Aftershock

For the second day in a row, I woke up to a fairly large afterschock. 

We went to the grocery store today, after having tried to go yesterday only

to find most closed. While driving around, I noticed an air of panic as thick as the smog in this city. I feel that those who can remember the days of Salvador

Allende’s socialist government are acting out of memorial habit; people are

waiting in winding lines to obtain things—anything—to feel safe. Back then

people waited in line outside of stores or vendor’s houses for hours yet often

didn’t even know what they were waiting to buy. Walking into the local

convenience store (abarrote) and seeing the shelves empty first revealed this

comparison to me. These kind of things that people are buying like mad for the

most part do not carry life’s necessities, but are only little extras: candies,

crackers, cookies, randomness… Waiting for the essentials like bread, eggs,

bottled water, or milk seemed to be obviously worth it to me, but most stores

have plenty of these items left. It’s the other stuff that fills the abarrotes, and it is all this little stuff that most people are waiting and waiting to buy out of fear that it’s better than nothing. Of course I do not blame them or say that this is foolish to stock up on off-brand tuna spread, pickled olives or cracker bread. But the type of panic it takes for someone to buy tuna when they’re allergic to it, or olives when they hate olives, or cracker bread when they already have a life’s supply at home is immense, and this is exactly what happened in the early 70’s in Chile. And it is what is happening now.

The grocery store in the local mall was packed. Some boxes were still

disheveled and unorganized from the earthquake, many empty shelves again, and a massive chaotic bunch at the bakery waiting for bread. Everyone is going crazy for bread. In fact, last night for dinner all we ate was bread. Bread and cake. My mom dived into the frenzied crowd at the store while I watched with the cart, and I kid you not I lost track of the top of her head among the people. She emerged triumphantly with a bad of warm pancito. Guess what we’re having for dinner tonight?

Another thing I noticed while driving around is that all of the billboards

and signs now seem so ironic: the advertisement for the expensive fashionable

leather jacket, the promotion for a cell phone using the line, “don’t worry be

happy,” the Red Cross ad pleading for donations to Haiti… irony!

I got a call from all the way from Israel today, from a Chilean woman living

there looking for her son who is in Concepción. She obviously had the wrong

number, but she asked me how I was and how my family was before she hung up. This is so very Chilean of her, to ask a complete stranger how I am and how my family is. It reflects the other sentiment in the air: one of patriotic compassion, similar to the union that was felt after the terrorist attacks in the US. Yes it is dog eat dog when it comes to who gets to buy the last little random thing at the abarrote or who gets their bread first in the mob. But people are still being respectful, caring and helpful to others.

School will begin next Monday, March 8th according to the government.

Watching the news a lot gives me such a perspective on how lucky we are in

Santiago, even if some are without running water still or have damaged homes.

We are still standing!

As usual, sigue orando.

Earthquake

I was dreaming when I first felt the earth moving. It took my mind some

time to awaken, realize there was something wrong, label it “earthquake” and tell

my body to run to my host parent’s room. I was still delirious when I reached

their doorway where my host sister had already fixed herself. My host parents

were inside their room, one securing the TV and the other holding on to the

dresser. It was my first experience feeling the ground move left to right like that,

like some kind of dizzying carnival ride you feel sick after. I watched as the house

literally swayed with the current. My mamá grabbed my hand tightly. We heard

the lamp crash, the shelves fall, the dishes jumping, the car alarm sounding, the

windows rattling, the world ripping apart at it’ seams… but underneath the chaos

my family kept assuring one another, “Tranquilo, tranquilo, tranquilo.”

The shaking lasted three minutes. Just after it subsided, my mom went for

the candles and I for my cell phone flashlight to survey the damage. The noises

around were unsettling, with alarms and sirens and screaming like a movie sound

effect. We went together, my host sister and I, holding hands, into the living room

and kitchen. I, praying the whole time, helped replace some of the tumbled

objects but because they knew aftershocks would follow, we left heavy things like

the stereo on the ground where they had fallen.

Opening the front door to see the outside world, I momentarily forgot the

electricity had gone out—everything was so well illuminated just as if the street

lights were on. My sister pointed to the sky: a brilliant round moon and vividly

bright stars. “Mala suerte,” I joked, noting the stereotypical omen of bad luck on

nights with a full moon. But just after I said that, I realized that the opposite was

true; this sky light was actually a gift from God for the people who would remain

without electricity through the night, attempting to collect themselves and gather

their families and belongings. My mind immediately jumped to the poorer parts

of Santiago, where strong houses like mine are not found and where there for

sure would be more than just broken plates. The moon would guide the victims

away from their collapsed surroundings and (perhaps) save lives. Seeing as the

terrible earthquake in Haiti happened in the middle of the night too, I wondered

if they had a full moon too?

