2nd place

May 30^th is Mother's Day here. There was a celebration at Ari and Calhoun's school last Friday to celebrate us mothers. There was no school on Thursday because of preparation for it and no school in the morning. We arrived at 10:30 for the celebration. Everyone had to bring something. My job was to bring toilet paper (I was grateful since that is hard to screw up). Ari asked me why all the MOTHERS had to bring something for a Mother's Day Celebration. A good question but who else was going to bring things? And I am sure that parties and celebrations are not in the Nicaraguan education budget. So no complaints here. The festivities started (about half an hour late) with some clowns who interviewed kids. I missed a lot of the jokes and those I understood I was trying to translate to Ari (who wanted to understand everything). Then there were a couple poems read by kids. Very cute. There there was a “national dance” by a 5 year old. Either she had stage fright or the national dance entails standing in one place and swinging your dress back and forth. I suspect the former. Then they asked for four mothers to come up.

Crickets.

They asked several more times. There is something about my personality that cannot stand it when no one volunteers and I wanted to fill the gap but refrained because I probably wouldn't understand the directions. I don't really mind embarrassing myself but it seemed a little much to be the first volunteer. Finally two mothers volunteered. And once one person volunteers, usually many follow. But no. Crickets again. So, against my better judgement, I started walking up. I get up there and they ask whether I want to dance or sing. What???? I just volunteered for a contest. I swear they didn't mention that before. Probably to lure innocent mothers to the microphone. I chose singing (obviously- have you seen me dance?) Two of the mothers went in front of me. I had no idea what to sing and not a long time to think about it so I chose a song Ari likes to hear as a lullaby. The words are a silly rhyme but it is about me loving my kids so I thought it would be appropriate. It was the first time I have seen Ari embarrassed of me. She was actually hiding her face. The contest was judged by audience applause. Another mom and I tied. And then she won in the tiebreaker. Maybe I should have sung in Spanish? There were several more contests and games. I did not volunteer again. A couple of classes did little performances and then it was time for the 4 year old beauty contest.

It took me a little while to realize that the 4 year old class was not just going to do a dance in bikinis but that they were pretending to walk down a runway and doing head tosses and hip pivots. In bikinis. And the audience was judging by applause. There was also an evening gown portion but we missed it. The kids had been clamoring for ice cream (the ice cream vendor stands just outside the school gates) and although I had said were not going to get some I decided that it was the perfect time to leave for a few minutes.

We came back and there were a few more (less offensive) contests. At the end we went into our kid's classroom (in my case, Calhoun's) and each mother received a take-out box with delicious chicken, french fries, rice, salad and a piece of cake. I looked around the room. Most mothers were forfeiting the majority of their food to their kids. A pretty appropriate celebration of mothers. :)