Life in Chile

As my time in Chile is coming to a close I thought I’d share a little about my life here for the past few months…

I arrived in Chile at the beginning of September (after a slightly traumatic 30 hour journey) with 13 other volunteers from all over the world. After a whirlwind orientation, I moved in to my pokey little apartment. Pokey doesn’t even really do it justice, our kitchen has (genuinely not exaggerating here) one square metre of floor space. It has its advantages – you can always reach everything from where you are standing!  It is swelteringly hot these days and I often wake in the night to take ice cold showers. My roommate Bri and I leave the balcony door open, but it backs on to one of Chile’s busiest roads and sometimes it is so loud I feel like the lorries are driving over my face. However we live perfectly in the centre of the city and from our little balcony you can see the snowy peaked Andes off in the distance, so I can’t complain!  

The september group

Plaza Italia - just outside our house

Santiago is a city of contradictions. It is backed by the gorgeous natural wonders of the mountains, but they are often obscured by the smog from the dirty city! Parts of the city are truly cosmopolitan but are always accompanied by the scraggy looking stray dogs. Chile is a heavily catholic country - you see pictures of the pope everywhere, abortions are illegal and divorce was only recently brought in, yet you see couples everywhere literally dry humping, incredibly raunchy underwear campaigns on billboards and school uniforms that should not be allowed! Oh and Chileans seem to love Justin Bieber and Jesus with about the same passion. The real reason I am here though is because Santiago has one of the biggest wealth divisions in the world, with the richest living a life of unbelievable opulence and the poorest slipping through the cracks completely. All of the institutions where we work, (4 children’s homes, a school, a day-care centre and a community centre) are in areas where the kids are at ‘social risk’, where resources, education and support are very limited.

When it was time to start work, I found myself in Colegio Anakena, an extremely cute primary school for disabled children. Despite it’s socioeconomic limitations, it has the most wonderful feel to it. Walking in you are surrounded by walls with multi-coloured murals painted by the kids and there are always happy little faces there waiting to greet you. Going in it seemed a lovely place to work, but I was somewhat intimidated by my dreadful Spanish skills which had lain dormant for 4 and a half years. I started working as a teaching assistant in a class of fourteen or so children with speech and language problems. My class ranged from a 4 year old with a speech impediment, through several autistic and ADHD kids up to a 9 year old who would have minor seizures. My role as a teaching assistant very quickly evolved in to that of a teacher, which was challenging, but for the most part, great fun! At times I got very frustrated with the Chilean school system as the basic requirements for the children were a lot lower than they should be. I remember one day being left with twelve of the kids and deciding to teach them subtraction. The official tia (tia is the Chilean word for caregiver) had told me this was way too ambitious but I decided to have a go. Some of the children could do sums in their head, others couldn’t recognise the number 4, so having demonstrated the basic principles of subtraction using sweets, I split them up in to four groups and had them all working on different things. Trying to keep them all focussed whilst helping with their work was always a borderline impossible task and I found Jesús eating a crayon as per usual, Amaru had a small fit on the floor and I had to separate a fight, BUT by the end of it the majority of the kids were getting it right. I came home literally swelling with pride and motivated to challenge them even more. I can’t mention Anakena without mentioning Vicente, one of the most wonderful children in the world! He like many of the other kids provided me with numerous enormous hugs throughout the day, always said the most hilarious things and helped me understand when I was struggling with working out what the other kids were saying. Chilean Spanish is very different to Spanish Spanish and Chilean Spanish with speech problems is another issue entirely! The thing I struggled with most at Anakena was trying to work out what was going on in the kid’s heads. Sometimes I’d find one of them hitting himself repeatedly in the head or crouching under the table rocking back and forth for what would seem like no reason. It would often stem to something as simple as a missing puzzle piece or sitting in the wrong coloured seat, but could be very difficult at times. Other challenges faced include: a lot of vomiting, many fights, children eating anything they could get their hands on (gluesticks, mud, their worksheets), nudity and a fair few injuries (to me and the kids). However every day the affection I got from the children was amazing, I learnt a lot of unforgettable skills there and I miss those smiling little faces already!

Halloween at Anakena - I found some facepaint in the cupboard...

The one and only Vicente!

