United Nations Day

For United Nations Day, each class was assigned a country to represent. 3rd grade (my class) was assigned the United States of America and 2nd grade (Christina's class) was given the Philippines. Each class needed to make a large banner to carry in the parade that showed the highlights of their respective country. They also had to learn and song or dance and wear clothing or a costume representative of their country.

We spent most of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday practicing our routines and making the banner. They was almost no teaching of actual lessons (unfortunately). The parade was on Thursday.

Christina and I arrived on Thursday at 11:00am as instructed and, of course, no other administrators or teachers arrived until noon. We set up tents and chairs for the parents and students. At about 1:00pm, all the classes lined up for the parade. We marched down the street, to the end of our barrio, and back again. We were even escorted by an ambulance with siren blaring. It all went very smoothly. (Notice the hamburger, hot dog, Statue of Liberty, and dollars on our poster. By the way, unlike other classes, my poster was all student created). Back at the school, we all took our seats to watch the student performances. The principal discussed the meaning of today and began to introduce the first class. Right then, the electricity was shut off. The city turns off the electricity at least once a week so we were not surprised. The problem is most classes had music on CD's to dance to and now they couldn't. The school didn't really know what to do. They had the parents go eat some food they had for sale and then we waited. And waited. Cuba is waiting (a Cuban rockstar guarded by Fidel Castro & Che Guevara):We waited 2 hours. Finally, the principal had my class and another class perform since we didn't need musical accompaniment. My class performed "This Land is Your Land" with body movements. The other class (representing Brazil) performed a little Capoeira. One of the boys could play a unique wooden instrument. Then we continued waiting. Finally someone got the idea to locate a generator. A few cellphone calls later and the show was back on. Unfortunately by that time, many parents and students had already given up and went home. The cute kindergarteners and 1st graders didn't perform because not enough were leftbut Christina's class got to go on. The performed a typical Filipino dance called Tinkling. The kids were great. Click on the link to see a sample of their dance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2SakVoVuq0
Japan demonstrated a little dancing and karate:
Except for the electrical problems and waiting, it was a very enjoyable day. The kids had a lot of fun performing and dressing up. Plus, Friday we had no school for the holiday so after it was all over, Christina and I grabbed our bags and hopped on the bus for Pico Bonito National Park.