Thursday and Friday, December 17 & 18-Going Home

Thursday
Today was our travel day to SPS, which turned out to be not bad at all since we were able to catch a ride. We left Gracias around 9, stopped in Santa Rosa to get coffee (thanks Mrs. Espinal), and drove to SPS. We rested and played some games with the kids, got a little carsick so we had to make sure we sat forward, but otherwise the trip was great! They dropped us off at the hotel where we relaxed at the hotel by the pool. We met this guy who is a doctor for the US Army or something and it was interesting talking to him, hearing his perspective on Honduras, what he’s done, where he’s gone, etc. I just love meeting people, especially from America, randomly in Honduras because they always have interesting stories. We told him what we were doing and he thought it was just great haha. We were going to have sushi for dinner, but couldn’t find the place so we decided to go to good ol’ Applebees in the City Mall and have a little splurge before we came back to the States. We were all so excited about the options for dinner, bouncy seats, great ketchup on real big burgers…it was an experience. We wandered the mall a little bit then headed back to the hotel to turn in for the night and get ready to go home tomorrow!

Friday
I’m going home today!!! Laura Beth got up the earliest of us because she thought she had an earlier flight from SPS; it turned out after some freaking out and confusion, that she was on the same flight as us to Houston. We got ready and took the shuttle to the airport around 9 and began our checking in process. I totally forgot about the weight limit thing on my suitcase, so I had to give Jacki some of my weight, but then I was good to go. SPS is a small airport, so it made things relatively easy getting through security and such. We waited for a while, talking about how we’d be in America so soon, people watching, and then it came time to say bye to Kirsty because she was flying from Atlanta to Houston. The rest of us boarded our plane to Houston and off we went. The flight went great and we landed in Houston and started freaking out…we were back in America! We sped walked through the airport to get to customs and just marveled at how big the airport was, how clean, how sparkly. Customs and baggage recheck went fine, thank goodness and then we were in the Houston airport!

A few of our first reactions: 1) We could flush the toilet paper down the toilet. 2) We could drink water straight from tap or a drinking fountain. 3) There are so many different types of people in America! African American, Asian, Hispanic, white…it was a change to see such variety after seeing all short, tan and darker haired people for 4 months haha. We got lunch at (guess where) McDonald’s and then found out our flight to Chicago had been delayed 2 hours because of possible bad weather. I was a little upset and tried to see if there was some other way to get there sooner, but they were all too expensive. Now we would be getting into Chicago at like 10:30/11:30ET and then have to drive home to Michigan. Well eventually our plane came, we boarded and arrived in Chicago. Here was another surprise of seeing snow on the ground and the plane. Jacki and I were freaking out more; I think people thought we were crazy. We got off the plane and I met my parents by baggage claim; it was so good to see them! We completed our travel day by loading everyone in the Yukon with all of our stuff and driving another 2-3 hours home to Michigan, getting in at about 4 am. Wow…but I’m glad to be home.

Wednesday, December 16-Last Day before Vacation!

The administration had decided yesterday to only have a half day, so the kids would leave at 1pm. We had class half of the day with a spelling test, math and language and then the other half of the day we had a party. The kids brought food in, all junk like cake, ice cream, chips, popcorn and we sat around and ate for a bit. Then we played BINGO, but with SANTA instead and other kids played Monopoly or Uno. Then it was lunch, but not many kids wanted to eat because they were so full of candy. I had bought candy for them and put them in green cups as their present from me; what’s a little more sugar? When the bell finally rang, all the kids were like ‘Woohoo, vacation!’ I was feeling the exact same way. They were all really sweet though saying bye and Merry Christmas and they’ll miss me. I’ll miss them too, but it will be nice to take a break from teaching and classroom management for a few weeks! Now that today is finally here, I can’t believe I’ve been here for 4 months already…almost halfway which is crazy because I can remember so clearly the day I left in August for Honduras. I’ve accomplished so much already, seen some of the country, and learned how to be a teacher! Hopefully I can rejuvenate over vacation with family and friends and come back refreshed with new ideas, new motivation and determination to continue to do my best at my job. It’ll be very weird though to be without my fellow American teachers for 2 weeks! We’re each others co-workers, housemates and friends here, so to not be with them or do things with them for 2 weeks will be odd.

