Okay; I am aware that the last time I made an entry was 28th February but I am going to blame my extremely sporadic internet access which is usually for ten minutes tops. I also wrote an entry a week ago only to have it deleted as the computer I was on died.
I have, thakfully had a very busy two weeks, the weekend before last two girls from another project came to visit us, last weekend we went to see the Copan Ruins with the school and this weekend Sarah and I are off to Lago de Yojoa again to meet with all the other Honduran Project Trust volunteers as well as Jen and Vegas. It's going to be fab.
The weekend the girls came to visit didn't go as smoothly as one might have liked though, on their first motning here, on our way to collect bread and pastellitos form the bakery, we saw this guy get shot. This man called out to another man on a bicycle and when he turned around just started shooting him. We turned around and cycled away top speed to the sound of him still shotting him repeatedly. The strange thing was it was on the main road into Tela, not a dodgy side street or a creepy alleyway. The lure of the bakery was too strong though so after a while of sitting down we decided to go back. We had to walk past the dead body and the crowd surrounding it with our bikes and people pointing and saying we were the 'two gringas who had seen the shooting and run away'. There was an angry man with a gun, and no way I was sticking around to see what he would do.
It was hard explaining to the other girls our 'bad news'
Me: 'Hey guys, I have bad news...'
Sarah: 'No! The bakery was shut.'
Me: 'No, no the bakery was open-'
Sarah: 'They had no pastel de piñas.'
Me: 'Nope I've got them here-'
Sarah: 'Was the bread stale again?'
Me. 'No. Everything bakery related was fine! ... We saw this guy kill someone outside Telamar.'
silence....
Me: 'Pastel de piña?'
But I feel surprisingly unaffected by seeing my first dead body. It sounds callous but it's hard to feel too strongly about someone you never knew. Apparently they were trying to kill the man's brother but he was too smart for them and got out of Honduras, so they settled for the man on the bike. ç
Despite all that we still had a really fun weekend, which makes me feel even more callous in some ways. We just got up and went on with our day and ate breakfast, went to the beach, went to Maya Vista, ate ice cream and did all the usual things even though we'de seen someone alive one minute, dead the next.
The rest of their time thier went by pretty stress-free, no more dead bodies I can speak of, or car accidents. We joked that each time I meet up with the 'Hondies' something happens, whereas Maurico and Hector (Graciella's sons) have just decided I'm cursed. When I spoke to them about it, they said they've never seen anything like that. The worst Hector's seen is a kidnapping and that was years ago.
The week at school was the easiest week I have had so far in Honduras, I only had exams for my Colegio classes so I didn't have to teach any classes. Instead I decided that my room was ugly and disgusting so I gacve it a make over, I bought paint, boards and paper and cardboard and redid the whole thing. My shelves were really boring and plain so I painted them yellow and finally sorted out their 'library' into age related groups. Put up boards to pin things on and made them look pretty with card and paper. I bought a bin. The room apparently hasn't looked this nice in about 4 years which was the last time they had a teacher in that room who stayed longer than a year. The 10th graders are moving in there next bimester and they really appreciated it so I didn't mind the money.
I brought in music to listen to as I was painting and all the kids gravitated to my room to help me out and listen to my music when they didn't have an exam (which did seem to be most of the time, they had an hour and a half allocated for each one and they comlpeted a few in about 5 minutes). However a couple of times I did have to put my foot down and take the music on conditon they would only get it back if they spoke only English. They can do it but they just don't! Obviously it feels more natural to speak Spanish but when they had the music taken from them they made such an effort and they really can do it.
Then this weekend we went with the school to Copan, 100 of us squeezing into a 60 person bus. We acvtually got stopped and fined for having too many people, I'm amazed we only got a fine! There were people standing, sitting on tires or on preschool chairs in the aisle for FIVE HOURS. It was ridiculous.
I need to leave now, before it gets dark but I will continue soon I promise!
Asta Luego.
