Matt Suggett | Official Blog of Matt Suggett

A year of Matt Suggett: 2010 and beyond

2011-03-02T12:34:00.000-08:00

However you look at it, 2010 was a big year for me. I travelled the world, got hit by a giant Earthquake, left my life in Chile to return to England, got married, and finally started at London Business School. More than anything it was a year of transition: one of contrast.

At the start of the year I was helping families rebuild their houses after they were destroyed by an earthquake, huddling around a fire pit dug in the mud floor of their shack waiting for a simple dinner to slowly cook. At the end of the year I was playing golf at some of the world's most prestigious private members clubs and drinking champagne with the world's top executives. The contrast could not be starker.

At times it has been difficult for me to reconcile the two worlds. At the start of 2010 I was more confused than ever: where did I fit into the picture? The transition that I've felt since then is marked.

More than anything I think 2010 was a year of self-discovery: a year of many mini-epiphanies. I think, despite all the crazy/scary/exciting stuff that happened, I will always look back on it as the year I figured a few things out. I'll probably remember it as the year I truly came to believe that anyone can do anything. I'll stop with the 'finding myself story' now, but not before I quote an LBS professor who sums up my feelings nicely:

"Be yourself. More. With impact."

Now, onto a quick reflection of some of the major events of 2010:

Travelled the world:

I visited 9 countries on 4 continents. I saw the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne, watched as Julia jumped out of a plane in New Zealand, and toured southern south America. I drank delicate pretentious reds from fine glassware in a room full of high society pseudo-strangers and passed a warm bag of cheap Goon (boxed wine) around a group of new friends. I realized that I'd rather do the latter.

Hit by giant earthquake:

There is no question in my mind- that earthquake was the scariest moment of my life. You can't know what it's like to be scared until you wholly believe that you are about to die at the age of 23. It puts a lot of things in perspective. I think I'll remember the weeks that followed as much as the quake itself: from riding out the aftershocks by huddling in a dark room playing card games to volunteering in a Red Cross warehouse and helping to rebuild houses, the sense of 'we're all in this together, and we're all going to help each other' was inspiring.

Left my life in Chile and returned to England:

One of the toughest decisions I've had to make in my life. It's never easy to leave behind a group of friends that you love and a cause that you feel so intimately a part of. The first couple of months were more difficult than I had imagined, and I repeatedly wondered "why?". Life in England seemed so sterile by comparison.

Got Married:

One of the easiest decisions I've made in my life. Before hand I never really put much stock into marriage: the institution, but seeing Julia walk into the room, barefoot and smiling, was one of the happiest moments of my life.

Started at London Business School:

I would be lying if I said I didn't have my doubts about business school when I started. But the experience so far has helped define who I am as a person. I've never been challenged so rigorously before. I would also be lying if I said it had all been smooth sailing- you can't expect to grow if you're not pushed absolutely to, and sometimes beyond, the limits of your ability.

Into 2011:

Looking back, it's going to be tough to top 2010 as a pivotal year. More than anything, I hope that I remember the lessons I learned and carry them forward. I'm just past the half-way mark in my London Business School course, and I'm determined to make the most out of the time I have left before the opportunity is gone.

Matt Suggett; 02/03/2011

The Madrid Marathon

2010-11-30T12:03:00.000-08:00

At 7:55 a.m. on Sunday 17^th of April, Julia and I will be standing amongst thousands of anxious and excited people in Plaza de la Independencia in Madrid. At 8 a.m. we’ll cross the start line of the 2011 Madrid marathon.

The following few hours will be a blur of pain and exhaustion.

Neither of us enjoy running and neither of us believe that this will be an enlightening journey of self-discovery. We’re not running for fun or to somehow better ourselves: We’re running for a cause.

In 2009, I began volunteering in an orphanage in Chile. I worked with teenage girls who had been abused, neglected, and abandoned. For 15 months I watched in amazement as an organization named VE Global brought joy, happiness, and real opportunity into the lives of children who would otherwise have nothing.

After learning about the girls I worked with, Julia organized a fundraiser, named Somos Mujeres. She was able to collect the underwear, clothes, hygiene products, and female sanitary items that the girls desperately needed, and delivered them to the orphanage in Chile. While she was in Chile, Julia saw first hand the powerful results of the work that VE Global does.

Having been there and seen the impact the organization has in the lives of the children they serve, VE Global is a cause that’s close to both our hearts.

We also understand how valuable every donation really is:

· A few dollars can provide teaching materials for an educational program.

· $26 can provide the materials needed to run a series of sex education workshops.

· $30 can provide healthy meals to 30 kids as part of a sports league.

Our aim is to raise $1000 to help VE Global provide educational opportunities to these children.

Over the coming months, we’ll cover hundreds of miles of cold, wet pavement. We’ll be getting-up before sunrise to run in the dark and we’ll be out on Sunday mornings to run in the cold and the rain. The training will test our commitment, our patience, and our resolve. But it will all be worth it, if we can reach our target.

Please support us by donating, or click here to find out more.

Thank you for helping!

Matt.

A few surprises

2010-10-17T15:27:00.000-07:00

It has been four weeks since I walked through the doors of LBS for the first time as a student. Many things have surprised me since that day.

Firstly, there's the coursework. With a degree in Economics under my belt already I was expecting some overlap in the syllabus. Not true. The LBS course rockets along at a blistering pace. It took only 2 LBS classes to cover accounting material that took a year to trudge through at my undergraduate university, and the pace has only picked-up in the recent classes. Gone are the days when I could get by on brains, beer, and effort: I need miracles and supportive group members now!

Secondly, there's the career stuff. Timeframes are tiny, and, with a perilous job market that caps-out at many hundred applicants per available position we are all feeling the strain. Again, LBS does not disappoint, and it seems that I spend hours a day attending presentations, meeting recruiters from various exciting companies, and working on some critical aspect of career development.

Next, there are the students. It would be foolish to try and capture the calibre of the class here: there is no 'model' or 'average' student to speak of. Diversity is the resounding statement that London Business School made when selected my peers: we are 141 students from 39 countries (89% are foreign). We speak 44 languages and have experience in a vast diversity of fields on every continent. Within the program, we are assigned to small study groups of 6 students. The six people in my study group are from 6 different countries, four continents, speak 8 languages, and have a wealth of experience that allows us to attack any problem from 6 unique angles.

The fourth (major) surprise has been the extra curricular activities. One of the main reasons I picked London Business School was for the wealth of extra-curricular endeavors I could get my teeth stuck into, but I never imagined the extent or variety of the options that would be available to me. Again, it seems that I have at least one or two fun/educational extra-curricular events open to me everyday, from inter-nation football tournaments, to consulting workshops and 'how to interview in finance' seminars, to fundraising events, golf games, sports days, scavenger hunts, and pub golf. The list is literally endless and the only challenges are which ones to pick and how to fit them in!

The biggest surprise though, and for lack of a better name, is the "energy" of the campus: I sit on the executive council of two student clubs that have a combined membership of 1300 students, run a social media campaign for the university, am neck-deep and out of my depth in my studies, and have a career to find and pursue. I'm active all day long and it feels like I haven't had time yet to sit still for five minutes and gather my thoughts. Yet, I find myself utterly outshone and outworked by the vast majority of my cohorts. LBS prides itself on attracting future world leaders; high achievers with a passion for life and challenge. Alumni often say that they learned as much from their peers as from their professors. Already this is true for me, and I look forward to the next few months as I see my schedule quickly filling up: "busy time"="learning time".

Matt Suggett; 17/10/2010

My time in Chile

2010-09-30T06:41:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to write this post for a while now. Well, here it is: my honest account of my time in South America (I've tried to keep it as short as possible!)

It was really with a naive shrug of the shoulders that I made the decision to volunteer. I wanted to help, and I wanted to go far away from England. Far away from education and corporation. Away from spreadsheets, iPhones, and Macbooks in Starbucks. At heart, it was a small act of rebellion: the disruption was strangely liberating. Three months later, I found myself high above the amazon rainforest hurtling towards Chile. I still remember the flight, and that terrifying feeling in the pit of your stomach that comes with being alone and knowing absolutely nothing about your future....

The beginning was very exciting. There were lots of friendly people to meet, lots of new food and drink to enjoy, and many mini-adventures to be had everyday in Santiago. The city seemed alive in a way that I had never experienced before. I looked at life with massive optimism and expectation. Even little things like a plastic cup of exotic fresh fruit juice bought from an old lady with a shopping cart stirred feelings of extreme excitement in me.

The third weekend of my stay in Chile I travelled to the Conchagua valley for a festival. The atmosphere was incredible. We stayed in an old adobe hostel with dust floors and palm tree courtyards, and celebrated the harvest outside in the hot and humid night amongst the locals. The town square, overlooked by the cathedral and town hall and lined by exotic palm trees, was full of music and dancing and happy townspeople late into the night. Life had never been better. My expectations had never been higher: next week I would start my volunteer work in the orphanage.

I was assigned to an orphanage for girls that had been abused or neglected. I had been warned that some of the girls would have heartbreaking backgrounds, that they would have been through things that I couldn't imagine. For many of them the abuse had been sexual and the torment had lasted for years.

My first day in the orphanage was overwhelming. At the end of it I couldn't make sense of my emotions. Nothing powerfully alarming happened: there was no violent shock. But I had been utterly dazed by everything I had to take in. Over the next few few weeks I would become evermore depressed as the reality of the situation slowly dawned on me. Suddenly, I had a tangible understanding of what Eduardo Galeano meant when he wrote Open Veins of Latin America:

"The human murder by poverty in Latin America is secret; every year, without making a sound, three Hiroshima bombs explode over communities that have become accustomed to suffering with clenched teeth. This systematic violence is not apparent but is real and constantly f increasing: its holocausts are not made known in the sensational press but in Food and Agricultural Organization statistics." -Eduardo Galeano.

I was beginning to see the big picture of poverty. Specifically I began to understand the problem as cyclical, systemic, and rooted in inequality. As the full scope of it dawned on me and lifted my veil of naivety I began to feel helpless and overwhelmed.

Facing such an immense global problem I became consumed by the notion that my attempt to help was extremely feeble. It would be an exaggeration to say I felt ashamed of my four-month plan, but I certainly didn't feel proud of my seemingly meagre effort.

I looked around at my fellow volunteers. Without exception, they were incredible: They were born to do that kind of work. The impact they had in the orphanages was inspiring. And that's when I realized that my talents lay elsewhere: I could have greater impact applying myself to the systematic attack on the problem.

Through promotion, I took on a new role in the organization: I became Director of Resource Development. I signed a 12 month contract and deferred entry into London Business School for a year.

From this position I felt much more able to drive change by empowering others. I worked in an office with three other Directors, the Executive Director, and the coordinators. To me, these behind-the-scenes people are the real unsung heroes: They work long term for little pay and forego the emotional reward of intense direct contact with the end beneficiaries of their efforts (the kids). They work long, unstable hours, and happily shoulder the stress that comes from knowing that the success of the organization lives and dies in their hands.

My new role was to oversee the Resource Development Department. Officially, we worked in five key areas: Fundraising, Grant Writing, Marketing and Communications, Recruitment, and Technology. Unofficially we tackled any problem we could get our hands on.

Many people have a 'romantic' notion of what it's like to work in a dynamic grassroots organization. I found the reality is that it's plain hard work. You have to believe in what you're doing, and you have to be prepared to be in the office every night and at the weekends if you need to be: if something needs doing, you have to do it.

Small NGO's like VE Global face many unique problems and are heavily constrained by a chronic lack of resources. The work can be extremely frustrating as one tries to reconcile their ambitions with what is realistically achievable: creativity is the key here. To help counteract the energy eroding frustrations, we developed an active focus on achieving an exciting work-life balance and a strong team-centered culture of fun. At the weekends we would travel in groups to the nearby Andes, the beaches, to a nature reserve to camp, or we would have a rooftop barbeque in the city. Occasionally we would organize trips to nearby Bolivia or Argentina. During the week we got together to play ping-pong, football, learn spanish, or just have fun.

As the initial shock wore off, I began to look at poverty as a solvable problem. I had to look past the mythical "one-punch" solution and try to break down the whole problem in terms of many small and approachable challenges. With this realization, I became more and more satisfied with the work I was doing and the impact I was having: I wasn't going to save the world, but by tackling a specific problem I could be a small part of a global solution.

Finally, as my time came to an end I began to have doubts about my decision to leave: Despite a string of impressive on-paper results for the Resource Development Department, there was still so much more to do, so many more problems to tackle.

