Día del Maestro

June 17th was the last day of school before the kids here at NPH left for a week of vacation. Approximately half our kids were able to go home to spend a week with their families, while the other kids at least got a week off from school. Friday also marked the day to celebrate “Teacher’s Day” here at NPH.

The day started off with presentations from each of the Básico classes for the teachers. There were traditional dances, songs (including one that Hugo sang to the music teacher entitled “I’m in Love with Your Daughter” now THAT was awesome!), skits, and competitions…including the one that I got roped into. They asked for 2 male and 2 female teachers to go to the front and after hearing my name from the audience I was corralled to the front for the presentation. Our task? To be the first contestant to pour soda from a bottle into a balloon…and then drink it out of the balloon. The challenge? The men got Pepsi…the women got some sort of weird soda concoction that tasted like a combination of 7-Up and cough syrup. Needless to say…I didn’t win…but I was ok with that…because the winner had to do it again! (My hands were also dyed red for a good 5 hours afterward…)

Traditional Guate dress

Girls doing a traditional Guatemalan dance

Hugo and Company singing "I'm in Love with your Daughter"...so much passion!

Racing to finish our soda!

A segundo class singing to the teachers

Acting the fool...aka completely drunk making fun of the Gym teachers

Anyhoo! After the presentations, each of the teachers was assigned to a classroom where the kids had prepared something special for them. In our classroom the kids had brought in the materials to make everyone sandwiches: bread, ham, tomatoes, lettuce, onions, ketchup, and mayonnaise…not exactly what I would have picked…but how can you say no? We ate our sandwiches and then it was time for all the English teachers to be judges at the festivities for Primaria.

The kids preparing our meal

Now when I hear “Día del Maestro” I’m thinking – awesome – a day for the teachers to have fun and relax, right?? WRONG. Instead of having fun and relaxing and doing nothing, the English teachers became judges for the Primaria games…and I got stuck with the stupidest game I’ve EVER seen ANYWHERE (and I’ve seen some pretty stupid games here…) Basically there was a huge bucket filled with water. The students were given sponges and told to fill a tube that was COVERED in holes (including a huge one on the bottom) with water so that a golf ball would pop out the top. Doesn’t sound THAT awful does it? Maybe you’ll change your tune when I say the tube was about 3 feet long and had roughly 100 holes in it. AND GO!

Trying to make the longest line of clothes and people...

Alphabet volleyball

The world's worst game.

The teams would try to achieve their task as a team together for roughly 3 of the 10 minutes they were supposed to be playing…and then they would forget about that impossible idea and instead begin pelting each other with the dripping wet foam sponges and trying to steal the hose out of my hand. I ended up completely soaking wet and covered in mud. Not exactly my idea of a fun way to celebrate teachers…