Starting all over again – end of March, April and May 1st

On the second lonely weekend after coming back from travelling in the south I had the pleasure of being able to something vaguely helpful and constructive, in both senses of the word. Along with a couple of busloads of students from Universidad de Chile, 7 VEers and I travelled 7 hours south to the small town of Retiro. It’s not far from the epicentre of the earthquake and was pretty heavily hit, mainly due to the fact that there seems to be very lax building restrictions and so most of the one-brick thick walls had just pathetically collapsed without even breaking apart. This obviously presents a problem for the people living in-between the walls and so our job was to help construct new homes called mediaguas; basically glorified wooden sheds. If there was ever a Chilean operation to classify a typical Chilean operation it was this weekend. It may be better to list the bad things: there was no one in charge, students just want to drink, no communication between groups, the clocks went back an hour on Saturday night, we were in an Earthquake zone (with tremors every now and again) and everyone got up, ate, drank beer, got high, worked and went to bed at entirely different times of the day. This meant we routinely found ourselves in ridiculous situations such as having to dismantle a mediagua completely as it had been put up so badly, and then predictably finding the building instructions under the floorboards. The next day we were lying around playing cards and eating crackers and were only called upon to dig nine 70cm foundation holes in someone’s garden just as the sun was setting. Luckily a shopkeeper from across the road donated one of his portable fridge lights to the cause. It was a still an enjoyable weekend and it did feel great to help in some way rather than just sitting on our rich foreign thrones in Santiago drinking fine wines and planning our next holiday. The people were certainly grateful and I was invited to join a group of toothless old men relaxing with some beers in their front yard. They were amazed by my 12th floor earthquake tale but only I could know that the damage was unimaginably greater where they were living.

I’m now living in a large 3 story house with a Chilean, his father, two students from Canada and Tata (Mr Beef) the boxer dog. Roddy (amazingly, the Chilean) is a properly nice fella and it’s good to be living with someone who has a real local knowledge of what to do and where to go. Plus he apparently doesn’t mind sharing the whole of his spirits cabinet over the course of a night. The house is in Nunoa which is a district to the south of the center and this means that, although it takes slightly more time to get to places of interest, it’s very quiet and a much calmer place to live. Plaza Nunoa has some great places to go out and drink in any case. Another factor is that I now live only 2 blocks from Pleyades where I work and this is obviously really convenient. On the other hand I’ve had to keep my new location a secret from the staff as I can imagine many phone calls along the lines of; “Can you come over to watch the kids while we go out for a pizza Jack” or “We were thinking you could stay the night tonight as you live so close and then you could give all 10 kids baths, supervise their TV time, read them each a bedtime story and then wash up dinner while we sit around eating chocolate.” (“No, pero porque?”) Tata gives handshakes, Daisy the cook/cleaner regularly lets me to test her amazing cooking, there’s always people coming in and out to share a beer with and Roddy drives a classic 2CV Citroen. (“I don’t lock it because if anyone figures out how to start it then they deserve to have it”) It’s all good at home.

Work has been very up and down lately. I seem to find myself spending 60% the time having the time of my life and feeling delighted and proud of the fact that this is what I’ve dedicated half of my 2010 to. On the other hand a fair amount (40% I suppose) of the remaining time is spent really looking forward to travelling in June/July and getting away from everything for a bit. Unfortunately these emotions more often than not take place in the same afternoon due to the nature of the kids being up, down, hate you, love you, laugh, cry, sit down and have a nice quiet read in the library, take all my clothes off and spit on your face.

Unfortunately I’m still feeling the effects of the trek in Patagonia and, although I don’t regret completing the trail by walking the last day with a painful knee, it is not letting me forget the decision in a hurry. After a couple of weeks struggling around Santiago I decided to visit the doctors and now, after x-rays, medication and two weeks of physio, they’re telling me I have tendonitis of the Patella, the tendon just below the kneecap. This is bad news as it takes a long time to heal and the only really effective treatment is rest and it’s almost impossible to rest your knee. I think I can put up with the pain and inconvenience for now but I’m truly going to be pissed if it affects my travelling in a couple of months to any extent. If you would like to contribute to my medical bills then please, feel free. Go into the Stroud branch of HSBC and quote my account no. 1630133109 and pin 7865.

