Independence Day is coming up this Tuesday (the 15th), so there's been a ton of preparation for that. Last week was devoted to cramming as many school assemblies as possible into five days, celebrating everything from the abolition of the army and death penalty, Costa Rica's first astronaut, and something that involved a life sized drawing of Pope John Paul II:
I would have gone with one of him skiing with the sick child on his shoulders, but that's just me. Anyways, I was in charge of the assembly about the abolition of the army, which involved me reading some info I found on the internet, most of which I didn't understand. This also happened to be the day that the guy from Boruca's radio station came to the school with equipment to broadcast the assembly to the rest of the village, since apparently listening to Americans stumble over four paragraphs of Costa Rican history is a popular radio format here.
There's a large parade to go with the Independence Day celebration, and somehow I was named a coach for the school's flag-bearers/marchers. Think of them as a less precise color guard. How I got this job is beyond me, as I have no experience with that sort of thing. Also, I can barely walk in a straight line without tripping over something. But I do have patience and a loud voice, so for a week after school I had 7-10 kids marching around the cement plot in the back of the school. I even changed some of the instructions to English when they fit into the beat of the march better than the longer Spanish words. Pablo, my first grader, has a habit of continuing to march along after I've called for a stop, either oblivious to the command or just really happy to be marching. Anyway, we'll see how it turns out, but I'm not too worried. The fact that 90% of the town is actually in the parade leads me to believe that if we do mess up, not that many people will notice.
Some other pictures from the week:
At least the first two days of classes this week are cancelled for the celebrations, which means that Wednesday probably will be too. There's a whole group of volunteers heading to Manuel Antonio to take a TEFL course (which I decided against because I'm an attendance fiend with my kids, so I couldn't justify taking two weeks off myself), but I'll be heading there next weekend to celebrate two of the vols' birthdays.
Internet hasn't really been working at my site over the past two weeks, but thanks to those who are still sending along messages. Talk to everyone soon.