Sunday, June 27, 2010
Home
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Friday, June 11- Last Day of School
Today was 2 hours of ‘school’ for primary school (K4-6th grade) from 8am to 10 am. The middle school stayed until noon. It worked out really well though because all the classes were able to have their end of the year parties, which included lots of eating and playing around. One of my kids forgot plates and spoons so we made due with napkins and forks for ice cream, cake, pizza, guacamole and tons of chips. We were all stuffed and on sugar highs. The last ten minutes I started saying bye to my kids, getting and giving hugs. My kids were giving my huge bear hugs and didn’t want to let go and crying. I didn’t cry; I was sad and emotional, but I didn’t cry. I think I’m one of those people that an experience like this often hits me later once I’ve processed things in my head and am reminded of my experience. At the end of the day I was smeared in the face with nacho cheese and frosting, which was a perfect fifth grade way to say goodbye I feel. Love those kids.
I stayed after for a while cleaning up my classroom, my desk and organizing everything so the administration didn’t have to do as much work. The middle school had been watching one of the World cup futbol games earlier in the day, so the big screen TV was still in the cafeteria when I ate lunch. I ended up watching some of the futbol game and then headed home with LB and Sarah. I finished packing at home, said goodbye to the girls (because I wouldn’t see them before they headed to the States) then left for Santa Rosa to begin my year end trip to Guatemala and Roatan. After Christmas, most of the girls had talked about traveling around Central America, but as the year came to a close, they decided to go home after school was finished. Therefore Tad and I decided to still go travel to Guatemala and Roatan for our year end vacation. Going to Santa Rosa on Friday night would save some time tomorrow going to Copan to catch a bus to Antigua; the less travel time I can do in a one day, the better. We stayed at this crappy hotel, but we could deal with it for one night. We got some great pizza for dinner and headed to bed early to be ready for our long travel day tomorrow to Antigua.
Wednesday and Thursday, June 9 & 10
I had a pretty easy day. We celebrated Mrs. Lopez and Tad’s birthdays by having cake after school, then we made our last Wednesday trip into town. We stayed there to buy some things and use the internet at Guancascos. Sitting at Guancascos, staring at the beautiful blue sky with a variety of clouds and a hint of sunset and the mountains, I realized how much I was going to miss this place: the tranquility, simplicity. There aren’t mountains in Michigan; it’s all flat. I feel like now that the time has come to say goodbye I want to do so much more, see so much more, take it all in so much more, but I can’t. It’s not like I’m never going to be able to come back to Honduras, but it’ll will probably be a while until I do. Definitely one of those moments I realized that I’m at the end. We headed back up to Villa Verde before dinner because with the end of the week coming, it also means grades and recuperation tests are due to the administration. I feel like there’s so much to do the next few days between finishing final grades, finishing recuperation tests and study guides for three different classes, packing and planning the last minute details for my trip, and preparing myself to say goodbye to my students and the girls.
Thursday
These last few days are very relaxed because I don’t teach as many classes and it’s the last few days of school. My kids had PE, so I was able to finish my grades and recup tests. I turned in my teacher curriculum which meant no more teaching per se. I just enjoyed my day with my kids by playing games and doing fun projects, like making our own planets in science. All of us found out Tulito isn’t coming back next year because his parents are separating. Almost all the boys and many of the girls started crying during the middle of our spelling bee, and they didn’t stop crying until the end of the school day! I felt heartbroken seeing them cry and it almost made me start crying. This also meant I had to say goodbye to Tulito as well as Adolfo because they wouldn’t be at school tomorrow. It was the first of many goodbyes in the next 48 hours. For dinner, all of us girls went down to Gracias for dinner at one of our favorite places, Bella Celaque. They give you so much food for like $2.50 and I was stuffed. We had some good conversations about our year in Honduras, what we’ve learned, what we’ll miss, what we’re looking forward to when we get home. Afterwards a few of the girls went to go get coffee while LB and I did some errands. There was a lack of working mototaxi drivers that we knew, so Laura Beth and I ended up just hailing a random taxi to take us up. It was dark and rainy and we told the guy we wanted to go to Villa Verde, but he would only take us up to the school. So here LB and I are, in the dark, in the rain, walking up the mountain with no flashlight. Sound familiar? Yeah I did this one of the first weeks I was here in Honduras with Jacki and Sarah, too. Full circle...