We were lucky enough to have an English visitor to the house late in April as Ellie stayed for a few days en route from Bolivia to New Zealand. On her final night on the continent we went out to have some rum and then, at 3.30am, decided to do something special before she had to get on her plane. We got a bus to the bottom of the hill at the centre of the city, San Cristobal, and walked up it. (Check out the river in the photo - it's actually made of melted chocolate.) This took much more effort than you would assume as both entrances had police guards and so our option was climbing a wall, a 10ft barbed wire fence, a steep bank and then through another fence and even after that there was CCTV. It’s a hill people, not a god damn gold mine! It was worth it in the end though and we dozed at the summit, watching the city lights down below until the sun rose majestically over the Andes and we stumbled back home and on to work and Oceania respectively.

The end of campaign trivia event was held at La Casa Roja, the place where I started my trip in December, along with sausages (real ones), a big black DJ and lots and lots of wine. It was good fun but floored as a fundraiser in many ways, primarily the fact that the volunteers had free access to the bar and so by the end only a select few very well-off guests could compete on the alcohol to blood ratio. We went out after to some generic club with bad music and I wandered off to get food at about 3. (I have a very worrying condition where, when drunk and upon seeing a sopaipilla stand, I will just get out of the car. This could have some negative consequences in the future such as being run over or simply dying of heart failure due to too many greasy roadside snacks.) That night I didn’t actually get home until 6.30 and its fair to say the 3 ½ hours were not well spent. I got on a bus, fell asleep and woke up in the middle of nowhere somewhere on the outskirts of the city. It was f’ing freezing and I was very lucky that I found the bus terminal at the end of the line and they put me on the 505 back to the centre. Then I broke into my house (second time in a month) because I’d left my keys in my bag. Good night.

Feburary and Patagonia

It’s been an interesting month or so:

An interpretive dance show, Beyonce, cycling up San Cristobal in 16 mins, gaybars, weed forests, weed thieves and weed killers, child-friendly lederhosen, wet angels and demons, a pint at the widowed cat, very salty porridge, pavement sausage (literally), meatpaste, oh so much meatpaste, a multi-lingual argument with a tramp, banana pancakes...

Working at Pleyades has been really enjoyable over the last couple of weeks since going on holiday with them and, especially since the earthquake for some reason, the kids seem to be more chilled out than usual. This puts the Tias in a good mood which creates a positive atmosphere and so the cycle continues. With the help of the two youngest boys I’ve rediscovered Lego which is fantastic! I’ve twice found myself just sitting in the sun on the patio, happily creating a spaceship or something without having realised the children have all left to do something else. Another side effect of the campo is that the children’s favourite animal is now horses and this means playing ‘horses’, i.e. me crawling around on all fours occasionally saying ‘neigh’ with up to 5 children* on my back saying ‘rapido! rapido!’. I’ve also met some of the birth mothers of the kids recently as they come to the hogar to take their respective children out for the day or just to drop in and see them. It’s a strange situation because I don’t really know what they think of me and so how to act around them. On the one hand I figure they could see me as an imposter who doesn’t deserve to have such a close relationship with their child and in this situation I would want to play down my emotional connections with the children and act more formally, as if I’m just there to keep control and nothing more. On the other hand (and this is more along the lines of what I hope they are thinking) the mothers could see me as an amazing opportunity for their child to have a older male figure in their life, maybe for the first time. In this situation I would want to prove to them that their child is in the right place at Pleyades and how much I can do for the kids.

