Monday-Friday, March 8-12

Monday-Friday March 8-12
Recap of the week! Mr. Lara came back on Tuesday with people from Teguz for the day, along with three girls from the Netherlands. They will be staying here for 3 months developing some new tourism curriculum for the high school. Science tutorias went well; I helped kids with our upcoming quiz and I think they understood and will do well. I went swimming in Froni’s pool with Paola and Tad after school because it was so hot. We tried to teach Paola how to swim, but she kept getting scared or as she’d say “I have a scare!” Wednesday I got my free periods of math back to plan since Mr. Lara is back! Tuesday and Wednesday night the power went off for a few hours each night, so I had to grade by candlelight. Since there was no electricity, that meant no hot water which meant I had to take a few cold showers; it was quite refreshing to say the least!

I ran up Celaque on Monday and Wednesday. I’m getting getting better at handling the hills and such, which makes me glad. I still miss running on flat ground though! The stars Wednesday night were so beautiful because there was no power anywhere. It was also unbelievably warm, like a summer night, so I just enjoyed looking up at the stars for a while. Laura Beth and I played with Candido and Abagail for little while Wednesday night; they make my heart so happy. They’re just normal kids living in the mountains of Honduras and so full of life and laughter. I had whole conversations with them in Spanish, so I felt pretty proud talking to a 4 year old haha.

Thursday morning didn’t start out very well for me. A cat had gotten into our house the night before and had knocked over a glass jar. So there was broken glass all over the floor. As I was trying to clean it up I knocked over another one. Then when I arrived at school, Husai was stung by a scorpion, Jenny’s water bottle broke, and I had to teach PE because Mr. Bran was in La Union with the soccer team. So I was tired already by recess. I talked to Ana and we ‘decided’ on our new jobs for next year: she’ll take Vicente’s job and I’ll be the recruiter, like Mr. Lara and Jake just did. That way we can both stay in Gracias and Honduras if we don’t want to teach. Mr. Lara took my kids for math today during tutorias, so that was a nice change of pace. I worked on some of my room decorations for Semana Santa. Friday we had a half day (the kids left at noon) which I think was the closest we were going to get to having a day off from Teguz. It’s better than nothing; I’ll take what I can get. We had an all staff lunch and quick meeting and I stayed after school to work on my door for a while and then went home to take a nap.

Friday night I went into town along with Tad because his friends from La Union were coming into Gracias for the weekend. I had a craving for baleadas, so I ate those for dinner and then just chilled in the central park for a while. I just sat there and enjoyed the warm evening and the tranquility of Gracias, remembering that I live here…in Honduras…and this is my life right now. I do that sometimes, just have those ‘I live in Honduras’ moments and its great. I talked to my family on the phone until Tad and his friends were done with dinner and then we all headed back up the mountain to enjoy our Friday evening.