In Chile, the school´s anniversary is a REALLY big deal. My school´s official anniversary was this past Thursday, but the celebration was for the entire week. I only went to school until 1:00 everyday, and then I went home for lunch. At 3:00, I went back to school for activities and competitions. For the whole week, we were put into three teams, or Alianzas. These were made of different grades. Mine, Alianza B had 3º Basico (Grade 3), 6º Basico (Grade 6) and 3º Medio (Grade 11-my grade.) For the entire week, all the challenges and competitions that we won got us points and at the end of the week there would be a winner. The first competition was that the Alianzas all had to perform team chants. We´ve been practicing them for the past two weeks. My Alianza won that one, and my younger sister, Ferni´s came in second. Next, there was soccer (futball.) The girls went first (my team won that as well) and the guys went next. The guys, though, had to play wearing robes and slippers and carrying stuffed animals. It was very strange, but really entertaining.
On Tuesday was another dance. This one was more like a line dance that each team had to make up. We´ve also been practicing that for a few weeks. My team also won that one. On Tuesday, I also competed with 5 other people from my Alianza in a little race thing. We had to put lotion all over our hands and pass a bar of soap between us. We lost, because I dropped the soap, but it was still fun. Also, there was a soccer juggling contest. The boy from our Alianza juggled 117 times! He obviously won.
On Wednesday was couple dance competitions. In Chile, and in all of South America I think, they LOVE to dance. When I told them Canada doesn´t have a national dance, they were shocked. Anyway, the dances started off with the Chilean national dance, the Cueca. It´s realy hard to explain what it´s like, because it´s not really similar to any other dance I´ve ever seen. For our Alianza, we had to kids in 3º Basico compete. It was so adorable. The next competition was the Jive, then the Salsa and Regaeton. We got second overall in the couple dances. There were also other little competitions. Like one where two kids from the youngest grade in each Alianza had to go in a circle and take of their sweats, jackets, socks and shoes. Then they were blindfolded and spun around. Then they had to crawl around and find as many clothes as they could and put them on in 3 minutes. It was hilarious, because the boys would put on the girl´s shoes, and one tall girl ended up with pants that were at least 4 inches too short.
On Thursday, I didn´t go to school until 9:00 because there wasn´t classes. Instead, there was an awards presentation and the band played. It last for 3 hours and it was really boring, but at least we didn´t have to go to class.
Thursday afternoon there were no events. Instead, we went back to the school at 8:00 to watch a Velada Cultural. It was basically a talent show, but it was also a competition between the Alianzas. The best part was the beginning, when the youngest grade performed. They did little mini musicals. The ones from Alianza A did a part from Beauty and the Beast. My Alianza did Be Our Guest from Beauty and the Beast, and my sister did We´re All In This Together from High School Musical. It was so cute. They even had kids dressed in the exact same costumes as from the movie. The next category was Arobico Maculino which was like tae bo. Our guys won that one. There was also three different categories of dances. The Playback was when a group of dancers had to immitate a music video, there was a Mixed dance, and an International category. For the international one, my Alianza did an Indian dance. It was really good.
On Friday we had to go to class in the morning and in the afternoon, there was a BBQ. On Saturday night there was a formal dance at the school. Also, they announced the winners of the weeks competitions. My Alianza won!!
It was a really fun week, and it makes me wish that the school´s anniversary was this big in Canada.
