Yesterday my school celebrated the equivalent of America’s Field Day. Do you remember in Elementary school when everyone in the school participated in sports or games for the entire day? All the kids carried around backpacks with sunscreen, water, a hat, and a packed lunch. There were events like shuttle runs, jump rope, basketball shooting contests, and so forth and the teachers kept track of everyone’s score. Then at the end of the exhausting day the kids would receive a printout with the top 5 finishers in each event as well as a much-deserved Popsicle. It was by far my favorite day of the year for obvious reasons. A day of sports, what could be better? I still have the printout of results from my last Field Day. Well this was kind of the same thing except the kids didn’t compete individually in events for a score.
All of the teachers were wearing a polo with the Menendez y Pelayo logo on it. This year the polo’s were blue but a few people wore last year’s polo, which was violet. As promised Pocho gave me a violet polo from last year but it was too small for me to wear so I decided to wear my purple track shirt to blend in. Even though I couldn’t wear the polo I decided to keep it as a souvenir of my time at the school. All of the kids came to school with a mini backpack full of water, a packed lunch, tons of snacks, and a hat. Once all the children had arrived to school it was time to head off to Los Pinos. For sexto and quinto it meant a 5.5 km walk from Valverde to the wooded area but for the rest of school (infantil to quarto) it meant an air-conditioned 10-minute bus ride. Christen and I got the chance to walk with the older kids. I decided to lead the pack with Pocho and Nuria while the other teachers interspersed themselves in the middle and the end of the pack. I enjoyed the walk because it was a beautiful day with a light breeze and a few clouds. I also liked that I could go my own pace instead of stepping on the back of shoes of kids that walked like molasses. After the first km the pack of kids directly behind me trickled down to just a handful of kids. I forgot to time how long it took us to walk but I would say it was roughly an hour and a half.
Once we arrived to Los Pinos we joined the rest of the school. Infantil was off to the side in a roped off area so that the little kids wouldn’t wonder off. The rest of the kids were sprawled all over the place with little clumps of backpacks at each tree stump. The teachers had set up camp with three large picnic tables and lots of fold up chairs. After a 10 minute grace period the Vice Principle of the school got all the quinto and sexto children together and explained the scavenger hunt that was supposed to occupy them for the majority of the day. While we were walking to Los Pinos the other teachers were busy hiding clues all over the woods for the scavenger hunt. The kids had to find the clues and figure out the riddles on each clue. Once they solved the riddle they had a word that would fit into a sentence but they had to organize the sentence into the proper order in order to successfully finish the hunt. I thought it was a really clever way of entertaining the older kids.
The rest of the school played for half an hour while the teachers ate breakfast and chatted. After everyone was well caffeinated it was time for the games to begin. The teachers of each class were assigned a certain game to play and each class would rotate to their station to play. There was no score keeping, just bragging right. Since I was a specialist teacher, like Pocho, I wasn’t in charge of any activity. For the rest of the morning all of the specialist teachers just relaxed, ate, and talked while the other teachers dealt with the kids. I had the opportunity to do the same but that’s just not my style. Instead I offered to help Inma (the quarto teacher I work with) run her game. After spending some time at Inma’s station I decided to wonder around all of the stations and take pictures of all the kids. All of the kids looked like they were really enjoying themselves and having a good time. I kind of liked that the games were all centered on teamwork since I was recently informed that the kids almost never work in teams. It was very easy to see who the competitive kids of each class were right away. At around 12 the games concluded and it was officially lunchtime.
All of the kids had packed lunches so they were taken care of; it was the teachers that needed to be fed. We all ate sandwiches of jamon and queso, crackers with pâté, tuna empanadas, and beans and leafs. Unlike the American Field Day the teachers were all drinking beer, which I thought was pretty funny. During our lunch break the quinto and sexto kids started turning up from the scavenger hunt. It wasn’t until midway through lunch that a winner was determined and all of the groups of students had returned. It was nice hanging out with all of the teachers and seeing them interact. I got to hangout with teachers I never see so that was a welcomed change. At one point Maria, the principle of Menendez, wanted a group picture of all the teachers so I also got my camera out and asked the gentleman to take pictures with it. As much as I enjoyed just sitting and listening to all of the teachers I knew I couldn’t do it for the rest of the day. It was not even 1 o’clock and I had finished my lunch and run out of new things to talk about with my colleagues. We weren’t supposed to leave until after 4pm and there was nothing else for the teachers to do. I guess most people in my position would have been perfectly happy sitting, eating, and relaxing but I’m not like most people. As I discussed with Inma earlier in the day, sometimes we have a better time interacting with the kids then with the teachers and this was one of those times for me.
With my camera in hand I decided to take this opportunity to play with my kids, something I’ve been wanting to do since day one. There were two groups of kids playing with a soccer ball; one was the older kids and the other the younger kids. I decided to start out with the younger kids and move to the older kids a little later. I asked my first and second graders if I could join them and they excitedly consented. They kept asking me if I liked playing futbol and kept telling them the same thing, “Of course!” Naturally it started out with everyone against Erica but slowly pairs formed and I wasn’t the only target of the group. More and more younger kids joined in and soon I had a decent amount of my kids playing with me. It was AWESOME. Sometimes I played goalie and other times I would help out the less skilled kids by passing to them and giving them the chance to touch the ball. I quickly learned who the ball hogs were and took it upon myself to keep them from getting the ball or scoring. I also really impressed the kids when I punted the ball really high. They liked that. Anytime I took a minute to take a picture, talk with a kid passing by or look like I wasn’t 100% engaged in the “game”, one kid or another would remind me to keep playing as if I forgot that that was why I was here. A few times I walked away to get a drink of water, help a kid find his teacher, or so on they would all scream at me to come back and play, again as if they couldn’t possibly continue to play if I wasn’t there to play with them. Aww I finally felt wanted for a change.
