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Tag: Latin America

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By DandyLion

The volunteer work I did over the course of the Fall 2013 semester was perhaps the most rewarding experience of my entire first six months abroad. I did so much at La Bicicleta Verde - from getting to know the company, I learned about the city inside and out, which taught me more than I am sure I am still aware of. I know so much about Santiago from the tours that I gave and observed during my time at LBV, and I couldn't be more grateful to have learned it all - especially considering Santiago, Chile is a place I would be absolutely willing to move back to, and in fact am for the Spring 2014 semester! I worked in the office as well, doing research for the company, as well as scheduling, emailing and other various office tasks. During my time, I also was given the opportunity to walk the city by foot, going from hotel to hotel, maintaining our good relationships with the local lodging facilities in efforts to encourage them to send tourists our way.

The major challenges I faced were initially the language barrier, which was quickly overcome due to time and practice, and the lack of information, which was superseded by the same methodology. I am extremely proud of my now fluent understanding and grasp of the Spanish language - but more so than Spanish, than what is practically known as the Chilean dialect, which is extraordinarily difficult to comprehend and communicate in. They say that if you can speak Chilean, you can speak any time of Spanish - and I now speak Chilean!

I absolutely feel like I made a difference in my community. Apart from the good relationships maintained with other local businesses, office work in helping the small tour company to stay on its feet without excessive expenditures, and green tourism, I felt as though I was able to perpetuate a positive view of Santiago, Chile to the tourists of the rest of the world who came to visit, which I am especially proud of as I believe that many US Americans do not have a particularly fond view of Chile and perhaps other Latin American countries due to unknown reasons, stereotypical or otherwise. This enhanced my time abroad exponentially; it gave me a very real reason to feel happy and helpful in my community, and the people who I worked with were phenomenal. It was wonderful to go to work.

Now that I am done with my Fall 2014 study abroad program in Chile, I plan to continue it going into the next semester! I had such an outstanding time that I decided to prolong my graduation and spend a bit more time in the city that stole my heart. If I don't choose to continue at LBV, I may consider more strongly teaching English as another volunteer opportunity, which has proven to quite a few of my acquaintances to be rather rewarding itself. When I come back to GWU within the next year, we can only wait and see what happens, but if I can find a way to do green tourism there, I would be delighted! ¡Hasta luego, gracias y ciao!

Published on

By DandyLion

Hello GW!

The past month at LBV has passed calmly with few speed bumps; although some responsibilities and tasks were increased in volume, everything has passed very well. This month, I participated in the maintenance of amicable relationships with many of the nearby hostels in hopes and efforts that they will promote LBV to their clientele. To do this, a lot of time is required in that you must walk around the city for quite a few hours going from location to location. It is very entertaining however; you have the opportunity to meet and talk with countless people, making new acquaintances and friends alike. When we arrive at the site visits, we rearrange advertising materials as well as meet with the receptionists and other personnel who communicate with the travelers to discuss how we can take steps to encourage them to send their customers to us for tours of various types. This task has been also greatly helpful in learning more about the city of Santiago, Chile and has made orienting myself eons easier.

In other work, I have been added to a task force in which we are performing research on the top hotels, bed and breakfasts, aparthotels, and other assortments of lodging to uncover where the most popular sites are located, what types of people tend to frequent them, and so forth in efforts to discover how we can embark on marketing to new types of accommodation establishments. This research is rather easy but a bit tedious in that it involves spending large quantities of time on the computer and internet on sites such as travelocity.com and such to obtain an idea of places that would best serve our company. This work definitely seems to be benefiting the company as expanding to new venues is key in company growth. Hopefully, the joint efforts of hostel trips and office work can help LBV grow to another level of travel planning!

Until next time,

Danielle

Published on

By kneander

IMG_1718  What a month its been! Our program spent weeks in the Bolivian Administrative Capital La Paz meeting with the famous Bolivian artist Mamani Mamani, a feminist lesbian indigenous rights group and a non profit youth theater and circus troupe. After our time in La Paz we traveled to Lake Titicaca for an indigenous home-stay on the Island of the Sun to learn from a community that has existed for over 3,000 years. This rural isolated island in the middle of the world's highest navigable lake is accepted as the spiritual and cultural center for all Andean civilizations dating back over 4 thousand years.  These past few weeks were filled with new experiences, long bus rides and lots of potato soup, all these experiences were also incredible different than what the final part of my semester is about to turn into.