We had dinner at the comedor for our last evening and when we asked how much it was, Dona was like ‘Nada, para Navidad’ and we were so humbled! I mean again, these people have little and yet they are so generous with what they have. One of my kids parents called me as well and was such a huge blessing to us. They own a transporation business with passenger vans and had to go to San Pedro on Friday as well. So they offered us a ride, as long as we didn’t mind sitting on the floor! Until you ride the buses here you have no idea how great this was for us! Riding the buses was one of the last unpleasant things to deal with going home and now it’s taken care of as well! We only had to pay her gas money if we wanted, too! Needless to say we are even more stoked about going home now.

Tuesday, December 15

When my alarm went off this morning, it was extremely difficult to get out of bed. I knew that if I was tired, my kids would definitely be tired as well. When I arrived at school, I got confirmation of that haha. My kids kept saying, “Miss we can have an hour to sleep?” “Miss, I have sueno (tiredness, sleepiness).” Many of them didn’t feel well with headaches, stomachaches, sore throats, runny noses, etc. So I was like, “Kids I know we’re all tired, but let’s just try to make it through the day together as best as we can and tomorrow won’t be as bad. So overall the day went alright; Mr. Lara couldn’t teach his math class again because he had to have a meeting with Mrs. Lagos or Gonzalez, so I took it for him and had the kids do some review. I tried to do mostly review stuff with them or tie up loose ends in classes. I planned on having a penmanship test the last hour…didn’t happen; we planned our Christmas party for tomorrow instead. One good thing is the administration said we’re only having a half day tomorrow; we get to leave at 1pm. I think all of us are ready to take a break from the school, adminstration’s lack of communication, abnormal schedule, our kids and even each other a little bit! We didn’t have tutorias after school (what would be the point today?), but I stayed after a little bit to make my kids presents: cups full of candy! Mr. Bran, Laura Beth and I walked home together and stopped at the comedor for a bit to hang out with Paola, drink coffee and eat sweetbread. We decided it would be easier to eat at the comedor our last two nights to save us the time, energy, and dishes of making our own food, so we had baleadas at the comedor for dinner tonight. I don’t think I’ll ever really get sick of them! I finished my last episode of ALIAS Season 1, and then we all talked and freaked out that tomorrow was our last day of school and then we head home!

Monday, December 14- Christmas Program

Well today was a long day to say the least. We left the house in a mototaxi at 6:30ish and were one of the first ones to arrive at the church, ready to begin the day. The morning was basically a run-through of the entire program with the actors from Teguz and our kids and their dances. It was a lot more organized because the director was there from Teguz to tell us where to sit, when to come on, how much time we had, etc. It was fun to see my kids in their normal everyday clothes instead of their uniforms; they looked so cute! Overall the morning went pretty smoothly. We broke for lunch around noon; I went to Guancascos to check my flight info and get lunch and the other girls went to other places. We got back to the church around 1 pm and began decorating. This was the most frustrating part of the day if you can believe it. In America, there is usually one person in charge, tasks are delegated to each person to work on, and then everyone works together to get a project done. Here there was not really one person in charge, everyone was working on the same thing or too many people were working on the same thing, and people were giving contradictory instructions. If we tried to tell somebody to do a task this way because it would be better, they often didn’t listen and just kept doing it their way; this would lead to having to do it over, wasting time. This was how things went for about 4 hours. Not only am I American, I am also a task-oriented, time-efficient person, so it was frustrating for me. Sometimes I just shut up and followed what they told me to do even if I knew it may not be the best way to do it. I would also try to help out wherever I could, but sometimes we just stood around with nothing to do because tasks weren’t really delegated.

Finally at 5ish, we were able to leave and get dinner; some of us went to get cheap baleadas and then rushed back to the church to get ready. The kids were supposed to come at 6pm, but some of them came earlier and here we are still getting ready because we teachers had to look nice as well. I just hate being rushed, hot and sweaty. My kids started arriving; the girls all looked so pretty with their makeup on and hair done and the boys all had their hair done. The girls outfits were blocked black and white satin 50s style dresses, while the boys had white pants and either a bright blue, green, yellow, or orange shirt. They all looked great! Finally the program started a little after 7 and my girls were one of the first acts to go on. I was very proud of them as I watched them dance without my help; I almost felt like a parent like ‘Yay they did well and looked well; all of our hard practice paid off!’ We sat down after that and continued watching the program, including the 5th grade boys, who rocked it on the stage as well. All the groups did really well and the actors from Teguz performed well. The little kids were adorable and all the parents immediately stood up and were scrambling to take pictures. We ended around 8:30pm and began the clearing out process.

