A night of mixed fortunes at Real Plaza for Algarrobos College

Three brave and intrepid students: Juan Ernesto Masao Bernabe Nakagawa from the 4th Grade, Cesar Augusto Elizarbe Hoyos and Christopher Louis Lappin Gonzales from 5th, represented the school at the 2nd Annual Spelling Bee competition on Friday night. The event was held in Real Plaza and organised by UK Britanico.

Of the many schools and colleges that took part, amongst them (and forgive my spelling); Santo Toribio, Peruvian Español, San Gabriel College, Independencia, Santa Maria Reina, Rosa Maria Checa and more, Algarobbos finished with all their students getting into the final stage. The only school to do so.

There were three judges, two Peruvian and an Englishman.

Juan was the first to go out. A victim of terrible pronunciation by one of the home judges. He was very unlucky as he had some of the most difficult spellings prior to this. The word was 'cheerful' but unfortunately it sounded anything but!

Shortly after this, Cesar went out after mis-spelling the word 'appearance'. The annoying thing was that he knew as soon as he spelt it he'd made a mistake but, this being the final stage, it was a straight red card and out you go. In the previous rounds a yellow card was shown and the student had a second chance.

This left Chris.

Now, Chris had already been eliminated from the competition! He was asked to spell - what sounded to me and everyone around us - the word 'lounge'. This he did. Firstly, repeating the word. Then spelling it, loudly and clearly, before repeating it again. Up went the red card and Chris was out.

After a brief consultation from the Algarrobos Supporters Club, and a check of the word list to find any word which could possibly be confused with 'lounge', I appealed to the organisers. They asked me to pronouce the word, which was 'launch', and after a consultation with the judges and the owner of UK Britanico they agreed to allow Chis back into the competition.

Chris then made it to the final two and came runner-up. Tripping over his tounge he spelt 'schoolbag' wrong! Allowing a student from Rosa María Checa to win. The first prize was a full beca to UK Britanico, a Starbucks mug and a rose from Rosatel, all of whom were sponsering the event. Chris got a half beca, a rose and a mug.

An enjoyable evening in the main, although it's a pity we didn't get all the boys into the top three. Roll on next year!

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Autor: Chris Lappin
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