Since I last wrote there have been two major VE events for all the children that we work with across the 8 institutions. The first was ‘Festival de Artes’ which celebrates the art that the kids create including photos through the Ojos Nuevos Project (New Eyes), paintings, arts and crafts and also dance and musical performances. These last two take place on the day of the event which everyone attends and spends the afternoon together. Overall it was a very successful day and I think the children really enjoyed it. The second event marked the end of the Vamos a Leer reading programme and it was attended by all the children who had reached their target of books to read. They played carnival games to win prizes (including throwing wet sponges at Matt and me) and then everyone had fun in the (rather cold) pool. As I’m on the committee for V a L, I helped to organise this event and it was very satisfying that it went so well. Over the two events it was very interesting for me, not only to put names to faces of all the kids that my fellow volunteers always talk about, but more to see how they interacted with them as it brings to light a whole different side to some people.

At the end of Feburary a small group of hardy fellows including my good self braved Chile’s dustiest road to Parque National Altos de Lircay, 2 hours East of Talca. In the evening we showered at the campsite and Pharoah had a little 8-legged surprise. When I went into the shower after him I turned around and saw a tarantula on the door, no more than 40cm away. I vacated the premises and informed Pharoah that who he’d just enjoyed his shower with. We did an amazing day hike up to a huge plateau made up of granite blocks overlooking the surrounding Andes including two volcanoes. (Dubbed the ‘giant’s garden’ because the blocks look like huge paving stones.) From here we walked along the ridge to try and find the lake that the map promised us. All we found however was an inaccessible and rather dirty looking pond which was disappointing to say the least. We turned to head back to the camp but around the next corner was the lake we wanted to see. We headed down into the crater and swam, 2000m above sea level, in beautiful cold, clear water and after dried off in on the grassy bank in the sun.

A big group of us went to watch Colo-Colo – arguably Chile’s best club and owned by the president-to-be, Sebastian Pinera (Seb to his mates). This was quite strange because the stadium was only about ¼ full but the section where all these people were was the home fans’ stand. They were making an absolute hullabaloo** and acting like it was the world cup final, jumping on the 12ft barbed wire security fences (with armed guard, I mean, really...) that separated them from the pitch. All this despite the fact that the game was pretty poor and the players didn’t seem to give a toss. It ended 2-2 so at least we got some goals for our money. Having said this, European football should take a leaf out of South America’s book; £5 more or less for a ticket and apparently the international matches are not much more.

In terms of Spanish I have finally, after 3 months in a Spanish speaking country, made some sort of headway into learning the language. I’m not proud of this by the way. I’ve started meeting up with a Chilean called Eduardo once a week for an intercambio. This means we talk in English for a bit for him to learn and then in Spanish for me. It’s really helpful for the language but also interesting because I get to talk to him about his view of Chile and Santiago etc. and generally get to know a Chilean quite well which is cool. He’s good at English but not fluent by any means; a recent facebook message received after a meeting read: “Thankyou for the afternoon. It was fery fanny.” Ho ho ho! :)

Terremoto! It’s just one of those words you have to say in Spanish, even if you’re talking English. Maybe it’s just because it sounds more dramatic; especially in your best Spanish accent, saying ‘terre’ very fast and then drawing out the ‘moto’ with a panicked look on your face. Try it now. Terre-mottohhhhhhh!!! Fun. I’ll tell you what else is fun, actually being in the earthquake (terremoto=earthquake btw). Obviously I’m aware that lots of people died and it was very bad for Chile, I know people myself who were much nearer the epicentre and very badly affected. However during those 90 seconds on the 12th floor when I couldn’t physically stand up and when my roommate came diving into my room thinking we were being attacked (Bolivians? aliens?) and during the time after when we were evacuated onto the street at 4am, it was fun. A kind of terrified, oh-my-god-what’s-going-on-are-we-all-going-to-die fun but fun all the same.

Because I’d reached the halfway point in my 6-month volunteering contract and also reached the end of my 3-month housing contract I decided the middle two weeks of March would be a good time for a holiday. Luckily there were some other folks up for a jolly as well and so we all met up in Southern Patagonia to do the famous 5-day ‘W’ hike in Parque Nacional Torres Del Paine. Even by Chilean standards, even by South American standards, this is no bog-standard walk in the woods. Yes, the photos look good but trust me; it was better. I can’t even begin to describe this landscape without rambling poetically on and sounding like a jerk. That’s how amazing it was. Instead I’ll just give you a taste with a few highlights from the hike.