The greatest asset of any grassroots organization is their ability to attract massively energetic, dynamic, and capable people. My fears about leaving were relieved when we found a replacement for me that would not only continue the growth that started before I arrived, but had the innate ability to lead the department to outperform the results that I had achieved.

When I look back at my time in Chile and take it as a whole, I cannot imagine a more rewarding experience. In the beginning, my time was characterized by extreme lows and extreme highs as I tried to reconcile the values I had learned from my Anglo-American upbringing with the very different reality I now found myself embedded in. My initial battles changed the way I view the world and my role in it, and ultimately led to a new personal stability that allowed me to enjoy the end of my time there. In the end I left Chile with many fond memories, a clear understanding of exactly what I had accomplished, and a sense of satisfaction and achievement that comes from being a part of something much, much bigger.

Matt Suggett; 30/09/2010

Here are some photo albums of my time in South America:

View from the apartment I lived in for my last 9 months

Pics from the volunteer house part 1 and part 2

Pics from Valle Elqui, La Serena, Valparaiso

Pics of Northern Chile/Bolivia trip #1

Collection of Chile Sunsets

Pics from Toma Peñalolen

Pics of La Vega farmers market

Pics from Northern Chile #2

Couple of pics from Santiago with Andes in Background

Last week I went to a wedding. It was mine.

2010-09-14T06:43:00.000-07:00

For those that haven't heard the news yet, Julia and I are married. For those who have asked for more details, here's the story!

We decided to get married. It wasn't a decision made on impulse, it was something we've talked about for a while, and it was only after the decision had been made that we realized the full extent of complicated situation we were in: I'm English, she's American, and at the time I had three weeks left on a fuse burning towards the hectic start of my London Business School program.

To our surprise, after we had made the decision, the British and American Governments prescribed a long list of hurdles in the form of marriage/immigration regulations. It turned out that if we wanted to set a wedding date next summer, Julia would have to spend the next 5-6 months away in America while the appropriate paperwork was processed. Having spent the majority of the last year separated by various oceans, we decided that this wasn't an option: the marriage was more important than the wedding.

With this in mind, we hopped on a plane bound for Gibraltar where we could marry without the bureaucratic consent of the British Government.

A few days later, after hurriedly gathering a few witnesses off the street, we were married in a private ceremony at the top of the rock. The date was August 31st 2010, and the pictures follow this post.

Given the short timeframe, we realized we wouldn't be able to tell everyone beforehand. We certainly couldn't expect to invite everyone. So, to ensure that nobody was left out, we decided it would be fairest to tell no-one beforehand. After the ceremony, we took some time to tell the closest members of our family personally, before we began to let the world know.

I hope you can all understand and that no-one is offended that they didn't know beforehand or feels like they were the last to know. That was not our intention.

Now, I've started at London Business School and Julia is in the U.S. to see her family/friends and wait while here new paperwork is processed. She'll be back in London in 2 weeks time and we'll be moving into an apartment together. And for those of you that have asked, yes: there will be celebrations for family and friends after I have finished at LBS next summer!

Matt Suggett; 14/09/2010

Click here to see these pics in a fancy slideshow (link to different site).

Appeal for support

2010-06-13T20:05:00.000-07:00

In march of last year, I set-off to volunteer in an orphanage for abused and neglected girls in Santiago, Chile. I spent 15 months volunteering in the orphanage, and my experiences there changed the way I look at the world.

Now, the orphanage is in danger. It is funded by a semi-government organization called CODENI, which, on the back of the election of the new coalition government in Chile, has become intent on closing down the orphanage.

Time is running out, but, on behalf of girls who would otherwise have no voice, I and a small community of volunteers are making a case for keeping the orphanage open.

Please demonstrate your support by taking one minute to sign this online petition.

The signatures, which represent support from the global community, will be presented to CODENI when we make the case next week.

It takes less than one minute to sign the petition. Please spare the time to help make a real difference, and forward the link to anyone who might support the cause.

I'll post the details of our proposal, and the outcome of the meeting with CODENI, to my blog later this week. Please feel free to send me an email if you want any more information.

Thanking you in advance,

Matt.

Chile Earthquake Update

2010-03-05T05:32:00.000-08:00

Read my account of the moment the earthquake struck

6 days after the quake struck, this is the way I see the situation in Santiago, Chile, and the World:

Despite being declared an 'Area of Catastrophe' by the Chilean government, life in Santiago is beginning to develop a thin veneer of normality. Every night, I see fewer people sleeping outside in tents in the park. Most of the rubble has been cleared away, and people are starting to get out and about in the evenings, giving Santiago a less dead feeling after dark.

Having said that, a closer look at everyday life reveals how thin an

d fragile this veneer really is. A week on, one-in-ten Santiago families will spend tonight without water and electricity, and on yesterday's trip to the grocery store, I noticed heavily armed military police guarding the entrance. Inside the store, the shelves were bare of any food that could be stored: rice, pasta, canned vegetables, tomato ketchup, and powdered milk were all gone. Our water has mysteriously stopped running today, and despite the governments statement that no looting has happened in the city, we've heard first hand accounts of offices just down the road being evacuated as the nearby stores come under attack from groups of robbers.

Seemingly non-stop aftershocks have frayed nerves, and a 6.3 rumble two nights ago sent families running into the street outside my apartment, and today, we've already suffered two more shocks above 6.0. It's only 11:00am.

First hand accounts are trickling in from friends and relatives stuck in the South. By all accounts the devastation is apocalyptic. The pictures on the news provide a small window into the real extent of the devastation. The government is under fire from all sides, and private aid organizations are working way above capacity to organize the aid effort. For many organizations, it's all hands on deck as they fight to raise funds and supplies needed to organize their aid missions, and the city of Santiago seems to be answering the calls for help.

The situation here is extremely tangible, but often we wonder how the disaster is being received in the outside world. The initial media explosion seems to have been reduced to a trickle of updates as America and the world return to more mainstream sports and pop culture news. It really feels like as the situation here is worsening, the world is losing interest and the support is rapidly waning.

As the days pass by, the scared people of Santiago are beginning to wonder if life will ever return to normal. The fact is that there are 2 million displaced Chileans, and the money needed to repair the physical damage to buildings is somewhere in the 20% of GDP range. In the country that is already 7th most at risk from climate change, the earthquake that shortened the length of the day has obliterated the agriculture industry. The disaster is not just short term. The effects of this quake will be felt by Chileans for generations.

This pic shows the 215 aftershocks above 4.5 on the richter scale since the earthquake struck last Saturday. Source: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/

Matt Suggett; 05/03/2010

Chile Earthquake: How you can help (updated)

2010-03-02T10:16:00.000-08:00

Read my account of the moment the quake struck

Read my reaction to the three days following the quake

I've gathered together a few pictures of the devastation Chile has suffered. They're not mine, I found them online and put them in one place for you (they're at the bottom of this post).

The Chilean Government is beginning to accept international aid, and there are many ways that you can help:

1) Donate to VE Global: In order to support the vulnerable and drastically under-resourced institutions we work with, our response is a three tiered strategy:

i) Repair the damage and make the buildings safe again:

Santiago's orphanages were severely damaged by the earthquake, resulting in a highly dangerous situation for over 450 abandoned children. The structural damages are further complicated by the surrounding impoverished neighborhoods, leaving hundreds of vulnerable children without a secure place to sleep. VE Global is working to organize the repair of the damage caused during the quake to make the structures safe again.

(edit: the volunteers scheduled to arrive next Thursday have abandoned their plans. Since many parts of Santiago are without electricity and water, they feel that it is too dangerous to fly to Chile.)

ii) Find and distribute essential sanitation and personal hygiene products:

In addition to fundamental repairs, we desperately need supplies. We are applying for grant funding, and hope to be able to provide the sanitation and personal hygiene products that are crucial to stopping the spread of disease following a natural disaster.

iii) Disaster survival education:

The last phase of our strategy is to design and implement an educational program that teaches fundamental disaster survival skills to the 400 children we work with.

If you would like to donate to help VE Global's efforts, please click this button

Alternatively, you can email me at msuggett@ve-global.org to get more information or ask questions.

2) Donate to one of our Disaster Relief Partners:

i) The Chilean Red Cross: http://www.cruzroja.cl/

ii) Un Techo Para Chile: http://www.untechoparachile.cl/

Red Cross is focusing on distributing the field hospitals, medical, sanitation, food, and water supplies that the victims need. Un Techo Para Chile will focus on providing shelter for the displaced families, in addition to distributing disaster relief supplies. Both organizations are working at full capacity to help the citizens of Chile and are in desperate need of all the help they can get.

If you have any questions, or want any information, I'm more than happy to help. Just shoot me a quick email, msuggett@ve-global.org

Source: globalpost.com

Source: wsj.com

Matt Suggett; 02/03/2010

Aftershocks

2010-03-01T08:25:00.000-08:00

The last 3 days have been surreal. Read my account of the moment the 'megaquake' struck.

Three days have passed since the Earthquake hit. As a English speaking foreigner in Chile, I sit at a strange intersection of information: I read online external english speaking news sources like CNN and BBC, I receive local streams of first hand accounts through social media channels like Facebook and Twitter, I talk face-to-face with friends, neighbors, and strangers in the community, and I see with my own eyes what is actually happening around me.

Although the quake was utterly terrifying, from what I've seen with my own two eyes, Santiago escaped relatively unscathed, at least compared to the South of Chile. Admittedly, with public transport services out, I've only walked between my apartment and my office. Along this route, I've seen clear and extremely visible damage to buildings: piles of fallen bricks, shattered windows, massive cracks torn across walls. But I've only seen one abandoned old house completely collapsed. The Associated Press reports that 3 hospitals collapsed in Southern Santiago, and that a factory was destroyed in the north of the city. A friend relayed to me that his friend's brand new apartment building was ripped down the middle, and half of it collapsed on the outskirts of town. The family had moved in two weeks ago. There stuff is wrecked but they are unharmed. For a city of 6 million, 21 confirmed deaths is a BIG bullet dodge.

Walking back through the park, I see dozens of people sleeping in tents too scared to return into their shattered homes. I don't blame them. Aftershocks are abating, but we've suffered over 160 so far. Over 130 have been over 5.0 on the Richter scale, 9 of them have been over 6.0, and the strongest measured 6.9 (equivalent to the Haiti quake of last month). Each one is petrifying, like it's about to happen all over again. Everyone is watching out for the next big one. After the terror of the first earthquake, you develop a hypersensitivity to any vibration. As soon as I feel the floor start to pulse, and hear the building creak quietly, my heart stops. I tense up. It's a reaction of pure fear. I can't imagine how the tremors must feel to those still trapped in the rubble, or sheltering in a ruined, flooded house.

The quake cut electricity to most of the country. For me, water and electricity service has resumed. Gas has not, so no hot showers and no hot food for me tonight. Public transport is slowly reopening, and the airport accepted a few flights today.

At work, we are evaluating the needs of our institutions. The fact is that they were already starved of resources. Children who had already been neglected and abandoned have taken another shot as the quake destroyed some of their walls and left their shelters with severe structural damage. None are dead, and none are injured. All have running water, and food to last a while. (If you want to help, stay tuned, and I'll let you know what we plan to do, and what supplies we need to meet their needs.)

Watching the news, we all know the problems that country is facing just a little bit to the south. People are being pulled dead from the rubble, there is no drinking water and food supplies are scarce. A military enforced curfew has not prevented looting and riots. Standing in line to buy some food at the small corner store, I can feel the tension just under the orderly surface. The future is unknown, people are scared. 2 million people are displaced from razed and flooded homes. They've got to go somewhere. It won't be long before they arrive in Santiago.

Chile's government has to swallow her pride sooner or later. The calls for international aid will come. Hopefully, the outside world will be there when they do.

These maps show the aftershocks that have hit Chile in the last 3 days. (source: http://earthquake.usgs.gov). It gives you some idea of the scale what the residents of Chile are going through trying to recover from the disaster.

Matt Suggett; 01/03/2010

Matt Suggett; 02/03/2010

Chile Earthquake 2010

2010-02-27T07:57:00.000-08:00

At about 3:30 last night, I was lying in bed, drifting off to sleep. My window was open to admit the warm night air, and I opened my eyes as a loud motorcycle passed outside. The noise disturbed the street dogs, and I rolled my eyes as dogs across the city began howling and barking.

My bed began to rock, gently. I've felt a few minor tremors before, so I wasn't alarmed as my building began to quiver lethargically. The gentle pulses massaged me in my warm bed. Our big apartment building creaked softly as it swayed slowly in the quiet night, like a the leaves of a tree stirring in a calm evening breeze.

