Hit the Ground Running At Last

There is this Doves song that I am listening to right now called "Hit the Ground Running at Last" and I have to say, I love it right now. It is just peppy enough to get me motivated and the lines kinda fit where I find myself right now.

I've been home from my travels for 2 months now. Two months of trying to readjust to life where I had left off. Two months of wandering around in a semi-fog, unsure of where I wanted to be- physically as well as emotionally. I feel like I truly am beginning to hit the ground running again. Physically I have moved into a friends house, which has been wonderful. Before this, I was living a few days at a time at different peoples houses which, don't get me wrong, was wonderful to be able to share community with so many people and to feel so loved and cared for but it was incredibly exhausting. Without a place to permanently lay down every night, part of me still felt like I was traveling. Which in a sense I was: I lived out of a car or duffel bag and never planned where I was going to be more than a day at a time. Exhausting. Casey articulated it well when he saw me reach into my purse and pull out my phone charger and started laughing at me. "You really don't have anywhere to stay, do you?" He asked. It was true. When you have to carry around all the basic necessities with you all the time, you truly are still a wanderer.

I am glad to have a place to stay now. I feel like my equilibrium is finally balanced again.

I've also been just bumbling along when it comes to Jobs. Jobs. Eesh. Today I found out that I didn't get a job that I had interviewed for. I knew that I didn't do all that well on it-- I was sick, my mind was foggy, I was stressed and not as prepared as I could have been for it. Still, it was disappointing. The crazy thing was, I kinda knew that I wasn't going to get the job and was subsequent trying my best not to get my hopes up about it. In pursuit of that, I sent out several emails to people that I knew from past employment to get some feelers out there and about a half hour after I found out I didn't get the job I got 3 emails back from people being really encouraging and, while only one of them offered a job opportunity, it was gratifying to get the encouragement.

I know that this isn't the end of the world and I'm off looking for more. So, if anyone reads this and knows of the perfect (or even in the vicinity of that-would-work) job for me, hit me up and let me know. :)

Out from the ashes...

Things here have gotten worse over the last few days as the earthquake continues to have massive impacts on life here. Where I am living in Santiago, things are pretty good. Grocrie stores are open, so are busses, electicity is on and in general life is continuing as normal. The only reminders are the constant reports on the television of the devistation, the tremors that are present every day (yesterday there were 2 that were pretty powerful) and the banners and car decorations that are everywhere now.

I have some friends who just returned from the south, where the tsunamis are reaking havoc and am incredibly disturbed by what he told me. There is looting, fights, a curfew from 6 at night till 12 the next day in order to curb the violence and looting and in general people are living in desperation. It is so hard to be so close to that, and yet still feel like I am in a different world. I can only hope that things get better as more aide comes and as the people continue to give to each other. That is one cool thing that has happened: the aid at the grocery stores, on the street has skyrocketed. People here are being generous with there money, resources and even time. There are lots of volunteers who have given up their vacation plans to help out down south and here in Santiago.

So there is hope, but there is a lot of devistation and rebuiling left to do. I hope that this spirit of generocity continues! There is so much that needs to be done and I hope that out of this, Chile will emerge stronger than ever.

The Last Month

So i realize that it has been a LONG time since I have written and am imressed beyond words how uch life has changed in the last month. We left Argentina quite a while ago and have been surrounded by the best people I could have asked for ever since. Chile has stollen my heart and I have found the people here incredibly generous, loving, kind, funny and all around great!!

Some bullets of the last month, because so much has happened:

• Spent our first few days in Santiago with the Swansons, friends of Stacies from a friend at Beyond. Same people that our other friends who came down here stayed with too. They were great and really welcoming, giving us a tour of downtown, letting us sleep at their house, use their internet, vonage phone... everything! It was amazing and so welcome. I felt completely different by the end of that time. Argntina and everything that happened there was a completely different world!
• Chica, a friend of a friend of my dad was the next person we met and I instantly found a kindred spirit. She is amazing and full of so many similar passions for life that we have tons to talk about. The language barrier has gotten way less and we are able to communicate pretty well! Also, she speaks slow enough for me to understand. :)
• We then left for 9 days to Lautaro (where the center of the Earthquake that just hit was) and had an absolute blast with a team from Tacoma, of all places!! I painted and painted and painted primer on everything possible for 6 days and had a blast doing it. Only posible because of the company!!
• We lived with a couple from the town and had a blast with them. They were so much fun and amazing hosts. We had a good time with them and their families. They took us to hidden watterfalls, had a huge Asado (which is the famous chilean bbq) and in general quickly became friends to us.
• Now we are back in Santiago and the earthquak aftermath is just begining to sink in for me. Our area survived incredibly well, but as I am learning, we were very fortunate people. Read Stacies blog for more information on the earthquake itself.... stacieduvall.blogspot.com

