Letters To A Stranger pv ariana

Srta. A. Westonfield-Rivera | RE
Chrysaetos - The Rivera Estate, | TU
Valparaíso, Chile | RN

Hola¹ Eden!

I hope you are well, it was lovely to receive your letter! I am Ariana Westonfield-Rivera, as you undoubtedly already know. What a coincidence that our fathers' paths crossed and both had a daughter only a year apart later on! I asked my papá² about it after receiving your letter, and he said that he remembered your father well and that they became friends at the time.

It was a pleasant surprise to find mail this morning, no worries at all about your letter being unexpected, and don't worry, no one who sends me a sweet letter is "just some stranger"!

It's very interesting that you were born in Portugal and moved to Ecuador later on! I have personally always resided in Chile, where my mamá³ grew up, but as my father is American I speak English as well. I'm currently learning Portuguese, it is a lovely language! I hope to be fluent in it by the time I attend Castelobruxo. Everyone in my mamá's bloodline went to the academy, so they expect me to go as well, naturally. So yes, I am currently bilingual as well, and hope to be trilingual in a few years! We seem to have quite a bit in common already!

I also love to read, how funny that you are the same way! I spend a lot of my time outside, but when inside, I can often be found reading book after book or writing in my journal. And music, what a blessing! It has always fascinated me how people put their emotions into words strung together into a song and am a fan of numerous artists. I play the violin myself, a part of my homeschooling studies that my mamá insists I pursue.

I'd love to become friends with you too, Eden! It was lovely hearing from you. You told me about you in your previous letter, so I'll add to what I already answered and share my hobbies and pastimes with you. I love archery very much and am quite curious, or so my parents tell me. Overall, I can be found in nature often, but also with my nose in a book (prose and poetry both interest me), and often at the same time! I don't have any siblings, but my favorite person is my cousin Alex. Do you have any siblings? Most of the people I know call me Ari or simply Ariana, but any nicknames are welcome! Ana and Ri sound very cute as well. You can call me whatever you like!

What is life like in Ecuador? I'm very interested in hearing more about you!

Tu amiga⁴,


P.S. I enclosed a copy of a photo of our fathers during their encounter which he found just this morning! He said your papá would remember that moment, but didn't explain further. I thought you and him might like to see it, so I asked my mamá to create a duplicate of it!

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date- summer 2020 wc- 574 “Portuguese.”

interacting/mentioning- @Ariana Westonfield-Rivera ooc notes- this letter was written in spanish “Spanish.”

Bom dia!¹

It was excellent to receive your response so quickly! I’m glad to have made a new friend, even if she lives quite far away. Perhaps one day, either at school or sometime, we will be able to meet in person! My papá² travels occasionally for work, he tells me all about the places he’s been. Maybe one day he will go back to Chile and I can convince him to let me go, too! Mãe³ does not like traveling as much. She lived in Portugal for most of her life, so she hasn’t been to many other countries.

It’s very cool that you speak so many languages! I wish I could speak English, I only know a few words from songs. I love English music very much! Maybe I could help teach you a few words in Portuguese? Only if you’d like!

It’s so interesting how much we have in common! Mãe³ is a witch too, just like yours! She went to Beauxbatons, so I’ll be the first in my bloodline to go to Castelobruxo, I’m very excited! Papá is a muggle, though, he teaches me a lot about boats and the muggle way of life. Does yours?

If you’d like, I can include a copy of one of my favorite books for you to read in a later letter. I love being outside, too! We live near many beaches, just like I did in Portugal! The sea is one of my most favorite places, it’s so beautiful. I have limited musical talent, I’m afraid. I’d love to learn one day, but singing is a better route for me. Do you have any music recommendations? I always love to hear about more artists.

Archery is fascinating! How long have you been an archer? I’d be afraid to shoot off one of my fingers, so a round of applause to you! It’s so great you are close with your cousin, Alex. Family is a wonderful part of life. I don’t have any siblings. Both my parents are the eldest child so many of their siblings are still young enough they aren’t worrying about starting a family, but Mãe has two sisters and papá has both a sister and a brother. His sister is married, maybe one day they will have kids! Since Mãe’s sisters still live in Portugal, I don’t see them often so any children they have I probably wouldn’t meet for a while.

