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?