During the month of September, my mother also prayed the “Month of Mary” kneeling down in front of the image of the virgin of miracles. She also had a smaller image of the virgin of Lourdes in honor of my miraculous birthday. I do not remember going to mass with my parents on Sundays. What I remember is being awakened around 10 a.m. by my father who was bringing a tray with my favorite saucisson sec with French bread and my cafe au lait. It was a special treat that mother enjoyed letting my father do for me. Later on Sundays, after lunch, my parents used to bring me to the matinee at the movie theater Metro. I enjoyed seeing Felix the Cat, Mickey Mouse and later on Tom and Jerry all dubbed in Spanish with terrible falsetto voices.

However my first movie was Bambi while my parents were still living on top of the Baquedano Theater. I do not remember this but my mother and father brought me to see the movie when I was less than a year old. They told me that the manager of the theater and all the young ushers lined up to see my reactions. My mother told me that they were all glad and surprised to hear me shouting “Papa, papa”, after Bambi was shouting “Mama, mama” and being guided by his father through the fire after his mother died. I also shouted “water” when it rained and “flowers”, when the little skunk, was sniffing the flowers. My parents had to take me out of the movie theater because I was so excited to see all those beautiful animals and calling them to come to me.

When I visited my paternal grandparents at their farm, I would sit on the grass and call the chickens to come to me. I was about eight months old. My mother was very proud of me because I learned to say I needed to sit on the chamber pot when I was 8 months old. I guess I could not stand the diapers because the only consequence of my abnormal gestation was a very sensitive skin.

Before my parents sent me to the parochial school, I had seen many movies, learned many tales and heard many operas. The nuns taught me how to read and write using the Silabario Mate and taught me math making me draw and paint little green and red apples.

I learned so fast that they had to move me to first grade.

During my Catechism and Sacred History classes, I was always raising my hand and asking questions. How come it was a flood for 40 days if in the island of Chiloe it rains for 12 months and there are no floods there? How come the people could see fire on top of Mount Sinai. Was it a volcano? Why did God part the waters of the Red Sea instead of creating a bridge? How long did it take the wise men to follow the star? How come the star stopped? Was it a comet and not a star? Are angels girls or boys? What do people that go to Heaven do there?

The last straw happened when the nuns asked my mother to come for a meeting.

Reverend mother politely asked my mother how come I knew so much about sex at this early age, and the Catechism teacher said, turning quite red, she was afraid I had a perverted mind. My mother did not say a word and asked the nuns to bring me to the meeting.

When I came in, the nun that taught catechism told me to repeat the question I had asked when she ended teaching about the annunciation. That is when the angel told Mary that God had selected her to be the mother of His Son. So I said: I asked how did they do it? Did God come to earth or did Mary go to Heaven? Before any of the nuns could speak my mother said to me: What did you really want to know with that question? So I said to my mother: You have told me that for people to have babies they have to be married. So I wanted to know if the wedding was in Heaven or in earth. My mother proudly turned to the nuns and said. “Now who are the ones with perverted minds?”

The nuns told my mother that maybe I was too precocious for my age and for that school. In other words at 8 years old I was kicked out of the parochial school.

So when I finished the second grade my parents decided to move me to another school where I could perfect my French, learn other languages and ask as many questions as I wanted. It was a French school for girls, La Maisonnette.