Dichos #1

"Hechando a perder se aprende."

figurative English translation:
"By making mistakes we learn."

A dicho is a spanish saying or proverb.

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My story behind this dicho:

My mom and mom's best friend are making little canvas bible bags for their church's 96th anniversary. They are improvising the pattern and by Sunday there will be over 100 bags with little painted pictures I helped design that say "Mi Biblia". I admire the tenacity of the women in church and I like to hear the conversations and observe the social interactions between them. It reminds me so much of the social interactions between the characters in the Jane Austen novels, which probably explains why enjoy reading Jane Austen.

Today, my mom's best friend said the dicho above to my mom in concern to the patterns for the bag and I couldn't help but to take it as advice for life as well. It's okay to make mistakes. I have to remind myself of that all the time. So hearing this dicho hit the spot today and I wanted to share it with you all.

I have learned so much wisdom from the women at church. What frustrates me is that women's church groups are made fun as "la chismenil"...a pun on the spanish term "la feminil" to mean "gossipers". From my observations, women often are the most active members and contributors of the church. In most evangelist churchs, women are not even considered for deacon positions much less as pastors. I think this is terribly unjust...but when I bring this up with my mom it really isn't an issue. For her, the work has always been more for God than the politics of the church...For the greater good...it truly is an unselfish act. Now if we could only have more people like that in power.

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If you would like to share a dicho please fell free to use the comments option below. Any insight on it would be great as well. Dichos are such a staple cultural element in Valley culture. In the future I will also want to cover Harlingen artist Jennifer Rodriguez's interpretive paintings of Mexican American dichos. I wish I had a picture I could show you all (they are wonderful paintings) but hopefully by next Dicho post, I will have some more info to share on her work.