Los Momentos Buenos

The first week back at school I had the “grand privilege” of teaching for a couple days before a teacher came back from Christmas break. It’s not necessarily the worst behaved class in the world but they have their moments of hellions. Anyways, I got through a couple of days in the class and was thankful for the regular teacher to be back (as I think most of the kids were too). On Friday last week I was sitting in the office with the directors going over some things when one of the students walked in just to say hi. I asked him how things were going and he said that he had missed me and just wanted to say hi. He came up and gave me a hug, looked at us for a little bit, there was a pause in the conversation and then he left. Later Diana told me that the same kid had gone by the library to look for me and she said to look in the office. It’s a new kid at the school this year and while his behavior is not always the best, he’s a pretty well behaved kid...and apparently a suck-up too.:) It was one of those good moments of teaching though. One of those times that I thought, “well I guess this isn’t the worst job in the world.” Now don’t interpret that last sentence as a hint that I’m staying here another year....ni invente (don’t even go there).
Los buenos momentos en la escuela vienen de vez en cuando. Vienen en la mirada de un alumno expectante, en la sonrisa de un niño en el recreo, en las indiadas de un catracho, y sobre todo vienen cuando los busco. En un día que me levanto y me digo – hoy sí voy a trabajar con ganas y lo voy a pasar bien con los cipotes – eso es lo que hago, lo paso bien con ellos siempre pensando en lo mejor de todo. En vez de ver aquel alumno atrás aparatando, veo los demás que prestan atención con ganas de satisfacer al maestro. Lo mismo me pasó el año pasado en la clase y empiezo a pensar.... ¿será que la vida es así? ¿Cuando nos levantamos y nos decimos que vamos a vivir con ganas que lo hacemos? En esto empiezo a creer...no es lo que la vida nos da, es lo que damos a la vida...que sea ganas...que sea penas...logramos lo que buscamos.

La Guerra es el Fracaso

I love that line in Spanish, “fracaso.” It can be defined several different ways and they are all great in this sentence. “Was is the flop/fiasco/bust/debacle/dud/etc.” I’m reading a book by Jorge Ramos right now called El Regalo del Tiempo (The Gift of Time). In this book he talks about various experiences he’s had in life (he’s a famous news reporter for Univision. Anyways, here’s my translation of his little diddy on war that I really like. For those that want a challenge, I also put the original tid-bit down.:)

“War is the ultimate failure.
War is the absolute confirmation that we fail...that we are not as clever as we thought, that we haven’t learned from those who fought (and died) before us.
War is the ultimate non-sense.... I have been in five wars [as a journalist]...and I can assure you of one thing; there is no good war.” – Jorge Ramos

“La guerra es el fracaso.
La guerra es la absoluta confirmación de que fallamos...de que no somos tan listos como pensamos, de que no hemos aprendido de los que pelearon (y murieron) antes que nosotros.
La guerra es el sin sentido.... Me ha tocado cinco guerras...y les aseguro una cosa; no hay guerra buena.” – Jorge Ramos

'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?:)