Kaleb’s Travels The life and times of Kaleb Guard

The Día del Patria is the national day of independence for Nicaragua. It is on the 14th of September. To celebrate the day, my school did dancing performances for the mums and dads. The performance was two days before the actual day of independence.

We had to do lots of preparing: making the costumes and practicing the dancing. All of the parents had to make a traditional Nicaraguan dish—Bridget made gallo pinto, which actually means spotted rooster but is really just rice and beans. The school sent lots of notes to all the parents so that we could find the right things to wear and bring the right things to eat.

On the day of the performance, I got up at about 6AM, had my shower and got into my black clothes. Dad got up and got me some breakfast. Normally a lady comes and picks me up in a bus but, because it was a special day, she wasn't coming, so we went and got a taxi up to the school.

We got to the school at about 7AM, I got out of the taxi, said bye to Dad and went through the gates. As Dad was driving off in the taxi, a teacher said I wasn’t supposed to be there until 10AM... uh oh! They decided to keep me there instead of calling Dad. My teacher gave me a movie to watch because there was nothing for me to do. When the movie got boring I went to help with the decorations. When we had just finished with the last balloon, a kid arrived and so did some parents.

Once all the other parents had arrived and were seated, the teacher of sociales (social studies) stood up, welcomed all the parents and explained what was going to happen that day. Then we all stood to sing the national anthem.

The first performance involved a few of the younger kids, who had signs and flags. They recited the story of how Christopher Columbus discovered and claimed Nicaragua for the Spanish and then how Nicaragua became independent from Spain—in other words, why Nicaragua celebrates the Día del Patria.

Then the kindergarten kids did their dance. In all of the dances, the girls wore frilly dresses and the boys wore sombreros and embroidered shirts. Each of the different grades had their turn.

I was asked to be in the dance with some of the boys from year one and it was lots of fun. I got to play the best part: the bull! I had horns and everything! The other boys danced around me while I pretended to charge at them.

Then we had some lunch and it was good because there was lots of vegetarian food for us to eat. We had salad, plantain chips, yuca (a waxy root vegetable from Nicaragua), which I didn't like much, and cheese that our landlord Jenny makes. I also had a tase of a traditional Nicaraguan drink that was brown and milky and tasted very cinnamony... it was nice, I liked it.

When it was time to go, Victor (my friend Marcel’s dad and Jenny’s son-in-law) offered us a left home. We said “Yes please!” and said goodbye to everyone. On the way home we were all squished in the car but it was good that we didn't have to wait for a taxi.

The celebration was very fun, very big and it was different from the celebrations we have in Australia. It was different to Australian celebrations because in Australia they don't do traditional dancing or eat traditional Australian foods as a way to celebrate. I learned that the Día del Patria is the day of independence for Nicaragua. I had a great time on the day and I got to see what traditional Nicaraguan food is like.

Unfortunately, the next day Dad was really sick and we found out that Marcel’s parents were sick too. We think it might have been food poisoning from one of the salads, which Bridget and I didn’t try. You can get sick if you don’t wash vegetables properly and it’s hard to clean them when the water goes off from 7AM to 4PM everyday. Poor Dad!