Life in Ecuador is one of the most beautiful and chaotic things in my life. I miss Portugal daily, but being closer to my family here is something I wouldn’t have much of in Tavira. Tavira is the city in Portugal I lived in! The sea and the way of life in Ecuador is lovely. There isn’t a day that goes by where I’m not down by the shore or sitting in one of the local restaurants listening to the town gossip. In the evenings, I like to go down by the docks to see papá after he brings the boat in. I’ll miss that when I go off to school.

I know school is still a few years away for you, but are you worried at all about it? I’m nervous about the Portuguese dialect there, I can never seem to fully make sense of it. I’m excited to hear back from you, thank you for the sweet photo! Papá seemed to remember it well.

Love,
Eden

¹= good morning!
²= dad
³ = mom

Srta. A. Westonfield-Rivera | RE
Chrysaetos - The Rivera Estate, | TU
Valparaíso, Chile | RN

Querida¹ Eden,

It's so exciting to receive letters from a friend, thank you for replying to my owl! It would be lovely to meet in person, maybe we could visit each other sometime. I'd love for you to come visit me in Chile, we should arrange something, if our parents allow it! I'd also love to travel to Ecuador, it seems like a very cool country. Are there any traditional foods that you eat there? In Chile, a popular dish is Pastel de Choclo, a type of corn and meat casserole. I find it very tasty, you should try making it sometime! This time, instead of a photograph, I included the recipe we use to make it. I'm not sure whether you like to cook, but I hope you have fun with it! If not, I'm sure your parents could give it a try.

Songs and tv-programs with subtitles are good ways to pick up on some English, I would also suggest reading books and using a dictionary for words you don't know when doing so. I'm sure you'll learn in no time! The language is very practical, and once you know it, it's certainly useful since it's so broadly spoken. I'd love for you to teach me some words in Portuguese, that such a sweet offer! What I try to do is learn two words from the dictionary every day, and repeat the ones from the previous day. You could try that for English as well, if you'd like! But yes, I would love for you to teach me some Portuguese! That would be wonderful.

You're right, we're actually very similar, much more so than I would ever have expected! I've heard of Beauxbâtons, it's so cool that your mother attended the school when she was a young witch. It's nice that you don't have as high expectations since none of your family members have attended Castelobruxo, I have a lot to live up to, as you can probably imagine. While it's nice that I won't go completely unprepared, it can certainly be pressuring to follow in the footsteps of my ancestors. Like you, my father is a muggle, and he recites American fairytales and tells me about his muggle life very often as well! I find it quite nice to have a sense of both worlds, what about you?

I'd love to read one of your favorite books, Eden! I'm sure you have good taste, that would be so much fun. What type of books do you read?
Being outside and in nature is amazing. Some day, I hope to travel around the world and see everything I can't see here in Chile! The sea is lovely, I'll always love hearing the waves crashing against cliffs or gracefully coming in and out, running back to not get my feet wet, the sand between my toes.
Singing is an amazing art as well, I'd love to try that some day, we'll see. As for recommendations, it honestly depends on your style, but the Måneskin album released two years ago in 2018 called "Il Ballo Della Vita"² is a good pick. But again, music is wholly based of preference, so it depends on the person!

I've been an archer for quite a long time, starting off with simple children's replicas of actual arrowheads as to not hurt myself, as you can probably imagine, but now I'm starting to use actual arrows more and more, with guidance. I'm only seven though, so I'm not allowed to do too much by myself... but it's not like I don't sneak off to the woods on my own sometimes! ;)

Having a cousin like Alex is great, because since we're not siblings, we hardly ever bicker, and we're practically just best friends! Family can be such a blessing, I don't know what I would do without my familia³. My mamá⁴ has a sister who is Alex's mamá and my tía⁵, but my papá⁶ doesn't have any siblings. Do you see your aunts and uncles often?

