How do you say, ‘Can I play with you?’ in Spanish?

The blog stopped last week for our new schedule of school and sports. Anson started 5th grade and Risa 1st at the Colegio Pequeño Mundo, the small world school. While we are still trying to pull together the complete uniform, with help from some Venezuela friends, the kids have the special pants, with shirts soon to come. By Venezuela standards, the school is small and laid back, with a strong emphasis on art and music and no homework. Risa has about twenty classmates, while Anson is in a combined 5-6 class with 14. This suits us, as the children have studied in combined age classes their entire school years. Their teachers are sisters, and the school is run by a three generation family that is not related to the sisterly teachers.

School meets each day from 8-12:30, with a great deal of this time used for recess and snack. Also, the classes meet two afternoons a week for more drawing, art, and music. Each student studies piano or violin (ours will do piano), as well as recorder. Although I know they will encounter difficult days with language and relationships, the children up to now bound into school each day excited to be there – a joy to see!

Each morning and afternoon class begins with a warm greeting (cheeks together, make a kiss or a hug), and a hello to individual classmates. Anson has our friend, Ale, in his class. A sixth grader, she went to school for four years in the U.S. and helps out with translation. While I am concerned that this will slow down Anson learning Spanish, he keeps a notebook of words he learns or wants to learn in Spanish. Dodge ball, banned at our Des Moines school but a favorite of Anson’s, is an occasional recess game, much to his delight. The kids also love to draw, and pictures are “sold” each day at recess for pretend currency from a little house that also serves as an imaginary ice cream shop. They also wrote a short play the class performed this week.

Risa’s discussions of school revolve around friends and play. Each day, she issues the report on whether or not she “has a friend.” If a child decides not to play with her, Risa describes that the girl “doesn’t want to be my friend anymore.” Even though I know this is not the truest of characterizations, oh how my mother’s heart aches! She wants to be included in the classroom play with blocks, and to tell her story as well as understand those of others. The determination and patience required push her limits, in a way that I hope encourages her language learning as well as growth of that undefined characteristic of “personal fortitude.” This week, she has mastered use of the verb, “jugar,” to play, and practices with me how to say “¿Puedo jugar contigo?” Can I play with you?

We're Back - And One Reason Why We Were Missing

Thanks to all of our friends who wrote wondering if our blogging stopped because of the political situation in Venzuela. After reading commentary in English and Spanish, I am still undecided whether an actual coup was in progress. Although surely things will develop further, our presence in Mérida is stable for now. Fortunately, we were occupied with much happier events, too many to write about in one blog entry.

Last weekend was filled with cooking preparations for Risa’s Venezuela birthday party, a Monday night event that included eight kids ranging from four to eleven, as well as nine adults. Working as a foursome, we managed a clean house and a pretty nice food spread. The kids enjoyed sugar, the grownups wine. A continuous mix of English and Spanish rang throughout the house, as all the adults and most of the children were somewhat bilingual, with the new kids in town heavy on the English side. My favorite part of the evening was singing Venezuela’s own birthday song, even if I had to twist a few arms for everyone to do it. It had been twenty years since I’d gotten to sing it with a group. The 30 and 40 somethings reminisced about 80s music in Venezuela, songs indelibly burned on my brain from my days as an exchange student.

The kids tore around the sidewalk patio that surrounds our house. Anson insisted on buying extra dice so that he could host a grand Liar’s Dice match. The kids bet everything from broccoli to oreo cookies (guess which was most popular?). The party broke up at 11:15, something parents would never allow in Des Moines. Not a single meltdown ensued and the entire party was great, great fun.

We have struggled to feed the kids to their satisfaction since their arrival, as the food they are used to is unavailable or too expensive for us to justify purchasing on a regular basis. Except for those Venezuelans who use the government subsidized supermarket or exchange Bolivares on the black market, I have not figured out how Venezuelans feed a family on a regular basis. That is why Risa got a jar of peanut butter for her birthday, which she may eat whenever she wants. At 26 Bolivares a jar (about 12 dollars), it is too expensive to be the central part of our diet that it is in the U.S. Everyone is happy with rice, and thankfully both kids like the national bread, arepas. But Risa has yet to find a protein that she consistently likes.

