End of School year

Here in Bolivia the academic year follows that of the calendar year, so mid december saw the close of Alana’s second year of studying at Acuarela. In order to celebrate the close of the year and the festive season the children had all been busy creating lots of christmassy things and practicing hard for the end of year performance.

In the last week of term we were invited to go and see all of the children's work before coming home with arms loaded full of creations and all of the work completed through the year.

Along with all of the creativity, the children had been learning new songs and a traditional Bolivian dance. On the sunday after the close of term, we made our way to one of the local theatres to watch Alana perform along with her classmates. We were very proud of all that she had achieved and accomplished during the course of the year.

OMO

Having now lived in Bolivia for over 3 years we have come to expect the happenings of random events, some which turn out to be very positive and others not so. Last Sunday turned out to be one of the more positive random happenings.

The other week Alana can home from kinder very excited with an invitation to ‘Al Reino de OMO’ (The kingdom of OMO), OMO being none other than a brand of washing powder! As what we can only assume to be a promotional exercise, this company had put together a medieval castle in one of the parks and were inviting children to come along with their parents to take part in a variety of different activities.

Somewhat sceptically we thought we would take a picnic and go and see what was going on. We were pleasantly surprised to see what appeared to be more of a play-scheme holiday club session than a promotional exercise.

Upon entering the castle we were ushered to the first tent where the children were able to paint and stick glitter onto crowns.

From there they moved across to the second tent where the boys could paint swords and the girls make necklaces. Alana wasn’t all that enamored with her necklace and would much rather have had a sword I think.

From there, they undertook the battle to save the princess from the dragon and had to clamber over and under different obstacles and throw balls to try and hit the dragon. There was even some degree of health and safety involved which surprised us as each child taking part had to put on a cycle helmet and elbow pads.

After they had completed that exercise they took their place on the throne of OMO and became either king or queen of the kingdom with a photo taken to prove it.

At various points throughout the day they also provided other entertainment, during the time we were there it was a magician who was making live doves and rabbits appear and disappear. It was quite amusing to see that many of the children were more excited about seeing a live animal than they were about the trick that had made it appear.

All in all it was a very enjoyable morning, despite being cut a little short by a heavy hail and rain storm, Being the british people we are we still enjoyed our picnic in the rain, huddled together under a brolly.