Suddenly, my heart dropped through my stomach. A million things shot through my mind as my room exploded. My bed started shaking violently. My wardrobe doors were flapping open and slamming shut. Books and trinkets on my table crashed on the floor. The noise was deafening.

What happened next is a blur of noise and panic. I had only one thought: get out.

I jumped out of bed. The building was shaking viciously, knocking me off my feet. It was as if a giant man had a hold of me, and was shaking my fragile body like a baby. Instinctively, I reached for the door handle and left my room at full speed. My body slammed into the walls of the hallway and I was almost shaken from my feet again. I punched my flat mates' door as I passed to wake them.

As I exited our hallway and entered our living room, I hurdled chairs and tables that were thrown in my path: tripping and sprawling across the floor didn't slow me down. Books and things came tumbling off of their shelves. In the kitchen plates and cups were breaking. Pans were falling, clattering.

I slammed into the apartment door, and by some miracle my key hit the lock first time. I didn't even realize that I'd grabbed my keys as I left my room.

I was in the corridor now, sprinting as best I could, bouncing off the walls as I went.

Women and girls were screaming inside the doors I was flying past. A man was yelling 'Terremoto". I was running. I burst through the door to the stairway. I tried to grab at the hand rail, but the quake threw me away from it and against the other wall.

I tore down the 4 flights of stairs, through the door, and across the lobby. I got through the front door of the building and overtook the doorman as we reached the gate.

Outside in the street, I breathed for the first time. Even on the flat concrete, it was still hard to stand up. I looked up at the power lines whipping above my head, and moved down the street to a safer spot. The doorman looked at me as if to say, "How the fuck did you get here before me!".

The ground stopped shaking us and we were able to stand normally again. I looked around and took stock of the situation. Other people were emerging from their homes. Couples and families hurried out into the street, and huddled together in small groups. Power had been lost, and the city was plunged into darkness. We stood in the urban moonlight. My body shook from adrenalin, and as I looked up at the sky, I saw the stars for the first time in Santiago.

My flat mates emerged from the building, clearly shaken. Residents gathered together in a large group and made sure that everyone was accounted for and ok. Once the shock had worn off, people began to think of their loved ones. Families huddled around mobile phones trying to reach some special person. The networks were swamped, and calls were impossible. Text messages went through, and relieved smiles and hugs broke-out as people got word that they're friends and families were safe.

Others, unable to get a message out, jumped in their cars and sped off through the unlit roads. Traffic lights were down across the city. Suddenly the streets were full of cars speeding recklessly through the night, trying to get across town to find a loved one. The junction on the corner became dangerous. Wheels squealed and horns sounded as motorists slammed on their brakes and swerved to avoid each other. A brave man ran into the intersection and directed the hectic traffic, screaming orders in the night.

The building was closed while the power, water, and gas lines were checked. After about half an hour we were allowed back in to find cellphones and warm clothes.

Back upstairs, I grabbed my phone, and some clothes. I looked out the window to see if any buildings were missing, the city skyline was silhouetted black against the bright moon sky.

It was nerve racking being back inside amongst the dark, silent carnage of fallen possessions.

I hurried back outside to rejoin the group.

The building was checked quickly for obvious structural damage and broken pipes. With none found, we were allowed back in. No one moved. Nobody wanted to be back inside, especially with the ever present threat of an aftershock.

At about 7, as the sun was rising, families began heading back in to put their children to sleep and begin the cleanup.

Tiredness overtook me (I hadn't been to sleep yet), and I too wandered back up to my room.

After picking a few things up, I lay down in bed.

I exchanged a few text messages and phones calls with friends around the city. I spoke on the phone to those I knew with family in the south, near the epicenter, and wished them the best. I can't imagine what they must have been thinking.

Looking back now, a few hours on, the whole experience seems a bit surreal. I can say, without a doubt, that I have never been as scared as I was for that 45 seconds that I was inside. I've never had an adrenalin reaction like that.

The earthquake, which measured 8.8 on the richter scale (1000 times more powerful than the Haiti quake of last month), was the most powerful force I have ever felt. It tossed me around inside my apartment like a rag doll. I cannot imagine a force more violent, and cannot fathom the fear and terror the 200,000 people near the epicenter in Concepcion must have been through, and are still going through.

There have been about 27 aftershocks rating over 5.0 on the richter scale so far, the most powerful was at 7:30 this morning and measured 6.9 on the richter scale (similar to the Haiti quake last month). Each tremor, no matter how small, stops my heart.

Here are some pics of the destruction caused a bit further south:

Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com

Source: http://oneminiuteblog.com

Source: http://www.thestar.com/

Source: http://wsj.com

Source: http://bbc.co.uk

Source: http://news.sky.com

http://washingtonpost.com

Source: Huffington Post

Source: http:nationalpost.com

Source: MSNBC.com

This raw video footage from the AP doesn't quite capture the violence, but it gives you a good idea! (notice how it starts quietly, and gets more vicious!)

Everyone at VE is accounted for and safe, as are all of the children we work with. The aftershocks continue: 37 so far, and I have no doubt that many more are to come.

Matt Suggett; 27/02/2010

Marathon Mistakes, so far!

2010-02-23T10:05:00.000-08:00

It is now six weeks since I signed-up for the Santiago Marathon. I haven't really made much progress with my training, and looking at it now, it might seem like I have actually gone backwards. With six weeks left before race day, these are the mistakes I know I have made already:

Playing contact sports:

Playing fútbol (soccer) a few times a weeks leaves me with inevitable bumps, bruises, and niggling (but minor) injuries. At the start of my training, I was still playing footy 3 times a week, and a sore hip/knee/ankle limited my marathon training. To avoid this problem, I have stopped playing footy until after the big day.

Too hard, too fast:

One footy game I jarred my knee. It was nothing serious, and by the next night I barely noticed that anything was wrong with it. That next night also happened to be my second training run, and I had scheduled an ambitious 8 mile effort. As I set-off to warm up, I noticed that my knee was sore, but after a few minutes the pain pretty much disappeared and I finished my run in good time. After the run I showered and went out for dinner with some friends. At the end of the meal, as I came to stand up, I could hardly straiten my leg. Running too far too soon amplified my injury, and I had to completely stop my training for 2 whole weeks.

Training with an injury

Six weeks on, I can only run a couple of miles before the pain in my knee forces me to stop. Running 3 or 4 miles everyday is helpful for general levels of fitness, but it falls way short of the distance needed to prepare for a 26 mile marathon. Fingers crossed it heals itself sharpish!

Diet

Shouldn't I be eating some kind of proper diet to help me? I don't know if pizza, beer, and fried foods should be the staples of a marathon runner. Surprisingly difficult to change this.

Vacation

I've booked a 2 week holiday before the race. It's easy to sit here now and believe that I'll have the motivation to train during my break, but I can feel the question mark hanging over my head on this one. I get back from Australia 4 days before the race!

Smog

It just cannot be healthy to choke down gulps of thick smog every night.

Lack of cross training

I don't have access to a bike or gym or the funds to get either. Lack of aerobic cross training means I have to run to train, and the impact nature of running only worsens the state of my knee.

Social life

I didn't realize the social sacrifice it takes to train properly: I've found that I can't stay out late if I want to train the next morning, and I can't go out after work if I want to train that night. It's difficult to sacrifice your social life, especially when you only have a few months left in an exciting culture. It's even harder to do it night after night.

Time frame

All of my problems are compounded by my short time frame. I can't take time of to let my knee heal properly, and loosing a few days to a camping trip or a few nights to a busy week really impact a short training schedule.

Although I feel like I've gone backwards over the last six weeks (started at 8 miles, been limited to 3 or 4 since then), I feel fairly in control of my future training schedule. Obviously, it will be limited by the distance that my knee allows me to run each day, but the injury seems to be clearing-up slowly. My knee feels less sore everyday, and I've accepted that I'm not going to be able to blitz my first marathon: I look at this as a learning experience now. I take it easy during my training sessions, I don't risk my knee because I run slowly and stop when it begins to hurt, and my focus has shifted from challenging myself to run a quick time to focusing on finishing the race.

The thing about running is that you have a lot of time to reflect on why you're running. It's amazing the things you learn about yourself when you try something new, and I feel like my mental shift from "must push hard now so I can run marathon really fast" to "should take it easy to avoid injury / it's ok to focus on finishing" is an attitude that I can apply to my everyday life.

Matt Suggett; 24/02/2010

Marathon

2010-02-11T08:41:00.000-08:00

One night a few weeks ago I found myself in La Piojera (a famous Chilean dive bar, whose name translates to 'The Flea Market'). Traditionally, La Piojera is a place where people go to meet friends, drink Terremotos, and make good decisions.

After checking 'meeting friends' and 'drinking Terremotos' of that list, the conversation moved to the upcoming Santiago Marathon and I duly took the opportunity to cross 'make a good decision' of that list: On April 11th, I'll cross the start line of my first marathon.

The day after that night in the Piojera, a quick hungover Google search revealed that 26 weeks is about the time you need to train for a marathon. At that point, I had about 12 short weeks. Since then, a couple of footy-induced minor injuries have prevented me from training, and after a minor groin strain last night I'm staring at the marathon down an 8 week barrel.

Last night saw my last footy game until after the marathon, and sunday will see my last foray into ultimate frisbee before the big day.

The optimist in me hopes that I will suddenly discover a long lost love for running, and that the whole experience will be rewarding, satisfying, and enjoyable. The realist reckons that it's going to be 8 weeks, 26 miles, and many hours of boredom, sweat, and bad techno running music.

Matt Suggett; 11/02/2010

Job Hunting 101: Want a change? Take a chance!

2010-01-21T07:15:00.000-08:00

I have re-posted this article from Examiner.com. It was written by Carol Aitkin, and you can view the original article here

The cure for job limbo? Take a chance, mate!

Young Atlantan seeks work experience in Australia

Until a few months ago, Julia Gates, a motivated, outgoing, and creative Oglethorpe University graduate, found herself -- alongside many of her peers in the current Atlanta job market -- under-employed. Not being one to languish, Julia set her sights on an opportunity that others only dream of -- traveling halfway around the world to work in Australia.

Just two weeks into her stay, the motivated Ms. Gates secured a job as a crew member on a day trip boat, the Reefjet. Not completely satisfied with that position being a "hostie" or hostess on board, she then decided to try her luck as a deckhand on the British Defender, a high tech Whitbread Around The World Racing Maxi.

That's right, two weeks.
With wet suit at the ready, Julia found herself sailing, diving, and crewing around the Whitsunday Islands off the northeastern coast of Queensland. But that's not all. While onboard -- and here's where the outgoing and creative Julia really shines -- she made a video.

"Where are YOU working, and what do YOU want to do?" asks Julia from the deck of the yacht before jumping overboard to cool off in the clear blue/green sea.

And then...
While we were suffering cold (and a whopping inch or so of snow!) in Atlanta, according to her blog, Julia moved on to another unusual job opportunity as a "WWOOFer" (Willing Worker On Organic Farms) in the humid Australia heat. This job provided accommodation and food, so she also worked in town at a travel agency for backpackers to earn some spending cash.

Sounds easy enough and fun, huh? Face it, work is... work. Reality is, Julia worked "8 days a week" for time off to travel to New Zealand for the holidays, then back to Australia via Sydney. She's now in Melbourne seeking a harvesting job in the state of Victoria.

Always in Motion
"Always in motion," Julia wrote about underwater life in a recent blog. The same is true for her -- from the Georgia Aquarium to the Great Barrier Reef to the iconic cities of Sydney and Melbourne -- she's always in motion.

On the leisure side, not to be outdone by Australia's summer tourists, Julia's spare time activities include exploring the reef, spotting kangaroos, savoring tasty foods, making new friends, scuba diving the Rainbow Warrior and skydiving...so far.

Tell Me More about Australia, Julia.
"Australia is one of the many places you could go for a change. With only a few steps back in terms of modernization -- like no central air conditioning, a dodgy internet system sometimes and some dangerous animals -- Australia is a great place to be. Remember, the seasons are reverse of the USA here. Since it is in the Southern Hemisphere; the weather is hot in the summer (right now), dry in the south, and humid in the north. There are well established transportation systems, so there is no need for worry about getting around a city."

So what's the Teachable Moment here, you ask?
While a giant step like moving to Australia may be a little extreme, at least consider Julia's solution to "job limbo" a call to action: If you're truly ready for a change, you have to be willing to take a chance.

