The Anglo-chilean society in Britain hosted a fundraising day which invited everyone to London to buy food from all over South America. There were stalls which sold food from Peru, Bolivia even from Central America and it was all made by the people who actually used to live in these countries.

Downstairs in the hall, small groups from different cultures were asked to perform dances and we couldn’t help but shout “VI VI VI LE LE LE VIVA CHILE” once Chile’s dance group had finished performing.

The chilean stall sold home-made empanadas with pebre and home-made pisco sour which set fire to your throat. My spanish practice had to step up a mark and who knew so many South Americans lived and worked around London.

The Anglo-Chilean Society raises money for organisations for Chilean Children much like The Elisa Educational Trust which have both formed a strong link with each other pushing forwards towards the same goal.

Visiting the Armonia school today really set home just how much help some organisations need but also how inspirational some people are. The Director set up the school shortly after discovering that her own daughter had Down’s Syndrome and gradually found other parents who were struggling to educate their children. She found grants and strived for better education for children suffering from Down’s Syndrome and 3 years later she is director of a great school which specialises in educating these children aged from as young as 2 years old. Back when her child was born, Chile did not recognise Down’s Syndrome let alone have anyone who could really support her and step by step she has pushed for better resources, more help and more awareness.

Financially, they struggle to meet bills. Every member of staff is paid but the government only give the amount of funding that is left after paying every other state school and not only do they come last from this long list of other state funded schools but they are paid a year later than everyone else too.

Today we started talking about connecting Gap Chile to this school, opening this option up to our volunteers who can help and assist in classes.

Watch this space!

Although we’re perfectly safe here, it’s quite interesting watching today’sevents unfold and the countdown to when these waves are supposed to be approaching the Chilean coastline. Hopefully, everyone is just being necessarily over precautious.

Thinking of Japan.

Every experience will remain with me. The children are marvellous both here and at the orphanage. I was especially privileged to go to the Down Syndrome Colegio ‘Armonia’ where they simply do an amazing job for the children. Grasp everything with open arms, enjoy your time and use every minute profitably – it’s something that will stay with you for a long long time.

I have made many friends here in Chile that I hope to see again one day and Ruth it’s been fabulous knowing you.

Love to all and very best wishes to Male and Manuel on the approaching birth of their baby!

Tia Maribel and Anna have a heart of gold and are both fantastic with the kids. Just get stuck in with them, the wee ones don’t care if you can’t speak or understand Spanish. I do wish I was able to get more of their amazing exciting stories though. I really have loved it.

Maria, where do I start! No problem is ever too big even if she doesn’t quite get what the problem is. She will come to your rescue every time. A very very wonderful lady.

Manuel and Male…thank you so much for helping me out with all my random requests. I wish you both all the very best with your baby and with jogi, I think you might have your hands full!

Other than the nursery, I spent some time at the orphanage. Again these are great kids with bags of energy. Push them on a swing, kick a football about or just give them a hug, they really don’t care they just want some love and attention.

Number one tip…get to know the locals. I was lucky enough to be taken under the wing of a few of the kids’ parents. What great people they are. We danced, laughed, partied and had an absolute blast.

I leave in the morning in the hope that the nice border people let me into Argentina on my bike to begin the second part of my South America adventure.

Jardin LIA and all those involved, I have loved it. I have many amazing memories of wonderful little and big people. Chile, it has been a pleasure.

Much love,

Ruthie

]]> http://gap-chile.com/2011/03/ruth-get-to-know-the-locals/feed/ 0 http://gap-chile.com/2011/03/jade-cachai/ http://gap-chile.com/2011/03/jade-cachai/#comments Tue, 01 Mar 2011 14:50:27 +0000 Ella http://www.gap-chile.com/blog/?p=39 Hola! I’m Jade from New Zealand. I’m 18 years old, and have been living in the great La Calera for the past month. And with no exaggeration, I can truthfully say it had been one of the best experiences in my life so far. I am actually writing this from the car, on the way to the airport, at 3am…because I so badly didn’t want to leave that I procrastinated from packing my bags until about 3 hours ago.