Aside from feeding picky children and planning parties, we threw ourselves into the back to school schedule, the biggest reason for blog silence. More to come!

A Blog Post From Risa: Our Dogs in Mérida

We share the yard at our house with two German Shepherds. They are Barni and Benchi (Barney and Benji in English). Our dogs in Mérida are big, and they like to chase bugs. When they see a bug, they run after it and bark at it. They play together a lot. Sometimes they jump up on people they don’t know, and on people that they do know. Here’s an example. Once, one of the dogs put his paw on top of my head! And another time, one of our dogs bit my elbow because he thought I was playing. I’m not afraid of them because I know they are just playing.

Sometimes, the dogs come into our house. We don’t want them to because they’re too big. They will run around our house and break things! When they try to come in, we say ¡FUERA! In English, ‘fuera’ means ‘out’.

I like our dogs because they bark at people when they come by. Then, we know if someone is trying to rob us. I like to run with them. Mama likes how they sit on the porch with her.

A New Wrinkle

After a great day at work meeting colleagues, and visiting the most incredible state-owned fencing gymnasium ever, we actually found something for dinner that elicited relatively few complaints and settled in for the end of our evening. All in all, a superb day.


Then, the phone rang. The head of the Mérida North America-Venezuela cultural center called, letting us know that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez expelled the U.S. Ambassador and recalled the Venezuelan Ambassador from Washington.

The details are complicated. Tonight, Chávez asserted that a plot existed from the opposition to assassinate him. I was not convinced by the evidence presented on television to this point, although a more complete report is forthcoming Tuesday.

President Chávez gave an impressive speech tonight in front of thousands of supporters, mostly young and dressed in red. Look at the link for about 45 seconds to see the crouds. In the first thirty seconds of the video, Chávez says, "Convince yourselves, Yanquis and Pitiyanquis...you will never return to govern Venezuela!" He frames his current feud with the U.S. government in the context of past events. South America remembers the 35th anniversary of its own September 11 as the day the socialist Allende government was violently overthrown by a military coup supported by the CIA and the Nixon Administration. Thus, Chávez’s announcement is particularly symbolic on this day. In 2002, a failed coup was embraced by Washington even as Latin Americans expressed concern at the threat to democracy. This event makes the theory of an assassination plot – and the condoning of such an act by the U.S. government – seem plausible to Chávez supporters.

Chávez further frames his action as an act of solidarity with Bolivia. Bolivia’s president, Evo Morales, in this moment accuses the U.S. of supporting opposition movements against him, and expulsed the U.S. ambassador. The situation in Bolivia has created high levels of street violence, with deaths and wounded.

Chávez’s critics claim that this is an opportune moment to rally his supporters as he faces serious opposition in local elections and is implicated in a bribery case involving a mysterious suitcase found in Argentina containing $800,000.

What does this have to do with the beautiful little year we are making for ourselves in Mérida? Perhaps nothing. But, this being the first expulsion of the U.S. Ambassador in Venezuelan history, we may be asked by the State Department to evacuate. We’ll know more tomorrow.

Learning from the Radio

In Des Moines, we were pedestrians, especially in the summer. In Mérida, we drive. A lot. Every day. We listen to the same radio station on our trips through the colas, the traffic jams that double our driving time. "Paaaaaatience, much paaaatience, with the traffic jams," the DJ urges us. The emisora that accompanies us is 97.5: Tourism Radio. How perfect!

Run by the government, the programming includes regular, fairly long live broadcasts of Chávez speeches, and the news reports are pro-government. I hear the perspective that is so reviled by many of my university colleagues. I pay attention to how the state frames the news, and I even got to hear Chávez utter his hot new insult, pitiyanqui, from his own lips.

The play format has 100.3 ‘The Bus” (a Des Moines ipod-shuffle radio station) beat by a mile. Want to hear a gaita song, the traditional music from Maracaibo, Venezuela? Check! How about “I kissed a girl?” Presente! What about some 80s Venezuelan pop (the music of my youthful sojourn here)? You got it! And what if I’m in the mood for The Cars? Or salsa? Or “Endless Love”? Check, check, check. It’s called adult contemporary, and when we are willing to sit through the chattiest DJs ever, we reap a station playing range of musical styles, almost all of which fit my tastes. Except maybe the Lionel Riche/Diana Ross duet -- but Risa loved it.

