Friday was International Child’s Day and Pett celebrated with all the elementary students. First, let me back up and remind everyone how the town leaders asked me to run a few activities then decided to do presentations themselves. They all told me to be at the school at 7am and in the back of my mind I knew I didn’t need to go until 8am at the earliest but they were very insistent. Friday rolls around and I am prepared to do musicals chairs and an empowering chant with the kids. I arrive at 7:30am and to no surprise no one from the COCODE is there. I find the school director and we chat a little and he tells me the school has actually already planned out a ton of events with the teachers. I soon realize there was zero communication between the school and the COCODE members which just meant I was completely confused. I also told everyone from the start I HAD to be on the road by 11am to make it to Huehue for a veterinarian appointment.
9am arrives and finally some COCODE members show up. They tell me “Fijese que…we have a meeting in Santa so no one can do anything anymore. You can stay and run the whole thing and do some skits, right?” WRONG! I had to kindly remind them that I had to leave. I could do what I originally planned but I would not be able to stay all day. I was very frustrated with the fact that the whole COCODE was going to be involved and had planned this whole thing only to completely bail at the last minute. Whatever I told myself. I will do what I want to do and leave when I have to.
After this a teacher tells me before they start any presentations the “NBA está aqui” (The NBA is here). He said they are this tall and pointed to his knee. I had to laugh when I say the kindergarten students playing in a basketball game. Instead of the regular sized baskets there were smaller baskets and backboards hanging from the real ones. The kids hardly knew how to dribble and the ball was half their size. It was adorable to watch and I had to just sit back and let the day happen. So what if nothing was going according to plan. O well.
At about 10am (two hours after I was originally told it would start) the kids filed into the main room and the presentations began. I asked if I could do my activity first sine I had to leave. First I did a yelling empowerment activity with the kids. I had them all yell “I am a child. I am the future of the world. I have the power to change the world!” We did a competition between sides and I think the kids liked it. Hopefully they will remember the words and that the words will have a little bit of meaning. After that I did musical chairs. I had 13 volunteers come up to the stage and we played until there was one girl standing. I felt bad I had to leave but I ditched out right after my activity. As I was exiting I saw all the teachers dressed up in silly costumes for some skit. I was bummed I couldn’t stay and watch more.
The rest of the weekend I just went to Huehue and visited the vet. Lubu is all of 8.5 pounds now! Almost double since last time. I also bought her a cute pink collar so everyone knows she is a girl. I only stayed one night and then returned back home to my site.
Other news…I decided to change how I am going to do my first community charla. Originally, I was going to do six charlas with each of the six sectors. However, I had this overwhelming fear that no one would come, or worse, like two people would come. I decided for this first charla I will do one with the whole community and gauge the interest level. The town will go around and use the loud speakers to announce this one charla so I am hoping I get a decent turnout. The only bad thing is that leaves me with less charlas which means less work which means more boredom. Ugh. I am still working on ways to pass my time. I never knew how much I would appreciate a hectic schedule. I like my downtime and all but I think I have learned I am someone who likes to be busy busy!
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