Colorín Colorado: Pasamos agosto

Happy September!! There’s a phrase here, “pasamos agosto,” which means, “we passed (or made it through) August. Since August is winter here, it’s a month when a lot of elderly people pass away so the idea is, if you make it through August you will live another year. On the first of September, I heard several people saying this. The president even said it on the news. To me, it means that I’ve been here for over a month and, having made it through one month, I know I’ll make it the rest of the way.

September at home was always one of my favorite months (close behind October, my absolute favorite month). September means crisp, sometimes foggy, mornings and sunny, warm afternoons. It is the start of school, the start of good apple season, the start of my mom’s soup-for-dinner-season. In my elementary school years, September meant walking out of my house in the morning and being startled by spiderwebs across the path on my way to the bus and it meant walking home in the afternoon through the first leaves that fell on Ellingsen.

Here, September is the beginning of spring. So far, it means sunny days and cold nights. It is the mes de la patria because Chile declared independence on September 18, 1810. And this year, for you math whizzes out there, is the bicentennial of Chilean independence, so it’s an especially important year. Chilean flags are popping up everywhere. They line the soccer field near my house; people are selling them in the streets, flying flag-themed kites, and last week the 6 year old son of my boss at my internship was wearing a flag as a cape and zooming around the office like Superman.

Yesterday I went to a beach in Reñaca with two friends to enjoy the sunny day. It was beautiful, not yet filled with summer crowds, and we walked barefoot in the sand and ate ice cream by the water’s edge, feeling the spray of the ocean. As we watched the sunset over the water, we saw two seals bodysurfing in the breaking waves near the beach. They jumped and dove and splashed all around as the sky turned pink and orange and the sun disappeared. Not a bad way to end the day.

Here's hoping your September is off to a great start, wherever you are.