Category Archives: Familia
Celebrating Día de los Difuntos
Today is Spanish Friday so this post is in Spanish. If you participated in Spanish Friday on your own blog, leave your link in comments. English translation is below!
Este año no pensé que ibamos a tener una ofrenda por Día de los Muertos. Dos años pasados, sin realizar que los salvadoreños no celebran Día de los Muertos igual que los mexicanos, hice una ofrenda para el papá de Carlos. Carlos agradeció el gesto pero ponía algo triste y esto no fue mi intención. El problema fue que Carlos no estaba acostumbrado tener una ofrenda porque en El Salvador no se hace eso.
Mientras que los mexicanos llaman el día “Día de los Muertos” y celebran la muerte, abrazan la muerte, aún se ríen de ella – los salvadoreños llaman el día “Día de los Difuntos” y lo consideran un día de recordar sus queridos fallecidos en una manera mucho más sombría.
El año pasado, no queriendo repetir mi error, no tenía previsto hacer una ofrenda, pero mis hijos me dijeron que les gustó la tradición y querian tener una. Entonces, hicimos una ofrenda por nuestro perro que se murió.
Este año no tenía planes por hacer una ofrenda otra vez, pero Carlos me dijo que ya se siente comodo en tener una ofrenda con sus queridos fallecidos. Entonces, nuestra ofrenda incluye el papá de Carlos, la abuela de Carlos, el abuelo de Carlos, (que se murió sólo una mes atrás), mi abuelo y dos perros.
Hay demasiados detalles en la ofrenda por explicar, pero les voy a explicar un poco. Tal vez ustedes pueden buscar los artículos en la foto que menciono.
El papá de Carlos, (“Don Max”) le gustó mucho el casamiento – un plato hecho de arroz y frijoles. Por eso, hay arroz y frijoles. También tuvo un camión pick-up, y estaba muy orgulloso de él. El papá de Carlos era un entrenador de fútbol y le gustaba echar chile en su comida, (algo raro por un salvadoreño, pero algo que le gusta a Carlos también.) Don Max no era muy religoso pero era super dedicado a San Antonio.
Mi abuelo tampoco era muy religoso, pero identificó como judío. Le gustó la música “Big Band” y se comió Corn Flakes cada mañana.
Hay una historia sobre el abuelo de Carlos. “Papá Milo” era muy bueno por nadar y a veces cruzó el Río Lempa nadando para traer grandes bolsas de maíz para su familia. El abuelo de Carlos también fue el alcalde de un pueblo de Chalatenango, y casi siempre andaba con sombrero de vaquero.
La abuela de Carlos se llamaba “Mamá Juana” y era una mujer muy dulce. Ella tuvo diez hijos, y le encantaban las flores. Yo recuerdo que a veces Mamá Juana, en la manera de muchas salvadoreñas del pueblo, usaba un delantal encima de su vestido, aunque no estaba cocinando.
¿Hiciste una ofrenda tú? Quién estás recordando?
[ENGLISH TRANSLATION]
This year I didn’t think we’d have an altar for Day of the Dead. Two years ago, without realizing that Salvadorans don’t celebrate Day of the Dead the same way Mexicans do, I made an altar for Carlos’s father. Carlos appreciated the gesture but it made him kind of sad, which was not my intention. The problem was that Carlos wasn’t used to having an altar because Salvadorans don’t make them.
While Mexicans call the day “Día de los Muertos” and celebrate death, embrace death, and even laugh at death – Salvadorans call the day “Día de los Difuntos” and consider it a day to remember your passed loved ones in a much more somber way.
Last year, not wanting to repeat my mistake, I didn’t have plans to make an altar, but my boys told me they liked the tradition and wanted to have one. So, we made an altar to one of our dogs which had died.
This year, again I didn’t have plans to make an altar, but Carlos told me he feels more comfortable now to have an altar with his passed loved ones. So, this year we have an altar which includes Carlos’s father, Carlos’s grandmother, Carlos’s grandfather, (who died only a month ago), my grandfather, and two dogs.
There are too many details to explain them all, but I will explain the altar to you a little. Maybe you can find the items I’ll mention in the photo.
