Our Plane arrives at 22:30, and security upon arriving in Santiago is meticulous. They held us back for having bee pollen lip gloss, and questioned me heavily on what was inside my juggling balls, but finally let us through. We catch taxis; Chris, Belle, Nick and I are to stay in a Couchsurfing apartment, which Giles and Mardy go stay with local friends.

 

The taxi drives through beautiful streets and I feel connected to this place right away. There are skate parks and bike lanes, which means off the top it’s committed to urban placemaking. It’s obviously a progressive city. It also has beautiful 17th century style Spanish red brick architecture in its downtown core.

 

We pass a three story high Christmas tree in front of the grand central station. It’s strange to think of Christmas as the sunlight in South America has been getting longer, but it’s the end of November. The clock reads almost midnight, a Friday, and we are exhausted.

 

Our first priorities in Santiago is to obtaining our Brazilian visas, but the offices are closed for the weekend and we need to get up early in the morning to begin finding and filming buskers; Saturday is the best busking day no matter where you are in the world.

 

The crew is still slightly ill, and none of us have slept properly for days. We knew that this particular couch was having a ‘couch surfers party’. You never quite know what you are walking into with each place you stay.

SantiagoHosts

The 4 of us arrive to the door, unsteady, sleep deprived and unsure we are in the right spot. We ring the bell, the door opens, and 5 people laughing, partying, greet us in Spanish and begin taking photographs of us carrying our enormous backpacks weighed down with camera equipment.

 

The hosts finally come through the crowd to greet us, and usher us through to place our bags down in one of their rooms. We take 5 minutes of rest while a raging party goes on in the background. Belle is looking greener by the minute. We realize our need to eat.

 

Nick and I go out to face the party, have a glass of wine to join for a minute and ask them what our possible options are. Chris and Belle try to feel better, so while waiting for them to regain their feet I start hula hooping with the party people – when you can’t beat it, join it, right? We learn of a late night Chinese restaurant near by and the four of us take off for a bit of down time.

 

Bellies full, we go back to the party and learn that the 4 of us are actually sleeping in the hardwood living room floor, except, of course, there are about 20 people dancing there at the moment. Belle gets more sick each passing minute and has to lie down. Our hosts graciously give the single bed to her for the night, Chris stays with her and Nick and I stay up all night talking, being social, partially waiting for our piece of floor to be free. We weren’t very social, honestly, although we were trying… At 6:30am we finally sleep.

ViewofSantiago

(the view from the apartment)

 

It’s Saturday, the street performers are out in full force, so we are up at 09:00 to find the performers. Belle is very sick by this point. She and Chris decide to get a room in a hostel so they don’t make our hosts sick. Nick and I go out filming for the day meeting Mardy, Giles and Chris in the square.

I noticed a diabolo player starting a show, and the whole crew goes over and begins filming. This was one of my first times getting to use the DSLRs, yes! This is my chance! Although I’ve been creating videos for years, I’ve never learned about DSLRs before, and I haven’t used an SLR since I was in high school. It’s difficult and I struggle with focus and aperture settings but before I can even Mardy says

 

“Can I just use that to get this shot?”

 

She takes the camera, and then I lose the camera for the entire day. It’s disappointing, but there really is only once chance to get the right shot. Nick noticed this, and was supportive and trying to teach me as much as he could. On one hand, it was necessary, the other hand, my speed and control over shots didn’t get better because I had no access to the cameras. It became a circular and recurring problem.

 

I stand by while they do an interview with Daniel the Diabolo player. Giles is the translator, Mardy, Chris and Nick film. It’s emotionally difficult to just stand around feeling useless part of the team. The project itself begins to running out of money and asks if I can start paying for my own costs, and that’s fine, but my doubts about my purpose is here and how I can best add to this project weight on me heavily along with my sleep deprivation and culture shock.

Daniel and TBP team

Our generous, but party animal hosts drink until 3am every night this weekend, and Nick and I have no choice but to stay up with them. We’d meet team would meet every morning at 10 to start filming. That was our schedule all weekend.

 

My enthusiasm starts to wane. Chris gets sick too, and the team is generally in a daze.

