Beautiful Day.

I think I have a new obsession with panorama photos. Here is another one from today. Too bad I will be spending all of my time in the office. 

August?

Today is the last day of July.

8 days left.

I do not know where the time went (This is so cliché). If feels like it was just yesterday that I was flying in to Santiago for the first time and now I am looking forward to my last weekend here.

As much as I would love to have a crazy adventurous last weekend and go to Bolivia or back to Argentina or something like that, I don't think it is going to happen. Instead, I will be settling for a couple days in and around Santiago. It sounds like Saturday I will be going to the top of Cerro San Cristobal, getting some lunch with a friend, and then maybe going hiking in the Cajon de Maipo (but there is a good chance that last bit won't happen). Then Sunday, I will be going to Pomaire over near the coast where there are a lot of artesian markets and think of that sort.

Next week, it sounds like we will be having a little goodbye lunch with some of the administrators who set up my internship. Then, I will have to be finishing up all my projects at work as well as for my online class -- I'm such a wild woman. It sounds boring (and it might be a bit boring), but a girl's got to do what a girl's got to do.

I wrote about this before, but there was so much I wish I had done on this trip that didn't end up happening either due to a lack of time or money (or both). It's slightly disappointing, but at the same time this trip was a good experience for many reasons.

I finally got over speaking spanish to native speakers -- I didn't really have a choice -- and in certain situations I can feel almost fluent. At the very least I am able to communicate whatever message I am trying to deliver in some manner, which is a good skill to have. Especially as I hope to come back to South America in the future and travel on my own.

I also get some amazing experience for future jobs. I have plenty of new marketable skills and thanks to the assignments I was given at work and for my online class I have plenty of things to add to my new ePortfolio -- that makes me sound like such a grown up. I don't like it.

I am kind of looking forward to getting back to the US and getting back into a somewhat normal life. Although I will be starting training for my job about 30 hours after I land and it will last all the way up until classes begin, so I guess I'm not really going back to normal life. Knowing that I have a hectic schedule awaiting me does make me feel better about my relatively mild plans for the weekend.

For now, I am going to do my best to make the most of my last week in Chile!

p.s. This was the view from our apartment today...I'm really enjoying living on the 18th floor.

A Reconnaissance Misson

As my time in Santiago comes to an end, I am starting to realize what this trip has really been -- A reconnaissance mission.

I feel like I have been testing the waters, scoping things out, trying South America on for size. It doesn't matter how I say it, that is what this  has been.

Of course, I have had a good experience working at FOSIS and I have gained valuable experience for my future career. My online class has also lead me to take some major steps in preparing me for the job search after graduation in the Spring. However, as I look towards leaving Chile in two weeks, I can think only one thing: "I'll be back"

I have spent a good amount of time here talking to people and so many of them have told me how young I am and how much time I have. They envy me for the freedom that this youth grants me and they so often say that they wish they took advantage.

I want to take advantage! I want to "aprovechar"!

Because I was working, there were so many plans that I had for my time in this beautiful country that were never realized.

I want to stand on the salt flats of Bolivia, bathe in the hot springs of the Atacama dessert, climb to the top of Machu Pichu, and conquer those waves that I tried so hard to surf last week.

Following graduation, I will be without commitments. I will be free as a bird for at least a couple months so I AM going to "aprovechar" and I am going to fly back to this beautiful place at the end of the world and do everything that I said I would.

While the amount of metaphor in that last sentence may be sickeningly cliché, I mean every word. So I want to 'publicly' declare my intension to come back. If someone ends up reading this, please hold me accountable.

Make a comment, send me an email, come knock on my door and make sure that I follow through. I know I will regret it for the rest of my life if I don't. I do not want to be that person who waists years of their lives doing something they hate only to take off traveling when they are 35 -- it's admirable, but I don't think that's the right way to do it.

People are going to tell me I'm crazy. They will tell me it is dangerous to travel alone, but I have come this far without getting robbed while traveling so I think I can do it. They might think that I am running away from my responsibilities, but at the same time I have a responsibility to myself to live the life that I am capable of living. I've also chosen to do the more responsible thing in the past-- to chose the summer job over the once in a life time experience-- it has left me with nothing but a bunch of "should of", "could of", and "would of"s. It's not worth it. That's not that the way I want to live my life.

There are times in your life when you are meant to be responsible, but I don't believe this is one of those times.

"There is no passion to be found playing small, in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living" 

-- Nelson Mandela 

FOSIS Internship in Santiago, Chile 2014

In my junior year at UW, my interest in global health and sustainable development grew while my Spanish abilities improved. With this in mind, I began to search for internship opportunities that would allow me to gain experience with social development issues. Through the International Internship Program at my university I was given a long list of internship options and after an hour or two of sifting through the many options in Spanish-speaking countries, I found the FOSIS listing for a Social Media and Communications Intern. With my experience managing the social media pages for Project 1808, I felt that I had enough experience to take on the challenge of working in a different language. In addition, FOSIS presented the opportunity for me to gain experience in a governmental organization in a foreign country--it was the exact experience I was looking for. 