The father of Carlos, (“Don Max”) really liked casamiento – a dish made from rice and beans. For that reason, there are rice and beans. He also had a pick-up truck which he was very proud of. Carlos’s father was a football coach and he liked to put chile pepper on his food, (kind of rare for a Salvadoran, but something Carlos also likes to do.) Don Max wasn’t very religious but he was super dedicated to Saint Anthony.
My grandfather wasn’t very religious either, but he identified as Jewish. He liked Big Band music and ate Corn Flakes every morning.
There’s a story about Carlos’s grandfather. “Papá Milo” was really good at swimming and sometimes he would swim across the Lempa River to bring big bags of corn to his family. Carlos’s grandfather was also the mayor of a town in Chalatenango and almost always wore a cowboy hat.
Carlos’s grandmother was called “Mamá Juana” and was a really sweet woman. She had ten children and she loved flowers. I remember that sometimes Mamá Juana, in the way of many Salvadoran women from the countryside, used to wear an apron over her dress, even though she wasn’t cooking.
Did you make an ofrenda? Who are you remembering?
Conversations at Casa López
There is usually at least one funny conversation in our household each day. I often share these conversations with friends and family on my Facebook page, but I decided to share the fun with all of you. Here are a few from the past few months.
Carlos: Opossum is same as a “tacuazin”, right?
Me: I think so. Check Google Images.
Carlos: How do you spell it?
Me: O-P-
Carlos: O?!
—
[I was talking to Carlos about something I can't remember and I said, "even though I'm not Latina"]
10 year old [interrupts]: You are too!
Me: No, honey, I’m not.
10 year old: You are Latina! You’re half like me!
Me: No, baby, I’m not Latina.
10 year old: Mommy, you are, cause you married Daddy.
Me: If you marry someone from China, are you going to be half Chinese?
10 year old: Yeah, of course!
Me: Oh. I didn’t know it worked that way.
—
Me: How do you say “listeners” in Spanish?
Carlos: What kind of listeners?
Me: Like listeners to a radio show… Would it be “escuchantes?”
—
Me: It’s in Kansas.
Carlos: Which Kansas?
Me: What do you mean which one? Kansas, the state.
Carlos: But is it in Kansas or Ar-Kansas?
—
Gringo co-worker: Hey you see those two German Shepherds over there?
Carlos: Yeah.
Gringo co-worker: You better watch out. They don’t like Mexicans.
Carlos: Well, good thing I’m not Mexican.
—
13 year old: I’m supposed to make tabs to divide my notebook for Spanish class.
Me: Okay.
13 year old: The teacher wants us to label one of the tabs “RECURSOS.”
Me: Mmhm.
13 year old: What does it mean?
Me: Can you take a guess?
13 year old: …Um… Repeat diarrhea?
Hey, at least he broke the word down and made a logical guess based on what he knows. (“Curso” is slang for “diarrhea” in El Salvador – not sure if that’s the case for anywhere else.)
—
[Me reading bedtime story to my 10 year old]
Me: “¿Puedes encontrar la araña?”
10 year old: Mommy, I’m not stupid. The spider is right there.
—
“You have to give me the credit of the doubt.” – Carlos
(He mixed up “Give me credit” and “benefit of the doubt.”)
—
“Do you know what time Obama is supposed to start speaking? … I want to watch but I don’t want to miss Chavito.” – Carlos
—
“You’re just adding more wood to the fire.” – Carlos
(He meant “fuel to the fire.”)
—
“I want to rent that movie Chale Homes.” – Carlos unsuccessfully trying to say “Sherlock Holmes” but sounding like a Chicano instead.
—
What is the funniest conversation you’ve had lately?
The Pumpkin Patch – An American Tradition
Click this image to see this post featured on Mamiverse.com
Carlos pulls the boys in a wagon through a pumpkin patch. 2009
One of the first places I brought Carlos when he was my boyfriend was to a pumpkin patch, and one of the first things I showed him was how to to carve a jack-o-lantern. I’ve always been interested in other cultures and traditions, but there was also something exciting about showing Carlos my own.