Since Anakena was going to close for the summer holidays in December (still can’t get over that) I decided to take on a job at Promesa as well. Promesa is a home for girls who have been victims of physical abuse and/or sexual abuse and/or neglect. Again Promesa is a wonderful environment, a three story bright blue house in the outskirts of town. There are sixteen girls, ranging from a two year old to a sixteen year old and they are all amazing characters. The children are provided with shelter and food and most of the girls go to school. I work there with Allison and our role is to help with the rest – love, affection, attention, interaction, one on one time, sometimes a shoulder to cry on, trying to help them work through their issues. All of the girls have been in situations that most adults would struggle to deal with, so unsurprisingly it is a very volatile environment and the girls can introvert or explode without a seconds warning. I have been kicked, punched, stabbed (with a knitting needle!), poked in the nose ring and screamed at on many occasions (silly tia, ugly tia, fat tia, leave me alone you’re not my mum, etc etc etc ). But even at times like that, it is not hard to realise that these are just troubled little girls struggling to work through all of their emotions. Plus always there is someone who wants to give you a massive hug and tell you how much they love you! Our work is heartbreaking, challenging and very rewarding all at once.  I spend a lot of time doing art activities with the girls, which I love and I’ve been roped into doing a portrait of each of them, which is a task I’m actually really enjoying. I do a lot of sketching these days, I find it therapeutic as well as fun. Activities never go entirely according to plan at Promesa, but are always amusing. We have been teaching them English, Allison has done some great cooking workshops (the most recent of which descended in to a flour fight but produced some delicious baking for Once –oh yeah, Chileans eat four meals a day - Breakfast, Lunch, Once, Dinner!!!) and we are just starting a summer reading programme. We try so hard to be positive role models for the girls; strong, independent, educated women but inevitably they just want to know who we fancy and if we have pololos (boyfriends). I feel like I have a really close relationship with many of the girls and I am going to miss them so much when I leave. I literally want to adopt one of the five year olds there, she is the most vibrant, strong minded, affectionate little girl and I want to take her home with me!
 (I wish I could upload photos of the Promesa girls but for their safety we are not allowed to)

I’ve taken some amazing trips during my time here. Once of the most beautiful was up to the desert region of northern Chile. It has the most jaw dropping scenery. As well as the desert, there are incredible mountains, lakes, volcanoes and salt flats. I spent a weekend in Mendoza, Argentina, which has to be one of the most mental weekends of my life, which came to a climax with me, still out of it from the previous night, paragliding through the mountains. Unforgettable. I’ve also been to the nearby city of Valparaiso, a really quirky, port city with multi-coloured steps leading up in to the hillside. We’ve taken many gorgeous beach trips, the highlight of which has to be Christmas day. After a lovely Christmas brunch with friends here in the city, Safia, Nola and I (the English girls!) heading down to a gorgeous beach and spent the day getting drunk in the sunshine, eating cheese, sundried tomatoes, olives, houmous etc etc, drinking cocktails and swimming in the sea. A very different, but very memorable Christmas day!

Cactus Valley - Northern Chile

Paragliding in Argentina

Isla Negra beach

Lake near the Northern salt flats

Lake Antiplanicas - Northern Chile

Valparaiso

Sunset at Navidad beach

Santiago has provided some incredible nightlife too, we have often crawled in at 5 or 6 in the morning with Chilean fast food (sopapillas or empanadas) in hand. A definite favourite night was when Bri and I drunkenly lured Alfie, a stray dog back to our apartment and fed him our flatmates Bacon (sorry guys!). The next morning I headed to the shop for some food and found a llama tethered up outside our house, wearing a small top hat. Such is Chile!

So that is almost it for me and Santiago. I have survived earthquakes here, riots so bad I was scared for my life at one point, I have been teargased, nearly electrocuted, leered at daily by a variety of disgusting Chilean men and continually mocked for my Spanish, but I don’t regret a second of my time here! The children I have worked with are amazing and I will miss every single one of them for years to come. Both Anakena and Promesa have a very special place in my heart. I have made some great friends and have loved my work.  I should also mention the science program I helped with for a while and the Arts Festival some friends and I organised for the kids. All of it has been incredibly rewarding. I am leaving soon to make my way I up in to Bolivia and am so sad to go. That said I am going to work at a prosthetics clinic in La Paz which I am really looking forward to. For a variety of reasons (poverty, diabetes, accidents and poor healthcare) Bolivia has a very large number of amputees and the clinic is a charity that provides prosthetic limbs to those who cannot afford healthcare. I will be working primarily in the rehabilitation process, helping people get accustomed to their new limbs, but I also have the opportunity to help make the prosthetics if I want to. I am hoping working there will help me a little in my decision as whether or not to go to medical school, but I will have to wait and see! I have recently started a distance learning course in Counselling and Psychotherapy, which is about the equivalent of first year degree level, to keep me occupied in the many 24/48 hours bus journeys that I will be taking around South America in the next few months. After Bolivia I am going to travel for a while and I am not sure where I am going yet or whether I am returning to England in late April or in June right now. With the recent tragic loss of an old friend I am missing home terribly, but am even more determined to sieze each day and live life to the full. I can happily say that the decision to drop out of Uni (temporarily) was one of the best I have ever made. I have learnt so much this year, made some incredible friends and had some amazing experiences. Writing it in a blog doesn’t seem to do it justice, but I thought I’d try to share a little of my life out here with everyone.

Loads of love,

Charlotte