Lessons on Working with Kids

esson One: You are not going to love all the kids you work with. Or at least I don't. Especially when they come from Machista families. The ones that threaten you/actually get violent with you, it's okay to not love that kid all the time. This being said I am learning that I too, do not always need to be loved. It's okay to get tough and make the kid through out his gross used Kleenex, even if all the moms are staring at you like you just broke the kids arm. Seriously, the number of kids I've made cry in the past week because I made them throw out their own trash is embarrassingly high.
Lesson Two: I am my parent's daughter. When I was little we were never allowed to have guns, something I didn't understand or really even think about. At the shelter, I tried to make the same stand. Since I am the one who sorts almost all the toys that come downstairs, I would send any guns away to the upstairs collection center. Since I have a few extremely violent kids, I did not want to put any more violence into their lives. However, I then had to take two days off due to my class schedule, and when I returned, all the boys had guns. Every. Single. One. All my hard work wasted as I stood there getting shot at by about 5 little boys at a time. I guess my thought process is that I understand guns and weapons exist in our society, but I do not want them to become playthings for these boys who will become men. Guns shouldn't be normalized as toy for our children. Guns have good uses, but these weapons should be treated with respect and care.

Lesson Three: Quality is so much better than quantity. A lot of people bring toys to the shelter and when groups come to do activities they often bring little toys with them. But many of them are purchased at the equivalent of Chile's dollar store (but worse), and break super easy. So yes, I know it's great to provide a toy to each child, but it's better to provide a few toys that they can use together that aren't going to break the first time they use them. We have hidden a few of the nice new unopened toys so as the families return home, they can take a new toy with them and leave some of the broken ones behind (hopefully).

Anyway, I am still enjoying working at the shelter. It's the right type of work for me, and I have gotten to learn so much more Spanish. I am expected to answer questions from outside people, see to children's needs, and find any materials we might need. I continue to meet lots of different people, and actually talk with them. It's a lot of work, and I'm coming to realize the value of a day off.

So... what have been up to besides the shelter? Um... not much. I did go to Santiago (the capital of Chile) on Friday with my tutoring class. I'm actually pretty glad I choose to do that. I was on the fence about taking the no-credit class before the semester started, but it's helped with vocab and also given me a chance to explore Chile a little bit more (for free!).

In Santiago, we went to a Museum of Contemporary Art (the MAC), saw the presidential house for about a hot second, and rode a funicular to get a great view of the city. Well... great is a relative term. See, the city is full of smog and pollution and all the good stuff, so it's hard to see far. And we ate at a restaurant where the server actually knew/understood what Celiac's is. Overall, not a bad trip.

I also bought plane tickets for a trip north in exactly a month. Super excited for that!

Incendios en Valparaiso, Relief, and Beyond

Starting on Saturday April 12, 2014 a fire broke out in Valparaiso which eventually would lead to almost 3,000 houses burned and 10,000 people are left without homes. They are saying that it may take up to 20 days to fully put out the fires. I could be totally wrong about all of this, but the important thing to know is that this fire was devastating to the community of Valparaiso.


I am 100% safe where I am at. On Saturday we could see the smoke but just thought it was a forest fire (which in part it was). We went with some family friends out to the dunes to eat empanadas (well I ate french fries sin gluten). It was at that moment I realized exactly the magnitude of the fire. We were about 15 miles away and could see the flames clearly. My 4 year old niece put it best, she said it looked like a Volcano. With the huge flames and sky full of ash, it could have been. As we were waiting for my french fries we were watching the news and realized exactly what was going on, and my mom began to call the people we knew who might be effected to check to see if they were safe and if we we could help them out at all.

 

I suggest you watch this video to understand exactly what it looks like up in the hills/cerros. It's a bit long so you don't have to watch the whole thing, but hopefully it puts things in perspective. It was an extremely hard video for me to watch just looking at all the destruction and thinking of the families I've been working with. 

