La familia

Hola amigos! Today, the promised post about my Chilean family. I'm living with a married couple, Victor and Chichi, and their two children, Felipe and Valentina. Victor is a civil engineer and also teaches a couple classes at the university. Chichi stays at home with the kids and also just completed a law degree this month. Felipe is 15, funny, and sings all the time, better than my brother (sorry, Jeff). He also plays futbol (soccer), although I haven't seen him play. Valentina is 10, and an artist. I'll post pictures some time of her paintings, which are amazingly good, especially for her age, but some of them I would consider really good even for an adult. She talks all the time, really fast, and when I first got here I could barely understand a word of what she said, although now I can understand her at least half of the time. Chichi also talks a lot, but is much easier to understand. This works out really well for me because she tells me everything I could ever want to know, and is ok with the fact that I don't say much in response. Victor is a little bit quieter but very nice and helpful.
In addition to the immediate family, Chichi's mother and 7 siblings (Martin, Jaime, Pietro, Bartolome, Giovanni, Gigliola, and Gina) live nearby, and I see at least one of them almost every day. Chichi is the oldest, and the youngest 4 are close to my age. About once a week the whole family gets together for lunch, which is pretty crazy with so many people. Next month, for the fiestas patrias (like the 4th of July in the US), I'm going to meet many, many more members of the family, because we're going to the countryside to celebrate, and some of Chichi's 50 cousins will be there.
In general, things are going pretty well here. All my classes went well this week, although the psych one changed names again, and will probably change yet again tomorrow. My internship is getting easier in many ways because now I can understand what the kids are saying about half the time, while at first I could almost never understand them. So now I can focus on the needs of the students, rather than my inability to understand those needs. I've also learned the essential vocabulary of the classroom: pencil sharpener = sacapuntas, eraser = goma, pegar = to hit, hacer sumas = to add, and hacer restas = to subtract. I just need look up the word for "to kick", and then I'll be all set. It can be frustrating because it's a very different environment very far from the ideal classroom, and I know I can't change a whole lot, but I'm trying to focus on the small changes I can make which, for children who are not accustomed to much personal attention, can make a lot of difference. I taught Valentina (a student, not my host sister) that 0 + 0 always = 0, which she didn't know before; I taught a few students how to count on their fingers; I give spontaneous lessons in English and American culture when asked; I'm trying to teach Branco how to control his temper; I comfort students who are crying as a result of a fight or punishment; and most of all, I sit with students and answer their questions one on one. I might get in the way sometimes or misunderstand what someone's asking or confuse a student by approving of his green cat when his teacher later will yell at him because "cats are brown or white or black, NOT green!", but I know that overall, my presence there helps the students academically and emotionally, and that's enough to keep me going.