Sarah's back! And not in a matchbox either, you'll be glad to hear. I spotted her wandering down the street looking sunburnt and a little tired, so I took her to buy the Vasitos that I bought with Genesis. That, at least, made sure she was relatively calm before telling her exactly how stressed out everyone was. It turns out she never actually lost her passport, but got 'fraped' by her friend (for those not of my generation a frape is when someone sees the opportunity of an open facebook page and takes it by changing all sorts of things, in this case, her status, saying she had lost her passport). People over here weren't best pleased to find out they had been worried for nothing so she's in the dog-house a little at the moment.
We also found out we are being visited by Jen and Vegas in a month and we'll be heading off to Lago de Yojoa again to stay with them for a while. What will be nice is finally all the Honduran volunteers back together again and findiong out how they've all been managing in their projects for the past half year. Most of them I haven't seensince August!
So, on Thursday or Friday, I can't remember which, Genesis and I had decided to make Pastelitos on Saturday. Pastelitos are basically little pastry things filled with meat, rice and potatoes and, in theory, I now know how to make them. In theory. In reality our failed attempts almost set the house on fire and poisoned us to the point where we had to just give up, dissect them, and eat the insides. We then spent the next hour on our backs on the couch groaning about sore stomachs. I still don't know what went wrong! The dough was burnt and raw all at once. Fail. But like i said, I know the theory, some day I'll try again.
Also on Saturday, I gave Mauricio his first Italian lesson, which, after a slow start he seems to be gettng the hang of. He says he woke up on Sunday with Italian phrases running through his head. We also burnt all the rubbish in the feild next to his house, no joke. Well, we tried at least. In the field there's about seven tonnes of plastic waste that's just been thrown there for years so we burnt it. Definitely think you aren't supposed to burn plastic bottles but hey ho. The fumes probably counter-acted some of the affect of the pastelitos.
Sunday was less eventful, I didn't burn anything or poison anyone but these two guys had come to the house on Thursday preaching , one Honduran and one American so we chatted for a bit and I promised them I'd go to church on Sunday. I ended up getting completely lost and found myself at the Telan police station with no idea where this church was and in the end, went to the wrong one. But I saw them again and I said this time I'd find the right place. So we'll see how that works out next Sunday. I like Sundays, seeing everyone in their Sunday best is such a refreshing change from tank tops and shorts. Everyone, or nearly everyone makes a real effort to look presentable on a Sunday and the beach is completely bare in the morning only to get unmaneuverably busy in the afternoon.
For the kids in the Primary this week is exam week and after that I'll be starting the 2nd grade Maths classes again (or Math as they call it). So I'm looking forward to being reunited with my babies. Hopefully they'll speak a tad more English this time around.
Asta Luego.
Tuesday, 28 February 2012
Friday, 24 February 2012
Serttling Back In
So, it´s been a pretty good first week, all in all, actually it´s been fantastic. I am so much more suited to seconary teaching than primary and my job is so much less stressful beacuase of it! On top of that, my room looks less like an animal hovel and more like a bedroom now and the weather has been perfectly breezy all week.
The only downer was that my partner left to El Salvador on Saturay morning, due home on Sunday; that was until she lost her passport and wasn´t allowed to leave the country. In some ways though this is a relief, now I am safe in the knowledge that at least I´m not the only disaster case. I´m currently in a bit of a limbo to see if she´ll make it back by next week, if not I´ll be covering all her classes again next week.
So, despite the fact that the subject I am teaching is dry as anything I have ever had the misfortune to have to read, I am much happier teaching ´Collegio´ upstairs than I was downstairs. I am not joking whe I say it is dry, eveything I teach to them I have to learn myself beforehand, and to me it all seems like useless knowledge, if such a thing exists. (Primary school is on the bottom floor from 12 - 5 and secondary school is upstairs from 7 - 2, so early rises for me! It´s nice doing that though, I feel as if I am actually acomplishing something with my day, and it means I can go to the beach in the afternoons.) I´ve developed a bit of a routine now; every break I go down and cht to Mauricio as he sells his food in the Cafeteria and help him out and in my afternoons I take my bike and walk Genesis home from school and get Vasitos on the way (little ice creamy things).
