Seat Belts and Miles

The reason that Rotary has an exchange program is because Rotarians worldwide agree that it will make the world a better place. Rotary clubs send us thousands of miles away with the goal of "spreading world peace and understanding" to the countries we travel to. Maybe I am a little too optimistic, but I love this job and I love smiling at people and representing my country. As a 16 year old in a foreign place, I never imagined I could impact people's lives very much, but after living here for only a little over a month, I have realized that I actually am changing the people around me. I only have two examples for you, and they aren't even huge things, but to know that they are positive differences that I have made makes me happy enough to want to blog about them. 

The first one involves seat belts. In Chile, all cars have seat belts but barely anyone wears them. I noticed this very early in my exchange, and while I always wear my seat belt, I didn't want to embarrass my family by pointing out that they don't wear theirs. I didn't know what to do because while my host parents are great drivers, I was always so worried that an accident would happen (as my dad always says "nobody plans on getting hurt"). I confided this worry in a Chilean friend of mine, and in response, instead of getting mad or offended, he promised me that he would always wear his seat belt and told me to be gently honest with my host parents. The next time we were in the car, I said quietly to my host mom in broken Spanish, "mamá, why don't you wear your seat belt? I get really worried when you don't wear it because car accidents are very common, and if anything ever happened to you I would be very sad." My host mom looked back at me smiling and told me that because I said that she will wear her seat belt for the rest of her life. I was so happy! Now whenever we get in the car I don't have to remind them, and sometimes they even have their seat belts on before I do!

The second change involves running. As you all know, I run almost every day in Chile. I thought this was only benefiting me, but I recently realized it has also been helping my host dad. Since I can't go to the track alone, my host dad comes with me everyday and does his own work out while I run.  The first week he only stretched, and the second week he began to jog a little. But he has been improving everyday and today while I was running he called over to me with a HUGE smile in his face "Saalllyyyy! Una milla!" Today my host dad ran his first complete mile in many many years! I was so happy for him! When I finished my run, he told me that he was glad he had me to be his personal trainer and that he thinks he will get healthier while I am in Chile.

So these things aren't huge, and a lot of people would probably overlook them, but it feels really good to know that I am making a difference in this country. Even if that difference only affects a couple people in very minor ways, I'm helping. I don't want to try to make Chile more like the US, I just think that these little things are good things, and I happy that I can do little things to make other people's lives just the slightest bit happier. :)