La Primera de Muchas

The first 5 day week of many has been survived by most. If punishment were death a couple of my kids didn’t make it through the week, but I came out just fine! They told us at the start of the year that we could hold kids after school as punishment but we are responsible for keeping them after and occupied. Two ninth graders decided to push their luck earlier this week by continuing to bother two classmates despite at least 4 warnings. I finally told them to stay after to have a little chat. I gave them the first detention of many this year I’m sure. I had them move books for me from my classroom over to the library where they’ve been needing to go for several weeks. It’s liked forced labor, but better!:) Today (Friday) four seventh graders pushed their luck and get to have a similar privilege next week. The two students I had for detention already called me mean as they left, but in a non-harsh way. I hope that they don’t have to stay after again, but they are hard workers. They tried moving the book all at once in a wheelbarrow and it fell down at least 3 times that I saw. It was pretty funny. They tried to take it down the stairs and it fell. I suggested putting it at the bottom of the stairs and then loading the books but they didn’t like that idea. Instead they wanted to tip the wheelbarrow down so all the books fell out, throwing everything off balance and causing them to fall over…oh to be a ninth grader again.:)
A lot of the kids are really enjoyable, a lot are still neutral, and there are some beyond terrible that I can’t wait to give detention! I’m starting to feel like a really mean teacher on a power streak, so I keep things in check as best as I can. I taught my 8th graders today the phrase, “it’s a cinch!” They were saying the math homework was easy, so I said, “good, it should be a cinch for you!” Their math books have still not arrived, so I’m patching together review work from last year’s seventh grade book but it’s getting too easy as more and more comes back to them. I skipped about half the book this week to get to something more challenging…like converting fractions to decimals and percents! It’s so great to teach math, I love it! Not as much as I would love having a third teacher though. If you want to come teach math you could do that.:)
Have I written anything about that? I don’t think so….Tyler and I are trying to convince Emory to hire a third secondary teacher. Right now there are 26 7th graders, soon to be 27, and the possibility of a 28th. One of the students is special needs and the possible addition is from the US and doesn’t speak any Spanish. I already feel bad for that poor girl because she is going to feel so out of place! What is she going to do for Spanish, social studies, home-ec, and various subjects taught in Spanish?! Oh my…it’s time to go get burgers! Tonight we are celebrating our survival of the whole 5 days. It was tough, but I guess I can survive for another 9 months…or so.:)

A Five Day Week?!

Are you kidding!? We actually have to go to school five straight days? This is ridiculous! I’m quitting!

Well no, I didn’t quit, but this is just getting ridiculous! We have to go to school all five days next week! That is so not fair. The first week we had 3.5 days because of hurricane Felix, then last week we only had 3 because of Children’s day and the parade, and now this week we only had 3 because of Teacher’s day and Independence Day. I’m just not cut out for this whole teaching five days per week kind of job, that’s too much for me. Luckily we have three weeks in a row with Friday off.:) Regardless of how much I want to get the time off though, I suppose that I need to go to class, I need to teach, I need to get the kids involved, and I need to not go crazy!

Today I stopped by Children’s International to see if they needed any volunteers for translating, working with children, tutoring, etc. I would like to volunteer there a couple of times per week if I could, if even just for an hour or so. I walked in, explained that I wanted to help, and a lady took me to the back. I talked to these two guys who looked fairly flabbergasted by the whole “offering to help” ordeal that I was putting them through. They said to come back on Monday when the director/coordinator will be there. I’m not entirely sure what Children’s International does, I just know that they help children. Isn’t that an amazing deduction?! I’m not a teacher for nothing.:) I think that they give out free food to families in need and then also provide a place for kids to play on the playground, study, hang out, and just try to create a network of support. From what I know of it I think it’s a pretty cool sounding organization.

