Today I moved out of my apartment. I'm kind of sad, I love my apartment and my the area it's in, Bellas Artes. It's like the hippy, bohemian part of of Santiago. I have to say it was getting a bit lonely there as the last week I was living by myself because Vero had already moved out and Camille had left to go travel. I feel really lucky with how my living situation worked out here because a lot of people who choose to find their own apartments outside of VE ended up having bad experiences with house mates etc. where as I got along well with both of mine. Now homeless me is lucky to be crashing in one of the volunteer apartments for last week of my time left in Santiago. I still have so much to organize before I go although I have more or less decided the path I will be taking around South America so I guess that is a good start. My last day at Aldea is on Monday, which is also orientation week for the new group of volunteers arriving over the next few days. I have been enjoying my final days at Aldea. When we turned up on Monday 'L', (the same girl who thought she was getting kicked out of Aldea) invited Stephen and I along to her graduation from her cooking school. There were 3 other girls from Aldea who also were graduating. When we turned up we definitely looked out of place, the 2 gringos dressed casually amongst the families dressed up in formal attire, together waiting an hour for the ceremony to start because naturally we were running on Chilean time. I was really pleased to be invited to come along with the girls. It definitely was a family occasion and it made me a bit sad to see that if we hadn't have come the girls wouldn't have had anyone to be there for them to watch them graduate. Stephen & I filled the family roles, clapping and yelling for the girls when they got their names called and snapping photos of them when they received their certificates. It made me really happy to see them, especially 'L'obviously after worrying about how things were going to work out for her. She even received a special award on top of graduating. I spoke to one of the other girls on the way to graduation and she told me that even though she liked cooking it's not really what she wants to do. She told me that even though she thought she could be setting her hopes too high from what I could gather (dam language difficulty) she wants to be an official who perform drug searches, I asked if she meant like a police woman, which she answered something like that. I told her that I think she can do it if she really wants to. I found out yesterday that she's failed her level at school three times now, I think that's why some of the girls at younger ages end up doing courses in practical skills if they're struggling at school. I really hope that girls like her will meet and have people in their lives who believe in them and tell them they can be capable of things they set their mind to because it sucks to hear her say things like that.
No comments:
Post a Comment