· Glacier Grey
Glacier Grey is a glacier. However it’s not grey, well not when we were there at least due to the blinding summer sunshine. It was huge. Obviously I’d seen pictures of glaciers before and even studied them at school abut this was the first one I’d seen in real life and I couldn’t comprehend the size, the sheer amount of ice that stood before us, slowly creaking and groaning. (Can’t get away from the poetry). The first night we camped at Campamento Los Guardias which was little more than 500m away from the glacier. We took advantage of this and got up early to see it in the sunrise. As the sun came up over the mountain behind us it cast its light on the snow-caps on the opposite side of the ice and turned them a magnificent orange. Then I spotted some condors circling overhead and passed out from beauty overkill.

· Valle Frances (best 7 hrs walking ever)
Valle Frances means, wait for it, French Valley, but it wasn’t really very French. I’ve been to France and there wasn’t a 3200m mountain with 3 near-vertical faces or 70kph head-on wind or a surreal, perfect circle of burnt out trees or a perfectly clear snowmelt river with waterfalls or, what every hiker is rewarded with at the top end of the valley, a viewing platform deep inside what seems to be a huge volcanic crater for the reason that one is surrounded by mountains of every shape, size, colour, geographical type and sexual orientation. After all that excitement on the way up you get to walk back down and see it all again in a different order. Perfect.

· Torres del Paine
The hike up to the torres (towers) was on the last day of the route and by then my knees were feeling the strain of 4 days carrying a pack. I could hardly walk downhill but I figured they named the national park after them so it must be worth it. It was, and by the time we got to the top it was snowing which is probably the weather you’d want if you couldn’t have full sun because of the amazing atmosphere it created. The towers were half shrouded in mist and the snow made it feel like we were proper explorers even though at least 50 people pass this point every day in the high season. It was a great way to finish off the W.

· The rain
On the fourth day, 4km away from the campsite, it rained hard and the horizontal wind blew this hard rain into our faces and it blew the covers off our packs. In itself, this wasn’t a highlight. At the time it was most certainly a low point and even though I tried to put on a brave face, I couldn’t help wishing I was in a refugio with a hot chocolate. However looking back I’m glad we were drenched for those 2 hours because it made me realise how lucky we were with the weather overall. If it had been those conditions for the whole 5 days it would have been a waste of money, time, knees and generally downright miserable.

After the hike we made our way back up to Santiago first on the Navimag ferry from Puerto Natales to Puerto Montt and then a bus to the capital, stopping en route in the Lake District adventure town of Pucon for the weekend. I think it’s safe to say that as much as the hike in Torres del Paine exceeded expectations, the Navimag failed to meet them. Sure it was relaxing and nice to be cooked for 3 times a day but when you’re actually looking forward to the meals you know there isn’t enough to do. To put it bluntly, we were expecting a 4 day international party and we got lots of

middle aged Australians, slide-shows on flora and fauna and card games. That’s not to say there weren’t any interesting people onboard however. Swiss/Italian Marco and his stunted English was hilarious, Australian Charlie’s ability to laugh at all of everyone’s jokes brightened up the day and English Jon and his world bike tour was very intriguing. (It also turns out that his sister lives in Nympsfield and he sources beer for Weatherspoons, which means he was the man behind Ruddles and so classifies him as a legend.)

Pucon was alot more entertaining and we made up for a lack of drunkenness by 3 people consuming 15 litres of Crystal before we even went out to the bar on Friday night. On the Saturday, hangovers were cured by 1½ hours of class 4 white water rafting which was brilliant fun.

