That Charlie Brown

Kat and I work in a preschool/daycare called Charlie Brown Jardin Infantil. It is a job we found on the internet and accepted after little more than a Skype conversation and an internet search to see if they were legit, so all things considered I think we did pretty well.

Street view; the 3rd (a.k.a "robot head") floor is under construction and not in use

El patio, here featuring the 2-yr-olds hopping like frogs

We hold sort of hybrid positions at the school. Several times a week we make the rounds to lead English lessons for all the classes, with students ranging from two to six years old. The rest of the week we are classroom assistants. I started in Medio Menor (2-year-olds), and Kat is with Pre-Kinder (4-year-olds).

Toddler dance party!

After a week or so I switched to Medio Mayor (3-year-olds) in the hopes of having a better chance of using/learning Spanish with an age group that says more than just "Miyo!" (mine!) and where the kids don't all eat the Play-Doh. Some still do, but at least it's not all of them.

Here's part of my class enjoying sandwiches and cookies for the monthly "Who's got a birthday this month?" party.

The tia in my class is named Michelle, and she's great; very engaging and caring, and the kids love her. I would actually entrust my imaginary children to her in imaginary real life. The assistant in my class is less what I would call "great" and more what I would call "embittered and kind of useless," and I'll leave it at that.

Tia Michelle. The hair is a wig, but the hair net is real

The kids are the usual three-year-old mix of adorable and crazy-making. I have picked up such useful phrases as Tienes a compartir (you have to share), Quieres hacer pipi?(do you need to pee?), and Subirse los pantalones! (pull up your pants!).

Not that I would ever have favorite children...but here are two of my favorites.

Fernando is a beautiful boy and a complete space cadet, constantly wandering around the room talking to himself and striking what at first I thought were Wolverine fight poses. I was also perplexed yet entertained that he was constantly singing Iron Maiden, in English. Where in the world did a three-year-old pick that up? Are Mom and Dad into heavy metal? On day three it finally clicked: it was the end credits song from Iron Man. The Wolverine claw hands were actually Tony Stark's repulsor beams. Good choice, kid.

Fernando in a rare moment of sitting still

Now meet Florencia, who is not even in my class but I reserve the right to make her a favorite anyway. She's sweet and imaginative and says things very intently and thoughtfully to me that I hope I will understand more fully before I leave. Here she is as a dragon during one of the afternoon special activity times.

"Respiro fuego! Raawwrrr!"

So yeah, the kids are cute. In other ways, the setting has been limiting and frustrating. I came to Chile expecting to be frustrated by not speaking the language, especially the first few months. However, we have discovered that frustration with the vague concept of a language barrier is very different than frustration with seeing things we could improve, and that we excel at improving in an English workplace, but can't express or change in Spanish. We'll see if that changes before we leave, but there seems to be more than just language at play. Workplace strife, thy name is politics.

Also, there are sometimes costumed water droplets. And that's kind of freaky. But all things considered, it's a decent place.