'Twas the Noche Before Navidad

This is a poem that I found online, revamped a little bit, and then submitted for our third graders at school in the Christmas program. This is a little less Spanish and more English than our program version, for your enjoyment.:)


‘Twas the night before Christmas y por toda la casa,
Not a creature was stirring – Caramba! Qué pasa?

The kids were tucked away en las camas,
Some in long underwear, algunos en pijamas

While hanging las medias con mucho cuidado,
Hoping Old Santa would feel obligado.

To bring all niños, los buenos y malos,
A nice batch of dulces y otros regalos.

Outside in the yard arose such un grito,
That I jumped to my feet like a frightened cabrito.

I ran to the window y miré afuera,
And who in the world piensas que era?

Saint Nick in a sleigh and a big red sombrero
Came dashing along like a crazy bombero.

And pulling his sleigh en vez de venados
Were eight little burros approaching volados.

I watched as they came and this quaint little hombre
Was shouting and whistling and llamando por nombre:

“Ay Pancho, ay Pepe, ay Cuco, ay Berto,
Ay Chato, ay Chopo, Macuco, y Nieto!”

Then standing erect con las manos en el pecho
He flew to the top de nuestro techo.

With his round little belly like a bowl of jalea,
He struggled to squeeze down nuestra chimenea.

Then huffing and puffing por fin en nuestra sala,
With soot smeared por todo su real vestido de gala,

He filled las medias with lovely regalos –
For none of the niños se portaron muy malos.

Then chuckling aloud, pareciendo muy contento,
He turned like a flash y se fue como el viento.

And I heard him exclaim, y eso es verdad,
Merry Christmas to all, y Feliz Navidad!

What a Dream!

Ok first off, I’m supposedly living with Dwight and Michael from the office and we have adopted collectively one child who is about 12, on a soccer team, and a brat. At the start of the dream I’m sick while I find out that we’ve been awarded a Habitat for Humanity type house. It’s a different organization, but same idea. I go to the site when they start to work on it (I’m not sure where we live, but it’s somewhere tropical with lots of banana trees) but since I’m sick I decide to take a nap on the site. So I lay down on the ground and start to sleep. I wake up a couple hours later and part of the house is completed. I look up to see an awesome hallway with a sweet skylight finished. I go right back to sleep though and don’t wake up for what must be a long time later. I wake up and now I’m sitting on the front porch of a brand new house. Michael is standing next to me talking about our brand new house. Nobody else is there so we go in a check out the new house room by room. It’s prefect with 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, and the best carpet in the world. There’s a room for Dwight, Michael, and myself. We then have to wake up the doctor who is sleeping on our couch so that I can get a check-up and he clears me that I’m ok.
Now here’s where I lose some of it...somehow Michael is working at a beverage distributor now and the perk is that he delivers himself a 2 liter of his favorite drink every morning and says that it was a “mistake” so that he doesn’t charge himself for it. Anyways, in order to get to work (cause we all work there together) we go in a trailer that is pulled by a tractor, naturally. How else would we get there? I decide to drive while Michael and Dwight climb into the trailer and then suddenly my wife climbs onto the tractor with me. I don’t remember her name but she comes to the beverage factory with us. On the way there we start to get followed by some cops who turn on their lights to pull us over. Since we’re in a tractor I apparently think that we can outrun the cops. I floor it and start to pull away from the cops when we get close to a crowded area where there is a soccer field. My wife bails (no pun intended) off the tractor to the left and I veer to the right slamming into the wall of the soccer field. There is a soccer game going on and the brat kid who lives with us is playing. He scores a goal because the other team was distracted by our tractor and then he celebrates by running around the tractor and laughing at us. Then I wake up....
Every once in a while I remember my dreams and just have to think to myself....really?

Hospitality 102

I’ve now graduated from hospitality 101 here in Honduras and am moving upwards in my education. While on my way home from Copán I had to spend a night in San Pedro. I was looking at hotels when I ran into a friend of a friend who lives in San Pedro. She has two kids ages 21 and 18 and she invited me to spend the night with her. Her older daughter is married and lives in the United States and her younger son is still in school. Currently (while I’m at her house) he’s still in Copán hanging out with friends there during vacations. I show up to the bus terminal and she comes to pick me up there and take me back to her house in a taxi. We get out and walk around the two main malls of San Pedro and walk over to her aunt’s house. The two malls was alright, we just walked around and drank smoothies. My pineapple/banana smoothie was not as great as I would have hoped for. So anyways, we go over to her aunt’s house who gives me coffee and cookies. Then we come back to Thelma’s (that’s the friends name) place and she has me sit and watch tv while she makes dinner. She gives me a huge dinner with beans, rice, tortillas, plátanos, cheese, etc. and home-made orange juice. After dinner we sit down and watch some of the BYU-Arizona football game while we chat it up. This lady is so incredibly hospitable and check out these two traumatic events that have happened to her in the past year and a half:
1) Her husband was shot and killed over a land dispute with another gentleman (who wasn’t actually a gentleman). Thelma’s husband had brought out a lawyer to settle a land dispute over about 16 acres of land. When the lawyer concluded that it was rightfully her husband’s the other guy agreed to it, signed the papers, etc. Then as he walked away the guy pulled out a pistol and shot him twice in the back. Turns out the guy who shot her husband was later shot himself by a hired-hand of his. All that happened one month before the daughters wedding!
2) So now her husband is dead and they move to a new apartment. In the middle of the night the apartment gets broken into and this idiot steals everything from the kitchen, cell phones, etc. As he starts to take the sewing machine (which she now makes her living off of) some keys fell to the floor waking up her son. He went out and saw that a man was standing there and he started to yell at him. Thelma woke up and ran out but the guy split out the window with what he had taken so far.
At the end of all these stories that she’s telling me you know what she says to me? “God is good. This man could have stolen more from the house or even killed us.” Despite her husband being shot over an unjust dispute and a bunch of her belongings being stolen all she has to say to me is still, “God is good.” Now if that’s not a lady to model your attitude after who can find me a better one?

The BEST “Oops I Crapped My Pants” Story EVER

I warn you ahead of time that this is not a pleasant story and is fairly inappropriate if you don’t like these kinds of stories…but it is worth reading.:) We’ll call the main character here Jose just for kicks.
Jose was in Santa Rita (about 8km away from Copán) with some friends at a conference. They all drove there together in a pick-up (most people in the back of course). All of the sudden he really had to go to the bathroom but there wasn’t one at the conference. Next door there was a house under construction and so he went over to the house and decided to do his business there. But there wasn’t any toilet paper of course so he took off his under shirt to wipe and then left his t-shirt there. He gets all done and ready to go back to the conference but he has to go to the bathroom again! So he went back to the construction site and once again did his thing, but then what was he going to wipe with!? He took off his boxers and wiped with that and left them there at the construction site.
This part of the story was sufficient enough for me but then Patti kept going on telling me about the story…
Now Jose was all finished and on his way back to the conference when this time there was no warning….he crapped his pants! He had no underwear on and it was not a pretty site apparently. Now completely embarrassed there was no way that he could accept a ride back with all of his friends with that humiliation and stinky odor. So he decided that he would have to walk all the way back to Copán at 9pm! He was so ashamed in fact that he couldn’t accept a ride from anybody who passed by. He had to go several times along the road back to Copán and each time he just had to go on the side of the road. At one point he was going to the bathroom again when a whole truckload of people passed by. Worried that some of them might be friends who would recognize him he threw himself face down (butt up) on the side of the road. He made it all the way back to Copán and when he got home he had to call his wife to open the front gate. As soon as she let him in she made him immediately go take a shower and throw his pants outside in the dumpster.
Concluding the whole story Patti says to me, “Do you have a similar story? Don’t be shy, we’re all friends here.” How can somebody possibly have a similar story?!

Queridas Clases

I have been substituting for the past couple days in one of my favorite classes…fourth grade. They are all still very interested in school and learning and at an age that is great for motivating to learn. Yet they aren’t old enough yet to cop an attitude and talk back to the teacher (nor do they have that good of English yet). So I get to ask them for rhyming words and they continue to shout out, “Tear! Hear! Fear! Ear! Near! Dear!” My favorite part of subbing for the past couple days was when the kids kept walking around on the floor with their shoes off (down on their knees) singing, “Quiero mover el bote! Quiero mover el bote!” Which is the song from Madagascar that goes something like, “I want to move it move it! I want to move it move it!” I keep telling them, “What is that smell?! Oh sick! Francisco put your shoes back on!” Then he responds to me (still on his knees with his shoes under his knees), “Look Mister! I’m in Kindergarten!” I just turned back to the board to keep writing while I laughed to myself. I can’t encourage that kind of behavior…but I can’t keep a straight face either.:)
I notice the secret to teaching this age group….positive thinking and positive speak. The first day was exhausting with lots of, “Sit down!” “Don’t do that!” “Please don’t talk!” So I decided on day two to have a more positive attitude and point out the people doing the correct thing. I got an immediate response! In the morning they come in, get out their notebook for morning questions, and start answering questions on the board. It was a little hard to get them all to sit and start….but a couple people were. The second that I said, “Thank you Dulce for starting the morning questions. Delmer, you are also doing an excellent job!” the response from other kids was immediate (and fairly loud as well), “Look Mister! I’m working too!” They all started to work on their morning questions, no more reminders or commands…aren’t I the greatest? Wait, I take that back, aren’t fourth graders the best?:)

Feliz Cumpleaños!