I’m slowly getting back into the swing of things in Santiago now but still haven’t found anywhere to live permanently. I’m hiding out at a friend’s house while she’s in Columbia at the moment. Yesterday was the first day back at Pleyades for two weeks and they were all so pleased to see me, jumping up, holding my hand and all asking me questions at the same time, few of which I understand. To top it all off I went to pick up Gonzalo from school with his sister. This kid is usually the biggest trouble maker of the lot and can raise hell when he’s in the mood but his reaction to the surprise of me and his sister waiting for him outside the school gates was priceless. He spotted me through the crowd and pushed his way through the parents shouting ‘Tio Jack!, Tio Jack!’ until he got to me and gave me a great big bear hug. Then, with a huge grin on his face, he kissed his sister and I both on the arm, and practically skipped back home, collecting flowers for us on the way. I’m guessing that’s the sort of thing I’m never going to forget.

Me amor por todos

x

*unfortunately no exaggeration
** what a word

January and Pleyades Campo!

January!!

2010 will be great!

In the second weekend of the year I took a Friday off work and went to Pichilemu for a long weekend. This is a smallish coastal town just 3 hours from Santiago with big waves and black sand. (This is actually a killer because it absorbs the heat and you get burnt from above and below...) The buses in this country are cheap, comfy and usually interesting for some reason and so the ride to Pichilemu was predictably eventful.

Sunset in Pichilemu with me freezing my ass off in the water.

It was a beautiful sunny day with no clouds and then, over the horizon, I spotted what looked like a raincloud. This put us in a bad mood that our trip would be spoiled until we noticed the unusual volume of firetrucks overtaking us and realised that the cloud was smoke. It seemed like a vast area of mountains and scrubland was on fire and it was very surreal as we passed through it; like some kind of fairground ride we were suddenly driving slowly and with the windows closed through an orangey, ochre light and looking out onto the scorched, deserted landscape. How poetic. A while later we were on the Pichilemu town boundary and were stopped by a police patrol. They wanted everyone’s I.D. cards or passports and clearly Clay and I didn’t have either of these just to go to the coast so we had to get off the bus and talk with a very self-important carabinero (policeman) who said it was a “grande problema” over and over. He apparently decided we were probably not a threat to the town and let us off with a warning.

VE vs Chile Football in Pichilemu

Once in Pichilemu we found a perfect campsite 50m from the sea, run by a very smiley middle-aged man called Patrick and his brothers. It looked like they had just bought the land and started up the business because it was quite ramshackle and every day we were there they were building or painting or renovating something. However when we asked they said they’d lived there for 5 years. That’s the laid-back, slowly but surely Chilean way I suppose. Anyhow, they let us use their kitchen to cook eggs and gave us beers and sold us homemade bread fresh from the huge coal-fired oven and were generally very good hosts. Everything about the weekend was great apart from the surfing which was strange seeing as that was the reason we had gone in the first place. We hired boards and tried our best but a mixture of unpredictable waves and a very strong current kept sweeping us into the centre of the bay and away from the good spots. At this point we would have to paddle into the beach (against a different current) and walk about 15 minutes back to the entry point on the rocks – not fun. And so, when four more of the guys turned up we gave up on the surfing idea completely and went and bought 5 litres of wine ($2,500; £3 J) and indulged in slightly less active activities such as arm wrestling drunk Chileans, drinking games and cooking fresh fish and clams on a BBQ. (Yes, alcohol does go hand-in-hand with preventing food poisoning.) On the Sunday we walked south to the next beach along the coast called Punta Lobos, the point where international surfing competitions are held and the place where the real guys surf. We watched from the cliffs, empanadas in hand, and it was pretty impressive as they rode what must have been nearly 10 ft waves and pulled all the tricks you’d expect to see on a surf video.

At the beard-off with 3 Chilean friends.

The following week marked the end of a 6 week Beard-Off competition between Team Man that had started at Christmas. The idea was to have the best (not longest) beard and so on the night of Brys’ leaving despedida, everyone found some trimmers and fashioned their new style. Unfortunately I went a bit too far and let the guys loose on my head hair with the trimmers and so ended up having a Mohican for a couple of days. The eventual winner was Chris Wiggins due mainly to the fact that the judges were all the VE females and they felt sorry for his pitiful growth of a full 15 hairs on his chin over the 6 weeks.

