a gringa's chilean xmas & trip to Vilches.

I'm starting my Monday morning off with a strong cup of coffee, to be repeated next Monday after this New Year's weekend which I'm planning to spend in the beach town Viña del Mar with 9 others. For only knowing a certain amount of people in Santiago and not having family here, Christmas weekend was pretty busy for me. On the Friday night I went to Eduardo's house to celebrate with his family. Eduardo has a younger nephew, so to my delight after we ate dinner we had to go on a 'leave the house for santa to come run.' In Chile, Santa Claus doesn't come over night with the children waking up Christmas morning to open their presents. Instead he comes at midnight, so all of us left the house to go for a walk while the parents stayed behind to plant the presents under the tree. It was the cutest thing watching Pablo barely be able to contain his excitement as we got in the car to go to a house nearby in the neighbourhood that is known for it's Christmas lights. The street was packed with children and families, all leaving their houses 'empty' for Santa to come. We returned to Eduardo's home and opened the presents under the tree, then proceeded to his sister's house for another present opening ceremony. In his neighbourhood there were children awake late into the night running around and playing with their new toys in the streets. I guess I shouldn't be surprised how late they celebrate Christmas here, because as I've learnt here the Chileans really do know how to party.

Checking out the  lights while they wait for Santa.

Me with Eduardo's lovely family. Eduardo is wearing the green striped top.

Christmas day I went to 'Fantasilandia' a theme park here in Santiago with my friend Marco and we spent the day making ourselves feel sick riding roller coasters. Too much fun. We headed to Chris's Xmas asado late in the afternoon to eat, drink and be merry with the other VE volunteers, then continued on to the surprise birthday of my friend Meghans's Chilean bf for more being merry and drinking. Going late into the night didn't really leave in me great form for next day where a few of us had been invited to tag along with Marco to his parent's friends house for another asado. Originally from England, they have been living in Chile for over 15 years now and have a beautiful house with amazing views in the foothills hills of the Andes. They were wonderful hosts and made us feel very welcome in their home for day. It still amazes me every time to see the contrast that can be found here between the fast paced, concrete jungle of Santiago's inner city, past the 'quiko' (rich) suburbia of Los Leones to the lush green landscapes sprawling out into the Andes.

 Entonces here is my belated blog about VILCHES!

After deciding to go away for the weekend on a whim. We settled on Vilches from the guidebook after reading about the hike 'El Enladrillado' in the Reserva Nacional Altos de Lircay, which according to the lonely planet guide is 'the best single hike between Santiago and Temuco.' (middle Chile)

We arrived in Vilches on the 'servico occasional' bus service to find Vilches Alto literally consists of a dirt road. With not even a small corner store to buy food we considered our 2 'restaurant' options for eating. By restaurants I mean 2 houses where people had opened up their own kitchens to serve a basic menu and provide beer for trekkers like us. We could choose from churrasco, completo or a sandwich. A weekend ahead of bread, meat, tomato and palta. After choosing churrasco & beer for lunch, we broke up our time with a small trek nearby to be welcomed back for another churrasco and beer for dinner. The kind lady upon our request made cheese and tomato sandwiches for our breakfast and lunch tomorrow on our trek.

We set off early in the morning walking the 2km to get to the park entrance, then hiked the 10km up to the top in a little under 4 hours. The whole way up we enjoyed beautiful scenery and peeks of views of what was to come later out from the shrub. When we arrived at the top we were lucky enough to have the entire plateau to ourselves to enjoy the stunning 360 degree view for the hour we were up there. It was quite something. The trek down took us 3 hours where we rewarded ourselves for our hard work with completos and beer. I swear after that I did not want to see a sandwich or completo for at least a week (I ended up having 3). At 5.30pm we jumped on the occasional bus service back to Talca and were hoping to get over to the beach town Pichulemu that night. Unfortunately they didn't have any buses running there so we cut our weekend short and headed back to Santiago.

Weird fruit we found everywhere

'Piedra del Mono' on the small trek we did the first day.

