Final Goodbyes

As slowly as time was moving a month or two ago, it certainly sped up these past couple of weeks!  There have been so many things to "wrap up" and accomplish.

The last day of school was bittersweet.  Its always a good feeling to finish another school year but, of course, was sad to say goodbye to the kids.  My 7th year of teaching is done and maybe my last time with elementary.

 

My proudest teaching moment, probably EVER, was my little guy Emerson getting a 100% on his English exam!  Emerson was a disorganized mess that hardly ever spoke at the beginning of the year.  I never really knew how much he understood as he constantly had a shocked and confused look on his face.  Turns out he may have been listening!  He was proud of himself, too.  He wrote this on his exam, "I love you Mom, that's why I got a 100."  

Saying farewell at school wasn't actually the LAST time I saw, or will see, many of the kids.  I have had play dates galore and even had a birthday party with them.  They spoiled me and brought cake, a piñata and cute gifts, even though I asked them not to.

I know I've said it many times, but these kids are just the best.  One of them called me yesterday just to say he loves me!  I'll even miss the boys and their rough housing.  Here they are moments before a dog pile:

This is probably my favorite present ever.  It reads "Thank you miss kristy for sharing from your wisdom with me.  May god bless you always.  I love for you."  Can we say google translate?!  Certainly a great keepsake to forever remember Rodrigo and my year surrounded by broken English.

The school also had a dinner for the staff.  We had a great time.  We even taught the Honduran teachers about beer can pyramids.  Oh, the important pieces of American culture.  P.S. they loved it.

As talked about all year amongst my friends, we were finally able to burn our disgusting yellow polos.  We hated wearing this obnoxiously bright shirt every Thursday so we celebrated the last Thursday with a bonfire.  Those shirts went up in flames really fast!  Scary..  

We even lit off firecrackers...

Now, I'm here with no remaining responsibilities left besides finishing packing up and picking up my last paycheck tomorrow.  I will leave Gracias on Friday morning with my friends Kim and Holly.  We are staying a couple nights at a nice hotel in San Pedro Sula while waiting for our flights home on Sunday.  What a crazy year that I will never forget!  I'm so happy to have had this experience.  Thanks to everyone back home for all the support, donations, phone calls and emails.. I look forward to seeing you all in 5 days!

Soaking It All In

Here it is, the things I will miss about Honduras:

How the kids run, play and have fun all time time without needing to force them.

The weekly brunch spectacular with my friends.

Making fun out of nothing.  Boy, did we have fun many nights just sitting in uncomfortable plastic chairs around an ugly plastic table.

Baledas and cena tipica.  yum.

Being constantly appreciative of conveniences from back home.  I know I will never forgot how it felt to not have certain things, but the feeling will inevitably die down over time.

The never ending supply of hot sauce and jalapenos.  I never even liked anything spicy before this year!

Bags of water.  They're so cold, cheap and convenient. 

The pulperia across the street that supplies me with my cold bags of water, orange juice and credit on my cell phone.  Thanks for being so close by and for not making fun of me all the time when I misprounounce things.

Pretending like I speak another language.

Spending not even $10 every month on my phone.

Cheap avocados.

Year-round flip flop weather.

The wonderful friends I have made.

Snack time - all day, every day.  It's abnormal if you don't participate.

Doing anything you want anytime.  There are no rules!

And #1- these 27 cute faces:

I've been trying to spoil them rotten during our remaining weeks together and we have been having so much fun!

Here they are sharing their finished writing with some of the other classes:

They presented Hora Civica for the last time.  In fact, no more of those --ever!

And this happened, too:

I used this idea to give them a surprise every day for the 10 days leading up to exams.  They pop a balloon to find the surprise.  Only 4 more to go!:

We made flubber for one prize:

And went on a scavenger hunt field trip in the neighborhood:

There are many more fun things on the agenda for this week. I am going to treasure my remaining time with them.  They have truly been the highlight of this whole experience.

Other stuff - Alex and I finished the mural at the Goodwin's child rescue center.  Here it is:

This past weekend, my roommates and I went to Santa Rosa to visit the art studio of the father of our Spanish teacher.  He is primarily a screenprinter, and prints many of the big burlap bags for coffee that are exported all over the world.  He has different designs depending on the country it goes to.  His name was Gilberto and he was wonderful.  He showed us the screenprinting machines that he built himself and even printed tee shirts with us.  

And, as of Friday, May 24, 2013, only 22 days before I leave, I have my residency card:

Ramblings

The past two weeks have been so jam packed at school with special "events" that one of my fellow teachers suggested we have a "go to school and learn day." Novel idea! Ooh well, at least it's helping to keep things interesting.

One of these events was Summer Day. All the kids had the day off to go to the pool. We had field day type games planned, but mostly they just swam and had a grand ol' time. It sounded like a terrible idea at first.. 300 kids crammed into a couple pools, most of which can't swim! As it turns out, probably less than half the kids showed up and there were no drownings. Phew!

Another event was the science fair. My class did a couple of experiments on density and did a pretty great job presenting to the judges.

I also had the chance to go help for a day with Habitat for Humanity in Santa Rosa. Our day consisted of standing in a line to move hundreds of 25 lb adobe bricks from one part of the field to the other. Hello, sore arms!

They also humored us and let us each take a try at making a brick. It's just a mud, water and pine needle mixture scooped into a square mold. Easy enough.

I can't not mention my trip to Tegucigalpa a few weeks ago with 7 of the other teachers. We had to go because our year-long visas were finally ready to be processed. Imagine that, ready just 2 months before we depart! We had to leave at 3 in the morning for the almost 6 hour ride, spent some time at the migration office, had lunch at the mall and turned right back around to return in the same day. Now I can say I saw Tegus and brag about having a green card. Here we are after finishing up with our finally-legal smiles:

I'm really feeling the strong desire to get home and return to normal life. I have treasured my time here but have so many reasons to want to be home! I can't wait to be with my family especially after my Grandpa's passing, start my new job, go on a painting spree within my house and reunite with all my fantastic friends.

You might be asking, "How could Kristin want to leave, isn't she just on an extended Spring Break?" Well, my friends, not quite.

I've compiled a list of things I will not miss:

Bugs bites but especially the fire ant bites on my feet. I itch just thinking about it.

Stepping and tripping on rocks, having them cut my feet and general dirty feet problems. Who will go for a pedicure with me immediately following my return?

Getting heckled on the street.

Being a gringa.

Not always knowing what's going on around me or being able to communicate exactly what I want to say.

Dirty, smelly, loud and generally unsafe bus rides.

Rooster, dog, cat and loud vehicle noises at any hour of the night. And I thought I had a feral cat problem in a Ralston, NE!

Cold showers. Never will get used to them, even on the hottest of days.

Not being able to drink tap water.

As a follow up to the latter- always fearing strange parasites and worms are being housed somewhere in my body.

Of course, now I feel guilty for saying all that so in a later post I'll compose my list of things I will miss about this place. Stay tuned.