And now it´s been a month

Dear Friends,

I have been in Chile for a month and a half now, and I can´t believe how quickly the time has passed.

I have fallen in love with my kids at the Jardin, and finally, I took lots of photos of them for you all to see! I´m working on a flicker page as well, if you want to see them allllll.

My pattern at the jardin is starting to feel quite natural. I have an hour commute, first the metro, then the micro (bus), and then a ten minute walk to the Toma. The other Tias and I eat breakfast together and drink tea and coffee while the children arrive and eat their breakfast as well.

We have circle time, where we sing all different songs in Spanish and I recognise almost all the tunes, but not the words. Then the kids go out to the patio to play for about a half hour, followed by an art project led by the Tias, either painting or drawing. Then back out to the patio until lunch. The pattern is pretty much repeated in the afternoon, except for about one day a week when we go to the park!

I´m working on some small programming for the kids. There are very few books at the jardin, and the ones that are there, are missing pages and have scribbled drawings all over them. There are small amounts of money alloted to all volunteers to buy supplies for programing, so I hope to buy some board books to teach the kids how to care for books, and to start having story time once or twice a week.

Overall, I am really enjoying being a part of this VE-Global organization community. We have a general newsletter that updates folks on any new programs going on, events, and overall organization news, so if you´re interested in being on that newsletter, please let me know. We are always looking for new contacts!

We are also at the beginning of this years fundraising campaign! If anyone is interested in donating please let me know or go to the website, www.ve-global.org. We are trying to be very creative in our fundraising and as volunteers we are trying to raise $30,000 by the end of the year (our internal campaign)! So if anyone wants to hold an event wherever you are, that would be greatly appreciated, easy and creative ideas are encouraged.

I am currently applying for a new position within the organization, a coordinator position. This would mean I would spend a little less time with the kids and more time doing work for the organization and being in charge of a committee of volunteers (kind of like being a quaker committee clerk) . I would feel a little more balanced this way, because I become easily exhausted when I spend all day every day only with los niños.

I stay super busy here in Santiago, which is why I've been here almost two months and have only completed 2 blog posts. I'm working on this.

Thank you all for reading and I'll keep you posted!

For more pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2038
200&id=55100930&l=67baf34ae8