Monday, May 31, 2010

Sunday, May 30th

Today was a literal day of rest. I pretty much finished planning my trip for when school is done: budgeting, checking into things, making sure of stuff. It takes some work! I did the dishes, talked to family and friends, made tipico for lunch, listened to a downloaded sermon on worship, and got ready for bed. Around 9pm LB comes barging into our room and was like, “We don’t have school tomorrow!” I thought funny joke LB. But it was true. Kirsty had been down at Guancascos and was talking with Froni. Froni had said it was a presidential mandate to close schools all over the country because of the massive amounts of rain we’ve had this week. It’s caused flooding in parts of Honduras and roads are bad in parts as well. No school for me tomorrow!! I get my Memorial Day long weekend after all…
It's also crazy to me that tomorrow is June 1. June 1...the month of May is done and I have 12 more days of the school year left. 12 days left to be a teacher with my fifth graders, to live in Villa Verde, to explore Gracias. Now that the time is drawing to a close, it's becoming much more real for me that I'll be leaving. And because of that, I want to enjoy every part as much as possible.

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Saturday, May 29

Today was the day to climb Celaque to its highest point, Cerro de Las Minas. This had been a goal all year for some of us, and of course we waited til one of the last weekends to do it; one where it had been raining all week so it was muddy and messy. It was debated about going or not because of that, but in the end Tad and I decided to still go with Don Luis (our neighbor at the comedor). We got up early (5 am) and thankfully it wasn’t raining to start. I had been up the mountain once before, but only to the Mirador de Cascada (Waterfall Lookout). I just kept climbing and climbing and climbing. I recognized some places like the switchbacks the trail starts with and some rest sites, but past the waterfall lookout, it was all new to me. The hike was hard, I’m not gonna lie. I feel like I’m in shape enough, but this killed me. I was huffing and puffing because of the altitude and difficulty of the climb up. I had Don Luis make us walking sticks. He just takes his machete, chops a small tree or branch and whittles the bark off of it and viola a walking stick. If I hadn’t had that, it would’ve been extremely difficult. I got so frustrated that I couldn’t keep up with Don Luis and Tad, but I just had to remind myself I was going to fall behind no matter what and to not get an attitude about it. There were a few times I wanted to give up; my muscles were screaming at me, asking me what was I thinking. Some parts of the trail were easier than others and those parts I enjoyed, but the other parts that were tough, I just had to get through. I carried a small backpack with me with water and food as well. We stopped to rest at one of the three camp sites we saw for our morning ‘snack’ then kept climbing. Don Luis pointed out different plants, trees and birds along the way including wild orchids. We heard a toucan and a quetzal, but weren’t able to see them.

Finally, after five and a half hours of climbing, we made it to the top. It felt amazing! The view wasn’t much, actually none in fact, but the sign was there to prove we had made it. It was windy and cloudy and cooler at the top. I had on a long sleeve and pants and I was chilly. We rested there for a while, enjoying our accomplishment, and then began the trek down. One would think the way down would be easier than the way up…not so. Since it had been raining, the ground was extremely wet and muddy and therefore slippery. So those steep hills I climbed up, well I had to climb down them too, which led to numerous slip and slides on the way down. I accepted the fact I would probably end up on my butt a few times on the way down. Tad and I both got quite muddy and to top things off, it started raining on the way down as well. The walking stick saved me again numerous times. The hardest part for me on the way down was the pounding on my knees; I was constantly walking downwards, trying to keep myself from falling and my knees killed. The rest of my legs at that point were so fatigued they just kept doing what they had been doing for the last 6-7 hours.

At last we got back to the visitor’s center, which was familiar territory and descended down to Villa Verde. It was such a great feeling to know I accomplished that hike to 9,000 plus feet in 10 hours. I ate some soup, took a warm shower and literally laid in bed the rest of the day, letting my body recuperate. Day seized.

