The Los Lagos Rinos

Our time living overseas can be counted in storylines. This is one of them.

Towards the end of my 8 months teaching, I bought a rugby ball. While I have played rugby in the past (10 years ago, say), I’ve never been particularly good at it, and recently, I’ve found myself to err towards the café drinking, book reading side of life, rather than the sports loving, sports playing side. The rugby ball purchase was done because friends in Los Lagos had been so patient in teaching me to play soccer, and I was enjoying playing bay football with them, a sport I’d never played before. I wanted to show them something of our sports, something I could do that might be interesting to them.

It turned out to be a good move. Almost everyone was interested in this odd-shaped ball, and when I explained to the students that  it wasn’t an American football, which they’d seen in movies, even more so. During school break I taught the students how to kick and pass it, and a few expressed an interest in forming a team. This didn’t really come to anything, though, as only two  ever turned up to the after school training. Sometimes, towards the end of my time teaching, we would play rugby instead of learning English.

Later, during December, someone started up a conversation with me in a bus. He’d heard of an Australian playing rugby during English classes, and he wanted help to start a Los Lagos rugby team.

The first time we played touch football, and later tackle, it was a like a little touch of home. In this foreign land, this was something I knew how to do, and, in comparison to the others, relatively well. My hands remembered how to pass properly, and my body how to move to the right gaps.

Throughout December, January and February the first rugby was played in Los Lagos. A group of 5 people would almost always come to train. Once 30 came , but sometimes no one would. I had to leave in March to work in the north, and, by then, a small number of people (including myself) had learnt to tackle, pass the ball, and play much better than before, and a large number learnt something about the game.

In April, the Los Lagos rugby team (Los Rinos) played the first ever rugby game in Los Lagos. I came down from Rancagua for it, and we played against a good team from the nearest large city. While no one recorded the score (it was a lot to nothing) I’ve never been part of a team more excited to play, and we played with courage and enthusiasm against a much bigger team. The local radio and newspapers covered the match, and we all felt like heroes.

I’m not sure if I’ll keep coming down for the matches. Rugby is a physically demanding game, and, without being able to train with the team, it could be a path to injury. But to be part of this group of Chileans, discovering the sport of rugby, has been a privilege.

Paul Kearney is is currently living in central Chile and teaching English. He just finished up a year volunteering with Chile’s English Opens Doors program. To hear more about his experiences, check out his blog.

Five years ago Cleber set up a boxing institute in the favela Rocinha. The classes are being held on the rooftop of a kind neighbor, and are still without a proper boxing ring or equipment today.  “I am afraid of the students getting hurt in these conditions so we stick to basic practice routine and do not get into combat training,” explained a worried Cleber.

The gloom that had settled in after our conversation wiped away as soon as the class began. Cleber, who’s love affair with boxing began 16 years ago when he saw the 1976 blockbuster Rocky, has made it a mission to help the youth in Rocinha discipline themselves through the art of boxing. “He is a source of inspiration to me,” admitted one of his eager students who is nicknamed Manny Pacquiao after the professional Filipino boxer.

Pacquiao will be competing in the interfavela boxing championships. At 25 years old, he first learned boxing in a favela in Ipanema called Cantagalo. The style of boxing he learned is built on the philosophy of passing the technique on to others. Although he has a day job in IT, he spends his evenings devoted to developing boxers at the Rocinha institute alongside Cleber.

Bashful to admit it, Cleber’s dedication to push Rocinha to qualify for the Rio 2016 Boxing Olympics has kept many youth off the streets and away from drugs. Networking with various NGOs, including Instituto Dois Irmaos, keeps an influx of youngsters with discipline and control issues coming to the institute.

We hope that Cleber’s dream of fighting at the MGM arena comes true and we look forward to cheering on Rochinha in the 2016 Olympics!

There were two running events, one long and one short, and three other events consisting of biking, long jump, and throwing a tennis ball. After all the events were over,  there was an award ceremony with certificates, medals, and trophies. The age categories were “mini,” “super mini,” “hyper mini,” and “infantile mini.” It was absolutely adorable.

I had the glamorous job of crowd control, and attempted to keep all of the kids that weren’t competing from running out onto the field. It was difficult to say the least, and the key word here is “attempted.” At the end of the day, all of this competing is in preparation for a bigger Olypiadas when Anakena will compete against about ten other schools in October. I wish I was going to be here for it!

The sun was shining and everyone was smiling — we got lucky. Olympiadas at Anakena were a success! Hopefully, come October, they compete on a grass field.

