On with the show...

After a good time at my godfather's house on Saturday, with a delicious barbecue and a grand concert of piano, guitar, voices and flutes, Tio Alvaro (the youngest of the four de Erausquin brothers) picked us up and we drove down to the Seminary of Our Lady Co-Redemptrix at La Reja for First Saturday evening Mass. The church is gorgeous; I had never seen the inside of it before, even in pictures. Unfortunately we didn't have the camera out to take any either. After Mass we drove back to Tio Alvaro's house in Bella Vista for dinner, after which we all piled into the car to go to the Feria Persa, a sort of mall, to get some movies. In the end we didn't watch any of the ones we got, however, since we had Mass the next day.

On Sunday we went to 9:30 Mass and then the boys and the younger girls (Rocio and Alvaro's two girls) jammed into the car for Santiago's hockey practice and Tia Gabriela, Lucia and I waited for the bus. On the way it got a flat tire, so we stopped in the Parque Rivadavia, which has a book fair every day, and got some new books (quite old, really, but new for us!) By then Santi's practice was over so we all went to the Feria de Mataderos. There were stands and stands with everything from jewelry to ponchos to clothes to musical instruments, and we looked all over. Halfway down the fair was the big stage and there were people dancing zambas and chacareras, so we stopped to watch. Just then a friend of the family (who had asked us to let him know when we were in town) called our cell-phone, and came to find us, since he happened to be at the fair too! His wife and two friends were with him, and we chatted for a good while and finally parted ways, but Tio Alvaro told them to call and come over to the house later that evening. They did, therefore, and we had a lot of fun discussing what makes a great writer and why some writers are good but not great, and playing music. They left before dinner to drive back into the city, and we ate and then stayed up playing music or reading or talking.

On Monday not much went on. Ignacio and Santiago started building a catapult and Lucia fenced with Tio Alvaro, and I didn't do much but practice furiously,;I think it must have been all the days of not playing before! That night Jorgelina showed us some of her ballet, and we listened to opera (La Traviata, singing along!), and then Rocio and I watched Jackie Chan in a really neat movie, The Forbidden Kingdom.

Today we went to the children's school to watch their Independence Day production (the actual day is tomorrow, but the presentation was today). Pilar's kindergarten class did a little play about the Congress in Tucuman when it was decided that Argentina should be independent, and did some dances. The older children had some short recitations and a song by the Argentinian composer Maria Elena Walsh, and one of the professors recited a poem with a background of guitar music.

Last, here is the translation of the sonnet from last post. It is not entirely literal, but I tried...


At the Consecration
O wonder! miracle no words can say!
That God should come from heaven down to earth,
Hiding within a humble Host His worth,
To bless me - poor and wretched thing of clay,

The clay that, deigning with His hand to touch,
He formed in His own image, by His grace,
To please Him and to see at last His face...
And I, ungrateful! -- I have sinned so much!

How many times now have I cast away
The love and grace offered me every day
By Him who died upon the Cross for me?

Redeemer Sacramental, take my hand
And help me to fulfill all Thy command -
To answer "Yes!" to each request from Thee.