Musical Happenings

Since I am a musician, it is not surprising that some of my favorite Paraguayan experiences have revolved around music.  In the month of September I was fortunate to have two of them.  The first was that I was able to take a teacher training class for Suzuki Violin with a teacher trainer from Argentina.  It is a class that I took many years ago, but was not able to ever "register" it with the Suzuki Association due to some changes in the courses.

Even though I had taken the course before, I still learned a lot and enjoyed working with Fernando Pinero.  It was a bit of a challenge to take the class in Spanish, but fortunately he has worked a lot in the US so he could help me when I got stuck.  I really enjoyed seeing the Paraguayans (many of them young teachers) getting their Suzuki training.  Another benefit was that Abigail got to participate a little bit and we both played in the final concert:

Abigail's group in their final rehearsal before the concert.

The whole festival - the teacher trainees are at the top.

Abigail and me with the trainer, Fernando Pinero.

Later in the month of September, I had the pleasure of seeing my cello student graduate from Twinkles (for those of you not familiar with the Suzuki method, this is the first of many "graduations" that the students make in a Suzuki program).  Maia and her family are an absolute delight and it has been a real pleasure to work with them.  They planned the graduation at her grandmother's house (which is only a few blocks from ours), and invited friends and family.  They made programs, and served refreshments afterward.  Her dad played piano on the Twinkle Variations and I played the cello duet with her for French Folk Song which she had also already learned.

It was a delightful afternoon and her sister (who is still 3) decided to restart her violin lessons once she saw all the attention that her sister received.  Later this month (Novermber) we will be doing a whole recital and both sisters plan on participating!

First Day of School #2

Well, the first day of school (High School!!!) for Arianna was over two weeks ago, but I did get pictures of both girls:

This school year is off to a much better start than last year for Arianna.  She is attending an online high school through George Washington University.  It uses the same curriculum that she used last year (k12), so that made the transition to high school easy for her.  She had already taken one high school class last year (Spanish 2), so she was very familiar with the high school environment, in addition to having a lot of general experience with the online environment.

From my point of view, the GWU experience has been great.  She has a teacher for every subject area (she is taking 7 courses) and the classes meet live weekly.  There is additional interaction with the teachers during the week through the email system of k12 and also through Skype.  The kids also interact during the classes and then when they want to through Skype.  Arianna went to her first club meeting (newspaper) today and seemed to enjoy it.  

One of the neat things about the program is that it is brand new.  There was a pilot group of kids who started last semester, but this is the first group of kids who are going through a whole school year together.  There is a lot of energy among both the teachers and students.  It feels like we have finally gotten a program that might provide the right thing for Arianna - at least for now!

Pierced Ears

A while ago we gave Arianna earrings for Christmas and told her she could get her ears pierced.  Well, she decided that she wanted to have it done while we were in the US this summer.  The day before our flight back to Paraguay, we went to the mall - with two cousins and two aunts and she got it done!  Although it hurt a bit, she didn't flinch. For the first few days, she had a little soreness, but things went well.

By the end of the first week, there were signs of infection.  She was taking good care of the ears, so we weren't quite sure what was going on.  She used some antibacterial ointment, and things got a bit better.  But, then they really took a turn for the worse.  I won't go into details, but we finally went to see the doctor, who thought that she had an allergic reaction to the earring (we suspect the backs, because the posts were gold, but the backs weren't).  He said the earrings should come out and stay out for 10 days.  At first the doctor couldn't get the earring out and he thought that maybe they were special earrings that she would need to go to a jeweler to get them removed (we weren't agreeing with that idea, but they were hard to get off and no one wanted to hurt her).  It took quite a bit of tugging and a nurse to get the first earring out. After he was sure that it did come out, he got the second one off without too much effort.

So, when I got home I called the woman at Claire's who pierced her ears and explained what had happened.  I asked her how long it would be before the holes started to close up.  She said it would take 24 hours to 5 days.  Well, after all we had already gone through, both Arianna and I wanted to try to keep the holes, so I asked her what we could do.  She said use the old fashioned trick of string or straw.  We opted for string (strung through with a needle).  A couple of times the string came out (at first I told Arianna to just leave them loose without tying them - bad idea), and sometimes I thought the holes might be getting small, so she used the earrings a little.  After several weeks of string and occasional earring posts (no backs), plus good cleaning and cortisone cream, the ears are finally all better, and Arianna has actually gotten to change the earrings!

