After Tax Time

Last Tuesday found The Patchwork Players working very locally. The Cole Branch of the Carlsbad Library. We here in San Diego County pay more for gas then just about anywhere in the country, we are glad to get gigs close to home whenever we can. It was like old home day for James who has been going to this library for more than twenty years. We had a few dozen kids and their parents, and the Children’s Librarian in attendance. We told some classic Library stories like Caps for Sale, and some of our all time favorites for just about anywhere; Too Much Noise and Baby Coyote. The kids were engaged and had a good time. The Parents told us they liked the show, and the Librarian told us she will tell her colleagues how pleased she is with the Patchwork Players.


On Friday, Patti was joined by our storytelling buddy, Panchita Acevedo, to tell stories to celebrate the Mexican holiday Dia de los Niños, the day of the children. They were at an area school, San Pasqual-a little one school district out by the Wild Animal Park in Escondido CA. The two told a variety of traditional Mexican folktales bilingually in English and Spanish. This elementary school has 140 children who are Spanish speaking out of a school body of 600 children. Panchita is so fun to work with because she doesn’t just “translate” the story into Spanish; she is a master storyteller in her own right and tells the story as she thinks it should be told in Spanish. This includes using lots of famous sayings, slang, and referring to things that Spanish speaking people would recognize. Because we kept the language chunks quite brief, and because Panchita is so brilliantly expressive, even though most of the audience does not speak Spanish, they were able to follow the story in both languages. As one teacher said, this is a good experience for our English only students to see what it is like to hear something that you don’t understand the words and have to listen and watch carefully to try to see what is going on. All in all it was an excellent day. Well worth the effort of coordinating telling in two languages.

Then on Saturday, Patti joined Panchita gain to tell one of the most famous scary Mexican tales, La Llorona, the Waling/crying woman. This was at a Cinco de Mayo (5th of May) special event at a local park. This audience was largely Spanish speaking folks from a nearby neighborhood. Here Panchita took the lead, but again, it was joy to work together bringing this traditional story alive. (Many tell us that it isn’t a legend, but rather truly happened.) James was able to come along both to hear how Patti and Panchita worked together and to also take some photos. We hope in the future to work out some programming where the three of us can tell stories together.

In the meantime, happy May, happy Cinco de Mayo, happy spring, and happy storytelling!