On Sunday we woke up to realize the exact magnitude of the fire. It not only was still going strong but it was spreading to other hills. However, the town was starting to rally with donation centers, shelters and clean up crews. That first day I went up into the hills to help remove ashes from where a house used to be so they could start rebuilding. (I later heard from not one but two sets of parents about what a bad idea this was because it wasn't exactly the safest choice). On this day I figured out I probably have tendonitis which made climbing uphill for about 40 minutes not a great idea. We got almost all the way up to the top before I had to stop I was in so much pain. Unfortunately when your town undergoes a disaster, you don't have as much time to rest as I should be, but I am trying to be conscious of my health as I work.

Group of volunteers who came to do activity with the kids

Anyway, I went up with a few other gringos from my program and we worked for about 5 hours until we weren't able to do more because the inner room was too hot still. We had to be extremely careful to insure that we didn't uncover any buried flames since they could catch easily in the wind. Being up in the middle of the burned out areas was simply overwhelming. It looks as if a bomb was dropped.
 As we worked other volunteers constantly brought around food and water for those working. When we finally went down and were taking the train home a very nice women gave us baby wipes to clean our faces off with. It was such a little thing but it seemed like all my tiredness went away with that simple offer of a clean wipe. I have just been super impressed with the ways people are helping.

I let her paint my face which means blue lips

On Monday, I attempted to volunteer but everywhere I went was full. We had agreed not to go back up into the cerros so I was looking for a shelter/donation center to work at. Since school was cancelled for everyone in Valpo all the youths were out volunteering. Unfortunately this means starting Monday the number of available volunteers is going to decrease dramatically.
For the rest of the week I worked with my family at a shelter/donation center. What I typically do there is work with the kids, playing with them, providing them with art materials, etc. I have enjoyed working with the 13 families that are temporarily living there and learning about some of their stories. I have been able to learn about a very different part of Valpo, since most of these families are poor and live in the "tomas" (basically they just claimed the land but don't actually own it). I also have been able to talk with other volunteers and even members of the Chilean military that are guarding the shelter. We are an officially recognized shelter which means we get food and protection from the military. We even were visited by the Minister of Defense on Friday (we're that legit).

8 month old baby at our shelter

I have learned several things working in the shelter. First and probably most importantly, if disaster strikes and there are kids living in shelters, DO NOT BRING THEM CANDY. Yes, I know you think you are providing a special treat, but so does every other single person. Seriously they have so much candy, it's unhealthy. We have some of it hidden so they don't eat all of it now. The kids are so jacked up on sugar it's hard getting them to go to bed and to eat normal meals. So the lesson here is, bring fresh fruit or juice or coloring books. Just not candy. I also learned that a lot of the people who are staying in our shelter live in the tomas, which mean they will not be able to receive government help, so for them, it's going to be a long recovery process. There are a huge number of volunteers, but but this recovery process won't just be this week, I'm sure it will last for months if not years.



If you want to help, and unlike my me don't have the luck to be in Chile right now, my friends set up a page to help a local school.Please do not feel obligated to donate money! I just know some people were interested and I wanted to share the resources I have with them.
Or if you prefer, you could donate to Red Cross (I had a hard time finding a page in English helping with the relief sorry!)
And finally, this is the shelter I've been working at, previously a cultural center (this is all in Spanish though sorry!). It has some information up on the page if you want to check out the space.

Mapuches and Machismo

First off, I apologize for not posting a post last week. I wrote it, and then left without ever hitting the publish button. Then, since I didn't save it, I accidentally lost it. But let me tell you it was probably my best and wittiest post ever written (or not... but YOU'LL NEVER KNOW!)

Also, I've recently become obsessed with Violeta Parra. So if you would like some nice folksy music to enjoy (en Espanol) while you read my blog. Here it is! Enjoy! Or, don't, I would rather not force you to be happy if you don't want to enjoy my awesome music selection.