We are here in Santiago right now and the earthquake relief work is just getting started. For the last few weeks Stacie and I have been working with an organization called IberoAmerican Ministeries in their work both here in Santiago and down in southern Chile in a town called Lautaro, which coincidencily is where the epicenter of the earthquake was. We formed some amazing friendships there and the people of Lautaro are some of my favorites that i have met on my entire trip! Most of them are doing pretty well, and as far as I know, there were no deaths of anyone associated with the church. There was a lot of structural damage and a lot of work is going to be needed to be done in order to get the town and everyone there back on their feet again. It is a pretty bad situation. They dont have electricity or running water in a lot of places and the main roads to get to and around that region are pretty trashed and impassable.

I've been doing some talking with Doug, who is the team leader of IberoAmerican Ministries here in Santiago (actually right now we are staying at his house because the appartment building we were in during the earthquake didnt have electricity or water for a few days!!) and I asked what he thought the needs were. He mapped out a few things that were of the most importance. First was to get houses or structures up for those whos houses were demolished. Second was to recunstruct the 4 churches who had walls that fell down. (For Example: The church we were working with in Lautaro had an estimated 10,000 dollars worth of dammage done to it... this is a church who's projector was stollen last month and they didnt think they were going to be able to buy another one for a year or so until someone brought them one as a gift!!) Third woud be to do rebuilding on dammaged structures. There are many buildings that have cracks running down them and that kind of thing.

Anyways, as I am here, Stacie and I are going to be working on helping rebuild a childrens home that was dammaged called Casa Esperanza (House of Hope) but I have had a few people from back home ask of ways that they can help and in thinking about that I figured that I would give all of you this information as well.

If anyone does want to donate to the relief efforts here, I can personally vouch for this organization and the work that they do. They are an incredible group of people both from the States and from Chile. I am impressed with their work and feel like they truely are doing good things. They are setting up a way to donate directly to the earthquake disaster relief on their website tonight, and it sounds like that is the easiest and best way to do it. Their website iswww.iamweb.org and they have a ton of information on their website about the people they partner with and the work that is going on.

Learn a lesson! Don´t upset the natives!

Except in this case, it is don´t upset your volunteers, and I am the one who is upset.

Stacie and I were dropped off at the beginning of a dirt road, our bags on our backs and a vague idea that if we start walking in this direction, eventually we will come across the farm that we were supposed to be working on for the next two weeks. We had already had quite the time getting to this point- our limited directions told us to go to a town where there was no street by the name that we needed and, needless to say, our "trucha" driver wanted to charge us double and then some to take us to the correct spot. I was adamant in not paying more for a ride where he said he knew where we needed to go, and I could sense that he just wanted to extort us for more money. So my Spanish of 4 months has payed off and I was able to argue him down from 25 pesos to 10 for the both of us. I felt pretty good about that.

As he drove off (i´m sure mumbling in discontent about his situation) we started walking. and walking. and walking. 3 plus kilometers in the hot mid day sun with our 25 kilo bags on our backs. Eventually we see a corroded old gate with "monistario, privado" scrawled upon it in big letters and assume this must be the farm that we have come so far to be a part of. We walk through the gates and see

nothing

a grand space that looks eerily similar to the area on the outside: overgrown pear trees, weeds up to my shoulders, flies and bugs of all sorts lazily droning by and a small path that can hardly be called a road. Foot path would be more adequate. Taking our chances, we walk on in. We site a building in the distance and make for that, hoping that there will be someone to help guide us to this monastery and all the monks and nuns that we are supposed to be helping. Instead we encounter 5 gringos and a lady with a shaved head who turns out to be the only nun on the place.

We were duped! There is no farm, there is no buddist monastery, there is no yoga classes, there is no mediation house. Instead, there is a dream of the sole buddist nun in Argentina who would like to see it happen. As in, it does not exist in the present. As in, she wants to use our labor to make her dream a reality. At first we just shrugged our shoulders and said, okay, we can give you a hand. No problem. But things have escalate and we no longer think we can stay there. She has sent 2 boys packing because they didn´t agree with her and the other 2 volunteers are on the verge of leaving as well. It is a sad situation, and I really do feel bad for her, but she did not really tell us what we were getting ourselves into and to be honest, appears like she is on a power trip of sorts. I don't really respect her.

