HOME - INTRODUCTION - CAST
Old Home We visited a port called Corral. It is near a city called Valdivia, where Mom and Dad lived fifteen years ago (long before RJE and I were born). So, the main thing we wanted to see in Valdivia was their old house. To get there, we had to take a small boat, then a bus, and then walk a long way. Right before we got there, we went to a little shop where Mom used to practice her Spanish, and the same couple still owned the place and recognized Mom and Dad right away. They talked in Spanish while we had some ice cream, then we walked around the neighborhood and stopped at the old house. It used to be yellow and now is green. The tree in front had been cut down, Mom said. Valdivia has a food market right next to a river:
There were live crabs in a large box. The crabs were blue and pink and much bigger than Virginia crabs.
There was also a man cleaning fish---scraping off the scales, cutting off the head, and throwing everything that was not going to be used into the river. In Corral there is an old fort that was first built in 1646. The Spanish built it to protect the city of Valdivia from English pirates.
Later, in 1820, Chile took the fort and used it to protect Valdivia from the Spanish, during the war for the independence of Chile. Write back to the rats at The RatSoap™ Project is a work in progress, 2006-2007
|