The aftershocks my parents predicted did come, and are still coming, and

might continue to come for another 5 months. This morning at 8:30am I awoke

to the now familiar feeling. It makes me nervous just hearing a slight rattling

from my bedroom window, even if it’s moving from the outside wind, because it

means another rumbling is approaching. For the most part however, I am

remaining tranquila through remaining with God. The damage here was

thankfully very little compared to other parts of the country, both in Santiago and

in both directions outside the city. We visited my host brother’s house in the hills

outside of Santiago, and his whole neighborhood is without running water,

houses are cracked in two, and roofs completely caved in. He and his family

cannot even occupy their house right now, and imagine the families who have

nothing to occupy anymore.

I’m not sure how school will go from here, with registration and the first

day previously scheduled to be next week. The country is in a declared state of

emergency, and most businesses and public transportation are still closed. The

government is asking that people not be traveling around the city or even leaving

the house if not necessary as they try to survey the damage and help the

desperate. Thus I will be staying in for awhile.

I end my story with a plea for your prayer for my newly adopted country

and for my newly adopted people, mi gente. I’m sure at some point you will be

able to donate money too, but for now there is nothing you (or I) can do but ask

for the stability and safety of the country once again, for the rescue of those still

trapped, and for the families of the over 700 people who died. Know that I am

fine, gracias a Dios, and as soon as I can I will be a part of the relief efforts down

here at the end of the earth.

-KK

Mi Casa (es su casa)

Greetings from the end of the earth...


My Chilean family is so wonderful. Here are 3 reasons in photos why they are perfecto for me:


1.

 My room's wall. Note the bright green wall and Gaugin painting.

2. 

They grow grapes outside my room above their garage.

3. 

 They bought me chocolate as a welcoming gift. 

My family consists of Papa, Mama, and Stefie, my 23 year-old rad sister. They are all wonderful and are super hospitable. I feel very at home and I enjoy this place very much.

Llegué

I am here in Santiago, and I can only compare it to a story Elizabeth Gilbert tells in Eat, Pray, Love (my guilty pleasure plane read):


When a new hen needs to be introduced to an already formed group of chickens, the farmer cannot just place the chicken in the coup during the day, because the others will consider the newcomer a threat and attack her. Instead, the farmer places the chicken in the coup during the night while both the others and new one is sleeping. When the group wakes up, they see the new chicken and assume they just never noticed her before. The clincher is, awakening within this flock, the newcomer herself doesn't even remember that she's a newcomer, thinking only, "I must have been here the whole time..."


This is how I arrive in Santaigo. I feel like I have been here the whole time.

Count Down to Chile

9 days...

until I leave for Santiago, Chile for 6 months to study abroad and change my life.

I supposed I would make a list of goals, places I want to see, etc. in preparation for departure, but you know what? Sometimes it's best not to make plans. Yes that is super cliché and is not at all nothing original, but I do declare myself free from goals and lists! Freeeeeeeee!

How lovely.

I will use this nook on the world wide web to communicate my discoveries to anyone who cares to read. 

Bienvenidos a mi mundo, compañeros.

On Travel...

I recently finished at book called The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton. Unlike many travel memoirs, this book is divided into sections (Departure, Motives, Landscape, Art, Return), and goes chapter by chapter inspired by varying artists (or "Guides" like Van Gough, Edward Hopper, Charles Baudelaire, Gustave Flaubert, Alexander von Humboldt and more), and place they traveled. An interesting compilation of essays by Botton, complete with pictures of the paintings, photographs, writings of the artists and pictures of the places they loved.

Some excerpts to share:



"Unexpectedly poetic travelling places--airport terminals, harbours, train stations and motels."
"It always seems to me that I'll be well where I am not, and this question of moving is one that I'm forever entertaining with my soul." -Charles Baudelaire

"Baudelaire honored reveries of travel as a mark of those noble, questioning soulds he described as 'poets,' who could not be satisfied witht he horizons of home even as they appreciated the limits of other lands, whose temperaments oscillated between hope and despaire, childlike idealism and cynicism. It was the fate of poets, like Christian pilgrims, to live in a falled world while refusing to surrender their vision of an alternative, less compromised realm."
"Carriage, take me with you! Ship, steal me away from here! Take me far, far away. Here the mud is made of our tears!" -Baudelaire

"What we find exotic abroad may be what we hunger for in vain at home."

"I'm obsessed with inventing stories for people I come across."
"I think I must have been transplanted by the winds to this land of mud; surely I was born elsewhere-- I've always had what seem to be memories or intutions of perfumed shores and blue seas." -Gustave Flaubert

"I am a soul brother to everything that lives, to the giraffe and to the crocodile as much as to man." -Flaubert

When asked where he came from, Socrates said not 'from Athens' but 'from the world.'"
"L'infinie immensité des espaces que j'ignore et qui m'ignorent." -Pascal
"The night is even more richly colored than the day.." -Vincent Van Gough

"The most effective means of pursuing this conscious understanding was by attempting to describe beautiful places through art, by writing about or drawing them, irrespective of whether one happened to have any talent for doing so."


