Homage to my Mother

T'was her mother's day gift -although she received this performance live via skype- but I wanted to share it with all of you.

Enjoy!

~Jocelyn

Gracias a la Vida

This song, "Gracias a la Vida," is a collaborative effort including Juanes, Shakira, and many others. It can be bought on itunes and the proceeds go toward Chile's earthquake recovery. The original version of this song is a cuenca, a typical Chilean folksong, written by one of Chile's best-known musicians: Violeta Parra. I'm currently learning to play a few of her songs on the guitar. :-) Below is the original version of her song:

Good Old American Cookies (and the disabled)

Gooey oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, fresh from the oven and steaming; Mmmmm! I had to admit: I had done pretty well this time, managing to remove the precious goodies from the oven before they burnt to a crisp or some other malady, and my unique American oddity was a smashing hit! Everyone loved the cookies and the cookie dough, so the extra work of whipping out the hammer to break the chocolate bar into chocolate bits –since they don’t have chocolate chips here- and converting all the cups and tablespoons into fractions of liters melted away like the cookies in the mouths of my host sisters. Now, Janire and my host mom want to learn how to make them, so we’ll probably have a tutorial session some time this next week. The neighbors lent me some vanilla and baking soda, but I still had to walk to the store to get the brown sugar, chocolate, and oatmeal. At any rate, I’m going to give the recipe to my family before I go –translated, of course- so that they can appreciate real American cookies whenever they please! And, yes, cookies are very uncommon here. You can occasionally find one in a bakery, but nobody makes them at home. Light cakes are common, and brownies are occasional, but cookies are rare. The people eat an excess of flat, store-bought sorts of cookies that really have more resemblance to a sweet cracker than a cookies. They consume these every morning for breakfast and most evening for merienda, or snack, along with hot chocolate or coffee, but our good old cookies are hard-found. I’m just glad that I could contribute something new and interesting to their lives –and yummy!- before I go. Some other foods that are a little more uncommon here are pancakes and peanut butter.

On an entirely different note, my mom had mentioned her curiosity over how the Spanish incorporate the disabled into their society. Well, they do much the same as us: they provide ramps in most areas, including down to the beach, and many intersections beep or chirp to notify the blind of when they can cross. And you do occasionally see a blind or wheelchair bound person making their way around the city alone. In schools, disabled students have a different schedule than other kids, but they are integrated into the normal classes for at least part of every day. At Saioa’s elementary school, there are disabled kids around and in the usual classes. However, there are not students with down-syndrome. In other schools, children with mild cases of down-syndrome are incorporated into parts of the usual daily schedule, but children with more severe disabilities go to different schools especially for disabled students. I don’t know what they consider a “severe disability,” but it is clear that a fair percentage of disabled children do get to participate in the regular classes. It does not appear that any disabled student actually studies in the same class with the other kids all day, like they sometimes do in the states with only the help of an aid.

All right, a few random nuances:

-Climbing shoes are called pies de gato here, which literally translates as “cat´s feet.”

-The Sound of Music can also be found in movie form here, but it, like many other movies, goes by a different title. Here, it is called Sonrisas y Lagrimas, which translates to “Smiles and Tears.” They find our version of the title very odd and consider theirs much more beautiful.

See you all soon!

Love,

Jocelyn

PS Those lovely ladies in the photo above happen to be myself and my host sisters: Janire (15) and Saioa (8).

Climbing competition, Voice-overs, and Degrees Celsius

Guess what! I placed first in my category in the Spanish Cup climbing competition this Sunday. The only drawback? I was the only competitor in my category! Regardless of the lack of competition, they awarded me the lovely first-place trophy which I am seriously considering using as a vase. (I can imagine those lovely irises complementing the tonalities of the undulating glass nicely!) Nah, but really, I would have come in tied for fourth behind a few girls in the under 18 category. The competitions here are very different from those I have experienced at our rocknasium. There is no evening of climbing routes, collecting points, and, at the end, turning in your points sheet to see if you’ve made it to the finals. No, in these competitions you stay in the enclosed climbers’ area until they let you out to inspect your route for a few minutes and then, one by one, each climber has a go at it. The eight climbers who get the highest go on to the finals. Of course, you don’t get to see anyone else do the route before you since you stay in the climbers’ area, and you don’t climb more than two routes for the whole competition, unless there is a tie-breaker. I climbed the same routes as the younger girls’ age category and most everyone finished the first one because it was fairly easy. On the second one, I fell sooner than I should have, but it was a nice route. I was the first one to climb the first route, which means that I got to see everybody climb that one, but I was the last one to climb on the second route, so I didn’t get to see anybody else climb it. The other climbers come from all over the country, including a group from the Canary Islands, and they are usually the same group of teens and kids at all the competitions. The indoor climbing scene is not so big here as it is in America; the gyms are small and scarce and the competitions are relatively small. I don’t mean to say that people don’t climb here; they do. But if they’re going to climb they’re going to do it outdoors. At any rate, the competition was fun (even though I only climbed for all of ten minutes collectively), but I opt for a day out on the mountain over a competition any day.
Speaking of days out on the mountain, you might have already guessed from the afore posted pictures that I went out climbing on Tuesday (it was Labor Day so there was no work or school). T’was a good day, albeit windy. I had to back down half way through one route when the wind got so chilly that I just couldn’t work its delicate moves with my stiffening back and neck. (I later found out that it was, in fact, a whopping 7b!) It was so good to be out climbing again. Lately, I’ve found that climbing is my greatest relief from the stresses of the week. Like last night after a long day at school, I went to the gym and forgot all else as I made up problems and just appreciated the release of adrenaline. It didn’t hurt that my little invented sequences became the problems of the evening! Funny enough, aside from me, the only other climber who finished my crimpy, overhanging problem was also the only other woman climbing that evening! Good times! The guys felt that we had stripped them of their manliness! We just snickered and started working on new problems. :-D
Another happening of the week included an outing on Saturday to see the movie Premonition in theaters with my friend Alberto. We had intended to see Spiderman III, but we got there late. Its never quite the same watching a movie when the voices you know are replaced by other voices that can’t possibly live up to the vocal interpretation of the originals. The only Spanish voice-over man that has ever impressed me is Robin Williams’. That guy is good! And yes, there is one person who does all of Robin Williams’ voice-overs, and the same with all the other famous movie-stars. Well, minus Antonio Banderez who does his own voice-overs!
Well, the weather has finally gotten over its rainy trend and has bounded to the other extreme with burning heat. They say it will only last this week before dipping down again. In case you didn’t already know, they use degrees Celsius here. They also use kilometers instead of miles, kilograms instead of pounds, and military time instead of am and pm. All of this drove me crazy for the first months, but I’m getting used to it now. I still start when I notice the speedometer in the car every-so-often (We’re going 120mph in the city?!?! Oh, yeah, kilometers. Riiiight!) and I always take a second longer to do the math and figure out that when the clock reads 18’23, it really means 6:23pm, but at least I know that 18 degrees Celsius calls for a sweater and 25 means that I need to whip out the shorts.

At any rate, I hope that life has you feeling good!

Much love,

Jocelyn