Ways to have a G'Day in Australia
British Defender specs and 3 day tour info Australia Rock Art and Aboriginal History
Australia Day - January 26 Australian Open - January 31 Formula 1 Racing - March 28

Read. Listen. Learn. Visit the Atlanta Teachable Moments Examiner for unbearably random articles for family-focused events, travel, ideas, information, activities, etc. You can subscribe to receive email alerts at the top of any Atlanta Teachable Moments Examiner page. Your address will never be shared with others... because Examiner.com won't even let me see it. Thanx for stopping by!

Thank You :)

2010-01-07T14:30:00.000-08:00

Thank you everyone who gave me a christmas present in 2009. You know who you are, but do you know how much good you've done?

Obviously, we don't hand out the cold hard cash to the children we work with, so here's a quick breakdown of the value of the service we'll be able to provide with what you've given:

Last year, total service donated: $1,100,000

Last year, our fundraising income: $40,000

So, for every dollar we spent, we were able to provide $27.50 of service directly to children. What this means, is that if you gave me $1 for christmas, you actually donated $27.50 to the kids I work with!

To give you an impression of the scale of the impact your donations will have, a $10 donation to VE Global will enable us to provide $275 worth of service to the children you are really donating to. Similarly:

$20 -> $550.00

$50 -> $1,375.00

$100 -> $2,750.00

All said and done, you guys gave me $510 for christmas ($10 more than my goal of $500!)

$510 -> $14,025.00

Even if you thought that your donation was small, you can see that your generosity will have a real impact. To all of you who gave me a christmas present, Thank You! Together, you guys have really made a huge difference in the lives of the girls that I work with.

Matt Suggett; 09/01/2010

Photo's of a week in New Zealand

2010-01-06T10:47:00.001-08:00

The day after Christmas, I left South America for the first time since I arrived 10 months prior. I headed to Keri Keri on New Zealand's North Island to visit my parents and see Julia (read her blog here: Julia Gates). After spending just one week there, New Zealand chalked-up another point for the South in the Northern hemisphere vs. Southern Hemisphere debate that I've been quietly pondering the past few months.

Below are some of the pics I took, and at the bottom is a quick slide show of more.

View of an inlet from my parents deck:

Julia and I tried our luck fishing in the inlet.

With no luck at the inlet, we made the logical transition to Opito Bay:

Alas, the coolest (and only) critter we could catch was this little guy:

For some unfathomable reason, Julia though it would be a good idea to strap herself to a stranger and jump out of a plane at 15,000ft. This is

taken just before she got in the plane:

View of The Bay of Islands from 15,000ft

View of Julia from 14,900ft.

Safe landing:

After the jump:

New Zealand is a staggeringly beautiful place, and you never seem to be more than a few minutes from the nearest water:

Rainbow Falls:

Apparently, 98% of New Zealander's have never seen a Kiwi. Just after midnight on New Year's Eve we heard this little guy snortling around in the leaves. Admittedly, the photo is only of his arse, but it is a Kiwi non-the-less.

We spent our last day in Keri Keri toodling around the Bay of Islands on a friend's 'Bladerunner' boat.

Lunch (not caught by us):

Party raft lashed together:

On our way home, we came across of Dolphins who followed us for a while. They're much bigger than I expected:

In the Sky Tower, Auckland:

Outside the Sky Tower:

If anything, the trip, albeit short, confirmed what I have already come to believe: as the world gets smaller, and more accessible, there really are very few reasons why future generations should be tied to and live in their country of birth. Expect to see 'gold rushes' as the global population scrambles to relocate to a higher standard of living or happiness index.

And, here's the video:

Matt Suggett; 06/01/2010

Dear Santa

2009-12-24T06:12:00.000-08:00

Dear Santa,

I hope this letter finds you well. Please, as always, give my love to Mrs. Claus, Rudolph, and the Elves.

I'm sorry that it has been so many years since I last wrote to let you know the details of my Christmas wish list. Despite my lack of communication, I have been relieved to find myself on your 'nice' list every year, and have admired your uncanny ability to somehow fill my stocking with exactly the gifts that I wanted. So, thank you!

You have been good to me over the years, and I feel like the time has come for me to repay your kindness. So, this year, I have chosen a gift that doesn't need to be delivered to me in person. I hope that this will free-up some much needed space in your slay and spare you the time and effort needed to squeeze down my chimney and place a physical gift in my stocking.

This year, you can deliver my gift from the comfort of your own home in Lapland with a simple click of a button on the internet. I ask that you deliver the equivalent cash amount of whatever present you would have given me to VE Global, by donating online.

By doing this, you will be helping protect and support the vulnerable and abandoned children I volunteer with in Chile. It's the only present I want this year.

I hope my small action will save you some valuable time and space as you make your busy Christmas Eve deliveries across the world tonight. So please, after your hectic Christmas Eve round is over, and you are relaxing in your comfy chair by the fire in Lapland, with Mrs Claus making cookies in the kitchen, take 1 minute of your time to deliver my gift. I'll surely appreciate it!

Merry Christmas!

Matt Suggett.

Merry Christmas

2009-12-17T13:41:00.000-08:00

One of the things I have come to realize since I arrived in Chile nine months ago is that seemingly small actions can make a big difference in the lives of the children I volunteer with. The experience has also helped me come to appreciate many of the things that I have always taken for granted (like the packet of socks that my mum always gives me for Christmas).

This year, I am giving-up my christmas to raise money for VE Global. It feels strange to think that I won't open a single present this year, and although I'm really going to miss unwrapping that packet of socks on Christmas morning, I'm determined to make the sacrifice to support a cause that I have come to truly believe in.

Having been here for 9 months, I've seen how much good every donated penny can do. This Christmas, give a gift that changes lives by donating to VE Global in my name, and help change the lives of the children I have come to know and love.

Please take a minute to watch this video about VE Global, and then, please, click the "Give Matt A Present" button to give me the only christmas gift on my list this year.

Thank You!

2009-12-15T12:45:00.000-08:00

First things first: I want to thank everyone who reads my blog! I was wondering today who/where you guys might be, and I was shocked when I checked my Google Analytics and saw this map of where my blog is read (bigger dot=more readers):

So a massive thank you to you guys for all your support!

Secondly, I've decided to give-up all my Christmas presents this year and collect donations for VE Global instead. I truly believe in the work that VE Global does, and figured that it was the least I could do to support a cause that is in desperate need of every penny. So, this year, instead of a present, or card, please donate the equivalent amount in cash to VE Global

Donate Here!

The best present you can give me this year is a donation to help the kids that I have come to know and love.

Thank you!

Matt Suggett; 15/12/2009

The Grassroots Value

2009-12-13T14:23:00.000-08:00

9 months of volunteering in Chile has changed the way I understand the world.

I no longer see poverty as that insurmountable global problem best tackled by word governments and their ability to throw gigantic chunks of cash at it. Instead, I see a complete grassroots solution.

My point of view here is largely framed by my experience volunteering in Chile for an innovative Grassroots NGO, VE Global (see video on the right!)

VE Global works with abused, neglected, and abandoned children from the poorest areas of Santiago. More precisely, we run educational programs and provide emotional support to 400 at risk children in 8 institutions mostly in the South East of Santiago. My point is that we tackle a highly specific problem: we focus solely on the problems faced by the children we work with.

For VE Global, the real value of this focus is that we have gained an extremely intimate knowledge of the problem. Everyday, our 25 volunteers are immersed in the institutions. They work directly with the kids, and form incredibly strong bonds with them. They live and breathe with the children. They laugh and cry with them. This intimate relationship gives the volunteer an intimate knowledge of the problem.

Our ability to combine our intimate understanding of the problem with our dedicated focus to tackling it produces programs that achieve real results.

Case in point: An outsider who lacks the intimate knowledge of the problems faced by our kids might think one of English classes looks more like an elementary school playground. When we were designing English in Motion we knew that it wouldn’t work if we tried to teach in a traditional classroom setting. The kids get that at school and it doesn’t produce results. With an intimate understanding of the problem, it was easy for us to design an innovative program that motivates children and helps them learn by engaging them in a fun, friendly, and competitive atmosphere. The resulting program produced lesson plans packed with games and activities that motivated children to actively participate in their learning. The program was fun (I enjoyed teaching it, and the kids couldn’t wait to start class every week), and what’s more is that the program produced real results (my class improved by an average of 67% ).

English in Motion is an example of an effective solution designed from an intimate knowledge of the problem. Without the intimate understanding, VE Global would not be able to design effective solutions: send us to Africa to solve the water or AIDS crisis and we’d design ineffective solutions because we don’t have an advanced understanding of the problem.

It is specifically our expertise in our “at-risk children in Santiago” niche that enables us to be effective at solving “at-risk children in Santiago” problem. Unfortunately the drawback of the niche nature of our work is specifically the problem when it comes to finding support: very few people care enough about the problem in Santiago to give money to the cause.

In the long run, the lack of financial support amongst niche NGO’s like VE Global yields one surprising benefit: the struggle to survive produces extremely progressive organizations that persist year-to-year on their ability to innovate and create value out of the bare bones that we receive:

In 2009, on a budget of under $40,000, VE Global provided over $1,000,000 of service to the children we serve. The difference between those two numbers is staggering, and in Economics terms it represents the value of the specialization that we’ve achieved. It also illustrates another advantage we gain with our intimate knowledge of the problem: we know how to align the miniscule resources at our disposal to achieve massively efficient results.

And VE Global is not alone. There are literally thousands of NGO’s like us out there in the world doing good.

After 9 months of volunteering with a grassroots NGO, my conclusion is simple: The Global poverty problem requires a grassroots solution.

Grassroots organizations that gain an intimate understanding of the problem through specialization in a niche are able to:

· Design innovative solutions that actually work; and,
· Achieve extremely high levels of efficiency.

I’ve seen with my own eyes that Grassroots organizations can be incredibly powerful at solving niche problems. With thousands of organizations tackling unique niche problems across the world, the solution to poverty can come from a bottom-up approach: If each organization solves the problem in their niche, the overall effect will sum to a complete solution.

Matt Suggett; 13/12/2009

Charity Stats.

2009-12-11T12:40:00.000-08:00

I found this cool info-graffic on mint.com. The large numbers are confusing, but it does a good job of reflecting what I have seen as I've got more involved with fundraising in VE Global: wealthier people, generally speaking, are much more resistant to the idea of giving money to charity. I've got a personal theory that wealthier people are not actually meaner people, but that they are just more 'disconnected' from the problem.

– Mint.com

Matt Suggett; 11/12/2009

The 'almost' riot

2009-12-10T08:03:00.000-08:00

Yesterday saw the close of the Chilean Fútbol League. The championship game saw renowned thugs Colo Colo play the League's pretty boys, La Catolica. The fact that Colo Colo were playing in the final meant that the day would end with citywide vandalism and rioting regardless of the result: if Colo lost, they would tear the city to pieces in anger, and if Colo won the celebrations would quickly devolve into riots as tensions ran high between the Police and the fans. Either way, we were in for a good riot!

Well, Colo Colo won, and in traditional fashion, the fans began to pour into Plaza Italia to celebrate. The atmosphere began to build as more and more fans arrived and joined the dancing chanting throng. Before long, flares were lit, songs were sung, and drums were beaten. And just as the tension was building, the police moved in with water cannons and ended it. The fans from the stadium had been preemptively intercepted by lines of riot police who arrested 107 people across the city. Disappointingly, the riot was over before it even really started.

Below is a clip of the fleeting celebrations/riot that I filmed from a 15th story window in the Hotel 1505 building overlooking the plaza.

I'll resume my post at the same window this sunday to watch the crowd gather as the Chilean Presidential Elections results are announced. Since the Pinochet Dictatorship divided the country into "us" and "them", political tensions in Chile have always boiled just below the surface. Given that one of the main candidates has long standing family ties in support of the Pinochet Regime, another candidate's father was 'disappeared' during the dictatorship, and a third candidate is still searching for answers about the poison found in his father's blood shortly after his high-profile death during the Pinochet years, I can't wait to see what kind of chaos unfolds on Sunday...

Matt Suggett; 10/12/2009

Turkey Hunt

2009-11-25T13:26:00.000-08:00

Here's a quick video slideshow of pictures taken by Jessica Phelps:

Matt Suggett; 11/30/2009

Having lived in the states for four years, I understand a few mathematical truths:

THANKSGIVING=TURKEY

And, since I am a rational human being, I understand that

TURKEY=A GOOD THING

Using advanced mathematical techniques, I have deduced that

THANKSGIVING=A GOOD THING

And so, on these grounds, a small group of mostly non-American friends and I set out to find a Turkey the Sunday before thanksgiving.

