Love and Friendship

Today is Love and Friendship day in Colombia. This is their version of St. Valentine's Day - a highly commercialized extravaganza of hearts and streamers and sweets, except that it encompasses friendship and all varieties of love rather than limiting itself to the romantic version.

With no personal experience to guide me, I can't comment on the degree of pressure to perform or provide within romantic relationships in the form of grand gestures and/or gifts, but I did see a number of highly agitated men running around the grocery store this evening with bouquets of flowers, looking as though they wished they had been organized and sensible enough purchase something for their wife/girlfriend/lover/mother earlier on in the day.

How Colombian couples, families and friends manage this day will likely always remain a mystery to me, but I can tell you we celebrate at school, and believe me, we are steeped in love there.

Our 'theme' at school this year is Put a Little Love in Your Heart, and perhaps surprisingly my thoughts on this do not run toward the cynical, at least not where the students are concerned. I do love my students, and I'm allowed, even expected, to show it. If I did not allow a child to hug me, for example, people would probably blame my gringa-ness and forgive me, but I suspect it would be considered a flaw. (I once had a parent accuse me of not loving her son enough, though in her world complete permissiveness and lack of boundaries = love...so I suppose by her standards I didn't love him...)

We celebrated on Thursday by wearing Love and Friendship colours and getting the kids all hopped up on sugar. I want to say that it was fun, but mostly it was exhausting. I think it's easier to 'love' 18 children at once when we're following the standard routine.

(in our love and friendship non-uniform gear)




(outside a 3rd grade classroom - too much love? Haha)