This post took about 2 hours to write and as I discuss towards the end I don't get a ton of sleep and am exhausted. This was written way past my bedtime so just keep that in mind as I start to ramble at the end...
My blogging since arriving in Chile has, clearly, been basically non existent. Within the first two weeks here I had begun to write up a blog, with a ton of detail, humor and fun facts about my time in Chile thus far. I got about halfway through, however, and then forgot about it. When I went back to it a few days later it already seemed to far in the past to bother completing and I didn't know where to start with a new blog post. It's not so much that I am extremely busy, which I am (in comparison to my wake up at noon, go to class for an hour, take a 2 hour hap, watch 6 hours of tv, go out with my friends life that I spoiled myself with during the last year of college), or that I have absolutely nothing to write about (I am living in Chile), but every time I go to start a new blog post I can't seem to figure out how to convey my experiences thus far in writing. Whenever I talk to my friends and family at home they ask excitedly "Hows chile?!" and I feel like I should have some amazing response to make them feel awful about their real world jobs or grad school or being a mom or dad (this refers to my parents themselves, not my friends, I think) but all I seem to be able to come up with are empty, generic adjectives with an added exclamation point for emphasis that I am at least happy here (examples: "good!" "fun!"). So herein lies my attempt to sum up some of what I have been failing to pass on to my two curious blog followers (thanks mom and dad!):
The beginning-
When I arrived in Chile, we spent the first two weeks living in a hostel conveniently close to the VE office where we had daily trainings for 10 days or so. The trainings focused on a variety of topics ranging from the inner workings of VE to Chile's history to our institutions that we would be working in (including a visit to them). It was definitely a helpful week, and a lot of the things we learned were beneficial but I think the most important part of it was giving us the chance to get to know each other and bond as a volunteer class. What I have learned in the weeks since is that having other volunteers to talk to at the end of a hard day or to just joke around with is extremely, extremely necessary for everyones mental health. Being a volunteer anywhere is stressful, but especially in a new country where you speak a language different from your first language and are running into obstacles that you don't know how to handle without overstepping cultural boundaries.
The apartment-
Stay tuned for a blog post specifically on my apartment- with photos and all!
The placement-
I am volunteering at a place that we refer to just as the Jardin but which has a longer name that I actually am now realizing I have no idea what it means. Anyway, the Jardin is a day care in a Toma (an illegal settlement) that cares for on average 20 children from ages 1 to 7 during the day while their parents are at work (the number of kids changes on a hourly basis). It is a tiny place with a room that can be divided in two by using a removable wooden fence structure, a smaller room that is used for storage, napping and changing the babies diapers, and a kitchen. The bathroom has four toilets and four sinks in a row (with no divider) which has led to some pretty hilarious experiences (like the first time I walked in there to just find two boys sitting, chatting, hanging out... and pooping, while about 6 or 7 kids were just washing their hands not paying much attention to the five year old behind them wiping his butt). Bathroom activities are definitely not something kept private with these kids. For anyone wondering, the Tias (staff) have a separate bathroom that is more private. The outside area, referred to as the patio, has a bunch of play structures and beat up toys that the kids love playing with. There isn't a ton of space to run around, as it is all fenced in, but they make it work.
We had a VE-wide meeting this morning where we were talking about our institutions and I made a comment about the Jardin that someone responded to with "you just love the Jardin!" And it is true, I do. I had a rough time in my second week there, which I will get to eventually, but overall I love it as an institution. I think that when I consider the resources they have available to them (which isn't much), the unknown future of the toma and therefore the jardin (everyone can be kicked out of the toma by the government in a minutes notice), and the poverty that these children live in I am just so impressed. Most of all though, I am amazed by the Tias and what they do every day. These Tias have been working there for an extremely long time- it is not an easy job, it is not a great job, and it requires incredible amounts of patience, motivation and most of all love. And every single day, I see just how much love these Tias have for the children at the Jardin. They really are incredible with them and it is easy to see just how much the children love the Tias back and respect them.
The Jardin has some basic structure in terms of a general schedule (when the kids are inside, when they are outside, when they eat lunch, when they drink milk, etc.) but for the most part, every day brings a new surprise for me in just how unstructured it actually is. The one saving grace for the older kids, who will be starting school already behind, is an educador, who is a student doing her practicum at the Jardin so that she can complete her teaching degree. Every day, she thanks me for my help and puts a smile on my face by reminding me of why what I am doing does matter, but really, I think that she is one of the best things for the Jardin. She does daily educational activities with the kids, provides another role model for the kids, and is always, always cleaning and organizing the seemingly never clean rooms.
