Independence Day, part 1

The Independence Day festivities were kicked off yesterday with a Chilean folk dance recital by the 4, 5 and 6 year old school kids. As you'll hear us say quite a few times in the next two weeks, Independence Day is the holiday numero uno in Chile. Cultural displays, food fairs, parades, BBQs and parties stretch out for the week before and after the 18th. This year is special because it's Chile's bicentennial.

As good, prompt gringos, Berto and I arrived at the school gym at 4:00, as his Tias (teachers) had requested, for the 4:30 performance. The gym was empty. Were it not for the janitor setting up chairs and the sound system, I would have thought we had the wrong day. By 4:15 about half the kids, Mike and Gabi had arrived and at 4:30 the stands were packed as folks continued to stream in. By 4:45 I thought we had no more room for more but you just can't keep out the proud aunties, grandmas and grandpas so we packed them in. The theme was roughly the rich cultural diversity that we share together as Chileans. Berto's school had pre-school, pre-K, and Kindergarten each doing a dance. In addition, three other pre-schools had classes dancing. The first group of four year olds wandered out dressed in skirts and vests waving yellow handkerchiefs. The children's dance was called "The Turkey", which seemed appropriate given that their teachers were wildly flapping their arms like flightless birds. This was followed by more incredibly cute wandering, fruitless directing, and rounds of oohs and aahs as the younger kids danced. We went local with a Chilote (adj form of Chiloe) courtship dance between fisherman and maidens at the market. Many an abuela's loving hand was on display with the hand knit sweaters and borrowed shawls. When Berto gets his language mojo and starts using his dimples with the old ladies around here like he does in Cambridge, he will surely have a sweater to wear to Cambridge. The next group, had they only had a Ravicz child in it, would surely have run away with the cutest award. The pre-Ks at Carpe Diem performed an Easter Islands dance. (In case your missed the finer points of geography, the Easter island are part of Chile.) Nothing like little girls in grass skirts to make you say "soooo cute!" I had to give the Tias extra credit for figuring how to make kids look tropical in at 55 degree gymnasium. No to worry that the boys seem to be paddling off away from the girls. Like all these folk dances, each little warrior ended the dance with his little princess. While all the adults introduced one another and the other 8 groups danced, Berto's class waited at the end of the gym for their turn. I'd like to say that our boy was a portrait of patience and decorum, but you all know 5 (and three quarter!) year old boys. But when the moment to perform arrived, the boys were given back their chuecas (Mapuche field hockey sticks) and the girls were given back their rhododendron boughs and the show was ready to go on. We should probably take this moment to explain the Mapuches. The Mapuches are native to the southern part of Chile from about 500km south of Santiago to Chiloe. During the years of Spanish rule in the Americas, the Mapuche were the only native nation never to be conquered by the Spanish. A game, closest akin to field hockey, is played by Mapuche men with a curved stick called a chueca. Berto's chueca was given to him by another boy in his class who had gone in the woods with his father and cut branches of the right size and shape. (We rather like our authentic chueca!) Today, many Mapuche live in the rural areas of Chiloe so a future weekend adventure will be to visit a Mapuche cultural center.
So, onto the big dance! The boys and girls ran onto the dance floor and formed two lines. As luck would have it, our boy was on the other end of the gym and the scrum of parent videographers kept us on our end. None the less, we followed his every run, lead and chueca shake. (which is not too easy when all the boys are dressed the same and all have short black hair) The girls ran clockwise while the boys circled them counter clockwise. Chuecas were held proudly aloft, ribbons waving as the boys ran. Ten boys ran wildly waving sticks and no one got hurt? Those Tias are amazing! To Berto's credit, he was going in the right direction and moving his body the right way through all of the dance. Not an easy accomplishment for a kid taking directions in a language he does not yet comprehend. Speaking of comprehension, we needed Mike's ever present pocket dictionary, to make sense of the dance descriptions in the program. Middlebury just didn't have me writing essays on Chilean courtship dances when I was in college. After much running in circles around the girls, the Mapuche boys did what men are want to do, they retreated to the local boys club to hang out, wave their sticks and argue about who had the biggest stick in the tribe. (Berto is second from the left.) The stick boasting devolved into stick chasing. We weren't so sure if this was choreographed or just the boys recalling that they were 5 year old boys. Anyway they ran around while the girls shook their heads at the other end of the gym. The lady in green and white fleece jacket behind the boys is Tia Martina. Tia Martina is Berto's favorite of the three Tias in Kinder. Everyday when Kinder finishes at 12:30, Tia Martina waits in the cafeteria with Berto till Mama is done teaching at 1:00 and can have lunch with him. Back to the dance. After a bit of running and shaking, everyone ran off the dance floor into a mob under the basketball hoop. The crowd burst into applause and the kids snatched up their participant candy bags. As we have come to know, it just isn't a celebration unless the kids leave with a candy bag. Afterward we mingled with the crowd as Lisa proudly introduced Mike and Gabi to her students and fellow teachers. Then we hitched a ride home with a teacher neighbor, had a nice fish dinner and tucked the kids into bed with a hot water bottle. The end to another day in Castro.