...I Climbed A Few Steps

  It was Mhairi´s birthday the Wednesday before last.  It was INCREDIBLE.  I mean, I like other people´s birthdays more than my own anyway, but this one was particularly special.  I´m afraid I don´t have many pictures of the day to share with you, as I was too busy living in the moment, but other people were snapping away, so if I can get my hands on any of their photos, I´ll post them at a later date.

In the morning, me and Katie got up early and decorated the house with balloons, streamers and a banner.  We all had a birthday breakfast together with her 19 little presents from us sitting in a pile in the middle of the table.

Then it was off to work as usual...or so we thought.  Mhairi was sent off on various round-about errands by her teacher while her classroom was being decorated.  When she got back, she was greeted by her class and the one next door singing Feliz Cumpleaños, a big cake and presents from her teacher and teaching assistant, as well as others in the school.

Then we were all called out of our respective classes and asked to go up to the home.  This confused us quite a lot, as we thought that if it was anything to do with Maz´s birthday, they would wait until the afternoon, when we normally work at the home.  So we sort of assumed it would be about the lastest problem with our house (there is ALWAYS something!).

But we were wrong.  It was indeed birthday-related.  The office meeting room was all set up for a little party, with decorations and food.  All the office staff came in to wish Mhairi a happy birthday and then one of the ex-residents of the home who now lives externally and works in the home and school performed a dance she had put together specially.  As this came to an end, the director of the home came in carrying an ENORMOUS birthday cake and all the staff started singing Happy Birthday...in English!  They had learnt it just for our Maz!  The director of the home gave her a present and said that they all wanted to make sure Mhairi had a special day, because she is far away from her family and they are all like her Chilean family.

At this point I went all watery eyed and weepy and had to take a few deep breaths to prevent myself from breaking down completely.  It was so sweet and heartfelt and was a concrete affirmation that we have been thoroughly adopted into the amazing community that is the home.

We went back to the school to finish our day´s work and then had a quiet afternoon together, Mhairi opening her presents from us and all of us rolling around after the amount of cake we´d eaten!  Before all the teachers went home we were asked over to the school again where we had yet more party food with the director of the school and all the teachers we work with.  it was really nice to spend some time just chatting to them in such an informal setting and getting a bit of our personalities across (so glad I have finally reached that level of Spanish!) because they´re all really nice people that we want to get to know better!

So that was the incredible day of Mhairi´s 19th birthday in Chile, or the highlights at least.

And we wanted to do something special for her birthday weekend.  So we booked ourselves into a hostel and headed off to Valparaiso on Saturday morning.

Valparaiso is the cultural centre of Chile.  It is a sprawling city with an undeniably bohemian air.  I love it!

We spent Saturday afternoon getting lost in the hills (deliberately, it´s what everyone told us was the best way to see Valpo) and falling in love with the steep streets and colourful houses.  We went out on Saturday night with the 2 PT volunteers that live and work in Valparaiso.  the clocks went back here on Saturday night, which meant we were out for an hour longer than our watches said - confusing!

On sunday morning, we got up promptly and me and Anna set off to find Pablo Neruda´s (Chilean poet) house in Valparaiso (he had homes all over Chile).  We found it without getting lost, asking for dirctions or looking at a map once, which was a complete fluke.  Thank you sense of direction!

It was really interesting to see the eclectic mix of objects and excentric designs woven into the house and the view from the patio was amazing.  We met up with the other two and aimlessly wandered for a while more.  Then we met up with one of the PT boys and he showed us round 2 markets - a flea market and an antiques market.  I think I need some kind of award for not buying anything!  He also took us to one of the more unusual ascensores (antiquated lifts built in the 19th/20th century to transport people up Valparaiso´s endless hills) of the city.  Most of the lifts are like super-steep trams that take you just a few streets up the hill.  But this one started at the end of a long underground tunnel and ended up at an incredible viewpoint 3 stories off the ground.  Photo time!

We had an amazing time wandering around the city and climbing some of it´s millions of steps (getting to the hostel alone was quite a feat) and all of us agreed that we want to go back.  Until we meet again Valparaiso!