Everyone was supposed to stay and clean up, but Mr. Lara and Mr. Calderon decided to let us go home at about 9pm and finish clean up tomorrow, which was great. The only downside was that we had to have a full day of class tomorrow; only K4, K5, and 1st grade got the day off. We still got to bed a little late like 10:45pm, but overall I survived the day with all craziness and frustrations. Thank you to all who prayed for me; I could definitely sense God with me the whole day!

Saturday and Sunday, December 12 and 13

This was our last weekend here in Gracias before we leave for Christmas and we had all these plans to have a Christmas dinner/meal together, go caroling around to our neighbors, and other stuff. Well none of them actually happened; I think we lost track of time or didn’t want to put forth the effort and just rest up for our LONG day on Monday. So Saturday we were originally going to walk to town like normal, but the teachers from Teguz who are here for the program said the line was really long, so we called a mototaxi. The taxi took longer than we thought and we got to the bank about the same time as if we had walked; just need to remember to plan ahead a little bit and be patient and flexible! After the bank was Guancascos and then Julia, LB, Sarah and I went shopping for candy for our kids for their Christmas presents. I’m planning on having some sort of party for my kids this week on Wednesday because it will be hard to get much done the last day before break anyways. We also went to Lorendiana’s who sells great salsas, popsicles and other jarred items, where we bought some Christmas gifts for people. Julia, LB, and I headed up the mountain afterwards and it was a really chill night: watched movies, made a great pasta dish for dinner, made and ate chocolate cake. Sunday was very relaxing as well. We need the rest today to get us ready for Monday, our 15 hour day. I sat out in the sun for a bit, which felt great and got some color. I want to look like I’ve been in Honduras for the last few months! We really don’t get that much sun except on our arms and face because we’re inside our classrooms teaching all day and wear pants to work, so weekends are the only times we could ‘get tan.’ LB and I went to church at night and even though I don’t understand half of the service, I usually enjoy it because these are still my brothers and sister in Christ and I can tell the presence of God is there in their joy and passion and kindness. And tomorrow…should be interesting.

Friday, December 11

Another half day because of practice and an overall good day in class. I’m just starting to get tired and worn down and ready to go home so I feel like my fuse is shorter; I just need to watch that and be patient with my kids and not “take it out” on them. I try to be sympathetic to their complaints and what is bothering them. For example, one of my girls did not want to sit in her desk because a boy in our class who they say smells sat in her seat yesterday in tutorias. Again, I remember in this age having the ‘yucky’ kids and stuff, but I was like ‘You can’t stand up all day, so please sit in your seat. He didn’t do anything to your seat, it’s not a big deal.’ They make it a big deal and I just want to tell them ‘You need to start acting like a grown up and put that aside.’ So sometimes I have low tolerance for things like that. I don’t know if that’s wrong or not, but… We arrived at the church an hour later today, which helped things in keeping the kids a little more focused. The practice went really well, more organized this time where grades were sitting, how they came on and off the stage, and all the of the groups did better than Wednesday.

The thing about this program is they want it to look close to perfection. There are reasons, some legitimate and other not so much. Examples: ‘We want to practice to be perfect and excellent because then we honor God with our hard work, excellence and we are celebrating Jesus’ birth so we should be smiling and making it the best program we can’; another example (which I feel is the more underlying one)is ‘we want our image to the parents, any visitors and the people to Tegucigalpa to be one of perfection and that’s the reason we keep practicing for insane amounts of time so we can impress people.’ Image and reputation are important here and understandably so for Vida Abundante because it is a ministry. But sometimes the importance placed on image goes too far and then its just about pleasing people, making sure everything LOOKS good, but there still may be problems swept under the rug to make it SEEM good. It’s just frustrating for me. I don’t know if the image thing is a Latin American thing, a Christian thing, a Vida Abundante thing, or all three. My girls had to wait longer, too, because their dresses need to be altered as well as all the parents waiting to pick up their child’s costume and kids after practice….chaos!