Ecuador sounds amazing. Your nostalgia of Portugal makes perfect sense, but at least you seem to be living the life in your new hometown! I'd love to visit someday. I live in Greater Valparaíso, close to the sea as well, which I cherish, even though I must admit I don't go to the beach daily. I'll miss my home here as well. Valparaíso is such a colorful city, just walking through it is like walking through a rainbow of liveliness and the buzz of its inhabitants. I personally live on an estate outside of the urban part of the city itself, but go quite often with my parents or my tía and my tío⁷.

I'm a bit nervous, and I'll miss my home for sure, but I'm also very excited to go to an actual school and, well, reach my full potential as my parents would put it. I can't say I'm not worried at all though, I certainly think about it a lot. I hope my Portuguese will be good enough to fit in, since I didn't grow up with the language at all, but knowing Spanish makes things easier I suppose. I hope we can find each other when we attend! You're a year older than me though, so I assume you'll enroll a year earlier than me. Maybe you can show me around when I finally join you!

Tu amiga⁸,

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date- summer 2020 wc- 644 “Portuguese.”

interacting/mentioning- @Ariana Westonfield-Rivera ooc notes- this letter was written in spanish “Spanish.”

Bom dia!¹

I am afraid I am sending this rather late. This season is always chaotic here. Many tourists come by the restaurant, so I tried to help when I could. It’s always funny when we tell them it is technically winter here because of the hemisphere difference.

We have many excellent dishes here! Enocado and Bolón de verde are some of my favorites. Enocado is a seafood stew with rice and vegetables. Bolón de verde is mashed green plantains stuffed with cheese and fried bits of pork, it’s delicious! Because we are a coastal town, most of our street foods are fish or shrimp. My family and I made the recipe for Pastel de Choclo that you provided; it was very good!

Your English recommendations are very clever, I will try them out! Learning Spanish alongside Portuguese when I was younger was very helpful. I think the main reason I am fluent in both is because I had both my parents teaching them to me. When I learned a Spanish word, Mãe² quickly followed it with the Portuguese translation. Perhaps I will start doing that with English!

One of my favorite phrases in Portuguese is “À Babuja”³ which means to be very close to the sea. I have always grown up near the coast, so I think about those words a lot. In Tavira, we had a very specific dialect with lots of slang, one of these was “Marafado.”⁴ That word is a bit tricky to translate into other languages, but essentially we use it when we’re stressed, describing who is angry, or to describe stubborn or people of fiery spirit.

I am grateful everyday that my father is a muggle. I cannot imagine not knowing about the muggle world or not having access to everything in their world. It is like I am the ocean between both my countries. Mãe is on one part of the world with her magic and European roots, while he is on the South American side without magic and I am the mix of both shores in between. What a remarkable feeling it is to be a blend of two worlds.

You will have to demonstrate your archery for me sometime! It’s a very interesting skill you have! Being best friends with your cousin sounds like so much fun. I hope one day I will have cousins too! Mãe has two sisters, Emila and Mae (I always think the latter’s name is a bit tricky because it is so close to the Portuguese word for mother!), but they both still live in Tavira so I do not see them often now that I have moved. We still exchange letters regularly though, which helps. Papá⁵, on the other hand, has his sister Ana who married Mateo a few years ago. He also has a younger brother named Liam. Papá works on a boat with a man named Juan, so he and his wife, Isabel, are sort of like extended family to me. All my Papá’s family still live in Ecuador, so it is nice to be around them often. Sadly, my grandpa died a few years ago which is why we actually moved to Ecuador, so I only met him briefly.

Once we both start at Castelobruxo, I will certainly make sure to find you! I will make sure to give you as much advice as possible since I’ll have a year up on you if that will help. I know you’ll do amazing at school, even if you do miss your home and your family. You will be able to make friends though, Ari, so do not worry.

I am including a copy of my favorite book, The Sea Girl by Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen. It was originally written in Portuguese, so this copy is translated into Spanish. I hope you will like it!

Love,
Eden

¹= good morning!
²= mom
³ = to be near the sea
⁴= mischievous
⁵= dad