Thursday, Oct 15

I spent my day off in Gracias for most of the day. I was truly happy for Honduras that they were going to the World Cup and watching the news and reactions to it on TV gave me a sense of pride that I’m able to be in this country right now. Kirsty, Jacki and I walked to town again, but we didn’t go as fast as we did last time. We still got to town in a decent amount of time. We checked the post office again, just in case it was open (it wasn’t), then went to Guancascos for a while. After that we decided to find another new place to eat so we ate at Garaje de Sabor (Flavor Garage). It was this cute place that was in what used to be a garage I think. We were craving burgers and fries so that’s what we got! The burgers we’ve had in Gracias aren’t like American burgers at all, but it was close enough to satisfy us. After lunch, we did some market and supermarket shopping and then headed back up the mountain. Kirsty and I stayed at the school for a while to decorate our classrooms for the Thanksgiving theme and walked home before it got dark. Jacki’s friends Alex and Alyssa from the States were coming later today, so she went back to Gracias to wait for them to arrive. Meanwhile, the rest of us stayed up at the house, grading, talking, and making dinner. She and her friends came later that night and it was nice to meet some of the people Jacki has talked so much about. They’ll actually be staying for about a month and living in the other room of the house Kirsty is in. Tomorrow’s Friday again already!

Wednesday, Oct 14

I was kinda frustrated again with my kids today because I felt like no matter how many times I told them to be quiet, they would just keep talking and I was sick of talking over them and waiting for them to be quiet so I could start. I kept one of my students, Marquito, in with me for lunch because no matter how many times I told him, he kept getting out of his seat to talk to one of his friends and then when he was sitting down he was turned towards his friends so he wasn’t paying attention. So we ate lunch together as his punishment. I had known he didn’t have the best family life so I tried asking him so more about it. All I know is his dad is dead, his mom is in Tegucigalpa (I don’t know how long she has been there or for how long) and I think it’s just him and his 20something year old sister at home. Either way, my heart went out to him; he’s one of those kids who can be so annoying and frustrating, but so cute and energetic, and then tired, crabby, and sad sometimes too. I love him, just don’t always like him J My kids had been complaining about our Wednesday chapel schedule so I changed it this week so they had recess with the younger kids and so they wouldn’t have to miss any of their normal recess if we had been on the other schedule. They seemed to like that better. The only problem with this schedule is that whenever chapel gets done, there’s about 10-20 minutes until their next class so I’ll have to be on top of it as far as what I can use to fill that time.
We headed to town after school today for the usual. Jacki and Sarah went to go buy some paint because we’re repainting the white in our house; there’s just too many stains on it from bug guts and other stuff. We went to Guancascos, then decided we wanted pizza. We had a general idea of where it was, walked that way, asked someone, and found it! We were so excited to have pizza and when it finally came out, we chowed it down so fast.
Today was also a huge game for Honduras; since they lost against the US this past Saturday, they had to win against El Salvador today to be able to have a chance to go the World Cup playoffs in South Africa. We watched the first half of the game at the restaurant we ate at, but then had to head up the mountain. On the way up we heard that Honduras had scored a goal, but that was all; we had work to do so we couldn’t watch the rest of the game. Well about 10pm, our Mr. Bran called and was like “Hey Honduras won! So we don’t have school tomorrow.” And I totally thought he was joking…not about Honduras winning because that was great, but about not having school tomorrow. But no, because Honduras won against El Salvador and the US tied with Costa Rica instead of winning, Honduras is going to the World Cup finals in South Africa!!! And since this hasn’t happened since 1982 I believe, it’s a big deal. Supposedly the president (Micheletti I think) came on the TV and said this is time for celebration so nobody has to go to work tomorrow. So we don’t have school and people don’t have to go to work if they don’t want to. It would be like if UofM went to the National Championship and they canceled classes on a smaller scale of course. So needless to say, I love this country haha.

Tuesday, October 13
Today was back to work after a weekend; these days often seem so sluggish. Everyone kinda seemed tired and not ready to be back to school yet, even the kids. I enjoyed my time off and would take more, but I had missed my kids, too. Towards the end of the day, one of my girls started making noises and couldn’t breathe well and when I asked what was wrong, she said she had somehow swallowed one of those pencil lead refills…don’t ask me how. So she was kinda turning red, having trouble swallowing, and was making hard to breath faces so I started freaking out like, ‘OMG, I don’t know how to do the himlech, what if she starts turning blue, what if she can’t breathe, what do I do?!?!’ So I ran to Sarah’s room and was like ‘Sarah, I think one of my girls is choking, do you know the himlech?’ and she was like no, so I ran to Julia’s room and asked the same thing and she said the same. So I was really freaking out and finally saw Mr. Lara and yelled at him across the courtyard to come over and he took care of it after that. So after that experience, I realized I should probably know some basic first aid, like the himlech lol.

