Saturday, Sept 26

Today we climbed Mount Celaque to the point where you can see the waterfall more up close. I see the waterfall from school everyday at lunch, so it was really exciting to be able to have a chance to see it up close. We had a big breakfast to prepare for our hike up the mountain and Sarah made us “lunches” of PBJ since she wasn’t going up with us and then we set off. Don Luis, one of our neighbors, knows Celaque well so he was our guide and Mr. Bran, the PE teacher who lives near us, went with us as well. I hadn’t been past our backyard really into Celaque so it was a whole new experience for me. Jacki had been up to the visitor’s center when her boyfriend was visiting, but otherwise we were all new to it. Don Luis showed us all these plants on the way up that you could use for different medicines, as well as different plants and trees that produced fruit or could be used to make other things. He was so knowledgeable about everything. He also speaks Spanish very fast so I often only caught the very general gist of what he was saying and I asked Jacki for specifics because she understood him more. We kept walking up the road until we got to the visitors center, which was very simple, but pretty nice. We had to pay about a dollar to get into the park, but it was totally worth it. We started up the path to the waterfall lookout point and at first it wasn’t too bad, but then it started getting harder and we all started breathing harder. Don Luis was just climbing up these hills and switchbacks like it was no big deal. Granted he lives here and has been in Celaque many times, but he’s still like 55 and he was hauling up these hills that we had to ask him to slow down so we could rest quite a few times. I was looking for a walking stick and he noticed; so he just took his machete, chopped a little tree down, lopped off the ends and gave me a walking stick! It was great and definitely helped when the walk got steep towards the end. It was hard going up and definitely a good work out, but it felt good to know we were working our bodies hard and getting some good exercise. Don Luis was like you’re going to burn fat; haha it was great! We finally got to the top of the trail and peeking through the trees was the waterfall more up close! It wasn’t as close as we expected; I think it’s like a two day hike to get to the actual place of the waterfall. But it was majestic view all the same and was worth the hike. We spent some time up there taking pics and resting our legs and then the thunder started rumbling. We figured we should probably head down since it was going to rain, so we started climbing down. It was easier going down in a sense, but trying to keep yourself from falling was more difficult. I just wanted to run down because it felt like it would be easier, but I would’ve fallen flat on my face after like 10 feet with all the roots and rocks. We stopped at a rest area to eat our sandwiches for lunch and then kept descending. When we were about a half hour out the rain started coming and at first it wasn’t very hard, and then it started coming down harder. We hadn’t brought raincoats (not smart on our part), so we just continued and got wet. It wasn’t that bad because once you got wet and soaked, what was a little more rain? We had to cross this river with slippery rocks, and my foot went in, but I was like no big deal they’re already squishing with water! We got back to the visitor center and kept going back down the road to our house after that, all the while it was raining. It was kinda fun, except I started getting cold because I was wearing shorts and a Tshirt. We finally arrived back home and there we were to greet Sarah and she was like “You’re all wet.” And we laughed and started stripping off our wet clothes to take warm showers and get dry. It took about 5-6 hours total for the trip, but a great way to spend our Saturday. It rained most the rest of the day, so we just stayed inside and were lazy: sleeping, playing with the neighbor kids, and making dinner.

Friday, September 25

It was a pretty good day at school today. Fridays are my busiest days; I don’t have any planning hours, so I teach straight through the day, except for recess and lunch of course. My fifth graders were pretty good for most of the day, but there were definitely a few times I sent a silent prayer up for patience to repeat my directions for the third time or to ask the class to be quiet for the sixth time in the same hour. Haha…I really like my kids and I understand it’s a long day to be in school, much less a bilingual school where they’re learning half of their subjects in a second language. I would like to think I’m growing in patience, but sometimes I feel like I take one step forward and two steps back. I need to be more consistent in the time I spend with God before the school day begins because I’m sure that would help more. After school we had a short staff meeting and then celebrated Laura Beth’s birthday with cake for dessert. Afterwards we headed home for our always eventful Friday nights haha. Kirsty’s spending the night because tomorrow we’re going hiking up in Celaque. She hasn’t been up to our house since we fixed it up either and we were excited to be able to hang out with her outside of school and seeing her in town. Sarah, Laura Beth and I decided to make corn tortillas, which wasn’t too hard. There’s this mix called maseca which you can buy, add water, shape the tortillas, and then fry them up. Dinner was our tortillas, eggs, avocados and beans with these homemade salsas…amazing as usual. Some of our neighbors came over last night all at the same time, so that was kinda crazy; it was like we were the house to be at on Friday night or something. After dinner we all just sat around the dinner table and talked about life up here in Villa Verde and how much we love it; Kirsty was ready to move up that night. Off to Celaque tomorrow!

Thursday, Sept 24

It felt like a Monday again today after our “vacation,” but today went well overall. The kids told me everything they did on their days off. Lots of them were bored as well because they couldn’t leave their houses; most of them played video games, watched TV, played with other neighborhood kids and stuff like that. So they were ready to come back to school I think. I had to rearrange my lesson plans a little bit because of the days off, but it worked out alright. We went to town again today after school on the bus because our house was getting low on food options after being home for three meals a day for two days. The curfew supposedly started back up again at 6pm, so we hurried to get everything, but there was conflicting news that only the big cities had curfews and places like Gracias didn’t. I don’t think things are communicated well here in situations like this. Either rumors start and spread like wildfire and stir people up more than they should; or they aren’t told anything so people have to guess; or people actually know the truth, but not everyone finds out. Grr..

