Blue Music Blog

A visit to Pablo Neruda’s home in Valparaiso was another highlight during our visit to Chile. Neruda had three houses, one in Islas Negro, the main house in Santiago and then this beautiful house up in the hill overlooking the harbor and the sea. They said he loved to wave goodbye to the sailing ships. It is an adventure of a house, a fairy tale.

The famous poet and Nobel Prize laureate was also ambassador to France under Salvador Allende’s government in 1972-73. In September 1973 Allende was overthrown by the dictator Pinochet, President Allende died during the coup when the Presidential Palace was bombarded by heavy artillery from Pinochet. That was the beginning of a terrible regime where thousands and thousands of innocent people were killed, kidnapped, disappeared or forced to escape from Chile. Amazingly all these three characters were born and raised in Valparaiso, Allende, Neruda and Pinochet. I remember very well the feelings I had when I heard about the destabilizing of Chile from the outside during the beginning of President Allende’s rule. He was democratically elected by his people. And when I heard about his death and the overtaking by Pinochet, I remember still today the feeling of hopelessness. Another fascist in the long list of similar kinds both in Latin America and in Europe. I bought a video in the Neruda museum covering the last days of Salvador Allende. It was raining heavily outside Pablo Neruda’s house when we came out, and I looked over the beautiful city, the city of Poets, idealists and dictators.

Monday morning started with staff breakfast at the YMCA. All four German volunteers, excellent young representatives of their YMCAs, were there together with the staff of Valparaiso and the Federation of YMCAs in Chile. Again I made a presentation of NEW WAY and Youth Empowerment in Action, and we had  good hour of questions and comments and good conversation. I was also introduced to the different programmes of Valparaiso YMCA.

To illustrate this, we then took off for a tour of some of the most interesting programmes. First we visited the YMCA primary school combined with the secondary school, and had meetings with pupils and teachers and the leadership of the schools. It was amazing to see the good and modern equipment and to see the high standards of the schools and their teachers. The needs are huge, and an extension of the school is soon to be made.

As I mentioned already, the higher up in the hill we get, the poorer the conditions of the inhabitants, and at the top of the city is really slum. Up there the YMCA has established several centres for social programmes, and we visited two of them.

There we met people who were using the services of the YMCA. We sat at the tables together with poor people who every day came to have a big plate of lunch at the YMCA, all for free. This was making their lives bearable. But it is more than food.

Here the leader of one of the centres and his fiancee.

The centres are safe havens for numerous people who are not welcome elsewhere. Second hand cloth is available there, the centres are places for events and social gatherings, for education and training. In one of the centres I even found an ecological garden where waste was used for compost and you could follow the process until you found yourself eating the green salad or other vegetables. In the afternoon street children and drop outs from schools came to be at the YMCA, a safe place, a place with an open heart for young people so much in need for acceptance and recognition.

While I sat at the table with the hungry, I was invited to take photos, but I said no thank you, this is about dignity. As I observed the YMCA volunteers cooking and serving, and among them the young German volunteers together with an American one and several local volunteers, I found myself being thrown back two weeks, over an ocean and across a different continent to the slum in Freetown, Sierra Leone. I had exactly the same experience again. The local YMCA was a beating heart in the middle of the slum, and the people of the slum, being told that I belonged to the YMCA, raised their heads and smiled and some of them said: “The YMCA is good – we love the YMCA!”  YMCA putting smiles on faces in the slums of different cities on different continents. I felt proud to belong to this movement, even more than before.

Should not slums disappear? Yes. But only if the people is being pushed up and into better conditions. Slums disappear in some cities when prestigious international events are being organized. But then people disappear into darkness and even greater pain. A slum is also a tight network of people, fighting to survive together, as a collective. I learnt that in the slum of Freetown. When the authorities wanted to dissolve the slum there, the YMCA spoke against that and lobbied for the people of the slum. I heard them say thank you to the local YMCA. I felt proud again. I learnt that lesson in a YMCA community centre in the slum in  Freetown. Now I sat in a similar YMCA community centre in  Valparaiso.