On Saturday I was planning to go visit a friend’s family as they are closing in on the final stages of building their first house! I was pretty excited to go visit with another friend of mine, Suly. But then Suly was delayed in the morning by this whole baby thing (she has a 2 month old) so we wouldn’t have left until 10am and it was already sunny and hot! Suly invited over to get ready for a birthday party instead so we did that (it was in a covered and cool space). I was planning on going for a little while to just hang out and chat then head back home for lunch as it was just after noon…
…then they invited me to have some chicken tortilla things that were great so I decided that I needed to keep working to make up for it…
…then they gave me a whole plate of chicken, salad, and tortillas that were also great so I had to keep working to make up for it…
…then people started showing up for the party and Doña Chus told me that I couldn’t leave at this point cause the party was starting! Since it was full of people that I didn’t know I was looking for some place to stick myself in a corner and hide. I found a place in the kitchen to help make canches (a hard shell tortilla with refried beans, cheese, and salsa on it) so I staid there with my new friend Thelma. Thelma is from San Pedro and has a couple kids about my age so we had a great time sharing stories about them and she actually invited me over to San Pedro and said that some weekend we can go to Lago Yajoa, out to the beach, etc. if I want to stop by with her family. It was great…
…then they gave me cake, coke, and awesome chicken taco/enchilada things that were amazing. So I decided that in order to make up for that I had to stay and help with clean-up…
…then it was just down to about 20 people left at the party (it was probably around 60 or 70 at it’s peak) so I decided that it was a good time to slip out.
What was going to be a short visit with Suly in Doña Chus’ restaurant turned out to be a whole day long celebration for Stacy (turning one) filled with food, piñata, candy, set-up, and everyone’s favorite part (clean-up). I’m continually blown away by the hospitality of people around here. Just the other day I was thinking about how I was starting to get good at hospitality but once again I was humiliated completely by Doña Chus and the whole gang at the party who welcomed me to the party despite at best only being acquaintances previously. Lesson: when you think you’re on top of life go visit somebody else’s birthday party and be humiliated.:)

Stand-By

I’m not talking about the flight stand-by….I’m talking about the teaching stand-by. There are the normal stand-by days in which I show up and find out that I’m subbing for the day. That can be hard sometimes cause I don’t always know what it is that I’m supposed to do. It usually turns out not so bad though because I just have to survive the day. Then there are the stand-by days in which I’m advised ahead of time and have time to look over plans/create my own beforehand. Those are the really good days because I know what’s happening and I can sort of cut and paste to the plans as I see fit…most teachers don’t have a problem with that.:)
Then there are the other stand-by days...these are the tough ones. These are the days in which a teacher is feeling very frustrated and down on themselves about their lack of teaching ability. These are the days that I just wonder…am I going to be taking over for this teacher when/if they leave at Christmas? These are the hard days because it’s so difficult as a first year teacher! Kids don’t learn anything, you have no control, you spend all your time outside of school working, and despite all that nothing improves. At least that’s what it feels like a lot of the time. I want to tell them, “I promise that it gets better!”
At first I selfishly wanted all the teachers to stay so that I could stay in my dream job of the library/subbing. But now I’m beginning to think that I’m indifferent. For the kids it would be nice to have the same teacher all year long to at least have a year long consistency (as year to year consistency doesn’t exist); but for me I think that I would be alright taking over a classroom. I’m picking out what grades I would say yes to and which ones I would say no to…there are some classes that I favor.:) When some come to the library Diana and I say, “oh good! I’m so excited they’re coming!” And then there are the other classes…”How about I go eat lunch and you just stay here for the next class?”:)

Gana Honduras Otra Vez!

Once again Honduras' National Soccer Team gave the country something to celebrate! In a must not lose game against Mexico in San Pedro Sula the team pulled out a 1-0 victory! The game was a great game in which Honduras almost scored a couple times the first half before finally scoring on an own-goal from Mexico. It was a sweet cross and instead of clearing it over the net he cleared it over the goalie, go Mexico defense!:)
As time was closing out and things were still tense Mexico managed to get TWO red cards in a manner of a couple minutes, all but sealing the game for Honduras.
The last round starts in February for the World Cup Qualifier with the U.S., Costa Rica, and Honduras finishing in first place in their respective groups with Trinidad and Tobago, El Salvador, and Mexico finishing second in their groups. Look for Honduras to come out swinging in February and for many more hopeful blogs on this subject.:)
In other news...parent conferences are tomorrow as first quarter grades will be handed over. I'm translating for the second graders and hopefully all will go well. I know how to say, "your students can't shut up," "He doesn't know where his seat is," and perhaps most importantly, "I think your child would be better off at another school." What else do you need to say? Maybe, "He's a pleasure in class." But that's too common of a thing to say, parents like specifics, right?:) I don't know if they want all the specifics though...

Everything I Really Need to Know...

...I learned teaching kindergarten! That's right, I'm teaching kindergarten. Mr. Mario, the usual kindergarten teacher has gone to the States for a couple of days and so I will be filling in for him. It's not as bad as it sounds...I don't think. He's typically a very strict teacher and so the kids are well trained in what to do, I just simply have to be the director of the learning. It's a lot of me saying things and them repeating it. The first day (today) was alright. I lost them for about 45 minutes in the middle of the day but I recuperated and got control again in the end. My problem was that I tried to practice "What a Wonderful World" with them. Yes, the song, "I see trees of green, red roses too. I see them bloom...etc." It's a little bit over kindergarteners heads and I lost them. Once I recuperated and got them back things got a lot better. I hope that the next three school days are similar. That's right...three more school days of me teaching kindergarten, whew!
In other news....I got some flowers at school today. I also got a few drawings from kids. Five of them were making a drawing for Mr. Mario and it turned out that most of them turned it into me instead. I guess that they just can't wait that long to turn it into him. I'll have to think of something fun to do with the kids on Monday in order to get ready for Mario to come back...any fun ideas?:)

One Year Ago…

It was exactly one year ago today (Nov. 3) that Miriam, one of the first grade assistants at Mayatan, died of a stroke. It’s always a tradition to go out to the gravesite and leave flowers on three important days (perhaps more, I’m not sure). The three days for Miriam all fall very close together. There’s Nov. 2 where everybody goes to the graveyard and lays out flowers. Then there’s the date the person died, Nov. 3…and lastly you go on the persons birthday, Nov. 20! That’s all really close together, we should work on spreading out these dates a little bit better…
So if you remember my stories about Miriam last year you can also remember that today is the one year anniversary of her passing away. In memory of that, please keep both her daughters in your prayers. One is working at a local hotel (graduate of Mayatan) and one is in fifth grade at Mayatan.

Pobres Borrachos

For Halloween the foreign staff decided to have a little celebration in which some people dressed up as crayons, some as an aquarium, and some as just an under-cover Halloween celebrator. Well, a couple of the Hondurans decided that it would be fun to also come, but to come with a whole bottle of whisky and already fairly sloshed. Then of course they drank more…and more…eventually one of them got so drunk that he really had no idea what he was saying (and to make matters even better he drove to the party). I swear that I have never received more compliments in one night from one person. Shoot, I got more compliments from him that night than I’ve gotten in the past 10 years of my life.
One point of the conversation we’re trying to ask him how to say mold in Spanish but instead the conversation lead into ants. David, Tyler, and I were the ones talking to him and trying to keep him occupied away from his drink and so David asks him, “where do ants come from?” Our friend responds, “you know that’s an interesting question…” And he keeps going on about it. Tyler and I are dieing of laughter and trying not to make David laugh cause our friend is very serious. But David keeps asking ridiculous questions like, “And how do you talk to these ants?” Can you honestly keep a straight face if a serious conversation about ants were taking place in front of you?
The end of the night approaches and my friend asks me to drive him home so I take David along with me as he can drive a manual (If you’re reading this Jared, it was started on a hill, I can’t do that yet…). We get out to our friends house to drop him off and by the time we get there the alcohol is setting in, he lives in the middle of nowhere, and he wouldn’t let us leave cause it was too dangerous. We finally get another friend of mine to drive all the way out there at 9:30 at night (which is really late here!) just to bring us back to the park. Oh drunk people…why are they so difficult?

El Probema con la Escuela

The problem with school is simple...you have behavior problems. The problem is that these not being my own kids I can't spank them, take away dinner, make them finish homework before playing, take away tv, take away video games, etc. So a kid misbehaves, we tell the parents, and then it's out of our hands for the most part. What are you going to say, "I'm going to give you double the homework!" the kid doesn't do it anyways. "I'm going to take you out of the classroom!" He would prefer to run around outside.
The real problem with it though is that the vast majority of kids that I've seen problems with the parents have come in at some point and you realize, "that explains so much about your son!" You may tell the parent that the child is constantly picking on other kids and the response may be something like, "well it's cause other kids pick on him first." Or maybe, "your son never comes to school with his homework completed." And the quick response is, "Well he doesn't understand it." The response should be simple, "Your kid is in first grade! He's drawing squares! Help him with it!"
If only I could be the parent of all the children....I could spank them, take away their tv, and solve all the problems of the world...maybe not.:)

¿Por Qué Es Todo Mejor en Español?

This week has been just another uneventful week down here. Things that seem out of the ordinary to folks back home happen all the time here and I think nothing of it. So when I schooled a couple first graders in soccer the other day, or chowed down on some baleadas, or drank my granita de café they all seemed like such normal things. I think that the reason I blog so much at the start of the year is because after being in the States I notice all the funny things and write about them. Now, just a couple months into this whole librarian thing and everything around here seems normal.
Speaking of librarian, I made it through a whole week with just working in the library and not substituting! I was super excited about that. I enjoy subbing, and I enjoy working in the library….it’s like two favorites, but library is slightly more favorite than subbing. I was thankful to get a little rest from subbing. Library work this week involved finally starting on cleaning up our “resource room.” It is a mess of books that are mostly junk, with some awesome keepers in their! I threw out about 9 huge garbage bags full of books as well as 4 or 5 boxes….and I’m only part way through. We’re talking about encyclopedia’s from 1974, science books from the 60’s, copies of half of a literature book, and many other useless things for our school. However, in the keeper pile I have more copies of books like, Number the Stars, Danny: Champion of the World, Before we were Free, etc. and Madlibs! What person doesn’t love Madlibs? Right now I’m feeling all in tip top “library shape” and I hope that this continues throughout the whole year.