Now, what you have to remember is that when someone answers the question "Do you sell turkey?", what they mean by their answer really depends on where you are in the world.

For example, in the US/UK, the answer "Yes we sell turkey" is usually followed by, "You can find it in aisle eight sir". But in Chile, the answer "Yes we sell turkey" is followed by a deadpan, "if you can catch it."

Realizing that this type of answer was probably a reality, we set out one afternoon to a farming district, La Pintana, just south of Santiago. Crammed 5 deep in the back seat of the car, it still seemed like a good idea, and although we only had one American amongst us, we were determined to find and eat turkey.

Our first stop was surreal. We pulled-up to an unmarked gate that obviously lead to a farmhouse. The smell of wet sheep and fresh goat shit hung in the air. With a sense of trespass, we opened the gate and made our way by foot towards some buildings. A llama wandered around a dusty dry farmyard, sheep and goats were crammed in handmade wood and wire pens, scattered chickens pecked at dead straw on the ground.

A man emerged and greeted us with confused curiosity: it's not everyday that a bunch of foreigners pitch-up on your farm and ask about your turkey. After he explained that although he had a turkey it was not for sale, he encouraged us to look at the other animals. It would have been a slight to say no.

Around the corner, next to an abandoned and rusty car, we found ourselves amongst a variety of farm animals. A young boy had wandered after us, and was now throwing stones at chickens. The llama had followed us too, and when it took a sudden step towards our group we took a startled step back. Sensing that the 5 foot llama was out of line, the 3 foot boy punched it in the face. We looked at each other matter-of-factly.

A man gave us a tour of the farm. I'm not an expert, but I think it would fail UK/US animal-cruelty standards.

We left the farm to look down the road for a turkey.

Having spied two turkeys in a field, we pulled over. A lady greeted us at the locked gate, but had to return immediately inside the house to seek counsel for our question: "Can we buy a turkey?". She returned to show us to the field. We agreed a price, and the chase began.

I never knew it, but turkeys are quick. Especially when running for their lives. Eventually we cornered him amongst some sinister old farm machinery, and although he put up a brief struggle, that was really game over for the poor little guy.

Pinned down, he was tied-up and put in a bag. We weighed him, paid her, and put him in the trunk, still alive.

We drove back to the city.

Later, at a quite suburban house, we poured liquor down his neck and slit his throat.

He was barely subdued by the liquor, and as the knife cut him he flailed frantically. It was no use though, and soon his blood flowed in spurts into the outside concrete sink.

When his body stopped twitching and went limp, he was plucked, gutted, and beheaded by our only vegetarian under the guidance of a kind peruvian lady.

It's wednesday night now (Thanksgiving eve), and he's in my fridge, looking delicious.

Looking back, it felt a bit strange to buy something that was alive knowing that you were going to kill it. Normally, I meet my food when it already looks like food (I know my pig and cow as pork, bacon, and steak). I buy it from a shelf in a packet and really don't connect that it used to be a living, breathing, feeling creature. I don't stop to consider the fear my chicken, or pig, or cow must have felt as he was executed- I'm disconnected from the murder. And now, remembering how he fled for his life in the field and how he desperately flailed as we slit his throat, I don't feel any different, and I look forward with great excitement to cooking him tomorrow knowing that he will taste delicious!

VE Global's Campaign

2009-11-12T07:42:00.000-08:00

The NGO that I volunteer for, VE Global, is funded by private individuals. Our Annual UNITE. ACT. ENGAGE. Campaign kicks of every (South American) spring, and the proceeds from the campaign determine what we will and will not be able to do in the next year. Our campaign launch event took place on November 7th in Santiago, and was followed closely by an event in San Francisco. Over the coming months we have events planned in the New York, Boston, Atlanta, Washington DC, Pittsburgh, Graz, Cardiff, Blackburn, Seattle, San Diego, and Santiago. If your in one of these cities and are curios about what I do in Chile, I recommend that you find the information on VE Global's website and get yourself to the fun and informative event near you (or you can email/comment/message me and I'll get you the info.).

Take a quick look at our UNITE. ACT. ENGAGE. video for 2009:

This is VE Global's UNITE. ACT. ENGAGE. 2009 Campaign video.

The following pictures were taken at our Campaign Launch Event and should convince you (if you still needed convincing) that our events are FUN as well as being for a good cause!

Click here for more info!

Written by Matt Suggett; 12/11/2009;

Video By Alexander de la Biche for VE Global;

Photos courtesy of Jessica Phelps.

9 weeks of Matt Suggett

2009-11-04T07:51:00.000-08:00

It's been a long time since I've made time to update this blog, and many things have happened in the intervening 9 weeks. Ignoring work-related stuff, the most notable thing that has happened is that I moved apartment. I now live with a Chilean friend, and a couple of Germans in an apartment about 2o minutes wander from the office.

view from my new bedroom window:

Instead of writing boring and lengthy text detailing my last 9 weeks, I decided to make a boring (but short) video that captures some of the highlights of my life outside of work. Enjoy!

Matt Suggett; 05/11/2009

Santiago's Children

2009-09-21T11:18:00.000-07:00

Mostly because I explain things very poorly, I've found it very difficult to paint an accurate picture of what it is that I do in Santiago. Friends, family, and strangers are often curious about what my volunteer experience has been like, how I've helped, and the things that I do on a day-to-day basis, but I never feel like I can explain it properly. After-all, it's so different to anything I, or they, have done before.

I recently read an excellent book written by a man, Steve Reifenberg, who volunteered in D-Sav (a VE Global partner institution) back when it was an orphanage. Admittedly, A LOT has changed in the last 20-odd-years, and my role in ET is slightly different to Steve's in D-Sav, but the book Santiago's Children gives the reader an excellent taste of what it's like for a naive foreigner with no Spanish level to volunteer in an orphanage in Chile. I also feel like I've been through the same spectrum of mini-life crises, the same feelings of being lost, and the same feelings that I haven't really done enough to help that he went through all those years ago.

So, if you really want a taste of what my volunteer experience has been like, or if you just want to read a good book, I recommend that you grab yourself a copy of Santiago's Children from Amazon here. And what's more: 100% of the profits go back to help the kids at D-Sav (which still exists, as a VE Global partner now!)!

Matt Suggett; 21/09/09

Beard #3- one month to go

2009-08-17T18:56:00.000-07:00

Since it's about the 18th of the month, it's time for a quick beard update.

Today (the 18th) marks the two month anniversary of my last date with a razor. At this point I'm fairly convinced (and excited) that all the itchy stages are behind me. And if that isn't cause-enough for celebration, there have been two exciting new developments unfolding on my face over the past week:

First of all, my beard has become more and more like thick, tangly, pubic hair. Now, to the uninitiated, and at first glance, this tangly pubic afro may seem like a significant downside. But, what you are probably forgetting is that it's coarse nature allows me to stick shit in it: Note that this is illustrated nicely in the pictures below.
Secondly, the mustache portion is rounding into shape quite nicely. Enough said on this point.
There are, to be fair, a couple of significant drawbacks as the beard becomes more magnificent (longer): first of all: quite simply, it looks like pubes. Second of all: I often get unwanted shit stuck in it, most notably little crumbs of food. Now, this is all well and good in the States, or the in UK, but what you have to remember is that I live in a culture where people kiss each-other on the cheek as a greeting. You'll probably admit that it's kind of gross that I wipe my sticky, food-speckled face-pubes on other peoples cheeks' when I greet them.

All of this fades into the background though when you consider that in exactly one month I will be in position to unleash and epic, upward-curling mustache. And just in time for Chilean Independence Day too.......

Matt Suggett; 18/08/2009

Valparaiso

2009-08-14T20:03:00.000-07:00

There was something that, for my first few months in Chile, really bugged me. At first, I began to notice it from time to time in my everyday work in the orphanage. Then, it began to grab my attention more and more in my everyday life in Santiago. I hate making ignorant generalizations, so I kept my mouth shut and continued to curiously ponder what I was seeing, becoming ever more perplexed by it: was I imagining it, or was it real?

Then, one day, in a large group, out of the blue, some of my fellow volunteers began to talk about it. Turns out that they had been observing the very same mystery as me.

** what is it?**

One volunteer noted that in her art workshops, all the children drew the same picture. Even children from different groups, who did art at different times, and never saw each-others work, drew versions of the very same picture. For a while this puzzled her, but soon she came across the original picture hanging in a corridor at the community center she worked in. All her kids had all copied it.

I have noticed countless time that kids here can’t ‘think outside the box’, that they lack any form of creativity.

Recently, another volunteer and I took 10 girls to a museum for an art workshop. The museum centered on the art of collage: art that anyone can make from scraps laying around their house. After a tour of the galleries, and a thorough explanation of how to make a mosaic collage, the girls were all given their own collage materials, scissors, and glue. Every single one of them sat there staring into space straight ahead, doing nothing. I asked one of them what she was thinking about making in her collage, to which she replied: “but tío, I don’t understand”. Without instruction she was incapable of action.

One of the ladies from the gallery produced a picture of a butterfly. 10 girls instantly drew a butterfly.

I see instances every single day, and not just from the kids. Other Chileans too seem to be able to understand only one paradigm. We (outsiders) are constantly met by a confused cocked heads and wrinkled brows when we explain that we are only young (mid-early 20’s) and that we don’t have kids/family, and that moreover, we can be quite comfortable and content without that at this point in our lives. It’s an alien idea here, incomprehensible. Young girls, particularly, are expected to settle down: A significant other solves all problems. Their friends, and especially family, look at them as deficient if they don’t fit into this mold. Even our female volunteers are met with frowns and even scowls by Chileans who disapprove.

I don’t want to liken the Pinochet dictatorship to a 1984-esque totalitarian state or imply that the regime tortured and killed everybody that didn’t fall perfectly in line. I certainly wouldn’t want to compare it to the book-burning Nazi Germany, the anti-science, Jihad-touting extremist Middle East States, or to a communist state with big-brother government surveillance and extreme state-run press censorship. But everybody who has lived in Santiago knows what I mean when I say don’t cross that yellow line.

In my first few weeks here, a Chilean leaned across a table in a dimly lit bar and whispered to me, we don’t live a democracy.

I’m not going to put too-fine-a-point on it, but it’s important to remember that Pinochet stepped down- he wasn’t overthrown by revolution. He left peacefully…. and his friends took over.

Here, the police force is military. Their official mission is to “maintain order and create public respect for the laws of the country”. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, and heard many tales of the tactics they employ to force this “respect” on the public. Sometimes it involves a big stick, or a water cannon. A more cynical observer might say their objective is to subdue the citizens who question the government. It’s certainly a stark contrast to the mission of a developed world police force, like that of the U.S. whose mission is to “Protect and Serve”.

The dictatorship may have officially ended, but the mentality lingers.

A Chilean schoolteacher recently told me about some students he had in his class; young girls, 16 years old, who were pregnant, one for the second time. This isn’t uncommon at the school he works at. Anyway, he came across some information about free online course that teach a professor how to approach delicate topics such as sexual education. The classes are offered free online and available to all. Excited that he might be able to learn how to tutor his young students about sexual education, and the disadvantages of teenage pregnancy, he told his boss at the school about the courses. His boss closed the door, sat him down in his office, and told him not to tell any other teachers about these courses, or to talk about them with anybody. It wasn’t an explicit threat, my friend said looking down at the ground. I know people who would disagree.

It’s a catholic school. Their paramount concern is maintaining the hierarchy. You shouldn’t challenge the establishment.

But this is the 21^st century, right? Wrong.

Back to a more basic example. English is taught in schools here. I remember helping one girl with her English homework. She is 16, and expected to pass national tests in English. He homework was to learn and copy a list of 10 words. The list started: Squirrel: Rapist: Unidentified Flying Object. I asked her why these words were important, and she looked at me like I was speaking another language. It had never occurred to her to think about the words. All she knew is that she had to memorize them. She knows loads of random vocabulary but can’t identify a verb, let alone conjugate it. It’s sad to see, but more often than not homework assignments here are just copying. Sometimes they have to copy out of textbooks. Sometimes they have to copy notes they’ve already made. It’s like the school system is training them to be Xerox machines.

And that’s exactly what happens. Young people grow-up knowing only how to copy. They grow-up without questioning anything. They grow-up with one set way of doing things, and can’t comprehend alternatives. It’s ,(wince) generally speaking, a generation devoid of creativity, of perspective, and of free thought.