Wednesday, Sept 23

I love my job, but sleeping in is glorious. Today was probably one of the laziest days I’ve had. We weren’t supposed to go into town so we settled in our house and our biggest events of the day were our meals haha. We had a big breakfast, then I read for a while, did my devotions, did some laundry on the pila, and read some more. Jacki and Laura Beth tried chopping a path through our yard full of tall grasses to find somewhere to put the hammock Laura Beth bought, but that didn’t get very far. It was hilarious to watch though. I climbed a little bit of the road into the forest and it’s amazing how even the slightest change in height can change your view of the road, my house and the valley; it looks even better. Laura Beth, Sarah and I sat around talking about relationships for a little while, which was really good. We decided we were going to go down to Julia’s house by the school and the river, but as we started down the mountain, these rain clouds came out of nowhere and it started pouring; so no river for us today. We had also wanted to learn how to make flour tortillas since we already knew how to make the corn ones. We tromped on over to Sonia’s and she showed us how to make them. It’s the same basic idea except you need to stretch the tortilla farther so it’s larger. She spent a good 20 minutes kneading the dough though and it amazed me how strong her arms must be from doing this so often. It takes a lot of work to make tortillas, especially these ones. We made some, which turned out ok and then she treated us to dinner and made us baleadas with the tortillas we made. We each ate four, which is a lot, but we were starving! We weren’t sure about school tomorrow, but then we got a call that we were going back since the curfew was only going to be tomorrow night. I went to bed on time, but woke up in the middle of the night to a loud noise in our kitchen. I woke up freaked out thinking someone or something was in our house. We had had a mouse and I was afraid it was back, so I didn’t want to go out there in the dark by myself right away. So I stood at my door, watching outside in the kitchen and then I see…a cat. It must have walked into our door because it walked right back out. I went into the kitchen and it had jumped on our counter and fridge and knocked some stuff of the shelves. So either it was looking for food or the mouse or something. What a night.

Tuesday Sept 22

Well today was our forced day off because of the political unrest and hence the curfew in the whole country. Well we decided to sleep in and then get ready to go into town because we assumed that things would still be open. We started walking down the mountain towards town and then hitched a ride with some people in the back of their pickup. We got to town and nothing was open, which we didn’t know because no one told us. This was very frustrating because we were going to try to have a birthday lunch since birthday dinner didn’t work out yesterday. We ended up walking around to see what was open, and then just used the internet at Guancascos. We searched for some lunch to no avail, only snacks. So Froni was nice and made us some baleadas and brought us back up the mountain in her pickup. We had dinner at the comedor that night, which was amazing as usual. We had a food coma after that so we went back to chill at our house, planning on school tomorrow until we get a call from Mr. Lara informing us the curfew is still on for tomorrow. Apparently we weren’t supposed to leave our house today so Mr. Lara told us to not go to town tomorrow. I decided to use my time to watch an episode of ALIAS and be entertained for a little bit before bed. Another day of forced vacation!

Monday Sept. 21

Today was pretty good for a Monday. I think it’s because I felt more prepared for this new week with a good weekend behind me. My kids were good today and there were a few times I was like wow you are being really quiet and attentive right now. The only exception was in our last hour of spelling they kept talking. Therefore, I didn’t let them play a game to study for the test tomorrow; they had to write out their lists over and over instead. Sometimes I wonder if I’m too strict, but I think that if they want to be able to play games to learn, they need to be able to listen and they weren’t. Anyways, it was also Laura Beth’s birthday today, so she got a lot of Happy birthdays from her music classes and her 6th grade gave her a birthday party the last hour of school. It was fun to see the kids get really into it. We headed down to town on the school bus after school because we wanted to have a celebratory dinner for Laura Beth and Julia’s belated birthdays. We arrived in town and Kirsty called us to let us know that Zelaya was supposedly back in the country so there was a 4pm curfew in the entire country. Now granted we’re in Gracias, in the mountains and the curfew won’t be as strictly enforced as it would be in Teguc or SPS. But to be safe we started making plans to head back up the mountain. Thanks Zelaya you picked great day to “come back in the country.” It wasn’t even confirmed he was actually there, but a curfew was out just in case to keep riots at bay. Most of the stores were closing anyway so we probably couldn’t have found anywhere to eat. So we headed back up the mountain! We made a dinner for LB here and then we got a call that because of the curfew, we don’t have school tomorrow!! The curfew is from 4pm til 7am Tuesday morning so the kids can’t come to school. Crazy…it feels like a snow day except there’s no snow! So we enjoyed our night and watched ‘What about Bob’, which was hilarious and just what I needed.

Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 19 and 20

Saturday we “slept in” til 7:30, had breakfast and got ready to go into town. We got down there the earliest yet, by like 9:30 and did our market and supermarket shopping. LB and I bought some more rugs for our room. We spent some time at Guancascos; I was so happy to have MY computer back and be able to use it to check MY email and have MY things on it….it was great! Afterwards I was craving ice cream so we had our mototaxi guy stop by this place we knew sold good ice cream, but of course, it was closed! I was so sad; he took us down this other street to a place that sold licuados, so I settled for that instead. It was sweet of our driver to find another place for us and it was a good licuado-pineapple with milk. Licuados with milk are kinda like smoothies; they’re basically blended fruit and then you choose either milk or water. I like milk because it’s more like a smoothie, but the water ones are good, too. So we headed up the mountain and spent the rest of the day relaxing at the house: grading, planning, napping, eating. Pretty lazy day.
Sunday was much of the same. Sarah made pancakes for breakfast with bananas and granola…so good. J I did some of my own laundry on the pila again, spent some good time with God, which I really needed. It’s really easy here to just go to school everyday and not spend enough time with God to make it through each day. I’ve been slacking in that and I can feel it in my spirit and so this weekend of relaxing and having time is what I needed. We went to church at 7pm and it just amazes me every time that no matter where you are, if there are people gathered in the name of Jesus and they love him, He is there. There were about 20 people there, most of them our neighbors and we sang songs, prayed, shared some of the Word, and had a message. It was just so simple, but there was such simple and profound joy felt in that room. It really refreshed my spirit to sing and have a message and just be with other believers; even in this small mountain church.
I realized something else. It seems to me that often the Hispanic/Latino culture talks about “el Corazon” or the heart; I swear I hear that word in every song: love songs, worship songs, old songs, new songs. But that’s because the heart is so central to one’s life; it is the center of and source of all things, especially passion and fulfillment. Relating to my faith, the heart is the wellspring of life; I think often in churches in the US we don’t acknowledge the depth and importance of the heart in our lives as human beings and in our spirits as Christians. I just think it’s something we can learn from our Latino brothers and sisters to not be afraid to put our ‘corazon’ into everything: our faith, our life, and to not be afraid to express or explore what is there since it is the center of all things. Just my deep thought for the day :-)

Friday Sept 18

It was great to already have it be Friday. I really like my job and my kids, but Fridays and weekends are wonderful, too. The day went pretty well; Fridays are my longest days as far as teaching. I have no free planning periods so I only have recess and lunch to take a break. I still feel inadequate a lot of the times as far as if my kids are understanding what I’m saying, if they’re learning, if I’m teaching them well, will I get everything done. My dry erase board is a mess as well. No matter how many times I erase things, I can still see what I just erased, so it’s extremely frustrating; the kids can’t see well, I can’t see it well. I told Mr. Lara so hopefully in some way it will get fixed. After school we headed home and had dinner at the comedor. There were other people there that night too, so it was like an actual restaurant that night. We got to play with the kids and Sonia’s husband was there. He plays guitar and has a electric keyboard, so he played some songs for us. Again, I must say our neighbors are wonderful, generous, God-loving people and I’m so blessed to be living by them. We were all so tired from the day though, so we headed back to our house to chill for the rest of the night.

Thursday Sept 17

Today started out pretty well, but then I was told I was having 2 parent meetings in the morning which I didn’t know about. I was nervous thinking what are they going to say to me, what have I done wrong, etc. I mean I’ve never been a teacher or had to have a meeting with a parent except with Young Life stuff. They ended up going well ; the parents just wanted to let me know specifics about their kids, like if they have ADD and how I can help them and stuff. Then I saw Jake outside the office and I was like what is he doing here? Well then here come Dennis and Vicente. They were all in La Union and decided to come to Gracias for the day to have meetings with the American teachers. It was mainly to encourage us, see how we were doing with things, and they gave us some constructive criticism as well. It went pretty well for me, but some of the other girls had harder ones. After that meeting I had one more parent meeting so in total I had four meetings in one day. My nerves were shot! I stayed after for help class, came back home and we all vented about our crazy day. We were going to make spaghetti for dinner but then we found out, surprise!, we had ran out of gas. So we had sandwiches for dinner instead. The power went out twice during the evening so had to do some grading by candlelight. Just like in the old days. I don’t take things for granted here: thank you God for hot water, electricity, gas, cell phone signals, and great people.

Wednesday Sept 16

Back to school after the long weekend…it was kinda a hard day; I didn’t feel prepared. I just think it’s that way any day after a weekend or vacation and I just have to prepare myself for that. After the school day was done we went into town for money, internet and some food, but I forgot bank book which made me so mad! After our time in town we needed a mototaxi up the mountain. I was proud of myself because I called Samuel (one of the guys who lives by us in Villa Verde and has a mototaxi) and arranged for the mototaxi in Spanish. We returned to the house and Jacki and Sarah were just getting back, so he got mad because Sarah didn’t ride up with him. It was kinda funny. Sarah doesn’t like him, but he definitely has a crush on her!

Tuesday Sept 15- Independence Day, Last Day of Vacation

We left Tela early this morning at 6 am and started our trip back to Gracias. We didn’t exactly know where the bus station was which could take us back to San Pedro, but we found one which could take us to El Progreso, which was very close to SPS and then we would take a short bus ride to SPS. So we got on the bus to El Progreso, arrived there and hopped on another bus to SPS. This one took the long round about way getting back into town and then didn’t even drop us off at the bus terminal! So then we had to grab taxis to take to the bus terminal. Finally we arrived at the bus terminal, helped Renska and Laura find the right bus to La Union and we boarded a nicer greyhound type bus to take to Santa Rosa. It was SO hot in that bus before it got moving though; I was dripping sweat everywhere. We got moving finally, but then not kidding you 10 minutes into our ride, the bus has tire problems. So we sat on the bus a little while, seeing if it would get fixed, but everyone else was getting off, so we did too. Apparently it couldn’t be fixed so they had to call another bus for us. There we were sitting on the side of the road with the rest of the people from the bus, waiting for another bus. It’s always hot in SPS, too. The other bus arrived shortly and we climbed on and had an uneventful ride back to Santa Rosa. In Santa Rosa we found the bus to Gracias right after we got off so there was no craziness like the last time when we were going to Tela. When we arrived back in Gracias, Jacki called us to tell us she was sick and still in the Copan Ruins because of that and Chad was leaving tomorrow morning. Well Holly, her assistant wasn’t back either, so there were no K4 teachers for Wednesday. We called Mr. Lara to tell him Jackie was sick and wouldn’t be there the next day. Well he started calling Mr. Calderon, and Vicente and it was this big problem because the Laras were still in Teguc, so we were short even more people. I understand their frustration, but Jackie was sick. We tried to figure out how we could help cover Jacki’s classes that day and we had some covered. It was a just a ‘fun’ way to end our vacation.