Ojala Siga Lloviendo!

I show back up at school today after a week of vacation and I'm thinking..."ugh, back to the grind." I show up and notice that there doesn't seem to be as many students as I previously remember. Turns out the highways around here are TERRIBLE! The highway between Copan and Santa Rita (where we have about 50 students) has always been terrible, but with a tropical depression passing over the past week or so it's now worse than ever. There are highways down by Tegucigalpa that are totally wiped out with rivers swollen more than Hurricane Felix last year. Some say it's worse than Hurricane Mitch in some parts....but I think that they've forgotten already how bad that was. Anyways, with all this rain and 50 students missing we only had classes until 9am! I was very sad....but after I mourned for a couple seconds I had an extra spark in my step.:)
Now here we are wondering if we're going to have school tomorrow. It hasn't rained much today but it hasn't heated up to clear out the old rain. I'm hoping that it rains tonight to have one extra day off. Some schools are canceled through Thursday due to bad weather. You can probably look up pictures and stories and stuff online...probably not CNN as this doesn't pertain with the US or a Leftist ruler...but other news sites might have it.:) We'll see what happens...

Gana Honduras!

Last night I went to my second ever futbol game here in Honduras and my first of the National Team. It's the fourth game in the second round for the World Cup '10. This game was vs. Canada (which we beat 2-1 in Canada). I was one of some 35,000 happy fans at kickoff...do you say that in futbol or is that a football term? I think it's both. Maybe I should go back to the start. I went with Graham (teaches at Mayatan) and Teresa as well as 25 or so Honduran folks. We were going to meet with David and Cody (and David's sister) at the game but they came late, at halftime. We took a bus at 2pm, got to the game at 6pm, left at 10pm, and got home at 2am!
The first half was fairly uneventful. Honduras scored a goal 8 minutes into the game, I jumped up, screamed, yelled, clapped, and then sat back down. I wanted to sit in the middle of our Honduran group but got stuck on the outside without anybody near me that I knew. The second half I went and got David, Cody, and his sister and then got a seat in the middle of the Honduran crowd! Canada scored a goal quickly in the second half to quiet us all down and sit us down. But just about 8 minutes after that Honduras took the lead on a sweet goal! We all jumped up, clapped, yelled, gave high 5's, and cheered. One of the guys in the group, being completely smashed, told me "Fijate que pareces Catracho!" (look dude, you seem Honduran!). We stayed standing the rest of the first half singing, yelling, shouting, and of course shouting at the ref. Honduras added on one last goal at the end to make it 3-1 final. The same drunk buddy who told me that I seem Honduran then told me on the way out that I was Honduran...several times. Once again proving the theory, alcohol ruins your judgment.

Rainy Season

Rainy Season
Originally uploaded by hoofter24

Remember a few blogs ago I said something about posting pictures of the rain...well I finally got around to it on flickr...this is one of the pictures outside my house with the pouring down rain. It's eased up now though and is more like a Seattle drizzle when it rains...

Brigada Medica Part II

Thursday at the medical brigade was a long and relatively uneventful day as not many people passed through. One of the girls that passed through made a sad impact on me though. She’s pregnant and when I first saw her I thought, “wow, she’s really young!” But of course here in Latin America family takes care of family so I figured her parents would probably be helping. Turns out that she’s 14, boyfriend got her pregnant and then dropped her like yesterday’s newspaper, and now her parents are telling her, “If you keep that baby you are never to come back to us.” How’s that for a support system? This is not like the States or another developed country where she then runs to a support shelter, there has never been such a thing even heard of around here. So what will she do? Who in the world knows? The lady from the brigade who was helping her began to cry about the whole situation. I didn’t want to then tell her about Dr. Maritza’s story. She used to work at the same clinic we are at this week and one day a girl arrived of about that age and gave birth. She was going to keep the baby but her parents came and said, “If you walk out of this clinic with that baby you are never seeing us again.” Long story short, she turned the baby over to a family near the clinic and went back home to her parents. That kind of leads you to think that this isn’t the most uncommon of situations, eh? The lady in the brigade says, “I would never let that happen to me!” But there are several huge differences in culture here. The girl here will at best have gone through 6th grade (maybe a little higher), be working, be dating older men (20+ years old), and she lives in a society where men dominate every part of the relationship. I don’t mean that in a sense like we think about in the States, I mean it in a much more extreme sense. You could gather some big differences I think from that list compared with most cases in the States. There’s no real moral to my story here, I just wanted to share a sad case in our brigade…we have pretty good lives.
Just a slight add-on to the previous story: The same pregnant gal came back in on Friday with the complaint of a “worm in her leg.” She lifted up her pant-leg to show me and it looked like a mosquito bite, but I thought since I’m no nurse I’ll pass her on to the nurse. The nurse said, “You know, I’m no doctor, but this looks like a mosquito bite.” We pass her onto the doctor and he says, “Why did you send her to me for a mosquito bite?” Oh the worries of some people over simple things.:)

Otra Día, Otra Brigada

For the fourth straight school day and the fifth time in the past week I was not in the library! However, this time I was not substituting like other days, I got the day off of school to go supervise our secondary students in action at a medical brigade (una brigada). It’s a group from Pennsylvania who is here this week. We are sending about eight students each day to help interpret. I thought that I was going to be a little bored and walking around mindlessly like the case usually is the first couple days of a brigade but they threw me right into the mix to interpret! It was great! As far as medical brigades go this is the best one that has come through with respect to the students. All of the students have a person they are assigned to and know what they are to be doing at all times. Therefore we don’t have any students wandering around, talking on their cell phones, flirting non-stop (there’s still flirting between students…just not at much as a high school summer camp), etc. The hardest case of today was a lady who came in with a tumor behind her eye. It had cut off vision to an eye and was pushing the eye straight out. They had to send her to a hospital cause they couldn’t attend to her. I get to go back to the brigade on Thursday and Friday so I’m pretty excited. I would also be excited if I were to show up at school tomorrow and be working in the library…☺

¡Que Día Más Maravilloso!

This has been one of my favorite days in Copán this year and probably since coming here last year. In the morning we had our annual teacher excursion to the Finca Santa Isabel. It’s the coffee farm that the Welchez own (who also own the school) and since last Wednesday was Teacher’s Day we celebrated it at the Finca this weekend. We took a tractor to the top of a nature trail there and then hiked down through the forest and coffee plants to arrive at a restaurant. We had the most amazing lunch including tamales, tortillas, pork, and some amazing dessert thing (of which I don’t think my mom was a fan of last year).
We arrived back in Copán just in time for a short rain shower as David, Cody, and I headed over to Suly’s house to visit the new baby. Her name is Yaira Annet Mendez (or something along those lines) and was a healthy 7 pounds 11 ounces as of Wednesday night. After 30+ hours of labor Suly finally had a c-section done so she is still recovering in bed. There are plenty of visitors to see the new baby and keep her busy though. Last night I refused to “chinearla” because I was afraid of breaking a two-day-old baby but now that she’s a day older I held the baby. I know there’s something cool and special about new-borns but I’m still a big fan of kids when they are at least 2 and you can play with them…not just carry them around.
To top off my amazing day we all went up to a party at another teacher’s place. I wasn’t too excited about it cause I wanted to speak more Spanish, not more English. We show up to the party and walk in the door to see three of the Spanish teachers sitting there with some of the other teachers. Perfect! I hung out with them almost the whole night just shooting the breeze, telling jokes, and “contando pajas.” We had dinner and then played bananagrams! But not just any bananagrams, we played it in Spanish!!! It was so much fun and we had a fun time as I inserted all sorts of “indiadas” (Honduran words) into my words. The Spanish teachers got a kick out of it, although I never won. Those that haven’t played the game, it’s like Scrabble (Speed Scrabble to be exact).
Well, now that all is said and done…the day is coming to a close….I should get to sleeping. That’s the one thing that would make this night any better!:)

Fíjate Bien

Once a week I’ve gotten into the routine of helping a friend of mine with his English class that he takes on the weekend in high school. It started out with just him, then just a couple of friends, and now it’s usually about 7 or 8 of us as I help them work through translations and various English activities. Friday night was another night that I helped them through all of the activities. Unlike other nights I stayed after for a while since Nufo and I got to talking. He’s about 34, married, and has two kids. He works full time during the week and takes high school classes on the weekends to finish his degree. Just that alone earns a lot of respect in my book.
Anyways, I got back to my house and was feeling really good about life here in Copán. I’ve had a great sense of peace in the past month that I’ve been back here. I feel extremely content to be here and know that of all the places that I could have gone after college that this is the town God sent me to. Last year I went to church but wasn’t much into the habit of reading my Bible and really meditating on anything of remote importance in life. This year I’ve done much better about that so far and I think that from it stems my sense of knowing this is where God has sent me.
Like I always tend to do, I was listening to some music that same evening when the song “Alive,” by P.O.D. came on. I assume that you don’t know the song, thus I’ve put the lyrics at the end. I’m thankful for every day, every interaction, and every breath that I take while I’m here in Copán. I am trying not to take life for granted here. I am surrounded by constant reminders of God’s faithfulness which are so easily missed when not looking for them…así que fíjate bien (so pay attention)…

Alive – P.O.D.
Every day is a new day
I’m thankful for every breath I take
I won’t take it for granted
So I learn from my mistakes
It’s beyond my control so I’m about to let go
Whatever happens in this lifetime
So I trust in love
You have given me peace of mind
I feel so alive, for the very first time
…