I am absolutely willing to discuss YMCA and slums, YMCA and the poor.  But I would love to discuss with people who have been to the slums and who have served the poor and who have met people like the young woman I met who told her story of getting up from almost total poverty to be trained and becoming a room maid at a local hotel and making a living for herself and her family.

More people from the slums around the world need to be trained and given opportunities to go through the change process of the YMCA. More slums need advocacy and lobby and defense.

That is also why the Sleeping Giant needs to be woken up! A strong voice of a unified and collective YMCA is needed out there, to fight for the youth, the people of the slums. In Freetown, in Valparaiso, in so many places around the world.

Oscar showed me the house where he was born and lived as a child, not far from one of the centres. Oscar is for me like an incarnation of the YMCA values and ideals, as he operates around his city and waves to the people on their way to a free YMCA lunch, or when he greets high representatives of government who assists the YMCA with solid sums of dollars for their schools, their social work among young prisoners in the prisons, for the YMCA being a heart in the city, where a heart is badly in need.

This is also Valparaiso, or its close neighborhood – Vina del Mar

A man jumps out of the crowd with a big, friendly smile at the airport in Santiago. He scares the wit out of us! Oscar Ordenes, the National General Secretary of YMCA in Chile. A great friend and a man with a great sense of humor and he laughs a lot. But he is also a very serious YMCA leader with a heart for the poor and troubled. He studied sociology and has worked for the YMCA in Valparaiso all his life. Ingunn and I enjoyed our visit in Chile very much, especially because of Oscar and his unlimited generosity and friendship. If you have a great leader, the staff and volunteers  around him often are of the same caliber, and this is definitely the case in Chile.

Juan Manuel Arancilia is the responsible for international affairs in Valparaiso, and he is also our excellent bus driver, and he lines up in the brand new bus of the YMCA, a 100 years birthday gift to YMCA. It takes us two hours to go to the coast of the Pacific Ocean and to Valparaiso and Vina del Mar, the twin cities. We have a quick round of Vina del Mar YMCA before we enter the very nice hotel with a fantastic harbor view downtown Valparaiso.

Next morning we have the obligatory round of the nice YMCA building in Valparaiso.

We meet with the four German volunteers there and a bunch of young leaders, before we climb up one of the many hills of the city.

In  the beautiful villa of the first lady member of the Valparaiso board, (many years ago), we have a wonderful meeting with the President of the Chilean YMCA federation, the President of the Valparaiso YMCA, board members and friends both from Valparaiso and Santiago, a big group of people, and we spend the whole day together with good food and drinks and excellent conversation and lots of interesting sharing.

I am given the floor to speak about the Sleeping Giant and Youth Empowerment, and again I receive a lot of good and positive feedback. This is more and more encouraging, I must say. It seems that the message from Nairobi is finding fertile grounds in Latin America.

The President of the International Committee in Santiago is a professional singer, to the far left of this photo, and she gives us a few samples of her repertoire. Beautiful!

Sunday is time for service in the Lutheran church and a meeting with the Lutheran Bishop in Chile. In the Anglican church there is an organ concert and we enjoy that as well before we walk down to the harbor again, accompanied by three street dogs, which take a fancy in this international group.

The lunch in Zamba Y. Canuta takes us to the 5th floor with a splendid view of the harbor, and we look straight down at a relatively small ship. Oscar tells us that this ship goes to Juan Fernandez, a small island 1000 km into the Pacific Ocean. It takes a week to sail there, and the boat brings supplies to the island and bring Langusta, lobster, back to Valparaiso. We dream about the long sailing to Juan Fernandez, and slowly it dawns on me that this was the island of Robinson Crusoe and his friend Friday. I never heard that this story had any roots in reality, but Oscar convinces me that it is based in a true story.

