Despedida de Pochy

Pochy, my good friend, colleague, and neighbor, is leaving tomorrow for a month-long trip to the States. I bought her an "helado de despedida" (goodbye ice cream) at DiMango's to thank her for all her kindness. I also presented her with our Salem State Education Department t-shirt, which she loved. I know she'll wear it when she takes her daily walk along the Pacific in the morning. I'm happy that a little part of SSC will be with her in Arica!

Libros para Ninos de Eve Bunting

I was so happy with today's class for my undergrads. Our next topic for writing and discussion is social issues in the U.S. and Chile. I had shipped some of Eve Bunting's books for children and used them to introduce the topics to my students. I used A DAY'S WORK (immigration/unemployment); FLY AWAY HOME (homelessness); and SMOKY NIGHT (riots/violence). The students loved the books, especially the illustrations. In the photos you can see that they were so involved in reading the books aloud that they didn't even notice I was taking pictures!

Dia de la Tierra

Chile does quite a bit for Earth Day, and I attended a great photo exhibit on April 22 as part of the festivities. Cristian Jammett's collection is called "Detalles de la Naturaleza" (Details of Nature), and it is all very close-up shots of some really phenomenal natural happenings: bees pollinating, flowers opening, an infant crab stretching, etc. All the photos were taken in the region of Arica. The photos were on display, and there was also a PowerPoint presentation with "What a Wonderful World" playing in the background. It was really moving - a great way to make people stop and appreciate what's around them.

Apples to Apples

This was such a fun evening! Gladys invited me to her undergrad class (sophomore level) to teach them how to play Apples to Apples, which is great for learning vocabulary. I had the game shipped from the U.S. The students LOVED it, and some of the vocabulary learned was a riot. I learned that Mr. Potato Head in Spanish is "Senor Cara de Papa," which translates as "Mr. Potato Face." I find that hilarious, for some reason. I also learned that there are no chipmunks in Chile, and that the word they use here for "flip-flops" is "condoritas," since the flip-flop kind of resembles the condor, their national bird. (Then I had a musical flashback to Simon & Garfunkel's "El Condor Pasa!") Fascinating stuff! Oh, and the students learned some good English vocab, too, like squishy, chubby, and slimy. The word "inchworm" was new for them, and I found myself having to convert the inchworm to the metric system!

Profesores de Ingles

These photos were taken during a class session I led for in-service teachers at UTA. They are working toward "licenciatura" as EFL teachers but are already in positions in the schools. They are practicing what's called an "Information Gap" activity, which I showed them how to set up for their students. The idea is that one student has information that another is missing, so they are forced to speak to each other (in the target language) to complete the task. This brought back memories for me because I remember distinctly learning this technique when I was preparing to be a French teacher. I used it quite a bit with my high school foreign language students.

Mis Pregrados

My undergrads! Here they are! Claudia, Jocelyn, Aldo, Jocelyn 2, Leticia, Cristian, May-Ling, Franco, Fernanda, Valeria, and Pilar. Don't they look happy? (That's because class was over!) :) I am having a ball with them. They're the level of our juniors and seniors, and I have them for a course called "Discurso Escrito" (Written Discourse). Their first writing topic is education reform (since they're pre-service teachers of English), and we watched a YouTube clip Mary-Lou, my associate dean, sent me of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan discussing community schools and accountability. This led us to lots of discussion about educational issues in the U.S. and in Chile. We discussed merit pay for teachers, which many of them chose as the topic for their first essay, a perusasive letter to either Arne Duncan or Monica Jimenez, Chile's Ministra de Educacion. She was in the news recently because an 8th-grader threw a glass of water on her when she wouldn't answer a question - things are a little stirred up here! Anyway, my students have very strong opinions, which I love. They are also teaching me things like Spanish "text speak" - for example, they write "tb" for "tambien"(also), the way we write "ur" for "your," and so forth. How fun is that?!

El American Corner de Arica

Tonight I was part of a panel on Fulbright grants at the Universidad. I'm pictured above with my friend Pochy and Gonzolo Alvaros, who runs the "American Corner" in Arica. The U.S. Embassy in Chile has this great program where they set up "American Corners" in libraries in different parts of Chile. The one in Arica is at the university library. It's a special room with shelves of great resources and books in English, and tables where they hold English conversation hours and different kinds of events. We had a huge turnout for this event, and I connected with a student who is interested in applying for a Fulbright to do his master's in teaching ESL in the U.S., so I'm helping him look at our program at Salem State!

