Hogar Niño Amor

For those of you wondering what the above words mean, they not only translate to Love Child Home, but signify the location in which I completed 25 hours of community service this semester while in Chile.  Hogar Niño Amor is a temporary orphanage for kids between the ages of 2 and 8 (approximately).  They are taken from broken homes or uninhabitable situations by the court system, which then contacts the home.  The employees consist of several ¨Tías¨ (the women who take care of the kids, bless their souls), a few social workers who are the intersection between the parents, children, and courts, and an older women and man... I am not sure what their jobs are.  There are about 15 children living in the house at any given time, each with different situations.  There are about three pairs of siblings.

Several of the children´s parents visit, but many do not.  I was there one day when parents visited and it was very sad to see them leave because the children nearly always erupted into tears as the parents walked away.  Another thing I noticed about the parent´s visits were that they almost always brought toys, food, or other gifts.  Though I can understand, I somehow felt annoyed with this.  Like they were trying to buy their kid´s love and make everything the did okay.  The children already clearly love their parents a lot.  In addition, the kids eat sugary and unhealthy think nearly every day.

Basically, when I was there, I played with the students, fed the little ones, and went on walks with them, sometimes to the beach.  If I went in the morning, only the really little ones who didn´t go to school where there.  Those times, it was calmer and less draining.  In the afternoons, all of the students returned, and it was mayhem.  I had to play with them, discipline them, and try to keep them entertained at times.  Although they were all cute and I wished they didn´t have to be there, I was usually ready to go home and rest after a couple of hours.

Some of the most memorable children are named María Paz, Vairon, José Manuel, and Amelia   But they were all wonderfully cute.  As a collective, all of the volunteers were obsessed with 2 year-old María Paz because she was such a sweetie.  She rarely caused trouble or fought and, on top of that, was adorable.  My friend and I called Vairon, also 2, ¨niño confundido¨ or ¨confused kid¨ because he always had a vacant expression on his face.

You can find pictures of the site at this link:
https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=94E0894DC52E5084!108

Photos!

Major setback for my blog: I have run out of photo space apparently.  Which if you have seen any of my previous posts is a problem because they are packed with photos.  So I found a loophole and am uploading them to the below website.  Read the text and the click on this website.  I will put the link on each of my posts, as well.  Thanks for reading and don´t worry, I still have a few more entries to catch you up on my shenanigans!

https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=94E0894DC52E5084!108

Thanksgiving!

Today has been a wonderful day!  It was my first Thanksgiving away from my family, and it started out as a stressful day.  After staying up until 6 am with my friend to finish a huge paper (as well as to spend a few hours baking apple pies for today!), I woke up late, which is not the best start to a day.  I was running around, trying to get our jenky oven to work, showering, and then trying to eat with my host family, to which I was late and had to leave before they finished.  It was stressful, but I ended up making it to the bus on time with the help of public transportation.  I decided not to wear my dress to the bus because I dreaded the awkwardness of potential stares or catcalls, but I did intend to look spiffy for our group´s dinner at school tonight.

When I got to school, I found my friends who were stressing over our final paper in the computer lab.  I changed into my Thanksgiving clothes and put the final touches on the paper.  Then my friend and I proceeded to run all over the school searching for our prof because we were carrying the entire class´s papers with us.  We finally had to wait outside of the class he had already begun teaching, but we turned them in and are finished with that class!

Then we went to do some stress-relieving: making hand turkeys for table decorations :)
As all of our host families began arriving, the greetings were given and pictures were taking.  I gave my family the tour of our school because they had never been there, even though you can see it from our apartment!

Before eating, Marietta (our director) gave a speech about how thankful we all were to our families and just in general to be together in Chile.  It was quite cheesy and wonderful at the same time.  Tonight I have really realized how much I love it here, how wonderful all of the people I have gotten to know are, and how much I will miss it.  It is bittersweet to realize that I only have a few weeks left.  I miss everyone from home so much, but I don´t want to leave yet!

