Happy Children's Day!

Today we celebrate Children's Day here in Mozambique.  The primary schools don't have classes, but the kids usually still go to school and play.  For Francelino's siblings and other kids in the neighborhood I bought them some candies and we're currently we're having a dance party in the living room.  Later the plan is to make popcorn and watch a movie (probably Shrek or Puss in Boots; those are their favorites at the moment). Why don't we have a Children's Day in the US?  (I think my parents used to say that every day was Children's Day, and thinking about all of the opportunities that many kids have in the U.S. growing up compared to kids here, I'll take that answer).

My JUNTOS workshop is coming up in a week so little by little I have been buying materials for the students attending.  I went and signed a contract with a nearby school to be able to have the event there and I am going shopping with a woman from the school on Tuesday to buy food for 60 people for the weekend!  I'm getting really excited for it!

Yesterday was Tobacco and Drug Awareness Day so my JUNTOS group presented a skit and dance for our school.  They did a GREAT job! I'll add some pictures of their intro dance below I tried to upload a video but the internet is just not strong enough. They did a skit about peer pressure and the consequences of drinking and smoking.  It was a hit!  Working with them is really fun and usually a bit more interesting than just teaching classes.

I gave a test to a few of my classes today.  With 70-80 kids per class and 3 kids sharing a desk, you have to be strict and creative to prevent kids from cheating! I made two versions of the test that looked almost identical but had slightly different questions and slightly different answers.  It took the kids a while to catch onto this and on the way out many kids said to me, "teacher you are very clever!" because some of the cheating kids did not catch on that they were cheating off of tests different from their own. GOT 'EM!  I have been tough enough on them that at least now they don't try to use cheat sheets, dictionaries, or their notebooks as much, but cheating off of each other is still a problem!

Hope you enjoy pictures of my cultural group dancing below!