Fiestas Patrias,

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In my classes we are reviewing and practicing past tense verbs. For an exercise I had them talk about what they did for Fiestas Patrias. This is how it went: ¨ I ate empanadas, I drank vino, I ate more empanadas, I drank chicha (a local sweet wine/alcohol), ate lots and lots of bbq meat, slept, ate anticucho (a kaboob with meat and veggies), drank more, etc...¨ You get the picture. And that is pretty much how it goes here. Fiestas Patrias is Chileans version of July 4th. The actually holiday is Sept. 18th however it turns into a week-long celebration. Most people stop showing up to work the Friday before (even though its not technically a holiday) then there is no work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and a lot of places are closed Thursday and Friday. Basically a week of celebrations.

Last year I was really sick and spent all my Fiestas Patrias vacation in bed so I didnt relaly get to experience the real thing. This year I did. Carlos told me I was going to see how the rich chileans and the poor chileans celebrate. I did. Hear are the pics of the ¨not so rich people¨ Enjoy!

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Photos

The mini cooper!!!
Carlos´mini cooper is the only car in the family right now. We went to see Carlos´brother and his family outside of Santiago. 25 min. drive. But 1 car and 8 people. mmmm...what to do? Lets shove everyone in and go. Remember is a MINI-cooper. Its small but we did it!!!

El volantine!
Kite flying is a big tradition for Fiestas Patrias (independence day) in Chile. They are small, square 15inx15in.tissue paper kites. And everyone flies them. They have kite-fighting competitions. If a kite´s string breaks it is race to see who can catch it first. The kite is fair game when that happens. Everyone comes running to try and catch is as it falls back to the ground. I don´t think I will ever really understand this tradition.

Me and Carlos and the kite!
This is apicture of Carlos trying to teach me how to fly a chilean kite. They do it a bit different. They is only 1 string and they yank on it a lot in a diagnol direction. I didn´t really get the hang of it nor did it excite me. I left it to him. But I tried!

Naty, sister #1
Naty is the oldest sister, #3 in the line of children. She just finished studying to be a medical assistant. Her nickname is ¨Flaca¨ which means skinny. Carlos calls her that all the time

Family photos!
Here is Daniel (carlos nephew) Nadia (his sister) Edgardo (other nephew) and in front Yariza (youngest sister)

Yariza
Yariza is a biblical name...in spanish. But they call her Yari (pronounced Jar-ee). She is super sweet and a little annoying like most all little sisters are.

Caesar and family
Caesar is Carlos´brother. He is 1 year younger. He has been married to Daniela for 10 years and they have 2 boys: Edgardo-11 and Daniel 8. We went to there house, 30 mins outside of Santiago. They live in a ¨poblacion¨which is basically a poor housing developement. There is a big field next to the poblacion where we laid out blankets, played soccer and flew kites. Carlos said this is the poor mans way to celebrate.

Another way to fly a kite
Carlos says that Caesar is a really good kite-flyer. Whatever that means! He practicesa ll year long. The good players (if that is what they are called) have these big wheels with string that the fly kites with. Supposedly its harder to do. Who knows. I leave that to the experts!

The family portrait
Thank God for self-timing cameras. This is a picture of everyone. Back row L-R: Daniela, Virginia, Edgardo, Carlos and me. Front row L-R: Daniel, Caesar, Nadia, Carlos (his dad), Naty, Pato (Naty´s boyfriend) and little Yari in front