First Week of Classes

January 25 – January 31

     Happy First Week of Classes! 3^rd grade entered school on Monday, 2^nd on Tuesday, and 3^rd on Wednesday and now everyone’s at school. I made nametags for 1^st grade, taught a short lesson on colors in 2^nd grade, and observed a few classes this week. I feel like I’ve done most of my teaching and learning, though, during recreo (recess). I taught a group of students how to play Down by the Banks in English and they taught me how to play Perro muerto and Café, chocolate, té in Spanish.

     I met a few volunteers on Thursday at Carambolo for frozen yogurt and visiting and then one of them took me to the Museo Etnográfico to meet a few people I might work with in the future. Then, on Friday, we had two of the volunteers’ despedida. The party was wonderful, with lots of friends and good food. Just visiting and talking with everyone was great – like I said before, I’ll miss these volunteers, who have also become my good friends, but I’m glad to have met them here and hope I’ll see them again in the United States.

     Saturday evening, I went with a volunteer to see another volunteer dance in a Carnaval parade as part of her comparsa (dance group). The event was extremely Colombian and didn’t start even close to on time and no one knew where they were starting or going and the leader of our friend’s dance group and the parade director got into a fight and the group ended up not dancing. However, we watched quite a few kids from the neighborhood dance and they were awesome, so the evening turned out great.

- How to play Perro muerto: Sit in a circle with your hands on your knees, palms up. Each person should put his or her right hand on top of the left hand of the person sitting to his or her right (so your left hand should be under the right hand of the person sitting to your left). Sing the following song, including a number from 1 to 9 in place of 1 (in Spanish, of course). Hold hands and swing them back and forth while you sing. Then, go around the circle with each person saying the next number (in counting order), skipping the numbers that contain the number that you sang earlier. Each time someone says a number, (s)he picks up his/her right hand and slaps the hand on top of his/her left hand. Example:

“Abajo de mi cama,

Hay un perro muerto.

Él que diga uno

Se lo come muerto.”

“2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 20, 22, [etc.]”

(Notice how we skipped all numbers that contain 1? We skipped 1, 10-19, and 21. Do the same, replacing “uno” with other numbers 1 through 9.)

- How to play Café, chocolate, té: Stand in a circle, holding hands. Begin to walk in a circle (either direction), chanting, “Café, chocolate, té”. Immediately drop hands, take a step back, and shout “¡La tengo yo!” while raising your hand. This is where it gets confusing because there’s no real turning-taking order – the next “It” is just someone who hasn’t gone, yet. The first time around, the group just picks someone with his or her hand up to go and subsequent rounds, the person who went the last time picks. Whoever is “It” has 1, 2, or 3 (depending on how you’re playing) steps to try to step on another player’s foot. Players are not allowed to move except 1 step to “defend themselves” by moving their foot out of the way. If “It” steps on someone’s foot, the player whose foot he or she stepped on is out and then the game continues. If not, the game just continues.