We went to eat dinner at Bella Celaque again and then Guancascos. I headed up later with Julia and Ana and it was so busy by this church because there’s a carnival in town for a few weeks. When we passed they were having a Queen of the Fair crowning ceremony and it was packed! So I might check the carnival out tomorrow when I’m in town, see what kind of food and souvenirs they have; probably won’t ride any rides though. I don’t always trust the ones in the states, much less those in Honduras.

Thursday, December 10

Normal classes today with PE, but Mr. Lara wasn’t at school; therefore I had to take his math class. I’m thankful that he’s taken my math class and I’m willing to cover for him when his administrative duties call, but I had NO idea he was going to be gone today and found this out when math class came along. The lack of communication here once again frustrated me. My kids worked pretty well though on their work without him there, so I was free to go around and help those who needed it. Some of the kids who understood the concepts also helped their classmate who didn’t, which was great. I had practice with girls the last hour of school; I only had one hour with them today for it because on practice on Wednesday I felt they did a really good job and didn’t need to fix many things, just run through it to remind them. Well, that hour didn’t go well; they were very active and wanting to go see other kids dances. I reminded them we needed to practice only one hour because they were doing so well on Wednesday, but that today they weren’t showing me that. So I was frustrated at the end of the day. I also think there has been some drama among the girls in my class; that they’re becoming a little more cliquey. Some of them have been telling me so and so said this about me or one of my family members. I also caught them making something for what looks like a club of sorts, which I don’t know what that entails. I don’t exactly know how to approach that if I should just let it go and keep an eye on it and how they treat each other, or say something to them now. I remember in 5th grade there are still the ‘popular kids’ and the ‘not as popular,’ all that stuff. I remember and I understand; I just don’t want that to lead to division in my class and hurt feelings.

Anyway after school I had tutorials, which was slightly frustrating because the kids kept goofing off. The practicality and effectiveness of tutorias once again crossed my mind; if each teacher had another person to help in tutorias I feel like it would be more effective because there would be a smaller ratio. I headed home after that and we had tamales for dinner made by our neighbors for really cheap. We haven’t had any gas for our stove the last few days so it worked out great. We resumed Bible study with Mrs. Laurelais tonight and there was more dialogue this time instead of just hearing what she thought. Some of things she was sharing with us we didn’t agree with and I think that bothered her because she felt like our opinions weren’t based on the Word; she kept saying, “It’s just so clear here,” when it wasn’t clear to us. Therefore we asked questions as to why she interpreted the Scripture that way and gave our opinions; I think it flustered her a little bit and while she kept saying she understood, I think she is very set in what she believes, which is a good thing until one doesn’t want to even entertain the idea of asking questions or hearing others people’s questions or ideas. So….we’ll see if Bible study continues!

Wednesday, December 9

Today was one of the days this week we spent half of the day at Gracia Abundante to practice for our Christmas program. So we didn’t have chapel today as usual and had an early lunch so we could be to the church at 1pm and practice til 4:30 pm. After lunch everyone piled on buses, headed down the mountain and arrived at the church. The church auditorium/sanctuary is spacious, but there was NO air moving in there; it was dead, hot air. So you put a whole school worth of kids from K4-9th grade in that space for 3 ½ hours….you can do the math. After about 2 hours, everyone was hot, sweaty, tired, bored and ready to be done, including me and the other teachers. The kids are also expected to behave well in this situation, too, which can be done, but it’s difficult. There were rows of chairs to sit in and the kids had to stay seated when they weren’t practicing on stage. We ran through the whole show 3 times before the end of practice and then were allowed to leave. I couldn’t believe how tired and drained I was trying to keep my energy, patience, and sanity. I was ready to go to bed at 6pm, no joke. We were starving too because we had had an earlier lunch and been working all afternoon, dancing, up and down, etc. We all tromped out into Gracias to eat dinner at Bella Celaque, one of our fav restaurants with tipica food. We just all sat there, tired, and when our food came, ate in silence because we were so hungry. It felt so much later than 6 pm after dinner, but we stayed in town a little longer to get some groceries and internet. Finally we headed back up the mountain to collapse into bed and get ready for a full day of school tomorrow. I am not looking forward to Friday’s practice.