Monday Sept 14- Vacation in Tela

Well we all spent the morning laying around in the AC and watched TV a little bit, ate some food and then headed out to the beach for the last beach day. It was a really nice day, slightly overcast and a good breeze on the ocean which made for some sweet waves. The beach actually reminded me slightly of Lake Michigan: the color of the water, the sand, the waves, except the water was salty not fresh. So I had a good relaxing time on the beach and in the waves. The one thing that was really the whole weekend was when guys would say things to us in English or Spanish like ‘Hey baby’ ‘I love you’ and stuff like that. It just got old. After the beach we did some shopping and more wandering around in town and finished with dinner at another restaurant right on the beach. It was a beautiful night and a lot of tourists and other people were out and about. It was a great way to end our time in Tela.

Sunday Sept 13- Vacation in Tela

Today was our first full day in Tela. We needed to get money desperately so we ventured into town to find a bank and explore the stores there. While we were in the store, we decided to buy this sticker of Tinky Winky to represent Jacki being there with us (she was still back in Gracias showing her boyfriend the town). So everywhere we went we took pictures with Tinky Winky: on the beach, at lunch, etc. After that Kirsty, Julia and I went to the beach later in the afternoon and it was really hot. The ocean wasn’t much cooler, but it was still refreshing to be able to swim. We met a few girls from La Union who were staying in Tela that weekend as well, Renska (from the Netherlands) and Laura (from Scotland). They work at the Vida Abundante in La Union. We went on the beach at sunset with everyone; it was gorgeous. Renska, Kirsty and I went up in this lifeguard shack for a while to see the view of the beach better, too. Then we finally decided to get some dinner around 8 at this place that has good seafood. I had fish…literally a whole fish was given to me and I had to pull the skeleton out and some bones too as I ate it. But it was really good fish otherwise! It was a great relaxing day.

Saturday Sept 12- Vacation in Tela

We have a four day weekend this weekend because next week Tuesday is Independence Day for Honduras and then Thursday is Teacher’s Day, so they just decided to put it together and give us Monday and Tuesday off. We decided to go to Tela, which is a beach city on the northern Caribbean coast in Honduras. Ana, one of the other teachers at Vida Abudante, helped us book the hotel, which was great because she knew where to find good deals; we got a hotel for about $25-$30 total per person for 3 nights. So I was stoked to be able to go to the beach in September. We had to take buses all the way there though, but that’s just how things go here in Honduras if you want to go somewhere and don’t have a car. So off we go down the mountain, get a ride down the mountain, and get a bus to Santa Rosa. And you would not believe who was on that bus AGAIN…remember the creepy clowns from last time? Yeah there were on the bus…again. We all were like NO WAY and couldn’t believe our “luck.” So we traveled to Santa Rosa on a crowded chicken bus, the most crowded I have ever seen one. And then Sarah sees this cute guy on the bus and he keeps looking back and she keeps making eye contact with him…it was great. Sarah was so excited she had a ‘bus boyfriend.’ The craziest part of our trip was when we got off in Santa Rosa and had to find our own bus to SPS. There were all these men on us right away yelling in Spanish to come to their bus, it’s cheaper, it’s faster, it’s more direct, etc. It was SO overwhelming because they kept trying to herd us to this bus and then pull us to that one and we were just getting sick of it. Finally we got on a nicer one, more like a greyhound type and settled in for our ride to SPS. And you wouldn’t believe who was on that bus…oh yes, the clowns. Unbelievable. We also had a a guy come on the bus and preach to us on the way to SPS. Always entertaining riding buses. J It was a pretty good ride, except we went really slow for about an hour. Finally got to SPS at the bus terminal and found the right bus to take us to Tela. It was a smaller more touristy one, but I don’t think many buses believe in air conditioning here haha. At last got to Tela at like 4 pm after like 8 hours of travel and we got dropped off at a gas station in Tela. We were like ‘Ok where do we go now and where is our hotel?’ A nice taxi driver told us we just had to walk up this street to the hotel and it was right there. So we walked in HOT and humid weather, found our hotel right on the beautiful ocean and enjoyed the air conditioning and cable TV of our room for a while. Afterwards we explored town a little bit, got some dinner at our hotel restaurant right on the beach, and crashed afterwards.

Friday Sept 11

Today was Dia Nino, which is Kids Day in Honduras. First I think that the US should have a Kids Day. We have Mother’s, Father’s and Grandparents Day, but NO kids day. So now that that is said, it’s a BIG deal here. We didn’t have normal classes on Friday and the kids got to go home at noon. It was a surprise to us because we were only told about it on Wednesday so that was kinda frustrating because it set me back on my lessons an extra day. The day began with me giving the kids a devotional and then the ninth graders came in for an hour and kinda took over my fifth grade for the day. It was great to see the older kids step up and teach and lead the younger ones. They did songs, devotionals and gave the kids candy for Dia Nino. Then we went up to the cancha (field) and played games, boys and girls doing separate games. After that each grade had one or two futbol games, which were a huge deal and you get major bragging rights. So my fifth grade girls beat the fourth grade girls, but lost to the 6th grade girls; it was the same for my boys. It was so cute how excited they were and I was really surprised at how good of players some of they were already at 10! They know way more than I do about futbol, obviously. I was on the sidelines the whole time, helping them stretch, get water, cheering for fifth grade with my handmade maraca (one of our art projects: plastic bottles filled with noisemaking things). It was really a fun day and I liked being able to have fun with the kids without having to admonish them for talking and tell them to sit down, raise their hand, etc. After the kids left, we had a birthday celebration for teacher’s birthdays that week as well as an amazing tipico lunch. And the best part was we got to go home at 2 pm. Jacki had left that day because her boyfriend was coming into Honduras, so when we got back home, they were there; it was nice to meet him after hearing so much about him from Jacki and they are SO cute together. J We didn’t get to hang out a lot that night though because we had to pack for Tela the next morning.

