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...
No comments:
Post a Comment