Alright, well I promised to write about the international fair. It was wonderful. All week at school we had international week. Each class chooses a different country to represent, learns about it and then presents about it to the rest of the school. Our class made a video all about what we learned and South Africa. You can see it on our class website as well as some pictures from the fair. I have shared them on the blog. Anyway, the on Saturday all the families of our school come together to teach others about their home country, share travel info, traditions and the best part... food. YUM. So there are many booths set up and each country of our school is represented. Some examples were: Iceland, Greece, Poland, America, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, South Africa, Isreal, Italy, Spain, Holland, Germany, Austria, Austrailia, France, and many more. Of course all our students wanted us to try food from their country so we were really full when we were done :). About half way through the day there was a performance and there were songs, dances, and other acts to represent something of the countries that were there. My favorite was some of the Indian kids (who have also lived in Michigan :) ) danced to a song from Slumdog Millionaire. They were all in their traditional dress and it was so beautiful. We walked around some more after the performance and met up with my teaching partner Suzanne and her husband Mathew. We then went out for drinks with them after the fair and it was nice just to chat. Suzanne has three weeks left and then she's off on her materinity leave.
This week was another crazy week of school because it's Carnaval here. We experienced it first on Thursday, dressing up with our kids at school. I also linked the wesite to the blog. The kids looked great and I wore a blue wig :) courtesy of Suzanne. Then, yesterday we had a professional development day and at 5:00 had cultural time and as a staff all went for drinks and dinner in town. It is already really crazy here. Someone said it will be like living inside a night club for a week. All the bars/restaurants have their tables pulled out and no chairs so they can cram more people in and people overflow into the streets even. There's lots of singing of old fashioned Omm Paa Paa songs as Catherine calls it. And lots of clinking of beer glass/mugs. We had dinner at a nice Greek restaurant and by 10;00 Matt and I were exhausted and ready to go home. Even now I can hear the beat of the music playing somewhere nearby and I wonder how we will be able to sleep tonight? I asked my friend Joey what the average person spends on Carnaval and he said about 300 euro, just for food and beer. It offically lasts from Sunday to Tuesday but everyone started drinking last night. Everything is decorated with red, yellow, and green, along with lots of clowns and confetti. The best part, which I can't wait for, is supposed to be the parades. People all belong to a float group and they start working on the float and costumes in October. Some of the things we have seen already are SO beautiful. Our friend Audrey is in a group that walks in a "Light Parade" which we hope to see tomorrow night. Sometimes, it's like we live in Epcot Center at Disney World. So far no plans to go away but we'll see what Tuesday brings. I am off to brave the grocery store since things will be crazy for like the next two days.
Oh and let me tell you, we are offically Dutch now since we rode our bikes to school three days this week.....IN THE SNOW!!!!!
Tot ziens.
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