Final Flag Ceremony

Clara is STILL in school.

I could handle the narcos running amok.  But this 205-day school year?  I may have to leave the country.

All that aside, we are in the final stretch, as today was the last flag ceremony of the year.

Every Monday morning, every single school in Mexico has a flag ceremony.  A select of that school´s oldest and best students are chosen to be in the color guard.  A month or two ago, Clara´s teacher asked her if she wanted to be in the color guard.  I beamed with pride at my little genius.

She said no.

Typical Clara.  I finally got her to tell me why she didn´t want to do it, and she said she just didn´t want to hold the flag, because it would be too heavy.  I reminded her that only one kid got to hold the flag and that a number of other just walk around it.  She could be one of those that walked with the flag.  With the added incentive that her best friend was in the color guard this past year, she was finally convinced to join.

I think they practiced every day for the last month.  And today, the last Monday of the school year, in a beautiful ceremony full of preschool-aged pomp and circumstance, the graduating kindergarten kids handed the flag off to the incoming kindergartners.  

I eat this kind of stuff up.

The kindergartners, on their final lap around the patio.

The big hand off.

The preschoolers show off the hours they spent on precision marching.

Safely turning the flag over to the principal.

The female-dominated 2014-2015 escolta.  The poor lone wolf on the right!