Monday and Tuesday, December 7 & 8

These last few days have been relatively easy in the fact that part of the days is taken up with dancing. I also feel prepared for everything I need this next week, and because of how my lessons are I haven’t had as much consistency with homework, test and quizzes so I’ve had more time at night at home. My girls have been practicing pretty well; it’s just 2 hours to practice is a long time. I give them breaks for water and to see some other dances, but after a while they lose focus and don’t try as hard. So it’s hard to find the balance between making sure we’re using our time for what we’re supposed to and being understanding of 5th grade girls. One of the Spanish teachers is teaching my boys their dance and it looks good; the dance really fits my class of boys and their energy! Class has been pretty well too; the kids seem to be paying attention better than they were last week. I’ve been trying to wrap things up in some classes with either a test or lots of review so we can end at a good spot before Christmas. Tutorias today was a little frustrating again; mainly for the reason that the kids who really need help in subjects need one on one attention, not even small group attention. So even in tutorias they may not get the help they need to better their grades. I just pray they remember something from what we talked about during those times and it will help them on the test. Since I’ve had more time after school, I’ve been indulging in my guilty pleasure of ALIAS; almost finished with Season 1! As time gets closer and closer to go home, I get more and more excited to be at home with my friends and family and eat and drink American (and holiday) food. I won’t lie, I’m not too excited about coming home to snow and cold, but for the 2 weeks I think I’ll be able to handle it, maybe even enjoy it. It’s hard for me here to really think it’s Christmas and sing carols with winter references when it’s sunny, blue skies and 70 degrees out. There are some good things about cold for a while, like cuddling under a blanket, not to mention hot drinks like coffee taste so much better. I also have to keep reminding myself that even though the time is getting closer and closer to come home, I need to enjoy the last week or so I have here: with my kids, with my job, with my housemates and my neighbors. I feel like if I look forward so much to coming home, I’ll miss things here and regret it later; gotta carpe diem!

Sunday, December 6

I love Sundays; they’re so relaxed. I had a craving for coffee when I woke up and we had this great chocolate flavored kind so I made some; Kirsty came a little while and had had the same thought and brought a whole thing of coffee haha. I had downloaded some sermons from RezLife online so I listened to Jesse Duplantis in the morning and then we all just talked for a while around the table. I went outside for a bit to read and get some sun.The cleaning lady, Mati, who couldn’t come yesterday, came today and did she CLEAN the house. She cleaned the bathroom, our bedrooms, and living area very well, did the dishes and some of our laundry and only asked for 150 Lempiras ($7 USD) and she was there for about 2 hours or so. We gave her more of course, but it’s crazy how much people can live off of here, how much they make for their jobs, etc. We decided to take a try at making pizza today so Jacki made the dough and sauce and Kirsty and I cut up the veggies. I also had some extra time today so I studied some Spanish, learned and wrote down some more verbs; hopefully they stay in my head! Sometimes Spanish just overwhelms me and I think ‘I’m never going to get this language.’ But I guess I just need to practice and mess up a lot AND study. It comes so easy for Jacki and for some people, it’s like that. For me I think it comes pretty well, but I also think I have to study and practice more than she did. We ran out of gas in our stove halfway through the first pizza baking, so we ran down to Kirsty’s to finish the pizzas. They were so good and we were so proud of ourselves; but we will perfect it so it’s even better! Yesterday there had been a guy hiking up into Celaque we had said hi to and he was coming down the mountain this evening. He was from France and had spend the night in Celaque, so we offered him some pizza and chatted with him. It’s so cool to hear of people who just travel for a long time and that’s all they do. I love hearing people’s stories, where they’re from, what they do, where they’re going, and why. It’s just cool to randomly meet people like that. LB and I went to church after dinner and saw a shooting star or something burn across the sky for seconds…it was amazing! I am constantly in awe of the beauty of the place where I live; on clear days like today you could see the whole valley and mountains and mostly sunny sky and at night the sky is clear with tons of twinkling beautiful stars. I’m reminded of how big, powerful, creative, beautiful and amazing God is when I see these things and I’m so in awe and thankful to be where I am right now.

