St. Patrick's Day in Bogota

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Although I have faced many challenges in Colombia, few have been as stifling as trying to explain what a Leprechaun is to a group of Spanish-speaking fourth graders.

As a visual aid for my explanation, I had drawn a crude picture of what I more or less resembled the mythical Irish creature.

I tried to explain in English, speaking slowly, “A Lep-re-chaun is a… mag-ic-al lit-tle man. He likes to hide gold at the end of rain-bows.”

My students looked at me like I was speaking dolphin.

I paused to regroup my thoughts. Back home, I had never really thought about what a Leprechaun actually was—all I knew was children seemed to always be after their Lucky Charms.

I gestured to a pitiful picture of a rainbow and pot o’ gold I had scribbled on the board.

“The mag-ic-al man, the Lep-re-chaun, hides his gold at the end of rain-bows.”

“Oro!” one of my students yelled.

“Yes!” I practically cried, “Oro is gold. Very good.”

Little victories.



Read the rest at my TravelBlog

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