Where in the World is Bob Marley?

Hey guys,

Here at the Rural Education Institute, Erin, Catherine, and I have been all hands on deck putting the Christmas concert together. We've got students writing plays, making luminaries and piñatas, and putting together some interesting media projects. The show is less than two weeks away and I personally am feeling the pressure to get everything done; posters and tickets are made, songs have been chosen, and skits have been written, but we're still working on logistics like sound system, program, rehearsals, costumes, and our putting together our own teacher song and dance for the students.

My morning primary class was, as usual, a dream this week. They've written an exceptionally cute play about a Christmas tree whose ornaments fight over their spots on his branches until they learn that the true meaning of Christmas is sharing with your friends. So as you can imagine, we've got a lot of cardboard to paint this week - some kids are playing the roles of presents, while others are Christmas bells, balls, or stars. And of course, there is the role of the tree himself - brilliantly portrayed by Arturo, my class' biggest space cadet. We're even hoping to dress him up in some Christmas lights.

We played a pretty rousing game of music geography in the middle-school class this week - I played songs from all over the world and they worked in teams to guess the genre, country, and locate it on the world map. They guessed Vicente Fernandez in about 0.0005 seconds, and Daddy Yankee was also popular. They struggled with Bob Marley ("Japan??? France???") and looked appalled and confused when I played "La Habanera" from Bizet's Carmen. They were, however, familiar with Wagner from movie soundtracks. The game got pretty heated, actually - when I tried to leave it as a tie there was general outrage. Middle-schoolers are so competitive.

We had a really nice class in Jalpa this week - Erin helped most of the kids make bracelets and earrings, while I took the ones who wanted to out to play soccer. Even most of the boys wanted to make jewellery  and some of our "tough guys" looked pretty cute as they proudly displayed the sparkly butterfly necklaces or shiny earrings they had made. It was such a hit that we'll do it again on Monday; the class finally earned their party for filling up the good behaviour bottle with beans!

Thanks for reading, as always.