The dinner was fabulous, mostly due to the wonderful sides and deserts we brought.  We filled a table with apple pies, pumpkin pie, chocolate cake, chocolate chip cookie bars, and more, as well as wild rice soup (a Minnesota tradition which I found delicious), cooked up veggies, and all of the provided Thanksgiving traditional dishes.  It was so nice to share that experience with all of my wonderful friends and our Chilean families.  Had a great night and feel so blessed!

SORRY!

I haven´t blogged in forever, despite good intentions and a great need. It is not for lack of topics because I have five drafts started with things to blog about but no time right now. Finals and presentations, but next monday is my last day of class and then I just have one more test.  Lots to say so stay tuned!

San Pedro de Atacama

On Friday, October 12, the day of our long-awaited group trip had finally come.  So we dragged ourselves out of bed at 6 am, loaded onto a bus to the Santiago airport, and boarded our plane for the driest desert in the world:  THE ATACAMA!!

Some say that the Atacama is the closest environment to Mars on earth.  Scenes from movies such as James Bond have been shot there.  And now Chile study abroad group 2012 has left their mark their too!

Plane ride entertainment of MASH and my friend drawing out caricatures.

The flight took about two hours and I had wonderful seat buddies, Allison and Caitlin, to keep me laughing the whole time.  As we flew, I could look out to both sides and sea snow-peaked mountains surrounded by desert.  It was beautiful!

Our plane after we landed in Calama.

We landed in the small city of Calama and I could immediately feel the dry air that seemed to cracked my lips immediately as I stepped off the plane.  We stopped at the grocery store to get snacks (some Mac n´Cheese that ended up having blue cheese and tasting very strange - I miss Kraft! - was my selection), and then we were off on another beautiful bus ride to the tiny town of San Pedro de Atacama.

Our bedroom at the hostel.

Immediately upon arriving at the hostel (which was wonderful) I saw a dead, bloody sheep carcass behind one of the cabins... and we ate sheep´s meat that night at dinner!  So that was a fun experience.  However, the hostel was wonderful with a big group space to eat and have parties and several smaller cabins.  Mine had it´s own kitchen, 2-two person rooms, and a bathroom.  My roommate was my gemilla (mix of gemela, which means twin in Spanish, and Miller, our shared last name) Caitlin.  One of my favorite things about the hostel was all of the hammocks in the back.  I loved hanging out there!

Our cabin at the hostel.

That afternoon we just meandered through the town, went to ferias to shop at which I got an alpaca sweater and pencil case, and watched some of the Chile-Ecuador fútbol game at a local bar.  I liked the atmosphere of the town a lot better because it was more laid back, rural, and there were a lot of tourists around so I felt like I blended in better.  One night I walked around in yoga pants and didn´t feel weird or unsafe at all, which would never happen in Viña!

The central plaza in San Pedro.

Saturday was full of buses and tours, but it was one of the most scenic days of my life!  That morning, about half of our group chose to do the salt lakes tours, which took us to three lakes: a salty lake where we could just fall back and float, los Ojos de Salar, and a salt-bottom, very shallow lake.  The first was gorgeous and freezing, but my favorite of the three because I love swimming.  It was definitely worth braving the cold to experience the feeling of being weightless as the salt held us up.  At the second, which was chilly as well, we had the chance to do do a mini cliff jump (only about 10 feet haha).  They are called los Ojos de Salar because there are two small round lakes that look like eyes in the middle of the salar, a big salt flat in the middle of the desert.  At the third lake, we saw even more beautiful scenery and limped around because the cracked and sharp salty bottom of the lake hurt.  It was a beautiful experience.

Lake 1: Laguna Miscanti

Lake 2: Ojos de Salar

Lake 3

That afternoon was filled with even more driving and taking in the most breathtaking views.  We went to two well-know valleys in Atacama, Valle de la Luna y Valle de la Muerte.  At the former, we all took turns taking a picture on the overhanging rock below.  At the second, there were more photos, and we got to run/jump down a sand dune!

Valle de la Luna

Pride Rock in Chile!

Sunset over Valle de la Luna

Valle de la Muerte

The next day we got up at 4:30 am to take a bus to the geysers of El Tatio.  These are a couple hours outside of San Pedro and are formed by heat from the nearby volcano.  It was fun to wander through the varies geysers and just take in the general awesomeness of the place.

