Grannies can grrrrind!

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Yesterday morning myself, Stephy and Jesus were in El Povenir to help the kids in a community project - a community sports day event.
Pretty much the same thing for any kind of community sports day - relay races, team events, mini-competitions, and eating contests…
But with a cultural twist.


Twist #1: Eating Contest…where’s the pie?
In planning the day, the kids wanted to have a papaya-eating contest. However, due to premonitions of belly-cramps and the afterward mess of papaya-induced cramps, Stephy steered them towards some bannaners and apples.
So, no pie.
My buddy Segundo won by shoving 2 bananas and 2 apples in his face in about a minute. And won a hat.
And, hopefully, all cramp-free.

Twist #2: not really a cultural twist, just funny.
There was also the two-legged race.
Mi amiga Cledy wanted me to do it with her, which I TOTALLY wanted to because I am the QUEEN of the two-legged race (years of Sports Days in St. Francis have served me well!).
HOWEVER, as soon as myself and Cledy began to practice I realized we were doomed: this girl can’t say a sentence without laughing.
People say I laugh a lot, but I don’t even know if I even match this girl…a dangerous combination, indeed!
Accordingly, with our first step in the race we began to giggle and our string promptly broke. As everyone sailed passed us, we stood in the middle of the road, bent over, crackin’ up.

Twist #3: Grannies can grrrrind!!
A few activities later a little 9 year old girl, Gina (who isn’t in the group, but who hangs out at the community centre where the group meets), came over and asked me to be her partner. Through the booming music, chaotic scene of kids and adults laughing and running evvvverywhere, I had no idea what the next activity was…..
….but then I found out it was a DANCE COMPETITION!
Since the first day I met Gina (my first day in el Povenir), she has always been pretty shy, so, I assumed that this little human (who comes up to mebbe my hip) would neep some prompting to dance...but hellllllssss no!
As soon as the reggaeton came on, this little one was bumpin and grindin’!
From audience applause, they narrowed the teams down to myself and Gina, and a team with a grandmother and her granddaughter - who were quite the competitors!
In Canada, I do believe, the only time you would see a grandmother “dropping it low” would be an unfortunate reality show, or insane “wrong side of the family” wedding…however, this grannie was shaking booty and dropping it more than I could DREAM of!
Amazing.
It ended up being a tie, Gina got to have 2 bottles of juice, the kids and the community (I was told) thoroughly enjoyed watching a white chick groove to reggaeton in the middle of their street, and myself and the grandmother promised each other another dance together some time.


Twist #4: Needle and Thread contest…for kids?
I decided to only observe the next activity (and try to deal with the amount of sweat pouring off of me after dancing in the dirt road, under 12pm sun for 3 songs). It was another team event: threading string through needles ( - and all I could think was, “how many kids in Canada would just look at the needle and thread and have no clue what to do?”)
Ha.

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AFTER the last race, and AFTER the huge clean-up, and AFTER the refereeing over which little kid got what balloon, everyone (the youth group, and Jesus, Stephy and I) ate.
And to my amazement, all the kids (with full stomachs) promptly got up and starting playing a huge game of jump rope (with the rope we had for the tug of war).
How they didn’t puke, I dunno.

There was then another dance party (with the tradition being now, getting me to do different booty dances - that make me slightly uncomfortable, but still totally love) and then we went home.

A cold shower and 4 glasses of water later, I fell down.

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Photos

The perfect shot.
and here you will see myself, Gina and that stellar grandmother all "dropping it low".
And one day, I will be that grandmother....

before the laughter...
You'll notice on the right, myself and Cledy discussing strategy....too bad we're useless when we laugh.

errrrerybody
we thought the batteries were dead.
They were alive only for this bad picture.