mosaicos porteños and golpecitos

Today started out... slowly. I was late, again, this time probably from the antibiotics causing me to sleep even more like the dead than normal. Ahead of time, I talked to Hugo, one of the students at St. Luceo Theresa de los Andes, about helping me when I work with some of the English classes on Fridays. He came to the school today exclusively for that reason, so I was in a panic fit when I woke up an hour and a half late, and all the 205 micros, my fastest way to Miraflores, for almost half and hour of waiting, were passing by in the wrong lane. But when I arrived, he was waiting, ready to help plan the fantastic happenings of the English classes.

I arrived in the middle of the second class of the day. Today there was a substitute teacher, who was FANTASTIC! She had good classroom management, spoke really good English (but a native Chilean), and was good at planning stuff fast and keeping kids occupied. Finally!! I wish I could spend more time watching her because she had it together, and I could learn a ton. Hugo, who is a junior and one of the best English students in the school, and I planned for the next class. The results of our extreme hard work and dedication are as follows:

English is fun! English is cool!

You really should learn it, don't be a fool

[fool= rap lingo]

Time to practice in the English class

With Hugo and Ellen's rap! Yeah!!

You can travel the world without complaint

If you speak English, it's ok

England, Australia, and the USA

Are good places to practice and learn

Music and playing are good ways

You can practice it anywhere!

That's right, we're pros. Hugo had it all together though, planning games such as Bachillerato and Simon Says for English practice with the 7th grade. Bachillerato is a game with two teams, where each team is given a letter and must fill in a chart on the board with information beginning with that letter, such as Name (Ellen), country/city (England), etc, with points being given for original words and filling in the boxes that the other team missed. The boys team lost and had to put all the desks back in order. It was fantastic. Hugo and I also demonstrated the difference between North American English and British English. Yes, they teach British English in this school. And I even felt useful... my native English led to good pronunciation practice. Yay for an extremely interactive class.

In high spirits I microed my way to the camera shop, where I found that my camera was still not fixed because there are a billion tiny grains of sand in it, and continued to Cerro Bellavista, up Espritú Santo again, and found Gonzalo and Alex working on their pillars as usual. Today I worked on Gonzalo's mosaic of himself again, this time on the green shirt, of which i completed about half. Working on these mosaics is a more than interesting way to pass your time. Friends and neighbors of the artists pass by at a steady rate, commuting to the plan for work or food or otherwise. And there are tourists, lots of tourists now that it is spring. For whatever reason, I am annoyed at their presence. I should just talk to them and see where they are from and what they are doing, and I do sometimes, but I am still annoyed. Maybe because I feel to attached to this city and in a sense am getting to know it, which they cannot do by passing through. The man known as "el motemei" passed by and chatted with Gonzalo. More on him later, I will post separately. The gas man passed by too; more later. Another good thing about Chilean culture: if you meet someone and your hands are dirty, if for instance they are covered in mortar, you won't have any problems because you of course kiss them instead of shaking their hand anyway. The time spent mosaicing passes quickly with good conversation and 2 liters of coca cola. There is nothing better than spending an afternoon with two Valparaísian street artists (mosaiscos porteños.) As I left to look for a micro, Gonzalo showed me a place on the return route, a little plaza area with Aldunate and Farrari which is prettymuch entirely covered in mosaics. He showed me the sections he made, one with his shadow, others with a million designs. How cool is it that I met the person who makes some of the most well-known art in the city?

We got to talking about why I want to "ser Chilena." It's odd to want to be a different nationality. Or be from a different culture. Or language. Or ethnicity. Or is it really any of these things at all? I thought about what I like from this culture. Everything. Especially how caring the people are, cariñoso, everything is so caring. I thought about what it would be like to look different, speak Spanish, have fall without halloween and Christmas with tropical weather and beaches, to take a micro to work every day, to live in a house painted the brightest color in existence, to hang your laundry to dry in the sun. And I thought about why I like some of these things so much, probably because the are different, a more simple life? Maybe. But why does it appeal to be that different at all, why don't I still want to be gringa? Gonzalo and I discussed this for quite some time. I am highly interested in why I follow this line of thinking.