Jornada is the mountain retreat for the volunteers organised by VE and it takes place about a month after every new class has started working (3 times a year). Its location is fantastic in the nearby Cajon Del Maipo valley in the Andes foothills. The idea is for everyone to reflect a bit on their work and any goals they may be working towards but also for everyone in the organisation to go away together for the weekend and relax in good company. It certainly was relaxing, lounging by the pool, playing frisbee and eating incredible food prepared by the team in the kitchen (including a certain delicious gluten-free German chocolate cake).

Clay at the summit of La Campana. Aconcagua is visible in the distance to the left.

The children at Pleyades have one two-week holiday a year when they go to stay in a cabin on a farm in the lake district, 10 hours bus ride from Santiago. Each volunteer is required to work for one of these weeks and so I had the last 7 days of January without kids and the first 7 of February with kids literally 24/7 (see below). The idea was to take advantage of the week off and go travelling but, due to a mixture of late notice and no-one being around to travel with, I ended up just going away with Barclay for a day hike. We went to Parque Nacional Campana which is supposed to be only 1 ½ hours from the city. However this is Chile and nothing is as it seems. The bus ride on the way there took us on a very roundabout route to the North which took just over 3 hours and then the following night we completely failed to get a return back to Santiago. The problem was that there wasn’t a bus stop (we’d just been dropped on the side of a random road the day before) and so we followed the locals’ advice and sat on a very particular bit of pavement. For 2 hours. By the time it was dark and clear that there wasn’t a bus coming, we decided to get one to the coastal city of Vina instead as this, despite being completely in the wrong direction, would actually have a bus terminal so we could get back home. However by the time we got to Vina the last bus to Santiago had already left and so we we’re stuck, with our packs and hiking boots on, until 5.30 am. It didn’t turn out too badly because we went to the beach for a bit to sleep and then met one of the other volunteers who was in town with her ‘man’ for the weekend. We sat in the park with her in the early hours, smoked and drank and likened the stray dogs to the drunken Chileans stumbling out of the clubs and bars. The actual hike up La Campana was much harder than anticipated (1880m in 4 hours) and the last 200m was pretty much climbing with hands and feet. However the view from the top made it worth it as the mountain is very central in the country and so looking East you could see Aconcagua in the Andes (at 6,962m, the highest mountain outside the Himalayas) while to the West the Pacific was just visible through the sea mist.

Volcan Llaima seen from the Pleyades cabin.

The Pleyades Campo was by no means as relaxing but that’s not to say that it wasn’t enjoyable. As I said to Tia Miri on the bus back to Santiago, “mucho trabajo pero muy gratificante” and I’ll stick to that. The 10 kids, 2 volunteers and 2 Tias were all staying in a little cabin on a working farm in the lake district, near to Curacautin. The daily routine was for Brooke (the Ex. Director of VE Global and another volunteer at Pleyades) and I to be woken up at about 9 by the kids and then entertain them all until they went to bed at 11 at night. This meant reading, drawing, making bracelets, party games, dancing, going for walks and playing football etc. This really took it out of me as I had to constantly be sorting out issues or thinking of things to do. The fact that it rained for nearly half the time didn’t help as 14 people (and lots of flies) were all stuck inside, slowly but surely developing cabin fever. However on the sunny days we did go on some trips, to the nearby Volcan Llaima and to the fairground in the town (Pleyades vs candyfloss...). The best thing about the week was simply seeing the kids outside of their hogar and out of the city, in a place where they could explore and really enjoy themselves. I clearly remember watching some of them all playing together while running across a field and me having an intensely positive feeling, mirroring their mood, and also a very proud one due to the fact that I was helping that enjoyment come about.

I’m now back to the normal routine in Santiago, empanadas, table tennis, football, Frisbee and planning future travelling trips. At the start of March I will have been her 3 months, time truly flies, and so will be looking for a new place to live as my current contract runs out. This is really exciting both because I get the chance to live with some other people, hopefully not English or American, but also because I can experience another part of the city.

