Death Becomes Her

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“Death Becomes Her”...This is the name of the movie (at least I think it was a movie) that we watched last night. The movie was in English but with Spanish subtitles. Now imagine yourself in a foreign country sitting in the living room with a family of non-English speakers. The dad, sitting to your left, turns to you and says, “I understand ‘death’ and ‘her’, but what does ‘becomes’ mean?” You say, “Oh, you know, like death ‘becomes’ her. But not actually ‘becomes’ her, it merely ‘becomes’ her. Try not to think of it as ‘becomes’ her, but rather more of a ‘becomes’ her.” Now imagine this entire conversation happening in another language. Let’s just say I had difficulties explaining this movie title.
Well, school is officially underway. This week was extremely chaotic and disorganized. My first class was on Tuesday. We arrived and took our desks, waited 20 minutes for the professor, inquired as to the possible whereabouts of our professor, and learned that he is currently vacationing outside of the country and will not return until next week. I have learned by now that this is not unusual in Chile, in fact it might be considered typical. This relaxed outlook on life can also be seen walking down the streets. I never thought I was a fast walker until I came here. The average walking pace of Chileans is somewhere between that of a waddling duck and that of tottering toddler. Thus I must shoot my way past pedestrians in order to race to class on time.
Speaking of toddlers, last night Caroline and I went to a Girls’ Home with some of the college age girls from our church. There are approximately 25 girls currently living in this home from the age of 4 up to 16. The parents of many of these girls are drug addicts, abusive or in prison. Because of their rough home lives these girls have come to live in this home, although things are not perfect their either. We spent the first hour or so just playing with the girls. They call us “tias gringas”, or “white aunts”. They love just having someone to play with and listen to their stories. After playing for a while we split up into smaller groups in order to go over the Bible lesson of the week. This week was focused on obeying your parents. What an awesome opportunity to get to spend time with these girls and see what God has in store for them!
Miscommunication of the week: On Monday I was talking with Manuel and Sylvia after lunch and somehow we got on the topic of the Chinese people that live in the northern part of Chile. Manuel was telling me about their strange customs and one of them had to do with cats. He said that the Chinese people up north used to “cazar los gatos” or “hunt cats”. Somehow I heard “casarse con los gatos” which has a very different meaning, “to marry cats”. We laughed for several minutes about this as Manuel made Chinese eyes and began to meow. Needless to say, Chinese eyes and catlike noises “become” him. (But not actually “become” him, just “become” him… oh I give up!)

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