Wednesday Sept 9

Today we had class as normal, but the kids were all excited because tonight was the futbol game vs. Mexico. So they were all like “Miss, we need to pray that they win!” That’s all I hear all day by the way, “Miss” or “Miss E-Sneden.” It’s cute but sometimes it gets to me when 10 of them say it at once! Anyways so we prayed for Honduras to win against Mexico. After school we went into town because we wanted to watch the game since we have our Honduras jerseys now and everything. Samuel, the mototaxi driver who has a crush on Sarah, told us about this place where everyone watches the game. We paid some money to get it and when we went in, we were so surprised to see this HUGE room with a HUGE wall screen with what seemed like half of the town of Gracias watching the game. It was so crowded so we stood outside the open windows to watch. You could hear everyone groan when something went wrong and cheer when it went right. The game was good, but Mexico ended up winning on a penalty kick, which really stunk. So as far as I know the US is number one, Mexico two, Honduras third and Costa Rica fourth. Sarah wasn’t feeling well at all, but thank goodness Samuel was there! Haha he was able to bring us back up the mountain in the mototaxi.

Monday Sept 7

I don’t know if it’s just Mondays or what but I didn’t feel prepared for the day. Probably because of the quick, fun, tiring weekend, but the kids were tired too and kinda talkative so that’s been tough today. They really are a good class overall, it’s just that they lapse sometimes with attention and then they’ll be like my head hurts, my stomach hurts, can I go to the bathroom, can I get a drink and I already established rules for those…I just have to keep trying to see them through God’s eyes and do everything out of love, not anger or impatience which is easier said than done sometimes. After this day I was like I hate Mondays, but doesn’t everyone?

Sunday Sept 6

Sunday, Sept 6
We left SPS around 10 am on a bus to Santa Rosa, but it seemed a lot longer to Santa Rosa this time. It was so hot in SPS so we were glad that it got cooler as we got closer to Gracias. After our crazy weekend being in SPS we were like “we were so glad we live in Gracias;” we missed it- the tranquility and cooler weather especially. We arrived in Santa Rosa and got crowded into a bus again to Gracias, at least 3 to a seat. There were these crazy clowns on this bus trying to make money by doing their act on the bus and they were SO annoying. Not only was it crowded and they kept trying to move through the aisle. Ugh we were more than happy to get off and away from them. They were creepy too, not just because they were clowns, they were just kinda weird.
The bus ride got better the closer we got to Gracias because people got off and we finally arrived back to Gracias at like 4. We were starving and had to go to the bathroom and we were tired; so we found a place for dinner and just sat…and had food comas afterwards. It was Abigail and Luis (our neighbor kids) birthday party at night so we got presents for them and found some mototaxis to take us back up the mountain. The drivers were really nice guys; you just never know with mototaxi drivers here. Laura Beth and I were in the same mototaxi and practiced our Spanish with him. We went to Sonia’s for the kids’ birthday party and hung out there for a while. Sonia joked with Sarah about Samuel, a guy our age who drives a mototaxi up to Villa Verde a lot and that he likes her and stuff so Sarah was getting really embarrassed; it was hilarious.

Saturday Sept 5- My First Live Futbol Game!

Saturday, Sept 5
We were all so excited for this day but it started so early! We got up at 4:30, rode down to Gracias and got on a bus to Santa Rosa with Mr. Bran, the PE teacher from our school. It was crowded and dirty and my first bus experience. They call them chicken buses down here for good reason; a lady got on and had a dead chicken, just holding on to it on the bus. It was hilarious.We got off, got on bus to San Pedro and the conditions were definitely better, much less crowded. We arrived in SPS at like 11 am and went to mall to have lunch…good American food!
We got a taxi to the game and bought some jerseys off the street for cheaper which was great. I feel so official now I have a Honduras futbol jersey! It was SO busy and crowded because it was a Saturday game and they accidently double printed tickets and we got there too late. So we were in line too far back, but thankfully found friends farther up front. While we were waiting someone threw tear gas and at first we didn’t realize and then it was like everybody crowd together cover your eyes…it burned so bad in my eyes and my face like little fires! Some nice lady gave us water to put on our faces and it felt better but still…crazy I never though tear gas! As we stood in line and it was getting close to game time, everyone started crowding the gate so we were squished like sardines as close as you can be to someone in a crowd. It was like back to butt to back to butt; I have never been that close to so many people at the same time trying to get in. The security or police were only letting in 5-10 people at a time and Kirsty and Sarah were freaking out, so they were pushed up to the front and went in, having to climb over this gate and people to do so. We finally got in and then had to wait to get to our seats b/c it was so crowded; so we waited til halftime outside the stadium watching it on TV, which kept going on and off b/c someone would trip it; got into the stadium and pushed our way to the front row! So much fun once we could see and we won 4-1! The stadium went crazy every time they scored. Afterwards getting out was much easier than getting in; we were starving and got pizza for dinner at like 10:30 went to jump in the pool to wash off the dirt and sweat…felt so good after a long day and lots of bodies close to you.

