beach towns. In theory, beach hopping in Latin America in the summer sounds amazing, but I wasn’t too excited about the trip because I knew I was going to be working the whole time for my institution, Domingo Savio. They had obtained a stay in some free cabins there, granted by the municipality of La Granja (Domingo Savio is located in La Granja, a borough of Santiago). Apparently La Granja rents out cabins to groups of people like ours who aren’t able to vacation at the beach like the rest of Santiago’s middle-to-wealthy classes do in the summer.

The four days we stayed in El Tabo were so jam-packed with events and my memory is so fleeting that I literally can’t give a play-by-play of everything that happened on the trip. But the beautiful beach experience captured the spirit of Chile and Domingo Savio so well that I have to at least give the highlights of the vacation. So here they are (in semi-chronological order):

“Carmen Cuidando los Niños”
We got our first full dose of the El Tabo beach after eating a huge lunch at the cabin mess hall. When we got to the beach, I set my towel down and closed my eyes, and between the waves and the carbs I was lulled right to sleep. When I woke up I realized that I had conked out for several hours and had not been watching the kids at all. Did I mention that my sole reason for being invited on the trip was to ensure the safety of these kids—most of whom can’t swim or love to wander off in all directions of crowded beaches without warning? Thankfully the other tíos had taken up my slack in watching the kids (or lack thereof). But to rib me a little bit for my indiscretion, Tío Jorge took a picture of me sleeping on my towel and titled the picture “Carmen Cuidando los Niños”, or, “Carmen Taking Care of the Kids.” He showed the picture to everyone and rubbed it in my face several times. Needless to say, I did not live my carefree moment down and I also did not fall asleep on the beach again.

El Canelo
On our second day in El Tabo we went to a nearby beach called El Canelo. To reach the beach we had to go through a little mini-forest, and when I got to the clearing in front of me lay this beautiful, albeit tiny, resort-style beach. Now, I have two requirements that need to be met before I go into the ocean: tiny waves and no sharks. The waves at El Canelo were the calmest I had ever seen and I had heard from the Chileans that Chile was shark-free (which is definitely not true, judging by the video I just watched of a gruesome shark attack in Chile. Uggghh.). Having met my two criteria for desirability, the ocean was very tempting at that point, but the water was freezing cold, so, at first, I refused to go in. Eventually, though, the kids and tíos cajoled me into going on one of those inflatable banana-shaped water sleds that gets pulled along by speed boats—a ride which I thought wouldn’t get me that wet. The banano, as they call it, was a blast but, unfortunately, the guy at the front of the banano did a “fun” tidal wave maneuver by putting his foot in the water while we were going full speed and we all got soaked.

Mounting the banano. I'm at the front

After that I went to dry off for a bit but eventually made my way back into the ocean (after basically being thrown into the water by two of my girls). I swam all the way out to the buoy, which I had never done before because I am always scared of sharks and waves. It was such a peaceful and yet exhilarating feeling to swim around in the open ocean like that—past the waves and all the people. (Too bad I will never do it again in Chile now that I know they have sharks…) I also played boys vs. girls Keep-Away in the ocean with my kids for quite awhile, but retired after being repeatedly pegged in the face with the ball. By the time I decided to go back up to our spot on the shore, the beach was so crowded there was barely room to step between towels. I have never in my life seen a beach so crowded, but I love people-watching so I actually reveled in all the commotion.

D-Sav bathing beauties at El Canelo

Los Juegos
Nearby the El Tabo beach they had several mini-carnivals set up with rides and games and, of course, fried food (what would a fair be without fried food). They called the parking lot-sized collection of rides the juegos (the games) and a big group of us went to the juegos after dinner one night. The only juego I went on was this saucer-shaped ride that you sat around the perimeter of as it spun and bounced you around to the beat of reggaeton blasting in the background. (Reggaeton is like a mix of reggae, salsa and hip hop and it is WILDLY popular in Latin America. To hear a popular reggaeton song, click here.) I am not always a fan of carnival rides but the saucer one made me laugh so much I was out of breath. Thankfully I wasn’t thrown out of the seatbeltless ride because then I might have joined the list of carnival ride casualties that are allegedly quite common at these slipshod Chilean juegos. Another thing that caught my attention about the fair was that at several of the games—like Ball-Toss and Bingo—you could win alcoholic prizes like bottles of beer and pisco. I had definitely never seen that before, but it didn’t surprise me seeing as how alcohol is so cheap and readily available everywhere in Chile. I finished up the night at the juegos with a sinful dulce de leche-filled churro before we all walked back to the camp.

