Half Way

It's so strange to me that I'm now half way into this journey. I'm thrilled with everything I've been able to experience and learn so far. I'm happy with the great friends I have made and fun times we've had exploring this part of the world. I'm also really happy with how far my students have come. It's hard to believe that the first week of school we could barely understand each other with them just staring at me with confusion in their big ol' brown eyes. They are learning a lot and I'm also now really proficient at understanding 2nd grade Spanglish. Let's hope that, by the end of the school year, they are talking less of the "Span" and more of the "glish." On the flip side, I hope for me, I can converse more in Spanish. Not at school, but in all the other daily interactions. I really need to push myself further and hit the books!

Here's some recent fun from school:

These are pictures of my class with Miss Richelle's 4th graders doing reading buddies. They love to read to each other, except for maybe Anthony. Can you tell which one he is? He's not a huge fan of sitting still or having to listen for more than 10 seconds...ever.

Each grade level at the school takes a turn at leading Hora Civica on Friday mornings where they pay tribute to their country and pray. My class' Spanish teacher, Miss Christy, spent several weeks preparing them for their Hora Civica duties. They did a really wonderful job! They were also super nervous to be up in front of the entire student body.

Something special that I was able to do, thanks to my mom, was take one of the Minerva students shopping for Christmas presents for her family. She picked out clothes for everyone and toys for the kids. She then came over to sort through it all and made up bags for her mother, father and each of her siblings. They were all really appreciative and happy. Thanks, Mom!!

Last weekend, I attended the wedding of Ana Maria, one of the staff members at my school. Ana Maria is fun gal. She's sassy and loves to gossip, but doesn't speak a lick of English so our interactions are brief but always entertaining. Another reason to kick it up on my Spanish!

As we were getting ready for the wedding we, of course, were concerned about getting there on time. So, we show up right at 7 pm as the invitation had stated. But, we walk into the room, and hardly anyone is there. The wedding didn't actually start until 8:30!! How have we not learned by now? Once the ceremony was over, they served us dinner. It was 10:30 pm by the time we were eating. If I'm ever invited to another Honduran wedding, I know to show up an hour late and feed myself first.

Yesterday, my friends and I had our last Saturday morning brunch of 2012; a tradition we will for sure carry into 2013.

This week will be a busy one, with us finishing up finals, turning in grades, and doing our final preparations/practices for the Christmas parade and show on Friday. It is a HUGE and ridiculous production and I can't wait to share pictures after the event takes place.

Here's a link to the latest video my class made for their video pen pals in Omaha. It includes a sneak peek of their Christmas dance in there: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJZ6g2dyyOQ They are superstars!

Lastly, I have no words to describe how excited I am to go home one week from today!!! I can't wait to see my family, my friends, eat anything and everything, sit on my couch, sleep in my bed and drive a car. See you in the States!

Thanksgiving in Central America

It turns out there are some really wonderful people around these parts all willing to come together to celebrate our beloved holiday, Thanksgiving. My whole staff, the staff from the other bilingual school in town, other folks from the States and from other parts of the world gathered at the Goodwin's house for a potluck feast last weekend. It was delicious!

We met these two Irish fellas a couple days earlier. They are from Dublin and are spending close to a year backpacking through the Americas. They came through Gracias to climb Mt. Celaque, but decided to stay a couple extra days after we invited them to the feast. They were pumped for their first Thanksgiving! They were quite fun and I hope to cross paths with them again when I (crossing fingers) go on a backpacking trip through Europe some summer.

This is the Goodwin's new house. They have a beautiful place and will be using it to open an orphanage for local children within the next few months.

This was the view as we were walking home. Gorgeous!

