Barranquilla's Carnival - Colombia's Most Important Folk Celebration - A Monday Made It (well...started it)

So I was up to my ears in construction paper and art supplies today.




             







      And it was this guy's doing:

This is my pal Emerson. He's Visiting International Faculty and my ESOL co-teacher.  We have had an awesome year together.  I was blessed to have him.  The kids adored him as well.  For our last two days together, we decided to teach the kids about his country's favorite celebration- the Barranquilla Carnival. Today he showed them a video of the parade and talked about the folklore story of King Momo, Joselito Carnaval, Death, and some other characters.  I think he got the initial buy-in from the kids after he told them the parade was in the town where Shakira is from.  But hey, you gotta do what you gotta do. After watching the video and talking about the costumes, the kids decided who they wanted to dress up as, and then Emerson and I helped them create costumes today.  We are going to parade on Wednesday- his last day with me *sniff* (he's going to be a Spanish teacher at a Middle school next year). The parade opens with the Queen:

And of course, most of my young ladies decided this is what they wanted to be.  Emerson helped them make dresses out of pink art paper.

Yes- this mess did give me hives.  But I pushed through it.  For the spirit of Carnaval!

Of course, Susan Lucci chose to be a Queen!

She is a talented artist.

We had one hero sign up to be King Momo.  He made a very good crown.



And only one signed up to be La Marimonda.  His mask is excellent.



And everybody else either wanted to be Death or Joselito, the guy who dies from celebrating "too much". Go figure.  But they are all happy and having fun, so then I'm happy too. I ended up helping these folks make vests out of large construction paper to decorate for their costumes.

Amazingly, I am not cringing watching myself on this video.  I think it's because I might have finally gotten the hang of using the diffuser attachment on my ridiculous perm. #perfectchickennest  And the kids don't sound too loud do they?  Aside from the little bossy mcboss boss fight going on there in the background at one point.

Also, on my drive home from work, I think I figured out a better way to make those vests.  I'll have to try it on another Monday.

And here- a final photographic montage.

I should have taken a picture, but they DID clean up every little bit afterwards and the room was pristine.  They are good little moose, I tell ya. Tune in Wednesday for Parade pics!

Did you make anything?  Link up with Tara at 4th Grade Frolics!

What sorts of activities do you do for Global Awareness?