Week one

One week ago today I arrived in Chile, it seems like a long time ago yet every day goes by very fast. It has been a busy week! My trip to Chile was uneventful for the most part so that is good I guess… the only interesting part of my trip down was once we got to customs... The line for customs took at least an hour and the customs person tried to tell me that I needed to pay my reciprocity fee again (I paid it when I came for study abroad) but thankfully another guy convinced her that I was fine (I was told you only have to pay it once and it is good as long as your passport is valid). After that we went to pick up our luggage and my red suitcase had this red and white tape wrapped around it so I was very confused… when we went to scan our luggage they had to search my entire bag because the fruit/food sniffing dog had smelled something on/in my bag. They didn’t find anything because, well, I didn’t try to bring any food into Chile. For future reference if anyone goes to Chile- do not try to bring fruit or nuts of any sort into Chile! They are very strict as to what you can and cannot bring into the country! From the airport we went to the house of a Maryknoll Missioner named Judy. She served us pancakes (they were great!) and then we took a nap before heading down to Chillan for the anniversary of the woman’s center. Maruja (another Maryknoll Missioner from Vilches) drove us down to Chillan which is about 5 hours south of Santiago. Over the next couple days the Woman’s Center was very busy! For the anniversary of the center they have a big exposition where the women show the crafts they have been working on (knitting, felting, quilting, oil painting, crochet, etc). They also made and sold empanadas and lots of pastries :) The next day there was bingo (Chilean style bingo is different than in the US) and completos (hot dogs with mashed avocado, tomato and mayo- very popular here). It was fun meeting a lot of people from the community and getting to know Mimi and Ruth who run the women’s center. They are both Ursuline sisters from the US. One highlight of the woman’s center is that they have six cats!! I immediately made friends with lots of them and almost always had a lap-mate :) While in Chillan, we went to a radio station and they interviewed us (Kym, the other volunteer, and myself) about what we are doing in Chile, why we came, etc… we hadn’t even been in Chile for more than 3 or 4 days and we were already on the radio! After all the excitement at the women’s center we returned to Santiago and started following Gretchen and Lia around on their daily activities (they have been here for a year with the same program and will be here until December). So far we have gone to EPES (Educacion Popular en Salud) which is a public health organization, a jardin (preschool) to teach English and passed out flyers at a market. We also went over to the apartment of one of the other volunteer’s at EPES for an afternoon of Mafia (a game) which was very entertaining especially since it ended up being a bilingual game (there were 6 Americans, 1 Spaniard, 1 Canadian, and 1 Uruguayan). We have also been exploring a little on our own and getting accustomed to the metro and bus systems here. Today was a free day so Kym and I did a little shopping and just explored a lot which was fun especially since it was a beautiful day. We have had great weather so far! Most days it is in the 70s with lots of sun, the mornings and nights are quite cool but a couple layers of clothing is all you need :)

At the airport before I left

Kym and I when we landed in Santiago

At the women's center celebration

Sisters Mimi and Ruth presenting a cake for the celebration :)

Two of my cat buddies! The grey one is my favorite, best lap cat ever!

These are all the pictures I have for now... I haven't been taking my camera everywhere but I promise I'll take more soon.