Despedidas and Graduation

It was a busy couple of days in Lima this past weekend. Friday night was the despedida (going away party) for the teachers who are leaving. The despedida is a chance for everyone to say goodbye and for the departing teachers to enjoy mostly good-natured skits about their time in Peru, performed by other teachers. Everyone has warned me to be careful what I do in the company of other teachers, particularly at parties, since it will probably come back to haunt me in my despedida. I think I've done all right so far, at least I hope. The skits were incredibly funny and everyone had a great time. And I don't think there were any hurt feelings.

Saturday night was graduation and my band provided the music. We've been working really hard on it and they played so well. I was incredibly pleased with their performance. I think I messed up more than they did! Graduation is held in the gym here at school, which is transformed into this fairly fancy hall. They put up a big tent inside for the stage to be set under and there are huge screens at the front so translations can be beamed up for everyone to see. Most of the ceremony was in Spanish, which was a bit frustrating for me. The common language here at school is English, but the majority of our kids are Peruvian, so they, of course, naturally default to speaking Spanish. And the students chosen to do speeches at graduation, as well as the teacher who was the graduation speaker. were Peruvian, so everything was in Spanish. It made me feel bad for those kids in the graduating class who are English speakers and are fairly new to school - they probably could only understand a fraction of their own graduation ceremony. But other than that, it went well and I'm glad I have experienced one graduation so that I know what to expect next year. And my kids know all the music now, so next year should be a piece of cake! :)