Tyler and I walked by the building on accident last weekend and I immediately wanted to help out in some way. It brought back memories of being in Spain and every Thursday going to the homeless shelter to hand out food with Pedro (who loved to talk my ear off). Pedro taught me the word barranco, which means cliff.:) So hopefully on Monday the director will be in and I can help them with cleaning, tutoring, playing with kids, interpreting, translating, or something else semi-helpful. I think that being able to help out there would be a great way to relax and get rid of some stress from teaching…not to say that teaching is stressful, I wouldn’t dream of saying that.:)

The Joy of Small Copan

This afternoon Tyler and I decided to pay a visit to Jorge’s Cousin Esmeralda and then try and find the house of Norma (sub-director) in order to get out and talk with some people. Last night I made some apple-cinnamon biscuits, I know it’s shocking, so we decided that dropping some off would be a good excuse and SUPER nice of us.

First off we go over to Esmeralda’s and have a nice, quick talk with her about church last night. Tyler and I didn’t go cause we went to a morning service instead. Apparently last night was a really good service and all the young people partnered up with adults and they prayed for each other and she was saying that she wished we were there to pray with her. Then I give her the biscuits, just two, nothing significant really, but since we are really nice people we wanted to share. In turn she invites us over for dinner tonight! Dangit! I was the nice one who was going out of my way to do something for her. She wants to make baleadas this evening and teach us how to make them. So we have a dinner date with her at 5:30-ish.

We leave there and head over to where we think Norma lives. I decide that she gets three biscuits cause I know her better. We find her house after asking around to people and she invites us in. I give her the biscuits and am just beaming from ear to ear with my generosity. She invites us to take a seat and offers us lemonade. So darn, there goes my great generosity, we are equal now. That’s alright, at least I still look pretty good from this deal, I gave her three biscuits she gives us two glasses of lemonade, that’s even. She starts telling us how she makes this crema stuff and cheese at their house. I ask if we can see it and tell her how we’re planning on buying some soon so we should buy from her. She takes us to where they make the cream and cheese and GIVES us a pound of cream and a pound of cheese. I tell her we can pay but she insists that the first one is free, then we can pay her next time. On the way out she also gives us a bunch of bananas! Oh my goodness, my great generosity is nothing!

I’m pretty sure that this is not terribly out of the normal around here to have people be super generous and willing to share. I’m excited to invite these people over to our place for dinner or lunch. Granted all we know how to make is spaghetti and French toast; but those are two high quality American meals.:) So all of this to say…I really like sticking around here in Copan for the extended weekends, instead of spending money on travel I save money by getting free stuff from people. Does that defeat the purpose of generosity? I don’t think so, I just enjoy it to it’s fullest.:)

Another Week Another Dolor de Shushunta

I only had class three of the past five school days, and we’re only having class three days this next week. Due to the hurri/drizzle-cane the first week we only had 3 and a half. Is anybody else noticing a pattern? Actually, we will get to have 5 day weeks eventually. And by “get to” I really mean that “unfortunately I will have to work.” This second week was a whole lot better than the first one in the sense that I didn’t seriously consider quitting and returning home. I suppose that it’s always a bonus to not hate your job. I was looking at the calendar today and I believe that I will be returning home in only 15 weeks for Christmas, that’s nothing! I’ve procrastinated on big assignments in college for longer than that.

This weekend we have 5 days off of school, I’m currently on day two of the weekend and I could get used to this. Instead of thinking about going to class tomorrow I’m thinking, man, I only have 60% of my weekend ahead of me still. Friday we had a huge parade in the morning that our school marched/played in. It was super fun to help out with (which means I walked along the side of the kids to make sure they didn’t kill each other during the parade). Afterwards I took a nap, wrote some letters, and then went to a coffee plantation with all the teachers and staff from school. It was awesome because everybody was invited! From the cleaning ladies to the administration and foreign/native teachers. It was great because I got to practice a lot of Spanish with everybody and learn some new words. One of those lovely words is Shushunta. I know this sounds funny to say about a phonetic language, but I don’t know how to spell it and I’m pretty sure that’s wrong because Spanish doesn’t have the “sh” sound. Regardless, it’s apparently a really funny word/way to say “head.” I love the word!:)