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday Sept 2-4

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday Sept 2-4These last few days have been good; it’s just that every day is like an emotional roller coaster with teaching. Some hours are fine and the kids are paying attention and other times they don’t listen even if I try everything in my power to have them do so. Its frustrating; and then again its fun when they understand and pay attention and seem to enjoy the things we are learning. Each day is very much the same now during the week: I go to school; teach; lesson plan and grade after school, have dinner and chill with the girls, and go to sleep. Thursday we did got to town because we finally got paid and we were all in desperate need of money. We rode the bus down with the kids again and its so fun to be able to have fun with them outside of the classroom. The bus always has music on and we (the teachers) were kinda dancing around to it and all the kids saw it and they started dancing with us. Then they kept going up to the driver to ask him to play this song and that song and then coming back to the back of the bus and dancing it up with us again. It’s great. We went to the bank in town to get money and had to keep our backpacks outside of the building. While we were waiting outside the guards asked us how to say ‘push’ in English so we told them and they kept trying to say it, but some of them couldn’t get the ‘sh’ sound…it was good they wanted to practice, but it was funny, too. When Friday came I was so ready for the weekend. I try to live out everyday here, I but definitely look forward to the weekends, especially if we have something planned. Our plans for this weekend were to travel to San Pedro to see the Honduras versus Trinidad/Tabago futbol game! I was so excited because I had never been to a futbol game and wanted to have that experience here. After school Friday we went home and spent some time grading papers and then had dinner at the comedor; we played with the kids there and conversed with Sonia and some others and then made sure we went to bed on time because we had to wake up at like 4:30 tomorrow morning to head to Gracias to catch our bus to San Pedro.

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday Sept 2-4

These last few days have been good; it’s just that every day is like an emotional roller coaster with teaching. Some hours are fine and the kids are paying attention and other times they don’t listen even if I try everything in my power to have them do so. Its frustrating; and then again its fun when they understand and pay attention and seem to enjoy the things we are learning. Each day is very much the same now during the week: I go to school; teach; lesson plan and grade after school, have dinner and chill with the girls, and go to sleep.
Thursday we did got to town because we finally got paid and we were all in desperate need of money. We rode the bus down with the kids again and its so fun to be able to have fun with them outside of the classroom. The bus always has music on and we (the teachers) were kinda dancing around to it and all the kids saw it and they started dancing with us. Then they kept going up to the driver to ask him to play this song and that song and then coming back to the back of the bus and dancing it up with us again. It’s great. We went to the bank in town to get money and had to keep our backpacks outside of the building. While we were waiting outside the guards asked us how to say ‘push’ in English so we told them and they kept trying to say it, but some of them couldn’t get the ‘sh’ sound…it was good they wanted to practice, but it was funny, too.
When Friday came I was so ready for the weekend. I try to live out everyday here, I but definitely look forward to the weekends, especially if we have something planned. Our plans for this weekend were to travel to San Pedro to see the Honduras versus Trinidad/Tabago futbol game! I was so excited because I had never been to a futbol game and wanted to have that experience here. After school Friday we went home and spent some time grading papers and then had dinner at the comedor; we played with the kids there and conversed with Sonia and some others and then made sure we went to bed on time because we had to wake up at like 4:30 tomorrow morning to head to Gracias to catch our bus to San Pedro.

Tuesday Sept 1

First day of a new month! I feel like the months may go slow, but then again, I’m sure looking back this year will fly by. Today was better than yesterday as far as flow and feeling with it. I was a frustrated this morning because I didn’t get some of my lesson plans for Math and Science done, so now I’m behind and have to catch up. It’s hard for me because I’m such a planner and organized person, but I also want these kids to understand so I’m in conflict. Two other things which compound my frustration are that they aren’t consistent when they ring the bell for the next class here so I’ll think I have more time, when I actually don’t. The kids don’t have their student books yet either, so they have had to copy a lot of things down from the board which takes up lots of time because not everyone writes at the same speed. One of my girls, Leonela, just had a surgery and had to go home because she wasn’t feeling well, so that was some excitement in my day. Also Alvaro’s dad came to talk to me and it was all in Spanish; I could get the first half of things, but then my brain was on overload and so I started to lose it…so frustrating. He knew enough English though to help me out. I stayed after to plan and then went home to stir fry for dinner (again, AMAZING) and spent the night planning for the next day….so much planning. I have a new found respect for all my teachers….thank you.

Monday August 31

Today I just felt off…I don’t know if I had such a great weekend and it was the Monday blahs or I didn’t feel prepared for the day or what was going on. I was just getting very frustrated in my classes with the kids and at myself because I felt like I wasn’t teaching very well; things weren’t flowing. I was already tired by lunch and just wanted to get done with the day.

We played soccer after school! My first time actually playing soccer! Our PE teacher was the trainer for a women’s soccer team in Honduras and so he had us do some drills to warm up. I was okay but really have NO background in soccer at all….hopefully I’ll get better! I have 10 months to do it I guess! After warm-ups we divided into teams and starting playing 10 minute halves. The halves felt so long and I was sucking air like it was my job…I’m so out of shape to do anything, much less play soccer at a higher elevation than I’m used to at home. But it was still fun; my team lost, but we got close to scoring a few times! Kirsty is quite good and was on the other team and scored for them. Just as we were about to get done though Ana twisted her ankle and couldn’t get up. So we had to wait to see how bad it was, ice it, etc. I felt so bad for her, it happening just before we got done with the game. We played on a concrete basketball court though too because the soccer field had too many holes in it so that didn’t help much.