And that’s part of the reason I have been so taken by the coastal town of Valparaiso. When I arrived at the bus terminal, a sharp, English speaking tourist information lady approached me. She explained, after she found me a hostel for commission, that Valparaiso was overflowing with artists. She said, that for so long the town had been a bohemian hub of underground creativity, and that now it was overflowing onto the streets. She named some of the greats who had called Valparaiso home, of which I can only remember the name of Pablo Neruda. She told me that, even during the oppressive dictatorship, artists, poets and lovers of the creative arts had gathered in bars, cafes, and underground studios in Valparaiso to do in secret the things they loved.

Things are changing, she said: you can only stifle creative will for so long. And so, when the pressure became too great, Valparaiso became the outlet for Chilean will to creativity. It's in absolute contrast to the 'don't question the system' mentality of xerox copy machine Santiago.

The city is stunning. I’ve not seen the whole world, but I’ve been around a little bit. And in my humble opinion, Valparaiso is one of the most unique and beautiful cities that I’ve ever been to. It’s certainly my favorite. And all I did while I was there was wander around the street looking at the art that lined the roads: Art for the sake of art.

Below are some of the pictures I took. Again, unfortunately I’m a pretty shitty photographer so the pics don’t even come close to doing the town Justice.

An incredibly detailed mosaic stuck onto plain concrete by hand. Like most of the street art in Valparaiso, someone did it simply because they wanted to one day.
Even the sewage drains are pretty :)
The Street Art is more than graffiti.
Notice the mosaic pattern of the thingy Julia is sitting on

Even an alley where homeless people shit is beautiful in Valparaiso

Door is painted to make it look like it's always open
Even graffiti seems beautiful
Like so many of the murals in this town, there are themes of suppression (translation: don't hold back the spring)

Julia's favorite

This street (Ferrari) was really cool

One of the famous lifts in Valparaiso

Panoramic view of the harbour and metro line that connects Valparaiso to the nearby tourist town of Viña del Mar
Scary baby pic we came across one night
In looking back through these pictures, I'm reminded of how unique and inherently cool Valparaiso is, and have made a note to return as often as I can while I'm in Chile. A resolution made easier by the fact the it is just a short 1 1/2 hour $7 bus ride away!

Matt Suggett; 15/08/2009

Toma: Poverty Shock

2009-08-02T11:06:00.001-07:00

Recently, I helped organize/coordinate a repair day at Jardín el Canelo, one of our partner institutions, with the (Harvard) David Rockefeller Center for Latin America Studies:

El Jardin:The Jardin in a pre-school in a Santiago shantytown (Campamento de Peñalolén), and the repair day was a success (despite persistent, and cold, rain)- We managed to rearrange their interior, remove countless rusty nails and staples from the outside walls, sand, seal, and paint the exterior of the building and some internal doors, build a walk-way over some mud around the building from scrap materials we found lying around the Toma (Shanty Town), and paint the railings and porch at the front of the Jardin. The volunteers from Harvard were extremely energetic and positive about the project, and despite the heavy rain, everybody had fun completing the much-needed renovations.

What I really want to talk about though is the Toma:

The first thing that struck me as we arrived at the Toma was that the entrance and exit to the shantytown was guarded by armed military police. We had to provide the police with official documents bearing the government seal that proved we were allowed to enter the shantytown. The whole situation was reminiscent of crossing a hostile international boarder, and it struck me as very strange to have this divide within a country.

The next thing I noticed was the sight that was laid out before me: Although I had seen news images of poverty in shantytowns before, I had never actually been to one. To actually be there, standing on the mud street, breathing in the heavy, pungent air, and actually looking at 3dimensional real-life shacks crafted from scrap materials was a completely different experience to passively looking at images on a computer monitor or TV screen- it was real, tangible, shocking.

We had chicken for lunch....
One of the tías from the Jardin gave us a tour of the Toma. She was born and raised in a similar Shanty Town and moved to the Toma after the government bulldozed her last house. I think some of the things she said will stay with me forever.

She told us about the Toma, the people who live there, and the discrimination and hatred they face from the government, and from Citizens across the 'boarder' who treat them like a lower-class race. You see, the Government hates the Toma- it's a blight on the shiny new public image Chile is trying to pedal to the world.

Chile faces a staggering inequality of wealth, perpetuated by the ruling class. As Salvador Allende put it, the lower class are 'victims of the imperialist class, who have the power to continue defending their profits and their privileges'. Oppression is the key word here. It's difficult to understand how it affects people until you see it, until you smell it.
As we walked down the mud road, followed desperately by starving stray dogs that roam the streets, the kind tía told us about the day-to-day struggles the people here face. "We're not bad people", she said with a real emotion in her voice, "We are hard, honest workers. But people hate us because we reflect badly on Chile."
I stopped for a moment to look around and ponder what she was saying. I knew that the government didn't legally recognize this area, so I wondered what kind of status these people had as citizens of their own country. I realized it must be very difficult to find a job when the government won't deliver post to your house because they deny the (legal) existence of it.
As she talked, I could hear the genuine heartbreaking emotion in her words. She explained the why the Jardin (the only school on the Toma (which, by the way, is ignored by the government and funded by private individuals)) was so important, and why her and her friends (who work for nothing) work so hard there. You see, it is important to go to school, to get an education so you can be employable. But discrimination limits the opportunity for kids from the Toma to be educated, perpetuating the cycle of poverty and discrimination. Their goal, at the Jardin, was two fold: firstly, they tried to give love to the neglected children from the Toma. They strive to find challenging activities for the kids to help them develop and grow properly. An active happy child develops properly, whereas a child who is left neglected at home, rarely loved, and never challenged, tends to develop into a less productive member of the community. Their second objective was to give the kids a shot at success in a school: they taught basic literacy and numeracy, key abilities that are tested early on in school life: failure means the child is forever consigned to a third-rate school with literally zero chance of attending a university, technical college, or other higher education, and statistically speaking, that they will probably drop-out before they complete middle school. The trajectory of your education (and therefore, in Chile, your career, life) is determined at a very young age. Once you fail an exam, you are forever held down, a fact illustrated by this sad statistic: in Chile, the single biggest determining factor in the test scores of a child are the test scores of their parents (if your parents were poor, you will get shit test scores).

“Our parents lived on Tomas” she said, “my generation, my friends, we are all trapped here because of who are parents were, and who their parents were. People here have to work too hard to survive- they cannot take time out to properly raise a child. Our work gives the generation of our children opportunity to break the cycle, to escape. It gives them a fighting chance in life.” Her words, filled with emotion, were moving. Goosebump moving.

Again, I took a moment to look around me. I noticed that there were satellite dishes on several of the houses. At first this struck me as strange- a community with crappy/prehistoric plumbing and streets covered in shit has electricity and satellite TV? At first I was actually a little bit offended: didn’t these people know that they shouldn’t be wasting precious money on crap TV! But the more I thought about it, the more it began to make sense to me: I put myself in their situation, and asked the question: why should I save the money I strive so hard to earn? Where can I save it? I probably can’t open a bank account (I don’t even have an address) so I would have to keep it in a shoebox under the bed. That seems extremely risky- a fire, flood, or robbery could wipe-out my entire life savings. And, even if I did save it, what can I do with it? I won’t be able to use it to make the down-payment on a house because no bank will give me a mortgage (I’ve got no credit). I can’t afford to run a car. So, what is the point of saving it, what is the end goal? Simultaneously, my life is shitty: I work a hard manual labor job all day, and come home in the evening to a rickety shack I built myself. Life sucks. Why should I continue to live this way, saving my money for something that I may never be able to achieve, when I could spend my extra cash on little luxuries that make my day-to-day life bearable? Like satellite TV.

Somebody mentions to the tía that the houses have satellite TV. Her voice is filed with emotion now, and she speaks too quickly: I don’t catch a word of watch she’s saying. After she finishes a native Spanish speaker whispers me a quick summary, and some of his interesting insights:

The government despises the Toma but can’t see a solution. Although they once trumpeted a grand policy to provide government housing to everybody that lives on Campamentos (Shanty Towns) across all of Chile, they haven’t followed through on the promise: like most politics, all bark, no bite. So the government is left with this problem: bearing in mind we can’t provide another place for these people to live, how do we get rid of the shanty town? Their solution is classically Chilean: if we make life on the Toma as uncomfortable as possible, people will want to leave all by themselves! This, he said, is why the roads remain unpaved, the sewage inadequate. This is why the government refutes the legal existence of this place, and refuses to grant the people a legal address. This is why armed military police menacingly patrol the boarder: it is an intimidation tactic. This is why every time a family moves out of the Toma their old house and everything in it is burned by the military so that no body else can use the materials to improve their own shack- that would make life too easy! It’s a the theory that “What is worst for my enemy must be best for me”. Therefore, the government says, I must make life for these people as unbearable as possible, and then, once life here is so bad, they will be forced to leave. In the eyes of the government, it’s a case of every step towards comfort is a step towards permanence. And all the people want is to make the most of what they have. They’ve tried so hard for so long to make headway. They’re tired, and they’re frustrated, and they can’t see a way out. So, if they want to watch TV to help relax, to feel like a human being, they have the right to do that, he says. I realize he’s right. I realize that that’s what I’d probably do.

When a family moves out of their shack, the military burns it down. They don't want to make it easy for other families to find materials for their homes.

Soon after we arrived, this police van pulled up. A high-ish ranking member of the force in a nicely pressed uniform told me, in a very important sounding way, that we had nothing to worry about: he had ordered extra men for today, and would make sure they protected us. By their mean glares, I think that they were really there to make the situation awkward for the locals, and maybe to make sure we didn't help too much....

I left the Toma with a mix of emotions: on the one hand we had worked hard all day in the cold and rain to renovate the School, and, seeing the grateful smiles on the faces of the tías, I felt a little bit of satisfaction that our hard work was worthwhile. But I also left feeling saddened by what I had seen. Personally, with this government in place, I can’t see a solution anywhere on the horizon. I’ve commented before that the class system in Chile is entrenched, and oppressive, and that the wealthy aristocrats strive to defend “their profit and their privileges” at the cost of the rest, at the cost of the country. It’s not America, or England, or anywhere in Europe or the developed world, where a man born with nothing can make something of himself. Rags to riches stories are two-a-penny in the developed world; I’m yet to hear a single one here. I'm left pondering the question: what can I do? Reading articles by sites like Social Earth makes me realize that I must be capable of something, I just can't figure out what. Perhaps a good first step is to continue to learn Spanish...

Matt Suggett; 02/08/2009

My Hectic Commute (or, why I walk to work)

2009-08-01T14:13:00.000-07:00

I remember when I first moved to Santiago, and how refreshing it felt to arrive in a new, exciting city. Strangely, although the 5 months have flown by, it feels like I’ve been here forever. 5 weeks ago, I moved from this house on the outskirts of Santiago, into an apartment a short walk from the office. The move revolutionized my lifestyle: I no longer spend hours each day crammed into buses and metro, listening to my i-pod as I rub shoulders with sweaty Chileans.

Perhaps the single greatest feature of the change is my new 15 minute commute to the office, on foot. My new commute contrasts starkly with my old slog, which took over an hour (+wait time for buses) on public transport. This blog post is a collection of pics I took along my route to and from work, things that I pass by everyday. Unfortunately, I'm not a photographer, and it's winter here so the trees are bare and the leaves browm. It's an ugly time of year to take pics.

I am still constantly astounded by the beauty of the ‘European’ architecture and culture of Santiago, and am beginning to love walking to work: In contrast to driving, like I used to do in my past life in the UK/US, I actually notice the world around me now. I used to just get in car, buckle-up, engine on, head down, radio on, and drive. Eyes on road, mind on something else. I never really stopped to appreciate all the cool things that I was passing by. In fact, I'm sure that most of the time I just kind of zoned out and left planet Earth while I was driving to school/work. I much prefer my new commute, and arrive at work feeling like I've experienced the last 15 minutes of my life, in a non-monotonous, actively involved way. Maybe the novelty will wear off, but while it lasts, I'm making the most of it...

