the waw-waw

I opened the shutters to call Young One in for the evening, and I found her engrossed in serious conversation with Gloria and Sara, two neighborhood girls who are about a year older. This is a normal scene here in the paese, nothing out of the ordinary: three girls hanging out on a cool summer evening, and what a treat to be free of the pesky boys who outnumber the girls in these parts!

"Mamma! Is it true? Is it true that it takes you and Daddy together...his 'waw-waw' inside your --"

"His what?"

Giggles, even from those who don't understand our conversation in English.

For nine solid years we have used the words penis and vagina to name those body parts (purposefully! exclusively! ) and the backyard sex reproduction talk turns it into a "waw-waw" in an instant. What the heck?! I feel defeated.

By the way, do you have a good illustrated sex education book to recommend for my fourth grader? It's time, and I want back up. Evidently little Sara has a book and has become quite the expert in the crowd of local nine and ten year olds. If I know Sara, she is preaching abstinence too, good little Catholic church-going altar girl that she is.

Posted with Blogsy

portuguese tiles & relationships

When I first started teaching in Italy (in Naples) I had a couple of colleagues, a husband and wife teacher team, who quickly and naturally became among those I considered friends. It was Jayne and John who hosted a lovely baby shower for Young One in the month before her arrival. These two experienced teachers (music and English, like us!) were quite a pair, and I relished their company because they were both great talkers and storytellers. When our lives intersected, I was new to this overseas life, and they were on their way out after illustrious careers across Europe. They had lots of great material; I had so much to learn.

They spent a part of their careers at a little school in the Azores in Portugal, and if Jayne told me once, she told me a thousand times about these gorgeous tiles she found in Portugal, tiles she purchased all those years ago and then moved across the world thereafter from duty station to duty station. I never saw the tiles, but I heard of them again and again. By the time we met, the tiles were continually on her mind as they finally were going to be used in their retirement home on a lake in Indiana. Had she been a relative, I would have politely said, "Enough already with the tiles!"

I finally visited Portugal and had the opportunity to see the tiled facades of the buildings. It made me miss these dear people, who after retirement joined the Peace Corps and moved to China for a couple of years.They've since returned to the States and continue with active lives. And it also made me even more grateful for the small group of ladies I joined in Lisbon for the weekend. The wiser I get (Who is getting "older" anyway?) the more I understand the importance of relationships and connections, and I'm always in awe of the reminders I find along the way. This time it was tiles on the buildings of Lisbon. I've made a new header in honor of Jayne and John B. and my dear girlfriends, including those who were unable to rendezvous this time. See you next year!