The children-
I haven't been to the other institutions but I can already confidently state that the kids at the Jardin are the CUTEST. I was in shock the first week with just how adorable and sweet and affectionate these children are. One of the biggest things that I was really curious about when I started volunteering was how different children's environment affects them in a different culture. Everything that I learned at Wisconsin about children's development and families could be completely, entirely useless in Chile. And shocked I was. I have worked with kids living in poverty before, kids whose families couldn't provide for them in many different ways, and especially kids who come out of those situations with social, emotional and behavioral problems. I am not saying that these issues don't exist entirely at the Jardin, but these children are incredibly resilient and have so much love to give. I think that one of the most important cultural differences that I have found, based on my very, very basic knowledge and insight into Chilean culture and life in the Toma, is that being affectionate isn't something that is stigmatized. Everyone here greets each other with a kiss on the cheek- even people you are meeting for the first time. When I arrive at the Jardin and when I leave, I give all the Tias and the kids hugs and kisses. Throughout the day, hugs and kisses are completely normal and welcomed. Calling the children cute and pretty and other names along those lines isn't weird or inappropriate. While I understand some of the legal reasons for school and camp programs that I have worked with not wanting to allow much physical contact between the children and the staff, it can be so important for a child's emotional development. I have found here so far that there is just such a higher emotional capacity than in the US. Of course, this is just based on my experience at the Jardin. I know from the other volunteers that the kids at the hogares (homes) definitely have a lot of emotional and behavioral issues. Back to the kids at the Jardin- they are so cute. I really am not exaggerating. I will put up some pictures soon.
After 6, the downside to this experience:
I usually leave my apartment at 8:30ish in the morning and return at 6ish at night. I have an hour long commute each way. This was a massive adjustment for me, especially accepting the fact that the alternative would have been having the same or similar hours, but getting paid. I do a lot of reminding myself that I didn't want to apply for real world jobs, I wanted to go and live in a different country and volunteer and have this experience. Of course, I have about a third of the free time that I was somehow stupidly envisioning and when I get home from at 6 every day it seems like a snap of the fingers and its time for bed. So basically, the past month and a half living here have flown by. While I am definitely enjoying being at the Jardin and I think that the experiences there are great, I think that Santiago itself is not a culturally shocking place to live in. I come home at the end of a day at work, go to my nice apartment where I spend some time catching up on tv, talking to my roommates and eating. I have thought about going to salsa classes or intercambio events (meet ups where you speak half in English half in Spanish with people who want to learn English) but I am just too exhausted and worn out. I have the longest days out of anyone (most people either have the morning off or the afternoon off at least once or twice a week) and am also just really, really lazy when it comes down to it. On weekends I am so busy catching up on sleep since I keep getting sick from getting so little during the week and getting in my errands that I wasn't able to do during the week that I feel like I haven't seen much of Santiago or Chile at all. (I did one weekend trip to a popular tourist town and then port city but it ended up being a bit of a bust of a weekend, will blog about that soon). The problem really is that Chile is such a large country and if I am going to be getting on a plane or a VERY long bus ride somewhere I would like more than just 24 hours in that place but thats really all that a weekend allows when you take away travel time. Plus we have VE events (like a sports day with the kids one Saturday a month, and a retreat the last weekend in October, when its a holiday weekend and I could have taken advantage of that and done a four day trip without using up my days off). I am starting to get anxious about how I am spending the little free time I have here but I can't figure out ways to spend it better. Unfortunately, I think its going to affect my overall opinion of my time here and what I am really getting out of moving to Chile. And when it comes down to whether or not to renew my contract for more months in January, I think that my desire to take advantage of this year off and see lots of South America is going to keep me from continuing my time with the organization even though I really do love my time at the Jardin when I am there.
Anyway, enough of this downer stuff, I am overall having a great time and I think that in the end I will be happy with my decision, it is just as I have said a massive adjustment that I do not really think I was prepared for (one of the organizations values repeated many times during our training is positivity, which I love, but I think that our orientation may have set us up with way too high expectations because of the excessive positivity and so its been a battle to readjust my expectations back to what they were pre-arriving in Chile, which was that I didn't really have many aside from just generally being happy.
Well, if you have made it to here and are still reading, congrats!! (and thanks!) I feel like I need to give a shoutout to my entire family (including all of my extended family) who has been incredibly, incredibly supportive and while the last part of this was kind of negative I am so grateful for being able to have this experience and I really appreciate everything that I have been given in life to allow me to get here and be able to do what I am doing. So thanks guys!!
I think that this post just about makes up for my lack of blogs thus far AND may have beat out my ridiculously long Semester at Sea blog novels.