I was ready for the end of the day when it came though, especially once I figured out how much stuff I had to do this week: decorate my classroom before next Tuesday, progress reports on Friday, etc. But we were getting water brought up to our house so I took advantage of the free ride up to our house. I’ll stay after later this week….Sarah had received some packages from home and as we were setting them on a table, a bowl from the morning fell and spilled the milk in it. So I figured since I hadn’t mopped the floors last week, I might as well do it now. So that was my first of many things I would do this evening. I swept and mopped the house floor and me and LB’s room. Then I wanted to burn off some steam and get my legs moving so I went for a run/walk/hike up into the national forest (since it’s my backyard and everything) for about a half hour. It was refreshing to actually run a little bit; my legs had wanted it. They’re definitely stronger and more toned since I’ve been here so that helps.

After I got back and showered we had dinner; then we noticed a ton of ants by the door and it was because there were bags of trash that hadn’t been taken to school yet. So I decided we needed to burn some of it. So Kirsty, LB and I started a bonfire with our trash. It was quite a process; we began by chopping some of the grass away from the pit with our machete, then put all of our bathroom toilet paper trash in first for starter paper. Tthen we added some cardboard and egg cartons and then some plastic and other stuff. It took a while to actually get it started, but we did it! It was really smoky, too, but hey we got the job done. After that it was my job to do the dishes this week, so Kirsty and I did those as well. Then I had to do some grading and preparing for tomorrow. I got stuff DONE today….ready for bed though.

Sunday and Monday, Oct 11 and 12

Sunday
Today was another great lazy day; we didn’t do anything of great significance. Just making meals together, chatting, reading, and cleaning. We did all suit up and go to hang out in Froni’s pool again with the neighbor kids. She had cleaned it since the last time we had been there so it wasn’t as dirty as before. We didn’t stay long though because the afternoon rain came just as we were heading back, grabbing our laundry from the neighbors along the way. It’s crazy how fast a storm can come here; earlier in the day it had been blue sky and full sun. I had called home earlier in the day and I’m really starting to appreciate my October weather versus theirs; it was in the 40s and 50s at home and here I would guess its still 70s and 80s…fine with me! We talked about watching a movie, but that kinda fell through and everyone was tired and ready for bed.

Monday
Our vacation day! It’s been really nice to have a long weekend in Gracias and be able to do whatever we want. We had those forced days of vacation during the curfew, but those weren’t vacation days; we couldn’t go into town and enjoy those days besides being able to sleep in and not working. Today we decided to go to town again for a little while. Jacki, Kirsty and I were going to try to walk to town again and Sarah, LB and Mr. Bran took a mototaxi. We were going to try to see if the post office was open again to get our packages. As we were starting out a guy was hiking out of Celaque back to town, so we stopped to chat with him about what he did up there, who he was, where he was from, etc. His name was James; he’s a lawyer from England who got 6 months vacation and has been traveling all around Central America. He had spent the night in Celaque, hiked to the summit and was heading back to town for the night before heading to Guatemala. I wish my life could be that easy to be able to travel places. I just get concerned about money because no matter how cheap you do things, it still takes some money to do stuff in other countries. Believe me if I could be a professional traveler, I would; it would be amazing to go to all these places, not only in Central America, but South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia….everywhere pretty much.
Anyways, so we hiked to town with James and shared stories of travel and life in Gracias and Central America. There were some people coming down from Celaque with vehicles, one of them being a truck, so we hitched a ride in the back for the rest of the trip down to town. Kirsty and I checked the post office again, but they were closed; we half expected it because I think today was a national holiday anyways, but it was still disappointing. We went to get fresh popsicles after that because it was a hot day, and then headed to Guancascos for a bit. After Guancascos, we decided to try somewhere different for lunch so Kirsty, Jacki and I went to this place we had seen that supposedly had pizza. Well it did have pizza, but not exactly what we were looking for. We each had a piece of this pizza, which had no sauce and the bread had almost a hint of sweetness to it. It was ok, but we were still hungry so we paid and went to another restaurant up the street called Bella Celaque. It was this quaint, airy restaurant and we loved it. The food was tipica food so we had fried chicken, some French fries, rice, pico de gallo, cheese, salad and tortillas along with fresh squeezed orange juice. We were SO full after we ate, but got coffee for dessert. All of that food totaled $3 USD…amazing.
It was great to just relax at the restaurant, not feel hurried to get back up the mountain because it was getting dark, but just sit and enjoy the atmosphere and the town. We grabbed a few things from the supermarket before we headed up in a mototaxi back home. The rest of the night we graded papers, read, and had a light dinner of leftovers and fresh fruit and veggies. Back to work tomorrow!

