Food, Dancing and Toys

Ahh I nearly hit the cute overload level today. We went to a Cuecada which was basically a huge congregation of kids lining the main street of Lautaro and dancing the cueca. They were all in the traditional cueca clothing of a big, pretty, frilly dress for the girls, and sombreros, shirt, waistcoat, poncho, chaps and spurs for the boys. All the little Kinder kids looked so adorable and the older kids looked really nice as well. And they were all quite good at the dancing as well. Well the older kids were. The little ones were so adorable it made up for any considerable lack in dancing ability. All the kids that knew us waved and said 'Hello Miss!' which led to us getting a few looks from interested parents.

The rest of my week has been really good as well. We went to a different school on Monday called Irena Frey. The staff were so friendly and welcoming. We had a really nice chat about the weather with the school principal. It may sound like a typical topic but we were comparing Chile and Scotland/England, and they didn't think we could speak any Spanish, so it was quite a pleasant surprise for them.

Tuesday was a nice chilled day. We had a couple of classes and prepared worksheets on the body, to do with the Kinder's on Wednesday. Dad I found the Chilean version of you as I talked to the computer technician. He knew all about computers and really likes them. He could also speak a bit of English which was nice. He let us use his computer, as the school ones were so slow we were going crazy.

On Wednesday it was really sunny and we had lunch by the river with Danay, who is really friendly. She's going to show us more of Lautaro on her next day off. She may even be taking us to see some horse racing on Sunday although I'm not sure if that's a definite thing... she was speaking Spanish at the time.

Yesterday was a good day as I went over Time with some 4th graders. Then we spent 2 hours practising English words with the spelling bee kids. Hernan showed me how to play with a Trompo. It's kind of like a spinning top that's wrapped in a really long string. You pull on the string, throw the Trompo and it should spin when it hits the ground. It's difficult to not just throw it randomly across the room and have it break something. At least I did better than Amina, she didn't even manage to pull all the string off on her first go. They have competitions where people try to get them on their hands while they're still spinning. It's a toy that is played with a lot in September as it's traditional here in Chile and September is Independence Day month.

We had pancakes yesterday which are called pancakys. Ruth was making them when we got home, and even though they were for postre, we looked so hungry that Ruth gave us one anyway. I was in such a good mood this morning I gave Ruth a big hug and I think she was quite happy. I'm probably going to get a huge meal tonight because of it.

We're meeting up with the girls from Chol Chol tomorrow in Temuco. Should be fun. I think I'll have to sit in an aisle seat on the bus because there isn't enough room for my legs between the seats. Ahh well.

Chao Chao xxx