Nahuel Rojas is a 10 year old boy from the south-western part of the capital of Buenos Aires. He lives with his parents and his siblings in a low income neighborhood. Nahuel is a regular student at a small community center called Centro Conviven. Centro Conviven is a quasi-member organization of HelpArgentina (details of our relationship with Conviven will most definitely come later).
Nahuel is a chess star. I have never met Nahuel, surprisingly. I have only heard of his incredible potential. Nahuel was a champion of his age group in Argentina. Previous volunteers had mentioned to me that Nahuel has exceptional abilities and deserves to be recognized. Nahuel wanted to go to the world championship of Chess, to be held in Turkey this November 2007. That was all I heard until about two and a half weeks ago.
Centro Conviven has at least seven volunteers from our program working to teach English, leading other educational activities, and finding ways to enagage some 25 plus students from the surrounding neighborhood. All of the volunteers have good intentions. They want to help the community, the kids at the center, and they are almost always attentive to the needs of their students. This was the case with Nahuel. One of our volunteers who worked with Nahuel, developed a closer relationship with him and met his father. The word began to spread that Nahuel needed money to cover his flights, visa, entrance fee, and hotel in Turkey. One of the volunteers and definitely several others, volunteered to help raise the money that he needed.
How much money will it cost to send Nahuel to Turkey? What did Nahuel have to do to confirm his participation in the tournament? When actually is the tournament? Does he need a visa? Is this even possible for Nahuel?
These are just a few of the numerous questions that circulated in a mood of 'chaos and confusion' among the community center's staff members, the people that knew Nahuel, and the volunteers who were trying to help him. Nobody had 'all' the information. Each person possessed a piece of the puzzle to send Nahuel to Turkey, but who was going to put it all together in time?
One of the volunteers who originally expressed her interest to help Nahuel and his father get to Turkey, started the process. She then passed on her 'promises' to Nahuel and his father to a different volunteer who organized the campaign right up until she was scheduled to go traveling in the southern Argentina. Her departure occurred within days that Nahuel had to be on a plane to Turkey. Left to assemble the final pieces of this well-intentioned, but poorly organized effort, was the director of Centro Conviven, another non-Insight volunteer from Europe, yours truly, and in bits and pieces, our dedicated on-site volunteer coordinator from Estonia. So how many Argentines, Norweigns, Estonians, and Americans does it take to send an innocent little Argentine boy to Turkey for a chess championship? Answer: more than necessary!
Though the above commentary is not in the least bit 'funny', I felt like I was in a ridiculous off-broadway show. The above-mentioned actors and actresses participated in what was an intriguing plot, with various elements of humor and stress, but that fortunately will have a happy ending.
Our volunteer who was currently coordinating the efforts before her trip to Patagonia began to round up and mobilize her friends and family to donate through HelpArgentina to the "Nahuel goes to Turkey" fund. 100 dollars here and 300 euros there, HelpArgentina slowly received about 1000 dollars over the course of a week for Nahuel. Supposedly, but nobody really knew for sure, another 1000 mixture of euros, pesos, and dollars existed as well for Nahuel. Extraordinarily, however unclear or uncomefortably last-minute, funds were rolling in for this young chess player.
Nahuel and his father had to fly out on the 13th or 14th of November, flight paid for, entrance in tournament confirmed, and visa problems resolved. A local travel agency found a flight for an inexpensive USD1247 with a layover in Rome of 24 hours. The director of Conviven, on the phone regularly these days, had confirmed that Nahuel would be accepted late into the chess tournament, thanks to a note from the Argentine federation of chess and the Argentine ambassador to Turkey (who knows the ambassador?).
It was confirmed and then dis-confirmed, before being confirmed again, that Nahuel did not need a special 'visa' to enter Turkey. His Bolivian passport and Argentine identification card (Nahuel and family are originally from Bolivia) would suffice. However, we were told thereafter that Nahuel would not be able to stay in Rome for a night without a visa. After a few hours of suspense, it was confirmed that he could stay as long as he was in "transit." Though this may be well-known information, we did not know it at the time. It was drowned out in the panicky emails and phone calls, and confusing conversations between native and non-native speakers. The confirmation of Nahuel's 'in-transit' permission to stay in Rome led to the official booking of his flight to Turkey. Part of this flight was donated by the Argentine Airlines (the one good thing they have done since Aerolineas Argentina is probably the poorest airline in the world).
In summary, Nahuel had a flight to Turkey, did not need a visa, and he was confirmed as a late entrance for the chess championships. HelpArgentina, the channel for the donations that came from abroad, released the funds to the travel agency to pay for the flight. To assure that this process was transparent, HelpArgentina asked for a "factura B or C" (like a receipt) before releasing the money to the travel agency. The agency's courier made three 'wonderful' (sarcasm) visits to HelpArgentina in two days with unclear information on the wrong receipt and a copy of Nahuel's flight itinerary, I guess, to keep us informed on his flight status? Who knows. Good natured and hardworking, our courier finally brought us the receipt what we needed. Nothing would be easy it seemed.
Just when we thought it was over, there was more. Nahuel still owed about USD1400 for his entrance fee, hotel and food, and so on. Basically, the rest of the trip. About half of this money was out and about, in the hands of dispersed volunteers, and seemingly waiting for someone to collect it. I was under the impression that somebody was going to make the payments online over the weekend to leave poor Nahuel with a clear mind to play some chess?
Monday morning, November 19, today, Nahuel and his father are in Turkey for day two of the world chess championships. Nahuel played during day one, but did not play today, and will not play until the final payments were made to the Turkish Chess Federation. Reasonable or not on the part of the chess federation, why were we still not done with all of this, I asked? Nahuel has traveled from Mataderos/Villa Lugano to Turkey to play chess, just let him play, somebody!
"Does anyone have a credit card who is willing to pay online so that Nahuel can play chess tomorrow?" "You will be reimbursed by 25 volunteers from 16 different countries!" "Any takers?"
One of HelpArgentina's staff members stepped up to the plate. If only we knew where exactly to make the online payment to the Turkish Federations website?
You tired yet?
Trying to read Turkish online and speaking with three different people who confused me further, we had no concrete answers on 'how to pay.' I picked up the 'magical white phone' once again. This magical white phone allows you to miraculously travel to Turkey by only pressing 15 digits, considered a call from the US, but from Argentina for only 39 dollars a month. I called the cell phone of the director of the Turkish Chess Federation, Abdurrahman KORAL. Hearing the swift movement of chess pieces in the background, followed by "I can't talk right now," Mr. Koral said to call back later.
I finally spoke with the Turkish king of chess, Mr. Koral himself, pleading for the online link to pay for Nahuel with my co-workers credit card. Mr. Koral told me that it would be hard by phone to pass along the information I needed, so he would instead write me an email shortly and something about how he has "8,000 emails in his account." I continued to be confused.
Its 735pm in the evening. I am sitting here waiting for Turkey to write to me. I desparately want, as does everyone else, for Nahuel to be able to play chess. I sincerely hope that Nahuel and his father are not loosing too much sleep over this, but it must be agonizing for them to fly to Turkey, to a different culture, and be waiting anxiously for Nahuel to get the 'nod' from the authorities. Either way, I was confident that it would fall into place and please read my third blog for the conclusion to this story.
1 comment:
This is very motivated! Thank for sharing this experience with us
Mariana, San Isidro
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