La Antigua Guatemala (Beginning)

Or I suppose that you could say Antigua, Guatemala. I think that more people are familiar with it in that manner. I do believe that the name comes from this: The capital for the Americas (yes, all of them) under Spain was Antigua for about 200 years until earthquakes destroyed the city. The capital was moved (although for a short while as revolt was on the horizon) to what is currently Guatemala City (I think). So for those of you out there not majoring in Spanish the word “antigua” means “old.” So the old Guatemala City is “Antigua Guatemala” or simply just Antigua.
Now that we are done with that history lesson, let’s move on to the point of this whole story. I went to Antigua this past weekend with a couple teacher friends. We left on Sunday afternoon after our parade on the 14th for the 15th (Independence day in just about all of Central America). We spent a couple days in Antigua before “apenas” (more on this later) returning to Copan. On Monday we toured a little around the city and set up what we were doing for the rest of our trip through some travel agencies but also just plans on our own. We took a bus up to the Pacaya Volcano and then hiked up to the top of it. When we arrived there was lava flowing from a couple different places. We walked out into the lava flow that was a couple days old to take a better look at it and you could feel the heat from the fresh lava! It was pretty cool, and no I did not burn myself.
On Tuesday we took a bus out to Panajachel (say that five times fast). It’s pronounced…well…let’s see how I can put this, pahn-ah-ha-che-el. Something like that, if pronunciation matters to you a lot I can say it for you at Christmas time.:) It’s a city right on Lago Atitlán, which is an amazingly beautiful lake with lots of annoying people. In Copan we have “tourist panhandlers” as I call them, but with a couple of negative answers or ignoring them I’m left alone. Oh no, not in Panajachel…we were followed and talked to in a mix of terrible English and accented Spanish. The people of Panajachel for the most part speak Spanish as their second language and I found it very difficult to communicate with some people. It was really cool to see a whole different world in Panajachel and another city on the lake named San Pedro. I’m glad to have gone so that I can say, “Been there. Done that.” But for enjoyment purposes I wouldn’t go back to the lake.
Last but not least is my ride home and this is where the “apenas” part gets explained. Apenas is a way of saying something that you did but “with pain.” Sort of explaining that you did it but with trouble or difficulty…

La Antigua Guatemala (Ending)

We made reservations and paid for a bus on Monday afternoon that was set to leave at 1pm on Wednesday afternoon. We show up to the travel agency at quarter to one to check in for the bus and they tell us, “Fíjese que no hay bus hoy porque los caminos están cerrados por manifestaciones.” Now, the look on your face trying to understand that is about what mine was like at this point in time. “There must be a mistake,” I responded, “how are the roads closed for demonstrations?” Turns out (in my opinion) that we were the only 3 people on the bus and they thought we had “buen billete” to pay for a private shuttle bus that they wanted to put us on at 4pm for only another $96! We’d already paid $36 and I wasn’t about to give them another penny. We got a refund and made a break for a couple other travel agencies but there was never a bus at 1pm. We took a public bus from Antigua to Guatemala City, then a taxi from that bus station to another one in order to catch a bus closer to Honduras, took a bus from there to Chiquimula (about an hour from the border). Of course nothing comes simple in Honduras (or Guatemala in this case) as we were delayed by a landslide and a car accident for about an hour or so total. We arrived to Chiquimula at 8pm to find out, “No hay buses a la frontera hasta mañana a las 5.” Since I didn’t want to stay a night there and take a bus at 5 in the morning hoping to make it to school by 7am we decided to head to the park and find a taxi. I tried making some phone calls to friends along the way but things were complicated by me not having credit on my phone, and then when I did get it I had poor reception in Guatemala.
We decide that the best idea (cause we’ve heard it’s a dangerous town and dangerous to cross the border at night) is to stop in at a pharmacy and have them call us a secure taxi. A lady calls us her “friend” to pick us up. He charges us about $35, but agrees to take the three of us all the way to Copán! That’s about an hour and a half drive…and we’re leaving at 8:30pm! On the road we talk to him a little and “apenas” he talks to us. I ask him how he knows the lady that calls him and he tells us, “I met her at a party and she got my number to take her home that night.” “Perfect! So you are a person of real confidence?” That’s what I wanted to ask him, but resisted.
We finally arrived to the park in Copán a little before 10pm at night in the rain and without electricity…we were home.:)

Uncharted Territory

Half way through week number two and Independence Day is quickly approaching us. Since almost all Central America gained it’s independence from Spain at the same time (more or less) they all get the same holiday. Thus September 15 is not just a national holiday for Honduras but rather more of a Central American holiday. This proves to be an eventful weekend as we will be marching on Sunday for school. There are parades all week long up until Monday for Independence Day. Since Monday’s the actual holiday we get that off school….then Tuesday is Día de la Mochila or something like that so we get that off school…then Wednesday is Día del Maestro (Teacher’s Day) so of course we get that off…then Thursday we go back to school for two days.
Now, my uncharted territory for this break is that I’m going to be traveling. I’m not too sure where I am going, or what I’m going to be doing; but every good thing begins with an idea, right?
As for school itself nothing has happened that is too uncharted, as I’ve been staying in the library for the most part. Outside of school once again, nothing too uncharted as it keeps raining most every day, stays humid all the time, with thunder and lightening to scare the *insert word here* out of you.:) I’m putting up some photos on Facebook of a rainstorm we had recently. I think that the storms are my favorite part of the weather around here….coming from Seattle it’s so novel to see rain that cools (doesn’t freeze)and actually pours instead of misting!
This has been one of my more scattered blogs so I think that on this note I should end it…if you ever see the book, “The Penguin who Hated the Cold” you should read it because it makes for great kids (and teacher/parent) entertainment.:)

Una Semana Pasada (Not Pesada)

The first day of school this past Monday was eventful and interesting. I show up and relax with a cup of coffee in my new domain known as the library. I walk over to the office getting ready for the assembly when Megan hands me a schedule and says, "A teacher's not here today...can you cover her classes?" Well sure, why not? Marisol jokes that they just don't want me to forget that I'm also the substitute.:) Since it was a Spanish teacher I got to teach half the classes in Spanish and half the classes in English, it was awesome!
After an overwhelming day of substituting I spent the last four days in the library with Diana and things were great. We were reading with kids, helping with check-out, and organizing books. Mainly the little kids section right now with all the Clifford, Bearenstain Bear, Magic School Bus, etc. books. Last night we had the "entrega de libros" where all the parents came to get all the textbooks for their kids. There was mass chaos, a little cursing from parents, lots of stress, and when it was all said and done about 1/3 of the parents got books instead of all of them like we had planned. As I left school with Diana, her family, David, and Cody at 8pm last night I was thankful that while my job may be just as stressful as teaching at times....I enjoy it so much! I enjoyed everything about the book stuff last night, including helping a gentleman fill out his paper who couldn't read and write. His nephew is on scholarship at school and is a great student. Stories like that make me really enjoy my job at Mayatan and make me hopeful for things to come at school this year and possibly in the future.:)

Otro Comienzo

Going through orientation as a returnee is interesting as I can notice what it’s like for the Hondurans every year that they have to meet new people most of whom do not speak Spanish very well. I remember last year feeling like the Hondurans were not trying to integrate themselves very much into the new teachers but I think that it’s completely natural now! I caught myself a couple times today hanging out with the Hondurans and not the new staff because that’s who I’m already friends with and know. I’m going to have to keep myself in check and not be too “fufurufa.” Before I tell you what that means, take a guess…ok? Taken a guess? If you guessed fluffy then you’re wrong, it means stuck-up (more or less).

La Gran Jugada Que No Fue

Honduras had their big match Wednesday and I broke out all the stops to get a good spot to watch it! This is the first game for the preliminatory group phase of the 2010 World Cup. Honduras pulled a pretty good group, which includes Canada, Jamaica, and Wednesday's opponent….Mexico! This first game of the 6 game round was played in Mexico City at Azteca Stadium. It’s just a small little 110,000 seater or something like that. But it wasn’t too bad, cause 4,000 seats were reserved for Honduras fans (do the math on that ratio). I went to a church friend Nulfo’s house along with my two friends who had just arrived from Edmonds, David and Cody.
The game starts with big hopes for Honduras as about a half hour into the game it’s still 0-0 and Honduras has a decent free kick for Rambo. No joking, Rambo plays for Honduras, striking fear into the hearts of all enemies.:) Rambo takes the perfect free kick over the wall curving to the left off the crossbar and down into the goal! 1-0! Fireworks are going off outside, people yelling and shouting in their houses up and down the street. We start making comments about how great the ref is and into half time ahead, whew! Fireworks keep going off outside for the next 20 minutes or so. Then with about 20 minutes left in the game Mexico starts getting closer, and closer, and closer to scoring. There’s a couple shots off the post, a shot blocked, a cross tipped away. Honduras then ALMOST puts away it’s second goal….unfortunately for Honduras they missed the second goal and Mexico scored quickly after making it 1-1…no more fireworks…no more smiles…no more compliments for the ref…About 5 minutes later and Mexico gets awarded a free kick scoring their second goal. To make matters worse Honduras gets a red card and all we can say is, “que mierda este arbitro.” If you don’t know Spanish, just leave it as an insult for the ref…:) So the big game that almost was…wasn’t…there’s still lots of games and Mexico comes here in October or November for the final group game. We’ll take our revenge then…

Razón en Quedarme 2 Años

As you can guess form my last post, in the few days that I’ve been here already I’m finding more and more reasons to support my decision in returning to Copan. There are the obvious reasons of returning to friends that I already know and have but I’ve also discovered something completely unexpected.
Thursday night last week a gentleman (Saúl) invited Megan, Kathy, and I to an art show in town at another gentleman’s house/art studio (Edgar). It ends up just me and Isnala (6th grade teacher) head out there to check it out. The art show is incredible as Edgar shows off all the artwork from his students, which are amazingly talented. I start talking to Edgar’s wife Nelly who runs a tiny little bar that they have their to help support the art studio which was built with money on a grant from the World Bank (side note). Nelly tells me that she remembers me because I helped at a medical brigade last year when she brought in their four year old daughter Luna. I immediately remembered her! For starters I think that the name Luna is freaking awesome, it means “moon” in Spanish, which sounds kinda like a hippy name, but good none-the-less. She had brought in her daughter in the morning and then left to return later. When she returned nobody could find her paperwork and so the mean nurse running the registration table turned them away. I heard it so I talked to them and tried to track down the papers but couldn’t. So I went behind mean nurse’s back to the director and got new papers for them to fill out so that she could be seen.
The story seems to be dragging on a little at this point, so I’ll wrap it up with a moral…There are things that I have done here in the past both good and bad that still come into play this year. As a small town people are used to remembering things people have done to hurt and help them. It was an immediate reminder that the little things we do today to help somebody will carry for a long time. On the flip side, the things you do to hurt people (sometimes inadvertent) can also carry on for a very long time. Therefore, let’s focus on the things that will benefit those around us, not just ourselves because people will never say when you are gone, “wow, Zach was so amazing! He did so much to help himself, he was really just a selfish person and that’s what I loved about him!”