Monday and Tuesday, June 7 & 8
Saturday and Sunday June 5 & 6- La Union Weekend
Saturday
Long activity filled day. We tried to sleep in, but I only made it to 8 am. We heard the buses honking their horns at 5 am, church music at 6 am, and then I drifted in and out until 8 when I decided to get up. Laura was up as well, so we headed down to their kitchen of their host family. Their host family is amazing; I had met the guy, Alvin, when I went to Lago de Yojoa, and his two kids. His wife just had another baby as well who is only 5 weeks old and beautiful. We drank coffee, at some pan, and played with the kids for a good hour. They are so full of energy and adorable; Josselyn is eight and in second grade at Abundant Life in La Union and her brother, Josue, is four and a little handful. There newest addition is name Diana Raquel, so Josue kept calling me that instead of just Raquel. So cute. We played some games Laura had made up with them and then went back up to see if Renske and LB were awake.
We decided to go for a little hike to one of their favorite places called Campo de Cerro, which is this pretty field up in the mountains that’s very tranquil. We had quite the time hiking up it since it had rained yesterday; it was quite slippery and I had flashbacks to last weekend climbing Celaque. We eventually made it up and chatted and relaxed, enjoying the quiet and the butterflies flying around. We started to head back down and as we were going over some slippery rocks, Laura fell right on her tailbone and badly bruised it. Poor girl...we slowed the pace and helped her down as much as we could, but it was hurting her the rest of the day. We were planning on going to some swimming pools with one of Renske’s friends, but she hadn’t called us yet, so we made our way to the school. It was so hot and I hadn’t really eaten lunch. On the way we stopped at the few comedors in La Union to see if they were open and had food, but all the women were at the same meeting , meaning no food. We decided to try after checking out the school. We bought something to drink at least and arrived at the school. It’s smaller than Villa Verde, but definitely has its own unique things about the school. The view of La Union from it is beautiful, so we relaxed there for a while before heading back down to find some food. At this point, I was tired from all our walking that day, hadn’t had a meal of sustenance yet, and it was hot…awesome. We eventually found a comedor, bought some tacos, and I was satisfied.
We made cake for Tad’s surprise bday party. We had forgotten to buy frosting so we improvised hard core and made a ‘frosting’ of fresh lime juice and powdered sugar mix together. It turned out alright and tasted good on the vanilla cake. After getting ready we ate dinner for Tad’s and one of the interns birthdays and the proceeded to have his birthday party. Afterwards, Renske, Laura, LB and I stayed up late. Renske and Laura had painted cool pictures on each others backs a while ago and Laura Beth and I wanted to try it out. So even though we had to get up at 4:30 in the morning to catch the bus, we stayed up til 2 am painting each others backs and talking. It was a great end to the weekend.
Sunday
Sunday morning came way to early at 4:30 am to catch our 5 am bus, back to Gracias. I hadn’t had any breakfast before we left, the roads weren’t paved and they were very curvy, so I was feeling kinda carsick. Despite that it was a beautiful ride through the mountains and we arrived back in Gracias around 8. We decided to have breakfast at Guancascos, then headed up to Villa Verde. I took a nap, relaxed, called family/friends, and went to church at night since it was our last Sunday with everyone. Last week of school!
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Thursday and Friday, June 3 & 4
I had a pretty good day at school; my kids are getting a little more touchy feely with each other and with me, probably because they realize I’m leaving. I also think it’s the age where they start to unconsciously flirt by hitting or annoying each other. Ah…fifth grade. I had a frustrating end of the day, especially during seatwork. They don’t seem to understand that seatwork means staying in your seat and working semi-quietly. And they had plenty to work on. My kids are up and down, yelling, messing around and bothering each other; I just want to give up sometimes and let them run wild instead of constantly having to get up and down from helping students who want it to tell the others to get to work, be quiet and sit down. I had tutorias after and made up some more stuff with some students for grades, then stayed til 4:30 correcting. I walked home by myself again and just relaxed and read for a bit before dinner. The rest of the night I spent packing for La Union and progress reports for Friday.
Friday
I was excited for this Friday because Laura Beth, Tad and I were leaving early to travel to La Union. This is another small town, smaller than Gracias, that has an Abundant Life Christian School. This is the school where Jake Compaan works, as well as Laura and Renske, the two European girls we have hung out with before throughout the year. Tad’s friends are also doing a microfinance project in this small town, so we had to go visit and see what the town was like where our friends worked and lived. The day went quickly until we had to leave. My kids were happy because I had to push back their spelling test to Monday since I had to leave earlier than planned. Rodrigo brought us down around 11:30 to catch the bus to La Union. The ride there was one of the more interesting rides I’ve had here. Interesting in the fact that you are literally riding a school bus on the side of a mountain on unpaved rocky dirt roads, going up and down and round and round and side to side, sometimes all at the same time. Not for weak stomachs.
