Sept. 18th is the celebration of Chile's Independence day, similar to the 4th of July, which they call Fiestas Patrias. Basically the entire month of September is a celebration, and you see Chilean flags and banners everywhere. The boys would be getting the entire week off from school. Leading up to that, the school had several celebrations that were honestly my favorite part of Fiestas Patrias. Every class learned a specific dance from various regions throughout Chile, as well as one song, and they dressed the part with traditional Chilean outfits. The infant school, which is Kinder, Pre-K, and PlayGroup, put on their production on Friday, Sept. 5th. The boys in Avery's class dressed up like huasos, which are Chilean cowboys. They wear a felt hat, ponchos, and black boots. The girls wore various floral dresses. Their dance was the cueca, which is a very popular dance from central Chile. Traditionally the boys dance next to the girls, and they both wave handkerchiefs at each other, basically flirting with each other. For Avery's class, they separated the boys and girls so they danced to different songs. Not sure if that was because they didn't want kids so young putting the puzzle pieces together or if it was just easier to teach them that way. Regardless, it was super cute, and we've been singing the songs and dancing the dances around the house for weeks now. It's easy to see why people in Latin countries have such better rhythm than us two left-footed gringos. They all learn early!
Also for the celebration, each class had a "Paya" competition. A paya is like a little poem or funny limerick that, in this case, celebrates the school. Avery and I wrote one in English, because I didn't have it in me to spend the time required to figure out a cute poem in Spanish. Well, our poem won, so we got to recite it at the celebration in front off everyone, as well as the other winners from the other two Kinder classes. Not sure why they picked a poem in English, and afterwards the HeadMistress even laughed that is was funny that there was an English paya during Fiestas Patrias. Maybe it was for publicity since this is technically a bilingual school? Whateves, we were just doing what we were told. Jajaja
Avery's class also got to celebrate with some fun games and empanadas afterwards.
Emerson's class performance was the following Friday. His class dressed up with an outfit from the North, and they danced to the Membrillazo, which was a fun brass band song with lots of jumping and pompom swinging. Luckily one mom bought the outfits for the entire class so that they were all the same, and we simply had to pay her back. This certainly made my life much easier, as I was already sweating thinking about how I was going to find and buy the correct outfits for this.
You can see all three 1st grade classes in this picture, dancing at the same time, but each with a different color: green, red, and blue.
On Saturday, Sept. 6th, there was Fiestas Patrias fair called Chile Lindo at one of the parks down the street from our house. It cost about $7 per adult, and the kids were free! There was lots of music and traditional dancing. Below you can see these two performers dancing the Cueca for real. After the professionals danced, they opened up the stage for anyone to go try to dance the cueca. Our friend Antonio who is from Venezuela, so he doesn't know this dance, went up and had a lesson!
There was also a petting zoo with lots of unusual birds and reptiles to look at.
Finally, there were little amusement park rides that the boys loved, as well as little games they could play like ring toss and knock over the cans. We got there right when it opened, and that was key, as there were no lines at all for probably the first hour. But after that, it got much busier, with long waits for the rides. It pays to be early here. Overall a very fun day.
