A decision has been made!

Since I last updated I’ve gone back to Santiago for a week but now I’m back in Vilches. Our return to Santiago couldn’t have been much more eventful… When we got to Judy’s house (where we stayed before) we found it completely dark and were without keys (who knew we were suppose to take a set with us!)… Judy was gone for the weekend and the lady staying at her house was apparently gone as well… So I hoisted my camping backpack over the fence and we headed to Lider (the local grocery store) to buy some food in hopes that when we returned somebody would be home. Well, as you may have guessed nobody was home when we returned from our shopping trip so we sat down on the curb and waited. After listening to some music on Kym’s laptop, taking silly pictures and playing with Judy’s cat (who was also locked out of the house) a neighbor noticed we were locked out and invited us in for tea and cake. They were super nice and the grandpa was worried somebody would take the stuff we had thrown over the fence so he stood guard while we were inside. Eventually we got a hold of Judy’s son who also lives in Santiago and he was nice enough to come over and let us in. By this time it was nearly 11:00 pm so we had a quick dinner and went to bed.

I went back to Santiago with every intention of visiting new organizations and seeking out further volunteer options but I didn’t quite get that far… I spent time researching and looking up possible organizations but since Kym and I decided to go to another retreat our trip was short and I didn’t get around to going to any of the organizations I looked up. Kym and I did get to two museums while in Santiago. First we went to the Contemporary Art Museum which was pretty interesting and then we went to the Memorial Museum which was just recently built and is all about Chile’s dictatorship. I found the Memorial Museum more interesting than the art museum and learned a lot more about the dictatorship. I already knew a good amount from the last time I was hear but nevertheless I learned a lot from all the displays, videos and artifacts at the museum. We spent a good amount of time exploring and wandering the streets of Santiago. During our wandering one day we happened upon a display in a plaza behind the presidential building... At first it didn’t look like much but upon further inspection we noticed that it was the capsule that they had used to rescue the miners! It was very exciting to see up close and personal. I have to say it looked a lot smaller than I imagined.

Another important thing happened while in Santiago this time- I felt my first tremor… well, saying I felt it would be incorrect but saying I noticed it was happening would be more like it. Actually if it hadn’t been for Kym and Judy I wouldn’t have noticed it at all. Kym and I were watching a movie one night and the window started rattling… Kym noticed and commented that there was a tremor… I noticed the window rattling too but just thought it was the wind or a big truck passing by… in reality it wasn’t windy and there weren’t any trucks going down the street… it was a tremor… I never checked the newspaper to find out the strength of the tremor or where it came from but I can now say that I have consciously experienced a Chilean tremor. (There have been several since I’ve been here and there were many when I studied abroad but I never felt or realized they were happening before).

A week after we came back to Santiago we were on a bus and headed back to Vilches for a retreat. At first I wasn’t sure if I was going to go to the retreat or not but in the end I decided to go. There was going to be a lot of people from Talca and since Kym decided to stay in Vilches, Talca became a new option (mostly because nobody liked the idea of me staying in Santiago). Talca is about 45 minutes- 1 hour from Vilches and is the closest big town to Vilches (if that makes sense… there is a small town between Vilches and Talca but that’s it…). Since I was now going to look at Talca it was a good idea to get to know some women from Talca. The retreat was on Circle Dance but it was done in such a way that it connected bible passages where there were dancing women to different circle dances. The title of the workshop was something like “There is a time for everything… I time to lament and a time to dance.” It was actually really nice and a good combo of moving around and sitting/listening. I also met a lot of nice people from Talca (and other cities) too so that was good.

This past week I spent three days exploring Talca. The first day I went to two different “hogares” or orphanages and a women’s center called Domodungo. We also tried to find an environmental organization that is always looking for volunteers but due to earthquake damage and lots of businesses/organizations moving we were unable to find it. Hopefully as time goes on we’ll find out where it moved to and I can do some work there too. The second day I spent getting to know Talca and the women’s center. At the women’s center I helped with their library project and also helped bake muffins for a bake sale/fundraiser. Both were fun and I met a lot of really nice women. On my third day in Talca I spent about six hours at one of the hogares (San Jose). This orphanage is set up like a little community and has about 8-10 houses each with 15-20 kids. The houses run like a family and each house has several house moms that work in shifts (morning, afternoon and night). I spent all my time in a house with little girls (ages 2-7). They were very loving and the moment I stepped in the door had about 5 little munchkins wrapped around my legs! They gave me a tour of the house and for the next 6 hours I played with them and answered about 5,000 questions. Next week sometime I will move in with a host family and start forming a work schedule. For the time being I will spend my time at Domodungo and Hogar San Jose.

After spending some time in Talca I returned to Vilches and have been hanging out. It has rained the past couple days so we haven’t been able to work outside so I have been happily passing the time reading and doing other indoor activities. Today I went to a community meeting where they talked a lot about a new project called “Vilches Without Garbage.” It was interesting to hear about all the different ideas and initiatives that could possibly be put into action. I also saw some snow today! Vilches Alto is higher up than where I’m staying (Vilches Centro) and it snowed a bit this morning so when we went to the meeting we saw some of the lingering snow :D

Well, that all for now folks!