I see you.

Through the power of Facebook we’ve been introduced to a local Valparaísian who wants to exchange Spanish for English lessons.  She’s a mathematics and history teacher and very knowledgeable in the differences between Chilean Spanish and Spanish Spanish.

This sort of arrangement is very beneficial to us as it increases our circle of friends but there is also a more personal feel to the lessons and it’s ok to digress and talk about the weather as opposed to if a verb is agreeing with its subject.  Once more we’ve seen the generosity of the people here.  Our teacher is happy to come to our place while the girls are at school.  I don’t know if all travellers experience this sort of kindness but we’re constantly feeling positive about the people we’re meeting along the way.

You may remember the movie Avatar.  I’m not sure if it’s the same artist but we’ve found these (and others) murals of Avatar people scattered about the city.  The following photos were taken in three very different areas.

Living in an old house means that you have to be creative in solving problems.  One of the things I admire about Talluah is her can do attitude.  I tend to run around in ever decreasing circles until I disappear where as Talluah finds a way.  Our bathroom sink has the most amazing leak.  It’s almost as if it was devised by a candid camera show.  The spout sends out the world’s finest spray and hits Truce in the face, Indi in the chest, Talluah in the stomach and me in the groin.  The first day we moved in I weighed up the pros and cons of buying thread tape and a shifting spanner.  The next time I went into the bathroom Talluah had wound a hair tie around the spout fixing the embarrassing leak.

The bath does not have a plug and I set about measuring the plug hole and working out how to ask for the correct plug but I turned around and Talluah was using the lid of a bottle and some plastic to form a plug.

Not wanting to appear useless I raced to the website of the main hardware store here looking for gap filler for the bedroom floorboards to stop the draft coming up from the lower floor.  I turned the computer off when I saw Talluah walking out of the bedroom with half a roll of toilet paper.