The past few weeks have been rather uneventful. Just settling back into routine and enjoying time with friends, mainly staying in and hanging out at our new house. Our Saturday morning brunch tradition is back in full force and we seem to have more and more food every week! This week we made French toast with homemade beer bread, a hashbrown casserole, chocolate/banana bread, jalepeno poppers, smoothies and coffee. We dine like royalty here (when we want to)!
A note about food shopping- Yesterday I spent under $2 total on 3 avocados, 3 tomatoes, an onion, a lime and a bunch of cilantro to make some guacamole. Cheap produce is something I will really miss when this is all over!
I also enjoy getting some coffee and sitting in the central park; not really an activity I'm accustomed to doing in the states. You know, just sitting and relaxing with nowhere to go and nothing to do? Its sort of a way of life here and I will not complain!
With skilled park loitering comes prime people watching. You see people here wearing shirts from the states that are the "leftovers" from thrift stores. Many of the shirts have weird things in English on them and the people wearing them have no clue what it says. You also see random sport team shirts, and obviously the people wearing it have no allegiance to the teams. Since I got here, I have been keeping my eye out for someone with a Nebraska shirt. Yesterday, while sitting in the park, low and behold, I saw one!
I've had some Spanish speaking "victories" lately. My New Years resolution was to be able to hold a 15-20 minute conversation only in Spanish. Well, I was at a student's house the other day and I talked with her mother for quite a while. I didn't keep track of time but I may have accomplished my goal. Granted, she is super understanding and speaks at tortoise like speeds for me, I'll take it! Other times, I'm not so victorious. Like today, another students' parents were driving by as I was walking home and they stopped and pulled over to talk to me. I understood what they said, that their daughter had left her lunchbox at school and they were going to get it. I meant to respond, "you're going to get it now?" But all I got out was "you go" before having a mind block and freezing. So, basically I told them to go away. Woooooops! Oh well, at least they laughed. Or, how about when I went to go try and buy pasta across the street 10 minutes later at the pulperia and the only way I could describe it was "like spaghetti, but smaller." He was so confused by my request for small spaghetti. Turns out I could have just asked for macaroni and that would have done the trick. What did we end up having for dinner, you ask? Spaghetti, of the normal size. Moral of the story: still so much work to do!
Many of you have already given so much to my students at Minerva, so I don't want to beg or plead, but just put it out there: http://onefamilyhonduras.weebly.com/newsletter.html
This link is for anyone interested in donating to the scholarship fund for several students at the school. They are a family that lives in a tiny shack just a few houses down from Minerva. The parents were unable to be educated past first grade but are more than supportive of their children getting a good education. They are a really great family!
I have failed to take many pictures lately, however, here are a couple from school of my students enjoying all their new goodies from so many wonderful friends and family back home. The sculptures are made from model magic and are part of a combined science/art/writing animal research project they are working on. I love being able to incorporate art into so many subjects. Definitely a perk of being the classroom teacher AND the art teacher! The last pictures were taken today to capture the warm and sunny day for all you snowbound folks in the Estados Unidos!
