Hello Everyone,
Autumn is here and in Mexico that means corn on the cob and all its variations!
We celebrated our annual corn festival with an outdoor corn roast, and a month later, the Day of the Dead, which is always a colorful celebration. This year the 1stand 2ndgraders won first prize for their unique ecologically themed offering to the animals of the world in danger of extinction and a group of secondary students created a puppet show for the rest of the school.
Everyone had a lot of fun dressing up and visiting each others inventive offerings, as each was full of their own surprises!
Our students really love to organize these events. Just last month, two of our 2ndgrade girls had the idea to plan a goodbye party for our annual volunteer from London, Jamal, who was their gym teacher during his stay. They organized – without much if any direction from their teacher – for their whole class to bring cake and fruit to share (and chile powder of course because in Mexico, all kids like their fruit with a little – or a lot – of sour, spicy chile!). The two girls also brought costumes for all the girls in the class, so they could perform a little song and dance for Jamal together. They made and posted notices around the school inviting other classes, and organized all their classmates to jump out of hiding when Jamal walked in. Ximena, the 7 year old mastermind behind all of this, was so pleased with herself after pulling off this event that she just kept saying “I feel so happy today, I don’t know, but I am just soooo happy! This is the best day!”
We are just about to begin practicing for our annual Christmas show. So far we have a group of very enthusiastic students who are practicing acrobatic dance on the “telas”, which are 4 meter lengths of cloth hanging from the ceiling. We also have some boisterous second graders whose everyday antics make them natural clowns, and the cutest first grade group who is learning to sing in English. Somehow by mid December this year, we will have developed these and other talents that the children have for dance, yoga, acrobatics and music, and put them into a very artistic version of a traditional nativity play!
We are also busy preparing for our Christmas bazaar, where the children will show off what they are learning in the workshops given at the end of each school day. These workshops currently include carpentry, crafts made with felt, bracelet weaving andjewelry making with colorful stones and recycled glass, candle making, and painting classes. We just finished a photography workshop in which these second graders made cameras out of oatmeal containers and developed the photographs they took.
Other workshops include ecology and agriculture, and yoga. We also hope to squeeze in a baking workshop, where they will learn to make their own whole grain bread.
We have a whole new group of very enthusiastic first graders this year. Recently, we had a new little boy come to try out our first grade class. At first he wouldn’t even come into the classroom, no matter how many times the other first graders called and waved to invite him in. Finally he did make it into the classroom, and within a few hours confidently marched up to the teacher and announced “My parents told me to see if I liked it here, and I just wanted to tell you – I do, I do like it!" The first graders get excited for just about everything, but one of the things they love most is working in the green house. Our goal is to keep their spark of joy and excitement for learning alive, and for those children who have lost it, to fan their love of learning.
The biggest thank you to Tom and Gisela Rodgers & Tom and Kristen Bissinger for once again supporting our projects so generously. We cannot thank you enough for completing the missing funds we needed to keep the school open for the remainder of the year and for both of your tremendous support over the years. A big thank you as well to all of you who have continued with your sponsorships. It’s is because of you that we still have a school.
With love and appreciation,
Tashirat kids and staff and the Ixaya school
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