Going to work:

Pic taken from my front door, looking left. I don't know what the cool yellow building is, but I like living opposite it
Now, standing on doorstep looking to the right. Here we have Av. Providencia, also known as the Alameda. This is the main road that runs through Santiago. In the background you can see Cerro San Cristobal (Click here to read my blog about climbing that little guy)I pass under Av. Providencia using this metro subway. This guy is always there playing either some kind of wooden flute/pipe, or his guitar and panpipes. It's always an uplifting soundtrack to start my day.Technically, this fountain park isn't directly on my commute, but I stand here and wait for the pedestrian crossing light, and can see/hear the fountain through the trees.
It's a monument to aviation, so naturally, in Chile, they have a statue of two naked dudes reaching for the sky.
This is more like it: I assume it's some kind of plane....maybe.
Back on track now heading for the office, wandering through the park. The trees provide loads of shade so it's cool even in the summer. I've actually never read the sign, but I assume that this is a piece of some old important building...
Again, more shade, which is so welcome in the sweltering summer months. And a bench to stop and rest on should I be early, ahem, hungover....
One of many beautiful churches that are scattered randomly across the city.
Quite simly, this is a picture of a cool tree.
Now, I have read this sign. Basically, this obelisk was erected here to mark the northern most boundary of Providencia. Providencia has since been swallowed by sprawling Santiago. This monument is actually considered quite close to the center now....
Part of living in Santiago: street dogs. They are everywhere, and they love to nap in the sun. Who can blame them?
This statue was donated by Rotary International. Like most statues in Santiago, it gets covered in anti-government grafiti pretty quickly. Periodically, I notice that it has been cleaned, albeit incompletely.
Another piece of building. I also have no idea why this is here, though I am starting to wonder about it...
So far, since leaving my apartment, I have been walking for 10 minutes, most of it has been in the shade on this path through the park.
Suddenly I pop out from under a shady tree, and this 'cellphone' building towers over me. It stands on the east side of Plaza Italia
This the first in a series of monuments that honor famous Chileans, mostly for military victories.
This is where I enter Plaza Italia from. Our office is in the building with the red Claro sign on it's roof. The building next to it is where I watched the Plaza Italia riots from...
Usually I cross back to the south side of Av. Providencia by this statue.
Snow on the mountains. And a day clear-enough to see them from Plaza Italia. Now if I could only afford/find the time to go skiing...
Often, I don't walk past this guy. But sometimes there is a break in the traffic along Providencia and I cross here. Again, our office in the background.
Commonly referred to as 'downstairs' in our office, this is the supermarket where we buy vital office food/drink (read: coffee/caffeine) supplies.
Our office building. Completely unreliable sources tell me not to worry about earthquakes because, after all, our office building survived the last major earthquake...
This is a school for young Chilean nippers adjacent to our office. In the mornings we can hear the laughter/screams of the kids as they play outside.
Up in the office after four flights of stairs, this is my desk.

Going to Lunch:

Often (especially while our fridge is broken) I go to get lunch from a local restaurant that sells delicious pizza. It's about a 3 minute walk from the office, and along the way I pass this building (which I can also see from my window): the Argentinian Embassy.
I also pass this: It's the headquarters of the Chilean Olympic Committee. The sticker on the gate says something about the building being unoccupied, which sounds about right in Chile...
After I pass the statues of Poseidon (which I forgot to photograph), I wander down this street and listen to whatever brand of music is blaring out of the open doors and windows of the dance studio that sits half way down..
I then pop-out in this little park.And pass these guys, who I'm pretty sure were part of this protest before it was broken up. They live here now, in cardboard houses. They always seem to be quite happy though, possibly because they're always quite drunk...Notice the clothes drying on the metal light cages? They belong to the people who live in the cardboard house just behind me...Here it is: the oasis where I can buy good, cheap pizza (and a bottle of delicious woman water. sshh)
Having got lunch I return along the same path to my office.

Going home:

Usually, I don't go home though the park, mostly because it's dark and I'm a bit of a fairy when it comes to carrying my laptop though dark places at night in Santiago. But I do walk along the road next to the park for the most part, so there's not really any new/interesting photos to show you of my commute home, until I pass by this church. It's actually more pinky-purple in real life, but my camera doesn't seem to care...
This is the Froggy embassy. In addition to having cool architecture, it also has a gigantic aerial. What for? I have no idea, probably a relic, but being French, I wouldn't be surprised if they still used it!Often, I turn down this little side street. It probably takes a little longer to get me home, but it's always dead quiet so I don't have to deal with bustling pedestrians bumping into me.Only a few hundred yards from the 6 lane behemoth of Av. Providencia, this little street is very tranquil. Often as I pass I can here families chatting as they bbq food in their gardens.
This little parade of shops and bars is where I buy basic food and get basic sustenance (pisco sours). Again, it's only a few second walk from the main roads, but it gets little traffic and is quite peaceful- it's almost like you're not in the city at all, but rather in a peaceful, rural Chilean township.
The building in the middle is the Indian Embassy. We're about 200 yards from my apartment now, and a lot of '2nd world' countries have their embassy around here.
This is the Indonesian Embassy. It actually shares a wall with my apartment, specifically my bedroom, so I constantly pray that terrorists continue to ignore Indonessia's overseas embassies.
And that's it- I'm back home, feeling like I actively participated in my commute to work, often tired, usually thirsty, and always ready for a pisco sour...

Matt Suggett; 01/08/2009

More on the Santiago Smog

2009-07-27T15:23:00.001-07:00

I just took these pics at our office as the sun was setting, thought I would share them with the world. They haven't been edited in anyway: that's just what the sunset looks like in Santiago! Find out why here.Another one taken from our office window at sunset. This time a 'fancy' panoramic one. Again, not altered by me in any way.
It's colder tonight, there's a definite chill in the air. I can't imagine how cold it must be at ET- the orphanage I volunteer at has no heating, and some of the windows are broken or missing: it's open to the elements.

Coanil Run

2009-07-26T09:58:00.000-07:00

Generally speaking, I'm not a huge fan of running. This is especially true early on a Sunday morning. One of my friends (@jdavis23) had an interesting insight: Running is what you get when you take the worst part of every sport and make it into it's own activity.

I was recently enticed into supporting a (very) good cause at one of their fundraising events by an invitation that had a picture of a man walking with a hiking stick and the words "Trekking Solidario". To me, this was clearly going to be a hike: a nice, relaxing, lazy stroll through the foothills of the Andes. And what better way to support a worthy cause on a nice sunny day?

The Sneaky Invitation:Well, I made my first mistake when I didn't read the fine print of the invitation where it clearly states that this will be a run. I made my second mistake when I went out the night before to celebrate a friend's birthday, and then compounded my error by joining a goodbye party that was being hosted in my apartment. My second mistake lead directly to my third: because I was tired (and dare I say, a little hungover) I hit the snooze button a few too many times on my alarm clock which eliminated my breakfast time.

Anyway, determined to support Coanil, I hopped out of bed at the last possible moment, skipped breakfast, threw on some shoes/pants/VE Global T-shirt/etc. and headed out the door to meet a friend, Pablo, who was also entered in the 'Trekking'.

Things started badly when we got on the wrong bus. So, to add insult to hangover injury, we had to run (we were a bit late too!) a few kilometers straight up a hill to get to the start point and register before the "trekking" kicked off.

No doubt we were a sorry sight when we finally arrived at the start point. I would love to see a picture of my face as I looked around at the other "Trekkers" and began to realize from the clothes that they were wearing and their crazy stretches/warm-ups that they were serious runners.

Anyway, Pablo and I signed in and got our number before heading over to the water stand to replenish the liquids that we had lost in the bar the night before. Fortunately, Pablo was in a similar state to me.

We wandered away from the intensity of the other "Trekkers" and found a place out of the way where we could prepare for what we now understood was going to be a run the only way we knew how: mentally. Instead of stretching and warming-up by sprinting little distances like the other "Trekkers" we stood on the hill admiring the early-morning view of Santiago, talking fútbol, and gulping down water.

Still in good spirits though:All too soon, the announcer explained that the "Trekking" would start momentarily and encouraged all "Trekkers" to make their way to the start line. The run kicked-off after a ten-second countdown and Pablo and I jogged out of the starting gates mid-pack.

Make no mistake about it: We weren't there to race. We were there to support Coanil and enjoy the peaceful quiet of the foothills and the panoramic views of Santiago. Our philosophy changed though as a pair of grandparents came steaming past us. It's difficult to allow yourself to be overtaken again and again by rickety old pensioners, skinny children, and older, portly gentlemen and ladies. And so, with unspoken pride at stake, and with only a pained/confused glance at each other for communication, we picked-up the pace.

We were so far ahead, we had time to pause and take this pic. While we were doing so, we were overtaken by three grannies, two 5-year-old girls, and an old guy missing a leg.In a nutshell, the run was 5km (about 3 miles), and took us zigzagging up an extremely steep Andean foothill on a little hiking trail before flattening out and heading straight back down the hill to the start point.

Again, I'll stress that we weren't racing. We did however jog at a pace somewhere between leisurely and comfortable, especially for the uphill parts for the majority of the course, which saw us complete the "Trek" in 32minutes- not too bad all things considered!

Just after we crossed the finish line:

To be fair, the views were beautiful (notice the snow):Looking back on it, I realize now that I actually really enjoyed the "Trek", despite my fragile state. It was really nice to get out of the city and above the level of the smog. The mountains are beautiful this time of year: we were "Trekking" only a few hundred feet below the 'snow-line', and the air is clean and fresh which is a nice contrast from the filthy smog of the city. And, above all, I helped support a worthy cause in much need of help. (Coanil works with Children and Adults with disabilities throughout Santiago. You can learn more here.) And it got me thinking: I wonder if I might run the Santiago Marathon next year....

Matt Suggett; 26/07/2009

World's Most Dangerous Road

2009-07-24T14:53:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I spent a couple of days traveling through Bolivia with a friend. Generally speaking, Bolivia is a beautiful place (I took the picture of the volcano at the top of this page there). I'll steer clear of the temptation to ramble on about poverty and political stability/anarchy (suffice it to say that we saw numerous signs that read "Beware: Rogue Violent Bandits" and came across protesters firing guns in the air!) Instead, this blog post will serve as a kinda photo album of the most interesting day: Cycling down the "World's Most Dangerous Road"!

In summary, we started at about 4,500 meters high next to a volcanic lake, and spent the first few kilometers freewheeling down smooth, paved road amongst desolate, bear rock- it's too high, cold, and the air is too thin for anything to grow here. Soon however, the landscape began to change, and we eventually ended-up at a wildlife sanctuary in the Amazon Rain Forest. The scenery was breathtaking, and the ride down was exhilarating.

Lake:

Tradition/superstition: It's tradition to bless your bike with a sprinkling of alcohol, and to wet your lips. My friend drank it. She is now blind....
A little lower down, grass and small weeds get enough air to grow.
90 km/h- hope my brakes work when I get to that corner!
As we descend, the scenery begins to change. We're now on the 'old' road.

Technically, this is a two-way road. Descending vehicles have the right of way because the driver is closer to the cliff and can see the edge if he leans out of his window.

Get out of our way slowcoach!

Yep- I kinda wished it was still misty and I couldn't see the 600ft drop.Starting to look more tropical, and starting to get hot/sticky too.
Here, the road was wet and the gravel had washed-off leaving lethal bare slimy rock

After a long day cycling in the dust, a cold Bolivian beer really hit the spot. So did the second, third, and fourth. In fact, they all hit the spot so well that we decided as a group to drive back-up the Road of Death in the minibus (instead of up the new, wide road w/ barriers) which, although awesome in hindsight, seemed like a shocking idea as we raced uphill less than six inches from cliff/death.

If you're ever in Bolivia, I absolutely recommend that you look up Gravity Assisted Mountain Biking and take the trip!

-Matt Suggett, 24/07/2009

Social Entrepreneurs: #socent

2009-07-21T16:42:00.000-07:00

Like most people in their early 20's, I've always been young. I've also always been very naive. Since arriving in Santiago though, my eyes have been opened, in many ways.

The most obvious revelation has been that I have come across a new perspective on poverty, abuse, life. Working in ET (an orphanage for girls that have been abused/neglected) really changed the way I think about society, about life, and about people. I came to understand life from the point of view of the girls. They are trapped, both physically in their shelter, and metaphorically on their rung of society (one of my next posts will be about my visit to a Santiago shantytown, more to say about that then!). And the thing that hit me hardest is that they are simply awesome girls.

And so, I spent my first few months in Santiago trying as hard as I could to put distance between myself and the elements of society that had begun to sicken me, the parts that actively and passively work to trap the girls: I lived in one of the poorest parts of town and I avoided everything cuico (posh) like the fucking plague. In a word, my reaction was negative. But, on occasion, I found myself in the very wealthy part of Santiago (a place where families live in millionaire mansions with live-in staff and flashy sports cars parked around the fountain on their driveway; a world away from the rusty corrugated iron roof of shanty ET). I seethed as I walked past pompous middle-aged city businessmen strolling down the street in flash pinstripe suits, newspaper under arm, on their way to get a 50ç shoe shine on the corner. It made me angry: life is unfair, and the smugness of those that are winning is insulting.

