On January 30, my school celebrated the "School Day of Peace and Non-violence." It was founded in 1964 by Llorenç Vidal, a Spanish poet, and is now celebrated in schools all over the world. Its basic message goes, "Universal Love, Non-violence and Peace. Universal Love is better than egoism. Non-violence is better than violence. Peace is better than war." Throughout the week the different classes in my school learned about several peace efforts, and decorated the school with posters, paper cranes, and poems. They also had a short program that they did on the 30th (which I missed since I didn't have work that day).
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| Decorations in the lobby |
Update 1: The program didn't push through last Friday, so they had it today (Monday). The students just made short speeches and did their usual reading poems and phrases about peaces, and sang a few songs.
Aside from the program, the 3º de ESO in my school went to
Alfacar on the 29th to do do an activity with another school there. They spent the week before preparing -- making posters and practicing their speeches and songs.
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| Making the peace poster which had peace written in Spanish, English and French |
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| The hosts practicing |
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| Marina practicing "Let It Be" |
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| 3ºB practicing "Imagine" |
On Thursday we were supposed to leave the school at around 8:15am, but in true Spanish fashion we ended up leaving about half an hour later.
Alfacar is a pueblo in the Granada province about 20 minutes by bus from the city. As it's situated in the mountains, it's much cooler up there and also has amazing views.
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| Alfacar |
We headed to the other school first
I.E.S. Al-fakar (which is Alfacar in Arabic), met up with the students, and then walked to the
ayuntamiento. Alfacar is quite the small town as you may be able to deduce from the small size of the
ayuntamiento (city hall) in the picture below.
For the program, my school did a short version of the program they would be doing at the radio station. Two of my students acted as hosts, taking turns speaking in English and Spanish. We sang several songs, recited a few poems and the school directors gave short speeches. We even had a spokesperson from UNICEF say a few words.
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| Lucia and Clara hosting in Spanish and English |
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| Some students from the other school read several phrases about peace in Spanish, English, French and Russian |
We ended the activity with
"Imagine" by John Lennon. The students from my school started singing, and by the chorus everyone else joined in. Some of the students also had cut outs of "peace hands" on which they had written something about peace, and during the song they came up to the front to stick it on the posters.
In the bus and upon arriving at Alfacar, all my students kept asking me "Have you tried the bread of Alfacar?" Suffice to say, Alfacar is most famous for its bread. Even in the city you'll see several stores saying that they have
pan de Alfacar for sale there. One of the directors of my school who was with us told me that the bread of Alfacar is very good because of the water it's made with (the water from Alfacar is apparently of very good quality), and because it's baked in brick ovens. Every morning, plenty of bakers come down to the city to sell their bread. My English teacher even mentioned that she has someone deliver bread to her house every morning for just 70 cents! Luckily for me the snack we had after the program was bread. The bread they served was a sweet bread with chocolate in the middle and sugar on top. It was quite good, though a bit too sweet for me. I'll have to try the plain bread rolls, so I can see if I can taste the difference.
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| Pan de Alfacar |
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| Students lining up for snacks |
For the next activity, we headed to the municipal theatre were we listened to several prisoners talk about their experience. We were seated far away from the stage since we were going to leave early, so I unfortunately didn't hear and understand much. The director of my school who sat beside me told me though that they shared their life stories with the students, and most of them were related to drugs, and some with robbery as well.
Our last stop of the day was to
Radio Alfaguara, a local radio station. My students had spent the past two weeks preparing, and they were all pretty excited.
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| Radio Alfaguara |
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| Debriefing before the program |
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| Some of the students on the other side of the room |
Our program ran for about an hour. We had four students as our hosts who took turns speaking in Spanish and English. We recited poems and phrases about peace in Spanish, English, Filipino, French, and Arabic. One student sang two Spanish songs, and a group of students sang
"Let It Be" by the Beatles and
"Imagine" by John Lennon (will post several videos next!).
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| Marina singing a Spanish song, "No dudaría" |
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| Lucia and Marta saying famous phrases in Spanish and English |
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| Ángel, our school director, saying a few words |
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| Lola, the technology teacher who organized the trip saying a few words |
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| Me with Feli and Marta who read the English and Spanish translations of the Filipino poem I recited |
It was a pretty fun day getting to know another city a little more and hanging out with some of my students. I really enjoy working with this level because they're friendly (and crazy!), they talk to me, and they always make an effort to speak in English.
Update 2: A group picture of all of us at the radio station :)
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