In late May of 2014, just one week after finishing up my final exams, I once again found myself at O'hare airport boarding a flight that would take me to Santiago. For the second time I was traveling south of the equator. For the second time I was the first UW student to work with this organization. But, for the first time I was traveling alone. 

For two and a half months I was living and working on my own in Chile's capital city. It was on this trip that I truly learned how to live and travel independently and these are skills for which I am forever grateful. I also gained the skills of simplifying complex statistical data and synthesizing large amounts of information as I worked for the Studies and Evaluations Department within FOSIS. I also had the wonderful experience of doing it all in spanish. 

I am currently still living and working in Santiago and I can honestly say that this experience as been the most challenging and rewarding trips I have ever been on. I have learned how frustrating it is to not be able to communicate with those around you, how isolating it can be to live on your own, and how difficult it can be to not have the usual summer weather (it is currently winter here). 

I have also learned how rewarding it is when your able to use your foreign language skills, how liberating it is to travel on your own, and how interesting it is to live literally on the other side of the world. 

For me, Santiago has presented some of the biggest challenges, but it is an experience I wouldn't trade for the world. 

Global Health Field Experience: Sierra Leone 2013

During my sophomore year at UW, I declared a certificate in Global Health and began searching for programs to fulfill the field experience requirement. Through the University, I found a brand new trip to Sierra Leone with a focus on water-born disease. I knew nothing about Sierra Leone, but I had an intense desire to learn more about the country, its culture, and the health of its population. 

Following final exams, I had four days at home to relax and prepare before we started our journey to the west coast of Africa. We started in Chicago, spent a few hours in Montreal, and then a few more in Belgium. After a stop-over in Dakar, we arrived in Sierra Leone, but we were still a car, a ferry, and a taxi away from the University of Sierra Leone (USL) Campus where we would be staying for our first 11 days.**

Once on campus, we had the pleasure of meeting a number of local students who were chosen specially to participate in our program. Together, over the next three weeks, we would work together to develop an understanding of the current health situation in Freetown, Kabala, and the surrounding areas. We also planned and facilitated the First Annual Sustainability Innovation Camp (SIC) in the Koinadugu District. This was a camp focused on nutrition, sanitation, sexual health, and waste management issues and was attended by over 200 local children. 

During this trip, I made life-long connections with students from both UW-Madison and USL while I learned about the social development projects of Project 1808 (an organization founded by the trips leader and now student org advisor Dr. Alhaji Njai). 

Since returning to the US, the first cohort of field experience students has continued to work closely with Project 1808. This has included planning the 2014 Sustainability Innovation Camp to be facilitated by a new cohort of students-- a camp that would be attended by over 400 students and community members in Kabala. 

** My trip to Sierra Leone was the trip that required the most travel time via different modes of transportation. To get back to the US, I took a motorbike, a bus, a ferry, a taxi, and three planes. At that point, I was lucky enough to be able to drive home, but many of my fellow travelers were still a train or a bus ride away from getting home. 

Alternative Breaks: Huancayo, Peru 2012

During my Freshman year of college at UW-Madison I discovered the Alternative Breaks program-- a student-run program through the Wisconsin Union that coordinates volunteer trips throughout the US and abroad. During my spring break, I had traveled through the program to Bridgeport, Alabama which inspired me to do a summer trip abroad. 

I traveled to Huancayo, Peru with nine other University of Wisconsin students where we stayed with the director of an educational program called Tinkuy Peru. The organization had started a small school to teach english and math as a supplement to the public education that many local children were receiving. The program also acted as an after school program with recreational time and cultural activities after classes. 

As volunteers, we assisted with English classes-- working with kids 5-16 years of age. We started off observing the classes, but by the end of the week they had us up in front of the class going over vocabulary and verb tenses. While there is not much we could do with the week that we were there, it was a tremendous experience for all of us and it has inspired me to pursue other projects with a basis in education. 

Study Abroad: Granada, Spain 2010

During my Junior year of high school, I was presented with the opportunity to participate in a high school study abroad program in Southern Spain. I made the decision to go with little hesitation and after my first experience abroad I decided to enroll in the extended 5 week program. That summer I lived with a host family in Granada, Spain, attended spanish classes each morning at the University of Granada, and spent my weekends exploring nearby cities with the other program participants. 

During this time, I developed a passion for trying new things, learning new languages, and immersing myself in different cultures. It was a trip that would later inspire me to travel to other spanish-speaking countries in the future and continue my study of the language.