Eventually we all headed back up for dinner and we were starving and didn’t feel like making dinner so we had sandwiches. I have found that the simplest things here like sandwiches and spaghetti taste amazing…maybe because it’s different from the comida tipica or because we’re so hungry or both. Spent the night lesson planning and the cute neighbor kids, Abagail and Luis and their mom Sonia came over and played here for a while. I was just overwhelmed and exhausted from the day that I didn’t really do anything with them and went to bed early. I kinda feel like I came to the end of myself today like God I can’t do this, I don’t know what I’m doing or how to do it (with school and life here) and so I need you everyday; I need to love you and need you everyday. So I’ll just keep being emptied and humble and dependent on God as much as I can.

Blogger is Being Dumb

Family and Friends,
Technology is not my strong point and for some reason, whether because of my computer or blogspot, I can't copy and paste my journal from Microsoft Word into Blogspot. I have a lot to tell you, but I can't figure out how to change it so it works. I would just type it all again, but time does not permit me to do so. Internet time is limited as well. *Sigh*. SO I will try again this weekend or next week and you will just have a lot to read.
In a nutshell, last week was good overall with some frustrating days and hours here and there. I experienced my first futbol game this past weekend, Sept 4, which was a crazy experience to say the least. You'll here more about it later! Thanks for all your prayers, love and for reading my adventures!

Friday, Augst 28th
It was finally the last day of my first week of school! We were all excited because Vicente had told us earlier in the week that he and Dennis would be in Gracias on Friday! So when he got to school, Sarah came by my class and was like they’re here! And I got so excited and told her to watch my class for a minute so I could go say hi; when I got back the kids were like we’ve never seen a teacher that excited before! I was like well we’re people too and have friends and get excited to see friends we haven’t seen in a while! Lol it was hilarious to them. I got through the day and first week of school! I also found out this school has a lot of people who are related to each other; like a lot of the kids and admins are related in some way or another. After school we went into town with Vicente and some people from Michigan visiting for dinner in town. While we were at dinner, Vicente suggested we go to the Honduras vs Trinidad soccer game next weekend and we were all like yes!! I¨m so excited now for next weekend...GOING to a Honduras futbol game! It was on my list of things to do when I came here. Afterwards Dennis and Vicente came to our house to see how things were going for us. They stayed for a while and we played poker and listened to a CD Vicente made us of Honduran and Latin American music. It was a great way to end the week.

Saturday August 29th
We were all in desperate need of clean underwear, so we brought our laundry to be done and then we headed into town. We took a mototaxi down from a neighbor name Mauricio who lives up by our house. We got more food and things for house: in the market and all around town. After we stopped at this place and got these whole fruit natural popsicles and went back up mountain. We made spaghetti and green beans for dinner…so good! It’s crazy here how thankful and excited we get for such simple things, but it’s great too. We played more with the neighbors tonight. I love the neighbors; they are so generous and kind and the kids are so fun to be with and love playing with us. I can´t even tell you how cute and precious these kids are... I´m so lucky.

Sunday August 30th
We went to the comedor for breakfast because Sonia, who owns it, invited us. She made us baleadas,which are big tortillas with beans and cheese and some good sauce on them. They´re so filling and so good. We chilled, got our laundry, put house together more, and then went to Froni’s swimming pool with the kids and neighbors. The pool was kinda dirty but it was fun playing with the kids and something to do. Later in the afternoon we learned how to make tortillas with Sonia and hung out with kids some more. I went to school to get my curriculum stuff by myself close to dark and I dont’ know if do that again! It was just kinda creepy with it being dark and stuff. I stayed back from church to do my own devos and did some planning for tomorrow.

Curriculum and Kids

Wednesday, August 26
First day teaching curriculum! It went pretty well. Everyday we have 20 minutes of devotionals, but for the first week we had devos as a whole lower elementary. Mr Laurelais taught it and he just has an interesting way of saying things, the things he was talking about to the kids I thought were kinda irrelevant to them and just the way he did things rubbed me the wrong way. He hasn´t been my favorite person here. Also my schedule got off because of chapel and my clock was wrong so that was frustrating not having a set time for doing things when ideally that´s how it should be done. I taught the first lesson of most subjects including my Bible classes. It was mostly review for 5th grade, which was nice and I felt like I taught it alright to them, that it made sense to them. I didn’t realize how tired I would be at the end of the day! I have to walk to school and back which is about a mile round trip. But I was also just emotionally and mentally and spiritually tired too. I teach at school, come back home and plan, relax a little bit..maybe. It´s craziness. But it was still a good day and glad we live where we do and that I´m here doing this right now.

Thursday, August 27
I kept teaching curriculum today and it went well overall again. I met some of my students who weren’t there the first day and it´s interesting that I can already tell who is "smarter, faster, better at English, etc" and who is going to need more help and patience for tutoring and such. We needed to go to town so we caught a ride with the kids on the school bus. It was one of the best bus rides of my life! Kids on the bus here act like crazy; they run up and down the aisles, climbing all over the seats, getting up, there´s music blaring...it was so fun going down the mountain in a big school bus. We went to Guancascos and got some more food for the house in town. Cooking has been an experience here. Everything takes a little bit longer. I¨m slowly getting used to it and we´re accumulating more stuff for the house, too so that helps things. It´s just funny that we make spaghetti and it´s like the best spaghetti I have ever eaten! haha. We eat at comedor at least once or twice by our house too because it´s so good and cheap. After we got back to our house we met the new PE teacher Ramon Bran; he´s from Teguc and is staying at the family´s house who owns the comedor. He seemed nice and its another person to be friends with in our small staff.