The coffee plantation was a high altitude plantation, which of course means better coffee. I felt dumb when I asked why you want high altitude coffee as everybody responded in a very obvious manner, “the taste is SO much better.” Shoot…I’m obviously no coffee connoisseur. We took a tractor to the top of the plantation and then hiked down a nature trail. As soon as we started to walk some rain drops hit the trees, then the ground, then me. Tyler had my umbrella and he went with the first group which was already safely in the restaurant waiting for us. My group more or less ran down to the restaurant in the rain. Rain here is not like Oregon rain, let that be said now! I was soaked to the bone! I liked to point out though that I was only “medio-mojado” (half wet). Due to running down the hill my back side was totally dry.:) Dinner was really good and by the time we left the restaurant the rain had stopped so we could safely walk back to the busses for our ride home.

Oh joyous times in Honduras. I’m actually going to miss the rainy season come January, even though I don’t really like the rain it’s so nice to cool off in the evenings with a sweet thunder and lightening storm. As long as I’m inside it’s fun to watch and listen. Remember, while my dry season schedule is filling fast with visitors you could still find a space for cheap to visit during the rainy season!:) Thank you for reading this blog. I really enjoy when people send me notes saying that they’ve been keeping up with it. It means a lot to know that people take time to stay involved in what I’m doing down here, at least a little bit.

Francisco=)

Alright, this man deserves his own entry on here because he is that incredible. Have you seen Kindergarten Cop? I haven’t personally, but I hear that we have our real life version of that movie right here at Mayatan. Francisco is probably the closest thing to a mix between Rocky and a Latin American drug lord that you can find. He was the science teacher who when I expressed my worries about being in a first grade class said, “I’ll teach first grade.”

To begin with, he’s from La Ceiba, Honduras, so English is his second language, but it makes it all that much funnier. I wish that you could all meet him. He’s always got his shirt partially buttoned up, he smokes, and never plans anything for class. Right now him and Judie (his wife) are staying with Emory and Linda while they are still trying to find housing around here. And as Tyler reminded me to put in here, Francisco is probably at least in his late fourties.

His response to how class is going is this, “Oh it’s no problem man, ya know, ya just gotta keep ‘em busy man.” Tyler walks past his class the other day and he’s teaching the first graders counting from 1-5. He’s holding a little girls hand in the front of the class with four other kids and the kids are repeating “one”, “two”, etc. As Tyler walks by Francisco looks over and gives him a little wink.

During our infamous drizzle-cane we were walking for a little while down a big hill in town that is cobblestone (like all the streets here that aren’t dirt) and his thought is, “oh man, these streets would be awesome if you were drunk man. You know what I’m sayin’?”

That same day with the rainstorm we were talking and I was asking Francisco what we’ll do if the kinds from Santa Rita can’t make it home. His first response, without hesitation, “They can stay at Emory’s! Hotel Emory man.”

We were hanging out with him and Judie when he said, “I’ll have to cook ya guys breakfast some time. I cook a good breakfast.” Judie immediately responds, “What have you ever cooked?!” His totally cool and non-defensive response is, “Oh you know, I cook toast…eggs…all sorts of good stuff. I’m real good.”

And the last and perhaps my favorite story of all. Somebody the other day was asking if there is anybody at school we can ask, “what is going on right now?” And they would be able to tell you exactly what is happening. It seems like nobody ever knows what is really going on. Francisco’s response, “You show up at 7, teach, and leave at 2, that’s what’s going on.”

I wish that you could all meet him. If he leaves Mayatan for some reason then nothing will ever be as funny the rest of the year. I don’t think a day goes by that I don’t get a laugh out of something he does or says.