 

Monday comes and it’s crunch time. We get up at 8 am to go to the Brazilian Embassy to get visas. Everyone is supposed to be there early, as they only accept people before 11am.

 

At one point I’m on my own trying to find my way around, and luckily the metro in Santiago is easy to navigate. An interesting part about having a multinational team is the visas. Nick and Chris are British citizens, so don’t require visas for Brazil. But Belle’s American, Mardy’s Singaporese, Giles is Australian and I’m from Canada, and we all need to get visas before we can move on. It’s the last chance.

Mural

I find my way to the embassy an hour later than anticipated, only to realize that you’re suppose to go to the consulate, not the embassy.  I had given myself 1 1/2 hours leeway, thankfully, knowing full well that I had to be there for sure. They give directions and I proceed through town to find it, getting there in enough time! *phew*

 

Belle arrived shortly after, but the rest of the team was missing!? We talked about our paperwork, and I realize I don’t have everything needed, but it was just a few photocopies, so I switched my place in line with Belle and quickly found a photocopier.

 

After much waiting, we finally realize we can obtain a visa, but that they take 6 business days to process, which means we have to stay an extra weekend in Santiago. We have to stay for 12 days here total, meaning we have to find a new place to stay and that our time in the later countries is cut short.

 

Belle and I go for lunch, and I learn from her more about the difficulties and tensions in the team over the last 8 months.

 

In Vancouver, the team came to my house and were very amicable, but obviously exhausted, nearly falling asleep for 2 days of the 5 they were there. I had no idea of the difficulties they’d faced, or how difficult it was to arrive in various locations, fit in with the local hosts, film hundreds of street performers all day, log the footage and charge batteries at night, write blogs and wake up to do it again and again for 8 months straight.

 

It blindsided me to think about. This is the fourth city in my very short time with the team, and already I can see how sleeping too little and working too much has created difficulties. Traveling is dreamy in the mind, but it can be hard in reality.

Dawn Meta

I am also feeling the effects of being a part of The Busking Project team. I begin to see clearly why the volunteers (Giles, Mardy and I) were needed in South America – finding new couches to stay on, having more people to do the work collectively, with some people at home working on the footage and others out filming and researching the local busking scene in each city is really important.

 

The goals for this project are ambitious, and the whole thing is overwhelming. Culture shock can be overwhelming on it’s own, but at this point I see why the stresses of travel, workload, and culture shock can disintegrate the fabric of sanity, for the whole team.

 

I only have a taste of what this feels like, and my respect for what Nick, Chris and Belle have been through trying to create this increases ten fold. They tell me that despite adding three people to the team, we are doing less filming than they had done for the previous eight months. I’m amazed.

 

Unlike our experiences couchsurfing in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, here we actually have hot water, available coffee and a kitchen we can use. Plus, its not 4000m above sea level. Our bodies start to adjust and feel better in our time here. Our hosts have day jobs, so the begin to sleep at night again. Although the team is sick, tired and stressed, all the work gets done, and everyone is handling themselves exceptionally well.

 

Through my talk with Belle, I begin to realize that my part on the team is in part just taking the weight off the others. Doing simple things like carrying bags, cooking for the team, and listening to some of the more difficult parts of the journey is what is needed. Part of the difficulty the team faced is the loneliness that can come from travel. Although they are together, each missed home, their friends, their culture and some idea of regularity.

Chris and Belle

In this way, The Busking Project really were acting like buskers, and as the team busker, I understood what that was like, and could provide some of those smaller comforts that began to become more important by the day.

 

The following Monday, it’s time to pick up the visa. Mardy and Giles, they had trouble with theirs. They did not get to the office on time, and they didn’t have all their paperwork ready. We realize they’re going to be 2 days to a week later than we are getting to Buenos Aires. We had to split up. Belle also didn’t make it on time. They denied her entry to the consulate. I was the only one successful to get the visa in the shortest period of time. We already had bus tickets for the following day, and Belle had to cancel hers. Nick and I went to Buenos Aires alone, and everyone else was stuck in Santiago.