The next thing to get excited about is the trip to Patagonia I’m taking in the middle of March. Seven of us are flying very far down south to Punta Arenas at the tip of the continent and then doing the famous 5-day ‘W’ hike in Torres del Paine. Some of us are then making part of our way back to Santiago by a 4-day Navimag boat trip through glaciers and fjords which is meant to be stunning due to the scenery and ridiculous at the same time due to the fellow travellers and Chileans on the boat.

All will be revealed at the end of March...

Hope everyone is well, love to one and all.

December

After a month in Santiago I decided it was time for an update. It's really annoying when you don't know what you're friends are up to. Not mentioning any names.

So you can’t flush toilet paper down the toilet (you have to put it in a bin), it’s really easy to get drunk (just over £1 for a litre of beer and in the clubs they fill your glass ¾ full with the spirit for a ‘mixer’) and I get to watch every Liverpool football match (I never could when living 3 hours from Liverpool). That’s pretty much all that needs to be said but anyway...

I spent the first week in Chile at a hostel called La Casa Roja – the red house, apart from there was no little shit of a dog, it was called Dada and was big and quiet. This week was really hectic because I was suddenly living in the same room as all the December class of volunteers and so we got to know each other pretty quick, I think that was the idea. However there was something going on every day and night as the organisation tried to get us used to the country and city before we started working. We spent the night in this crazy hostel where the staff were constantly drunk/hungover or high and no-one seemed to sleep. On the first Sunday morning I went into the garden early to read and a soaking wet French guy stumbled over. He had apparently woken up in the pool a moment ago. I suggested he get some sleep and so he fell asleep on my lap.

I’m living on the 12 floor at 499 Lira in the South of the centre of Santiago with two girls, both from Boston but Mari is originally from Buenos Aires. There’s a pool and a gym on the roof and amazing views over the city to the beautiful snow-covered Andes . It’s a 20 minute walk through a park to the VEGlobal office in the centre and it takes me 30 mins (walking/bus) to get to Pleyades where I work. However I have recently purchased a bike (called Edith) from an old bike-nut called Mario with a rundown garage a couple of blocks away. With very limited Spanish I was proud of being able to tell him that I wanted thinner tyres and the saddle raised, lots of hand gestures are essential, and so from now on I can cycle to work and save $ on the bus. It’s also good because the buses are very crowded at rush hour and it’s the most likely place that you’re going to get mugged.

I’m having an amazing time volunteering at Pleyades where 11 kids live because they’ve been taken out of their family homes due to neglect and/or abuse. Some have contact with members of their family but I get the impression most do not. (Carlos’ mum came on his 4th birthday last week and announced she was having another child - she already has 3 living at Pleyades...) This makes it sound like a depressing and miserable place to spend time but it is exactly the opposite. I have to constantly remind myself what these children have lived through because, for the most part, they are polite and interested and funny and enjoying life. Sure there are exceptions; I think Lucas has ADHD as he can’t concentrate on one thing for more than a minute. He also likes to spit, on everything, including me. When Juan and I play football it more often than not ends up with him kicking the ball as hard as he can at me. On the other hand he has taught himself guitar and plays to Queen and Michael Jackson on his very battered mp3 player with me singing along. For some reason every single child, not just where I work but at the other institutions too, completely adore Michael Jackson and they’re not afraid of showing it. The best line they try to sing along to is “Annie are you okay, are you okay, are you okay Annie...” It’s honestly just noise they’re making but they’re happy.
So the deal is that I work at Pleyades either in the morning or afternoon each weekday and then have to also do some work in the office. In VEGlobal there are different committees; sports, fundraising, resource management etc and I'm on Vamos a Leer! (Let’s read!) This is basically a programme that's been set up to encourage reading in the institutions and so my work involves maintaining the VE library, keeping track of the children’s reading levels and the amount that each child reads. The incentive for them is tokens as rewards and these can be used at the carnival we hold in Feburary in exchange for turns on the events.