Saturday, December 5

Kirsty and I walked down to town for our weekly exercise; it turned out to be a great day for it. We got to town in time to go to the post office and the bank and then headed to Guancascos for internet and lunch. The other girls came later because they thought one of the cleaning ladies from the school was going to clean our house today, but she called and couldn’t come. We remained at Guancascos til late afternoon; Jacki and Kirsty went to World Vision to help translate and do paperwork, Laura Beth and Mr. B. ran errands, Sarah went to hang out with Gustavo and Julia and I did a few things in town as well. My parents are coming February and wanted to make a reservation at a hotel in town, but hadn’t gotten a confirmation yet. So I had to go to the hotel and make sure the reservation was made, using Spanish, of course. I think it went pretty well and everything was understood, so (hopefully) everything is taken care of for my parents when they come to Gracias. We all headed up the mountain at different times, so I was up at the house by myself for a bit, which was nice for a few hours. We had an exciting night of conversation, popcorn with chocolate frosting, and watching movies.

Friday, December 4

Today we practiced our dance for 2 hours instead of our normal one because we needed to finish learning the dance. So after recess the girls and I practiced for over an hour and finally got through the whole song and all the moves! Now we just have to work on remembering them all and perfecting the dance. I was so proud! The boys had learned their whole dance by last week already so they were bragging about it, and kept asking, “Did the girls finish their dance yet?” Another funny thing: my girls were looking at the picture of my family during practice and I said, “Did I tell you my parents are coming…and my sister after Christmas?” And they were like , “No! When? When?” So I told them my parents were coming in February and Hilary was coming after Christmas. And they were like, “Don’t tell the boys, it can be a secret just for the girls!” So I agreed; it was so cute! Our schedule was kinda messed up with classes on Friday so during seatwork I had my kids make snowflakes, snowmen or Christmas trees for the classroom since they haven’t had art in a few weeks because of practice. Then the last hour of the day I let the kids use the back wall of the class to put up their artwork. I’m not trying to pawn decorating off onto my kids; I feel like it’s their classroom and I want them to have some ownership of it and look and see their work and be like ‘Yeah that’s mine.’ And they do a really great job with stuff like that and enjoy doing it. It was a pretty chill night at home; we made a great version of tipcio for dinner, hung out, watched ALIAS…2 weeks from today I’ll be home in the US!

Thursday, December 3

I had a lot of free time today because my kids had PE in addition to my other free hours, so I took advantage of the time and decorated my door for Christmas. I kept it simple and put up a Christmas tree with presents and stars and such and said ‘Merry Christmas!’ and ‘5th grade, Miss Sneden.’ Marquito wanted to help me put some of the things on the door so I let him help. He’s one of my boys who drives me crazy getting out of his seat a lot or not paying attention, but I love him. My kids are also doing book reports here in the next week as well. It’s great to see them reading their books when they have free time and asking if they can read at recess or when they’re done with a test. I’m glad they enjoy it. I had tutorias today after school and we practiced reading out loud together because I’m testing their oral reading skills next week. I had to correct them on a few words. Words that start with ‘s’ they often add an ‘e’ before so ‘strike’ would be ‘estrike.’ Overall the kids did well, but they get the giggles, especially the girls, which makes it harder to stay focused….oh fifth grade girls. J We had a meeting after tutorias about next week and the practices for the program. We are having half days on Wednesday and Friday next week to practice in town for the program, which is fine, but it would’ve been nice to know before we planned for next week already. So in reality we don’t have many full days of school left. The day of the Christmas program, the 14th, will be no normal school because we’ll need to practice and then get ready for the program. And then the 15th and 16th are supposed to be ‘normal’ days of class….we’ll see how that goes haha!