Ah, the words are so tasty to gobble whole.

Mexi en el Otoño

I made two trips to Tijuana, México this fall to visit my beautiful babies at the orphange Cuidad de Angeles. Every time I go down I never want to leave. The kids bless my heart so much, so much more than I could ever bless them. Each child is literally a miracle; their stories are crazy yet they are alive and well. 

The young girls are soon entering their tween years which is apparent from their sassy selves. I lent Liliana my camera the past two visits and was shocked at how grown-up they pose in their photos. It's great with the juxtoposition of the things they take pictures of in their lives-- teddy bears, trash cans, backpacks, bed sheets. The pictures are a unique look at their world from their own perspective, not mine as a relative outsider, an older girl, an American, a visitor. They maintain their childhood while shooting Myspace-esque photos of themselves in the mirrors. I was intruiged when I got my camera back. I wonder, where did they learn the vanity of mirror self portraits? How did they learn to pose with sexy lips with the camera above their heads? These girls do not have abundant access to the internet; I don't even know if they are computer literate. Is it from TV, which they can and do freely watch? I was slightly disturbed that they are already learning to make suggestive faces and pouty lips at their age. It's too much a Lolita complex with their underlying naivite beneath the model posing. I don't want to ruin their childhood more by over analyzing their photos, but they had to have learned the sensual performance of picture posing from somewhere, it cannot possibly be innate. What could be innate is the desire to be beautiful-- both a cultural and universal construction. It seems like young girls are being taught earlier and earlier how to be desirable to the opposite sex, and the social networking sites seemed to have fed this in recent history. But these girls seem to be affected by the styles and inner culture of these sites by diffusion, not even having a Myspace or Facebook at all. I didn't start caring as much about my own personal appeal in photographs until about 13, and then even more at 15 when I opened my Myspace account. These girls are barely double digits.

Are they just having fun taking pictures of themselves or do they know what they are implying? Are they trying to be older? Are they trying to be sexy?

Style Like U

My good friend Lily began this aweseome site on personal style that I am obsessed with. Check out my post (with my best friend and roomie Rachel) and the other creative, amazing artists:

http://stylelikeu.com/closets/rachel-tobias-kaitlin-king

Lahve.

Diginity for the Poor, Humility for the Christian

This is a personal narrative paper I just wrote for a writing class at school, summing up my summer in a different light:

It is in every “good Christian” Jiminy Cricket conscience that they must serve the poor to please God. In children’s Sunday school on the flannel board, you are taught that Jesus loved the least of these, and he healed the sick and dying, and spent time with the outcasts. Then when you reach youth group as a teenager, you are encouraged strongly by your leaders to go feed the homeless with the group after playing a gross-out game, usually involving raw cow tongues. As you reach adulthood, more and more of your “good Christian” peers start becoming the leaders in the youth group or, even more notably, serving overseas. And then Jiminy really starts nagging.

It is at that point in life when I-- not a youth group leader or Sunday school volunteer or any sort of “good Christian” example-- decided that I should too serve overseas. I mean, “I really love other cultures!” I thought. “I am not afraid to get down and dirty!” I reasoned. “I really love Jesus that much.” So in went my application to a Christian non-profit organization, and up went my feel-good vibes.

Then, in came my acceptance letter and down went my happiness. I had been chosen to intern in the Philippines for 2 months doing photography and videography. The Philippines? But wait, had I not made it clear to them that I am fluent in Spanish, am specializing in Latin American anthropology and really cannot resist little Mexican babies? Apparently not, and apparently I was a little less loving of all other cultures than I thought. I resisted this placement in an unknown land with no Christian credibility stamp (after all, it wasn’t Africa or even Latin America!). I said, “God! I don’t care about the Philippines like I care about Latin America!” And God said, “Hey, that’s rude.” And so off I went in June, excited but uncertain.

After only my first week I started to feel more enthusiastic about my new home. At first I just compared everything I saw or experienced to the Mexico I knew and loved, but eventually, after hours of Tagalog language class and pounds of rice and fish, the Philippines took its own shape in my mind. I stayed with a family in a province outside the capital, but my job allowed me to travel to other communities using just about every transportation method available in the Philippines—tricycle, petty cab, jeepney, bus, train, and taxi.

