Are they really going to light that?

This week the students at the school that the sisters run had a presentation for educacion fisica (PE) and traditional dancing. It was pretty fun to watch, but I can't imagine anything like this in the states. Every class performed some sort of dance or ran an obstacle course. One class of what looked like maybe third or fourth graders made a series of different types of pyramids together on the pavement. People just milled around the school, buying popcorn and saltenas for about three hours while the kids performed. The whole time the PE teacher stood in front of the kids blowing in to a whistle and occasionaly waving a stick around. One of the last demonstrations was a class of boys running through the concha (basketball court), launching themselves off a little trampoline, flipping in the air, and landing on a stack of old mattresses. The boys (either by their own eagerness or the suggestion of their teacher, I'm not sure) were dressed up in various costumes. There were a few Mexican luchadores (wrestlers), a few zoros, some hulks, lots of spidermen, and a clown. Gradually the obstacles got higher and higher or more difficult (a hoop, for example) until they brought out a rope with a wound center, doused it in gasoline, and lit it on fire. That night I had trouble explaining to the sisters why we would never be allowed to do that in The States. I may have avoided high school PE until I was threatened with not graduating, but I realize now I had a lot to be thankful for. No one ever made me do tae bo in front of nine hundred people. I also never had to dress up like zoro and do flips over a flaming rope.