11-2-12
Wednesday was a bomb. I messed everything up.
We were all excited about the ‘government people’ coming to the school. They were coming to make us a real school, Eulalia said.
And they were bringing their cameras!
We waited expectantly though six and a half periods. It seemed like forever, but it was only about 5 hours.
In the middle of the seventh period, one of the girls said “They’re here!”
“And they’re a little late,” I whispered to the back table.
But we’re in Ecuadorian time, remember? Being 20-30 minutes late isn’t a big deal here.
We all went into the big room in the middle of the school and sat down. The Department of Education people came in, and talked with the teachers a little.
A few adults spoke. It was in Spanish, so I didn’t understand it all.
After that, some of the 3rd graders stood up and welcomed everybody to the school. One of the teacher’s daughters welcomed them in Kichwa, Brian welcomed them in English, and Yaritza welcomed them in Spanish. This is what the 7th grade girls translated: “Welcome to our school. We work hard, we do our homework, and we don’t cry.”
After that, our Kichwa teacher said “I’ll give you a 10 if you sing Nuka Ayllu.”
Our nervous class of seven walked to the front of the room. We had just been taught Nuka Ayllu that morning! How could we sing it in front of the government people and the school??!
As soon as we started to sing, I cringed.
It was not as pretty as the teachers (or anyone else) had hoped.
Nuka ayllu, nuka ayllu
Mamami, yayami….
“Can we start over?” someone asked.
Our Kichwa teacher nodded, then put her face in her hands.
Nuka ayllu, nuka ayllu
Mamami, yayami
Nuka hatun wawki
Nuka uchilla wawki
Llulluku, llulluku
That was all, after two and a half months. And songs don’t get much simpler.
It means:
My family, my family
My mother, my father
My big brother,
My little brother,
Baby, baby
It was awful – perfectly awful.
And not just because we were off- key.
Our poor Kichwa teacher was having to sing it softly because we didn’t even know the words.
I’m pretty glad they brought in the camera after our song. If that had appeared on TV, I would have died.
Next, we were told to go play soccer. We guessed they might want to film some of the game, so we played extra hard.
After a while, and they still hadn’t shown up, we got a little lazy. We had just finished talking about how horrible the Nuka Ayllu song turned out, when the boys’ team made a goal.
That did it.
I stood in the middle of the soccer field and yelled “WHAT WAS THAT??!”.
Whatever it was, the camera man got it all.
The boys making a goal and me screaming like a lunatic at my best friends.
Embarrassing!
Soon, we got called in to Science class.
“Clear the table and sit down; the camera is coming!” Keri said.
As the red light on the camera turned on, my brain function turned off. I shut down, completely.
“What are we learning about today?” Keri asked.
Jadyra raised her hand. “Energy!”
“Yes.” Keri said. “Madeline, do you remember what we talked about yesterday?”
“Ah… no…” I said. I sounded pretty unintelligent. Mom says they probably won’t put that part on the TV because it will make the school look bad. Better than being on television and looking… well, you know.
School letting out was the best part of the day.
“Worst day of my life!” I said to my friends.
We walked over to Abigail, who was holding an upside-down cup on top of a book.
“What are you doing?” we asked.
“I caught a orange-tailed lizard!” She said, as the book fell from her hands.
“Aaaahhh!” we screamed.
We slammed the plastic cup over the run-away.
“Quick, where’s his tail??!” Saida asked, looking at where a tail used to be.
“There!!!” Jadyra pointed to the orange piece of lizard.
We all screamed, again.
“They’re filming in there!” Eulalia said.
“What?” Junior said, coming around the corner of the school.
“Aaaahhh!” we screamed at him.
“Aaaahhh!!!” he screamed back.
And the tailless lizard escaped.
-M