I enjoyed my work, because I got to do my favorite things-- play with children and take tons of pictures. The economic status of the families was difficult to take in at first, but it had seemingly no affect on the attitudes of the people. I have never encountered such hope and joy amidst an environment that I was trained to view with pity and disgust. I became embarrassed of my pride for serving the poor, when in actuality I was more poor in spirit than my new friends were economically. Who was I, coming in as a stranger to teach these strong and beautiful people to wash their hands correctly, when I had thought I was too cool to serve Filipinos? The term, “the poor” became almost offensive to me, because now “they” were no longer a blob of dirty, raggedy nobody’s, but Sister Neng and Brother Al and Mico and Miggy…

I was always told me to volunteer abroad, always told it would change my life, but I was never told I would learn what it is to give dignity to the impoverished. My former vision of single-handedly saving all the skinny-limbed, plumped belly orphans in Latin America was crushed by the reality of my inability, my arrogance, and my naiveté. I no longer want to serve the poor to mark off a box in my good Christian checklist, but I simply want to help out my dear friends in need of life’s basic necessities. In the depths of a country I once could care less about, I finally discovered the heart of God’s love for the poor as special human beings that extends beyond what I was taught in church.

Now when people ask me how my summer was, I can respond with an honest answer, free of “Christianese” terms I have used all my life without knowing the true meaning of. And I’m pretty sure that overcoming the flannel board-faith of my youth and learning to truly love my poor brothers and sisters has made God very pleased indeed.

Final Debrief

Before I returned to the US and after I did, FH helped my process the experiences of summer through various debriefing exercises. I think copying some of the questions and tools here is the best way I can sum up my time, and hopefully these will answer many of the questions you might have for me at the end (or end of part) of my journey.

As I return to the United States, I feel…
• Surprised at how much God has opened my heart to the Philippines and its people, and how much He has taught me here

Going back will enable me to…
• Minister more relationally (instead of just doing, being; engaging with the people is as important as the act of service)
• Appreciate my luxuries and not chose their comfort solely for comfort’s sake

I think the hardest part of going back for me is…
• Trying to accurately and truthfully relay my experiences to my family and friends without overwhelming them
• Having the feeling that no one understands
• Feeling prideful for serving overseas
• Feeling guilty for my privileged life

The ways I have changed are…
• Realized how prideful I am and am working on ridding myself of it
• Matured through traveling and living in a foreign country alone, so I have more worldly knowledge and experience
• I have a new view on God’s relation to the poor and thus my relationship to the poor and what it should look like
• I’m more open to full-time ministry abroad wherever God wants (not just Latin America/Mexico)

The 2 memories that best sums up my time in the Philippines is…
1. My birthday—
• Jenn, Katie and I ate at Pizza Hut which is super nice there and had deep conversations
• I had a crazy experience at the Pure Gold Supermarket which involved the store’s dancers performing in the produce isles, a miscommunication with my credit card (classic Filipino cultural difference), and spending way to much time discovering the “seasoning” isle only carried soy sauce, fish sauce, banana ketchup and vinegar
• My “surprise” birthday party in all its singing, playing, eating, dancing and laughing splendor
2. Being baptized in the church I learned to love so much by the Pastor whom I learned so much from, to signify my commitment to God to make real all the things He taught me in the Philippines.

The ways I plan on putting what I learned into practice are…
• Living simply , being a good steward of my resources
• Continue asking God to help me in learning humility

What I liked most about my new culture…
• The openness of the people
• The respect for elders
• Importance of family
• Appreciation for and universality of singing and dancing (everyone does!)
• Tagalog

What I missed most about my home culture…
• The food! (the selection/diversity, healthy options)
• The straightforwardness of Americans

What was challenging for me in the new culture…
• Ambiguity of language, invitations, plans (ex: saying “yes I’ll be there” when they mean “no”)

The ways I see God differently now are…
• His crazy love for the poor and how much He relates to them
• I’m much more in awe of his greatness, grace and holiness, and my utter sinfulness and poverty of the spirit

What was an “ah-ha!” moment?
Reading 1 Corinthians 13 where is says, “If I give all I posses to the poor, I gain nothing without love.” I realized I would not be doing the people I served any service without love, and not just human love, but Christ’s love. I was tired and slightly unexcited about taking pictures the next day, but when I read this the night before, I understood that I needed God desperately to help me love others deeply, because me just taking pictures and video and even singing and playing with the kids would mean nothing without also showing them Christ’s love.

What was a breaking point?
Traveling from Tibag, a community north of Manila, not knowing where we were going (or how much it would cost) in various jeepneys, buses, tricycles, and trains during traffic in the rain.

One sentence statement…
I made meaningful relationships that taught me humility and revealed my role in serving the poor.



Thank you very much for being a part of my trip to the Philippines, for your prayers, your encouragement, even your comments on this blog. I am so grateful to God for having supporters like yourselves.

Pagpalain po kayo ng Dyos at miraming salamat po! God bless and many thank you's!