...I Went To Chile

It's all over.  It has been for months now, but I've been caught up in a whirlwind of travelling, debriefing and university preparations and beginnings!

I'm sorry that my posts tailed off.  It wasn't because I couldn't be bothered, but because when we were travelling I had problems with trying to update my blog in internet cafes.  And as you can imagine, our 2 weeks in Chile between returning from travelling and the journey back to the UK were manic.

So I am now sitting here in my room at the University of York writing my FINAL post on Chile.  I wanted to share with you, my loyal blogees :), 3 slide shows I have made of photographs from Chile.  I think they probably sum up the main aspects of my time there. Or at least some of them..  (sorry the quality has decreased when I uploaded them and there was music, but the sound on my laptop doesn't work, so I can't tell if it's still there or not!).  to watch them you will have to allow adobe flash player to run on this page if it is not already enabled.

This is the end of my gap year and my posts on chile (at least for now...), but I will still be blogging at http://www.ellenshalls.blogspot.com/ if you want to come and join me!

The People

View more presentations from ems515.

Travels

View more presentations from ems515.

Home for 8 Months

View more presentations from ems515.

Goodbye for now and thank you for all your support xx

...We Headed In A Northerly Direction

On Monday we got on a 7 1/2 hour bus journey to La Serena.  Anna suffers from panic attacks...and I am a control freak who doesnt like situations that are beyond my control!  So you can imagine the deep breathing that was having to be done when we discovered thast the road that the bus station is on was closed off that morning.  it was 10:02, the traffic was awful because of the closure and our bus was due to leave at 10:05!

But luckily the bus was late too, so we even had time to grab some sandwiches for the trip.  And I`m very glad, as I don`t think I would have survived 7 1/2 hours without food!

Me and Anna`s immediate impressions of La Serena were...not amazing.  It is a colonial town, and to be honest the central part feels like it could be any colonial town in Spain.  I actually took 0 pictures of La Serena itself, although I should really have snapped a few of it´s 29 churches...

On our first proper day there we decided to venture into the Valle Elqui, the valley where the grapes that make Pisco (Chile´s natioal spirit) grow.  Funnily enough, we did not go to a Pisco distillary, but to the town of Vicuña.  Vicuña is about an hour away from La Serena and it was very quiet, being low season.  We thought it would be nice to climb a hill mentioned in the guidebook.  The only problem was that there was NO directions to it!  But in true Project Trust volunteer style, we just looked for the nearest hill and started wandering in it´s direction.

Luckily (actually, it had nothing to with luck, but more to do with my amazing sense of direction :) ), we ended up on a little path that led to the top of the hill where there was indeed some good views, despite the mist.

Sunbathing on the roof.

Anna doesn´t like heights :)

And in true Chilean style there was a statue of the virgin on top of the hill.  I´m not sure that I have been to a town yet that hasn´t had a Virgin/Christ/cross on top of a hill somewhere!

Unfortunately I am on timed internet use!  So you shall have to wait for the rest of our travels so far: Copiapo yesterday and San Pedro de Atacama today!

...I Took Off On My Travels

Hello!  Sorry it´s been so long since my last post, me and Anna have been all caught up in themayhem that is pre-travel preparations.

But we´re here now!  We have officially left Colina for a month!

Our first stop is Valparaiso.  I´m sure you´ll remember it from the last time, the city with all the houses stacked up on the hills. Yes, well.  We both loved Valparaiso and wanted to pay it another visit.  So we made it our first port of call on our travels.  We arrived here on Friday afternoon and leave on Monday morning.

It´s been nice having our first stopover in a place that we´ve been before.  We don´t feel guilty about just chilling out for a bit, because we´ve seen all the main sights already.  So we´ve just had a nice few days of settiling into this whole travelling malarky and I am now really looking forward to the rest of our month´s road trip.

Have some more photos of Valpo:


Random horse in the big city!  Love it :)

What a welcome

One can never have enough street dogs!

An acensor and a random statue of Christ.  That´s got South America written all over it.

Playing with my camera and it´s b/w setting :)

Can´t forget the cats.

And the stairs!

Why not dry your clothes on the roof?

Life in Chile would not be the same without bread!  (Panadería = bakery...bread bakery)

Next we are heading further north to La Serena.  Talk to you all from there!

...I Got All Proud

On Wednesday me, Katie and Anna took 5 of the boys that participate (although we were exhibiting 6 participants´ photos) in me and Katie´s photography club at the home to Santiago.  Some of their photos are being exhibited along with those from photography clubs at 2 other Coanil institutions.

Here are the photos that we chose to exhibit:

 It was really sweet and the boys were so proud to have their pictures on display.  María José, the volunteer coordinator for Coanil, said a few words, as did some of the volunteers who run one of the other workshops.  Then all the participants were handed out certificates reconising their achievements, which was a really nice touch.

Here are our boys with their photos and their certificates:

It all went very well and it was a well needed distraction from the atmosphere that is still hanging around the home and school since Belen´s death.

And I should add that we went ourselves, SIN TÍAS!  This wasn´t exactly planned, but it was nice to have the trust put in us to take some of the people we work with out into the big bad world for an hour or so!

Hope you are all well. xx

..."Life After" Began

Well.

I definitely feel as if one part of my life is over and the new, more worldly wise, level-headed and ready for anything Ellen is here to stay.

Losing Belen was something that I wish I hadn´t had to experience.  But I did.  And I´m going to make sure that I take something other than bad memories away from it all.

Today we all got properly back on the figurative horse and had a good day´s work with fewer tears and fewer feelings of hopelessness.

There´s no going back now.  We are all made of pretty tough stuff and I am so proud of the other 3 girls.

And who would want to sit around wallowing life away when you have faces like this to greet you at work every day?!





...Tení Pena

Her name was Belen.  She was 8 years old.  She died on Sunday night.  We buried her today. 

I can´t tell you how many tears I cried when I heard she was gone.  I can´t tell you how many tears I cried when I heard how it happened.  I can´t tell you how many pieces my heart broke into when I saw her tiny white coffin.  And I pray that never again will I feel the pain that I felt when that little white coffin was lowered into the ground.

The past two days have been two of the hardest days of my life.  I can´t imagine how the Tías that witnessed her passing are coping.  They are still working.  I can´t imagine how her Godmother is coping.  She organised the funeral.  And I´m not sure if her teacher will ever fully recover from this.

But I´ve just about come to terms with it now.  The funeral brought some peace.  It was indescribably painful, but at least we all saw that she was being laid to rest in a peaceful, pretty place and that she was being remembered by all the people that cared for her both physically and emotionally when she was with us and will continue to do the latter for the rest of their lives.

And it hasn´t put me off this line of work.  In fact, it has made me even more determined to do my utmost to make a difference to the lives of other children like Belen.

<3   Rest In Peace Gorgeous Girl   <3

...Our Road Became A River

Chile has well documented problems with it´s water supply.  And we have felt the effects ourselves with frequent loss of water as they try to repair problems or having to cycle through flooded streets on our way to do our shopping.  But this was the most rediculous problem yet!

Luckily the problem was sorted pretty quickly and we only had to share 2 pairs of wellies lent to us by a Tio from the school for 2 days!

At the moment we are busy helping with a whole load of activities centred around painting a mural on the wall surrounding the home.  So i´ll have a post on that tomorrow maybe.  Here´s a sneaky preview of what we´ve been up to: