Over Before It Begins
And so, that’s it – nothing else in life to write about. Pretty simple around here. Spring is here and every day gets more beautiful – I love that I am wearing skirts and flip flops almost every day and no longer have to sleep with my boyfriend at night. Also - I am excited thinking that in less than a month I will have a new niece or nephew AND in about two months I will be back to the U.S. for Christmas and New Year’s Eve!
Hope everyone is well, you are all always in my thoughts and prayers.
~ M
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Fiestas Patrias 2008
As I wrote last year, Fiestas Patrias is by far my most favorite time in Chile. Everyone is family and treats each other as such, and days are filled attending barbecues, cultural events, and dancing the night away.
The week started off wonderfully. Brian, John, and I took the orphanage kids I visit each week to fly kits at Bernardo O'Higgins Park, a "must-do" during the holidays. Sarah and I also received two elite invitations to go to President Bachelet's ecumenical ceremony at the National Cathedral. It was star sighting the entire time for a political nerd like me, as all the Ministers and government officials of the Chilean government were there. The highlight was being about 10 feet away from President Bachelet herself and getting lots of pictures...oh yeah, and the ceremony was good too, haha.
In the end though, Fiestas Patrias was truly celebrated this year with John, Brian, Sarah (one of my best friends who is a Maryknoll missioner here in Chile), our good friend Oliver, his family, and me. Oliver invited the four of us to celebrate the last four days of Fiestas Patrias with his family in San Felipe, a small town about an hour outside of Santiago. I said yes immediately, getting excited that I would not only celebrate the holiday in true Chilean style in the countryside, but I would return to a part of Chile I love and a location very close to where I used to live December 2006-March 2007.
The holiday certainly did not disappoint. Oliver’s family was amazing: all 20-25 of them! We ate traditional Chilean food, with the meat cooked outside in the adobe mud oven (picture left), and ate, and ate some more, then drank wine, pisco sours, and chicha. The family, who prides itself on its long standing tradition of everyone in the family being able to dance the Cueca, Chile’s national dance, pulled out the guitar and spent hours outside on the porch dancing the Cueca – teaching us “gringos” over and over again until we actually knew what we were doing. The most amazing thing was the guitar player was their 70-something year old Grandma who told John she had been playing guitar longer than he has been alive! (picture below and video at the bottom of this post of Oliver and his cousin dancing the Cueca)
Oliver's Grandma and Aunts singing traditional Chilean music
The gang enjoying one of many Chilean meals in the countryside
Group shot and the beautiful scenery (Brian was taking the picture)
1 Comments:
Hey Homegirl,
Love reading your blogs and trying to stay up to date with Chile!
What schools are you applying to for grad school?
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