But, again, I was naive. My eyes have again been opened:

Since taking on my new role as Director of Resource Development (for VE Global) I have been incredibly impressed by social entrepreneurs across the world who are tackling key social issues every day. Before I began to immerse myself in the world of a grassroots NGO I had never heard of the term "Social Entrepreneurialism". Now I am obsessed with it.

Every day I read about something or someone that blows my mind.

I feel like I've found myself on the cutting edge of the 21st century: Although I am in no way involved in groundbreaking scientific discoveries, or exciting technological inventions, I witness social innovation everyday.

My first encounter with this new kind of innovation came as I read about a man by the name of Scott Harrison. Scott Harrison was not a superhero. He wasn't a celebrity. He wasn't a billionaire, or a powerful politician. He was a regular guy who saw a problem and one day decided to tackle it. What I love about Scott Harrison is that he wasn't afraid to break the mold, to act like he was living in the 21st century. The result of his innovation, creativity, and drive is Charity:Water, an organization that has raised about $9,000,000 to fund 1,247 wells in Africa that provide clean, safe drinking water to 669,045 human beings. What's more impressive is that this has been accomplished in a little under three years. Think about it.

The Charity: Water statistics are mind blowing, but their story is no longer unique.

Malaria No More is another big brand name that is continually and creatively innovating, and is proving more effective than government at fighting the worlds 500,000,000 cases of Malaria that kill every year.

But it is not just big, 'brand name', charities that are innovating. More impressively, scores of small organizations run by dynamic leaders are tackling problems across the globe in innovative new ways. And it's not just NGO's anymore: dozens of start-up socially concious organizations are FOR PROFIT. Check-out #MiFiMon (Micro Finance Monday) 12-2pm CST every monday on Twitter to see how innovative Micro-finance organizations are collaborating in exciting new ways to support micro-entreprenuers across the world. Or read any article on www.socialearth.org to learn how socially concious entreprneurs are helping tackle the world's problems from the bottom up. (You can also check out this article)

I may have been naive in the past, but my eyes are open now. I have watched the mold break, and I understand what Bill Gates meant when he said that "the leaders the future will be those that empower others". The movement towards socially-conscious entrepreneurs is new. It is impressive, it is exciting, and given the quality of the young entrepreneurs leading the evolution, I bet it's here to stay.

Some people have told me that we are living in the the age of "Medical Revolution". Others have said that in the future, we will look back on this period in history as the "Technology Revolution". And while they may both present valid points, I've come to believe that everyday we are lead one step closer to a "Social Revolution". This is not the sixties: it's not just talk anymore. People are actually out there doing it, making it happen. It's not going to change overnight, or by next week or before Christmas. But it is happening. And it's happening now, right in front of our eyes.

My advice: get involved. Read about how other people are innovating: Start with Social Earth or with this list. Want to make an impact immediately without changing your life: start using GoodSearch or Bellzar (give money to charity while you search the internet).

Matt Suggett; 23/07/2009

Beard #2- 1st month down

2009-07-19T17:56:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm a month (and a day) into my 'Epic Beard Growing 2009'. I'm officially through the worst of the itchy stage(s), though I have entered the 'although a beard is magnificent, it really is neither practical nor comfortable' phase. Little things are starting to bug me about it; like I get it wet and sticky when I eat/drink. The same applies when I blow my nose. Gross I know. At least lumps of food don't get caught in it, yet.

Still, despite these little (sticky) gross things, I remain committed to my pledge to not shave until September 18th for three main reasons:

1) Years from now, I would hate to look back and regret that I missed an opportunity to avoid dragging a dull blade across my skin every morning.
2) The beard is a noble, proud creature, as evidenced by many great historic figures (Confucius, Hemingway, Jesus, Lincoln, Marx, Chuck Norris)
3) The dream that at the end of the three months, I will be able to carve an epic mustache proudly upon my upper lip. Yep, sorry Julia, but it's going to happen.

Matt Suggett; 19/07/2009

Tear Gas

2009-07-07T21:16:00.000-07:00

(Don't have the patience to read all this? Skip to the bottom for a photo play-by-play breakdown!)

I watched the Chilean futbol league final earlier tonight at a bar on Pio Nono, Santiago's infamous bar/club street. Let me tell you, Chileans take their football (soccer) very seriously. The favorites, Universidad de Chile (no relation to the actual university) scored the deciding goal in the 77th minute. The bar erupted. Bottles and glasses were smashed as tables and chairs were tipped over. You see, soccer here is more than just a game: it epitomizes Chilean class struggle- rich vs. poor: Those in power vs. those oppressed. Indeed, it was futball fan clubs that first united for social change in the cruel dictatorship of Pinochet- they were the launching pad of the protest movements.

When all of these deep-seated feelings are focused intensely in a cauldron such as the league final, emotions overflow. After the game, pure elation moved thousands of fans to celebrate together in Plaza Italia, but with this much energy concentrated in one place, things inevitably turned violent. What started as a gathering of jubilant fans singing team songs, playing drums, and dancing in the street lead slowly to, well, a riot.

The police here are obviously used to this (there is a 'riot' like this on a monthly basis, at least!), and in anticipation they had put-up metal fences to contain the crowds and stop them climbing the statues in the plaza. Armored vehicles sporting water cannons and teargas vents sat quietly nearby, keeping a watchful eye-out for any signs that things might get violent. Really they were just waiting. Lines of armored riot police with Plexiglas shields and batons stood in infantry rows down a street nearby. I watched from an overlooking window on the 15th floor of an apartment building in the Plaza.

I noticed the first sign of violence when a small group of celebrators picked up sections of the metal guard fence and tried to throw it at a nearby armored vehicle. The vehicle backed up just out of range and continued to watch.

Fans with flags would walk up face-to-face with a line of riot police and scream abuse in their face, taunting them. The police stood still, emotionless.

Over the chanting, we could here glass breaking down below, but couldn't see what was being destroyed.

From 15 floors up, I could feel the tension in the air. Things were about to erupt.

Suddenly, the 13 or so armored riot-control vehicles that had been waiting down the street burst into life. Lights on, they began to edge towards the crowd menacingly, followed by lines of riot-police on foot. The foot police stopped and formed a perimeter around the crowd. The vehicles stormed into the middle of the crowd as a hailstorm of glass bottle rained down on them.

Rioters grabbed whatever they could get their hands on and threw it at the armored vehicles. A small group uprooted a metal sign, concrete base still attached, and using it as a battering ram, charged the nearest vehicle.

Other, less creative rioters, ran up to armor-plated, bullet-proof, vehicles and kicked them. Others threw glass bottles that smashed harmlessly on the sides. Someone whipped a water cannon with a flag. Another group uprooted and hurled a baby tree. It became clear: these people have come here to fight the police, to fight the government, to rebel.

I began to feel my nose burning. Teargas had wafted up to our lookout. If you've never been teargassed I can relate to you that it sucks.

Meanwhile, down below, riot police on horseback had arrived. They came around the corner, scattering the rioters hiding from the water cannon behind various telegraph poles, phone booths, and bus stops. As the riot dispersed, I watched as some rioters actually tried to pick fights with the waiting lines of riot police. The police had set-up a lines facing the crowd, but had left clear holes through which fleeing rioters could escape. But some rioters preferred, instead of escaping through a generous hole, to throw a bottle at a line of armored police, or try and kick a policeman through his shield. This never ended well for the rioter.

I waited about an hour before I left to start the 20 minute walk back to my place. I wish I'd had my camera with me- the devastation that I encountered along the way was utterly incredible. The ground was still wet with puddles of oily water from the water cannons. Teargas hung in the air and burned my eyes, nose, and throat. The Plaza was deserted except for a few scattered riot police, and their armored vehicles idling noisily with their loud diesel engines. The whole scene was surreally post-apocalyptic. Broken glass sparkled in the water on the streets. Bus stops had been vandalized, shop windows smashed. Traffic lights and other street signs had been pushed over over or uprooted entirely. Trash cans had been kicked over and set on fire, glass hanging high in the air on lampposts had been smashed. Public payphones had been hit hard with something metal, their chords torn, keypads shattered, headsets trampled. The rioters had even knocked over a small rock-wall. They tore the grates that covered the metro out of the ground. The obliterated anything they could find.

I arrived back at my place safely, and as I wheezed loudly inside my front door from the stinging teargas I realized that what I had just seen was more evidence that political (and civil) unrest lie just beneath the calm surface in Chile, and any small event is sought-out as an excuse to protest, or to vent anger, hatred. I also couldn't help but wonder what the scene will be like if Chile beat Brazil in the next world-cup qualifier and qualify for the Final Stages of the competition!

Play-by-play photo breakdown- (Thanks for the pics @MariahHealy)

Stage one: Jubilant fans gather in Plaza Italia and begin celebrating the 'La U' victory in the Chilean futbol league:

Stage two: after we here glass breaking, and a few bottles have been thrown at riot police lines, armored riot vehicles move in and scatter the crowd.Stage three: water cannons (which are awesome) and tear gas are used to deter rioters from throwing stuff at the armored vehicles.
Stage four: A few hardy rioters return to the statue in the middle of the Plaza and resume chanting: Stage five: a water cannon is used to clear-out the last reamaining rioters, and a surreal scene of apocalyptic devastation is left in the rioters wake

Matt Suggett; 07/07/2009

The SMOG in Santiago

2009-07-05T20:36:00.000-07:00

When I arrived in Santiago, my plane touched down in the gloom of early morning. Since darkness prevented me from seeing the SMOG lingering over the city during our descent, I didn't know much about the sooty pollution until I took my first step out the door of the airport and choked down my first filthy Santiagan breath. "You'll get used to it" said the girl that met me at the airport, Mariah, with a tone in her voice that made me think it was more of a "you better get used to it".

Some scientists might tell you that something called thermal inversion traps exhaust fumes in a layer of cooler air, and that the mountains that surround Santiago prevent it from blowing away or diffusing off into the atmosphere. I expect that these same scientists could tell me how many hours I wipe off my already short life expectancy with every wheezy breath I inhale. I'm sure that, in the city, the benefits of any exercise are nullified by all the extra filth you suck into your lungs!

It's difficult to appreciate how bad the smog really is until you find a high vantage point to look down on the murky, lingering cloud:

What looks like brown mist is actually a murky, polluted soup stagnating in a bowl created by the mountains that surround Santiago:I walked around the city for three months , slowly filling my lungs with sticky black soot, convinced that Santiago was built on flat land. Then one day it rained and washed the smog out of the air. Suddenly, we were surrounded by mountains that no one knew were there, like these snow-covered ones I can see from my desk:
The only, and I mean the only, benefit of the smog is that at dusk the different layers of apocalypticly toxic pollution refract the sunlight as it sets and create absolutley stunning sunsets:
Don't get me wrong, the sunsets are nice, but really, they offer little compensation for the fact that I breath dusty photochemical smog all day long. Just one more thing that has us all sighing "oh Santiago....we love/hate you".

Matt Suggett; 05/07/2009

Beard #1

2009-07-04T00:07:00.000-07:00

I hate shaving, with a passion: dragging a dull blade across my skin is the last thing I want to do when I get up in the morning.

And so, on that basis (and since in the future, if I enter the world of business, I won't be able to) I have pledged, to myself, to go 3 months without shaving.

It's not all plain sailing though, and as I enter my first 'itchy stage' I wonder if I'll actually stay the course and complete the three months....

I took this (shitty) pic to commemorate the day I encountered my first hurdle: 'itchy stage #1':My last shave was June 18th 2009, which sets my magic goal-line at September 18th 2009.....

Matt Suggett; 04/07/2009

The protest outside our offices....

2009-06-29T10:32:00.000-07:00

I took these pics outside our offices in Santiago:
Protesters were angry at the government for some kind of shenanigans in the Sub-Prime Mortgage Mess. Having lost their homes in the economic crisis, the protesters decided to build a camp on the bank of the Mapocho (the filthy river that flows through Santiago) as a protest. I watched with curiosity as they protested in their little shantytown for 41 days and nights, and was walking past on day 12 of their hunger strike when I saw hundreds of Riot Police descend on their settlement with tear gas, water cannons, and batons.
I (being a naive and impressionable young nipper) thought, that as far as protests go, theirs was quite a creative and cool way to draw attention to their cause. I have been a little bit befuddled and disappointed that it has garnered almost zero press attention, even in Chile. I can't help but wonder if this speaks to government press censorship, or whether their neat little protest was really just not news worthy.

Either way, it's little things like this that ensure life in Santiago is never dull...

Matt Suggett; 29/06/2009