Si Copán Fuera Una Mujer…

Yo tendría una novia. Unfortunately that’s not so.
I arrived back in Copan today (Wednesday) and I must say that this is the most amazing place that I could be right now in my life. After a long 18+ hour trip back to Copan I arrived with only minor delays despite half the highway outside Copan being washed out in the rains. I only spent some time in the town but saw so many familiar faces and friends that I couldn’t take more than 25 or 30 steps without stopping to talk. It’s really amazing how blessed I have been in this little town of 8,000 or so people.
Of course the FIRST thing that I had to do…any guesses? Eat a baleada! For those that have not had the privilege of experiencing this life changing food here’s a short description: Take a flour tortilla and spread bean paste over one half of it. Then add some salty cheese they have here on top of it and top it off with some buttery creamy stuff. Fold the tortilla in half and poof! Baleada!
The funny thing is that I’ve had 4 people tell me that I’m fatter than two months ago! I found that interesting, they said my face is rounder and I look healthier. I guess that means in June when I left I looked like a starving poor little child. I told them it’s cause I didn’t have my 45 minutes every day of walking back and forth from school (20-25 each way).
So for an American who has “put on weight” over the vacations, I could not be more content…happy….lucky….blessed…any word that you choose.:)

Sera Que No Se

Here we go again, another year in Honduras as the librarian is about to commence. Only this time I'm actually going to be in the library....right? So they tell me at least. I'm going to be in the library with Diana. She was the librarian last year and we're supposed to be sharing the job, organizing all the libros (books), and...does any of this sound familiar? Oh right, I said the same exact thing one year ago!
Sin embargo, I think that things are actually going to be different this year. Maybe I'm delirious and optimistic beyond all belief on this subject. I put in my year in secondary to earn this library job, now I want to work in the LIBRARY!:) Es decir that I'm pretty excited about this next year as of this point in time. I'm going to have the same housing that I left off with last year right next to three families that I get along with great despite the "colorful" words that they teach me sometimes. I've learned something important this past year: always check the new words you learn from somebody with a third party!
This is a story about that last part, if you don't want to read it, just be done reading...I have a list of "Honduran words" that a friend gave me so I put myself to learning some of them. One of the new phrases that I learn is "pelarse la tusa" which was translated as, "to leave." Literally it's like saying "to remove your own husk." I thought, "awesome! I'm gonna use this all the time." I go up to one of the cleaning ladies and I'm talking to her and tell her, "Bueno, me pelo la tusa." Her response was to laugh and tell me, "Pelesela al otro lado." Basically she told me to go away. Whatever, that's not the first time a friend has said that to me.
I then go into the directors office later that day with the academic director and when I'm leaving I say once again, "Voy a pelarme la tusa."
They look at me mouths gaping..."Where did you learn that?!" "Oh...(I realize this was not a good move)...um...a list of words that Nelly gave me...(like when my grandma was going to wash my mouth with soap)..."
Their response was firm but friendly, "Educated people don't talk like that."
Turns out that the phrase is something along the lines of "I'm removing the condom." Which I suppose, yes, it means that I am done...but does anybody else see why I turned bright red upon finding this out?

I dreamt that?!

I just had the strangest dream...check this out:
I'm assisting in this youth activity in a pool where they have to go through a maze sort of gladiator type thing. At the end there's a volleyball that I don't remember the purpose of. I get the idea of playing dodgeball in the pool with a big group and so they drain the entire pool in order to play and set up a tennis net in the middle. Then all the kids are just standing around the outside. Then, while we're waiting Ichiro and I decide to play some baseball and suddenly it's a whole game. Ichiro takes ball one which is right down the middle and the manager from Kansas City comes running out to argue. He takes Ichiro's bat and smashes it against the brick pillar that suddenly appears in the right hand batters box. I quickly gather the pieces for him and run back inside to get a new bat. While inside the house (P.S. I ran through the pool of wallflower teenagers staring at the tennis net) I put the pieces of the bat somewhere, don't remember. I go back out there and on the other side of the pool is no longer a baseball game, it's Rudy Guiliani and a goal challenging me to penalty kicks. So I kick some against him and do alright, the last one goes way up and over the apartment building behind him on which all the wallflower teenagers are now gathered to watch. I go get the ball, come back, and challenge Guiliani to try scoring on me. I use a light pole and masking tape wrapped around a tall weed.
Since things aren't weird enough yet a pollen storm comes in and Guiliani points it out to me to be careful. It's coming straight towards me and fearing for my life I do a Matrix type dive backwards as the cloud of yellow pollen goes flying over my shoulder. "Wow," I tell him, "I've never seen pollen before!" Then again, another pollen strike from the right side! I dive and roll behind the light pole and...wake up. End of dream. Is that not the most bizarre dream?

Que Extraño Es El Extraño

I’ve been so focused on Copan for the past 6 months that it’s hard for me to believe that I’m going back to the states now. Life here in Copan is hard to describe cause it’s not like anything that I have ever lived back in the states. It’s slow, tranquil, easy-going, and relaxed. There is nothing pressured about living here. An afternoon of no plans quickly flies by as I make the rounds to various houses saying hello. I feel like in the US an afternoon of no plans quickly goes as I sit and stare at the tv, then take a break to drive to Wendy’s for a burger and Frosty.
It’s hard to describe without insulting a lot of people, but in the states the things I miss are things like carpet, grilled cheese sandwiches, my mom’s lasagna, and a quality church. Everything that I’m going to miss in Copan revolves around the people. I’m going to miss my students, sitting in front of my house with the neighbors, learning funny Spanish phrases with friends, watching telenovelas (soap operas) with my neighbors, and joking with other teachers at school. I miss things about the US (people as well, just to clarify), but I won’t miss the things of Copan at all. I’m going to miss the people like none other! I guess it’s only another two months until I return…as I write this it’s June 13, and I come back August 13…two months exactly from today.

¡Gana Honduras!

The first game for the world cup qualifiers was on Wednesday night in San Pedro and Honduras came out on top! Now granted that Honduras was playing against Puerto Rico, a nation renowned for baseball, not futbol. Then there’s the fact that the world cup is in 2010, another 2 years away. The game was almost canceled because of rain and the field was more of a small lagoon than a soccer field with water more visible than players. The final score was 4 – 0 with David Suazo providing two goals. Suazo is the “national hero” of soccer as he made it onto Inter (Italy). I think that he holds more power than the average politician in Honduras…☺

I Told Him So!

I told him, “If you don’t get at least an 84% on the final exam this quarter, you will fail the whole year. So please, study your butt off now so that you can pass the year and not worry about failing.” I made the final exam for this quarter the exact same problems as the study guide and who came through? That student! He got a freaking 100%! Nobody else in the entire class got 100% on the test, and although the class average was low 90’s on the test, he was the only one with a flawless test. I couldn’t even take off half a point for little mistakes, it was perfect, like what every teacher dreams of.
Now that I’m done with classes and with final exams that means that I’m done with most of the secondary students until next year. There are still recuperation tests this coming week in which the kids who failed the year have a chance to take a test and make up the entire year. I’m making those tests freaking hard cause I feel that if somebody failed the entire year (especially with about half of the grade being homework) then they probably weren’t trying too hard. I notice that kids who do their homework also generally do better on the tests, surprise to everyone!
After recuperation tests next week then we have a much lower key last week and we’re done with the school year! Oh summer can not come soon enough….:)

Solo Faltan Examenes!

Es como salir de la esclavitud de siempre estar encargado de los cipotes. Ok, I’ve been in Spanish mode lately since classes semi-officially ended! I no longer have to teach, however, I do need to give three more final exams and at least 2 recuperation tests for some kids that failed the year in math. It is such a relief to be done with classes, yet at the same time, I already miss it a little bit. I’ve been so busy with classes and classes and classes that now I’m a little bit lost. For now it’s a good sense of loss and I’m feeling great about it! However, I feel like once next week is done I’m going to be a little bit bored and wanting to go back to school. Maybe I’m just making that up to try and keep down my enthusiasm right now.:)
I got to thinking also about the ninth graders leaving in just a couple months and going to far away places to study. Since there is no bilingual school within two hours of here a lot of the kids go to Santa Rosa (2 ½ hours), San Pedro (3 hours), or Tegucigalpa (6 hours). I probably won’t see any of them again, maybe once in a while if they come back on vacation or something, but that’s sad. I’m going to miss all of them, even the ones that get under my skin.:) But for now let’s not think about that, instead let’s think about how we are done with classes for the summer!

