Teacher´s Day!

Last Friday we had a celebration at both of our schools in honor Teacher´s Day, which seems to be a holiday only in Nicaragua (although it should be everywhere). When we both got home we discussed our experience and realized that they were a little different. At Jenny´s school the celebration was pretty typical, dancing etc., but not that many students showed up and it was fairly underwhelming. Whereas at my school the students really seemed to get into it. I got there a little after it had started and one of my counterpart showed me where all the teachers were sitting, right in front of the stage in a few rows of chairs surrounded by the students. So, not thinking about it I grabbed a seat in the front row, which was surprisingly empty.... We had a student MC who announced the different acts from the different classes, you know the usual folkloric dances and poems.

Then, on to the reggaeton! The next, ooh, 8 dances were mainly different choreographed reggaeton dances with a little salsa mixed in. For those who don´t know reggaeton is a newer genre of rap music(a combination of raggae roots and rap), more or less, and is HUGE here Latin countries.
Best part for the students was when they would come off the stage into the area where the teachers were sitting and dance in front/with/for the teachers as the sat there. A little embarassing... I tried to occupy myself with as many things as possible, i.e. my camera and my glass of pop so as to not get dragged into anything more embarassing. I also enjoyed the fact that after one of the songs where the girls came and dance in front of the teachers I looked back at my counterpart who was sitting in the backrow (obviously) and says to me ,"You nervous?" with a smile.

After the celebration ( called an acto in Spanish) there was food for the teachers, pelguey, which is some sort of goat/sheep combination that my school always cooks for important events. I had it at a different event at my school and its good, but I was too hungry so I skipped it this time. But in the end I got to go home with a gift from the students and they had a lot of fun.
On top of that earlier this week both of our community class that we have at a place called the Telecentro gave us presents for Teacher´s Day. We each got traditional Nicaragua shirts which were really cool and which we were not expecting.
Jenny with my class. Our Telecentro classes had a ¨field trip¨ to the park to get to know each other a little bit better. After class, they presented the presents. I was at home planning, but they came by our house to present me with the shirt after class.