The day before the grand feast, I was able to go to San Pedro Sula to visit my cousin, Mark. He was in the country for work. I couldn't resist the opportunity to see family, so I hopped on the bus with two friends at 5 AM for the 5 hour journey. We went to the mall for a couple hours, then met Mark at an Italian restaurant for lunch. What a TREAT that was!!! Living in a small town here means limited food and shopping, so we all geek out when we are in a bigger town or city and can find items, especially food, that feels like "home." Anyway, lunch was great and it was fun to see Mark. After that, we got back on the buses and were back in Gracias by 8 pm.

I was touched to be invited to my student's birthday party, which happened to be the same day I was in San Pedro Sula so, unfortunately, I couldn't attend. But it was quite the gesture as they took a moto-taxi to my house the night before to drop off this darling invitation. She also brought me a treat bag at school on Monday since I wasn't there. Impossible not to love these kids!

The weekend prior, several of us went to Santa Rosa for a day so we could watch my roommate, Richelle, play in a volleyball game. She found a local men's team that let her join their team and she gets to travel with them to play in games and tournaments. Who would have thought there would be a volleyball team anywhere here? Not me! I went to practice with her a few times, but she's the pro and does a great job showing up all those men!

While we were in Santa Rosa, we also went to the mall, which is basically one store and a Pizza Hut (Pizza Hut is a pretty big deal in this country)! As mentioned above, we enjoy finding different food options, so indulged in the fine dining experience at the Hut. The most exciting part of this experience was the lovely bathroom with automatic faucets, paper towels and full length mirror. I'd try to explain the wonder of this, but no words can describe. Pictures were taken, though!

The most recent and most grand adventure of the month was this past weekend. While Thanksgiving obviously isn't a holiday that is celebrated here, the school was nice enough to call off school on Thursday and Friday for us. Our first long weekend in a couple months meant only one thing- skip town and go as far as possible! My roommate has a friend that is currently working and living in Guatemala City, so that is what we set our sights on. We left immediately after school got out on Wednesday to catch the first of 4 buses. However, this first bus moved at a glacial speed, and took 2 hours instead of 1. We decided to stop for the night afterwards so we didn't get stuck in the next town, which was way less safe of an option. Here we are crammed into a little taxi to get to the hotel. That's Nina, sitting on my lap in the front, and the other four girls squeezed in back. That's how they roll in C.A., no safety rules! Or, better, no rules at all!

That morning, we caught the next two legs of the journey, and arrived in Copan Ruinas around 10 am, hoping to get on a noon bus into Antigua, Guatemala. However, ran into another snag and was unable to get tickets on that bus, leaving us to stay in Copan that night. Finally, on Friday morning, we were able to get to Antigua. What a beautiful place!! There were so many tourists, which meant many great restaurants and shops! I was pumped to sit at a coffee shop and sip on an iced coffee. I was also able to glimpse at the score of the Nebraska-Iowa game and sported my Husker shirt all day long. Go Big Red!

 

This is Holly getting her hair wrapped:

On Saturday, we took a bus to Guatemala City, or "Guate," as they call it. It was huge! I definitely saw a Wal-Mart and a Wendy's. Woah, big time. We didn't see much of the city, though, as we had limited time. We stayed with Sydney's friend, who happened to be hosting a Thanksgiving feast for him and his co-workers that night. Who could say no to a second feast? Certainly not any one of us!

Finally, our journey came to an end yesterday as we had much better bus luck, catching all four legs in row for a total of 12 hours on stinky, dirty buses filled with people, chickens and broken windows and seats. It's the good life, folks!

A Very Un-Fall

It's been interesting lately thinking about how it's fall back home and how I'm missing the leaves turning, Halloween festivities, cold air and Starbucks pumpkin lattes!  I do have to say, though, that our days are significantly less hot than they were in August, it's raining more often and my tan has drastically faded.  When my students started wearing scarves, coats and hats to school, I thought it was silly.  However, I'm now also having moments when the 60 degree mornings feel cold.  I wonder how I'll fare in Nebraska winter for the two weeks I'm home over Christmas?!