The Lights Went

No really they left and went away. At least that’s how you say it in Spanish, “se fue la luz.” Where it went to I’m not sure, but it happens frequently around here, the luz decides there is a better place to be and leaves us alone with the oscuridad (darkness). For example, at school on Wednesday we are in the middle of class and the power goes out. It not really a huge deal. I can deal without the luz, but then the fan in my room doesn’t work. Also not a huge deal, unless it’s around 95 out and quite humid! I actually don’t think I’ve been in weather a whole lot hotter feeling than this here the past couple days. Then there’s the friend of luz, agua, they rarely hang out together because one of them is usually turned off. Today at school we had the pleasure of being without either one. Also not a huge deal for school, we can function as far as class goes. However, the lunches can’t be prepared by the caseta without luz and agua. My eighth graders started a roomer that we were going at 11am due to the lack of our two friends. I went to the office to ask and they had a perplexed look, “no, we’re not leaving early.” Dangit! I wanted to go early, I was hot and tired! Then I went later in the morning, around 9, to try and convince Norma that we should not have class. Once again, I failed…I think that due to pressure from multiple teachers (i.e. everybody) and reasoning the office decided to send us home at 11am! You should have seen the joy, the jubilation, this sense of little school children playing in the mud filling the lunchroom. And that was just amongst the teachers, you should have seen how happy the kids were!
In order to celebrate the canceling of Wednesday afternoon I played baseball with a bunch of kids at school, went home for two seconds, and went to the pool where I found a good place for not only myself, but just about every teacher at Mayatan. We get in for free, but normally you need to pay 50 lempiras. I really think that I need to go there more often, I don’t know why I haven’t. Oh right, it’s like a 5 minute walk from my house, just so far. After I walk a solid 25 minutes to school I just can’t make it those extra five minutes, whew…:) I love when the luz decides to go away…but more so when the agua also decides to leave with it on vacation and we leave school early.:)

Playing Ball

Yesterday I was eating my dinner at a neighbor’s house when the kid who’s about 11 turned to a baseball game. Red Sox vs. Detroit, if that matters to anybody. I was personally sad to see Detroit losing 2-0 in the 3rd, but not as sad as I am to be a Mariners fan.
Ok, all beside the point. I ask the kid if he likes to play baseball and he gives me the most enthusiastic yes I’ve seen from him. It progresses and he goes and gets his glove and a ball. We toss it in the house for a bit (I’m not completely grown up yet) before I suggest going out and playing in the street. I find another old glove lying around the house and take that with me to play catch with him.
At first things seem a little bit boring and then I start throwing him some pop-ups. He gets a little more energetic and starts telling me to throw it higher and higher. I throw it in front of him, behind him, to the side, the other side, and then it hits me…this kid doesn’t have a dad nor brothers to play ball with. He told me that he loves playing yet there’s nobody in his life that he can play with. This made me quite a bit more energetic to play, neighbors were watching us out on the cobblestone throwing back and forth as they ducked a few times for wild pop flies and errant return throws.:)
I remember that when I was a kid I loved playing catch with my dad and I’m sure he knew that cause I asked him to play every 5 seconds. At the end of playing this kid asked me, “so when are we going to play again?” I was so excited that he enjoyed playing ball! I hope that we get plenty of chances between now and the end of this next month and a half here to play. Maybe I’ll have to bring back some baseball stuff when I go home in the summer.
Now, my arm is of course not feeling as excited as my mind. I haven’t played real baseball in years and I don’t think that I’ve played catch for that long since I was in high school. So much fun…

North Coast

Yesterday marked the first time I've ever visited the North Coast of Honduras and the first time that I've ever been in the Caribbean. First off, the water is a delightful temperature! Second off, I do suggest going with Hondurans to a Honduras beach if you get the chance.:)
We left Copan at 5:15am and arrived in Tela around 10:30am. It was a long trek to get there, but so worth it once we arrived. Heck, I took Dramamine and was awake for about an hour of the trip (most of that being our breakfast stop). I got to swim in the ocean for the first time in years! I don't even remember the last time that I fully immersed myself and swam in the ocean...wow, I just thought about how long it's been. Anyways, there's an old railroad bridge thing that goes into the middle of nowhere but serves as a good pier to walk out on and get a good view of the beach in both directions. For lunch we had an amazing amount of choices and I was forced to choose the Tilapia fish (I had to go with fish on the coast). It was the hugest plate I've seen in eons loaded with fish fried in Parmesan cheese, different...but good.
After lunch I didn't return to the water but instead played some soccer with the kids on the trip and read my book in the shade next to the ocean. It was such a relaxing time that we had! We left the beach at 5pm and arrived back in Copan around 10:30pm last night. All the other foreign staff stayed in Tela for the weekend so I got to ride back with a bunch of Hondurans. I sat near Eva and Lourdes and it was great. They're two of the cleaning ladies at school. They have a good understanding of my Spanish ability since I've talked with them both quite a bit and they know when to slow down and when they can talk normal speed. I think that they can read the expression on my face really well to know if I'm completely lost or not. Lourdes then decided that singing along with the Ranchero music would be a good idea and our bus driver Lino apparently agreed. Ranchero is the Mexican style accordion music with pistols shooting off and guys hooting loudly and out of control. Does that paint a good picture for the type of music? It was hilarious to hear them both singing along at times.:)
So there you have it...my first and probably not last trip to the north coast of Honduras. Oh, didn't even mention the best part, all of the trip... paid for by the school! They gave us a 100 lempira allowance of which I even saved 15 lempiras, so I got paid to go to the coast! Now, when you do the conversion, that's only 80 cents, but hey, that's a whole baleada or two depending where I go!:)

Reconciliacion y Perdon en la Familia

That was the theme of last night's speaker, reconciliation and forgiveness in the family. It was a fundraiser dinner for the Catholic church with an amazing chicken, rice, beans, and tortillas dinner followed by the priest from Santa Rosa de Copan (about 2 hours away). I was very excited about the priest speaking from the second that I saw him because he probably has one of the coolest beards that I've seen in a long time. So I thought, "well, if this is boring I can stare at the movement of his beard." It's simple, but that's the life of Copan.:)
Anyways, beard aside, this guy was the best speaker that I have heard in a long time! He involved the crowd a lot in saying things such as, "I desire to desire to forgive." I think that was from Ignatius of Loyola. Or his own creations of phrases such as demonstrating how ridiculous it is to say who holds resentment so we all said, "I am resentful. You are resentful. He is resentful. She is resentful. We are resentful. They are resentful." To add to the demonstration we got to point at I, you, he/she, we, and they. Ok, that was not the most eventful part of the evening, but it did stand out in my mind cause it was fun to point at somebody and tell them, "you are resentful!"
He talked about all sorts of issues related to forgiveness and how much better it is to forgive than to resent with regards to the friendship, your physical being, your mental being, your friendship with others, your faith, everything. My favorite part was him telling the story of his family. Isn't that always the best part? The speaker gives an example from their life and you just assume he's not making it up for emotional heart strings purposes.:) He entered the priesthood after studying psychology in college and so on top of being a priest he's a psychologist. That's like getting a communications degree and then becoming a pastor.:) Ok, so the priest's dad never wanted him to go into ministry and made that very clear to the point of not talking to him once he began studying for it. It was a pretty hurtful thing for him, his dad had several various women and was just a fairly destructive sounding person in their family. Anyways, it comes around to him in the process of dieing from cancer one August. His family took care of him while he was only weeks away from passing away. The priest's father got to the point in his illness that he could no longer swallow and so he went over to his dad and said, "You're not doing so well dad. Would you like to have your last rites?" His dad accepted and he said that it was one of the most reconciling/forgiving things that he has done to be able to send his father off and have his father finally accept him. If that didn't sound good then there are three options for why it was an anti-climatic story. 1) It sounds better in Spanish. 2) I translated it poorly. 3) You had to be there. I thought it was a cool story though.:)
Anyways, I'm going to get back to painting my new apartment. Yes, once again, I've moved...three apartment in one year. I can't keep this up forever!

Un Cumpleaños a La Copan

Tuesday was my birthday, it's true, I enjoy telling people after the fact cause then they feel guilty and get me cooler presents. Ok, that's not true. I don't like telling people because I don't like to be the center of attention. Really, I don't! Luckily I escaped with few center of attention moments. The only really bad one was going to a small group that I go to for church. I just went last week for the first time and they invited me back for my birthday (but they didn't know it was my birthday). Of course on my birthday one of the only Hondurans in the entire world that knows it's my birthday shows up and announces it to everyone there! They all start telling me, "felicidades!" The Doctor and a couple people slip out quietly and come back five minutes later with my "birthday ice-cream." Then they all start singing, congratulating me, saying how "joven" I am, only 23! Then there were the comments of, "when are you getting married?" "Wait, you don't even have a girlfriend?" "We'll find one for you, don't worry! What about Isabel?!" I don't know how my birthday evolved from a church small group to a dating show so quickly. In the middle of everything I dismissed myself to "go to the bathroom," which is code for "stop staring at me everybody!" Oh man, that was not my favorite birthday moment in the world, but hey, it's makes for a good blog entry, right?:)
The good birthday surprise came the day after, Wednesday. I get a call from my friend Suly at 5 telling me to get back to my house as soon as possible. I thought...alright...is this some bit of urgent gossip? There's not much else urgent in town other than gossip and me needing to get dinner when I get hungry and grouchy. I show up at my house and who should be at my doorstep but Suly (kinder assistant at Mayatan), Eva (cleaning lady at Mayatan), and Eva's kid Jose Adelid (second grader at Mayatan)! They are holding a cake and start singing in Spanish, "We want cake now!" We go inside, eat some cake, I buy some coca-cola (what Honduran doesn't drink it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner?), and we have some cake and relax for a little bit. It was so nice of them to buy me cake and I know they don't necessarily have money to throw around on cakes.
Sometimes I get bummed out because I don't feel like I fit in that well with neither the Honduran nor the American staff but then something like this happens and I think, I totally fit in with the Honduran staff! I'm excited to be staying down here next year because I think that I will be able to have closer friendships with my Honduran friends. Oh life in Copan...:)