The bouncy saucer ride

What Personal Space?
The cabins we slept in were huge, having something around 16 bunk beds and 2 bathrooms in each cabin. The girls slept in one cabin and the boys in another. Because our bunk beds were sans ladders, the girls were always climbing on the beds, knocking my stuff all over the floor and waking me up in the morning by stepping on me. And if I ever happened to be in the bathroom, every minute on the dot without fail someone would knock on the door, jingle the handle to the point of it almost coming off and then testily ask, “Who is it?” I guess personal space is just not an option when it comes to living with kids!

Beach Races
One day when we were hanging out at the El Tabo beach, the tíos threw together some impromptu relay races. The races we did were fairly generic, but when you combine 30 rambunctious kids, a handful of already-conspicuous gringos and a handsome, theatrical Master of Ceremonies—you create quite a spectacle. So in our relay performance I was paired with one of the older girls who is a bit heavier than me. Because of our weight differences, she ended up having to lug me around for most of the races (which Tía Andrea later joked was an abuse of power), but the race where I really couldn’t pull my weight was the rabbit leap. Maybe it was because everyone else was cheating—in true Chilean style—but I was by far the slowest rabbit jumper, which is apparently very amusing. In the end I cheated too, not wanting to be outjumped by any 5-year-olds. One of the other gringos, Daniel, also had his moment in the spotlight when he catapulted himself through the air doing a kangaroo leap, and Tía Andrea got some laughs when she face-planted into the sand while crossing the finish line. I think competitors and congregators alike delighted in the festivities.

Me "abusing my power" during a race

The kids racing

Jammin’
Where there is music and Latinos, there will be fun. Knowing this, the manager of our camp was very intent upon having us take advantage of his seemingly professional-grade Karaoke setup. So we had a Karaoke sing-along one night and a dance party another night—all overseen by the owner, who reveled in every minute of our revelry. The Karaoke was entertaining, but the dance party was “epic,” as my brother would say. It went on for hours—starting with all the little kids, then transitioning to a middle school dance in which, “you could cut the pre-teen sexual tension with a knife,” as Elliot joked.

The little kids just amaze me with how well they can shake and move their hips. I don’t know where they learn their moves from, but they could put a lot of my adult gringo friends to shame. And, unlike the U.S., these kids are definitely not embarrassed to tear it up on the dance floor. Even though I sometimes think the kids dance a little bit too risqué for their age, I also love how dancing is like breathing for them, rather than something that is seen as a talent or personal preference. Boy, girl, fat, skinny, gay, straight, old, young—everyone is socialized to love dancing here, and you can feel the freedom it gives them.

The little kids dancing

As the dance progressed, one of the pre-teen boys asked me to dance. Now this is a boy who very blatantly has a crush on me. He is always trying to hug and kiss me and I have to tell him things like, “No, we don’t kiss the tía on the neck,” or, “I’ve already kissed you hello today, so we don’t need to kiss again,” but he never seems to be deterred. And over the course of the beach trip a little bird told him how to say several phrases in English like, “Will you go out with me” and “You are my wife and I am your husband” so he was getting more and more determined to profess his crush on me. I didn’t know if it was the best idea to dance with him, but since it was just salsa dancing and the other tíos were all dancing with the kids, I went ahead and said yes. To my surprise, he was very sweet and kept his distance the whole time, but I think it was mostly because he was trying so hard to concentrate on how to salsa because he was obviously just learning.

Me in the Congo line at the dance

Eventually, I started dancing with another pre-teen boy. While we were dancing, a reggaeton song came on and the music video flashed up on the Karaoke machine. We were dancing away (with me making sure to leave PLENTY of room for the Holy Ghost) when all of a sudden he stopped me and said, “Tía, you need to do that dance.” I looked over at the screen to see what he was talking about and saw girls in go-go dancer shorts gyrating their butts just like in our rap videos. I ignored his request but he didn’t seem to care because he and all the other teenage boys had become transfixed by the T.V. screen. On the one hand I couldn’t believe how different this culture was that a kid could possibly even entertain the idea that I would dance like that in front of him—me being an uptight gringa who takes sexual comments so seriously and all. And on the other hand, I saw the cultural similarities between U.S. and Chilean adolescent boys, for whom butt-shaking music videos are all too intoxicating.

The big kids dancing. See if you can spot the gringos...

