Hello loyal blog readers! First, let me apologize for being a week late with this entry. Actually, to be honest...I don't feel that bad about it, but Conor's guilt by association has been eating away at me, so on his behalf, sorry for the delay.
Speaking of Conor, throughout the month of April, students persistently asked/harassed him to don the school mascot costume at Copa de Amistad, the famous soccer face off between our school, Colegio Bolivar, and our rival school, Colombo Briticanico. "Please Mr., you will be perfect as the mascot" they begged. "Your personality would fit so well...we need your energy to beat Colombo" they said. Expecting his practicality to withstand, I had zero expectation of seeing my husband dance around in a giant bird suit in in front of hundreds of teenagers. I was wrong.
After much begging, he said yes. Let me tell you, when your significant other decides to become a mascot, you have two choices. Fight or flight. Actually, make that support or hide. So, I did what you do when the person you vow to love for richer or for poorer makes a poorer choice. I supported, which looked like me googling "How to be a Mascot" and forcing Conor to watch as many tutorial videos as I could find.
In case you are wondering, (or have some bizarre desire to be a mascot), here are the cliff notes from Mascot 101:
1) Exaggerate all movements
2) Interact with other mascots
3) Pose for selfies with the crowd and kiss babies (questionable)
4) Hydrate
5) Never reveal your identity...sorry Con!
Did I mention the entire high school gets the day off to watch this soccer tournament? Once we arrived at the other school, two of Conor's students helped him suit up in an empty classroom, and he took to the field...but not without difficulties. Just as he was rounding the corner to the turf, Conor was assaulted by a mob of elementary students from the rival school. Raise your hand if you have ever been personally victimized by 3rd graders. They booed him, shouted at him, and even circled around him pushing and slapping his bird costume. I laughed so hard I got a cramp.
Should I have helped? Meh. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Mascot Conor rushed the bleachers, swayed joyfully to the Colombian national anthem, and even joined the team for the pre-game huddle. He also exaggerated his movements with maximum enthusiasm (thank you Youtube tutorials), and took it like a champ when the students sprayed him with celebration foam. Little did we know, while the other teachers and I were dying of laughter, underneath the polyester eagle suit, Conor was almost dying of a heat stroke. Hopefully they get that thing dry cleaned.
The other big event of April was the anticipated "Semana Santa" aka Holy Week (Colombia is a very Catholic country) aka Spring Break. The week before Semana Santa, a sudden outbreak of H1N1 (Swine Flu) swept our campus, triggering the dispatch of the Colombian health department. After investigating the facts (we had 90 total high school students out on Tuesday) they promptly shut us down...which resulted in school being canceled for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Um what? Spring Break three days early? Yes please!
Although Conor and I were not able to move up our flights to Curacao, we did enjoy a nice pre-vacation stay-cation at home by the pool. Never have I ever been so rested before taking a trip. Our Spring Break destination, the former dutch colony of Curacao, did not disappoint, and our days on it's remote beaches has us feeling like we discovered our own tropical oasis! Every day we picked a different beach and snorkeled a ton. I couldn't believe the vibrancy and variety in the thousands of fish just beneath the water's surface. The rest of our time was spent sipping on plenty of piña coladas spiked with blue curacao and reading in the sun. Our favorite book was "The Illegal" by Lawrence Hill.
Favorites:
-Snorkeling in the crystal clear blue waters of Curacao
-Relaxing with giant pigs (swine flu irony?) at Porto Marie Beach
-Celebrating our friend Abby's birthday with the first year teacher crew
-Going to Easter Mass in Spanish (still super hard to follow) and making Easter Brunch
-Meeting a friendly peacock at the Cali Zoo
-Hosting weekly Game of Thrones viewing parties
Getting Schooled:
Surprisingly there are not as many moments this month to choose from..am I finally getting the hang of living abroad? I will say that while in Curacao, I accidentally spoke in Spanish to pretty much every waiter we had. The people of Curacao are widely tri-lingual (#goals) and speak Dutch, Spanish, and English, so this wasn't the worst mistake. However, I think we might have confused some people when I started ordering in mediocre Spanish and then switched to fluent English halfway through.