Cirque de Copan

There was a circus in Copan several months ago that I meant to go to but never managed. Then I hear the other day that there’s another circus here in town. I jumped at the opportunity to check out a sweet Latin American traveling circus! It consisted mainly of clowns telling jokes making fun of each other, homosexuals, and gringos. It was all pretty well done though. The making fun of each other part was…whatever, at least it was just each other. Then the homosexuals part was when they did a lip sync impression of some Mexican singer who is apparently gay and they always impersonate him at circuses. The guy was so funny though! He was winking to guys in the crowd, going up to them and singing to them, tossing his handkerchief at them, etc. Luckily he never picked me out. Then came the dreaded line (in Spanish of course), “Are there any gringo’s here tonight out there?” I just about died because there was only about 200 people there so of course everybody could see the only person above 6 feet tall! There was an awkward pause in which I thought the whole world was staring at me until I saw one of the other clowns come out dressed as a gringo and carrying a suitcase. Whew! I was saved the pressure of being picked out from the crowd. I know I speak Spanish and all that, but even thinking about 200 Copanecos staring at me makes me want to turn tail and run. I hear that this circus was infinitely better than the last one… good thing I waited to see this one and not the last one.:)

Brigada Medica

This past week a medical brigade came here to Copan from New York University in order to see as many patients from the area as they could to do some preventative treatment with them. I'm not sure the exact number of people, but I know that there were at least 240 children seen by the brigade, and I bet you upwards of over 1000 people total. I got to help out with translating and coordinating our students to help translate. It was so much fun! I have definitely decided that medical translating is the field for me, as long as I don't have to see the blood. A couple times I was called over to oral surgery where they were doing all the extractions and that was never my favorite part of the day. As long as I can stay with the screaming kids, the nervous adults, or the annoying patients trying to cut in line I'll be fine. But show me a little blood and I quit. Maybe medical translating is not for me...but I think it is...we'll see about that one...:)

Alfombras de Aserrín

The long loved Latin American sawdust carpet tradition reached Copan Ruinas for the first time (and thankfully not the last time) last year! So here I am, it’s 5:30 in the morning, I just pulled an all nighter to help build the carpets. It’s the most amazing and awesome process. We started at 6pm. Actually, I started at 7pm or so cause I was finishing watching the Honduras Olympic qualifier soccer match with Guatemala (Honduras won on penalties 6-5 and is in the Olympics!). So from 7pm to 5am I worked with only about 5 breaks for coffee and 10 breaks for the bathroom… coffee runs through ya, am I right?:)
Ok, so we first make a layer of sawdust over the cobblestone street, flatten it with 2x4’s, stomp it down on top of cardboard. Then lay down the cardboard molds over the top of the first layer…put colored sawdust on top of the original layer to make the picture, then press it down again with cardboard, and there you have it, beautiful sawdust carpets which will only last a couple hours until the procession and drunks destroy it. We had no problems with drunks destroying the carpet tonight, just drunks yelling at us, particularly any gringos helping (like me!). We had a couple of stupid dogs run through the middle of the sawdust carpets after we had finished parts of them, that was a very not-high-light of the evening. I already hate the dogs here, but they aren’t climbing up my list of most liked animals in the world quickly with behavior like that.:) At the start tourists were lined up all over the street to see what we were doing and taking pictures. Then they slowly left and we were left with like 50 people working on the carpets….slowly the numbers got less and less until at the end about 10 of us were left, maybe 15 or so. That was fun to be one of the last survivors, and I got an invitation to help next year (they said, “Hay que contratarlo el siguiente año también!” Which means, “we need to get him a contract next year!”). Ok, I’m going to go take pictures of our work now and hopefully later they will be put online. Hasta later gang!

Que Semana Macanuda

Just when I think that school is getting too routine and boring I have a week such as this that mixes things up and reminds me why I love life down here so much. Today, Maundy Thursday, I am going to be working on the sawdust carpets for the Easter parades. I’ve tried to go work with people to prepare the sawdust but have never been able to for a variety of reasons from forgetting, showing up late, them finishing early, or them canceling the meeting last second. Hopefully I have enough energy this evening to participate in the decorations. Last year people came up from the Catholic Church in Comayagua in order to teach and train people here in Copan on how to make the carpets. You should look up pictures of the sawdust carpets in Comayagua, there’s quite impressive.
In other news, last night I went out to Marisol’s just to say hello and her husband decided that I should witness what it used to be like with the Mayatan staff, so we should have a bonfire! We called up Tyler, changed everybody’s plans, and had a bonfire with marshmallows and hang out fun at their place. They used to have parties over at their house when the school was smaller. It’s grown from about 180 students to 280 in just a couple of years.
Funny story of the week… A drunk guy came up to Sam and I at the fair and asked (in Spanish), “where are you from?” Sam responded in a friendly manner, “the U.S.” The man proceeded to then go off about how he didn’t like the government, Sam defended it, they went back and forth a little bit. I tried to stay out of it because you could just smell the alcohol on this guy. Anyways, then he turns to me, “where are you from?” “Oh,” I responded, “I’m from here in Copan.” He responds with a confused look, “no, where are you from originally?” I just kind of smile and tell him, “I’m from Copan, born and raised 100% Copaneco.” He gets this look of confusion on his face, looks at Sam, looks back at me… “But you look like a Gringo.” This made me smile a little bit more but I just responded calmly, “I know, people tell me that a lot. I’m 100% Copaneco though.” Our drunken friend gets a bit smile on his face and says, “Que bueno!”
Moral of the story; alcohol makes you so dumb as to believe that a tall white guy, blond hair, American accent, and green eyes is from Honduras… so just stay away from alcohol.

La Santa Semana Santa

It's that time of the year when everything feels wonderful. Children laugh and smile once again, teachers smile brighter than Christmas break as the weather is now warmer, and the reason for all the smiles is the lack of classes happening for another week!:) That's the good news, it's Semana Santa (week before Easter) and we get the entire week off for vacation! Unfortunately the Copan fair falls on the same week and so we don't get two vacations, just the one. However, it's from now until Monday after Easter, then back to school on Tuesday. Today I wandered out to the fair for a little while and hung out with two of my friends and it's always funny to walk around with Catrachos (Hondurans) here because people are used to Gringos, but not Gringos that hang out with Catrachos I feel like. So I had lots of calls to me and random stupid things that people said.
The fair is very much so geared towards high school aged kids and younger but it looks pretty fun. Not so much tonight cause I'd just had dinner and didn't feel like the rides were a good idea to go on. However, I'm going back to that pirate ship! It's the kind that goes way up high on either side but not all the way around. I like that one, no upside-down-ness.:) There's a couple other fun rides, a ferris wheel, shooting games, fishing games, and some other booths of random darts and such. It's like any fair in the US, except somebody died there last week and it's still going on... I suppose that's a little different than the states in which the place would be shut down faster than the person died.:)
This week break I think that I'm going to just be relaxing around town and hanging out. Maybe I'll go to the river for a little while and hang out down there, go over to a couple profe's houses, visit Eva's mom's house again to make baleadas up there with her, and then...um... relax!:)

Pobre Savio...

Unas lagrimas me curaron de le perdida. We went to San Pedro yesterday with a big group of teachers to see a soccer game and hang out at the mall there for a little while. The mall was not my favorite part, but I survived and we got some window shopping in as well as a Quiznos sandwich that cost me an arm and a leg. We got to the soccer stadium like 2 hours early so we played cards and just hung out. I had a blast of a time at the soccer game despite the fact that "my team" lost. Real Espana and Deportes Savio were the two teams, Real Espana is from San Pedro and Deportes Savio is from the Copan department, so of course I had to root for Savio. One of my ninth grade students also came along with her mom and since they were supporting Savio I had no other choice but to choose them.:) It was a really good game but Savio did anything but dominate, they were lucky to only be losing 3-1 when we left half way through the second period.
I've begun to realize that so many days here my life involves school (Monday-Friday), planning for school (Monday-Sunday), grading for school (Monday - Sunday), and then relaxing on Friday and Saturday evening. My life is so dependent upon school. I've been looking into the possibility of staying around here next year...if I weren't teaching I think that I might start to get bored. I guess that I'd have to go get a bunch of friends or something, that's a novel concept. It's hard though, because it's so built into the city around here that the Mayatan teachers come for a year, teach, enjoy, and then leave at the end of the year. I think that if I were to come back another year that I would be able to enjoy some actual friendships...although I would be that awkward exchange student that only the really nice and friendly people hang out with because only they have the patience to talk to me. What's wrong with that though?:)

Great Epiphanies!

So, I guess that my last visitor is gone now, on their way back home. My grandma and cousin Courtney were here for a week and we had a good time (at least I think). There was the usual coffee finca tour, ruins visit, bird park, card games, Casa Villamil hang out time, and then the all special homework time with Courtney. Something about math teachers is mean, her math teacher gave her homework to bring with her on the trip.
I had a series of epiphanies this week while they were here my two favorite being that the seventh graders had to write a letter home to their parents from themselves. The letter was dictated by me and told their parents that they need help and their asking for their parents to help them because the fifth graders beat them in a challenge on decimal addition, subtraction, and multiplication. Now that’s just not right. Seventh graders should not be getting a class average of 7 out of 10 on decimals…so we wrote a letter to their parents asking for their help.:)
The second is for the eighth graders to help each other on their homework, but they are responsible for their partner. On the quiz Monday the partners will each earn the average score of their two quizzes. I’m pretty excited to see how it turns out. Those were my two great epiphanies.

