Onward

It's Okay
Hush chile,
In the universe 
Even the mistakes 
We make
Are music,
So carry on.
-- Minister Oyé

I just opened my planner and found this poem sitting on June 6th. June 6th!!! That's today --- the last day of SIT. The poem can take on different meanings, but I find it comforting....like it knew to mention "chile," it knew I needed a little nudge forward, and most importantly, it is telling me "It's Okay." The reason I need to be comforted? Today our group is saying adios. I dread not only saying goodbye to one or two good friends here, but to a whole entity, 20 other people that have formed an amazing bond. I have put of writing a blog for a while, knowing that it is impossible to explain everything in a way that other people can understand, but also wanting to describe everything to everyone. I am grateful that not only do I have a a close group here, but I have a network of people back home that care about my experience, and will listen (or read) as I fumble around trying to express myself.

This time leading up to the end of SIT has been crazy. I don't think I have taken a breath in weeks.

First, the exposition. The exposition! Oh my god, I could not have imagined it working out in a better way. I was a crazy gringa, running around the week before, picking up paintings, writing emails, re-writing emails, taking pictures, asking "are you gonna be ready," arranging catering. I almost had a heart attack when I only had one piece of work on the day I had told all the students to turn them in to me. Luckily, they pulled through on the night before the exposition and I ended up with about 25 paintings and drawings, way more than I had planned. I almost had another heart attack when we ran out of picture frames. But it worked out fine to make our own with some construction paper. On the morning of I hopped in a professor's car and unloaded all the art at a cute little cafe downtown Valpo. The cafe had a perfect space downstairs for a little gathering.

I stood down there alone. Me with the art that 20 teenagers had made for this day. The whole month, I had been working towards this day. And I looked at the concrete wall thinking, "I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing." With all the planning, I had overlooked the detail that I had no idea how to mount an exposition. Somehow, after dinking around on a ladder with some nylon string, a couple nails, and a paint brush handle as a hammer, I had a whole wall of pictures. Although I'm proud of my preparations, I have my group to thank, they were so supportive. I wrangled a couple of them in to help me at the cafe, and I got texts and emails of encouragement all day. Also, within minutes of school getting out, a group of kids came and helped me too.

The actual exposition was completely filled, both upstairs and down. At one point it was so hot from all the body heat that some things that were taped up started falling off the wall. (I'm gonna count that as part of the success) The participants, many of their family members, the teacher and my friend Denisse, a couple of my friends from Valpo, and all the members of SIT came. And I was BURSTING with pride of all the students that had let some foreigner come to their school, throw out a crazy idea of having an exposition, and actually going with it. The relationship I made with them will be one of the things I value most from my time here.

That weekend, to celebrate turning in our 25+ page essays written in Spanish, 9 of us decided to go up north to Valle del Elqui, a beautiful valley surrounded by huge, deserty, towering mountains. Here we stumbled upon a great little hippie compound in the middle of nowhere thanks to my friend Kristen, who organized everything. We hung out by the river, which is said to have magical powers, we took a nap in the sun, we star-gazed upon the region's famous sky while singing, and we went horse-back riding.

Last week we scrambled around, finalizing our essays, printing them out, and getting them bound in notebooks. One afternoon, I went to the school to have a little celebration of the success of the expo/going away with all the students that I had got to know. Of course, I cried, and was a blotchy mess as a couple of them walked me to the bus stop one last time. On Friday we went to a hotel to present our projects to the group and our directors and have our pre-departure, culture shock seminar. At the hotel, the clock started ticking, the days and hours and minutes dwindling until the inevitable goodbyes started. To make these even more emotional (and case-in-point about our whole group love) we decided to write everybody little notes about cool each other is.

And today was the day. I'm sticking around south here for a bit to travel to Buenas Aires, so I haven't gone through my leaving Chile emotions yet, just the friends departing ones. My friend Rachel and I headed to the bus stop to say goodbye to everyone that was flying out today. Unfortunately, we were a tad late and our bus didn't stop in a place we recognized, so we found our selves late and blocks and blocks from the stop, where the bus was about to take off any minute. In a dramatic scene, we ran through the streets of Viña del Mar, our notes for everyone still folded up in our purses and our spoken goodbyes still unspoken. This little run was more exercise I have done in 3 1/2 months, and the two off us jumped on the bus, frazzled and completely out of breath. I started sobbing at the site of our friend's red, teary faces, but we only had about a minute before we had to get off the bus so it could pull away.

But, It's Okay, like the poem says. Those of us stragglers who have different travel plans or who are flying out later took a stroll through a park and found a tree with crazy roots that were perfect to sit in and reminisce. Last night poured rain, but today the sun shone with a vengeance. (Although vengeance is a bit strong, because in reality it was just so comforting and magical). So we carry on. On to new adventures. Yay! And with little notes of words that warm the soul from friends that do the same.