The day Sarah left was the day of the dance competition and, once I figure out how, I will put up some hilarious videos of the kids dancing. This was part of their PE exam and they had to dance either Danza Christiana or Moderna. Very, very different dance forms I tell you. The juxtoposition was hilarious. You had some kids dancing to lyrics like 'Jesus is my superhero´and the next group´s soundtrack would be ´I´m Sexy and I Know It´. And the costumes some of them wore! It´s seriously disconcerting watching 9 year olds hip thrusting. However I must be getting used to the culture: I didn´t even bat an eye when the show that was due to start at seven didn´t get going until half eight and was pleasantly surprised when I got away only an hour after we were supposed to. (Hondurans aren´t the best time-keepers you see.) The two finalists did their dances again at the very end, weating away in the midday sun and I felt truly sorry for them, I think their feet were burnt by the end. So there was food and drink and dancing and prizes and, all in all, a fun way to start the weekend. I even made guacamole which was a (partial) success. It went slightly black since and weird I had made it the night before but it wasn´t a danger to eat. I hope.
The rest of the weekend was more relaxed, I went to the beach ( the Caribbean beach... that is on my doorstep. Yes, I know you´re jealous.) I got burnt, read my book, met up with my friend, rode a horse (not everyone here is poor, I´ll have you know, some people have enough money for two cars and a horse). So it was like that my first weekend in Honduras drew to a close and my first working week began.
The only downer was that my partner left to El Salvador on Saturay morning, due home on Sunday; that was until she lost her passport and wasn´t allowed to leave the country. In some ways though this is a relief, now I am safe in the knowledge that at least I´m not the only disaster case. I´m currently in a bit of a limbo to see if she´ll make it back by next week, if not I´ll be covering all her classes again next week.
So, despite the fact that the subject I am teaching is dry as anything I have ever had the misfortune to have to read, I am much happier teaching ´Collegio´ upstairs than I was downstairs. I am not joking whe I say it is dry, eveything I teach to them I have to learn myself beforehand, and to me it all seems like useless knowledge, if such a thing exists. (Primary school is on the bottom floor from 12 - 5 and secondary school is upstairs from 7 - 2, so early rises for me! It´s nice doing that though, I feel as if I am actually acomplishing something with my day, and it means I can go to the beach in the afternoons.) I´ve developed a bit of a routine now; every break I go down and cht to Mauricio as he sells his food in the Cafeteria and help him out and in my afternoons I take my bike and walk Genesis home from school and get Vasitos on the way (little ice creamy things).
The day Sarah left was the day of the dance competition and, once I figure out how, I will put up some hilarious videos of the kids dancing. This was part of their PE exam and they had to dance either Danza Christiana or Moderna. Very, very different dance forms I tell you. The juxtoposition was hilarious. You had some kids dancing to lyrics like 'Jesus is my superhero´and the next group´s soundtrack would be ´I´m Sexy and I Know It´. And the costumes some of them wore! It´s seriously disconcerting watching 9 year olds hip thrusting. However I must be getting used to the culture: I didn´t even bat an eye when the show that was due to start at seven didn´t get going until half eight and was pleasantly surprised when I got away only an hour after we were supposed to. (Hondurans aren´t the best time-keepers you see.) The two finalists did their dances again at the very end, weating away in the midday sun and I felt truly sorry for them, I think their feet were burnt by the end. So there was food and drink and dancing and prizes and, all in all, a fun way to start the weekend. I even made guacamole which was a (partial) success. It went slightly black since and weird I had made it the night before but it wasn´t a danger to eat. I hope.
The rest of the weekend was more relaxed, I went to the beach ( the Caribbean beach... that is on my doorstep. Yes, I know you´re jealous.) I got burnt, read my book, met up with my friend, rode a horse (not everyone here is poor, I´ll have you know, some people have enough money for two cars and a horse). So it was like that my first weekend in Honduras drew to a close and my first working week began.
Friday, 17 February 2012
Arrival!