Lindsey Chapman is a volunteer with VE Global, at Colegio Anakena. Check out posts by Andrew Garberson for more on working with the disabled.

I. Fundraisers from Abroad

a) The Pub Quiz

The idea of a Pub Quiz, or trivia night, is very popular in the English pubs around Cusco, and when used as a fundraising tool it creates a symbiotic relationship between pub owner and NGO worker. Here’s how it works:

Lauren and I create the quiz. This consists of five categories with ten questions each, with genres including history, current events, and pop culture. We publicize the event by posting flyers in bars and restaurants, and charge five soles ($1.75 USD) for each person to play. Be sure to make a short spiel before the quiz that introduces your organization and outlines its work. Pub owners like the event for the free publicity and the crowds it brings.

Peruvian goods to be auctioned off for donations.

b) Newsletters

Periodically sending out email updates to family and friends regarding the progress of your work abroad is a good way to spread awareness and raise interest in your cause. We do not use the newsletters explicitly as a fundraising tool, but it does sew the seeds to inspire donations later on. In the newsletter we include sections regarding recent happenings of GirlSportWorks, student spotlights, and new additions to the program.

II. Fundraisers from Home

a) The Gala

We will hold a fundraising gala upon our return to the States. Family, friends, and acquaintances will be invited. Here we will hold a silent auction, have a donations box, and provide food and the opportunity to purchase drinks. Speeches about our work, a slideshow, and Peruvian music will set the tone. To fund the event we will contact local restaurants and establishments and ask for food donations or items that we can auction off.

b) The City Fair Booth

Every fall the City of Berkeley holds an event called the Solano stroll, a massive street fair with parades, food stands, and various booths. For one hundred dollars we entered to have a GirlSportWorks booth. We expect that the donations we receive will make this fee a worthwhile investment. At the booth we will offer a variety of Peruvian goods for suggested donations, and will display a picture album and information pamphlet.

Hopefully these can inspire other fundraising ideas, and please feel free to help me out with suggestions!

Kimberly is currently serving as Program Manager for GirlSportWorks, a US-based NGO that seeks to enhance the lives of Peruvian girls through athletics. For more on fundraising, check out “How to Fundraise With No Funds” by Andrea Vogler and “Need Some Cash? Top 10 Ways to Fundraise” by Laurie Norton.

In other words, the FIFA World Cup starts this Friday, and I can’t wait.

Many Uruguayans can’t either. Uruguay helps launch the Cup with a Friday match against France, and despite a moderately tough bracket that also features Mexico and South Africa, hopes are high for advancement to the second round. After all, Uruguay is ranked 16^th in the world right now, and ready to atone for not making it to the World Cup in 2006.

And after all, fútbol forms one pillar of Uruguayan cultural identity, and surely that counts for something as well. The bookshop of the national theater, in addition to drama-related art deco postcards, sells one commemorating the first World Cup in 1930, which Uruguay both hosted and won. The Friday game will start at 3:30 pm local time, and schools are busy deciding how best to handle game screenings. Some teachers, speculation has it, may be allowed to give students the option to watch the games on laptops or on television during class time. My colleagues are resigning themselves to a week or more of erratic library hours and distracted functionaries. I’ve known the opening game date for a month, as my choir scheduled a performance around it.

Unlike fair-weather fans of the United States squad, who insecurely seek affirmation of Team USA’s greatness (or at least, non-mediocrity) from the rest of the world, Uruguayans know la Celeste is great. Granted, some will point out sheepishly, this sense of greatness is constructed largely around Uruguay’s stunning World Cup finals victory over Brazil….in 1950. But great they are, and maybe the world will finally come to realize it. Whatever the outcome of the first round, however, it’s refreshing to be watching the World Cup in a country with so much joie de fútbol.

Flora Lindsay-Herrera is currently a Fulbright Fellow in Montevideo, Uruguay. For more about her experiences, check out her blog.

Wanchaq Pool

Twelve girls from Casa Mantay attend the excursion. All are teenagers and have babies who are the result of rape, and in many cases family members were the aggressors. The girls come pregnant to Mantay to escape the violence and stigma that would accompany staying in their communities, and here they learn to cook, clean, and care for their babies. At 18 they must leave the safe-home to live independently.

The girls enter the pool’s dressing room and begin changing into borrowed swimsuits. Eli shoves the bundle she’s been carrying into my hands and it starts wiggling. It’s her baby. None of the girls know how to swim, and I’m the only supervisor. “Don’t go into the deep pool!” I shout in a futile attempt at control as the girls scuttle out. I change into my own suit and walk gingerly across the slippery floor, baby in hand. Every one of the girls is in the deep pool.