I don't think Abigail will be asking for pierced ears anytime soon....

First Day of School #1

Abigail started 6th grade last Monday.  She declined the opportunity for a back to school photo, so there is none to post:).  But, she is off to a great start to the year.  For the last few years we have made some adjustments in the ideal material to use for her so that I could cover some subjects with both girls together.  Last year we had to cover some material that was a little too easy, because we had skipped it earlier.  Now it feels like we have hit the sweet spot.

In case you're curious, Abigail will study the second half of World History (we already covered the first half in an earlier year) and the geography that goes with it.  She will have many books to read (20!) on her own that coordinate with that theme.  She is also taking a writing course (that starts today!), studying grammar andvocabulary, and will do typing as soon as she finishes up her handwriting book from last year.  She is doing a Math 7 course, High School Spanish 2 (we'll see how it goes) and she is studying inventions, electricity and magnetism in science.  We have a Bible component to our curriculum which includes a number of interesting books this year.  In addition to her school work, she takes tennis twice a week, has a cooking class, Spanish lesson and a group violin class once a week and practices violin and piano every day (we're just getting back to piano after almost no work on it last year).

I hope the whole year goes as well as the beginning!  Abigail is a hard working, cheerful student so I am glad to have another year of working with her.

Home Again!

We had a great R and R trip back to the US this summer (5 weeks for the Macy girls, 2 weeks for John).  R and R is an annual event for people in the Foreign Service, and we spent our time back in the good ol' USA.  The first part of our time there was spent back at Blue Ridge Suzuki Camp (our third year).  We were tired after the long trip, but it was, as usual, great music making with great friends.

The WV crowd!

The other week long event of our time in the US was our trip to the beach in Massachusetts.  We had missed the annual event the previous summer since we had just moved in early July, so we were all glad to get back to Westport.  We had a full house and GREAT weather.  

 

We were typical tourists on a couple of occasions:  A NYC trip to Madame Tussauds (which was a birthday celebration for Abigail) and dinner at the cafe at the American Girl store cafe (which the kids wanted to do once before they were way too old).   Then, while visiting John's parents in their new home in Chambersburg, PA we got to visit the Hershey Factory and a Pretzal Factory. 

Madam Tussauds

Madam Tussauds

At American Girl Cafe with Baba

Hershey Tour with Grandma and Grandpa

Littitz Pretzel Factory

Around those events we were able to visit family, take care of some Dr. appointments, try (unsuccessfully) to get a declawed cat (LONG story), do some shopping and even swing down to WV for a concert!  It was a good trip, but by the end, even the girls were ready to go home!!  

Mulan

The girls had a really fun opportunity to help out with the ASA (American School) production of Mulan.  Many of their friends had important roles (one of Arianna's friends was Mulan), and we were looking forward to seeing the production.  The week before the show, one of the moms called to see if the girls were interested in helping backstage.  At first I said no because I thought they'd want to see the show (they were needed backstage for both performances), but they both thought that they'd rather help.

Then I found out that they needed to go to two and a half days of dress rehearsals.  We are working hard at getting school finished before I go back to the US for Suzuki Camp with the girls, so I wasn't sure about the whole thing.  But they worked hard the few days before the rehearsals, so I said yes, and I'm glad they did.  After the first day (which was a bit boring, especially for Abigail), they had a great time helping and really enjoyed being part of the show.  The teachers greatly appreciated all the hard work they did, and each girl received a big bouquet of flowers on the final night of the show!

John and I went to watch the second (and final) night and we really enjoyed the production.  It helped to know many of the kids who were in it - and the kids we know all did a terrific job.  It has been fun to see Arianna's passion for theater rekindled - now we just need to find an outlet for it!

Can you believe it?

This is a picture that a friend of ours took after a church service one day last winter (August).  I couldn't believe that one of the kids at church had a Mountaineers sweatshirt on.  I have no idea where he got it, but I couldn't resist the chance for a photo of me with a Paraguayo muchacho in his WV sweatshirt!  I finally found the photo buried in my pile of e-mails, so it's almost a year after the fact - but it still makes me smile:)