Indiana brought home her first two tests for the year. Maths and Social Science. She did very well on her maths exam. Even though numbers are universal there were still questions asked in short sentence form. Sanchez buys 13 bananas and his brother eats 5, how many are left. Except they’re written in Spanish. There was an even mix of numerical and verbal questions.
What we’re very proud of is her Social Science exam. She now knows more geography than we do and she knows it in two languages. Her teacher gave her some of the exam orally and what she couldn’t answer she mimed. Such as, what do you do when the national anthem is played. She’s been practicing her points of the compass all week. Talluah and I looked at the exam and found ourselves feeling very thankful that it wasn't us being tested.
Indiana has been an absolute trooper throughout this whole experience. Nothing has phased her and she has met every challenge and come out smiling at the end of it. Truce has become more social and we’re yet to translate the song that she keeps singing around the house. Her writing is amazing. She is penning letters to her grandparents with only the aide of spelling. Truce knows the names of all the letters in Spanish.
But enough about me.
The economic situation of the locals here has us perplexed. We feel that we have a cheap apartment, live fairly frugally with plenty of fresh produce and home made meals yet it still costs about CH$470.000 a month to live here. We look at the top of the cerro where the poorest people live and we wonder how some people survive here. We’ve been told that the minimum wage is about $180.000 a month. It starts to make sense why so many houses are filled with extended families.
Our apartment sits on the side of a hill forming an amphitheatre. Most nights we are treated some form of music. Some nights it’s percussion while others it’s woodwind instruments. This really is a city of serendipity.
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