I Hope Someday You'll Join Us

Town Celebration

I hope you are ready for positive/world peace/ world citizen MacKenzie. If not, well, I don't have a witty remark right now.

My internal radio has been tuned to "Imagine" for the last week. John Lennon's voice has been ringing in my ears. I can't say it's the worst song to have stuck in my head. This is because our school celebrated Peace Day recently. The school halls are plastered with posters of famous peacemakers and uplifting and positive words. Not a bad atmosphere if you ask me. All of the words about love and peace are always more beautiful and poetic to me in Spanish. One of the posters was on Rigoberta Menchú Tum, a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate I interviewed in May last year in Spanish. Seeing that poster in the hall made my Spanish life here come full circle for me. But that is beside the point of this blog. Moving on.




Each of the Spanish schools holds a peace assembly outside on their patio where the different classes perform songs and dances. All of the kids at my school dress in white and last year I was told that they even let a dove go. However, my new student teacher friend, Sergio, told me that last year the dove all of a sudden couldn't fly and fell down and the children were devastated...I laughed. Maybe I'm a bad person with weird humor but the thought of it is pretty funny. Substitution for the dove humor was yours truly on stage leading "Imagine" into a microphone for the whole school on the afternoon of Peace Day.

This is where "Imagine" comes in. As a bilingual school, obviously there is a need to have some sort of English repertoire. Therefore, my job the entire week was to teach the song to all of the kids from level 3 and up to sing as a school on Peace Day. I listened to the lyrics day after day and hour after hour as I sang them aloud to help the kids with their pronunciation.

Kids from different elementary schools singing at the town gathering

I realized that I have become one of the people that Mr. Lennon would like to join him. The lyrics aren't exactly the most complex composition of poetry, but they're dead on. Sometimes people need dead on and simple. No countries, no possessions, living today for today...I'm not going to break down every stanza. However, I will tell you that I really wanted the kids to understand the song and take something from it, even though I know that their English level and analytical comprehension isn't that complex yet. Maybe someday they'll remember their wacky English teacher who was passionate about this song and break it down on their own like I find myself doing with Spanish songs.

Anyways, on top of each school's celebration, in the town that I teach in, all of the elementary schools gathered together as well. Each of the grades from the different schools put together performances to share about peace with their fellow elementary school kids. There were annoying recorder performances (I'm sorry I hate the sound of a recorder) and even a dance with a parachute (remember the rainbow striped ones) that made me want to go back to elementary school gym class and play games.

Practice the week before

In preparation for the town celebration, I helped and watched our first graders to learn a dance 2 weeks before. There is nothing better than being paid to sit outside in the sun on an afternoon, teaching and watching little Spanish children dance to their own internal rhythm to a Spanish song.




I know that I may be biased, but their performance was by far the best at the entire gathering. No lies.


Just in case you forgot...

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

-- John Lennon

Yup,

Kenz