As well as obviously having weekends to do other things I get two weeks holiday over the whole 6 months that I can take whenever I want. At the moment the plan is to go south to the Lake District and then further into Patagonia including Parque Nacional Torres del Paine in early March. However it’s very easy to get away on weekends or just for day trips. So far I’ve been camping at Laguna de Aculeo for a weekend (played football against some Jehovah Witnesses’) and we also went for a day hike in Parque Nacional Rio Clarrillo which is a small gorge in the Andes foothills an hour and a half east. The coast is a similar distance away to the west and hopefully I will be going surfing sometime soon. Other plans are to go to wineries, go to the rodeo festival in Rancagua, run the half marathon in April, and go hiking in the Andes properly.

Christmas in the 32 deg heat was, in Mr Evans’ fine words, ‘a headfuck’. All the volunteers came to our apartment and we had a bbq on the roof - I made some empanadas (with Mari’s help) which are pretty much like Cornish pastys but smaller and with more interesting fillings. My favourite kind is fried with ham and melted cheese inside. Then I drank 2 litres of red wine and the rest is history.
There are some great people who work at VE, most of them are American which I try not to hold against them but I have already had the rugby vs American football argument. They do say awesome and seriously too much aswell. There are three more Brits, an Aussie, a Spaniard, a Pole, a Canadian, an Argentinean, a dancing Frenchman and a Germ. Sorry, a German. At VE there aren’t many guys (8 out of about 35 people) so we have a thing called ‘Team Man’. It’s a way of getting away from all the girls and doing manly things like playing football, going camping, playing table tennis and drinking beer and also frequent trips to Cafe con Piernas. CCP (like the carpark) is a very strange Chilean institution where office workers go to have a coffee after work. The difference is that con Piernas means ‘with legs’ and so the coffee is served by very scantily clad waitresses. Borat thongs have never looked so good. These places close at 9pm and don’t serve alcohol so it’s all very innocent and I think that just makes it even stranger. Good coffee though. I stupidly suggested a Team Man beard-growing competition in my drunken state at xmas. This was a bad idea for 3 reasons; the other 7 guys are aged between 25 and 30 so I haven’t got a chance, it’s the middle of a very hot summer and after about a week my facial hair turns ginger. Look out for photos of me near the end of January for cheap laughs.

New Year in Valparaiso was pretty amazing. We got an early bus because the road from Santiago to the coast gets jammed up with the hundreds of thousands of people who make the trip for the celebrations. In the day we enjoyed wasting time wandering some of the 42 cerros (hills) which make up the more interesting part of the city. The muti-coloured houses are built in ridiculous places on the sides of near vertical hills and in some areas the only way to get up is a short funicular ride. The graffiti here was as good as back in Santiago. Unfortunately I didn’t take my camera because I didn’t want the chance of it being nicked in the night so I’ll have to get some photos when I go back, hopefully sometime soon. After sweating on the beach in the afternoon and being in the Pacific Ocean for the first time (very cold because of the current coming up from Antarctica) we met up with the antiguas (older volunteers) at a hostel where they were drinking. Soon enough we got kicked out as there were so many of us and so went to set up camp on the streets. By this time the roads were closed and the streets were lined with people getting ready for midnight so it didn’t matter much. A huge yellow moon came up at dusk over the hill that nearby Vina del Mar sits in and by the time the fireworks started at 12 it was the perfect addition to a simply amazing fireworks display - no other way to describe it. Most of us had made it to a panoramic lookout point which was packed with people looking over the bay where the fireworks were. There was alot of singing and chants of Chi-Chi-Chi, Le-Le-Le, Viva Chi-Le! After making friends and dancing to drums on the streets down below and we got a bus back at 4am.

I’m hopefully meeting up with Alekcis this weekend. That might not mean much to some people but I know one person to whom it will. ;)

Hope you all had a good Christmas and a crackin’ New Year.

Big love to everyone x