I guess it is all a part of the continuous lesson that we are learning here: be flexible, don´t expect too much but always be prepared for the best things to happen. It is all part of our adventure and, frankly, after those mosquitoes last night attacked me, I´m ready for the next adventure!

I don´t really know where we will be going from here. I think we are going to go up to the mountains for a few days (we are in el crus de los andes right now) and will definitely be drinking some more amazing mendoza wine! After that, we will head over to Chile and do some work for people that I know I trust!

the better BA

Last night we splurged a little and dove into Argentine life. We walked down the street and found a beautiful outdoor patio that had 4 restaurants on it. We were just planning on walking by, even though it was so beautiful, but one of the waiters suckered us in when he mentioned the free tango show that would be starting in twenty minutes. It was a little more pricy than normal (but i think pretty standard for around here.... i´ve got to get used to american prices again apparently) at around 12 usd for the meal that we split. But it came with Steak, salad, water and coffee. We also bought a 12usd bottle of AMAZING malbec wine from Mendosa. It was so good. Oh man I have missed good wine! Peru and Ecuador just dont have it. We ended up being seated right on the edge of their preformance area, which was amazing.

Two men came and sat down, picked up their acordian and guitar and started playing a beautiful spanish/argentine melody. Then the Tango guy leaped up from the sidewalk and did all this amazing fancy footwork to ¨lure¨ the woman out. She came out and they danced. Man how they danced. It was beautiful to watch. So complicated and precice and so much passion. I really loved it. envoronment, music, dancing, wine.... it was wonderful. Also, at the other 3 restaurants were other bands preforming either tango or flamanco music. All of them had dancers as well. It was so cool!

So that is a better start to our life in Argentina. I am going to forget about how expencive everything is going to be here and just enjoy it. Also going to forget about that airport fee that we were surprised with at the airport. Gotta love spending an extra 130 when you weren´t expecting to....
But life here is going to be good. I am excited for what is going to happen.

When I got off the airplane this afternoon in Buenos Aires, I felt a certain degree of apprehension. I couldn´t tell you why, because I don´t quite understand it myself, but it was there. It is still lingering there, to some degree. Stacie and I have started that enevtable ¨last leg¨ to our trip. It is a time that I have been looking forwards to and dredding at the same time. Looking forward to the new cultures, differenes in language, foods, peoples and landscapes. Dreading the fact that it means that our trip is almost over. Even though we have two and a half more months, I feel like it is going to fly by and before I know it I will be taxing down the runway out of Quito headed back to the good ol´ EE. UU. (Estatos Unidos, United States). We have so many things planned for these next 2 months and I am so excited about what we are going to do.

A quick update, we are planning on spending the next two weeks or so traveling down south. Exploring the upper regions of patagonia and the lake country up in the Andes here in Argentina. Then we head over to Mendosa, the wine country, to work as WWOOFers for a few weeks at a buddest comune/monestary. So crazy. Then it is the 6 hour bus ride to Santiago where we are going to be working for one of my dad´s friends for a while with whatever they need help with. Then it is on the road again, up north and allllllll the way back to Quito to fly home. With, of course a quick stop in Lima to say goodbye to Joe and another stop in Mancora for a last relaxing time at the beach.

So, it is going to fly by!

I do want to share more stories, but there is a line up of people to use the free internet and the girl next to me has no intention of getting off, even though I´m pretty sure she has been on here for the last hour or so.... I´m always the good person. haha. But I will soon.

still alive!

I realize that it has been a long time since I have last posted and so much has happened since then. Leaving Ayacucho took us up in a whirrlewind of adventure after adventure. Marcus comming down to visit, Machu Picchu beauty, Beaches and Sand Dunes, Christmas with Joe´s host family here in Peru, Petrogliphs in the dessert with Joe at the start of his vacation, Araquipa and Canyon country with his other YAV friends and then hiking down to the 2nd deepest canyon for New years. Then back to Lima for a day and off to the Jungle, where, unfortunatly, I got sick for most of the time. But none the less, beautiful. Then it was saying goodbye to Joe for 2 more months and now stacie and I are at a beach a few hours north of Lima (Barranco) where we are waiting to fly down to Buenos Aires for the next leg of our adventure.

I have so many stories that I would like to share, but know that it will just have to happen later in person. Tomorrow I will write one of them here for you all. I didn´t bring my journal in here today.

Anyways, I am alive and doing fantastically well.

Happy new year and Love to all!