As much as I wanted to play for me I also wanted to show the other teachers how much I enjoy interacting with kids. Since I can’t really explain my passion for kids in Spanish my best bet is through example and only five teachers have ever really seen me with the kids so this was my chance for everyone to see how much I enjoy my job. It couldn’t have worked out any better because when I took a brief break a few of the teachers I never talk with came up to me and talked about soccer or about sports in general. It was a win-win situation for me. I got to spend the whole afternoon playing soccer, I gained respect from my peers, and my kids finally got to see me for who I am: a futbol enthusiast. To the dismay of my youngsters I decided to spend some time with the older kids. Naturally I joined the team with the only girl on it. For the most part I didn’t know any of these kids because they were predominantly sexto kids but they quickly warmed up to me and were just as enthused as the youngsters were when I joined in. Despite my lack of ball touches, mainly due to the fact that anytime I got the ball ten kids would charge me, I was able to score a goal. The best part of my day however was when one of the older girls called me over. She took the liberty of telling me that she plays for a soccer team in Huelva. Although it was only her first year she was hoping to continue it next year. It touched my heart that she sought me out and felt like telling me that. Here I was thinking that no girl in Valverde played soccer and she proved me wrong. If I hadn’t of played futbol I would have never known that. I kind of felt like her role model; like watching me play futbol made it okay that she wanted to play futbol as well. We talked about futbol for a little and then I insisted that she join in the game but she declined because she said she wasn’t as good as me. I tried to encourage her that it didn’t matter and that it was all in fun but she still declined.
After some time with the older kids I went over to the teacher’s station to get a drink of water and help one of my kids get water. Juan, the VP, offered me beer and I politely declined saying that I always prefer water. That seemed to shock him because I think it’s standard for every adult to drink beer. I took this time to catch my breath and sit for a little. We still had a good hour and half left before it was time to go. I rested for 10 or so minutes but then I realized that the ball the youngsters were playing with was gone and so they weren’t playing soccer anymore. I noticed my favorite first grader sitting in the sand looking kind of sad so I took the liberty of finding another ball to play with from the box of equipment that the gym teacher had brought to Los Pinos. I asked him if he wanted to play with me and he jumped at the opportunity. Slowly my appearance attracted a few other first graders and we had another good game going. However this time around everyone had to pick a player to be. I never thought I’d say this but I got the opportunity to play soccer with Ronaldo, Messi, Raul, Kaka, Xabi, Iniesta, and Ibrahimovich. I was Torres of course :)
Our game was interrupted when Juan came around and taped off the area we were using as a goal. He was using the kind of tape the police use to block off a crime scene except this tape was white. At first I thought he was doing this to get the kids to come closer to the teacher’s instead of wondering off into the forest but I was wrong. It took me a minute of two to figure it out but the purpose of the tape was to form the outline of an obstacle course for the kids. In groups of three, the kids would race each other around some trees, jump over three low hurdles, climb under three normal size hurdles in the dirt, and then finish with a summersault on a cushioned mat. The older kids instantly lined up but it wasn’t until the kids started racing that the younger kids decided to join in as well. I took this opportunity to get some water but then Juan (the sexto teacher, there are four Juan teachers) shook his head and said, “I don’t think so. You’re running the obstacle with me.” I couldn’t back down to a challenge so I told him as long as he found a third teacher I was in. He got the other sexto teacher, Juan Carlos, to race me as well. Here I was a 22-year-old girl about to run an obstacle course against two white haired 60-year-old men haha. All the girls wished me luck and before I knew it we were off. I wasn’t planning on going 100% but then Juan Carlos shot off like a cannon. Man could he sprint! The race lasted a good 30 seconds but it was exhausting. The whole time all of the students were cheering my name. Nobody could tell because of all of the dust but I was blushing. I came in second, not my best performance by any means but I had fun so that’s what counts hehe.
After the race I had to wash off my hands, they were filthy. I was covered in dirt/sand from head to foot thanks mainly to the soccer. After grabbing a cookie, I retrieved my camera, headed back to the course and found a good seat to take some pictures of my students. I have to admit I got some banging action shots of my kids running (See album below). As I watched the kids race one of my first graders, Maria, stood behind me with her mom and sister. Maria is the quietest and smallest girl in first grade. I’ve never heard her speak a word unless Rocio calls on her and even in that case her voice is barely audible. Here she was laughing and talking up a storm. I was shocked. I figured it was because she was with her mom but then she actually talked to me and started playing ticks on me. It was really cute.
The races continued for another half hour. I guess it was finally time to wrap everything up so the teacher’s started handing out popsicles. Chaos ensued as in normally does when popsicles are involved. It took us another 45 minutes to pack everything up, collect trash, round up the kids, and pack things into the cars. By the time all of the parents left with their children each class was down to only a handful of kids. Raquel’s second grade class had a whopping seven children left at the end of the day haha. Something happened with the buses and it took them a long time to finally come and pick up the children. On the bus ride home all the kids in the back kept singing that “Olay, Olay” chant that people say at soccer games. Once again my ears were bleeding. I didn’t get back to Menendez until 6pm. So much for a 4 o’clock finish. I finally walked into my house with a splitting headache, super exhausted and filthy at 6:30pm. It was the by far the longest day I’ve ever spent with my children. When I took my socks and shoes off my feet were caked with black dust. There was no avoiding it, I had to take a shower.
