March was one of the busiest months I´ve had in Santiago. We literally had a VE event every single weekend: We held our annual trivia event to raise funds, we took our Jornada retreat to the Cajon de Maipu for a reflection and bonding time specifically for the new class of volunteers, we had our first Liga de Deportes event which happens once a month with our kids and we had our bi-annual Festival de Arte (organized by...me!) for the children as well.
Jornada, is one of the most special parts of VE and it reminds me exactly of the good ol´QLSP days. It´s a time were we leave the loud, dirty city (not that Guilford was loud or dirty) and take a retreat to the Cajon de Maipu and stay in an incredibly trainquilo retreat center called Chalet de Piedra.
During my last Jornada I spent a lot of time reflecting on why I came to VE/Chile, as well as getting to know the antiguos (old VE volunteers and directors) better as well as the other volunteers in my class.
This Jornada was very different as I was a guia (guide) for one of the small groups of new volunteers. Last time, the antigous and directors where there creating the experience for me, whereas this time I was taking part in creating the experience for others. This was really awesome and helped me get to know the new volunteers and remind myself that clerking or group facilitation is something I feel really good about doing and havn´t done in a long time.
I still had the chance to reflect on my work with VE and so much has changed from being a volunteer to being on the directors team. I took out my old personal and professional goals (which Mariah keeps for everyone in sealed envelopes with our names on them) and was pleasantly surprised to see how many of my initial goals I´ve achieved, especially the personal ones: being outgoing in Spanish, realizations that I can be in a different country, all alone, and make good friends and still be myself as wierd as I may be, etc! The professional one´s have changed so much from working directly with the children to working mostly in the office, so it was harder to see progress in that area.
Then April rolled on in, with an exciting event the first weekend: The Santiago Marathon. I ran the half (13 miles, 21 kilometres) with two of my co-workers (both of my bosses actually) and we had one friend who ran the full as well!
I was really excited about this run becuase before I started training, I had never ran more than 7 miles in my life. So it was quite an achevement for me. I finished in 2 hours, 5 minutes and 25 seconds and felt goooooood.
Besides that, leaves are starting to fall in Santiago, days and nights are getting increasingly colder and I´m starting to wonder how I´ll fare in a country with no central heating in any indoor spaces. I just may find myself spending a lot of time in the one cafe with heating on my block...luckily they have super tasty tea there, and even gluten free treats for my dear coeliac friend.
I think I´ll probably manage:)
