Category Archives: Latin America

Achieving a Ten-Year-long Dream and Language Learning at Lençóis in Brazil

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-One day, I will definitely go to this place-

More than 10 years ago, I saw a picture of Lençóis in Brazil, and I promised myself to see it in my eyes one day. It has been “one day” for long time as it was not easy to make it happen due to its limited season (June-Aug) and access (far from all the places I was based in).

This year, I had a chance to visit Chile in June, and despite remaining COVID-19 restriction, I decided to travel there. It was also for brushing up my language skill before landing at a new duty station (Mozambique, Portuguese speaking country just like Brazil). In this post, I would like to share my experience from traveler and language learner’s point of view.

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Finding by Watching Copa America Online

Things are constantly changing: nature, trend, technology, your thought and body function (even at the cell level). Despite this, it is pretty rare that you realize that something has changed definitely, isn’t it? When do you feel it?

In my case, I realize change when I figure that I no longer can do something I could, rather than the other way around (because when you learn something, it is hard to see the difference). In other words, changes are noticeable when you lose something instead of gaining.

Since I moved to Mongolia, there were many changes, but today, I realized that I am indeed in Mongolia because I no longer have access to most of live stream channels (watching love TV online) due to where I am!!
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Directions

If you head north, you will hit the dry land and the desert. When you turn around and go all the way to the south, you will see glaciers. On the east side, you can always see Andean cordillera (unless theere is a smog especially in capital). Oh don’t forget that if you drive a few hours to the west, you will encounter Pacific Ocean and you can fly to some islands.

Everything mentioned here is what you can see in a single country, Chile, so that which direction you go really matters.

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3 Reasons to travel by yourself

It feels good to be back.

Every time I get back from travelling, I have a sense that time had passed more than it did. It’s been more than 10 years since I started travelling by myself. When I went outside of Japan for the first time, I met a old woman in Northern Thailand who said something which really got me thinking:

If I am comfortable with my life, why do I want to travel (leave the place)?

Given that human beings have instincts to make a life easier and safer, what she said totally makes sense. But at least from my experience, there are 3 main reasons to get out of your comfort zone to travel alone over with someone else: learning life skills, having a flexibility and meeting new people.

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New Year Resolution 2015

A happy new year!! Let’s make 2015 a wonderful year!!

By the way, what are your resolutions of 2015?
Having a new year is one of the best moments to realize how rapid time flies, so I think it’s important to step back for a while before we start running, and make a short-term goal, resolutions of the new year.

Before writing mine, I literary stepped back (re-read my blog entries of 2014), which made me realize that my resolutions for 2015 are almost the same as last year. That means either I didn’t established manageable ones within a year or they were too vague to see the result. With that in mind, I will try to be as specific as possible for myself 1 year from now.

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Excitement and doubt on Teleton

For the last 2 days in Chile, there was a huge mobilization in media, money, people and emotion.

This movement was centered around a 27-hour-long charity TV show called “Theater Teletón” on which Chile took an initiative position 36 years ago, followed by other countries in Latin America. There are also similar campaigns in Europe, Asia (including Japan).

Here is how Teletón Chile works: it tries to raise money every year (except presidential election year) during those 2 days of the show in order to construct or maintain “Teletón”, the centers of rehabilitation for the People with Disabilities(PwD). This TV show tells us many heartwarming stories of PwD in order to reach the targeting amount of donation (around 50 million dollars), and in most cases, it achieves the goal.

First of all, I have to admit this show really functions in a way that makes us want to donate. But at the same time, I cast doubt on whether this is a sustainable approach to promote social inclusion, which Teletón says is its main goal.
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If you love your kids, let them travel

In Japan, there is a proverb that says “If you love your kids,let them travel” (English counterpart could be”Spare the rod and spoil the child“). It is so true that the more you travel, the more you learn something by seeing new people and culture (the difference) that you don’t get to see in your daily life.

For my work, I have many opportunities to travel all around Chile, and today I would like to share 3 families which caught my attention in 8th region of Chile for the last 3 days, relating them to the theme “”How to raise your kids“.

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