Discipline is always difficult, but this case is especially tricky. Authoritative figures derive their legitimacy from knowledge and experience, but it’s not clear that I possess these here. Sure, I’m their sports profe, but the girls will be encumbered with life’s burdens sooner than I, facing reality as single mothers and fully supporting themselves without ever having finished high school. I, in contrast, know no such pressures. A recent college graduate, I have the luxury to live abroad without any real income or commitments, and enjoy the support of a stable family at home.

While teenagers often need boundaries and discipline, I can’t ignore the fact that these are not your average 16-year-olds. As their supervisor, how do I effectively enforce rules while simultaneously acknowledging their imminent autonomy? They’re caught in a strange limbo between adolescence and adulthood, and it’s often hard to gauge the teacher/peer balance I should strike. Mostly I just wing it.

Kimberly is currently serving as Program Manager for GirlSportWorks, a US-based NGO that seeks to enhance the lives of Peruvian girls through athletics.

Here I am teaching a team-building game at Matará school

“Maybe we mistakenly think we want ‘happiness’, which we tend to picture in very vague, soft-focus terms, when what we really crave is the harder-edged intensity of experience.”

I read this in a New York Times article two days before leaving the States for my yearlong stint in Cusco. Nine months into my time here, I’d like to think that it still embodies my approach towards life in Peru.

The NGO I’m working for is called GirlSportWorks, and its mission is to expose young Peruvian girls to the benefits of athletics: increased confidence and self-esteem, leadership, and cooperation among teammates. In a country where machismo is still prevalent and just one or two sports are deemed acceptable for girls to play, many young peruanas never have the opportunity to be part of a team. In contrast, society encourages their male counterparts to engage in athletics from a young age. My co-program manager and I are sports instructors in five institutions around Cusco, including one vocational rural girls’ school and a safe-home for sexually abused teen mothers. We augment the program in two schools with English teaching, and in my spare time I volunteer for Kiva.

Teaching class, volunteering, and exploring Cusco is never routine. During my nine months in Peru, I’ve sprained my ankle during a botched jump while teaching baseball, faced and warded off a three-dog attack while hiking alone, rescued a near-drowning student at a local pool without lifeguards, and am currently taking anti-parasitic drugs for a critter that’s been living inside me for who-knows-how-long. Yet despite—or even because of—these frequent unpredictabilities, I’m more content here than I was living a comfortable but routine life in LA.

For me, life in Cusco has a lot to do with constantly facing the novel. The intensity of new experiences here is what makes me happy, and it’s that same craving for intensity that draws so many like myself to live and work in a foreign country. In this blog, I hope that I can share some of these experiences with you. Bienvenidos.

I’m an unofficial athlete and one of the things I observed when I first arrived in Nicaragua was the lack of organized sports for girls and women. There were plenty of sports events to attend: soccer, baseball, basketball. But it was always men playing. I was informed that soccer and volleyball were offered to girls in the local schools, but I wondered when they actually played because I never saw it.

As a response to this observation, one of my own personal projects here in Camoapa has been to start a girl’s softball league in an attempt to close this gap. I began talking about the idea to whoever would listen and it turned out that despite the fact that most people here consider it to be a “boy’s sport,” I still managed to round up quite a bit of support from the movers and shakers in town.

There was a surge of interest up front. In total, I had more than 30 girls (and some women) show up to the various practices I scheduled. But after only a few weeks, the number who returned on a regular basis dwindled to less than 10. There is a handful more that comes every now and again, but it’s not enough to sustain a real team. There have even been days when more boys than girls show up, hoping to get in on the action. It has been incredibly frustrating.

In reference to this lack of attendance, I overheard my softball training partner (who is male) say in conversation, “You know, girls are always harder to work with.” My instinct was to feel slightly offended and my intention was to talk with him later about what he really meant. But after thinking on it a bit, I realized he was right. It’s not that girls are inherently harder to work with. But here in Nicaragua, the culture demands that the muchacha help out in the home on a regular basis. They have more responsibility, more demands are placed on them, and they are generally more protected by their families for fear that they might turn up pregnant. They are less likely to be given the opportunity to participate in things like sports and even more unlikely to be given permission to play a sport that is traditionally considered “boys only.”

I have had some success visiting with families, asking permission to allow their daughters a few hours a week of freedom. But some of the girls tell me that even a home visit wouldn’t be enough. So in some respects, I am back at square one. It is hard to know where to go from here, because it feels as though I am fighting a whole country. I haven’t given up hope, but I am running out of ideas…