Mother's Day in Nicaragua: it's a big deal. With good reason: I'm pretty sure that the society would instantaneously collapse if Nicaraguan mothers stopped their daily devotions. Nicaraguan mothers are worshiped by their children, even if the men in their lives don't always treat them as well...Given this context, it's pretty unsurprising that many of the schools where I work only had one day of school this week.
Monday: School! Learning!!
Tuesday: School-wide Mother's Day celebrations, with mothers invited to watch. And no celebration would be complete without folklore dancing, hoochy dancing, and poetry reading
Wednesday: Town-wide Mother's Day celebration
Thursday: Holiday- no school, etc.
Friday: TEPCE= teacher meetings
Most frustrating: On Monday, I got trapped in El Tule, one of the rural schools, for an hour and half because the bus passed on the highway instead of going through town like it usually does. Due to this, I missed my class for the 7/8th graders, after I had planned an awesome lesson about animals. (Who doesn't love animal jeopardy!?) But did the kids show up? No, they did not. So I was doubly grumpy.
Most fun: My sitemate Christina wanted to do an activity with some of the little kids in town we've become friends with, so we decided to do a Mother's Day craft: recycled bead bracelets/necklaces! We were trying to figure out how to get kids to come to the event, when we stopped by the primary school to go talk to the delegado, the equivalent of a regional superintendent, more or less. While we were there, the kids mobbed us to say hi, and so we asked them if they wanted to do crafts with us the following day. Surprisingly, with a little prodding from a few of their friends, we had 13 kids show up, including a lot of young boys, which is great, because I'm sure we kept them out of trouble for the afternoon. It was noisy and a little crazy, but a lot of fun. Chris and I are hoping to do more crafts with them in the future. You can see the instructions on how to make the beads here!
Awkwardest: Several people have told me that I can celebrate Mother's Day too, because I will be a mother in the future. There is no way in hell I would be honest and express that I'm not particularly interested in having children. It's great that women are celebrated for the tremendous work that they do as mothers, but it's also incredibly limiting that the very definition of what it means to be a woman is reduced to motherhood.
Song of the Week: This is the way I ______________
My counterpart Jonathan taught this one to me. It's great to review basic verbs (you can use any phrase that fits the rhythm of the song) and days of the week/times of the day.
(Do the actions as you say them)
This is the way I brush my teeth, brush my teeth, brush my teeth, brush my teeth
This is the way I brush my teeth, on Monday in the morning
This is the way I brush my hair, brush my hair, brush my hair
This is the way I brush my hair, on Tuesday in the morning
This is the way I wash my hands, wash my hands, wash my hands
This is the way I wash my hands, on Wednesday in the morning.
Etc.
Ah, Emily. What it means to be a woman is fully encompassed in Motherhood.
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