4 Hours of Mind-Blowing Entertainment

I've just arrived home after a long morning of student language presentations at the eleventh school, which offers four foreign languages-- French, German, Russian and English-- for four times the lengthy annual language show! Four times the poems! Four times the skits!



Here's a brief rundown of the highlights you missed while you weren't attending:

10:00 Spectacle is slated to start.
10:10 My counterpart and I arrive.
10:15 The women next to me say that I stole the director's chair. I tell my counterpart, who tells me to ignore them. They insistently pull at my arm and talk among themselves about how rude the English girl is.
11:05 The spectacle starts.
11:20 The French students begin with a dance between a boy and a girl that seems somewhat sensual, but no one else looks embarrassed. Perhaps the audience is certain that two little 14-year-olds couldn't possibly be aware of the sexual undertones of their movements.
11:35 The French poems begin. Funny, the dead, vacant look of incomprehension in the students' eyes is the same one the English students wear as they read the homework that their tutors did for them.
12:10 Ze Germans take advantage of their country's musical tradition to throw some Beethoven into the presentation. I approve, especially since it's Moonlight Sonata on piano and not on synthesizer.
12:25 The English part of the program starts. Or maybe it's still the German part... I can't really tell.
12:35 First-year English students begin their rendition of the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet. I disapprove of making first-year English students learn the words "wherefore" and "thou."
12:40 A few students recite poems by the Georgian poet Galaktioni which were translated into English. To my counterpart's delight, she realizes that they're using the translations that her aunt published in Tbilisi. Her criticism of the school's language programs, students, hallways, et cetera cease.
12:45 The Russian students come out and speak with a fluidity and fluency that puts the first three programs to shame. Apparently, their Russian teacher is actually a Russian, which helps.
12:55 A boy in Georgian clothes and a girl in Russian clothes dance for the friendship of Georgia and Russia. It was actually kind of cool, since they each did the traditional dance of that country, but with each other. Usually it's heresy to mess with a traditional dance.
1:05 Now that the students are done, it's time for 100 people to get up in turns and say how great the students are and how great Georgia is and how great the teachers are and how wonderful Samtredia is. Anyone who wants the microphone can come up and take it; anyone who thinks they haven't gotten the attention they deserve during the last 3 hours can make themselves seen and essentially repeat what the last person said. There's a phrase for this that I don't think would be caught by Peace Corps censors, but I do think Mom would disapprove... the first word is a round shape, and the second is the insulting name that Uncle Frank calls Kevin in Home Alone when Kevin dumps milk all over the plane tickets.
1:20 Think you're leaving? HA. Supra time!
2:15 Thanks to the magic of someone having died the day before, the supra is cut short so people can go pay their respects. The End.

I know. You're all jealous.