Communication Issues and the ups and downs of an international move

So the past two days have been a fine example of the difficulties in communicating not just because of the language barrier but because of a cultural barrier.  Renee has been doing gymnastics at the Estadio for the past three weeks and they were hosting their annual meet this weekend.  Renee had been practicing their Level 2 and, although she had not gotten everything down well, she was planning to compete today.  Practice was canceled Thursday evening because of the "snowstorm" so one of the coaches who is also a gym teacher at school told her that they would have another practice Friday at 5:00 so that she could work just on the routines.  I dropped her off at 5:00 and she called me 15 minutes later to tell me that there wasn't anybody there.  They had our numbers and e-mails and just hadn't let us know it wasn't happening - an hour of driving around in rush hour lost and a lot of frustration.

Then this morning as Renee was warming up they told her that she would be competing at Level 1 even though she didn't know the routines.  She tried to learn them fast but ended up, as would be expected, not remembering them and just feeling rotten.  After the meet (and a lot of tears - gymnastics was the one thing she was starting to feel OK about!), one of the coaches explained that they needed more girls at Level 1 in order to compete at that level.  In this case, a little compassion might have gone a long way.  If I were her I would have run out and said that I'd never come back but, again, it is the one thing that she knows and usually likes but it was just really poor communication.  The parents said to me that she must be nervous and that was why she was forgetting the routines - it was because she never learned them.  Hard to watch and navigate as a Mama!  But here she is in her team leotard (malla):




We came home and had lunch and relaxed before trying out one of the Saturday afternoon youth groups.  Given the morning fiasco, we decided to try out something that Renee might like, Shomer Ha'tzair, the lefty-secular-zionist group.  I mentioned it in an earlier blog as a place where Renee would probably feel more comfortable and I was right.  It was the first time that she really seemed at ease.  The girls her age all had a bit of "edge" to them and were definitely not part of the fashionistas that she has met so far.  The group met at a house in an "Evanstony" section of town closer to the downtown.  The house was pretty trashed and had years of murals on the walls and old mattresses on the floor.  It reminded me of a PZC (Progressive Zionist Caucus) house near Penn.  Like every home we have seen, the windows had no screens on them (I guess that they don't get bugs in summer).  The kids were using the windows as doors (on the 1st floor) and Renee loved that and just the mellowness of the kids and counselors.  She was really pumped up when we got home - whew.........

The other kids liked it as well but we will try out a few others to see where they will best fit in.

We also decided this weekend that we are ready to start exploring life outside of the city so stay tuned to the "vineyards and beaches near Santiago" segment next weekend!

Hats off to the gardening gals at the Community Garden!  I miss you guys and I am dreaming of summer produce.....