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