Lastly, I finally saw in action the famous Koala dance. I was flabbergasted by how sexual it was in nature and yet how no one blinked an eye over it. I guess that when I came to Chile, I thought that it would be a very conservative, Catholic country and that I would be viewed as the racy American heathen. I mean, divorce was only just legalized in Chile in 2004! But the longer I am here the more I realize how sexualized things are in this country and how I am viewed as an uptight gringa for being taken aback by them. If you’d like to see what the Koala dance looks like click here. (They demonstrate the dance about halfway through the video.) “Uptight” gringos beware…

Tío Time
One of the things I loved most about the vacation was the hour or so the tíos would get to spend together after the kids went to bed. We would bring out our secret rum and Coke stash and serve ourselves a glass, referring to the drinks as “café” just in case impressionable little ears were still alert. And one night we even ate a big summer watermelon together, getting juice all over our faces and making slurping noises so loud I think we woke up a couple of kids. After a long day without personal space and the incessant clamor of children’s voices, being around only adults felt like a rare treat. I also felt like we tíos bonded quite a bit during our grown-up gatherings, which means a lot to me since I work so closely with all of them on a day-to-day basis.

The tíos devouring watermelon and sipping "coffee"

Neruda’s House
Another one of the towns near El Tabo is Isla Negra, which is the location of one of Pablo Neruda’s many houses. Pablo Neruda is a beloved Chilean poet and his grave is actually located at his house in Isla Negra. The big kids and a few of us tíos hopped on a bus over to Isla Negra and took a tour of Neruda’s home, which was covered top-to-bottom with trinkets, most of which were nautical. The view of the ocean from his house was spectacular, so I can see why he was buried there and how his mind might have been nurtured by the space. Neruda is such a point of pride for Chile, and now, having been to his home, I can see that he was not a man to be forgotten.

The view of the ocean from Neruda's house

Building Trust
I never imagined just how hard it would be for me to build relationships with the kids I worked with. I guess I thought that I would come and play with them for a few weeks and then I would magically become their mentor and confidant. Well, it hasn’t worked that way. I don’t feel like I have built strong relationships with any of my kids and I certainly don’t feel like they would turn to me with their problems. Sometimes I feel like I have failed at my most important job—being a listening ear and giving good advice to these kids. That’s what I wanted to do as a volunteer here more than anything else, and yet it seems almost impossible to push through that boundary that takes these relationships from superficial to whole. I still haven’t made whole relationships with any of my kids—relationships complete with trust, support, faith and love. But I feel like I did get a little bit closer to building trust with them during the trip.

Several of the girls who usually have nothing to say to me went out of their way to strike up conversations with me or hold my hand on the way to the beach; other girls started joking around with me more and engaging me in their games. I also spent quality time with several of the kids playing games like Bingo, Uno and Foosball—although I almost lost my religion playing Bingo with them because they kept wanting to “help” me fill up my board (a.k.a. take over my board so I couldn’t play). But perhaps most special of all, one day one of the 14-year-old girls stayed behind with me to guard the towels while the other kids went to walk down the beach. I had previously not really known what to think of this girl because during a getting-to-know-you exercise, she asserted that she wanted to be a mother by the time she was 16. I always knew she was a nice girl, but she seemed very impressionable and at times stand-offish. During our talk on the beach, she ended up telling me that she was thinking of being a drug-crimes investigator and was planning on going to school for this for several years. That was the first time I had ever heard any of my kids mention a goal or aspiration for the future, and I was so glad to hear that she was even thinking about doing that, especially considering that her father just got kicked out of her house by the police for being a drug addict. Wouldn’t it be impressive if even just one of these kids could stop the cycle of drug addiction and poverty perpetuated by their families—and not just stop it, but fight it?

. . .

As much as it can be frustrating for me to not see the results of my presence in these kids’ lives, I have to remind myself that I am here to give love and encouragement without an agenda to receive the same. I have to remember that these kids have immature, abusive and sometimes criminal parents; they can’t trust the very people who are supposed to love and care for them the most in this life, so why would they trust a random gringa? I have to believe that trust is earned and that every time I have a good conversation or play a rowdy game of Keep-Away or help someone finish a project or hold a little hand on the way to the park—every time I do these things I will get that much closer to—in my mom’s words— “going up the ladder of trust”. These kids know I’m going away. They know I’m going to leave them. And therein lies the struggle: how do I get them to trust me so I can teach them a little about life and give them hope for the future, and how do they trust me when they know I’m going to abandon them? I don’t know the answer. But I do know that I am so thankful for those little moments I have with them when I feel like they just might miss me if they never saw me again.

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.