Wednesday, December 2

Today was my day to do chapel for the elementary. I chose to do Joseph since some of my kids have had problems lately of others saying mean things about them or doing mean things to them; I figured Joseph being sold as a slave and then later forgiving his brothers was a good choice. So I went through the story, used some colorful shoes as visuals instead of a coat and applied with saying we need to forgive others if they say or do something mean to us and if we did something mean, we should say we’re sorry. We practiced our dance some more today and the girls have learned almost all of it. They just have so much energy that every time we stop, it takes a few minutes to get back in our formation before we can start again. But they’ll look really cute! Overall the day went pretty well as far as teaching and stuff goes; a few frustrations here and there. We went to town after school for internet and food. We stocked up on food and we’re going to try to make most of that last until we go home, except for fresh stuff. We keep having these great ideas of foods to make, like we’re going to try to make pizza before we go home for Christmas and have a Christmas dinner with all of us girls as well. Should be fun!

Tuesday, December 1

Tough day at school…I think everyone was tired and not ready to come back to school, kids and teachers. It was one of those days I said, “I don’t really want to do this teacher job today.” I love my kids I really do, but there’s a difference between classroom management, teaching and learning and just hanging out with your kids and being able to build relationships with them. I had a crazy time trying to keep my kids attention between recess and lunch and it was extremely frustrating. What amazes me though about kids is that even if I’m frustrated with them, most of them are still like coming up to me and giving me hugs, talking to me, asking me questions; I really see God in that, in their childlikeness. After lunch was mostly planning periods and practicing for the Christmas program with 7th and 5th grade. On that subject they may change the day yet again to either the 11th or the 14th, instead of the 9th, which was the date it changed to from the 16th. So we’re all over the board now. We had tutorias after school for science which went pretty good I think. After that we came home, watched some of Ten Commandments (LB’s favorite movie!), made chili dogs and platanos for dinner and relaxed.

Sunday and Monday, November 29 and 30-Election Day in Honduras

Sunday
Today we got to sleep in and then Ana had invited us to have a barbecue at her house for the day. Today was also Election Day in Honduras, so everyone was going to vote so Vida Abundante didn’t really want us out and about on Election Day. We spent most of the day at Ana’s and had really good food, all normal barbecue stuff and dessert. They made so much food for us; it was so sweet and kind of them to open their house up for us. We relaxed, watched TV, watched some of the election, met some of her family and saw her house, played the couch game and got manicures and pedicures. It was a relaxing way to end the weekend. All of us girls reviewed our pictures before bed and had a fun time laughing at all the fun things we did.

Monday
Headed back to Gracias this morning early again on buses to La Esperanza and then to Gracias; Laura Beth and I said bye to Vicente and the girls and Jake before we left. It was a great time hanging out with them all weekend and getting to do all the fun things we did. I was so thankful nothing really happened after the elections as far as violence, which is what we had been concerned about. It turned out great though and was a great break to get me through until Christmas when I get to see my family and be home. LB and I were really excited to see girls and tell them about our weekend. When we got back to Gracias, we headed up with Mauricio in the mototaxi and met the girls walking down to town. We all gave and received huge hugs. Later that night we shared our stories about how Teguz was and how the weekend was in Gracias. The girls’ weekend was good, too. It was more relaxing/slower paced than ours, but they made lots of great food, spent time with the neighbors, went into Gracias and relaxed. I liked being in Teguz for the weekend, but it was nice to back in calm, quiet Gracias, too.

Saturday, November 28

Saturday
We were really tired again from our late night last night; it seems like this weekend hasn’t been very restful, which is fine because we’re doing tons of things, but sleep is good, too! Haha. Everyone went back to the mall to do some more shopping, mainly because Renske and Laura needed some more clothes, but I was just so pooped I decided to stay back and try to sleep. I was so frustrated because every time I tried to take a nap this weekend, my body wouldn’t let me sleep. It was one of those things that you’re trying so hard to not think about falling asleep so you’ll fall asleep, but it just didn’t come. Ugh. They returned and we left for lunch: pizza! It was so good and rich and huge pieces. Then we were trying to decide if we wanted to do a movie or paintball, but everyone was indifferent and tired so we decided to have nap/rest time at the hotel until later. For our evening activity we went bowling; we all gave each other new names; the boys were girls names and the girls were boys names….it was funny what we came up with. We also had this thing of nicknames for everyone over the weekend; mine was Ratch, haha, given to me by Laura. After bowling we headed to the mall for crepes for dinner, which again were delicious. We’ve been eating so well this weekend. We still had some time left in the evening so we went to play games at Vicente’s for a while before turning into bed.

