Verbs are FUN!!

One day I arrived at The Center and learned that my students had a major trimester test in two days on all they'd learned in Language Arts.  According to them, they needed to learn everything they'd studied all year in both their Language Arts book and their notebooks.  It was frustrating to find out so last minute, but that night and the next day as I rode in trufis (public transportation) to work, I prepared some last minute review games.  Games and fun activities I'd prepared in the past often backfired on me, as the kids couldn't handle the level of excitement and energy the games brought out in them and they ended up acting out and getting out of control.  I wasn't too hopeful this would be any different.

I set up stations in the classroom, planning for my usual 10 students, but only 9 came.  It's amazing the difference 1 student's absence can make in a classroom!  I had four stations: ABCs (yes they are still learning their ABCs in 3rd grade!), Verbs, Pronouns and Adjectives.

sorting words in alphabetical order

The kids played charades with the verbs, wrote out sentences with pronouns using clay, and played hangman with adjectives.

At the verb station, the kids sorted verbs based on their endings (a unique advantage of the Spanish language over English) and then conjugated verbs in the past, present and future using, "yesterday, today, and tomorrow".

Before playing hangman with adjectives, each kid chose a magazine picture and described the picture using as many adjectives as they could think of.

The kids worked so well together in their groups that I almost didn't need to be in the classroom.  That's a first!  It was like a breath of fresh air to have something go right for the first time in the classroom, and to have the kids learn so much to boot!

playing charades with verbs

Urkupiña: Orqopiña or "¡Ya está en el cerro!" or "She's already on the hill!"

Strange name for a citywide celebration... until you learn that this holiday is based on the folklore that a young Quechua shepherdess came running into town (Quillacollo, a city next door to Cochabamba) yelling in Quechua "¡Orqopiña! ¡Orqopiña!", referring to what she claimed was an appearance of the Virgin Mary on the hillside where she was shepherding her sheep.

The several day celebration and festivities comes to an end with a "caminata", an all night walk from Cochabamba to Quillacollo (around 7.5 miles).  Food vendors line the highway on the road to Quillacollo and many pilgrims stop along the way to eat a midnight dinner or snack.  The end of the caminata ends at the base of the Cerro de Urkupiña.
Most arrive in the early hours of the next morning, and head to the cathedral to pay their respects to the statue of the Virgin Mary.

In the cathedral, they light candles, pray and ask the Virgin Mary to provide for the most pressing needs they have for the year to come. Thousands and thousands of pilgrims come from all over Bolivia to pay their respects and to ask the Virgin Mary to meet their needs.

Once they've prayed at the cathedral, many continue up the hill to buy miniature replicas of what they've prayed for (houses, cars, food, money, etc.) and ask the local indigenous priests to bless the replicas they've purchased so that they will turn into the real thing.

Many "buy" miniature plots of land that are outlined with rocks or spray paint for the day,  representative of what they hope will also become reality.  They then will "ch'allar" the land, spilling out an offering of beer or chicha (fermented corn beer) on the land as an offering to Pachamama, the indigenous Earth Goddess. Some will also do a k'oa (a burnt offering of incense and other items) for Pachamama.  They also will break off a piece of rock to symbolize the land they wish to have and will keep the rock as a symbolic memento of what they believe the Virgin Mary has promised to give them (as well as Pachamama...).

The celebration starts with the entrada, a colorful day of dance troupes dancing the traditional bailed of Bolivia through the streets of Quillacollo, and ends several days after, the day after the caminata.

* Most pictures taken from Los Tiempos, the local Cochabamban newspaper