Wednesday-Friday, May 26-28

Wednesday
I did chapel and decided to talk about being yourself and that God made you just the way you are. The rest of the day went fine at school. We went to town and it was raining on the way down. I was in the back of the truck so I got wet. Awesome. I didn’t do much after I got home as far as schoolwork, just relaxed. Sarah came up with Gustavo later that night and took the dog back with him. I liked Fitz, but he was biting too much and sad to say I don’t think we all wanted the responsibility of him anymore. He will always be my first puppy though.

Thursday
There was craziness and confusion again in trying to explain the language bio report next step of making the topical outline a rough draft. The kids needed to take the outline they had made and now instead of just having facts, they would convert those facts into sentences. Each main idea, of which there are there are three, will be a paragraph and all the subpoints in those main ideas make up the paragraph. The kids had a hard time understanding. Like I’ve said before, a great amount of kids here lack the skills they need to do things that their counterparts in the States know how to do. Some middle schoolers don’t know how to find important details in a paragraph. Some my fifth graders don’t know how to write complete sentences. Some of it has to do with the language thing, but it makes it that much more challenging and rewarding to help these kids try to understand these skills they need. I had my kids make up homework and test in seatwork. It was rainy and chillier all day; it’s been pretty much the same all week. Welcome rainy season in Honduras.

Friday
Today was Founder’s Day, which is specific to Abundant Life. The day honors Dr. Evelio Reyes, who is the man who started the church and school in Tegucigalpa. The day is to celebrate his influence in Honduras, the organization of Vida Abundante, and his life. While I think this is all well and good that we honor a man who has helped to provide an education and been a good influence in Honduras, at times they went over the top of how they portrayed him. I mean no disrespect to Dr. Reyes at all, just the way he is presented at times glorifies him in a way that makes me feel uncomfortable, like it’s too much. They showed a video about him (which I didn’t see all of it and it was in Spanish) and Mr. Calderon talked for a little while about how this school and the students there will make a difference in the future of Honduras. I believe that with all my heart, but some of the things he said to motivate the students to think about that were not quite on target. Anyways, all of that aside, we got to have cupcakes and juice as part of the celebration, which was great. For the younger kids, the electricity went out halfway through the movie, so we had to come back later in the day (which interrupted our classes; not fun). The kids were dismissed for home at 1 pm, but the teachers had to stay til 3 pm to get our full work day in. I got a lot done during that time, so it was fine with me. The evening was relaxing with chicken barbecue pizza for dinner and movie to finish.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Monday and Tuesday, May 24 & 25

Monday was a normal Monday for me; it’s a good day to ease into the week. My kids kept kids kept asking about the field trip like if they could bring cellphones, ipods, wear normal clothes, when they would go, now long, what we would do…typical fifth grade questions about everything haha.

Tuesday is always a tiring day for some reason. We still had no chimbo and were supposed to bring the container down, but forgot so we had sandwiches for dinner again. I had crazy chaos in language trying to explain our language biography report. Questions were flying everywhere almost before I had opened my mouth. I reminded the kids to wait until I was done giving all the directions, and THEN they could ask questions. Our field trip to Celaque with sixth grade got changed to next Wednesday, so the kids were super disappointed (which is why I told Mr. Lara to tell them and why). It will be better for them because Mr. Bran can come and they will get the whole day off school.

During Bible class today the seventh graders had to take a quiz. I told them no talking until everyone is done and they could do homework, read, draw or rest. So most of the kids were done, but a few weren’t. I went to stand by a few girls that had been prone to wandering eyes and when they were done I moved between a boy and girl I knew had some cheating pasts. As I stood there, one girl wrote the answer for a quiz question on an eraser. I saw her drawing but didn’t see what it was until I saw her start to pull the eraser out of its sleeve. I grabbed it and told her she was going to the office after the quiz. Then I see another girl right next to her write the same answer in her notebook right in front of me! The ‘ironic’ thing was that it was the answer the only boy in class not finished with his quiz needed and he was sitting next to the girl who had written the answer in her notebook. Coincidence? I don’t think so. I brought both of them to the office, wrote up conduct reports for both of them and had the principals talk to them. They tried making excuses saying they were finished (which doesn’t matter to me) and Mr. Lara kept saying to not pretend like we’re stupid. I was so angry because I make it so easy for them to do well on these quizzes and they still cheat. These girls had had problems with cheating in other classes this past week as well, which made me even more angry. A fun way to end Tuesday.

