Failure

As I prepare to head home, for what was supposed to be for good, I'm doing some thinking about what I'm coming back to.

I worked for six months in a school for children with mental disabilites, and got to know 5 children as well as I could. The situation was far from ideal for a number of reasons: My limited spanish, the rotating tias, behavioral issues. Sometimes I hear myself complaining about all of this and I think to myself "What did you expect Lauren? This is supposed to be hard. This is why you're here."

I was shocked by how difficult the past six months were. Everyday that I couldn't communicate with my tia, and everyday that I went home with bruises I was surprised that this was something I committed to. Beyond that, when I unofficially became the primary teacher for the class and spent hours trying to figure out how to keep them busy, I also lost sight of my real purpose in the class. My purpose was to be an extra set of hands, to get to know kids on a more personal level and support them in a way that the school couldn't.

I failed, and I can finally admit that.

I tried, but I didn't try hard enough. I played, but I didn't put my whole self into it. Mostly, I saw that something was happening, I thought that something was happening, and I didn't say anything.

On a Monday morning a few weeks ago, one of my girls came to class looking like she hadn't eaten in weeks, hadn't slept in days and was unable to focus or work. Something happened to her....anyone could see it.

But she couldn't tell me what had happened. She is shy with limited verbal skills. She sat in pain for an hour before one the tias finally said to me: "There is something wrong. We have to do something."

My first thought was of her brother. How during my first week, a tia sat me down and told me each child's horror story, of their poverty and neglect and abuse. I took it all in and didn't really hear it, not only because of the language barrier, but also because sometimes, there is only so much of what happens to children that you can really comprehend.

I put it all in the back of my mind, thinking my tia was being slightly dramatic, and trying to scare the gringa with how scary and horrible things are. I fooled myself into believe that because my kids had parents in their lives, they were better off.

So I knew that there was a possibility that my nine-year-old student was being abused by her brother. I knew and I didn't tell anyone. I assumed that if someone had told me, everything was being taken care of. It wasn't, and we were all to blame.

I blame her mother, for allowing her brother to live with her for so long. I blame the school's director, fo having to be convinced for an hour that we should call the police. I blame my tia for telling me that a child was being abused, and not telling me what to do about it. I blame everyone for putting me in a position that I wasn't qualified or prepared for. I blame myself for being the only one who saw that girl everyday and didn't say anything.

The nine-year-old told us, me and another tia who was helping me with the class, what happened to her. We had to coax her. Sunday had been her birthday. We asked her what she ate. We asked her about her presents. We asked her who hurt her.

The police came an hour later. They questioned us, asking over and over if we were sure we heard what we heard. I've never been more sure of anything. I feel asleep hearing her small voice repeating those three words. They took her away as quickly as they came. No one could find her mother (it isn't uncommon for people to change phone numbers, or not have a phone at all), so she would be at the gate at 1pm to pick up her daughter, and I'd have to explain why she wasn't there.

The rest of the school staff went to a meeting to discuss what happened. I wasn't invited, because I'm just a volunteer.

Life is hard. Choices are hard. The idealism that goes along with this job is a blessing and a curse. Its easy to feel like just by being in a child's life, with good intentions and a smile, is enough because so often it is. But there are times when you have to do more, when you can't be afraid to speak, or afraid to fail. There are times when idealism keeps you from seeing reality. There are times when you are going to realize that you aren't doing as much as you could be.

It all comes back to the little victories: The nine-year-old girl no longer lives with her brother, but in an hogar where we can visit, and check on her, and maybe put some constant volunteers. An autistic student finally learned my name. She asks for me when I'm not there.

We just keep learing. I'm convinced that my failure will actually make us better and will teach us something. At least I hope so.

Celebrating Death....

These past three weeks have been, in a word, a nightmare. I just learned this word in Spanish (there are lots of words I just don't learn because I can use something else to describe them...nightmare/bad dream, all the same when I'm crazy-talking in Spanish), so I think that its a fitting adjective. We had a new crop of volunteers come in (they're cool) and we had the big event (the PR Director in me is saying IT WAS GREAT; the crazy-sensitive-sleepdeprived-caterer in me is saying not so much). Needless to say, we are not a well oiled machine. But looky looky at my beautiful food:And my beautiful ladies in their beautiful dresses:

Does anything else really matter, if you're wearing a new black dress? I think not.

Once the event was over, and I stopped feeling like a lunatic, our next big stress was the move. The organization finally has an office in the center. For anyone who has been reading this from the beginning, our old office was a house in the Santiago equivalent of Flushing, Queens. Or "the chucha" if you want to be vulgrrr about it. I lived there, for a while on a mattress on the floor that made me what to cry. "We" decided that living with 8 people, and trying to work in an incoveniently located house was maybe not the best for business. So! "We" rented a three-bedroom apartment, which is our new home/office. "We" are the administration of a non-profit and "we" are getting more and more official every day!

Of course, as things go, our big move came on an even bigger day for Chile, and for Latin America. Pinochet, former dictador, died on December 10th. We were standing in the house, taking furniture out onto the lawn to wait for the Flete when we got the call. "Pinochet is dead. Be prepared for some celebrations in Plaza Italia." Which is, of course, exactly where our new office is.

We moved our furniture in, with the help of some insanely nice building men, as the noise from the plaza swelled and swelled. At first, random shouts and chants. Over two hours there was a unified presence of Communists, Socialists and random young people celebrating the end of an era.

I walked out to the Plaza, at first just to see what was going on. We walked down the street to have a drink, and sat in a little schoperia watching the people stream down Alameda throwing confetti and drinking Escudo. Later, we joined the crowd (awesome fotos to come) for a while, just as they starting singing "Cumpleaños Feliz". And I got really uncomfortable.

Agosto Pinochet was a dictator, who tortured and killed thousands of people. Under his regime, Socialists and Communists were taken from their homes and families, never to be seen again. Last week I visited Villa Grimaldi, the most famous torture site in Santiago. Its an eerie place, recently turned into a park (Parque de la Paz) and open to the public. You can take a walking tour guided by an actual survivor, who describes in detail what went on there. If you want to find out more about Villa Grimaldi, or Pinochet, click here: http://www.villagrimaldicorp.cl/ (they have a site in English).

I've never been happy that someone died before. I've never felt compelled to take to the streets and mock a dead person's family, and mark the day as one of celebration. Its difficult to explain the effect that Pinochet had on this country, or the fact that half of its citizens are currently mourning him while others are declaring victory over evil. Most dictators are revered and loathed simlutaneously, or else they wouldn't be in power to begin with. But even after hearing the horror of what happened under his rule, and talking to people who lived through, I still can't help but feel pangs of guilt for cheering and dancing and singing because and old man died.

So I went home.