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.