9:20, Honduran time. I step off the plane in Miami and work my way through customs. I have been travelling for 22 hours straight. Despite my tiredness though it feels good to be back, the air tastes surprisingy familiar and it is a tolerable 24 degrees. There´s a man there to pick me up and take me and some German girl to the hostel where I pass out on my bed within seconds and that´s that. The next day my host´s mother Miss Graciella (called Miss despite the fact that she´s been married God knows how long) comes to pick me up with her husand. They speak no english and my Spnish is atrociously bad at first but I soon get back into the swing of things and make decent conversation and they tell me all Tela´s gossip. We stop at this place to eat lunch where they buy me a very sickly drink made of blended corn which I pretend to like. It is in fact still sitting in my fridge, untouched. Then continue on to Tela. It´s three o´clock by the time I get there and having arrived on Valentine´s day the school is all in a flurry of pink and red with people all over practicing for a dance competition on Saturday.
You might have thought a bomb exploded in 2nd grade when they saw me. Screaming my name they all ran outside and almost killed me. I challenge anyone to feel more loved than I did being suffocated by twenty seven year olds. Thankfully Miss Juni called them off saying I was injured and shouldn´t be ´molested´. Don´t worry molested means annoyed.
The rest of that day was spent relaxing around the school and catching up with everyone. We had a little lunch party since it was Valentine´s Day and everyone broght in .
Later on I found out that sadly a father of two tudents had been kidnapped yesterday. He was a doctor who was assumed to have money. So on Thursday the entire secondary school marched through Tela with four or so other schools as a peaceful protest against it. We were fighting for peace, as ironic as that sounds.
Apart from that I have been just chilling out the past few days, sorting out my room which was absolutely disgusting when I arrived. I may eventually paint it to get some ominous looking stains off the walls.
Since I found out I am starting on Monday I have been slowly planning lessons, takng my time and trying to figure out a disciplinary scheme for them. I´ve heard they can be pretty rowdy. The children I will be teaching aren´t really children anymore. ´Language´ for 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th grade are now my responsibility (2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th year English) as well as 2nd grade Maths, and Social Studies for 8th grade. That´s is basically American Geography and History. They simply shrugged saying I´d pick it up when I told them I know little to nothing of American History. So that could be interesting. Thankfully it´s only 2 classes a week so I can´t damage their education too substantially.
Now it´s Friday and I´m sitting in the school´s computer room listening to the dance practices going on outside the door and enjoying the fan´s cool breeze on my back.
Asta luego.
You might have thought a bomb exploded in 2nd grade when they saw me. Screaming my name they all ran outside and almost killed me. I challenge anyone to feel more loved than I did being suffocated by twenty seven year olds. Thankfully Miss Juni called them off saying I was injured and shouldn´t be ´molested´. Don´t worry molested means annoyed.
The rest of that day was spent relaxing around the school and catching up with everyone. We had a little lunch party since it was Valentine´s Day and everyone broght in .
Later on I found out that sadly a father of two tudents had been kidnapped yesterday. He was a doctor who was assumed to have money. So on Thursday the entire secondary school marched through Tela with four or so other schools as a peaceful protest against it. We were fighting for peace, as ironic as that sounds.
Apart from that I have been just chilling out the past few days, sorting out my room which was absolutely disgusting when I arrived. I may eventually paint it to get some ominous looking stains off the walls.
Since I found out I am starting on Monday I have been slowly planning lessons, takng my time and trying to figure out a disciplinary scheme for them. I´ve heard they can be pretty rowdy. The children I will be teaching aren´t really children anymore. ´Language´ for 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th grade are now my responsibility (2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th year English) as well as 2nd grade Maths, and Social Studies for 8th grade. That´s is basically American Geography and History. They simply shrugged saying I´d pick it up when I told them I know little to nothing of American History. So that could be interesting. Thankfully it´s only 2 classes a week so I can´t damage their education too substantially.
Now it´s Friday and I´m sitting in the school´s computer room listening to the dance practices going on outside the door and enjoying the fan´s cool breeze on my back.
Asta luego.
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