"Children grown at the edge of the ocean" - Volunteering at Gurises Unidos

At the Universidad Católica de Uruguay, where I study, they offer volunteer work as a module, that was one of the things that attracted me about Uruguay when picking my choices for year abroad destinations, as I would be more exposed to the real Montevideo, not just the life of the "nice" neighbourhoods, such as Pocitos and Carrasco.

I volunteer at Gurises Unidos, an organization that fights for Human Rights of children and teenagers at both the national and international levels. It also helps the families and communities of those who are most vulnerable and whose voices are sometimes stifled.

It works together with the much bigger organization, Ielsur (Instituto de Estudios Legales y Sociales del Uruguay), which was created in 1984 with the purpose of defending Human Rights by the means of legal instruments. Since 1990 children and teenager have held a bigger chunk of their attention and that's where Gurises Unidos comes into play. It has now been 20 years sice their partnership. 

Gurises Unidos has a office for each of the main neighbourhoods of Montevideo and a team which follows it. They provide help for families who often turn up at their door with no where else to go, carry out street searches for children and teenagers who have been forced to live on the street, and provide afternoon activities for children and teenager whose parents are either in prison or living on the streets. They also provide guidance to teenage mothers and help towards finding a job to teenage who have finished school.

I volunteer with the team that organizes activities for vulnerable children. These children no longer live with their parents, they are taken care by their grandparents or elder siblings and are, therefore, more at risk of being forced onto the streets. Laura, Lucía, Iñigo, Flavia (a fellow volunteer from the Univeristy) and I get together once a week to plan the activity for the next meeting with the children.

The activities have a very rigid structure in order to attempt to maintain good behaviour. The structure is also aimed at helping the children to open up if they have any problems at home, as well as to develop the hability to listen and concentrate on a more monotomous activity. As an introduction, fruit, which has been prepared by us volunteers, is shared between the children, whislt they tell us about their week. Then the main activity is introduced, we spend sometime on it until its time have a snack, which they help prepare in the kitchen. This is my favourite time. It is when they are most keen to help and everthing gets done very quickly. We sit down to eat and talk. This part is lovely as there is very little focus and pressure on the conversation, I think this is why they are much more receptive and open at this time. The children then brush their teeth and we all wait for their relatives to pick them up. Although, two of the kids have to catch two buses by themselves to get home, where they will probably be greeted by a hostile environment.

The current activity we have planned has the theme of storytelling. The group of 10 children were separated into 2 groups of 5. In these groups the children have to develop round characters, these must have likes and dislikes, talents and a personality. My group has developed a kite, called Carolina, in my hounour (hehe!), who is able to grow legs when on land and has the ability of herding sheep. I love our character and the children for creating her.

Volunteering has provided me a a very big reality check/shock. This past week has been one of the hardest weeks of my volunteering experience. We had planned a very nice activity for the kids but they took advantage of the fact that the main coordinator was absent and tested our limits to the maximum, I was bitten and hit and rejected by the children and a fellow volunteer was called names by a 8-year-old girl. They were out of control. I came home exhausted and stunned. All I could do was sleep and wait until the next morning, when the other volunteers and I would meet with the coordinator in order to talk about what had happened and plan for the weeks ahead. This was a very hard meeting. They explained to us why the kid behave the way they do. One little boy suffers daily physical and psychological abuse, not only from his relatives but from himself too. This hit me hard and I had to swallow back the tear. I have so much love for these kids, I want them to listen to me so they can help me help them. But I'm not sure that's possible. I have no tools or skills to make them listen.

It is also a challenge because one the kids is epileptic and we have to try our best to take her out of her shell. At home she takes the role of the crazy one and is unable to perform as well as she could because of this. Also, her medication makes her very sleep and sometimes its hard for her to participate in the activities.

It is all a challenge. Sometime I wish I didn't have to go but when I'm there and one of them holds my hand or gives you that genuine hug only children are able to give. It makes it all worth it. I know they will never remember me when they grow up but I will always remember them.

The Flying...Whaaat?!

Today I googled 'the flying satchel' to see if my blog came up as a search result.

Apparently it doesn't.

But this does:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlHrbkv16SY

I would like to make it clear from the beginning that my interpretation of the word 'satchel' as a name for my blog was the very popular bag worn by students, executives and post officers alike.

The history of this type of bag is somewhat unclear but it is known that it was first worn by Roman legionaries, who were soldier of the Roman army, and was called loculus. But, who knows what they would have looked like and if nowadays they would even be called satchels. Maybe they would be called shoulder bags or duffel bags or bumbags. Most recently it has been worn by students at Cambridge and Oxford universities in England. The satchel also has a South American cousin, best known as the carriel. It is a small leather "satchel" from Colombia and is somewhat fancier and more attractive, but I love the simplicity of the “original” satchel.

But enough with the history and technical fashion terminology (after all this is not a fashion blog). The real reason why I chose this name, with the help of my lovely mother and clever stepdad, is that the satchel is an object that is able to transport other objects to many places. It allows for these objects at times to be taken out and used taken out and used. Other times these same objects will stay put in some hidden corner or fold in the lining for decades. This is very much like what our brains do with thoughts, dreams, knowledge and memories. This blog is my brain-satchel. I aim it to be the organized form of the contents of my brain but as that sounds a bit of a big challenge to undertake, and to achieve it I would have to be writing constantly, I will write about the things I think about most and the events that more greatly change my life and who I am. As I believe that travel is the one single action, composed of many other actions, that changes me most, obviously, that is what my blog will be mostly about. However, there are many other things that have changed my life, like coffee, for example, but that's a story for another time.

Did you follow that?

I'm not sure I did.

I guess my satchel is more disorganized than I thought.

Chau.