Tuesday night we had a plague of flying termites invade Villa Verde and our house. They fly around after it rains a lot and lose their wings and crawl around everywhere: floor, beds, bathroom, everywhere. Rumor has it they can burrow in your ears while you’re sleeping. Not sure if it’s true o not, but still…gross. The one thing I will NOT miss about Honduras is the myriad of bugs we’ve experienced and having to kill them all. I will not be squirmy going back home.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Friday-Sunday, May 21-23

Friday afternoon finally came and I was ready to relax for the weekend. Since there’s not trash pickup here in Villa Verde, most people burn their trash. We used to bring it to school when it got full, but lately we’ve been doing it the Honduran way and burning our trash in the backyard. We had three bags of trash and I started building the fire for it. It takes a while for some stuff to get going so I was watching it, throwing stuff on to it when all the sudden I hear this huge explosion and felt something hot and sizzling on me. My flight or fight response kicked in so I ran back to the house, tore off my ipod, whipped the cold shower on and stood there for a few minutes waiting until my adrenaline calmed down enough for me to figure out what happened. I was covered in black ash stuff, soaking wet and some spots of my neck hurt. I dried off and looked at my neck in the mirror. I had about 5 little spots that got burnt on my neck. I figured out some ‘empty’ mousse can that was in the trash must have exploded and it shot right at me, therefore giving me the burns on my neck. I hit a wall after that and laid down for a bit to calm down from my eventful fire making. To help me relax, I watched Godfather for the first time. I realky liked it; it was well done and a classic. I need to see many more classic movies, so that’s one of my list.

Saturday I did some schoolwork, then watched Wolverine instead of working (it was Saturday after all haha) and then went to town to see the end of a soccer game our older boys were playing. Afterwards Tad, Mr. Bran, Laura Beth and I tried to go to Villa de Ada, which is this neat place in Gracias that has a restaurant, pools to swim in, a little lake to row around in, and some big meeting rooms. LB had gone there before to see Dani and Eunice (our students that switched schools) perform at a talent show there and she said it looked like a fun place. Oddly on a Saturday night at 6pm, it was closed. I don’t understand Gracias and their time schedules for things. I was bummed because I was looking forward to doing something different. Instead we decided to just walk around the premises, see the lake and pools and see the monkey and birds they had there. We still needed dinner so we ate at Don Juan’s and headed back up to Villa Verde to crash.

Sunday was another town day because our girls were playing Minerva (the other more prestigious bilingual school in town). Because of the rivalry, it was a great game. The first half no one scored, and then in the second half we pulled away and won 3-0! The girls were ecstatic. They had an older student ref the first half of the game and then decided to make it fair and wanted someone from Vida Abudante to ref. Well, Tad got suckered into refereeing for the second half of the game (with flip flops on haha). After the game he and I went to Guancascos for lunch and internet and returned to watch some of sub-10 soccer game. I was getting tired and didn’t feel like sitting through another game so I went back to town to get dinner because we still had no gas in our house. I picked Tad up on the way back, while LB stayed to help Mr. Bran clean up. We watched the Godfather Part II (long movie) to finish the weekend.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Monday-Friday, May 17-21

