Nicaragua: Out of the lion's den

We survived the flood, the river has gone down, but the rain keeps on coming. And so life continues. This past week I was asked to be a judge for an English singing competition at one of my schools. Upon agreeing to the task I learned that my judging duties would involve scoring student groups along the criteria of an introduction to the song in English, pronunciation of the lyrics, and overall performance. 

In total there were 30 groups which competed, singing a variety of songs ranging from "I Believe I Can Fly" by R. Kelly, the classic Chicago hit, "You're the Inspiration," the crowd favorite, "One Love" by Bob Marley, and more current selections such as "Wide Awake" by Katy Perry. The competition was held on the outdoor stage in the courtyard of the school, and it would not be complete without two rain delays and a power outage due to a lightning storm. Also, there was a sleeping dog on the stage throughout the entire show, as seen here (if you ask me, she was the star of the event):

The purpose of the event is to encourage students to learn the English language in a setting outside of the classroom. The top groups from each school advance to a regional competition, and if I am not mistaken there is a national English singing competition each year. Although the quality of most of the groups was slightly better than the worst karaoke I have ever heard, they all put forth a good effort. At least it served for an afternoon of my own amusement and entertainment.  

A clip of the winning group's performance

I particularly enjoyed when before the competition began one group brought me the written lyrics to the song they were going to sing and asked me to interpret the meaning of the song into Spanish. I glanced at the page and my initial reaction was, "This is not written in English..." I studied the words more carefully and realized that the students had phonetically written out each word instead of writing in proper English. So it turned into an impromptu game of "Mad Gab" and I was able to give them a translation after reading the words out loud, listening to myself, and recognizing what they were trying to say. Language learning is fun.