The views though were amazing and I was able to see rural Honduras like I’ve never seen it before. The mountain views were gorgeous, but also seeing the people and how they live humbled me yet again and reminded me that I am currently living in Honduras. I forget at times, but am quickly reminded of the lack of resources many of these people have. They do not seem to lack happiness though. One boy I met this weekend had the biggest smile I have ever seen and I think he could bring anybody out of a bad day. Life may be harder here and more ‘inconvenient,’ but the Honduran people are not lacking in generosity, hospitality, and happiness. There are problems and stresses, but they seem to handle it better, especially the ones I’ve seen in smaller towns such as La Union and Gracias.
After arriving in La Union, we called our friends to see where to go and met up with Renske and Laura, who took us to their house to relax a bit before meeting up with everyone else. Laura Beth and I stayed with those girls for the weekend while Tad stayed with the guys in their house farther down the road. Laura Beth had left her wallet on the bus, but thankfully we know the guy who owns the bus station in town and we quickly retrieved it. Renske and Laura gave us the La Union tour, showing us the Vida Abundante church, some stores, places they hang out, and the boys’ house. We met some important people to them like the pastor of the church and some students and then ended at the boys’ house. Pat (one of Tad’s friends) had started making peanut butter balls, so we chipped in to help. We had chocolate left over so we bought bananas, then saltine crackers, then marshmallows to dip them in the chocolate. We indulged ourselves in that. Later that night we were invited to a student’s family’s house for carne asada, which we readily accepted. The meat was great and the rest of the food as well. We chatted and spent time with the family, a few students and everyone, but we were spent from the bus ride and long week at school. We headed out around 9pm and crashed.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Monday-Wednesday, May 31- June 2
My unexpected day off! It’s unfortunate that the reason for it is flooding, but I still enjoyed having a day off of school. I slept in and then headed to town. Tad needed a haircut and I needed to go to the bank and get a few things. We headed down with Juan Carlos, stopped at the bank first, then did some shopping and went to the haircut place called Freddy’s Tad had been to before. It was around lunchtime by now, so when we arrived there, it was closed! We spotted another one a little farther down the street and decided to try it out. The guy gave a fine haircut for $2 and the lucky thing about guys’ hair is that if it gets messed up, it can be fixed much easier than a girl’s can. I’ve just been letting Jacki and Sarah cut my hair down here; I’m not courageous enough to go to a place in Gracias, nor do I know enough Spanish to tell them what I want. After that we went to the restaurant that sells cheap tacos where I ate some great chicken for lunch. Afterwards, we stayed at Guancascos til 4pm, then came back up to have dinner. Laura Beth and I made sweet and sour chicken and made a lot, so we invited the guys to join us, which they willingly did. After enjoying our dinner, we relaxed for the rest of the night before school tomorrow.
Tuesday
Back to school…tiring day and my kids were crazy. I felt like I got nothing done and was a little frazzled from moving things to different days because we didn’t have school on Monday. Our field trip was canceled again so instead we’ll be playing at school all day either on the field or games in the classroom. Tutorias went well with Adolfo and Jenny; we got a lot of assignments that they had missed done. I stayed after with Jenny for a bit because her mom was late, listening to Jonas Brothers, per her request. I usually don’t walk home by myself after school because it makes the walk so much easier and faster. Well today I walked back by myself and it was definitely weird and slightly boring. I arrived home, did the dishes, talked with LB for a while, had baked pasta for dinner made by yours truly and then relaxed the rest of the night.
Wednesday
‘Field trip day’ all day today! After being canceled two times, the fifth and sixth graders got to have a field day instead of a field trip. First, we had classes in the morning and chapel as well; Tad talked about the armor of God. The rest of the day, the kids got to play in the field, which for most of them consisted of playing futbol for 2 hours. They have endless energy and passion for that game; it’s insane! The kids who didn’t play futbol played games in the shade instead. They had 5 periods to play and then had art to end the day. We went to town for a few things. The rest of the night I spent grading for progress reports on Friday and relaxing.