Fifteen years later, going to the pumpkin patch as a family each October is one of our favorite things.
The pumpkin patch we usually go to has goats and you can buy food pellets for them from a bubble gum style machine for a quarter. Over the years, Carlos has come to be more of an animal lover. He looks so happy petting the goat here.
After feeding the goats we considered giving the corn maze a try but it takes 45 minutes to go through, (maybe an hour given my sense of direction) – so we decided we’ll come back another day to do it.
Into the pumpkin patch.
My boys are getting bigger, (The oldest is taller than Carlos), but they haven’t outgrown the pumpkin patch.
There’s a type of squash in El Salvador called Pipián. We aren’t sure if this squash here is related but when you’re accustomed to their palm-sized Latin American cousins, these are kind of hilarious.
Now that we’ve picked our pumpkins and brought them home, we’ll soon carve them into jack-o-lanterns. When we clean out the inside of the pumpkin we always reserve the seeds for roasting and eating. Roasted pumpkin seeds, funnily enough, remind Carlos of El Salvador.
Fiesta DC 2012
Taking photos at Fiesta DC this past Sunday was a challenge for a number of reasons, but one of those reasons was the sheer number of other people trying to photograph and video tape the event. At times I felt like I was in a group of paparazzi fighting for position – and then when I would finally frame the perfect shot, someone would inevitably ruin it by running across with a video camera or sticking their iPhone in front of me.
Some of the people were amateur or hobbyist photographers like me, some were obviously freelance professionals or working for media – And then there were young males, usually equipped with cellphone cameras, who were just trying to photograph the nalgas of the cachiporras to share on their Facebook.
Anyway, here are my favorite shots which I had some fun editing and a video of the general atmosphere.
By the way, speaking of nalgas, at one point during the parade a woman with a very generous backside stood in front of us. Carlos, to his credit, didn’t even seem to notice despite the fact that her “pants” were actually leggings and you could see her thong through the fabric.
“¡Qué bárbara!” a little old man said. The old man, not content to enjoy the view by himself and feeling the need to share, elbowed Carlos. Jutting his chin towards the woman in front of them he said, with a lascivious expression on his face, “Ella es Santa Bárbara, ¿vá?”
Carlos looked confused, “Oh, ¿sí?” he replied.
“Ssssíííííí,” the viejo hissed appraising the woman’s behind, practically licking his lips. Noting the fact that Carlos didn’t understand what he meant, the viejo then asked, “¿No sabes?”
“¿No?” Carlos said, the question on his face.
I rolled my eyes at the predictable dirty old man.
“¡Es santa por delante y bárbara por atrás!” the viejo said, erupting in laughter as if he had said the most clever and original thing in the world.
Carlos laughed politely and I pinched him.
“What?” Carlos said.
“Stand back here, away from the viejo chuco,” I said.
After the parade we had lunch. I wanted pupusas but Carlos made a good point that we eat pupusas all the time and that we should eat something different, so we ended up buying delicious Mexican tortas. (The boys and I had the torta milanesa de pollo with horchata. Carlos had the torta de carnitas with agua fresca de tamarindo.)
Just as we finished eating and were deciding what to do next, I heard “Los Hermanos Lovo” announced on a nearby stage.
“No way!” I said out loud, “Hermanos Lovo!”
Carlos looked at me like I had lost my mind as I pulled his hand in the direction of the stage.
“It’s the Chanchona music I blogged about. Remember?… Hermanos Lovo!”
For three songs I tapped my hand against my side, tapped my feet, and moved my hips, waiting for people to dance, but only a few people were dancing, and they were getting stared at. Everyone else just pretty much stood there and watched the performance. I found this a little strange given that at most Latino dominant events I’ve been too, there’s usually not a lack of dancing. I wonder if most of the people there have become too Americanized in this respect? Too self-conscious?
I couldn’t take it anymore. I leaned toward Carlos and he leaned toward me so he could hear me.
“Want to dance?” I asked, eyes brimming with hope like a child asking for a puppy.
Carlos said nothing, just turned toward me and took me in his arms, and we danced.
