"hoy terminé los pantalones amarillos de Gonzalo"

Today's dance class was much less exciting than last week, no half-naked dancing professors, just cueca and other dances which I can sometimes do but for which I cannot remember the names. For how simple the cueca is, I make it into a mess every time.

But on to more exciting business. I took advantage of my procrastination and time between my classes to visit first the Darwin bio exhibit in Casa Central, then travel once again to Cerro Bellavista. Here I found Alex and Gonzalo, the mosaic artists of Valparaíso, working diligently on their pillars. I helped make Valparaíso street art!!!!! What a privilege it was. There I was, ready to help create a permanent piece of the city just outside of the museo cielo abierto. Gonzalo's pillar is an autorretrato, or a self-portrait of sorts. I was given the task of making Gonzalo himself, starting with the yellow pants. I worked for three hours on those yellow pants, and finished them in time to get to class. It's easy but tedious work, extremely fun to smash and cut the tiles, shape the pieces into something beautiful, like yellow pants. Gonzalo doesn't have any yellow pants, which makes me sad.

I am really honored to have encountered real artists of Valparaíso, to work on a part of the city's beautiful culture. It is really hard to explain how meaningful of an experience this is, to work on something as simple as a mosaic on the street, but so big that it affects the city as a whole, what it is known for, what the citizens and visitors perceive as its culture. I am enjoying my time as a mosaicista.

Right now my host mom has two friends over, and I am only catching bits of the conversation because I am in another room with the door closed, so I just get the loud bits of it. The only thing I heard was "huevona," and "una luca." I just opened the door and can understand it now, but I have no idea how to be honest. No idea how to explain it, but I can understand it.