Continental Night

Tonight we had such a great night that I want to blog about it now instead of wait for later. At school tonight we had what is called "Continental Night" which apparently all the bilingual schools do throughout the year. Each grade is assigned a country and we cook food from that country, dress in the typical clothes, and decorate a booth of that country. The point is both educational, and we also sell the food in order to raise money for class activities.

4th grade class was assigned Costa Rica and 8th grade had the United States. I (Beth) am very blessed to have very involved parents who completely took over and I only had to give them what they needed and prepare and they decorated, sold everything, and cleaned up. We served a typical plate that included beans, carne asada, chorizo, cheese, and tortillas and also amazing homemade horchata. It was really great and fun to see my kids outside of school and uniform and also great to interact with the parents more.

8th grade had a BBQ and Tristan spent the whole night grilling up burgers and hot dogs. Unfortunately there was only 2 parents that were helping him and his small crew of dedicated 8th graders. But, they were able to sell a lot. Honduras was also introduced to chili cheese fries. The US was also represented by a line-dance presentation which was pretty funny. How else do you represent the US - line dancing and BBQ's right?!?! Tristan was a great chef and I he weren't already taken, some ladies there were so impressed they'd have been fighting over him for sure.

Over all the event was a great success! China, Guatemala, Columbia, France, Italy, Honduras, Cuba, and Mexico were all represented. Funny, but the Honduras booth sold the most stuff all night. It was great for me to be able to eat all these new and weird foods. One of my new favorites is fried plantains mushed up and then formed in a ball with refried beans inside...and fried- very good! It was neat to see the community and families eating and walking around together - grandma's, neightbors, aunts, everyone out together! oh - we also had a band, mariochi band, some drum players, and singers there also for entertainment. This was a really fun experience!