Irony of Strengths Finder

I took this quiz over Christmas break to help find my "strengths in teaching" and I have found one of the results to be quite humorous. Now think about my personality...then read this section describing my strength of "self-assurance."

"You know that you are able-able to take risks, able to meet new challenges, able to stake claims, and, most important, able to deliver. But Self-Assurance is more than just self-confidence. Blessed with the theme of Self-Assurance, you have confidence not only in your abilities but in your judgment. When you look at the world, you know that your perspective is unique and distinct. And because no one sees exactly what you
see, you know that no one can make your decisions for you. No one can tell you what to think. They can guide. They can suggest. But you alone have the authority to form conclusions, make decisions, and act. This authority, this final accountability for the living of your life, does not intimidate you. On the contrary, it feels natural to you. No matter what the situation, you seem to know what the right decision is. This theme lends you an aura of certainty. Unlike many, you are not easily swayed by someone else's arguments, no matter how persuasive they may be. This Self-Assurance may be quiet or loud, depending on your other themes, but it is solid. It is strong. Like the keel of a ship, it withstands many different pressures and keeps you on your course."

Has there ever been anything more true written about me? And it wasn't even written about me...or was it?

Chaos of the aniversario

School this week is "anniversary week" which is the rough equivalent of homecoming week but on a little kid crazy scale. As Gabe just put it (talking on Skype by me), "Once you embrace the fact that you have no control over your kids and they are crazy it's great. That's just the way it's going to be." They don't wear their uniforms this week, we had a tournament all day on Monday for basketball with the students, today we had students vs. teachers in basketball and soccer. Blair bet his class thirty minutes of free time or time to stay in from recess with his kids on each game. He gave them a 30 point line on the basketball game but seeing as how we were dominating I think the game was called short and he lost the 30 point line to his kids. I think we won by like 22 or something like that. It was fun to play that. Then we played soccer and I of course was the goalie (they don't allow me to do anything else). I was like a brick wall with four holes in it and we ended up winning 6-4! That means Blair cancels out losing the basketball bet and Nora (director of the school) owes each of us in our apartment (Blair, Tyler, and myself) a cake!:) I think I could get used to this betting on games versus the students thing. It's working out great for me today. Tomorrow is fun day which is yet another code word for "crazy day with no control over anything that happens at school."
Apparently at this "fun day" we are playing an alleged game of "marriage and divorce." This is not a game supported by James Dobson but it does sound fun. Kids can pay for two other people to be "married." When they are married they are taped together on their wrists. In order to be separated they then have to pay to be "divorced" from each other. It should be entertaining (assuming I don't get married).
In the past couple weeks of no activity on here I have enjoyed a great visit from my parents in which we spent 2 days in Antigua, Guatemala and a week here in Copan. I don't think that I have much of a future in being a tour guide, but it was fun. I think we all made it out with the important things accomplished; a wide variety of baleadas eaten, hikes to places we don't know where they are, avoidance of ticks, sitting in the park eating ice-cream, and a wide variety of other important Copan activities.:) This next week I'll be joined by my grandma and cousin Courtney. It should be a blast of a week, but with less testosterone and more shopping than last week with both my parents.:)

La Casa Mas Bonita del Mundo

Maybe not the most beautiful house in the world, but it is certainly one of the best houses that I've visited before. Today Blair (my roomate), Farah (school secretary), Suly (Kindergarten assistant), Koali (Sixth grade teacher), and Eva (school cleaning lady) all went up to the house of Eva's mom today. We hiked for about a half hour from Copan to Nueva Esperanza which is a little city nearby. From there we then hiked up into the middle of nowhere and then a little bit further. It was about a half hour hike through the brush and nothingness to get to her mom's house. When I got there I asked her younger sister if they had any neighbors and she just gave me a look like, "are you a freaking idiot?" The house has no electricity, no running water, it's made of tun/aluminum and wooden planks. It's freaking awesome!:) They made us the most amazing chicken and rice meal that I have had in a long time. Then for dessert there just happens to be a million pineapple plants in the area so we had a couple of pineapples. The walk back was quite the adventure as it was misting at the start. It was perfect weather and we had an awesome view of the city from the trail. Part way down though it started to pour down rain! Ok, not pour, but rain, not just a mist. By the time that we got home Blair and I were both fairly soaked to the bone. I'm excited to go back there in the future. Eva has like 7 brothers and sisters. Her younger sister Maria lives at home, she's 23, and has 3 kids! I'm almost 23! I don't want three kids! Ay Dios mio.

Why am I teaching?

One of the teachers has a chart for the first year teacher. There are many stages to being a teacher for the first full year. Apparently the ending step is “victory,” or something glorious like that. In the middle somewhere there’s a stage something along the lines of dismal, depressing, the great valley of doom, maybe not quite that exasperating sounding. Anyways, I’m in that valley of certain doom right now and it’s a really dumb valley to be in. I’m pretty sure that I’m wasting my students time, I think that they all hate me, none of them want to even talk to me, they make fun of me all the time (who wouldn’t make fun of their teacher in middle school?), and I can’t control anything inside the classroom. This week is exams for the second quarter, which is nice. I’m half way there, but nobody told me that the halfway point would also be the valley of doom from which I would never leave. Or at least that’s what it’s feeling like at this point. What ever happened to the library? I’d love to be sitting in the library reading with kids right about now…where for art thou library? Deny thy name, for if thou wilt not be but sworn my books. I would deny my classroom…it’s a modern teachers rendition of Shakespeare.:)
Anyways, this whole stage of dismal depression is getting a little bit depressing at school; I can’t wait for that victory stage at the end. “Chariots of Fire” will be playing in the background, my kids will all have 100% in the class, I will be schooling them all in soccer (not just math), but most importantly everything will be happening in slow motion.

Una semana terminada, millones por delante

One week of classes is down and I’m having a great time back down here in Honduras. With each day that has passed since coming back I’ve become more and more sure that I want to come down here again next year. I just had the 8th graders over tonight for s’mores and a little fire on my rooftop. Don’t panic, we have all concrete buildings here (unless they’re sticks and mud).:) None of them had really heard of s’mores, let alone tried it before. Between about 16 of us we finished about 50 s’mores, I’d say they were a smashing hit.
Here’s a pop quiz…do you know how long a teacher can have an impact on their students academic performance? In a study by the Gallup organization teachers can have an impact on their students academic performance for up to three years. This means that if you have a really bad teacher it may have negative effects for three years. But a really good teacher who cares about the kids may have a positive impact for up to three years on their schoolwork. Is anybody following my line of thought?:)

Whew...

I survived last night and am still making the trek to Copan...this is kinda fun.=)

Just When Traveling was Getting Boring…

I meet a guy named Tim, he’s far from any person that I would just strike up a great conversation with and be best friends. For starters, he’s on the plane to El Salvador and doesn’t speak Spanish very well, that’s strike number one. Strike number two is that he swears quite a bit. And strike three I learned after the flight…he smokes like a chimney, but more like a wildfire. However, he’s nice beyond all belief and I start to strike up a short conversation with him and he asks where I’m staying at. I tell him the name of the place and he says, “maybe we can take you there on the way home.” He tells his wife where it’s at and she says, “oh, the center of town, you don’t want to go there. Why don’t you stay at our house instead? We have an extra bed and would love to have you with us.” So naturally, without thinking that maybe these people are going to rob me, kill me, drop me in a ditch somewhere I say, “That’d be great!” I hop into the truck with Tim, his wife, his 11 year old daughter, and his brother-in-law Milton. Not thinking anything weird still until I realize that I’m with a complete stranger who supposedly works at the US Embassy in San Salvador, married two years ago to a Salvadorian lady, smokes and swears like it’s going outta style, and they’re telling me how you can’t trust people in San Salvador cause they will kill you and take your money.:) Anyways, we get to his house eventually and it’s really nice. It’s in a gated community and his wife just changes the sheets on the bed, sweeps the room, starts the air conditioning, and mops the floor saying, “make yourself at home!” My mom doesn’t mop my floor! Maybe cause it’s carpet…so here I am, and I just found out they have wireless internet in their house…and it’s fast…and free. This is the greatest!

The “Famous” Salvadorian Band

Did any of you hear about this group from El Salvador that was coming up for the Rose Parade but couldn’t raise enough money for the flight so they drove 5 buses up from El Salvador? Well, my mom told me about this group on New Years day and I remember thinking, “Great mom, big deal…it’s cheaper for them to take a bus, big whoop.” Although I really did care a little bit and I thought it was cool that they drove 5 days in 5 buses to get to L.A. for the parade. Anyways, our flight from Houston to San Salvador was supposed to leave at 5:45 but it was delayed to 6:05…we get on the plane at 6 and they announce that we are waiting for 47 students who represented “nuestro amado pais” (our beloved country) in the Rose Parade. I was thinking, cool, this will be fun to have a bunch of little kids on the plane. Well, as it turns out, this was part of the 200+ students that drove up from El Salvador and they had gotten the money to fly back down. One of the girls, Jenny, sat next to me and I got to talk with her throughout the flight. It was super great to get to know her and meet the “Famous Salvadorian Band”! I told her that my mom had told me about her group and asked about them driving up, for her it was her first time flying as well. She just laughed when I told her that they were famous now for making the 5 day drive just for the Rose Parade. I’m so excited to be able to say that I sat next to one of them! They were all over the plane, kids from 14-21 years old she said. She just played the cachiporra which is…I have no idea…I need to look that up. Sounds fun though.:) Anyways, other than that the travel down was fairly uneventful…just me and my famous Salvadorian friends.:)