Liceo Agricola Juan Nunez

This week I visited a public school in "la valle" (the valley), where there is an influx of Bolivian and Peruvian immigrant children whose parents work on the land in that area. The immigration has increased class sizes tremendously, and Cristina, the kindergarten teacher, has 36 children in her class, compared to 20 last year. It was a little chaotic, but I loved chatting with the kids, who were just adorable. Cristina had read them a story about a girl who ate alphabet soup and noticed that the vowels were each shaped like something: E like a comb, I like a pencil, etc. (Of course, when it came to "U," I didn't understand the word for "horseshoe" - thank God for the 5-year-old who could fill me in!). The kids then matched the letters with their shape and colored in the objects. In the top photo, which I love, are Damary, Marisol, and Jacqueline. Jacqui told me she was born in Bolivia, Marisol in Chile, and Damary in "Los Estados Unidos"(USA), like me. I could not discern whether this was true, or Damary was pulling my leg. :) I also visited an 8th grade EFL class, where Francisco and Cristian (above) seemed obsessed with the story of the man who threw a shoe at President Bush and wanted to know if we have a lot of terrorists in the U.S. That was a little disconcerting, but they were a charming duo nonetheless. We finally moved on from terrorists to soccer teams - much better.

El Dia de Pascua con los Metodistas

I spent a very interesting Easter Sunday at a tiny "Metodista" church in Arica with my colleague Mabel Varas. It seems that the United Methodist Church did missionary work and established schools throughout South America, and Mabel's father was a student at one of them as a child. On the one hand, so much was familiar to me - the look of the church, as you can see, and a book of hymns with an introductory message from none other than "Juan Wesley!" Some of the hymns were in Spanish, but I recognized the tunes as Protestant hymns. For example, we sang, "Nos hemos reunidos" to the tune of "We Gather Together." On the other hand, this was not exactly my grandparents' Methodist church! Some of the songs had a little Latino flair, complete with a woman in the congregation who played the tambourine and the minister who played the guitar. I had to go up in front of the congregation with the microphone and introduce myself, and then everyone sang "Bienvenidos a la casa del Senor" (Welcome to the Lord's House) to me. Very nice, although speaking into a microphone in my second language is not at the top of my list of favorite things to do! In the photo to the left, you can see the minister's wife and children handing out little bundles of chocolate eggs marked "EL SENOR HA RESUSCITADO" (The Lord is Risen). I find it interesting that the word used in Spanish is the cognate for "resuscitated," which seems a bit more graphic to me than "risen!"

Colegio Chile Norte

I had a great visit last week to Colegio Chile Norte, a government subsidized K-8 school in Arica that serves a lot of at-risk kids from some really difficult family circumstances. Danitza Heredia, the 8th grade EFL teacher, invited me to visit her classes to answer students' questions about life in the U.S. I was overwhelmed by the warmth of the students. The girls in the top photo above flocked to touch me when the photo was taken (Danitza said a lot of them really crave touch and affection). Students call their teachers (and any other adult who comes in) "Tia" (aunt/auntie). This is what kids call their teachers when they're little, and it carries over into the higher grades. I think it's an interesting cultural/familial aspect of school life. So I was "Tia Michelle" to loads of 13-year-olds by the time class was over! The kids' questions were a riot. They wanted to know my favorites Simpsons characters and what my first word was when I was a baby! The photo above made me really happy; I was pleased to see these adolescent boys diving into the reading materials in the school's library.

The International School of Arica

I made my first school visit today to TISA - The International School of Arica, a Spanish-English bilingual school serving infants and toddlers and grades PK-2 (and expanding each year). In the 3- and 4-year old classroom, Florencia is carefully pasting squares of paper onto a plastic cup to make an Easter basket that will later hold an egg. (They don't dye eggs here, though, and although I brought egg dye from the U.S., I've run into an interesting dilemma in that you can't buy white eggs! Not sure those dyes come out too well on brown...) You'll notice the smocks the kids are wearing, which are part of the school uniform. This school is private and paid for by parents, but school uniforms are the norm in all schools in Chile - private, semi-private, and public.

El Vino

Our first tasting of wine at Casas del Bosque was outside. Judi, our guide, is swirling a Sauvignon Blanc in the photo below. (Richard Elia, if you're out there, I was the only one in the group holding my glass the way Judi was!) We then went on to visit the production area, with its tanks and barrels. Judi compared the barrels of wine to babies, which need just the right temperature and room to breathe. She made us feel the wood of the barrels to see how porous it was. What struck me was the really strong aroma of fermentation at the production site. Our final tasting was in the living room and dining area (above), which looked like something right out of an interior design magazine. There we tasted a Camanere (a red wine) and then had lunch at the restaurant, Tanino.