One of two places to eat.

This guy drives his truck up the dusty road and sells fruit, veg etc. since there is no corner store.

We choose Enladrillado!!!

View from the other side walking up

View from the top.

Well deserved rest and choccy biscuit.

Basaltic Plateau

Getting snap happy at the top.

Mandatory jumping photo! Too bad the view in the background didn't come out.

Awesome.

Completos. Above trying make a variation on the Churrasco.

feliz navidad NZ

So it's Christmas morning in NZ right now, and here in Chile it's around 5pm.  I'm going to call my family in the next hour so I hope they are home! Like I said in another blog it hasn't really felt like Christmas much here. My apartment is half empty because it has been sold so everything is getting moved out including the fridge apparently in 3 days which means I get to live without a refrigerator for 2 weeks haha (not actually so funny.) Anyways so here is the extent of the Christmas decorations in my apartment.

My festive bed frame.

We have been celebrating at Aldea this week which has been really fun and I will write about that in another blog as well about my trip to Vilches.

Last night I had a lesson with a Chilean guy who I meet with weekly to teach him English to earn a bit of extra cash for expenses here. It was really cute as he had got me a Christmas present which was this book called 'Speaking Chileano' to help me with my Spanish. Too bad I'm leaving soon and won't get much of a chance to use it as Chilean spanish/slang is useless in every other Spanish speaking country but Chile. This morning Lily, Stephen, Meghan, Chris & I went to Aldea to celebrate a Christmas breakfast with all the other staff that work at Aldea. The key word here being breakfast, I was surprised to find that completos (Chilean hot dog with tomato and avocado) were on the menu. I'm not sure how my tummy felt about eating these at 11 o'clock in the morning along with some 'Cola de mono' (tail of the monkey) a Chilean liquor that kind of tastes like watered down Kahlua. Gifts were exchanged between the Tias who were doing 'amigo secreto', and then each of us volunteers received a box of biscuits which I'm munching on as I write this. They said a big thank you to everyone working at Aldea including us. They called us 'magos' (magicians) ha ha. 
I just finished making a banana cake, a dessert for the asado (BBQ) we're having tomorrow for Christmas at Chris's place. It's a bit of a fail but nothing a bit of manjar on top can't fix.

Christmas eve is much bigger here than Christmas day in Chile so tonight I have been invited to celebrate with my 'familias regalonas' Eduardo. I don't think I have mentioned this before but I participated in a programme along with a few other volunteers that matches you up with a Chilean family as a kind of cultural exchange. I signed up for it in the hope of getting the most out of my experience here and the opportunity to meet more people. Eduardo and his family are so kind and warm, and I feel lucky to be invited into their home to celebrate Christmas with them Chilean style...hopefully not with another completo.

Of course I wish I could spend Christmas with my family today, but I still wouldn't trade places for anything to missing toda mi experiencia de Chile!

Feliz Navidad NZ xxx

Baile de la Navidad - VE Global Blog

The girls at Aldea María Reina love to dance.
So with Christmas around the corner and the opportunity for an audience during the holiday celebrations, a navidad-themed baile was in order. With the song chosen and the dance choreographed, the only thing left to do was to recruit some dancers. This can be harder than it sounds at the hogar. Housing around 45 teenage girls, the girls moods change constantly affecting whether they want to participate in the days activities or not. Myself and the other volunteers have found usually the best source of motivation to get them to join in comes from the girls seeing others enjoying themselves and not wanting to miss out on the fun!

True to form we started the day with one girl and ended with six, with another three more wanting to join in tomorrow. A week went by filled with rehearsals, and new girls asking to join in each day. The girls worked hard together, and it made me really happy to see their long term commitment to putting in the time and effort to make their dance look the best it could.There were girls who struggled with a particular step one day, who after some one on one time would turn up the next day and have it perfect. I saw older girls helping the younger ones, and others taking the initiative to solve choreographic problems, or encouraging the others around them to keep practicing. It was nice to see sides of girls personalities I had not seen before, girls who usually had no interest in dance who put themselves outside their comfort zone to try something new.