Anyway...  This weekend I had a group trip through CIEE. We traveled south and went to Pucon, which is the adventure capital of Chile. However, we had two choices. We could choose to stay with the group and go hiking and rafting and all those fun things, or we could choose to stay with a local Mapuche family. I choose the Mapuche family, since it seemed like such a great opportunity to learn about another way of life. So we journeyed from Vina to Pucon in bus, leaving about 10 pm and arriving around 9:30 am (we were supposed to leave around 8:30, but the bus we rented was an 90 minutes late). Once we got to Pucon 12 of us squeezed into a tiny little van and had an orientation at a Mapuche restaurant. We picked/were assigned families and were warned that with some families we would have to apologize for not speaking Mapundugun, the language of the Mapuche. I was assigned a family, because of my dietary restrictions. Also every other student (except one) where going to be staying in pairs, but I was not. I was a little nervous about this, since I would be totally on my own with a family I might not be able to understand.
We piled back into the van and were delivered to our families. This took awhile since we were all pretty spread out. I arrived at my families house, and the first thing I had to do was explain to them about Celiac's disease. This turned out to be a little unfortunate, since my host mom was making sopapillas (which contain flour) as a treat to welcome me.
My host family had an organic farm, so we didn't have any problems with my diet. The first day I helped gather a few fruit and veggies for our meal. I also learned how to knit using natural wool. The next day I woke up to the sweet music of a cow dying. We were butchering a cow in order to sell the meat. Winter is coming, so its better to butcher them now while they are still fat. That was... an experience. I was a vegetarian for 7 years, and I still have problems with raw meat (it just looks gross okay?). So watching them cut up the cow was weird. I choose not to participate in this particular activity. But later I was tasked with hitting the different hunks of meat hanging up in a tree with a stick with leaves on it in order to keep the bugs away. After that, we spent a large portion of the day waiting for friends to come over and buy the meat, but I also helped gather firewood and more fruits/veggies for lunch.
For dinner we went back to the Mapuche restaurant where they were holding a fundraiser for a local community member who was called to be a Machi and will be completing that process on the 15th. A Machi ( I think) is kinda like the spiritual leader for the community and also heals people using natural remedies. He should merit a ton of respect from Mapuche communities. Unfortunately it was like 95% gringolandia. The community wasn't overly supportive of him, since  the community hasn't had their own Machi in a very long time (and don't really see the need for another) and since he only started learning the traditional ways (none of his family really speak Mapudungun). But he was called and had no choice but to become Machi. As an outsider it was really interesting to see the community struggling with old traditional ways/ new habits.
My last day with a local family we gather food again and my family presented me with a gift of a headband and little bag knited out of natural wool. We then headed back to meet up with the other 41 students who stayed in Pucon. We ate dinner with them and then headed back to Vina to arrive just in time for my first class.
Overall I learned a lot about campasino culture. I also had some really great conversations with my host family, and shared in their experiences. One of the hardest things for me to learn was that the dad had only been able to study until 2nd grade when he had to leave school and help his family and work on their farm. It reminded me how lucky I am to be getting a college education (and to be here in Chile). I also was reminded of how much a dedicated person can do regardless of their background. I'm pleased I choose to stay with a local family and got such a unique experience. 

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 So a really common theme here in Chile is Machismo. This has been something I really have struggled with here. Luckily my host family is really equal and they don't have any issues with it. We make our dad do the cooking when he's home since frankly he's the best cook.  My mom works hard in her preschool to try to eliminate machismo (basically by not forcing the kids into gender roles and allowing the children to cry if they need to cry).
But for me, the most annoying way machismo manifests itself is in the constant catcalls women receive on the street. Thank you for your whistle/words, but its definitely not going to make me go talk to you. Some days I am just like screw you leave me alone. And some days (like after I got back from hiking La Campana and was covered in dirt) I'm only mildly annoyed and a part of me feels like huh maybe I'm not a completely disgusting human being right now. Or maybe I'm only getting catcalls that's only cause I have blond hair and look even slightly like a women.
Gender roles (and machismo) are definitely something I've been struggling with here. I hate seeing children told "no" because of their gender. I hate the commercials I see on TV that objectify women and praise men who are complete pervs. But I love love love that conversations are happening about this topic and what can be done to end some of the equality. 
Anyway... that's my little rant on machismo. I have a lot more to say on the topic and love dialoging about it, but I figured I'd give you a little taste here on my blog. I talk a lot about the amazing adventures I'm having on here, but I haven't really talked about how the culture has effected me. So thanks for sticking through my rambling thoughts.