Within seconds much of the crowd had turned to look at us and stood gaping. Carlos whispered in my ear, “We’re being photographed and video taped.” I felt a flood of gringa self-consciousness wash through me but we kept dancing, and soon, the people around us, were just a blur of colors.
Gringos can’t dance?
Image source: http://www.audi-luci-store.it
“Los americanos no bailan” – it was something my suegra always said, usually with arms crossed over her chest while sitting at my Anglo parents’ house on a holiday. My parents were always kind enough to invite my suegra to dinner even though she never seemed to like anything about being there. She complained about the American food, complained about the overly-friendly Golden Retrievers, complained that my family spoke English and that she couldn’t understand, complained about the lack of music, complained that no one was dancing.
Because we never danced, Suegra then assumed that it was because we couldn’t dance – that we were incapable of dancing. “Los americanos no saben bailar” – she would say.
When it was discovered at a very early age that my younger son was a natural dancer with an amazing sense of rhythm, she took all the credit. “Puro salvadoreño,” she’d say, or “Este talento viene de parte de mi familia.”
Likewise, when we discovered that my older son lacked rhythm, that no matter how hard he tried, (and that the harder he tried, the worse it was), Suegra blamed it on me. “Ay, pobrecito,” she’d say, “no puede bailar, igual a su mamá.”
The truth is that Suegra has never even seen me dance – and despite what she might think, I don’t dance like Elaine on Seinfeld. Neither will I claim to be as good as Napoleon Dynamite, but I think I do alright.
It’s a common stereotype that white people can’t dance. I guess humans like stereotypes because it gives us a false sense of security that we better understand ourselves, our world and the people in it. The problem is that stereotypes attempt to group people together based on a common trait, but humans, even those that share many things in common, are much too diverse to be categorized in that way.
That being said, in my experience, and without doing scientific research, my hypothesis is that if you walk up to your average gringo on the street and compared his dancing skills with your average Latino on the street, the average Latino would more often be the better dancer. But, why?
I don’t think that this is a result of race or skin color but rather a result of culture. Gringos, as my suegra noticed, don’t tend to dance as often as Latinos. Dance, for many Anglos, just isn’t a part of daily life, perhaps due to our Puritanical roots.
Now, if we all know that “practice makes perfect”, wouldn’t it make sense that the group who practices less, (regardless of any man-made category we could put them in), would quite simply be less skilled than the group that practices more?
Again, this is my unscientific guess as to why “gringos can’t dance” – (and to be clear, this doesn’t apply to all gringos. Some are born with natural talent and some learn to dance very well, even on a professional level.)
If you don’t like my theory, Dave Chappelle has another one.
Heelys! (Zapatos con ruedas)
Heelys (the shoes with wheels), have a new line of shoes coming out this fall – and many of them are designed for women! I was offered a pair for review but, as much as I wanted to try them, I opted to get a pair for my 10 year old instead. (Honestamente, my roller skating and ice skating skills aren’t so bueno, so I don’t know if I’d be able to get the hang of Heelys.)
Heelys can be worn with or without the wheels, (we will have to take the wheels off if he wears them to school), but most people don’t know they come in adult sizes. In addition to the adult sizes, Heelys is introducing three brand new lines – an athletic shoe which will be lighter in weight, shoes made specifically for girls and women with more fashion forward colors and styles, and a street shoe with improved outsoles. (Ahora falta botas picudas con ruedas. Can you imagine? Now that would be chévere!)
For more information you can find Heelys on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, in addition to their regular website.
My 10 year old was super feliz to finally get a pair of Heelys. These are the “Element” style Heelys in Youth size 3. The wheels were easy to install and are easy to take out, too.
It took my son about 30 minutes to get the hang of them. The trick is positioning your feet just so.
Once he knew how to use the Heelys, he didn’t want to stop. Here’s a little video to give you a taste of the fun.
Now he wants to learn how to do tricks with the Heelys. I’m happy he’s found another activity to get him outside and away from the video games.
Disclosure: A pair of Heelys was provided for review. All opinions are my own.