Well the big day arrived, and after coordinating costumes and a last minute rehearsal out on the cancha they were ready as they would ever be. Mariah Carey's "All I want for Christmas" came through speakers and they began their routine. While some had shy smiles across their faces and others threw themselves into it, the cheers, applause and encouragement from the audience was well deserved. I truly felt proud of each and every one of them as I snapped away with my camera happy to see all their hard work finally paying off.

Again I am amazed at the energy and spirit of the girls I work with every day and what they are capable of if they put their mind to it.

fin de semana

So since I only have 4 weeks left here I'm going to try little harder keeping up with my blog so you can have more of an idea of what we get up to at Aldea on a daily basis. We'll see how it goes.

Today was Thursday which means cooking day at Aldea. On the menu was Lily's sweet potatoes that she made for Thanksgiving, also known as 'papas dulces' in Chile. Apparently the marshmallows on top weren't to the girls liking, they do always seem to be confused by the 'weird' recipes the gringos bring in for them try haha.
After wards we had another Christmas dance rehearsal. The dance has been going surprisingly well. The first day I started off with 1 girl but had a whopping 6 by the end of the day. Since then I have managed to recruit a few more girls each day to participate, even though not all of them always come to rehearsal. I love watching the girls really get into it, or seeing a girl master a step she was struggling with the day before. The cutest thing today was watching Stephen teach the youngest girl there who is 10 this 'pas de bourree' step.  I'm really quite chuffed with them all and can't wait to watch them on Tuesday. As you know I'm not allowed to post videos or photos of the girls online but for any of you who are interested flick me an e-mail and I can send you a video I have of the girls in rehearsal.

Early tomorrow I am heading away for the weekend to a place called Vilches that is south of Santiago. This includes a 3 hour bus ride to to Talca then another 2 hour bus ride to reach our destination. We're planning to go to the reserva nacional, 'Altos del Lircay.' It's supposed to beautiful so I'm looking forward to some mean hikes (Dad those boots are finally going to be put to proper use!) and some quiet time.


Hasta luego!

apparently christmas is coming

So it's about a week and a half until Christmas, but I can't say it really feels like it here. I think a lot of people in my volunteer group are sharing the same feeling, but more so because they are used to having snow surrounding them for the festive season, where as I'm used to the lovely summer weather. There is no Christmas tree in our apartment, but of course I could easily purchase one in the street for a luca (about $3 NZ) if I really wanted to.

You can get everything you need for Xmas en la calle!

Yesterday there was a Christmas Parade down the main street running through Santiago, that my friend so luckily happens to have an apartment. So we sat outside on her balcony listening to appropriate Christmas songs like Twisted Sister's 'Oh come all ye faithful' (haha) with a few beers watching the crowds of people migrating towards what we thought was the beginning point of the parade. After not seeing anything mildly resembling Christmas for over an hour, we firstly blamed 'chilean time' (the fact everyone is so late for everything here it is almost absurd. If you have a party and invite people for 8pm, expect them at 10pm no earlier.) Although when we started seeing masses of people walking back towards us, we went downstairs to find that the parade wasn't coming past the apartment like the online map had said and stopped a few blocks earlier. I knew our prime parade viewing spot was too good to be true!

Yes we were pretty happy up there until we realised we weren't going to see anything.

We still managed to catch the end of it a little further up and saw the giant 'monos'. Mono translates to monkey in English, but for some reason here they call the giant balloon floats 'monos'. This confused my room mate earlier in the day, who had no idea about the parade and asked a policeman what was going on. He responded "The monkeys are coming." She thought perhaps a circus or something was approaching?
Anyways, we got to see Spongebob square pants (bob esponja), Dumbo, Bob the builder, Cookie monster and of course Viejo Pascuero (Old man Christmas) himself. In almost every other Spanish speaking country Santa Claus is called  Papá Noel, but of course it's no surprise Chile has their own name for the old man. I learnt this the other day at Aldea when I was trying to find the translation for Father Christmas. To do this I found myself describing to the girls in Spanish,

Sabes el hombre, que viene a su casa, en la noche de navidad, el llevas regalos.........you know the man, that comes to your house, the night of christmas, he brings presents.... it was funnier at the time ok.