Colonia del Sacramento

I've realized I haven't written anything about travel yet and that's, like, the biggest part of my life. Its pretty much all I think about but its very hard to put into words without sounding boring.

Well, my first Uruguayan "physical" trip was taken with a group of intenational students and organized by two girls from the university where I am studying, Paulie and Vale. It was the first trip they ever organized and in their words "it was a success".

I took several things from this trip, amongst these was a dreadlock (rasta, en Español) and left many behind including my ablity to tolerate intolerance towards the way I am and the history of the town. That's right! Before I went I had read very little about the place and when given the opportunity to collect more information I chose to ignore it. I did know it is Uruguay's only UNESCO heritage site, though!

We visited Colonia del Sacramento. The trip included a visit to a very quirky museum, a guided tour around the old part of the city and what was referred to as Pizza Party. The museum was made up of the largest keyring and pencil collections in the world and  looked like the organized form of an old man's clutter, that's one of the reasons why I loved it so much! I mean this guy found a way to make money from his junk! He's a genius. Opening my own museum has now become my plan K as a career goal.

The guided tour was a waste of time. All I remember from it is that the town, and indeed Uruguay, had once been in Portuguese and Spanish hands and that I already knew. The rest went into one ear and out the other.

The Pizza Party took place at the hostel, which, by the way, was a really cool hostel. There was a hammock, ladders up to the roof, hippie drawings on the wall and a barbecue, which was used to cook the pizzas. The amount of pizza was very minimalist and Phoebe (a friend from London, who studies in Leeds and I only met here) and I ended up sharing a whole chicken pie she had been given as a "snack"-for-the-bus by her host mum...#uruguayanlogic.

The town was very pleasant and quiet. Like Montevideo it is on the riverbank and there are a few fluvial beaches, including a very secluded one at the end of a tiny street, which was inhabited by many unique (at least for me) plants and creatures. We were there during low season so there were very few tourists, most of whom had floated across the Río de la Plata from Buenos Aires, probably in their own boats or the ferry. There were also a few couples, strolling about with hands held tightly together. Sigh.

No doubt the highlight of my trip and the uncovering of a really cool park, which featured a single wall with a hole through which it was possible to see across the river and a curly sculpture made out of planks of wood. Phoebe, Katrin (Austria), Nina (Germany), Emily (USA), Franziska (Germany) and I sat soaking up the hot sun for a while before lazily getting up to meet the rest of the group and begin to make our way back to urban (by comaparison) Montevideo.

Another high point was seeing the sun set for the first time in Uruguay. In Montevideo it is relatively hard to see the sun-set as it sets on a side which is less accessible for lazy people. It was also Phoebe's first ever sun-set!

We had calculated it well: coffee, then climb about 100 steps to the top of the lighthouse, then sun-set. Also, well calculated was the amount of time spent in this colonial town. Although it was very nice to get out of Montevideo and the coffee was unquestionably great (!!!), two days were more than enought to see what Colonia del Sacramento had to show.

Gracias
y
ciao.

Hoot-Hoot

eule

owl

gufo

hibou

búho

bubo

óliva

nuctua

strix

coruxa

coruja

ulchabán

cioccio

cucco

cucca

But before.

By Gregorio Duvivier.

Translated by me.

Original at: http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/colunas/gregorioduvivier/2013/07/1318207-mas-antes.shtml

She left home slamming the door behind her. But before, he had told her to go fuck herself. But before, she had asked him to clean up the mess he had made. But before, he had poured wine on the rug. But before, she had doubted he would pour wine on the rug. But before, she had said that it was not her fault he didn’t have a job. But before, he had said she didn’t need to rub in his face that he didn’t have money to buy a new rug. But before, she had said her mother deserved to be respected, after all, she had furnished the flat, from the fan to the rug. But before, he had said that her mother was a cow. But before, her mother had left the flat slamming the door behind her. But before, he had asked her mother to leave, preferably without slamming the door behind her. But before, her mother had said he was getting fat. But before, he had said her mother was getting old. But before, her mother had asked him if he had found a job. But before, he had said that her mother arriving suddenly would be the last straw. But before, her mother had arrived suddenly. But before, they had kissed and apologized and promised never to fight again. But before, he had asked her why nothing he ever did was good enough. But before, she had complained he didn’t know how to open a bottle of wine. But before, he tried opening the bottle of wine. But before, she had suggested he opened the bottle of wine. But before, they had kissed. But before, they had dropped off their children at his sister’s house. But before, they had said that tonight would be a beautiful night. But before, she had said she was very proud of the husband he was. But before, he had cried because this was not how he imagined himself at 35. But before, he had been rejected at the job interview. But before, she had said she trusted him blindly. But before, he had said it was only a job interview, and that nothing was certain yet. But before, they had agreed to celebrate both things: their anniversary and the new job. But before, they had woken up and realized they had spent the past seven years together. But before, they had been happy. That was before.

Introducciones

So, I'm doing this because my mum told me to. I'm not kidding. She has been bugging me to write a blog since I was about 16. Now I am 20 and living in a different country. By differerent I mean different from the one where I've been living since I was 12 years old, England, and also different from the one where I was born, Brazil. Although it is closer to the latter than to the former. To sum it up I am in Uruguay, the second smallest country in South America and the daughter of Brazil and step-daughter of Argentina (many Uruguayans would kill me for saying that) but I only mean it historically. Culturally it is distinct from both, though it has imported some qualities from both. Something I will talk about very much in my following posts:

I solemnly swear to keep you updated on my advertures in the river of painted birds (that's what the word 'Uruguay' means).

I will post about everything and anything I find interesting (I hope you find it interesting too). Heads-up: mainly travel, food, translation of columns, articles and short stories........

This is my first (and very short) post.

Are you happy now, mum?

Besos from the Río de la Plata.