My first week working at Promesa was a great introduction into the ups and downs of volunteering with children at social risk. After my first day I felt so stressed, frustrated with Spanish, worrying about my Spanish ability, and super overwhelmed. However, it wasn’t actually a bad first day, more so just overwhelming. Right as we (Isabelle and I) were leaving we found some girls trying to pierce another girl’s ear. Her ear was not numbed, the “needle” they were using was not sterile, and she was bleeding everywhere. They would not listen to Isabelle or I and would not stop. We were trying to get them to stop for about 15 minutes and getting nowhere, so we had to go get the main tía to sort it out. And so it began…the girls blatantly disregarding what we were telling them to do.
After work I was exhausted and hungry, a.k.a. in a terrible mood. I honestly hated the world, in particular Chile, Spanish, and where I work. I got home and went for a run. Oh man, that was honestly the most therapeutic run I have ever been on! I just took all my frustration, stress, worry, and my feelings of being overwhelmed out on that run and I felt a million times better about everything. I just need to be really patient with myself in terms of Spanish and remember to breath when times are difficult.
The next day of work was a lot better than the first day. Everything was calmer, and not overwhelming at all. I read with a few girls and towards the end I played soccer with three other girls. It was really fun to play with the girls, especially at a sport that I don’t have the much experience with playing.
At the end of the week on Friday we went to a museum with the kids. We went with one of the tías and also one of the professionals who works at the hogar. One of the younger girls (who is 4 years old) was having a mini-fit and the tía was just yelling at her to get back in line, but then the professional told the tía to take the other girls, and then she just bent down to be at eye level with the little girl and simply asked, “What’s wrong?” The girl replied that she just wanted to be first in line again and the woman was just like ok then let’s go, and she immediately stopped crying. That was so awesome to see. It just showed that the girls don’t want to be yelled at; they just want to be understood. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes kids are just throwing a tantrum for the heck of it, but most of the time they just want to be heard. Overall, the first week was a little crazy, to say the least, but so far I love volunteering here in Chile with VE Global.