Dia del Ninos

So unfortunately, this week has been filled with very little teaching, and a lot of celebrating, marching, and other nonsense that takes time away from the classroom. I'm not sure if I mentioned it before, but this Friday is Honduras' Independence Day, which is a HUGE deal here. All the schools in Tela march in a big parade, so for the past three weeks, yes I said three weeks, we've been practicing how to march for the last HOUR of school! A complete waste of time!! Anyways, more of that to come soon ....After only having two days of work last week because of the hurricane, we started off this week with the "Day of the Child" or "Dia del Ninos" on Monday. This is also a big deal here, just like Father's and Mother's Day. Monday began with tons of food and treats being brought in by parents and family. I tried to teach a little bit of math in the morning, to try to squeeze in at least a little bit of education for the day, but that was quickly put to a halt when I heard loudspeakers blaring music in the hallway, right outside my classroom! Oh, and this wasn't just any music, the totally inappropriate play list consisted of songs like Fergie's "Lovely Lady Lumps" and 50 Cent's "Shake That Ass." And this continued on and on for the entire day! I was completely upset and appalled at first, frustrated because we weren't really told what we were supposed to do with the kids all day, and there seemed to just be chaos all over the school. Every time we tried to ask for information, no one could really give us any answers. One teacher would say we don't teach all day, the kids pretty much eat and play games, and dance instead, meanwhile the principal told us we need to teach the first two classes, which wasn't possible anyways because of the loud music! As you can imagine, good communication is really not a priority here! After a while I decided just to make the best of it, this was something important to all the parents and teachers that were there, and a tradition for everyone here, so I thought I'd better just go with it! Plus, I realized it was probably only chaos to Sara and I because we couldn't ever in a million years, see schools getting away with this in California, but I guess it really didn't seem like chaos to anyone else, this was clearly normal for them! So, I sucked it up, cleared away the desks like the other teachers, and let the kids dance and enjoy their day.......The only thing Sara and I were told was to prepare some sort of song or dance for the kids. All the teachers were supposed to perform something. Sara and I weren't really sure what to do, so we figured we might as well try to involve the kids in it, and at the same time make it somewhat worthwhile by teaching them something. So we opted to sing "Down By the Bay" with the kids. We made signs with the words, and pictures to match to help them build vocab. I knew we were in for it as soon as they announced us to come up to the stage, and they introduced the song as "Down Be the By". Sara and I couldn't stop laughing, but fortunately the song went well and the kids did a good job participating. Other events of the day consisted of eating tons of junk food and sweets, hitting a pinata, and dancing, inside and outside of the classrooms!