The evening takes us for a beautiful walk along the coast and a bus ride to the poorer districts of Valparaiso, unlike many cities, the higher you get, the poorer the houses, so the poorest have the best view in Valparaiso.

And as the sun sets and darkness surrounds us, we enjoy new friendships in Valparaiso and look forward to new adventures tomorrow. More later, friends, just now I have a flight to catch!

Peru. My first visit to Latin America as Secretary General. Peru. It is a land of mystery and magnificent history. Cusco, the  highland capitol of the Inca culture. I have seen the photos,  and thought that this must be the most fascinating place to visit in the world. Trujillo in the north, the centre of the Moche culture, the very advanced culture coming long before the Incas, from 50 – 700 after Christ. The land of gold and silver and ancient societies. The driest deserts in the world, along the coast of the Pacific Ocean, clinging to the Andes Mountains.  The jungle with the rainforest and the mighty river Amazonas. The White Andes Mountains with eternal snow and glaciers. What a country!

We land in Lima, and it feels like we are going to touch down on the beach, the airport in Lima is very close to the waves of the Pacific, and we almost touch the hair of the windsurfers below us.

Edgardo Crovetto, the globetrotter gentleman of the Peruvian YMCA, National General Secretary, gives us a bear hug and big welcoming smiles and takes us to the Jose Antonio Hotel downtown Lima. Edgardo is, among other things,  the former National Secretary of YMCA Italy, he is the former General Secretary of the Latin American Confederation of YMCAs, but he is first and foremost the most charming and elegant friend you can find on the shores of the Pacific Ocean.

Early next morning we meet with Edgardo and his National Staff, for a great Peruvian breakfast and a first exchange around YMCA Peru and about NEW WAY. They inform me about their cutting edge social programmes, YMCA empowering young people and giving them Space, Transformation and Impact.  They tell me about their schools with hundreds of young people getting education of the most modern kind, built on all the values of the YMCA.  I hear about their plans for extension and expansion. They are 8 years ahead of their centennial celebrations and want the Peruvian YMCA to be present in more societies in Peru. I listen to the stories of the informal educational programmes and of the Christian mission of the YMCA and how Peru is a leading force in this field of YMCA work as well.

Our charming and very safe driver and guide, Christian Gonzales, in the middle, to the left David Perez, teacher at the centre in Trujillo and Alan Velasques, also teacher.

I share with them the latest news from the meetings in Nairobi and tell them about the Nairobi Agreement on Youth Empowerment.  Daniel, the Vice President of Peru YMCA sits on the Executive Committee of the World Alliance and he has already informed his friends about Nairobi. They smile and I can see recognition and agreement in their eyes. This is a message they can fully embrace, and the question is quickly formulated – how can Peru help in this great undertaking?

Rocio Solis, our friend and travel companion and responsible for the excellent social programmes in Peru, to the right.

After breakfast Rocia, responsible for the social programmes, takes us to the airport and we catch a flight to the northern end of the country, Trujillo. Christian, the driver at the local YMCA and involved in the youth programmes in Trujillo, meets us at the airport and becomes an integrated member of our travelling adventure in the kingdom of the Moche on the search for the  ancient Lords  of Sipan and the Priests of the Temple of the Moon and the Sun. We have lunch at the seaside resort of Chiclayo and overlooking the Pacific Ocean and enjoying the fresh breeze we eat from the famous menu of the Peruvian cuisine, I have fish cooked in lemon and it is magnificent, even for a Norwegian with some experience with fish!

We pay a first visit to the YMCA vocational training centre, have the first encounter with the two young and excellent German volunteers there, Annika Zillmann and Ina Lutz, and meet the children of the after school programme. This centre had been started around 10 years ago to try to improve the living conditions of the children working at the recycling waste plant nearby, children not attending school and getting plenty of diseases from this dangerous work. Child labour is forbidden by law in Peru up till the age of 14, but it is still a widespread problem. This YMCA programme worked both with the parents, with the children and with the local and regional authorities in a coordinated approach to take the children away from the child labour, to open doors back to school and to give them vocational training and training in advocacy work, whereby they have gained a voice and have had quite a lot of influence in issues related to children and youth in these areas.

