Terremoto in the library

Last week we had excitement in the library when a hump appeared in the floor. Was it a hippo making it's way up from the swimming pool below?

The hump continued to grow until Alberto our head of maintenance (a big lad!) jumped on the hump. There was a loud shattering noise as all the tiles broke. This led to the closure of the library for a day, whilst the maintenance guys dug up and removed a large chunk of the floor.

Apparently gas had built up under the tiles and as it expanded in the heat it had caused a problem.

Meanwhile runour spread around the school like wildfire and we soon had little noses poking around the door asking to see the "earthquake". We had a good laugh.

The area affected was quite large and it is not possible to repair it all until the holidays in July as the entire floor needs to be relaid.The result has been that we have acquired some nice carpet to cover the uneven floor to make it safer for the children and to enable library life to continue as usual. It has added a certain "warmth" to the library.

On Thursday afternoon there was great excitement in the Primary department as the children participated in the annual egg hunt followed by The Easter hat parade. AS usual there was an amazing array of creations.

After a week of working on a whole school project on our responsibility for the environment, the Primary children gave their presentations. There was a wide range of work in both Spanish and English ranging from recycling, to looking after animals, to the greenhouse effect and global warming.

Finally the entire school attended our Easter service in the cathedral. It was a wonderful time of praise, worship, prayer, teaching and reflection. Babs Owen did a spot, involving the Primary children and Bishop Peter preached the Easter message. The main focus was on the resurrection.

A busy week

This has been a busy week with more to come.
On Monday we saw the handing over of the school and the National flags by secondary pupils to the Primary head boy and head girl. The children are encouraged to be very patriotic in Paragauy.

On Tuesday the Team captains and Vice-team captains were presented with their special badges. They are of course very proud of them. Throughout the year the captains are called upon to organize their teams throughout Primary as they take part in various events. It is a good lesson in responsibility.

Yesterday afternoon the secondary pupils had a great time racing around the school on a sort of Easter treasure hunt, organized by the oldest pupils.

Tomorrow the Primary department will have their annual hat Parade for Easter. They have been busy preparing their weird and wonderful creations this week.

This week is also Responsibility week. The whole school is taking part in a project about protecting the environment, with work ranging from Global Warming to looking after butterflies, ants etc. in the classroom.

Our final Easter a service will be held in the Cathedral on Friday. The children will then have a half day while the staff have an afternoon of in-service training.

Cabanas to be replaced

Important news this week for Paraguay............The coach of the Paraguayan Football team announced a replacement for Salvador Cabanas, who was shot in the head in January. Cabanas has made terrific progress recovering and he is now in a rehabilitation centre. However, he will not be well enough to participate in the World Cup. His replacement will be Benfica striker Oscar Cardozo, who has been having a great season in Portugal.

Elections

Today the children in the Primary department are excited. We have the elections for team and vice team captains. (red, blue, yellow and green teams.)
This morning the candidates made their campaign speeches. Some were longer than others and some were amusing but they were all full of promise. (Politics are a big part of life here in Paraguay.)

This afternoon the children will vote in a secret ballot.

As you may imagine it has been difficult to keep them all focussed on their work today!

Kids arrive to start the new school year.

The school year started with the arrival of the sixth form. Every year they do it in style. This year they arrived by train! At least there were no firecrackers, but they were rather wild and noisy..... only to be expected. The parents were all around to cheer their offspring on.

We started the year with a lovely service in St. Andrew's cathedral. Here you can see Babs Owen shepherding her class into church.

This year's theme was about sowing seeds and growth. It is what is in the inside that needs to grow and develop, with nurturing. Revd. Ronnie Irene gave food for thought and a challenge to the students to study well so that they will have a good future. Babs Owen had the kids blowing up balloons and bursting them to find something inside and Mags had each class planting seeds in little pots to see what develops.

Afterwards the children were all excited about going to their new classes and having a different teacher for the year.

They were all fortunate to have a half day off today. The staff remained in school preparing for the rest of the week.

Leccy to be or leccy not to be?

As we were coming home from school we heard that a transformer had blown in the neighbourhood. No prizes for guessing who had no electricity! Thankfully a storm was blowing in and the temperature had dropped slightly, so we were able to sit outside with a nice Cuppa.

Mags then came to say that somebody's tin roof had blown off in the wind and had struck a transformer. It was stuck to the transformer. Lots of people gathered to look at the scene as the electricity company 'hit men' arrived to remove the portion of roof. They then went on their way with no repairs.

Later Mags Southern and I went to buy expensive torches ready for when it became dark. We arrived back in our homes to find all electricity restored........ at least for the time being.......... It is good to have air again.

The 'storm' turned out to be a dribble of rain and now seems to have passed us by. It is about 20c cooler at the moment outside but the houses have yet to cool down inside. We are hoping that the cooler temperatures will last a few days.