In one of my latest packages from my lovely friend, Renee Loftus, was a Flat Stanley from her 2nd grade class.  Flat Stanley is supposed to travel to different places and my job is to take pictures to send back to the class and tell about where he went.  My first stop with Flat Stanley was my backyard to meet the chickens:

I travelled to Copan Ruinas last weekend and saw this on the bus.  It made me laugh.  The old men were cold which resulted in the cowboy  hat sitting on top of the bulky stocking cap:

Bus rides are real interesting.  And by interesting, I mean either entertaining or awful - it swings one way or the other.  The particular bus ride from the picture above was at approximately 6:30 am and the party music was blaring.  It wasn't too crowded and I could enjoy the people watching, putting it into the "entertaining" category.  On another bus ride last weekend (it was actually a large van), I had to sit in the front between the driver and some other guy.  The van was packed, people one on top of the other.  As we approached a police check (first one I've encountered thus far), the driver reached over me to wake up the guy sitting on my other side to tell him to put his seat belt on.  I had to laugh, because neither myself or the other 25 people crammed on the bus had seat belts and it didn't matter.  I wonder what the police would have done if that one passenger hadn't been buckled up?  I'll add that to the list of things that don't make sense.

We went to Copan because it is known for having Halloween parties every year (a tradition apparently started by Peace Corps volunteers a while back).  So, many Americans living in Honduras go there for Halloween weekend.  Some of the bars were decorated appropriately, but other than that, it wasn't anything too Halloween-ish.  My friends and I did have a great time staying there, though, and scoping out a new place.  The town is much more touristy than Gracias, and we even found a cafe that served bagels and cream cheese - yum!  We also went to a German bar that had two beers on tap and that was a special treat!  Our friend's uncle owns this particular bar, and I loved the way it was painted:

The main attraction in Copan is the Mayan Ruins.  I didn't see it on this trip, though, because I will be going back with my Dad and Uncle in February.  They recently decided to make the venture down here and I'm really excited for them to come!

Halloween also happened to be my roommate, Sydney's birthday.  So, on the actual day, we went to the local bar for a celebratory drink.  Please take notice of the pumpkin straws and bat rings we all have in the photo.  That is thanks to my dear friend, Renee, who is from Salem, MA and loves the holiday.  Those bat rings brought my friends and I great joy!

School has been going well still.  My students survived exam week probably better than I did.  Their behavior had little to be desired (I don't blame them, they had to work hard for all those exams), but I felt like I was going crazy  at moments because of it.  So much so that I had to teach them the words frustrated, cranky and sassy.  The important things, right?

This past week our schedule went back to normal, and now all is well.  Here  they are during art class and also a couple of funny writing samples.  I love how some of their writing is starting to take on a little more personality, now that they're handling English a little bit better.

On Friday, the senior class did a fundraiser called "color day."  That was, if students brought in money, they could wear their street clothes to school instead of their uniform.  It was so cute to see them out of their white polos.  I also had 7 students absent and wow, what a difference that made.  I only had 21 kids in the room and it felt empty!

Another recent event was going to the home of our little friends, Lucia and Lucio, for dinner.  They made Gallina India, which is just a fancy way of saying yard chicken.    It is apparently a delicacy here, but it was so tough I couldn't even bite into it.  I tried ripping at it with my fingers, too, and was extremely unsuccessful.  I hated to be rude, but I physically couldn't eat it.  Dinner was followed by very loud music on their large speaker set.  It's funny how people can have so little, live in these tiny shacks, and still manage to have cell phones and large stereos.  They played the music so loudly that it vibrated the tin roof.  Oh, Honduras.

Here we are with the kids:

We've also taken the kids to the pool a couple times recently.  Two of them had never been swimming and they all had a blast!

I'll leave with a little rant.  You know that feeling when you think something is crawling on you, but you look, and nothing is there?  Well, here, 9 times out of 10, something is crawling on you.  And it's probably an ant.  I'm also sick of seeing them on my food.  I wonder how many ants I've ingested thus far?  Probably best not to think about it...