A Drizzle-cane

Just to make this more clear as you read, I’m writing this at my computer on Wednesday, Sep 5. After the first day of school on Monday we were informed by the administration at school that Hurricane Felix is on it’s way and we should be prepared with extra water, food, etc. Then last night they said that Tegucigalpa was already getting rain and it looked like there was a lot of flooding there. So we were a little panicked yet decided there’s not much we can do about it so we had a hurricane party last night. The rain started at around 3pm yesterday with a light drizzling but never got any worse. Then it stopped at about 8pm last night…wow, what a hurricane. We weren’t bummed, we just felt let down that a hurricane would have no wind and about 5 hours of drizzling. However, we were misinformed. Tegucigalpa was not hit with rain yesterday morning, it was hit yesterday afternoon and into today, just as we have been. The rain started again at 9pm with a drizzle. I suppose it’s slightly heavier rain than Seattle can expect in December. So it’s not terribly hard yet there was talk about canceling school. At 8:15am this morning Norma (Honduran administrator) came into my room and asked to speak with me for a second. She said that the school was closing under order of the Department of Education. Kids from Santa Rosa were bussed home at 9:30am and from here in Copan at 10am. As us smart Americans left school we were just as excited as the kids! No school! Relaxation! Fun! It’s just a drizzle! Why are these fools closing school?!

Then one of us talked to Norma who informed us that back in ’98 Hurricane Mitch was the same exact way. There was no hurricane that hit the Copan area. This area was devastated by a long, sustained drizzle, which the ground cannot support and it caused a lot of flooding. But still we didn’t necessarily understand. It’s now been over 24 hours straight of rain without any let up except for about one hour last night. We walked down to the main river in town to check it out and it was at least 2 meters higher than it was this weekend with no sign of slowing down. We past a corn field that was completely flooded and destroyed. We stared past the national police/guard who had closed the bridge at the other side of the water. We just hiked up that hill this weekend, but the entire path along the river, which was at least 2 if not 3 meters above the river was completely covered in water. As we walked to the river we crossed a little river of water crossing the road no more than a quarter inch deep. We were there for 20 minutes or so and when we left the water was about half an inch to an inch deep. It’s amazing how such a constant, steady drizzle can devastate everything around here!

I’m excited that we don’t have school tomorrow but I’m worried for many of the people around here who live by the rivers and streams. We are safe here in Copan Ruinas, but how many villages lie along the river that have already been damaged? They say to expect rain at least until noon tomorrow…yikes…


(Thursday morning) The rain has stopped! Woo! I haven’t seen the river yet today, but the rain stopped around 2 or 3 last night. Part of me is bummed because we will most likely have school tomorrow, but at the same time I’m also relieved that damage will be kept to a minimum and we can get back into the classroom. Maybe they will still decide to cancel school tomorrow, that would be ok with me, it’s like the best of both worlds. One more day of rest and no rain to keep the floodwaters rising.:)

First days of School

The start of school has been SO LONG! After the first day I was wondering why in the world I came down here and why I ever thought that teaching science, math, and computers to middle schoolers was better than first grade. I’ve never been a teacher and classroom management was not a top skill of mine. However, I talked to Susan on Monday night and that gave me a lot of good ideas for classroom management. Then I also talked to Tyler and some of the other teachers to gather even more ideas. I was pumped for the second day! After Tuesday I was plotting, “now, when I told them I would teach all year does that mean I have to stay all year? What if I claim there is a visa problem at Christmas and I can’t come back into Honduras?”

The kids were a terror and I was just about ready to quit on the spot. I talked to Emory right after school about science class (which is the cause of most stress) because we have one flask, one graduated cylinder, and a semi-broken balance. Sweet lab set-up for 26 7th graders, eh? Emory said that he finds reading out loud in class to work well with the students because they can practice reading comprehension, pronunciation, and science all in one. What a deal?!=) That lessened science stress a little. Then I was panicked about computer time. I have 26 7th graders, 14 8th, and 9 9th graders to occupy for 2 hours per week each in a computer lab with 3 medium speed working computers and a slow one that doesn’t really work. I talked with Norma (Honduran administrator) about the possibility of either getting help with that class or making it into a study hall time. “Our students are behind in math,” she tells me. So it looks like we will be spending 2 extra hours per week on math when we can, otherwise reading silently or working on other homework.

After more talking, preparing, and strategizing I was ready to implement my plan of action for classroom management with a zillion 7th graders. It started out great today! Until the school closed, that is. I’m now not so worried about teaching and gaining confidence daily to keep kids from playing soccer in the classroom. I can’t put a finger on what exactly I changed today, but the kids were more responsive and I am ready to face the students when school opens up again. Yay teaching!