Saturday, November 21

Kirsty and I walked to town again today, but we left a little later than normal so we had to book it to town. On the way we had good conversation as usual and were talking about politics in the US, how its looking right now, how we think it will be in the coming years. We came up with a grand idea to solve all the problems of bipartisanship when it comes to choosing a president. Kirsty and I will be the President and VP on the first bipartisan all female ticket. That way we can cover all the bases: get the women, get the moderates, get the Democrats and Republicans except for the far left and right who don’t want to come more to the middle. And if we marry people of another race, that will just add to our appeal. She’s going to get a law degree, I can be a world traveler/missionary…what experience we’d have. And then our other great idea was she could be president for 2 years, then I’d be president for 2 years so we could share the spotlight and responsibilities. I don’t think this will really come true, but we had a great time coming up with all these ideas and dreaming that it might be possible for something like that in government someday. We got to the bank just in time and were sweating so much because we walked so fast. I love a good workout, but I hate being sweaty and then having to wait in line in public. We had to wait for 45 minutes, too. I swear I don’t know what takes the Hondurans so long at the tellers. I say I need this much money, they get it, I sign and I’m done.
Eventually we got done and headed to Guancascos for lunch and internet. We stayed there for quite a while, went to recharge our phones, and headed up the mountain just as it was becoming dark. We had planned a bonfire for tonight because we had all these cereal boxes and package boxes that we needed to get rid of, so why not try a fire? Well we weren’t very prepared because we didn’t have much wood, kindling or other. We went looking for some wood and Kirsty and Laura Beth come tromping back in the house with a tree branch and they were like ‘Our Christmas tree!’ So we all got excited and LB had lights and ornaments she had bought. So we decorated our ‘Christmas tree’ and propped it up against the wall. We all put on green and red clothes and mittens and scarves and took the picture in front of our tree. After that little sidetrack, we tried making the fire first with the cardboard and paper, but it didn’t work.
So we went searching for wood, but a lot of it was damp; I mean we live in a cloud forest. Mr. Bran found some good kindling wood so Alyssa and I remade the fire and we finally got it burning well after some time. We were prepared with the food for a bonfire though; we had bought marshmallows, chocolate and graham cracker-like crackers for s’mores! It was also one of Alex and Alyssa’s last nights in Honduras because they head back to the States on Monday so it was kinda like our little going away party. We got some good embers going, roasted tons of marshmallows, had some great s’mores, and stayed up really late. It was a great Saturday night in Villa Verde.

Friday, November 20

Today was a little bit different from my normal Friday. First, today was the first day Mr. Lara started teaching my math class so I had the first period off. So instead I helped Ana with the 7th grade Christmas dance, which is crazy long and hard. I’ll be helping them the whole time as well as teaching my 5th graders…should be fun! They’re doing a dance to the Pink song “I’m coming up, so you better get this party started”, but the lyrics have been changed to say “Time’s running out so we better get this season started.” The whole song is like that, changed so it talks about Christmas; kinda corny, but the whole program is like that haha. Then one of my classes was to teach my girls the dance or at least show them. I got through 2 moves with them. I have to look at the moves more closely this weekend. Then in the afternoon I took my kids outside for science for the first time to look at and learn about rocks. It was kinda hard to keep all their attention when I needed to explain something, but I think they had fun being outside and applying their learning to tangible things. Then the afternoon I had my 9th grade Bible class, and for my 7th grade Bible class, I helped the girls learn a few more moves of their song. My last hour is usually penmanship which we skipped in favor of a game to learn our reading vocab. So it was a great Friday actually. After school we just chilled at home and made a delicious dinner of chicken parmesan. We just keep spicing up our food more and more! We all watched Revolutionary Road (a movie we bought of the street haha), but it was good quality and I liked the movie. Afterwards we listened to some Dane Cook for some laughs and went to sleep.

Thursday, November 19

I had meeting with the administration today about how I’m doing in my classroom and how I was teaching. Good news! They said that I’m doing a good job, that I just needed to make sure to keep up the work in books for all the kids, to get to this lesson by end of parcial. Mr. Lara also told me he was going to take my math class to give me more time to correct things for 5th grade, which is great and surprising. I asked him why math and he was like ‘Miss I’m much better at math and than language or anything like that.’ I kinda laughed and was like ‘Well thanks.’ He and his wife are great and they just told us they’re staying til June instead of leaving in January. I’m so thankful for that because I would not have felt as comfortable at this school without them here. He’s the only bilingual administrator; Ana and Mrs. Lopez are the only other two Honduran teachers who are bilingual. I just think if you have a bilingual school and teachers from the states who may or may not speak Spanish, it just makes sense to have at least one bilingual administrator. I can understand Mr. Calderon usually, but to talk to him about some things, it’s just easier to do it in English. We had tutorias after school; I had my kids make flashcards with their reading vocabulary so they can learn it. I think they really liked that, so maybe I’ll try it more often. They seem to be learning better with them. We had Bible study with Mrs. Laurelais again tonight, which is always an experience. I do admire and enjoy her wisdom and her passion for God, like I said its just very intense that’s all. She talked about Jesus being our mediator and why he had to die and the tabernacle and all that stuff. It was kinda all over the place so to retell it to others would be impossible. It’s kinda hard to keep a straight face all the time because she does this thing with her eyebrows putting them up and down really quickly, so sometimes I have to stifle a laugh haha.