First Few Days of School

Monday August 24
My first day of school!! It basically consisted of getting to know the kids names and playing all about me games as well as playing other games-telephone, human knot, etc. I was just basically trying to fill time the first day with things that were fun and would help me get to know them and how they worked together as a class. We got to know the 5th grade schedule and how things work as well as the school´s and my discipline and reward systems. I had lunch at the café and its definitely busier with tons of kids in it! We have a beautiful view of Celaque and this gorgeous waterfall though to look at everday from the cafeteria though so its great. I´m not starting curriculum til Wednesday because the school asked us to wait and do a few days of this to not only get to know the kids, but also so we´d have more time for our materials and books to get ready. I got through the first day thankfully! It was good, but long, but fast...that´s all I can say about it. :-)
Tuesday August 25
Today was more of the same as yesterday with games and such. I also gave pretests today to see where my kids were at as far as knowledge in certain subjects. I introduced the curriculum as well. I met my older kids for Bible classes which is a little bit different than teaching my 5th graders. I get intimidated sometimes by middle schoolers, just because even though I know I¨m way older than them, they´re beginning to be adults. I don´t know why, but I have to remember these kids are younger than me; I’m the authority and they need to listen to me. I´m starting out strict because it’s probably best. Laura Beth was an Ed. major and she said you should be a witch til Halloween; meaing you should be strict to establish authority and routine til then. After another day, we headed back home and got ready to start curriculum the next day.

First weekend in Gracias and Villa Verde

Saturday August 22
It was the first weekend in Gracias on our own, so we decided to try the walk down to town from our house (at the entrance to Mt. Celaque). We left at 11am (hindsight says not to do that again…way to hot, we all got burnt)and it took us an hour and a half to walk down to town. We were so hot, dusty, and sweaty that we went to Guancascos right away to cool off and use the internet. I got my wireless on my comp working which was a crazy process. I am not technologically saavy all the time, but I compared my wireless settings with other people´s, read Windows help about wireless settings, and eventually figured it out! I was so proud of myself! After Guancascos, lunch and internet, we then went out into town to get some things for the house like food and basic necessities (silverware, cooking ware, TP, etc) We met up with Mrs. Villela and Dennis (both admins from Tegucigalpa because they were in town to drop off one of the British girls who was going to be a teacher assistant. They helped us out a ton getting things for us and showing us where things were: supermarkets, the market with fresh fruit and veggies and other stuff. THey also had a vehicle which was a tremendous help to us for getting around town. It was a stressful first Saturday in town though. They brought us to see the nicer hot springs (riding in the back of the truck of course so we could fit everyone) and then brought us back up the mountain to our house. I am again humbled by what great servants to us they are and I´m so thankful.

Sunday August 23
We ¨slept in¨ today which is like 7-8am (we usually get up at like 5:30-6 for school) and we went to devotionals at the school at 2 pm, which since we had been up so early felt like it was time for dinner when we had church. The devotional was at the school and our principal, Mr. Lara gave it. I understood a good amount of it because he spoke all in Spanish, which is good because I need some sort of spiritual food down here besides my own. My first experience doing laundry by hand today, too...that´s right, no washer or dryer, kids. We do our laundry on this thing called a pila, which is like a washboard with soap and bleach by hand and then wring out our clothes and hang them to dry. We didn´t have enough hangers so we borrowed some from the neighbors; then we didn´t have a drying line so that took another half hour to put up drying lines to hang up our clothes on...a process let me tell you what. But I had all the time in the world with no internet, TV, and sketchy cell phone service. After our laundry escapade, we met more of our neighbors: the family who owns the comedor (like a little restaurant) and their kids. They are so great and hospitalbe and the kids are ADORABLE! I think a lot of the people living by us are all related too which is funny, but makes sense, too. So the gringa teachers and the Laurelais´ (a Philipino family who teaches at Vida Abundante) are the only non relatives who live in this little neighborhood. It´s great and it´s really starting to feel like home. Afterwards we chilled around the house and got ready for the first day of school tomorrow!

My Orientation Week

Tuesday and Wednesday August 18 and 19
We had more orientation and then were given time to decorate our classrooms and get ready for the first week of school. So most of my day was filled with trying to figure out what things I had t work with to make my classroom look the way it was supposed to. It took a long time cutting out letters and posters and such. It was also a slower process because we have to request the supplies before we use them so it takes a day longer than just having it available. Its to keep track of money spent and such by the school which is understandable, just different than driving to Meijer or Target to get what you need. My classroom looks good though and it´s becoming more real to me that I’ll be a teacher!

Thursday, August 20
Laura Beth came back today after being sick, which is great because we all missed her. I finished decorating my classroom and looking at curriculum as well as got ready for the Parent orientation on Friday. This consisted of giving an overview to the parents what I would be teaching their kids that year and introducing myself and who I am. I¨m a little nervous for it, but I think it will go well. After a full day at the school, we allwent to Guancascos (a hotel in Gracias owned by a Dutch woman named Froni) for internet because we don´t have it at our house. I had the hardest time with the wireless there and was so frustrated so I just had to use the hotel computer. But hey its the internet..I won´t complain.

Friday, August 21
Parent orientation day at school!! We got to school at normal time of orientation week (8am) and prepared all day. Parents started coming at like 5 for 5th grade and 6pm for my 7-9th grade BIble students, so I had a long 11 hour day. Overall it went well; I got to meet the parents of my kids as well as some kids. They all seemed willing to help their students do well, which is a relief and hopefully they´ll follow through with it. I had a translator thank goodness, but I didn’t feel too nervous about speaking in front of them and just tried to be myself. I had to wear my uniform and look nice; I felt like I looked like a flight attendant haha. Meeting the parents and some kids made this whole experience more real to me again…start school on Monday!