Next day we are invited for graduation day at the centre. They have prepared a wonderful cultural programme for us, they read beautiful poems, they play the guitars and they dance Marinera for us, the traditional dance from the north of Peru.

Two of the students present what they have achieved during the year, and they speak eloquently and with self-confidence. With the help of YMCA partners like Y-Care and Germany they have built their own bakery and learnt how to set up a small business concept and now the bakery is being run with a profit!

Earlier the same day we had visited the brand new Museum of the tombs of the Lords of Sipan in Choclayo, an overwhelming museum covering the Moche culture and showing gold and silver from the tombs of the ancient chiefs and priests of that time.

Next day, before we turn our noses back to Lima, we walk through the Temple of the Moon outside Trujillo.

It is a gigantic construction, between the Temple of the Moon and the Temple of the Sun is a city located, and this is now being excavated by an impressive team of archaeologists. The Temple of the Moon was the first to be excavated and has been open just for two years.

It is a fascinating revelation of the ancient religion of the Moche culture. On the wall of the temple we see different layers of symbols and drawings showing how human beings, male warriors, were selected through ritual fighting and then prepared for being sacrificed to the god to satisfy him and make the rain  come and make life safe and good and stable.

The programme is tight, and having landed in Lima we have 45 minutes to get changed for the evening programme. We enter the outside courtyard of the big YMCA centre in Lima and are met by 200 young people singing and dancing and welcoming us in the most energetic way.

I am invited to impress them with my skills in basketball playing, somewhat to my surprise, but as always I do as I am told. After that I have a two hour sessions indoors with the young people and tell them about our plans for Youth Empowerment in Action and the 200 Change Agents we plan to train, starting from this autumn.

I can feel excitement in the hall, and they do not stop asking questions. What does Empowerment mean for me? How did YMCA change my life? How can young people from Lima feel that they have a role to play in a global strategy? The discussion is led by Daniel, the Vice President, and quite a young man himself.

Gone is the tiredness from a long day, I no longer feel the hot dust from the Temple of the Moon, nor do I feel the challenging heat of the burning sun. This is inspiring, this is engaging, this is discussing the change model of the YMCA with 200 young leaders, engaging 200 young people in global strategizing. Wow!  I have not felt so energized for a long time.

We cut the discussion 3 minutes to 9 p.m. This is the time for a formal, but very friendly dinner with the National Board and staff.

Daniel, The Vice President, and member of the WAY Executive Committee, to the right of Ingunn.

Raoul starts it with an impressive devotion. A king has got two eagles as a gift, and he cannot make them fly. A gifted man from the mountains manages to make them fly, and the king asks him how he did it? It is very simple, the man from the mountains answers: I cut the branch where they were sitting, and in a split of a second the eagles discovered that they had wings and used them and they were flying!

Raoul and Pedro on the National Staff.

For the global YMCA to change profoundly and for the sleeping giant to wake up, quite a lot of branches need to be cut and comforting safety nets need to be removed.

Thursday takes us downtown Lima to a centre for children in a challenging part of the city. Again an impressive social programme reaching out to hundreds of children in need.

Ynes, our excellent translator and guide to interesting places in Lima, is hospitality herself, and in the evening we are invited to a very special dinner with Gerardo, the President of the Peruvian YMCA, his wife Monica, Edgardo and his wife Rosario. Gerardo is also an old friend, and he has come back from the NAYDO conference in the USA a few hours earlier.

We meet at a fish restaurant 100 meters from the shore, the waves are breaking underneath us, and we enjoy the maritime cuisine of Peru as we summarize our eventful visit to the country and the YMCA. What a place! What a YMCA!