I am preparing to work on ambulances in Bolivia and learn the strengths and weaknesses of the EMS system in Latin America's third poorest country.  At this point I have just begun to explore various organizations and research opportunities in Cochabamba where I currently live as well as the country's two largest cities, La Paz and Santa Cruz. I have my first official ambulance ride along tomorrow (October 18th) with SAR Bolivia, a volunteer ambulance, fire fighting and search and rescue organization whose 450 volunteers are Cochabamba's primary emergency response organization.  I have had a few interviews and meetings with the one of the founders of  the organization and have learned a little bit about the sacrifices that the volunteers must make in their professional and familial lives in order to be apart of this organization. Though I am really excited to work with SAR Cochabamba I will likely end up completing the majority of my research in another city.IMG_1784

I will make sure to provide an update this weekend after my ride along and will include as many photos and stories as I can.IMG_1722

Published on

By DandyLion

 

¡Buenas tardes de Santiago!

Today was another beautiful day as spring is quickly approaching us! In fact, today I spent the afternoon riding around Santiago giving a tour of the city - which is what I am doing as my volunteer work here. Doing tours has proven to be such an entertaining, effective, and educational way to learn about the city better. For the past month, I have been learning the different routes that we take for the tours and the information that accompanies each, as the tours are also focused on learning about the city.

As it turns out, these have been my only really primarily challenging tasks at La Bicicleta Verde. Santiago is an enormous city which holds anywhere between 6 to 9 million people on any given day, due to commuting and residency differentials. Therefore, it is apparent that the city is rather large in terms of land mass and that it takes a while to learn the routes. Although Santiago, like DC, is a very organized city, there are some major differences that make travel significantly more complicated by foot or by bike. For example, many of the major streets here only permit you to cross on either the left or right side of the street, not all four sides of an intersection as we are given in DC. What this means is that if you need to cross from one corner of a street to the other, you need to be attentive as to where the sidewalks are located so that you don't accidentally cross to a side without a crosswalk and have to turn back! It's a bit complicated to learn the bike routes this way, but as the saying goes, with practice makes perfect, and soon enough I will learn them all indubitably.

The other major challenge is memorizing all of the history and information which I can share with tourists. Santiago has such a rich past - not to mention the present nor the future - but Santiago is not the only topic of which I need to discuss with customers! There are numerous landmarks that were, for instance, given as gifts from other countries to celebrate a specific occurrence in time because of whichever various historical contexts. We aim to discuss everything from parks to politics to culture to markets and so forth. Furthermore, every person has a different mind and therefore asks different questions depending on the direction in which the conversations that we have goes. Because of this, I constantly feel like I need to achieve practically an encyclopedic memory, which so far hasn't proven to succeed. However, I have been accompanying many tours with my fellow coworkers and being especially attentive so that I can learn the information better. Fortunately, the Spanish-English language barrier is not an issue!

I definitely feel like I am already making a difference with my company. This morning, for example, I translated a very important text from Spanish to English for the owners of my company who needed to send a very clear message of thanks to a group of English-speaking businessmen that recently took tours with LBV. In the office, I have been making various phone calls and responding to countless emails that are necessary to maintain the business as well as helping in the bike shop to organize the various equipment for tours. During the tours that I do, the tourists feel comfortable asking me questions about Santiago, which I can answer! I have also been able to give various recommendations for restaurants to eat at and activities for them to do based on my own personal knowledge and understanding of the current events in the city. It has proven quite rewarding.

Although there are always challenges, there are also always solutions, and I know I can continue to find them!

