The White Family Journey: Jonathan's Graduation and Last Day of School

School finished at the very end of June for our kids. It seems so late compared to what we were used to in the States! We do go back the 3rd week of September, though, so I guess it evens out in the end. :) The school doesn't have air conditioning, so they do the schedule with the heat in mind. :) It's much cooler here in June than it is in August!

The kids had a fun last couple days. Jonathan had his graduation, and his teacher was also retiring, so it was a BIG thing. It seems that the ladies I do coffee with everyday (most of them are moms from Jonathan's class) are the "leaders" of this group of parents. Each of them had some important role to do. I volunteered to do whatever they needed me to do. I was asked to wrap the gifts... I'd given a gift to my friend this past year, all wrapped in a pretty ribbon, and everyone was fascinated by it. Apparently, I am now known for it. :)

One of the gifts that they did was to ask all the parents to write a note, thanking the teacher for something. My friend Toña re-wrote them all and fit them together in a flowing story. She asked me to type it up and print it on pretty paper. I was elected to do this, b/c I had a computer and a printer. Interesting, huh? I think Cáceres is 15 years behind the times... and I'm really not joking! :) Well, I typed up the the story and I brought it in for the ladies to proof read before I printed the final copy. I was really nervous. Why would they ask the foreigner... who barely knows their language... to type this!? Well, I did pretty well, except for one major blooper. Oh, my goodness, we all laughed and laughed. I SHOULD have caught it, but at least we got a good laugh out of it! My friend had talked about how each parent had brought their child to this teacher's "door step" but I had miss spelled "puerta" and put "muerta"... so, in reality, it was more like saying "stairs of death." Not quite the idea Toña intended. haha... after we had a good laugh about it, they all just patted my arm. As if to say, "Poor foreigner." :)

But, other than that one blooper, everything went rather smoothly! It was fun to be involved in the planning of everything going on, rather then just sitting back and being clueless about everything (like we did last year with poor Nathan's graduation!)

Jonathan receiving his "diploma."

Each child had a line of "thanks" to tell Pepa. Most of the kids read theirs, but Jonathan memorized his. He spoke in perfect Spanish, and said it all exactly like he memorized it! He did such a good job!