Chao!
My blogging since arriving in Chile has, clearly, been basically non existent. Within the first two weeks here I had begun to write up a blog, with a ton of detail, humor and fun facts about my time in Chile thus far. I got about halfway through, however, and then forgot about it. When I went back to it a few days later it already seemed to far in the past to bother completing and I didn't know where to start with a new blog post. It's not so much that I am extremely busy, which I am (in comparison to my wake up at noon, go to class for an hour, take a 2 hour hap, watch 6 hours of tv, go out with my friends life that I spoiled myself with during the last year of college), or that I have absolutely nothing to write about (I am living in Chile), but every time I go to start a new blog post I can't seem to figure out how to convey my experiences thus far in writing. Whenever I talk to my friends and family at home they ask excitedly "Hows chile?!" and I feel like I should have some amazing response to make them feel awful about their real world jobs or grad school or being a mom or dad (this refers to my parents themselves, not my friends, I think) but all I seem to be able to come up with are empty, generic adjectives with an added exclamation point for emphasis that I am at least happy here (examples: "good!" "fun!"). So herein lies my attempt to sum up some of what I have been failing to pass on to my two curious blog followers (thanks mom and dad!):
The beginning-
When I arrived in Chile, we spent the first two weeks living in a hostel conveniently close to the VE office where we had daily trainings for 10 days or so. The trainings focused on a variety of topics ranging from the inner workings of VE to Chile's history to our institutions that we would be working in (including a visit to them). It was definitely a helpful week, and a lot of the things we learned were beneficial but I think the most important part of it was giving us the chance to get to know each other and bond as a volunteer class. What I have learned in the weeks since is that having other volunteers to talk to at the end of a hard day or to just joke around with is extremely, extremely necessary for everyones mental health. Being a volunteer anywhere is stressful, but especially in a new country where you speak a language different from your first language and are running into obstacles that you don't know how to handle without overstepping cultural boundaries.
The apartment-
Stay tuned for a blog post specifically on my apartment- with photos and all!
The placement-
I am volunteering at a place that we refer to just as the Jardin but which has a longer name that I actually am now realizing I have no idea what it means. Anyway, the Jardin is a day care in a Toma (an illegal settlement) that cares for on average 20 children from ages 1 to 7 during the day while their parents are at work (the number of kids changes on a hourly basis). It is a tiny place with a room that can be divided in two by using a removable wooden fence structure, a smaller room that is used for storage, napping and changing the babies diapers, and a kitchen. The bathroom has four toilets and four sinks in a row (with no divider) which has led to some pretty hilarious experiences (like the first time I walked in there to just find two boys sitting, chatting, hanging out... and pooping, while about 6 or 7 kids were just washing their hands not paying much attention to the five year old behind them wiping his butt). Bathroom activities are definitely not something kept private with these kids. For anyone wondering, the Tias (staff) have a separate bathroom that is more private. The outside area, referred to as the patio, has a bunch of play structures and beat up toys that the kids love playing with. There isn't a ton of space to run around, as it is all fenced in, but they make it work.
We had a VE-wide meeting this morning where we were talking about our institutions and I made a comment about the Jardin that someone responded to with "you just love the Jardin!" And it is true, I do. I had a rough time in my second week there, which I will get to eventually, but overall I love it as an institution. I think that when I consider the resources they have available to them (which isn't much), the unknown future of the toma and therefore the jardin (everyone can be kicked out of the toma by the government in a minutes notice), and the poverty that these children live in I am just so impressed. Most of all though, I am amazed by the Tias and what they do every day. These Tias have been working there for an extremely long time- it is not an easy job, it is not a great job, and it requires incredible amounts of patience, motivation and most of all love. And every single day, I see just how much love these Tias have for the children at the Jardin. They really are incredible with them and it is easy to see just how much the children love the Tias back and respect them.
The Jardin has some basic structure in terms of a general schedule (when the kids are inside, when they are outside, when they eat lunch, when they drink milk, etc.) but for the most part, every day brings a new surprise for me in just how unstructured it actually is. The one saving grace for the older kids, who will be starting school already behind, is an educador, who is a student doing her practicum at the Jardin so that she can complete her teaching degree. Every day, she thanks me for my help and puts a smile on my face by reminding me of why what I am doing does matter, but really, I think that she is one of the best things for the Jardin. She does daily educational activities with the kids, provides another role model for the kids, and is always, always cleaning and organizing the seemingly never clean rooms.