Friday November 27

Friday
We woke up tired from the night before this morning, but we got ready, had a really good breakfast at the hotel and then we went to the see the clinic that Vida Abudante runs in Teguz. The clinic offers services in eye care, including new lenses and checkups all the way to surgery for cataracts. It also offers ears, nose and throat specialists as well. It’s a great facility, non-profit and they try not to turn away anyone if they can’t afford to pay for their services. They have them pay some so people don’t take advantage of it, but they really do all they can to serve the people of Teguz and Honduras. There are also traveling medical teams who go around Honduras to other cities to do eye checkups and other checkups, too and then refer them to Teguz if they need surgery for very low cost or free. After our visit to the clinic we went to the mall! It was kinda weird actually to be there with so many people and all these Christmas decorations up. It was fun to look around in the stores at the clothes and shoes, and I would have bought some, but realistically how much would I use most of those clothes and shoes in the next year in Gracias? I could buy it for later after I got home or for Christmas break, but most of those things I could find similar in the US. So I can only shop for so long, when I’m just looking and got bored pretty quickly. I just felt odd being at the mall, too, which isn’t abnormal for me in the States either, but even more so here because I haven’t been at one for an extended period of time like that. Vicente had planned for us to go to a town just outside Teguz called Ojojona after lunch. We bought subs and ate them on the way there and arrived in the cute little town of Ojojona. This town sells a lot of homemade pottery things, where you walk into the shops and they’re painting the pieces right in front of you. We wandered all over town, looking at all the little things, buying some of them and jewelry, too. LB even bought some slingshots for her brothers! There was a cute little center square by a church so we took some pics there and then headed back to Teguz and the hotel to chill before dinner. For dinner, we ate at this fun place that had a restaurant and karaoke and mini-golf. I had some good ol’ American chicken fingers for dinner; it was great. We played mini-golf and the course was really fun, but kinda hard so it took a while to finish. To end the night we all hung out together at Vicente’s and stayed up late again.

Wednesday and Thursday, November 25 and 26

Wednesday
Last day of this short week! Pretty normal day; I think everyone was ready for the long weekend to come. I stayed for a bit after school to help with dancing for 7th grade dance. And let me tell you, I got a workout with that dance for an hour and a half of dancing. After dancing I went to town for a bit, then headed back up to pack to get up early tomorrow morning. We were supposed to have a private van/bus originally the school had arranged, but it didn’t work because not everyone came so we had ot take public buses instead. The school still paid for it though, which was nice. We also had to figure out mototaxi rides for the morning because it was going to be really early and I chose to go with Juan Carlos at 4 am. Off to Teguz bright and early tomorrow morning!

Thursday
I got up at like 3 am to get ready to head down the mountain because our bus left at 5 from Gracias. Laura Beth, Mr. Bran, Ana and I all headed to Teguz together. We took a small sort of van/bus to La Esperanza at 5 and then took another nicer coach bus to Teguz from La Esperanza. It took a while to get to Teguz, overall like 6 hours, but we finally arrived, met Ana’s dad who picked us up and brought us to the mall to meet up with Vicente and the people from La Union. We met up at the mall and then the van we had bringing us around the whole weekend brought us to the hotel. We relaxed for a while, used the fast wireless internet, and got ready for the Thanksgiving dinner that evening. We drove a little outside Teguz to one of the administrators’ country houses, which was gorgeous! It was kinda in a woodsy area and we ate on the outdoor porch. The dinner was fancy, very nicely decorated and everyone was dressed nicely. It was all of the administrators from the Teguz school (principals, the Gonzalez’ and Lagos, etc) and Pastor Avelio was there, too. The American teachers, the European girls from La Union (Laura and Renske) and Vicente were the others who were there. It was a such a nice meal with appetizers and great Thanksgiving food! We had turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes and green beans. It was comforting to be celebrating Thanksgiving in some way in Honduras since I didn’t get to celebrate it with my family. We had pumpkinish flan for dessert so I got my pumpkin pie! We chatted with the people at our table and really enjoyed ourselves. Afterwards, Vicente invited us to come hang out with him and his friends and play Guitar Hero, so we had fun with that for a while, but we were so tired from getting up so early; so we headed bad to the hotel and to bed.