Put your finger where?!

Our preschool uses an English curriculum series called Gumdrops, and overall I think it's pretty solid. Unfortunately for me, I am very hard to please when it comes to children's music. About 80% makes me want to puncture my own eardrums with safety scissors, and the CD that accompanies this curriculum falls into that bracket. That doesn't mean it isn't effective– the kids were singing along in English after the first week or so– but I don't have to like it.

These are gumdrops. They teach English.

However, the songs have a few pitfalls even aside from a music appreciation standpoint. The first unit in the Level One curriculum (three-year-olds) introduces the words "boy," "girl," and "teacher." The corresponding action song is titled, "Put Your Finger On The..." and is sung to the tune of "If You're Happy And You Know It," only instead of clapping and stomping, you put your finger on the boy– or the girl, or the teacher. Depends on what verse you're singing.

As far as simple action songs go, I've heard worse, and like I said, the kids responded pretty well. It sounded a little risqué to my ears, but I thought that maybe I've just worked with teens for too long to not see dirty humor everywhere.

Then, after English class one day, I heard a girl singing to herself: "Put your finger in the boy, in the boy... Put your finger in the girl, in the girl..."  In, on, whatever.

I'm hoping she forgets this little gem of her childhood before she turns 16 and goes on an exchange trip to a U.S. high school.

La Casa Mostaza

For the first three weeks in Viña, we lived on the 16th floor of a luxury high-rise condo with our boss's mother-in-law, Cecilia. The housing possibility we were waiting on fell through, so the good ol' internet helped us find another one. We now live in a big house (relatively speaking) in the neighborhood of Recreo, book-ended by a church on one side of the block and a sushi delivery place on the other. At the end of the street is a scenic overlook (overlooking the ocean). I call the house La Casa Mostaza because it is mustard yellow, and because rhyming is fun. Kat and I are the only ones who call it that, though.

The one in the middle

The neighbors are quiet

Here's a short visual tour of the place.

My room: small, but big enough

The hallway

Common room w/ kitchen on the left, backyard behind

Lots of room for asados (barbeques) and for the kitten to roam

View from the end of the street

Here are some of our housemates. La Señora Fresia on the left and her son Pablo in the middle are the managers/caretakers. Ten people currently live here, although it doesn't seem like that many. Life in Mostaza provides a nice combination of quiet time and chances to socialize with actual chilenos. Here's to good people when you're far from home.

Thinking like Yoda

One of the hardest things about learning Spanish has been learning to form sentences in reverse. "I gave it to her" becomes "Se lo di", or literally "to her it I gave". The best I can do right now is think it in English order, reverse it, then speak it, usually at least 10 seconds late. Listening? Also decoding much too late to follow a conversation well. It turns out that changing the way your brain processes thought and language is not easy. Should I have realized this before? Maybe. But learn it I will! It will I learn! Mmm!

Festivus Park

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Museo Fonck, Palacio Carrasco, and the city of Viña del Mar for having a park conveniently located just two blocks from my school.

There are benches and trees in both shade and sun,

This guy is enjoying the shady half

a moai from Easter Island,

a Rodin sculpture, and more.

"La Defensa"

Most of all, it is an excellent place for the Airing of Grievances when we are frustrated with something at work. I don't know what the space is actually called, but we call it Festivus Park.*

¡Feliz Festivus!


*Seinfeld reference, in case you spent the '90's under a rock

Levitating shoes

Learning a language is not about studying.

Okay, yes it is– partly. But for me, on this trip, studying is only one shoe. Listening is one shoe. Talking with my tutor or my housemates is one shoe. Watching Game of Thrones with subtitles, also one shoe (gracias, HBO Chile). I have lost track of how many times I have heard or read something I didn't understand, only to come across it days later in another context and suddenly: Ohhhhh!  The other shoe drops.

Living and working in a Spanish-speaking country, I feel sort of like it's raining shoes all the time, but most of them don't match. Only by sheer volume of words surrounding me and the variety of ways they get to me do I manage to unite a handful of pairs each day. On the other side of that analogy is a whole warehouse in my brain full of unmatched shoes, which is frustrating. I know I'm learning, and learning a lot faster than I would at home, but my goodness. So many floating shoes. I hope they find their way down soon.

Rookie mistake

Once or twice a week, a bunch of the girls in my school take a ballet class. The first day of that taller (workshop), I was helping a three-year-old named Agustina get changed into her adorable little ballet outfit. First came the pink tights, then the pink leotard, the ballet shoes, and the flowy little pink skirt (do you still call them tutus when there's no tuille?). We added a shirt under the leotard since the weather was a little chilly, then had to get said shirt straightened out under said leotard. There may have been a zip-up sweatshirt involved as well. When I was all finished, she grinned with the giddy pleasure of being a bailarina and bounced a little. Then she stopped bouncing, and what do you suppose was the first thing she said?