Saturday, Oct 10

I slept in til 8am today haha. Kirsty came over for breakfast since she’s our neighbor now and we had pancakes with coconut and granola mixed in the batter; they were so good. Afterwards we got ready and walked to town. Sarah and Laura Beth started before us because they tend to walk slower. Jacki, Kirsty and I left about 20-30 minutes after them and we set a fast pace. We wanted to get to town before the post office closed at 11:30 and it would be close, but we could do it if we walked quickly, which is exactly what we did. Seriously we were walking fast down the mountain and I was surprised how quickly we passed each landmark along the way getting closer to town. We got to the edge of town in about 40 minutes and there at the end of the road we see LB and Sarah! We had caught up with them and had left a half hour after them; just shows the difference in our walking pace. We continued to book it to town to see if the post office was open to get our packages. Kirsty and I arrived there first and of course, it was closed. We weren’t sure how close we had been to it being open still, but we were pissed. We won’t be able to get back to the post office til at the earliest Monday, but it may be a national holiday, which would mean it would be closed then, too. So we quickly headed to the bank and made it there just in time as it was closing.
Afterwards, I had seen an ice cream place in town and had been craving it for forever, so Kirsty and I went there and got some amazing ice cream. I mean, ice cream is seriously my favorite food and being deprived of it for so long it tasted even better, lol. We met the other girls at Guancascos and got lunch and internet there for a while. Then LB and Sarah decided to head back up to the house while Jacki, Kirsty and I went shopping for the food at the market and supermarket. We took our time because we had all day, plus it’s a three day weekend so we could come back to town if we needed anything later. It was nice to look around the market and not rush through it. I bought some cute, simple, comfy black strappy sandals for under $10, so that was a great find.
Today is the big Honduras vs. USA game so we wanted to watch the game. And we figured since we were in town, we should watch it in town with the locals. So after shopping we went to Guancascos for coffee and more internet, but then decided it’d be better just to head up the mountain and watch the game with our neighbors. So that’s what we did. The game was good; I’m no expert on futbol, but there was some good action on the field. The USA ended up winning 3-2. I actually wanted Honduras to win a little bit more, just because I’m here and have no allegiance to the USA futbol team. But oh well. It was still fun to watch and wear my jersey.

Friday, Oct 9th

Fridays are my busy days, but it went pretty well today. This week had gone by fast surprisingly and we have a three day weekend to look forward to. We don’t have any big plans yet, so we’ll see how the weekend pans out. Today at lunch, Laura Beth, Jacki and I were at the lunch table and Jacki had this book she was reading out on the table with a page open. Some of LB’s 6th grade girls came over and starting talking to us and asked what book she was reading. Well it was open and so they started reading some of it and one of the phrases was “He’s got it goin’ on.” So they read it and were like what does that mean? So we told them and then they started practicing it. We would say “He’s got it goin on” and then they would repeat it and then we would say it some attitude and they would try to do it and it was hilarious. The girls saw us later and were like, “ Miss…He’s got it goin on!” Oh the joy of learning English haha.

One of my boys, Alvaro (who may have slight ADD) did not get out the things I asked him to take out for subjects so it would take him double the time because he would get distracted or talk and then when we were ready to start, I would see he hadn’t taken out anything. I was getting frustrated with him so I took him out in the hallway and was like, “Alvaro, when I tell you to get out something you need to get it out so we can start. You should not talk, you need to listen.” So I don’t know…it was just frustrating. And then during language, one of my girls, Claudia, got stung in the face by a bee. So she started crying and I took her to the office and she got some ice for it.

Kirsty, one of the other American teachers, had been living in town, but lately she’s been dissatisfied with her experience there so this weekend she’s moving up to Villa Verde! She’s so excited to move up here and we are too. She’s going to live in the house Jacki and Sarah were originally going to live in because it’s fixed up now. Now all the teachers are going to be up in the mountains, with Ana and Julia by the school and the rest of us in Villa Verde. We made a huge batch of stir fry for the 5 of us and then had our normal after dinner chatting and joking. Mr. Bran stopped by for the evening to hang out with us and Gustavo, the guy Sarah likes, came up in the mototaxi unexpectedly. We decided to play Uno and invited Gustavo’s brother, who was just sitting outside in the mototaxi, to play. He was only about 14 and his hair was done like Jimmy Neutron, no joke. But I think he had fun after we explained the game in Spanish to him.

Thursday, Oct 8

This week is still going great. I got everything done I needed to get done with planning for next week, got through most of the material had planned and had a good day with my kids. I had 2 parent meetings again today. I’m glad the parents are concerned about their kids for the most part, it’s just crazy because out of all the teachers, I think I’ve had the most meetings so far this year. But they went well; they just asked about how their kids were doing in class, how things are reviewed and where they could find the material to review, etc. They were all in Spanish and I think I did better this time. I understood almost everything they said; it’s just when it comes to replying I have a more difficult time. But I tried and I think they generally understood what I said in my Spanish. I had help class today with kids for language because many of my kids are struggling in that area. It’s understandable because it’s their second language and trying to know the grammar and verbs and all those other parts of sentences is tough. And English is NOT easy to learn…really. I find that out more and more everyday haha. But it went pretty well and I think they understood more the things they didn’t before.