Until next time,

Danielle

Published on

By kneander

Though I arrived in Bolivia only six days ago it could as well have been more than a year. After 18 hours of travel from DC I dropped my bags early Monday morning in a small hotel in the middle of Cochabamba. At over 8,000 feet this city of 700,000 just south of the equator is known as the city of eternal spring due to its continuous temperate climate. The weather in the city was much warmer than La Paz where I spent early Monday morning huddled over cups of coca tea and espresso in an attempt to ward off the cold of the Bolivian Capital situated a half hour north and over 5,000 feet above Cochabamba. ...continue reading "What a Week!"

Published on

By mfretes93

When I imagined the things I would be eating in Brazil, I thought about rice, beans, feijoada (more beans), and the slabs upon slabs of meats, cooked every which way, that would be served in this city's many churrascarias. I thought about street food, like Brazilian shish kabobs of grilled and spiced chicken or pork, and various pastries filled with Brazilian cheese. And of course, I thought about how I would follow up each of these meals with a big, warm cup of coffee. Com açucar, of course.

Most of this has come true. I may not have thrown down the wads of reais necessary to eat everything at a nice churrascaria, but over the past three weeks, I've definitely had my fair share of rice, feijoada, pastries (or salgados), shish kabobs, and of course, gallons of coffee.

What I didn't think I would be eating so much of was sushi. ...continue reading "Sushi: What Brazilians Do Best?"

Published on

By DandyLion

Hello from Santiago, Chile - where I have chosen to study abroad for the past 2 and next 3 months! So far it has been absolutely wonderful; I couldn't have asked for a better experience!
I chose Santiago, Chile for a few reasons, the first of which being: ¿Why not? The GW Chile seemed like an fantastic opportunity with so much to offer, and so far it has proved to be exactly that. There has been so much to see and do and get to know, all of which as been great positive learning experiences. The city is enormous and exciting with amazing views, restaurants, events, and people - people who will stay up (literally) all night enjoying it all! It is a much more culturally comfortable experience for me; being Persian, I am quite familiar with the staying-up-all-night-talking-and-having-fun-with-family-and-friends lifestyle versus the typical US approach. Another reason I wanted to come to Chile was obviously to increase my fluency in Spanish. As Chileans have a very quick and distinct way of speaking at times, I figured: If I can understand and communicate in Chilean Spanish, I will be able to understand and communicate in ANY Spanish. This theory has so far also proved to be true. A third and final reason I elected Chile as my study abroad location was because Chile has a lot of rich cultural history - even in recent years and currently - that has proven to be quite intriguing not only in a political context, but a psychological and public health perspective as well - which are what I am currently and will be studying in the future, respectively. ...continue reading "Hello from Santiago, Chile!"

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By mfretes93

To most Americans, the word "gringo" is an attack on everything that our country stands for, from eagles to apple pies to making sure that there's a McDonald's on every corner of the earth. We hear the word in movies and on television, when dim-witted Americans encounter Latin Americans, usually in or around Mexico, generally being unaware of cultural norms outside of the U.S. And so what's what we think when we hear the word--"stupid, stupid Americans." ...continue reading "Proud to Be a Gringo"

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By mfretes93

After 10 hours on a plane, not including the 2 hours spent idle on the tarmac, I finally reached Rio de Janeiro and now, I'm almost done with my first week. And while I still have a lot to see, do, and understand (namely, how not to get lost, everyday), I feel as though I have a pretty good grasp on how things work around here: nothing ever starts on time, coffee is drank like water, and the beach is a way of life. I think I can do this for four more months.

But while this might seem like a dream come true, the initial adjustment period was difficult, and still is. Namely, the language barrier. So, of all the lessons I've learned so far (more on that in the coming weeks), the most important takeaway from my first week is this: speak, speak, speak. ...continue reading "The First Few Days"

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By mfretes93

How much of your life do you live on the go?

It's been one of the most difficult adjustments I've had to make while I've been here in Rio. But before coming here, I never realized how much of my life I spend multitasking, especially when it comes to meals. Back in the States, breakfast before class usually involves me frantically making coffee after oversleeping by at least 10 or 15 minutes, pouring the coffee into a travel mug, grabbing a cereal bar, and briskly walking to class, mouth half-full with granola.

And of course, I never thought that this sort of lifestyle would be perceived strangely in other parts of the world. ...continue reading "Saying Tchau to Multi-tasking and Travel Mugs"

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