July 24. - 17th Annual Children's Day

Today me, Liesa, Becs, Dave and Nicole helped with Children's day (why don't we have Children's Day in Canada?! Geez Louise!) First there was a parade (which started 2 hours late, of course - but we waited excitedly on the side of the road until it started nonetheless, we couldn't resist the temptation to walk down the road singing songs we didn't know while a non-existant crowd of onlookers cheered us on) Afterwards, we watched some speeches delivered on the importance of education - one of the primary school girls read a speech that I wrote for her, in English! I was so proud.

Give the children a chance to speak their mind.

Children like Rivaldo.

Then, there were the gifts. All of the kids ligned up and were decorated and given gifts, some education-related (bookbags, pencils, etc.) The kids were so excited, I had the feeling that this was better than birthdays for some of them. It would be for me, at least, if we had this holiday in Canada (Mom? Dad? Did you miss that memo?) No one from Larevet was able to come down, except Nicole's mom, Naomi, who had brought gifts for me as well - a beautiful basket, and a necklace. She brought kaikai for me, Nicole, Tara and Jess, so that we could be a part of the day as well - I was so touched, as was Nicole - the cake was pink, just for her! All of the families had picnics around the school. Dave ate with a family who no one knew; they plain old flagged him down and invited him to join them - I am endlessly overwhelmed by how welcoming this community is.

Children's day picnic.

After lunch we had games prepared for the afternoon. We played dodgeball, three legged, wheelbarrow and relay races, simon says, and we tried red rover too, but had to stop when we had an injury (poor Alisha - she had a broken arm already but no one knew...) The kids here don't care about winning - they just want to play. We were playing dodgeball (team Ronaldo and Ronaldhino - these Ni-van kids love the Brazilians) and all of a sudden the two teams ran up to me, fighting over which team had won. Being me, obviously, I didn't know what to tell them, because I don't understand the rules of the dodgeball they play here, so I did my best. "You all win!" I said, enthusiastically. They looked at each other for a second. "Ok!" they all said, moving on to the next round. You would never see that at home. In my experiences with Canadian kids, you get more of a "he only did 9 jumping jacks when he was supposed to do 10 it's not fair make him start over" type of response...not here. These kids are more concerned with the process than the outcome, although they don't realize it, and I love it. The adults are like that too, really. Other than letting their kids run around with large knives (something that Becca has now decided is a good idea and a tact that she will instill in her future children) they raise their kids with incredible values here. Part of this has to do with religion, I'm sure, but a big part of it is that this community is full of very kind, generous, good people.