Bilingual Siblings & Disparities in Fluency
Today I read a post called “Pocho studies” on Lotería Chicana. I started to leave a comment but by the time I finished it, I realized the comment was long enough to stand alone as a blog post, so here I am.
Cindy of Lotería Chicana writes about how her Spanish fluency is different from that of her siblings. (I encourage you to click through – it’s worth reading and the photos make it all the more special.) This is a really fascinating topic because most people would assume that bilingual children raised in the same household would be equally fluent, but most parents raising bilingual children know this isn’t true.
Just like children raised in the same household may end up with different eating habits, religious beliefs, or athletic abilities – the same goes for language. I imagine there are an endless number of possibilities in each family depending on all kinds of circumstances – many of which are only apparent in hindsight.
Here is the comment I started to leave but which I’m pasting here instead.
I was raised in an English only Anglo home but married a Salvadoran. It’s always been my goal to raise our children to be bilingual. This was something I had my heart set on before they were born, before I married my husband, Carlos. It was a desire borne out a love of language and the knowledge that I would want to share that with my future children because of all the beauty and opportunity the gift of bilingualism can bring.
At some point my idealism was hit with a major dose of reality.
Our older son will soon be 14 and his little brother is 10 – While I have tried to raise them to be bilingual, the journey has been long, inconsistent and not nearly as easy as I had imagined. Their language abilities are both so different that it sometimes feels like they weren’t raised in the same household — in some ways, they weren’t.
When we had our first son we were both really young. My Spanish was very basic and I lacked confidence. I never said more than a couple words here and there in Spanish to the baby. My hope had been that my husband would speak Spanish to the baby, but Carlos was struggling with English and our focus at the time was his fluency – not our child’s. During the first year of our first son’s life, we lived with my (English-speaking) family. This was good for Carlos’s English but meant a very English dominant environment for our son. Once we moved out, we still spoke English most of the time since Carlos needed the practice. Most of the Spanish our son heard the first couple years was when my husband was on the phone to El Salvador or when he watched TV, (mostly Spanish-language news.)
When I had my second son, life was very different. Our household had become a place where Spanish was very frequently spoken and heard throughout the day. (Our older son was 3 or 4 at this point.) My mother-in-law had moved in with us and she didn’t speak English. My new baby, myself and my older son were now immersed in an environment with 2 native Spanish-speakers, (one of whom we had no choice but to communicate with in Spanish.)
As my skills and confidence in the language grew, I tried to speak and read to the kids more in Spanish and encouraged my husband to do so as well. Still, I didn’t use Spanish with them much of the time because English had become my “code language” – a safe haven to speak to my husband and children in, a place where my mother-in-law couldn’t understand me, (and I desperately needed that privacy.)
In 2010, realizing that my kids weren’t on grade level with their Spanish from the limited interactions with their live-in grandmother, I decided to speak Spanish to them almost full time. Since then I’ve slacked off here and there but there has definitely been a much more concentrated effort on my part to ensure they’re bilingual. Seeing how much more comfortable the kids are in Spanish, my husband has joined the effort. It comes naturally now – not the awkward way it once was, but it took a long time to get here. (Coincidentally, their grandmother moved out a year ago, so speaking Spanish to them has become even more vital.)
At this point both boys understand spoken Spanish very well but prefer to answer in English or Spanglish. My older son, when he does speak Spanish, has a great vocabulary, but the accent is very “gringo.” His reading and writing was not very good but it’s grown by leaps and bounds the past year because he’s studying Spanish as his “foreign language” at school – having the basic foundation made it an easy “A” for him even though he started the class a year ahead of his peers and was given “native speaker” work.
Our younger son, perhaps because he heard native speakers since infancy, has a fantastic natural accent in Spanish. (He can pronounce the “rr” but his older brother can’t.) Our younger son’s vocabulary is probably not as big as his older brother’s though, and I think maybe it’s because he’s the “consentido” and his older brother always does things for him, including translating things he doesn’t understand. His ease at reading written Spanish aloud is probably better than his older brother though, because I read books in Spanish to him more than I did to my older son.