This week…I changed my seating chart so it’s a half circle type arrangement in rows. We’ll see how that works. Some kids, no matter where you put them, will do well and some will bother others and not pay attention. I just think you can never find a perfect seating chart. Wednesday we went to town and Laura Beth and I stayed in town to have dinner with two of our students who moved to another school in Gracias, Dani and Eunice. We keep in contact with them by facebook and talk to their mom every once and a while. We met them for pizza and had a nice time catching up with them. Thursday I talked to Mr. Lara about how my kids have been behaving lately. I understand that it’s the end of the year and the kids (as well as the teachers) are ready for the year to be done. But it sometimes takes me ten minutes to start class and then when I do, I keep being interrupted, thereby wasting more time. I went through minimal material on Thursday, which puts me behind in my lessons. I want to make sure they understand everything as well, but I have to keep stopping to tell someone to be quiet, sit down, sit straight, pay attention, why do you have an attitude, what’s wrong…then things don’t get accomplished. So Mr. Lara and Mr. Calderon came in to talk to them and remind them of the way they should act the last few weeks; that we’re not done yet and when it’s time to do things, do it.

During the year my kids have been working to get different phrases like GAME DAY and such. Well we have enough letters to do something, but I hadn’t decided what we would do. Laura Beth came and talked to me on Wednesday about having a picnic day with her sixth graders. Mr. Lara said it would be fine because it would be considered our field trip. So, fifth and sixth grade will be having a picnic day up in Celaque this coming Wednesday. I told them and they were extremely excited! Neither grade was too excited about having the other with them, but we both told our kids if the other grade comes, then they both get to go home early (at noon). After that there was no complaining! It should be a fun time; we just need to plan some things they can do up there for a few hours. Thursday Sarah and I were preparing dinner and right in the middle of cooking, the chimbo (gas) goes out. Awesome. We called Sonia to see if we could use her oven and brought all the food down there. Just as we were bringing things down, it started pouring rain. Then, just as we were starting to eat, the electricity went out. Sarah commented that it’s like Honduras is trying to show us out haha. So we ate dinner by candlelight and the power came back on a few hours later. We still don’t have gas, but hopefully we can take care of that this weekend. Friday finally came and I couldn’t believe how tired I was in the morning; they’re my long days at that so I was more than ready for the afternoon to come.

A few things my kids did this week…I was in charge of doing songs for chapel on Wednesday and we taught the whole group a new song. They did an awesome job helping me teach the group with motions and words. Thursday during devotionals, one of my girls (who often gives me attitude or pushes the envelope a little) comes up to me and whispers in my ear, “You are very beautiful.” I had to ask her to repeat herself because I wasn’t sure what she said at first and she did. I was slightly blown away, but it definitely made my day, especially coming from her. Often times there are moments where I realize how special my kids are and that even when I get frustrated with them, they’re still kids, growing human beings and I get to have a part in that. How rewarding...I may never see the fruit of my labor, but I think that’s something I may just have to get used to and trust God that He is using me right now and maybe later in these kids’ lives.

Weekend May 15 & 16

One year ago this weekend I graduated. So crazy to think back to where I was a year ago this year. I had just finished living in Chicago, one of the big cities in the US, graduated college and was preparing to come teach in Honduras for a year. Now I live on a cloud forest mountain in a small town in Honduras and I’m a teacher. How much more opposite can you get? I’m even more interested/scared/clueless as to where I’ll be a year from NOW and how different or similar it will be to where I am now.

Saturday Tad and I went to town to buy food for the dinner I was making him that night. Since I won the NCAA basketball bracket, he had to buy my dinner. I said I’d ‘make it up to him’ by making him dinner. He doesn’t get much variety in his diet living at the comedor either so I figured it’d be a nice change of pace for him as well. While we were shopping he started feeling crappy with stomachache, headache, etc. I continued to shop while he rested and we went back up to Villa Verde shortly after. I did some schoolwork while I waited to see if he was feeling well enough to eat (which he did).For dinner I made a form of lemon pepper garlic chicken with parmesan on top, green beans and broccoli, and rice. It was pretty darn good if I say so myself…success.

Sunday I did dishes, laundry, and almost finished planning the trip I’m taking after school to Antigua (and surrounding areas) and Roatan. Hopefully everything works out for it traveling, but I’m excited to see other parts of Central America.