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Great News for El Hijo
I’ve been neglecting this blog lately as a result of work overload — preparing to teach a writing class at UPC, which entails putting together loads of English-language course materials. Last night I got only three hours of sleep, then staggered into a meeting with El Hijo’s teachers at school, where I received a wonderful surprise. I was handed an official note informing me that my 10-year-old son has “graduated” from Language Support, after one and a half years of tutoring, and will be joining his classmates in all of their regularly scheduled classes. This is a big moment for EH and our family. It is challenging to bring an American…
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Bolivian Chompas, Barbie Dolls & Evo Morales
Another South American country that favors the word “chompa” is Bolivia, whose populist president, Evo Morales, is a big-time chompa-wearer. In 2006, artisans in Mexico came out with a line of hand-knitted pullovers and skirts for Barbie dolls, styled after the striped sweaters worn by Morales during his presidential campaign: The doll outfits were woven from ultra-soft alpaca wool and retailed for about 1,000 Mexican pesos each. (Click here to read in Spanish about “el look de Evo” and Mattel’s Barbie.)
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A Favorite Word in Peruvian Spanish: “Chompa”
(la) Chompa (CHOM-pah): If you analyze it, the English word “sweater” is an ugly term for something that’s usually quite nice. The word sounds sweaty, a bad association to have with something warm and fuzzy that you wear next to your skin and typically don’t wash that often. Worse, the word also can refer to a person who sweats a lot (“Yep, my firstborn never did keep his covers on at night. Always was a sweater.”). Isn’t there a word in another language that expresses the nice-wooly-pullover concept better? Enter the Latin American “chompa,” which translates as “pullover sweater” but is more fun to say. To my ear, “chompa” has…
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Why Not “A Gringa in Lima”?
Because the g-word is (1) too loaded to serve as my moniker, and (2) I am more American than I care to admit. Some reader is probably wondering, ‘Isn’t it incorrect nowadays to use the term American when referring to someone from the United States? Aren’t all people from South America Americans as well?” Well, yes, for a long time that is what I thought, too.
