So there I was, reading along, when I came across an article titled "Why do you Travel? Share your Stories." A contest. The idea was for readers to submit short essays describing why they travel, and whether they have been particularly enlightened, surprised, or changed by a travel experience.
As soon as I read this, there was no doubt in my mind about the single most enlightening trip I've made: Chile. Now there are pages and pages and pages I could write about my time there, and all the wonderful, scary, and random things that I went through while I was there. But in light of the work I've been doing with AmeriCorps, I found the best way to keep the essay brief was to talk about the world apart from the great metropolis that you can discover on a single subway ride. And so I said:
I travel because I’m curious. I travel because I have a never-ending urge to see what’s around the corner, to get a glimpse of something new. I travel because I want to give my mind an escape, a reason to be challenged, to think about something different, to ask questions, to get confused, and if I’m really lucky, to completely shut off. This is maybe the same reason why I run – because I want to feel unleashed on my own two feet, lost in my own mind and the sole determiner of where my next step will land.
It was this curiosity and this desire to throw the tourist guidebook out the window and find my own road map that led me to Santiago, Chile. I was more than surprised when what started out as a five-month volunteering experience turned out to be the very trip that pulled me eyes open and dragged me into the reality of economic disparity that I knew existed but never envisioned to witness so distinctly.
I am a native of Argentina, so I have learned, lived and noticed, without doubt, the differences between South and North America – economically, culturally, and even racially. But I never really saw it the way I did until I was living in downtown Santiago in an apartment building with a rooftop pool. Now don’t get me wrong, this was the smallest apartment for three people I have ever seen, but it had wireless internet, a clean bathroom, and solid walls that on the twelfth floor of the building didn’t even suffer from a minor crack when we were hit by a magnitude 8.8 earthquake. Rather, the 15-story skeleton swayed like a flag in the wind and brought itself to a controlled, soft stop after the gruesome four-minute quake.
What was most enlightening about this trip was that every morning I would wake up in this modern, structurally sound, adequately equipped apartment and walk five minutes to get on one subway for half an hour, switch to another subway, ride that one for another half hour, while watching the city get farther and farther, and the mountains get closer and closer, to arrive in Puente Alto, a poverty-stricken suburb of Santiago.
From there, it was a 15-minute walk through vendors, barking dogs and graffiti-covered walls to the final destination – an iron door surrounded by a wall of bricks stacked in a way that looked like the tail end of a game of Jenga, topped off with a line of barbed wire. A wall, that coincidentally, did not survive the earthquake the way my apartment building did, but rather, in true Jenga form, collapsed into a pile of rubble at the shake of the ground.
Behind this fragile wall lived 65 teenage girls, victims of psychological and physical abuse – angered, scared, intimidated by their traumatizing pasts, lacking the trust to open up to outsiders. But they were much more than that – what I came to find over time was that most of the girls really did want to share their stories, laugh, giggle, be silly, receive positive attention, talk, and simply, have a new friend.
During my five months in Santiago, I believe I was able to build relationships and make an impact at least in some of these girls’ lives, but never without closing that iron door behind me each day, walking away from the barbed wire, back to the subway, and heading home into my own reality with a hint of guilt –guilt from leaving the girls behind, better grasping the conditions they lived in, and with a better understanding of what Santiago really was like, and what really existed beyond tourist attractions.
How could there be such a gap within one metropolis? And we’re not even talking the poorest of the poor nations in the world here – in fact, Chile is one of the most economically advanced nations in South America, and yet, this immense difference was palpable – and it only took me less than 1 dollar of subway fare to find this out, to be thrown into this enlightening reality.
In a country that has so much beauty, that is so skinny that you can get from the Andes to the Pacific coast or from your apartment to the country next door in a short bus ride, that is famous for its wine and it’s Patagonia hikes – why wasn’t everything thriving as it should be? Why was one subway ride the ticket to another galaxy?
I can, without a doubt, say that this experience changed me, how I think, and how I differentiate tourism from travel, stories from reality. This experience was what today leads me to lose myself in new destinations. I suffer from a never-ending itch to travel, to see what I can find next, and where I can feel that sense of enlightenment again, where I can feel so motivated, puzzled, and intrigued for new adventures by one subway ride again.
So, I didn't win the contest, and my essay was not published in the New York Times, but it was worth the writing just to get myself to sit down, and more than a year later look back on my time in Chile.
Interestingly enough, just last week, VE Global, this organization I volunteered with, had a contest as well, where they asked ex-volunteers to post a picture (extra points for wearing a VE shirt) and give a brief description of where they are now. I thought this was a super cool idea, and a great way to find out where VE alumns have gone -- all over the world, really.
And so I told my story. I wrote about how much I miss everyone over there -- the other volunteers, the girls, the people at the home I worked with, pretty much everything about Santiago....except of course the huge earthquake (a great story, but not one I ever want to re-live). I wrote about the sadness I felt when I found out the home where I worked, the one filled with 65 young girls, closed down just last month, forcing these girls to re-locate and find a new place to call home. I wrote about what I do now, the great organization I've been fortunate to work with, Communities in Schools, it's empowering mission to keep kids in school, and my efforts in running a marathon to achieve a personal running goal but also to raise money and more importantly, awareness of what this organization does.
To my great surprise, and contrary to my New York Times experience, I won this contest! I think the picture, greeting everyone from one of Austin's best known murals (and let me tell you, there are murals everywhere), sporting a VE shirt, and jumping for the warmth VE makes me feel, was really what did it. What did I win? A free VE shirt. Sweet! More importantly what did I win? The chance to bring back memories, to share memories, and to feel proud of where those memories have taken me.
Happy greetings, and cheers to travel, y'all!
Bien hecho, Mariana! :)
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