Until yesterday, the ads on noventa y siete punto cinco (97.5) annoyed me to the point of changing the station. To my ears, they are overly repetitive and hyperbolic. Little did I realize, they serve as my secret Spanish teachers. In the past day, Anson and Risa have begun calling out the words and phrases they recognize from the ads as they listen. This morning, they sang along with the merengue-style furniture store ad. They chant the call numbers in time with the announcer. Little sponge-brains are amazing! And, their noticing the sounds and places of Mérida brings Latin America to me with a whole new set of eyes.

Escuela Daze

All of us will be in school this year. Victor will study Spanish at the Venezuela-North American Cultural Center. The University School, CEAPULA, will have two new students as Anson enters 5th grade and Risa 1st. I am working at the University of the Andes, where I will start to co-teach a course on gender and human rights in October and other duties as assigned, dividing time between the school of Juridical and Political Science and the School Of Humanities And Education. All of this has become possible from the generous commitment of time from the director of CEVAM and my university liaison.

I am proud of Risa and Anson for tackling school in Spanish. The first month will be a struggle. The kids will start school knowing numbers in Spanish up to 1000, the letters of the alphabet, greeting questions, the basic school vocabulary (they’ll know when to get their cuadernos out, por lo menos.), and Anson will be able to read. But that's it. I pass on to them the wisdom of another Fulbright mama: by Christmas, they'll be dreaming in Spanish. This will be the end of the primary reason Victor and I have used Spanish in the home to this point: to talk about the kids so they can't understand what we're saying.

The kids both look forward to wearing a school uniform, but for different reasons. Risa appreciates that the clothing requirement involves new shoes, while Anson looks forward to the streamlined elegance and egalitarianism of a single daily uniform. School starts for them - we think - on Risa's birthday.

What are they doing in Venezuela?

Last July, I came across of list of goals for myself that I had written in summer 2005. Among the items was “live abroad with my family.” I had forgotten this declaration, but clearly it permeated my subconscious. A year ago, Victor and I found ourselves scrambling to plan my application for a teaching/research Fulbright Fellowship to Mérida, Venezuela. We received news in early April that the funding had come through.

In some ways, this is a hard time to go to Venezuela. Both sets of parents now live in our hometown, Des Moines. We have active lives of neighborhood involvement and Unitarian Universalist church commitments. Victor owns two businesses, both of which benefit from his co-presence with them, at least in the same country. And then there are the media reports on Venezuelan crime (real, but not as much in Mérida) and politics (more complicated than most sources lead to believe - surprise, surprise). As our children grew all too quickly, we realized the time would never be better to live and learn from residence outside of the country we call home.

I remember phoning home from St. Petersburg, Russia during that summer of list-making. Anson, then eight, asked when I was going to take him along on my travel. Although my daughter told our dental hygienist that we were going to Venezuela to “get out of Iowa,” the reasons Victor and I designed a year in Mérida were more complicated than that. But she formed a start at an explanation: to give us time away from the taken for granted political, economic, and cultural setting that is the United States so that we may see ourselves and our country in a different light.

This blog is a hybrid written for family and friends. Some of the entries will share with you our day-to-day experiences this year. Already I am stunned by how these weeks have brought us together as a family, drawing Anson and Risa into the tightest sibling camaraderie I have ever seen between them. We are grooving on the beauty of the Andes and our neighborhood. As we explore the Andes Mountains, school in Spanish, and more, we will share our adventures with you. It compliments Anson's blog, which he is doing as a homeschool project throughout the year (He's also going to the university school along with sister Risa.)

My particular project involves talking with young adults about how they view their economic and political futures in light of globalization and neoliberalism, which I define as the increasing control of the market over most facets of our everyday lives. We, particularly Anson and I, have immersed ourselves in trying to understand the changes occurring in Venezuelan society. My neighbors, colleagues, and strangers freely share their opinions about their country’s governance – and their thoughts about the U.S. As I did in China, I will share with you the stories I hear. I write not as an expert on the country, but rather as a curious observer committed to social justice, participatory democracy, and the belief that most things are more complex than what meets the eye.