Now Gap, where to begin!

I have to say when I arrived, I felt a little nervous and I guess intimidated by the relaxed atmosphere of it all here. I wasn’t quite sure how to fit in, but after about a week and a half, I honestly felt like part of the family. Maria is one of the loveliest ladies you’ll ever meet. I don’t think I ever heard her say a cruel thing about somebody, and was like a second mum to me! (It also helped that I liked chocolate as much as she does) Manuel is wicked awesome. Such a good guy. And no matter how much he does for you he never makes it feel like it’s a chore for him. He’s pretty funny too – if you get his humour like I did. Male is super sweet and always seems to have a beautiful smile on her face.

So pretty much to sum all that up you’re in very good hands and have no need to worry.

During my stay the most I got involved in was visiting the boys down at el refugio de cristo. I’m definately going to miss them all a lot. Especially the feeling you get when you see their giant smiles shouting “tia/tio!!”" I got to hang out with them, playing football or marbles, and also helped out Manu with a few English classes – one of which I ran alongside Brad, which was quite challenging for my spanish but so worth it! I also had a quick visit to the Red Cross with Maria, and journeyed out to Valpo for a day selling completos to locals with the VSP. I didn’t spend much time in the nursery but when I did I was very welcomed by both the kids and the gorgeous tias!

Along with all of this, I got to see heaps in and around La Calera. Vina del Mar is beautiful, even in winter and Valparaiso is the place to head to be amongst some fellow gringos.

If I was to give you any advice, it would be to just get amongst it. Sounds cliche, but just chill and enjoy living as a true chileno/a. This is youre chance to experience the reality of Chilean life so embrace it! I love this kind of travelling as opposed to only visiting tourist attractions and I hope you will too.

What else, a) climb the hill to the cross, b) cut all the s’s off the end of your “gracias’s” and “mas’s” c) get used to hearing “po” at the end of every sentence and overuse it as much as you can. But most of all enjoy. God Bless.

Con mucho carino, Jade

Gracias por todo Gap Chile, Te Amo!

The views in Chile are spectacular and I would definitely recommend a trip to Valparaiso as and when you get the chance. There are all sorts of things to see and do down there and I don’t think I have ever seen a city with so much contrast in such a small area. One minute you can be walking down a run down area of the city and out of nowhere you will come across a beautiful building or an interesting statue.

The children in the nursery are some of the cutest kids you will ever see and they seem to enjoy interacting with you regardless of how good your Spanish may or may not be. My only bad experience in Chile was my one and only experience with milk. Be warned, unless you like the taste of fee, stay well clear of drinking any milk!

As brief as as my time in Chile was I would definitely recommend it to anyone. It’s a beautiful place with some of the friendliest people you will ever meet. If I could do it all over again I would but I would make sure I learnt Spanish at least a little before.

My only regret is that I couldn’t spend longer than 2 weeks there but it was certainly worth the 19 hour plane journey from the UK despite there being no TV’s on my plane!

First off, you’re being cared for by one of the lovliest families you’re going to meet – they’re amazing. Even if there’s a language barrier, you can tell how lovely they are.

Not many in Chile speak the English - so get your Espanol our nice and good.

Pay big attention to the Gap Chile team – they’re COMPLETELY amazing, and they totally know what they’re doing, so you don’t need to fret – you’re in good hands.

My favourite place to visit in this area is Valparaiso. It’s painfully cool (if not a little dodgy in parts), and there’s so much to see around the place. That said, there’s no where quite like Calera. The people here are extremely polite and don’t for one second make you feel like a foreigner – seriously you’ll feel like a true Chilean in no time. The moment you realise that you’ve left your roots behind and come to the Chilean side is either when you hear the national anthem and shout “Viva Chile!” - full of pride – or when you hear reggaton and you like it – worryingly, yet liberating all the same.

