Here’s an idea: Celebrate life and express yourself as you wish.

That is the motto followed by the people of Bogota, Colombia on the occasion of their “Carnival of Diversity.”

Carnival is celebrated every year throughout several regions of South America. The Colombians, who had lost the tradition for decades, revived it in 2005, and South Whidbey will be treated to a glimpse of the revival of that celebratory culture.

The Spanish classes of South Whidbey High School and Langley Middle School welcome 37 students and four teachers from Gimnasio Fontana, a bilingual middle and high school in Bogota. The visitors, who are hosted by Spanish students and their families, will present an evening of the music and dance of the traditional festivals of Colombia and its regions.

The free event is at 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 15 in the South Whidbey High School auditorium and is open to the public.

For the past five years, the high school Spanish department has had the privilege of hosting a school from Bogota for a week every January.

Each year, the Colombian students and teachers prepare a performance to share with local schools and community. This year‚ the presentation will include the costumes, history, music and dance of various regional festivals of Colombia.

This is the second time Fontana‚ music and drama teachers, Carlos Cita and Lucho Aya, and English teachers Clara Beltran and Glenda Arciniegas, have brought a group to South Whidbey.

Their 2006 performance wowed audiences. That’s why high school Spanish teachers Chris Fitz and Jenny Gochanour want to welcome everyone to attend the special event.

Fitz said the entire experience of the week has been a great boon to the Spanish program.

“The students love getting the first-hand experience and make friends immediately,” Fitz said.

But it’s the exchange that makes this year extra special.

Every other year, a contingent of South Whidbey High School Spanish students travel with Fitz and Gochanour to a Spanish-speaking country. Previous trips took students to Costa Rica, Mexico and Spain.

This past June, 14 students made the trip to Bogota for two weeks, making the upcoming visit to Whidbey a true exchange.

“The students who went to Bogota with us have all stayed in contact with their host students and families,” Fitz said.

Gochanour said she is always surprised by how intense a bond is formed in only one week when the students host each other in their respective countries.

“We often see the families and the students sobbing when they have to leave each other,” Gochanour said.

Gochanour said not only does the exchange benefit the Spanish program but it also infuses South End schools and the community with a rich, multi-cultural experience that is sometimes scarce on Whidbey Island.

“When the students from Colombia are present in the classrooms all week, it brings a liveliness to the school that is infectious,” she said.

The Gimnasio Fontana students come from an urban setting in Bogota to a rural one on Whidbey, and that may be one of the biggest differences between them, Gochanour added.

“I think one of the best things about it is that our students see how similar they are to the Colombian students; that they are much more similar than different, which fosters a human understanding and a compassion for other people of the world,” she said.

Fitz and Gochanour would like to encourage everyone to attend the public presentation on Thursday.

“It’s such an amazing, enriching show and it’ll be a lot of fun to share that with the whole community,” Gochanour said.