The children-
I haven't been to the other institutions but I can already confidently state that the kids at the Jardin are the CUTEST. I was in shock the first week with just how adorable and sweet and affectionate these children are. One of the biggest things that I was really curious about when I started volunteering was how different children's environment affects them in a different culture. Everything that I learned at Wisconsin about children's development and families could be completely, entirely useless in Chile. And shocked I was. I have worked with kids living in poverty before, kids whose families couldn't provide for them in many different ways, and especially kids who come out of those situations with social, emotional and behavioral problems. I am not saying that these issues don't exist entirely at the Jardin, but these children are incredibly resilient and have so much love to give. I think that one of the most important cultural differences that I have found, based on my very, very basic knowledge and insight into Chilean culture and life in the Toma, is that being affectionate isn't something that is stigmatized. Everyone here greets each other with a kiss on the cheek- even people you are meeting for the first time. When I arrive at the Jardin and when I leave, I give all the Tias and the kids hugs and kisses. Throughout the day, hugs and kisses are completely normal and welcomed. Calling the children cute and pretty and other names along those lines isn't weird or inappropriate. While I understand some of the legal reasons for school and camp programs that I have worked with not wanting to allow much physical contact between the children and the staff, it can be so important for a child's emotional development. I have found here so far that there is just such a higher emotional capacity than in the US. Of course, this is just based on my experience at the Jardin. I know from the other volunteers that the kids at the hogares (homes) definitely have a lot of emotional and behavioral issues. Back to the kids at the Jardin- they are so cute. I really am not exaggerating. I will put up some pictures soon.
After 6, the downside to this experience:
I usually leave my apartment at 8:30ish in the morning and return at 6ish at night. I have an hour long commute each way. This was a massive adjustment for me, especially accepting the fact that the alternative would have been having the same or similar hours, but getting paid. I do a lot of reminding myself that I didn't want to apply for real world jobs, I wanted to go and live in a different country and volunteer and have this experience. Of course, I have about a third of the free time that I was somehow stupidly envisioning and when I get home from at 6 every day it seems like a snap of the fingers and its time for bed. So basically, the past month and a half living here have flown by. While I am definitely enjoying being at the Jardin and I think that the experiences there are great, I think that Santiago itself is not a culturally shocking place to live in. I come home at the end of a day at work, go to my nice apartment where I spend some time catching up on tv, talking to my roommates and eating. I have thought about going to salsa classes or intercambio events (meet ups where you speak half in English half in Spanish with people who want to learn English) but I am just too exhausted and worn out. I have the longest days out of anyone (most people either have the morning off or the afternoon off at least once or twice a week) and am also just really, really lazy when it comes down to it. On weekends I am so busy catching up on sleep since I keep getting sick from getting so little during the week and getting in my errands that I wasn't able to do during the week that I feel like I haven't seen much of Santiago or Chile at all. (I did one weekend trip to a popular tourist town and then port city but it ended up being a bit of a bust of a weekend, will blog about that soon). The problem really is that Chile is such a large country and if I am going to be getting on a plane or a VERY long bus ride somewhere I would like more than just 24 hours in that place but thats really all that a weekend allows when you take away travel time. Plus we have VE events (like a sports day with the kids one Saturday a month, and a retreat the last weekend in October, when its a holiday weekend and I could have taken advantage of that and done a four day trip without using up my days off). I am starting to get anxious about how I am spending the little free time I have here but I can't figure out ways to spend it better. Unfortunately, I think its going to affect my overall opinion of my time here and what I am really getting out of moving to Chile. And when it comes down to whether or not to renew my contract for more months in January, I think that my desire to take advantage of this year off and see lots of South America is going to keep me from continuing my time with the organization even though I really do love my time at the Jardin when I am there.
Anyway, enough of this downer stuff, I am overall having a great time and I think that in the end I will be happy with my decision, it is just as I have said a massive adjustment that I do not really think I was prepared for (one of the organizations values repeated many times during our training is positivity, which I love, but I think that our orientation may have set us up with way too high expectations because of the excessive positivity and so its been a battle to readjust my expectations back to what they were pre-arriving in Chile, which was that I didn't really have many aside from just generally being happy.
Well, if you have made it to here and are still reading, congrats!! (and thanks!) I feel like I need to give a shoutout to my entire family (including all of my extended family) who has been incredibly, incredibly supportive and while the last part of this was kind of negative I am so grateful for being able to have this experience and I really appreciate everything that I have been given in life to allow me to get here and be able to do what I am doing. So thanks guys!!
I think that this post just about makes up for my lack of blogs thus far AND may have beat out my ridiculously long Semester at Sea blog novels.
Chao!
loved reading it! Stay positive and don't be discouraged. You are still young and have the rest of your life to travel. I didn't leave the US until I was 40!! Love you and get some sleep.
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