They began the event with a handful of kids from each grade (1 through 6) and had them recite some writings they did in class, related to peace.
Grades 1 and 2: A sentence of "What is peaceful to me" (in English)
Grades 3 and 4: A brief idea or suggestion to make the world more peaceful (in English)
Grades 5 and 6: A poem recited by memory about peace (in Spanish)
The first kid in the youngest group said, "I feel peecefool when I am weeth my pah-reents." *cue awwws from audience*
The second kid says "I feel peecefool when I am een my house weeth my fah-mee-lee ahnd my brah-there." *cue awws from audience*
The third kid goes up and takes the mic, "I feel peecefool when I am watching TV awn thee couch." *cue roaring laughter from all children and parents*
Then the parents calmed down, but of course the little children are laughing and laughing and laughing until the Australian teacher takes the mic and says "We are WAITING..." in a stern voice until they calmed down.
Then the kids in grades 3 and 4 go up and say things that would make the world more peaceful. "There should be no war." "Eet ees bad that there are poor pee-oh-pole. I weesh that there are no more poor pe-oh-pull."
Then the kids in grades 5 and 6 recited some acrostic and rhyming poems in Spanish.
Then, the whole group of students, grades 1 through 6 (about 200 kids) sang "We Are the World."
Yes, that Michael Jackson (and friends) one.
The kids put their hands on each others' shoulders and swayed, while some threw their hands up and waved them to the music, and towards the end, they all clapped to the beat.
It was super cute and I of course wish I had my video camera. It was great because they'd all be mumbling most of the lyrics until the chorus when they would all clearly shout "WEE ARE THEE WOHRLD! WEE ARE THEE CHEELDREN!"
After that rousing performance, five children stood up, each holding giant 3-foot-diameter white balloons by a string. Next to each of them was another child, with a highly decorated poster with one of the continents written on it.
The kids went outside, and after a big "ONE TWO THREE!" They let go of the balloons to be symbolic of peace (or maybe of war, since they were getting rid of them?).
Let's stop there. Notice how I said five children? I'll get to that in a minute.
That was pretty much the end. The teachers got on the mic and thanked the parents for coming, and the kids waited for the parents to go outside. The parents congregated while the kids went to their classes and got their bags.
One of the moms, Marta, who we know from Lucia's basketball class (her daughter also is in the class), saw my purple sunglasses I was wearing outside and got all excited and started complimenting me like "Y Melissa! Me encantan las gafas! Super fashion! Very fashion!" As she grinned and did this hand wave head bob thing. She is one of my favorite friends of Cristina's.
My impression of Marta's reaction, wearing the so-called "high fashion" glasses:
Gif maker
While outside with the parents, I asked Cristina, "So don't you think it's weird that they had only five continents? There are seven, right?"
I began to doubt myself because no one in the audience seemed to blink when the Australian said the five continents were represented by balloons. During that time, I was thinking "So, which five? Are we only picking favorites?" At that point I also noticed one of the posters (all were in English) that said "AUSTRALIASIA," and wondered if that was a typo or some invented combo of continents. But there was also an "ASIA" poster, which confused me even more.
So, as I was saying...Cristina thought for a moment, and was like "No, there are five." And Monica, her sister was there, as well as a couple other parents of kids in Lucia's class. We opened it up to discussion and they were like "Nope, there are only five. Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia, America." And I was like "Oh, in the US we learn that there's North America and South America." And one of the moms was like "Yeah, even though they are not attached, we still consider it one giant continent." (Which I find funny, since my whole life I've thought that Europe and Asia were too connected to be considered two different continents)
Then I was like, "Um, what about Antarctica?"
"We don't count that one."
"But why? It's a huge land mass!"
"I dunno." Then, jokingly, Monica was like "No one lives down there, so we might as well ignore it."
This was all news to me.
Then the moms called over Floren, Cloe (Lucia's friend)'s dad and Marta's husband, who is French (her mom is Spanish). He came over and they asked him what he learned in school back in France. And he also said five. I explained how we learned there were seven and he was just like "Oh you crazy Yankees (spelled, in Spanish, "Yanquis")!"
So that was that.
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