Adventures in Santiago

Last week we had our first visit to the women’s center in Renca (a neighborhood of Santiago). I don’t have the information with me right now but they have workshops and other services such as social workers, counseling, etc. The focus of the organization is for women who have lived or are living violence. Part of our time there we went to the local feria (farmer’s market) and passed out flyers. I love to go to the ferias and see all the fresh fruits and vegetables :D Later that day we went to another part of town to a community center where Lia teachs a class to teens about HIV/AIDS. We also visited with a group of women who bake and sell bread weekly. They save their bread money to take a vacation. Of course we bought a bunch of bread and it was wonderful! On Thursday we had another free day which was great. After sleeping in we took off to explore the city. We got off the metro near La Moneda which is the Chilean equivalent of the White House. In a plaza behind La Moneda there was a circus show going on so we sat down and watched that for awhile which I really enjoyed! Later that day we went and wandered around the Bella Vista neighborhood and found Pablo Neruda’s house (famous Chilean Poet). We were both quite tired by this point (we had been walking around Santiago for nearly 6 hours) and didn’t tour the house but might go back another day. On our way home we stopped at Blockbuster and rented a DVD. This was an interesting experience… of course we don’t belong to Blockbuster in Chile (or the States) and so we had to sign up before we could rent a movie. Pretty much the only information I could give them was my name… I didn’t have my cell phone on me so I didn’t know the number for that and I didn’t know the address to where we were staying (smart I know…) so they just made up information and let us rent the DVD, hehe. The next day we went back to the jardin to teach English to the little kids. They were practicing dancing La Cueca for their independence day performance, it was adorable! This coming Saturday is a huge day here in Chile because it is their independence day, similar to our 4th of July but this year is the bicentennial so it’s a really big deal! After the jardin we walked around the neighborhood and hung up posters for the women’s center we had visited earlier that week. On Saturday we went over to Gretchen and Lia’s and were going to cook lunch but their floors were being repaired so we ended up going out for pizza and had a good time chatting. After lunch we hung out in the park and later went out to ice cream with Rachel and Chago, it was great to see them :D The next day we did laundry and went over to Gretchen and Lia’s and made the lunch we were planning on making the day before. We made pasta with pesto sauce, broccoli and salad. It actually turned out really good so we were all happy. On Monday we went back to the jardin. The kids are really getting good at animals, colors, clothing and members of the family. They really love singing songs like Old McDonald had a farm (Gretchen and Lia made up a translated version called Tio Sam) and playing games. One of their favorites is “Caminando por el bosque” or Walking through the forest. They put a bunch of toy animals, dolls or other objects on the floor and one kid walks around the circle while everyone sings a song, at the end an English word is called out and they have to pick up the right object. It is really quite funny and the kids love it! After the jardin we went over to Margaret’s house and made lunch. She does a lot of alternative healing for people in the community and has served as a mentor and resource for Gretchen and Lia. It was fun to meet her and we had a good time preparing lunch, even though we did manage to burn some of the rice, oops. Yesterday we spent a long time packing and cleaning up our stuff because we took the 12:45am bus to Chillan. We actually almost missed the bus because it did not say Chillan on it but it was in the same parking place as our bus was suppose to be and had the same departure time… apparently it was continuing further south past Chillan so it had that town listed because it was the final destination… another 10 minutes and we probably would have missed the bus which would have been bad because all transportation going south is pretty much sold out by now due to the independence day celebrations. Anyway, after about five hours of sleeping on and off we made it to Chillan and then took a taxi to Casa Ursulina. Our driver was very nice and waited to make sure we got in the house before he took off. Today consisted of lots of rest. For the past four days I haven’t had much of a voice… other than that I’ve been feeling fine but it’s been a bit annoying not being able to talk normally. Kym felt a little under the weather today and Sister Ruth is getting over being sick so all of us napped, watched tv and otherwise rested pretty much all day. We will actually get a good night’s sleep tonight so that should help. The weather has been a bit chilly and rainy over the past few days but it is suppose to be better for the rest of the week and through the weekend.

Picutres are as follows- the first 3 are of the circus show, the next one is of some decorations for the fiestas patrias on the 18th, then the ladies making bread, the second picture is of their "oven" which heats/cooks from the bottom and top, the next 3 are of the feria- food, holding a sign for the women's center and Kym enjoying a sopaipilla she bought, the green house is where we have been staying in Santiago, next are the little kids learning to dance at the jardin, then there is a picture of one of the metro stops we use a lot and last is a picture of a little playground- seriously these playgrounds are everywhere!