Spelling Bee

“To have another language is to possess a second soul.”

~Charlemagne

 

Thursday and Friday we had our Kpalime English Spelling Bee! This is something I’ve been organizing for a while. To encourage learning English and to celebrate the amazing ability of our students in Kpalime, we decided to host a city-wide spelling bee at our school this year. We invited 5 schools to participate and each submitted 5 students from each grade level, so there was a total of 100 competitors with about 150-200 spectators. It was amazing to see the support the schools showed for their participants. The crowd really got into it, cheering loudly for each correctly spelled word.

The second day was especially intense as the words got harder and harder with the higher grade levels. I was amazed by all the participants. To be able to spell complex words out loud in your third language is pretty incredible. The winners of the four grade levels received tie dye t-shirts I made when I was home for my medical evacuation, and the rest of the participants received free pens. All four winners came from the same public school in the neighborhood where I live; one was even a next door neighbor of mine. It was fun to work with the English teachers from different schools and collaborate on a project that showcased all our wonderful students. On the last day they were already discussing their plans to continue this and make it an even bigger event next year. It's nice to know that some things I helped to plan here in Kpalime will continue on after I leave. It's also fun to know that four of these students will be walking around looking like part of my family in their tie dye!