Renee wrote: On one of your podcasts you played a bach piece that was done on an Andean flute. Can you tell me the name of the artist and where I can get this music? Answer:  Well Renee we were in Cusco and this was a group that was playing and selling their CD’s at [...]

I may change the title of this post if I think of one more apt, but for now this one seems to capture what I want to talk about today.  It’s the tendency that we have in our culture to forcibly ‘mature’ our citizens.  You know what I mean, our campaign to humiliate and threaten all the fun [...]

I mentioned that I started a part time position as a Psychologist in a Clinic that serves Spanish speaking clients, right?  Luis and I have been so busy teaching Spanish and managing his immigration process from Peru, that we realized we were completely out of touch with the Latino/Hispanic community as a whole here in MN, so I have taken this [...]

One of Luis’ favorite anectdotes to illustrate the mind set of a Latino vs. that of a non-Latino is that a non-Latino skydiver would look out the window of the plane, decide where it was they wanted to land, and then jump.  In contrast a Latino would jump and then figure out where they should land. Luis muses with astonishment that [...]

Let’s review where we are upon this entry. I heard the sirens song, it was pulling me to learn Spanish, I didn’t know why, I made many attempts to learn it but none bore fruit, I was thrown together with Luis for tutoring by a woman I had never met but who had remembered a brief request I made 8 months earlier in [...]

I tell you these things to illustrate the mysterious nature of seduction and how it happened to me.  Though Spanish and I may have crossed paths at the workplace in 2000 as a result of a practical need…this is not what first beckoned me to the language in the 8th grade, nor what has held me firm [...]

As I was saying, I am not one to give up easily and so I began calling around town and asking for a Spanish tutor.  Surprisingly, there were none to be found… then.  So I studied on my own, pasting large signs all over the house of various verb conjugations, expressions, whatever, in my extreme literal [...]

What makes one so attracted to another culture?  I ask myself often how it happened that my life now revolves around everything Latino.  And I love it!  This little girl of German/Irish heritage loves her life like never before, but why?  Why doesn’t Germany or Ireland call to me like Argentina or Spain or Peru or any of [...]