Another interesting development occurred this past week. Our older son is away at science camp and our younger son is home with me all day. Suddenly my younger son has begun to respond to me in Spanish when we’re alone together… Yesterday he came to me and completely unprompted, offered me half of his snack saying, “Mamá, ¿Quieres compartir?” (and “compartir” is a word I’ve never even heard him use before.)
I’ve come to accept that there will be disparities in their fluency – that one may be better at one skill than the other, just as they have their own unique talents when it comes to sports or art, but it’s harder to get over the feeling that I failed them. I couldn’t have spoken Spanish to them any earlier than I did, and I tried to convince my husband to do it but, like many immigrant parents, he worried more about their English fluency until it was “too late.”
I continue to speak Spanish to them, determined that they will be as bilingual as possible, but knowing that the ship has sailed as far as them being native speaker fluent, makes me incredibly sad sometimes.
____________
What are your experiences with your bilingual siblings or your bilingual children? How are their skills different?
Querida Suegra
Today is Spanish Friday so this post is in Spanish. If you participated in Spanish Friday on your own blog, leave your link in comments. English translation is below!
Image adapted from image by: Max Stanworth
Querida Suegra,
Ya ha pasado un año desde la ultima vez que hablé con usted, o mejor dicho, desde usted me habló. Tal vez piensas que todo que usted hizo y dicho, aquí y en El Salvador, es un gran secreto – que no sabemos todo que usted está haciendo – pero sabemos toditito. Ya que le gusta tanto el chisme, usted debe saber cómo habla la gente. Ni tenemos que preguntar a ninguna persona sobre usted, porque la gente nos hablan por telefono y nos cuentan todo – oh sí!
No voy a revelar que sé sobre qué pasó con usted este año al todo el mundo, porque no soy como usted, pero sí hay unas cositas que quiero aclarar. Usted corrió por todos partes diciendo mentiras sobre Carlos y yo – y bien sabe usted que mentiras son. Por una mujer que siempre le gusta citar la Biblia a “los pecadores”, me parece bien hipócrita hacer lo que estás haciendo, pero BUENO.
Las mentiras que quiero aclarar son:
MENTIRA #1. Tracy mangonea a Carlos.
Si mangoneo a Carlos, ¿Cómo fue que usted vivía con nosotros por una década, aunque no lo quería yo?
MENTIRA #2. Tracy es perezosa y pasa todo el día jugando en la computadora.
Si estoy jugando, ¿Qué es este papel en mi declaración de impuestos federales que me muestra como escritora?
Uno no paga impuestos por jugar, señora.
MENTIRA #3. Carlos tiene que trabajar en dos trabajos por cuidar a Tracy.
Ah, ¿de veras? Yo no sabía eso. ¿Qué es este segundo trabajo del que usted habla? Yo sé que Carlos trabaja bien duro durante el día pero en la noche, aquí lo puede encontrar.
Carlos en su “segundo trabajo”
Si alguien está pagando a Carlos por caer dormido mientras mira El Chavo del Ocho, digame dónde puedo aplicar, (ya que soy perezosa, ¿recuerda?)
Esto es todo que quiero decir, y lo digo sin una papita de malicia. Tus cuentos me parecen bien creativos. Por favor, siga contandole a la gente para que ellos sigan contandonos.
Sinceramente,
Su nuera
[ENGLISH TRANSLATION]
Dear Mother-in-Law,
It’s been a year since the last time I spoke to you, or rather, since you last spoke to me. Maybe you think everything you did and said, here and in El Salvador is a big secret – that we don’t know everything you’re doing – but we know everything. Since you like gossip so much, you should know better how people talk. We don’t even have to ask anyone about you, because people call on the phone and tell us everything – oh yes!
I will not reveal all that I know about what happened to you this past year to everyone, I am not like you, but I do want to clarify a few things. You ran all over the place telling lies about Carlos and I – and you know you are lying. For a woman who likes to quote the Bible to “sinners” it seems rather hypocritical to do what you’re doing, but anyway.
The lies I want to clear up are:
LIE #1. Tracy bosses around Carlos.
If I boss around Carlos, how is it that you lived with us for a decade, which I never wanted?
LIE #2. Tracy is lazy and spends all day playing computer games.