The drive back was beautiful, filled with desert landscapes, volcanoes, and llama sightings.  In the bus we jammed out and had a sing-a-long session to Michael Jackson and other classics. We also stopped in a small town where I bought an empanada.

We only had about an hour after arriving back at the hostel, and then another group of us were off for another adventure.  This time, we went to one of the highest lakes in the world.  It was freezing and windy, which we were not prepared for, but it was worth every penny and shiver.

The next part of this tour was a trip to la Salar de Atacama, or the Salt Flat.  It is a huge open space where the ground is literally covered in salt formations.  It was simply beautiful and an amazing sight to see.  I tried to capture it on camera below.  However, the best part was experiencing the sunset on the Salar with a mountain in the background and clouds causing a stunning array of colors.  It was the prettiest sunset I´ve ever seen.

Vivid colors.

Our last stop on the tour was to a church in a tiny town on our way back to San Pedro.  It was a beautiful and comfortable little church that I would love to call my home parish.  Every 15 minutes a nun comes out and rings the bell in the tower.  There were several nuns there, attending to the church and ringing the bell.  We asked them if we could take a picture with them and we are going to share it with the nuns at my college!

The next day we had time to wander around the town, went to more ferias, and found a playground where I swung for a while :)  Then, sadly, it was time to take the bus back to the airport :(
I had one minor setback where I thought that I lost my iPod for the whole plane ride back.  I was so worried I felt sick.  However, it was just in my pocket.  Silly me.

Overall, an amazing experience and I am so so thankful for my time here and every that has made it possible.  More posts to come soon!

Chile: Getting there is half the fun!

Adventure story time:

The building where we saw the ballet.

A few weeks ago, I went to a ballet in Santiago (another free event - last week we got to go to the opera - from our choir teacher), which was modern and weird, but very cool.  However, we had to leave early to catch our bus back to Viña.  Yet when we arrived at the bus terminal, the bus we were supposed to get on was overbooked and the driver clearly told me NO, this is not your bus.  So we went to the last bus heading this way and they too were overbooked so we could not get on.  Did the bus company help us get to Viña?  In Chile?  Never.  They simply changed out tickets to the next morning and left us shit out of luck.  Needless to say we were pretty pissed and frazzled since it was 10:30 pm on a Friday night and we were stranded in Santiago.

At the ballet with my friends Nicole and Brian.

So we called our Choir profe and he, being amazingly gracious and kind, let us stay at his house.  We took the metro there and he bought us snacks and chatted with us until 2 am, while we ate a several course dinner.  He played the piano, we talked about our travels, and the best part: the AMAZING view off of his balcony!  So it turned into an adventure after all, even though we had to get up at 6 to catch our 7:20 bus to Viña.  Interesting weekend so far.

Views of Santiago from Gilberto's balcony!!

The week before that we got to go to an Opera in Santiago, as well.  This was once again thanks to our awesome choir teacher.  The opera was Attila and, like most operas, was based on war and love affairs.  For this, we had the opportunity to see the Municipal Theater in Santiago, which was beautiful.  It was difficult to listen while reading the Spanish subtitles and translating them simultaneously.  However, it was a great experience, and we also got to hang out with some of the Chileans from our choir more!
Here´s a review (albeit in Spanish) of the opera from  my choir director:
http://www.visionescriticas.cl/?p=4519

Ceiling of the theater.

Teatro Municipal.

With my friend Katherine.

In front of the stage with Caitlin and Brian.

TERREMOTOOO!

Today at 14:23 pm I felt my first tremor!  It was so exciting!  First the walls started to shake slightly, then the ground, eventually the whole building was moving!  I was at my friend Nicole's house, and she looked out the window and saw that the other building was moving!  It was the weirdest experience of my life.  I shouted "To the door!" because that is the sturdiest and safest part of the building.  According to this website, http://www.onemi.cl/tipo-riesgo/sismo.html, it was a 5 on the seismic scale.  This is weird, but it was actually really fun!  Unless someone was injured or something bad happened, but I have not heard of that yet.

Grandpa, pass the milk.  EARTHQUAAAAKE!

Until next time,
Shaughnessy