Vina Casas del Bosque

Last Friday was my first trip ever to a vineyard, Casas del Bosque in the Casablanca Valley outside of Santiago, and I don't know how any other is ever going to compare! I was unable to stop staring at the landscape and felt as if I had stepped right into the pages of an adult fairy tale. We all climbed aboard a tractor-like vehicle with nice benches for a ride through the rows of grapes - sort of an upscale hayride. We were allowed to pull the grapes right off and taste them (for some reason, I had thought that would be forbidden). Juan Solari founded Casas del Bosque in 1993; he was one of the first people to believe that the soil in that region would produce good wine. Casas del Bosque means "Houses of the Woods," and refers to the small abandoned houses in the woods that were formerly on this land, once viewed as poor and of little use. Hard to imagine!

Santiago de Chile

Santiago, Chile's capital, is one of the most beautiful and pleasant cities I've ever visited. The photo shows the cathedral in the Plaza de Armas, the city's main square. Interestingly, the church has been rebuilt five times because of earthquakes! I stayed in a neighborhood called Providencia, which had gorgeous tree-lined streets, hotels, shopping, and some private residences. At times Santiago felt very European to me, yet it had a warmth that was very Latino. The people were just incredibly helpful and friendly. To the left are actors portraying Ines de Suarez and Pedro de Valdivia; they were in a rather cheesy, overly dramatic theatrical presentation of Chile's history that was part of my tour. Valdivia was the Spanish conqueror who founded Santiago in 1541. Suarez, also from Spain, was Valdivia's mistress and also participated in the conquest. The best - albeit unplanned - part of the drama was the stray dog who entered the scene and went nuts every time Valdivia pulled out his fake sword. At one point the dog chased Valdivia off the "set." A little rewriting of history: Pedro de Valdivia fails to conquer Santiago when chased by stray pet!

Fulbright Chile

I flew to Santiago for a few days for a meeting of Fulbright delegates in Chile (Chileans who at one time were on exchange in the U.S.) and those of us from the U.S. who are currently in Chile. I am pictured with the Chilean delegates in the photo above at a cocktail reception that kicked off our activities. Unfortunately, shortly after this reception I was struck with some sort of virus or infection that left me feverish and half-functioning for the rest of the trip.I did manage to chat with two directors from the U.S. Embassy in Santiago; they were so nice and their work is so interesting that I almost asked if they had any openings! It was nice to hear about the experiences of other Fulbrighters and offer some suggestions for future exchanges. I was also lucky that the half of me that was functioning was able to make the trip they offered us to a vineyard! (separate post) Never too sick for some good wine! :)

"Imilla" = "Nina" = "Child"

These posters were hanging in the entrance of an elementary school in an indigenous Aymaran village in the altiplano, composed of only six families. Aymara is an indigenous language spoken by groups of people in Peru, Bolivia, and northern Chile. One is a poster showing body parts, colors, and weather words in Aymara and in Spanish; and the other is a poster showing all the local animals and their names. I was moved by the notion that in this tiny, remote place, they "get it." They are intent on valuing and teaching their native language and culture, and also teaching the official language of Chile. When you've spent years working in bilingual education, it doesn't get better than this!

Senor y Senora Alpaca

The lovely couple in the photo (the couple to the left, that is, not at the top) is a pair of alpacas, who are smaller than llamas but larger than vicunas. Alpaca fiber is widely used in the making of sweaters, gloves, scarves, etc. You'll notice Loli's pink hair accessories, designating her as the female. I hope she wasn't upset about my posing with her partner. He spit on me just before the photo was taken but then posed very nicely. :)

Is your mama a llama?

Why, yes, his mama IS a llama! This friendly guy made me jump out of my seat as our tour van pulled up to a park office, and his face suddenly appeared up against my window! Not the least bit shy, this llama - probably because he knows the tourists will feed him cookies. A few of the animals rotate through the national park office periodically so people can meet them. They are still not fenced in, and llamas, like vicunas, roam free in the park. The llamas do have caretakers with the right to sell their wool, though. He was just such a cutie! :)

Las Vicunas

The first animals we saw from the van at Parque Nacional Lauca were vicunas (vee-COON-yas). (I cannot get accent marks here; there should be a tilde/squiggly over that "n.") Vicunas are like little camels, and they roam free in the Parque. In the photo to the left, you'll see a vicuna family: mama, papa, sister, brother. The baby is on the left. She went to nurse from the mother right after this picture was taken. Do not be deceived by the nuclear family photo, though - papa vicunas are allowed more than one female partner in a family, but not vice versa. Where's the justice in that?! :)