My full name is María Belén Farías Gutiérrez but nobody calls me María Belén. I’m Belén, a single Chilean woman, I’m 32 years-old and I live in Santiago. I’m from Chile and I was born in the capital city, on a rainy day, on May 22nd, 1979. We’re a five-member family, my parents plus my brother, sister and I; and both my sister and brother are older than me. My brother Felipe is the oldest and then my oldest sister, Male, which makes me the youngest. I also have a younger step-brother, Mauricio, who’s 16 and a younger half-sister, Mariajosé, who’s 4. My parents got divorced in 2004 and in the same year I left home and went travelling to Europe for a couple of months so I could visit some of my friends there.
I studied in the same school for twelve years and I’m still in contact with most of my classmates. After that, when I was 17, I worked sporadically and studied English for a year because I didn’t know what to study as a career but I finally decided I wanted to be a translator. I graduated as a translator in 2001 and then studied Pedagogía en inglés so I became an English teacher in 2005. Apart from teaching and translating, I also work as a tourist guide in a company that my boyfriend and I started up, which is called Puelmapu Turismo Sustentable.
I really like music and sports. I play capoeira, practice yoga and rock climbing but I can’t go climbing as often as I’d like to. I love dancing too and I don’t mind trying to learn new rhythms. I enjoy singing and I try to learn new songs in different languages. Also, I’ve tried to learn how to play some instruments but regularly I just play the tambourine.