Quiero hacer pipi!

Of course you need to pee. Rookie mistake on my part. You would think that with four nieces, I would know better than to put a three-year-old in a leotard without frog-marching her to the bathroom first. You can bet I do it now!

Here lie the Lutherans

18-20 Abril 2014 – Semana Santa
Valparaíso y Viña del Mar

On top of Cerro Panteón in Valpo, there are three cemeteries, and on Good Friday we visited two of them. 

The view from atop Cerro Panteón

Dueling cementerios

On one side of the street is Cementerio #1 (there is also a Cementerio #2 in the neighborhood, but it was closed). Unlike the often rainbow-tastic Punta Arenas cemetery, Cementerio #1 is pretty austere; white stone or cement is the prevailing material, with splashes of stained glass or flowers here and there.

 

 

Random aside: Angel statues on or near graves confuse me a little, theologically speaking. Are they supposed to represent loved ones as newly-minted angels? Or angels that come and accompany souls to heaven? Or maybe they are really heavy, really expensive postcards from the dearly departed's new home? Hi everyone, meeting some great folks up here! This is my buddy Gabe. Whatever the original reason for their presence, thanks to Doctor Who their new purpose is to freak me out.

Doesn't appear to be weeping, but best not to blink anyway

It being Holy Week, this broken tombstone caught my eye. Keep in mind that this grave is above ground, more like a vault, and that's the entrance.

Has anyone checked for Emilia or Saturnino lately...?

In fact, there were a number of broken or half-missing stones. We don't seem to be in "the dead shall be raised triumphant" times yet, so that leaves three other possibilities: 1) There are a lot of earthquakes here and stuff breaks; 2) Vampires; or 3) Zombies. It could also be a combination of these options.

Across the street from Cementerio #1 is Cementerio de Disidentes, which translates just how it sounds.

What sort of dissidents, you ask? Political activists? Authors? Revolutionaries? Nope.

It's full of Lutherans.

There are also Episcopalians, Anglicans, maybe even a Calvinist or two. It turns out that what makes up the "Pantheon" on Cerro Panteón are Catholics and all sorts of Protestants buried on the same hill, with only a few 12-foot walls and iron gates between them.

Just look at these dissident graves, denying papal infallibility all over the place

Aside from the general air of rebellion, Cementerio de Disidentes was pretty similar to its Catholic neighbor, with lots of somber white stone monuments in crowded but orderly rows. I did notice fewer statues of Mary and more bible verses, or inscriptions in general. I guess we dissidents are wordier.

This dissident was wounded at Waterloo

I thought this perceived chasm between the Catholics and "Dissidents" was kind of funny in an historically enlightening way– for about two days. Actually closer to two hours. That's when I went to Good Friday mass at the church next to our house: Iglesia Capuchino, which is a Franciscan parish (not, as we first thought from hearing the name, a coffee shop).

I was looking forward to the service because it was Viernes Santo, Good Friday, and I appreciate a little gravity and liturgy, especially during Holy Week. At mass they circled the sanctuary and read something for each Station of the Cross, then the priest spoke briefly, and then everyone lined up to go kiss a statue of Christ on the cross. Lutheran Flare-up #1: I ain't kissing no statue. After that was Communion, which I skipped out of respect for Catholic beliefs. Lutheran Flare-up #2: Who are they to withhold Communion from a believer, on this of all days? On the plus side, we sang the Spanish Catholic version of "Were You There," which was a Good Friday staple for me growing up, and I got a little moment to reminisce.

On Easter, we had a double-header: first we visited the ultra-Catholic-sounding Our Lady of Agony before heading to my regular church, which is Assemblies of God. It was Easter, the most significant day of the Christian calendar for any flavor of Christianity. Surely we would see a good Latin American celebration! Well, maybe they were celebrating on the inside. The mass seemed very sedate to me; it was hard to tell it was Easter except for hearing "resucitado" more often than usual.

Then came time for no-Communion-for-you, which irked me even more the second time (Lutheran Flare-up #3). After Communion, the priest took the cup and bread and locked it up in a little golden safe behind the altar, and at this point I was quietly losing my Lutheran cool (Lutheran Flare-up #4). People! This whole week celebrates Christ's sacrifice and victory. The temple curtain was torn in two to remove the separation between God and humanity, not so we could upgrade to a shiny new vault! LUTHERAN SMASH!  It turns out I am more dissident than I realized.

Yesterday, two weeks later, I finally took Communion at my church, where all who believe are welcome to partake, and where a little girl finished off the extra bread afterward. That suits my rebel heart just fine.