Wednesday, November 18

I had a rough day at school with kids; nothing new just frustrated because I had to stop constantly to ask for their attention. I guess some days are just better than others for some reason. Today we were also told by the administration more about our Christmas program we’re putting on in December. First, the date changed from the 16th to the 9th, which means we have less time to practice. Something about the people who need to come to help from Teguc, it works better for them to do it the 9th. We all watched the DVD they sent of the Christmas program and each of us has to teach our kids the dances. So I can not only add teacher to my resume, but also dance teacher/choreographer haha. My boys and girls have separate dances, but I think the Spanish teachers are taking my boys, so that’s good. The ‘funny’ thing was there was only one DVD, so we have to burn some more so we can have copies to practice with our kids. So we’ll see how it goes! We went to town today; got to sit with 2 of my boys on the bus and ask them what they want to add to our prize box that I can get in the States. Other than that, just a normal Wednesday evening in town.

Tuesday, November 17

My kids were a little more rambunctious today, so I had my patience tried a few times. Sometimes I don’t know whether yelling louder and louder to have my voice heard is better, or whether I speak normal and see who’s listening haha. My reward system of getting stars for good behavior bore fruit today, so my kids got choose their pencils or erasers for 10 stars or wait til 20 stars for a bigger prize. I had tutorias after school today for math and science. Tutorias is a great idea, but it would be a better idea if there were more people to help us out after school. I have about 5-10 kids every Tuesday and Thursday; so today it was hard for me to help the ones who need math and study with the ones who need help in science. Thankfully Laura Beth didn’t have kids so she helped me with the science kids. Also the kids who are in tutorias are the ones who are the ones who have a hard time paying attention in class so all of those kids together is almost as frustrating as my whole class! Hopefully I can figure out how to do it better as the year goes on because I really do want these kids to understand and have their grades be better as well. Normal night after tutorias of dinner, grading, relaxing…oh and I killed a scorpion.

Monday, November 16

Good day at school; I stayed a while afterwards because LB had a lot of grading to do and I wanted to get some grading done, too. I took care of some odds and ends of decorating in my classroom, putting up some of the kids’ art projects and stuff. We headed home about 5 and I finally talked with Amy on the phone, which was great because I haven’t talked to her in a few weeks. There’s just so much that happens in 2 weeks sometimes to try to remember it all and get it into a limited amount of time is frustrating. I don’t like how it’s hard for people in the states to call abroad without huge phonebills or international plans on their phones. I don’t mind being the one to call people because it really is cheaper for me, but it’s just hard when I don’t get a hold of people and don’t know their schedules. Darn international calling charges.

Jacki, Sarah and Jacki’s friend Alyssa were in town so it was me, LB, Kirsty and Jacki’s other friend Alex had just gotten back from traveling around Honduras for a week by himself. We asked him how it went and what he had been learning about God and stuff and it opened up a really good dinner religion conversation. We’re all at different points in our faith journey with different questions and doubts and it was enlightening to gain wisdom from what others have been learning as well as be challenged by their questions. We talked about why Jesus had to die, why God couldn’t just forgive our sins without having Jesus die; whether heaven and hell really exist and about eternity; what happens to people who aren’t sure about their faith, who are searching or even those who haven’t heard the Gospel what happens to them when they die. Big questions without easy or simple answers, but it was very satisfying for me to talk about that stuff. It felt like I was back at college, being academic, thinking, pondering, wrestling with ideas and questions and where to find the answers, if they exist. And after that Alex had told us how many times he had Dunkin Donuts in SPS and we were like ‘Let’s make donuts!’ So we did; we used pancake mix with egg, milk and sugar and then fried it in oil. It worked pretty good actually; I was kinda surprised. We put some sugar, honey or jam on them and if we had had frosting, we would have for sure put some on. It was amazing.

Sunday, November 15

Love Sundays…we had pancakes for breakfast, which were amazing as always. Sunday afternoon was lazy and then the Laurelais’ (our Philippino neighbors) had invited us over for a late lunch. We weren’t sure what we were going to have because we had heard fish and some of us weren’t excited about that. But when we got there Mr. Laurelais (who isn’t usually very friendly at school) had put the movie The Proposal in and was like ‘Do you like this movie?’ and we were like yeah! It was so nice to be in a home, not just a house. They had a living room with furniture, TV and lamps and a real kitchen with a countertop and kitchen sink. It was a really cute house and home; it made me excited to go back for Christmas to be around family and be in a home. I like our house, but it’s hard to make it homey when your living area is so open and you might only be staying for a year. Anyways, they made us homemade pizza, which seriously is the BEST pizza I’ve had in Honduras yet. I had like 6 pieces; I couldn’t help it. So we got to have dinner and a movie on a Sunday night. Afterwards we just chatted about school and our kids; the problems we’ve been having, the cultural differences in teaching here and lots of other good things. We have Bible study with Mrs. Laurelais again on Thursday so we’ll see how our second time goes! After dinner we came back home and Laura Beth and I had a really good talk about life and God and guys and relationships. Again it seems like God is just really calling us to have him be our source and everything and its being shown to us in different ways. It was good to share that with someone else and see what God is teaching them and just reflect together.