One of the most gratifying things is when either one of the nursery children, or the children from the orphanage, whip out some English, with beautiful pronounciation, and you see their faces light up when you say “MUY BIEN!” a ridiculous number of times – seriously a little tear comes to your eye. It’s worth flying half way across the world for – cheesy but so true.

Basically, Chile is one of the most beautiful places you could visit. The people are an ABSOLUTE treat, they become your family and it’s stunning to look at – waing up to the mountains outside your window (well hills but they look like mountains to me!). Gap Chile is amazing, and gives such wonderful opportunities that you wouldn’t get anywhere else. It’s bound to be the best time of your life! Gotta love Chile.

VIVA CHILE!

]]> http://gap-chile.com/2011/02/kerrianne-gotta-love-chile/feed/ 0 http://gap-chile.com/2011/02/volunteer-feedback/ http://gap-chile.com/2011/02/volunteer-feedback/#comments Thu, 24 Feb 2011 17:35:12 +0000 Ella http://www.gap-chile.com/blog/?p=43 These are a collection of snippets taken from our Volunteer Book in Chile. We leave this book for volunteers to write feedback and general tips to other volunteers in the house too. I haven’t written everything as I feel some should be left for the volunteers in La Casa grande but a huge thanks to every volunteer who took the time to contribute to this book.

And boy what neat writing you all have!

We turned up really late expecting to get a place to stay and everywhere was full. We found one cabanas place which had a room - la belle vue – for about $25,000 chilean pesos which got swiped from under our feet as we were discussing it by a family of 6 who were also pretty desperate for a room. So they really kindly offered to put us up in their house, shoving another bed in the room so we all had something to sleep on and saving us from a night spent in the car. We probably would have been fine had we not turned up at 11pm and quite honestly our hosts, two pretty funny older gentleman, were some of the best hosts I’ve ever come across and really made our stay a fun experience.

Although we only stayed one night – we got to see a few things I think I would definately go back for. There were some really cute looking restaurants at the bottom of the hill overlooking the sea and inside the town itself offers a variety of restaurants, not fancy but gets the job done.

We then drove down to La Playa Grande of Quintay which offers a small shop and a long stretch of sandy beach and a wave. Our friends were in a small local surf competition so we stayed to watch them get thrown about by the onshore waves in their first few heats before the wind swept us back into the car and heading home. The wave itself isn’t great but i’m judging that from one day. It has a little surf community there so when it’s good I can imagine its probably worth getting in for.

It took us around 3 hours from Valparaiso and was actually a really scenic route with good roads pretty much the entire trip. February is peak season so the Pichilemu beach itself was pretty rammed with kids, swimmers and sunbathers. Not suprising really to see alot of chilean families making most of the weather and apparantly a lot of Argentinians travel to the Chilean coast for the summer too. It was also the ALAS surf competitions which are held on the Punta de Lobos beach just outside Pichilemu so probably an extra crowded week. The water however was relatively crowdless, with a small group of surfers making the most of a peak in the swell on Pichilemu beach and a host of surfers taking advantage of the Punta de lobos wave round the corner from the competition area.

Finding accomodation was really easy with a lot of cabanas, rooms, hotels and hostels to haggle with as well as locals standing on the street side with cardboard signs for houses and apartments to rent so you don’t need to book in advance to find a place down there although i’m sure it saves the extra hassle.

If youre looking to buy a board in Chile – we saw a few signs for surf shops but didnt actually head in ourselves as we travelled in to Santiago to find a recommended shop. Board rental for foamies and larger boards was pretty cheap – around 4/5 luca (thousand pesos) for the day, not sure what it would cost for a wetsuit which is pretty much essential in these waters. I saw maybe one guy brave the cold wetsuitless and i’m pretty sure he didn’t last longer than half an hour.

Overall, Pichilemu was amazing and offered some of the best waves i’ve seen so far in Chile. It really does live up to the hype and is pretty easy on the eye too with black sand beaches and plenty to do in the evenings.