Hola Viejo Pascuero!!!!!

Today I'm off to start teaching the Aldea girls the Christmas dance I made up. I don't think we are going to perform it on the 22nd as originally planned now because the director of the hogar said the girls always dance something too sexy. But apparently there is another Xmas party on Dec 21, where members from the Bank of Chile come and the sexy dancing is allowed for this audience.......????????????.......yeah I know.


My dance is definitely G-rated so hopefully today it will not be greeted with cries of 'Fome!' (lame)

december begins

My house smells like smoke right now because I just burnt a pot of beans that I forgot about while I was looking up Spanish Christmas songs on the internet. I'm going to try choreograph a dance for the Aldea girls for their Christmas fiesta on the 22nd hence the internet search. Does anyone know of any good Spanish reggaeton Christmas songs? Yeah I thought not. Looks like it's going to be 'All I want for Christmas.'

Yesterday was our last LIGA for the year and my last LIGA with VE. Another reminder of how soon I am am leaving. I will miss LIGA as I always enjoy meeting all the kids from the other institutions and seeing them having fun, I think it is one of my favourite things we do at VE Global.

At the end of the day I hit a bit of a downer though. On the way back I asked one of the girls if  'L' one of the girls I am especially close to in the hogar was in. She has started leaving the hogar before we arrive in the afternoon because of her cooking course so I don't see her anymore. They said she was so instead of leaving the girls inside the gate as we usually do I went in to find her. She was around so I asked her to come for a walk with me. We talked and she told me that she's probably getting kicked out of the hogar because she didn't come back last night.
It was only the night before when I was speaking to another volunteer at VE that I made the connection between 'L' and a girl she had written about in her blog, they are the same girl. She lost both her parents when she was 13 then spent a couple of years living on the streets until she came to Aldea. This is the same girl that I may have told a few of you about who asked me to teach her English. I spent time teaching her a few basics things which she had difficulty learning. When I mentioned the classes to another volunteer she told me that this girl had spent time previously learning English with other volunteers, I couldn't even tell. 'L' said to this volunteer that she has problems retaining what she learns after all the drugs she has done. It makes me so sad. This girl is so kind and warm. She loves Gerald from 'My chemical romance' and the Twilight series. She writes me a letter on a picture of Edward Cullen who she knows I think is cute. She shows me recipes she collects from magazines for her work and lets me copy one down to try. She laughs and sighs  'ohhhhh Tia!' when I don't understand her, but then tries again to explain what she wants to say to me. I can see the other girls in the hogar look up to her and go to her when they are sad.

Why does it have to be like this? I believe in the power and responsibility in making your own choices to create the life you want, but sometimes it feels like some people just begin with a shitty set of circumstances that makes it harder than the average person to have to overcome. What happens to this girl if she does get kicked out? Where does she go? Up until now she was allowed to stay in the home even though she is 18 because she is studying, but now her future is uncertain. Who looks out for her? In my life if things fall through, I always have my family to fall back on. What does this girl have? I don't like thinking about what will happen if she has to leave. I ask her why she didn't come back? Was she was drunk or high? She said no, she just didn't come back. She says she has to find work at the end of the year anyway because her course finishes. She will maybe try find some friends she can move in with. Again I curse my Spanish because she's telling me a million things but I can only pick out the basics. Today she will meet with the director of the hogar and the owner to see what they will decide. She says that if she has to leave it could be tomorrow or in a week she doesn't know. I take her to our sala de arte and give her a almost finished dream catcher I was making for her from a taller we did with the girls and tell her to let me know what happens. I really hope they give her another chance because all too often for some of these girls it seems like they come few and far between.