If I’m playing, what is this part of my federal tax return that shows me as a writer?
One doesn’t pay taxes for playing, ma’am.
LIE #3. Carlos has to work two jobs to take care of Tracy.
Is that right? I didn’t know that. What is this second job of which you speak? I know that Carlos works very hard during the day but at night, here is where you can find him.
If someone is paying Carlos to fall asleep while watching El Chavo del Ocho, tell me where I can apply, (since I’m lazy, remember?)
That’s all I want to say, and I say this without an ounce of malice. Your stories seem rather creative. Please, keep telling people these stories so that they can keep telling them to us.
Sincerely,
Your daughter-in-law
Chiky
Today is Spanish Friday so this post is in Spanish. If you participated in Spanish Friday on your own blog, leave your link in comments. English translation is below!
Carlos está sentado en la mesa después de trabajar y está comiendo una merienda con una sonrisa en su rostro.
“Estas galletas,” me dice, levantando una galleta cubierta en chocolate y admirandola antes de comer una mordida, “Estas galletas siempre quería comprar cuando era niño en El Salvador.”
“Y por qué no las compraste, pues?” pregunto yo.
“Eran muy caras,” dice Carlos, “Sólo los niños ricos las tenian.”
Las galletas que compramos son de marca “Chiky” y cuestan aproximadamente $2.50 por una docena paquetes que contienen 6 galletas cada uno. Imagino que cuestan todavía menos en El Salvador.
“Somos ricos,” digo yo, “Aunque tenemos un montón de billes sin pagar, tenemos Chiky.”
[ENGLISH TRANSLATION]
Carlos is sitting at the table after work and eating a snack with a smile on his face.
“These cookies,” he says, lifting a cookie covered in chocolate and admiring it before taking a bite, “I always wanted to buy these cookies as a child in El Salvador.”
“So why didn’t you?” I ask.
“They were very expensive,” says Carlos, “Only the rich kids had them.”
The cookies we buy are “Chiky” brand and cost about $2.50 for a dozen packages containing 6 cookies each. I imagine they cost even less in El Salvador.
“We’re rich,” I say, “Although we have a lot of unpaid bills, we have Chiky.”
Playing Games as a Familia
I tried to initiate a “game night” at our house and while we haven’t made a habit of playing a particular day each week, we do play more often than we used to. One game we play is Say Anything family edition. My favorite thing about Say Anything, (besides the fact that it’s fun and everyone in the family likes it), is that it’s easy to set up, easy to learn, easy to play, and easy to clean up. I also like that I can just translate the questions to Spanish when I read them although they’re in English. (I ask the boys to write their answers in Spanish when they can, too.)
Wits & Wagers (family edition), is another game by North Star Games that we’ve played and like.
Whether you’ve played any of these games before or not, there’s a fun contest going on right now that you can participate in. Here are the details:
WHAT?
North Star Games is looking for new questions for their Say Anything and Wits & Wagers game cards – and they’re asking YOU to submit them! If they choose your question, it will be used in a special edition of the game along with Latinaish.com (example below)
A sample game card shows how your name/photo might appear along with “Latinaish.com fan”
HOW?
Go to the North Star Games Facebook page and submit your question. (NOTE: Do not leave your submission on Latinaish.com! Questions not submitted directly to North Star Games via their Facebook page can not be considered.)
Important! Be sure to mention Latinaish.com in your entry so they know what to print on the game card along with your name if you’re chosen.
WHEN?
Right now! The Facebook contest starts today, June 25th 2012, and runs for two weeks.
PRIZE?
At the end of the contest, North Star Games will pick their favorite questions which will be printed and included in a limited edition Facebook Fan Promo Pack of their games. The chosen winners will receive all three limited edition Facebook Fan Promo Pack games.
The very best questions will make it into future print editions of their games and will be made available in stores nationwide!
Good luck! Now go enter!
Disclosure: This is not a paid or sponsored post. I received no monetary compensation for this post. I received games from North Star Games with no obligation to review them and will also receive games if a reader of Latinaish.com has their question chosen in the Facebook contest. All opinions are my own.
