We're Here!

Our flight from Toronto to Santiago last night and into this morning was a bit delayed because something was wrong with the emergency floor lights of the plane.  Apparently the problem was like finding the light that’s causing the problem when a string of Christmas lights isn’t working – you have to search and search for the small part that isn’t working.

The boys started getting antsy as we waited at the gate for this problem to be fixed.  Griffy started dancing around the aisle, explaining that he was pretending he was playing a giant piano.  Wil and Griffy started chasing each other around the outside of the gate, laughing and pulling at its other’s shirts as they ran past each other.  Griffy piped, “Hey!  I wonder if they have carrots in Chile – maybe they don’t, that would be great!  Maybe they don’t have any vegetables at all!”  People watched and smiled.  We’ve heard that Chileans really like kids and are family oriented, and this was obvious to us even just sitting at the gate with them in Toronto.

The 6 of us wore our Chile soccer jerseys, one of two shirts that we each brought along on the trip (you have to pack light with 6 people!).  Some of the people on the plane said, “Nice shirt guys.”  When we arrived in Santiago just a little bit after noon today (two hours late), the men especially liked seeing us in our jerseys.  They taught us the team cheer:  “Chi-chi-chi (e.g., chee-chee-chee), le-le-le (e.g., lay-lay-lay), vivo Chile, vivo Chile, vivo Chile!”  We felt like royalty.

We got to the apartment, and the building manager was kind enough to help us get all our suitcases and backpacks onto the elevator.  Our unit is on the 16^th floor, which is the top floor of the building.  We were thinking the unit was probably about 1,000 square feet, but it was a little shocking to find out it is more like about 500 square feet.  Greg said it first, “Well, it’s…ummm…tight.”  The apartment has two very small bedrooms, just big enough to fit queen size beds.  It has a kitchen that is about 3 feet wide (you can’t squeeze behind another person that is in there).  The living room has a small table to eat around and a futon.   It was cold in the apartment, probably 55-60 degrees F.  We turned on the heater, but it didn’t warm things up much.

Noah started to cry, and to be honest this expressed how all of us were feeling at that moment.  What were we doing here?  How were we going to survive in such tight quarters?  Griffy said, “Well guys, let’s look on the bright side – it’s bigger than our camper.  And it’s warmer than that time we camped in Moab and it was below freezing.”

We had a light breakfast on the plane, but got to the apartment and had no water and it was well past lunch so everyone was starving.  We knew there was a grocery store nearby, so everybody got their shoes and coat on and off we went.  It was sunny today and probably about 60.  This is apparently typical in the winter, though it does rain quite a bit this time of year.  We found the store easily and went inside.  It was intimidating!  Everything, of course, was in Spanish.  We just wanted some water, bread, pasta, pizza and Diet Coke – and it was not easy to find.  Plus, we were pretty tired from traveling and not sleeping that great on the plane.  After probably about an hour we found mostly what we were hoping to find.  We couldn’t load ourselves up like we usually do when we go to Safeway, because we had to walk about three blocks to get back to the apartment.  But we got enough for lunch, dinner and then probably a couple of meals on Thursday.

It was an exciting day, but a little rough too.  While the apartment we are staying in seems nice, it’s a lot different than our usual comfortable life.  It’s noisy since we’re near the downtown so that we could be closer to the girls’ home and public transportation.  A car alarm goes off about every 30 min. or so.  Garbage trucks come for late pickups.  Motorcycles roar down the road.  This is a little different than quiet, cozy Golden!

But if it wasn’t different, we would be missing the point.  Now that we have some food and water, tomorrow should be easier.  Tomorrow we’ll try to figure out where Wal-Mart is.  Friday we get to meet with Daniel, who is the head of the girls’ home.  Noah put it well:  “Dad, I’m just bored – I want to start doing stuff to help the girls.”  Wil was also cute as we were walking home from the grocery store:  “Mom, I don’t know everything about Jesus, but I’m really excited to love the girls the way Jesus loves me.”