My host family, the Macaya Suazo
family, is incredible. They have welcomed me warmly and I already feel like a part
of the family. Patricia, my host mom, says I am her 4th daughter! They
have gone out of their way to make me feel at home and show me everything Chile
has to offer (which happens to be a lot.) My first weekend here, they took me to
both the beach and the mountains!
I am constantly impressed by the
maturity, kindness, and intelligence of the two older girls, Daira(12) and
Daniella (10). And finally Emilia. Emilia is always smiling and laughing. She´s
the happiest 4 year old I have ever met. I always feel bad though, because I
don´t want her to think that when I don´t respond to what she´s saying, it is
because I´m ignoring her, I just don´t have any clue what she´s saying! That
being said, I have come to realize she understands a lot more English than she
speaks. It was just yesterday that I made this discovery.
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| Donde Mike? |
I came home
from school and Emmi was ready to play! After thoroughly confusing one another trying
to communicate, we just started making silly faces at one another. This somehow
evolved into a rousing game of ¨Donde Mike?!¨ In theory, we would take turns
hiding my plush Mike the Tiger for the other to find. In actuality, I hid it
once; I found the rest of the times. I found and found and found again. When I
returned to my bedroom to find Mike AGAIN, there was an Emmi-built tower of some of
my belongings. And Mike was no where to be found. When I asked her ¨Donde
Mike?¨ she couldn´t remember! She thought I had hid him, I think she´s still
convinced I have him. I don´t. After all of her giggles, thinking I had re-hid
him, and all of my giggles, realizing that Mike was actually missing, I
realized how well we were actually communicating. It was exactly what I needed
after my school day. Especially since I was doubting how useful I could be in a
Kinder classroom with the language barrier. There really are ways to
communicate without speaking: A cliché turned lesson.
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| The tower that distracted Emmi from her Mike-Hiding |
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