Sarah's Adventures in Honduras

2007-06-22T13:08:00.001-07:00

I rewarded myself for ending up in the right part of town by treating myself to a Moccachino Supreme—the closest thing Honduras can manage to an Iced Caramel Mocha Frappucino ;) I think that my expectations have been forever skewed by the generous employee who served me my first, with surprising whole cookie chunks in the bottom of the cup. Haven’t run into those dang cookie chunks since.

I headed to the bank and hoped my odds for getting money were good (you never really know). The security guard made me squish my duffel between storage containers and the glass bank window (no large security containers available—I guess most people don’t take their travel luggage to the bank…) After the common (minor) frisking before entering, I headed into the revolving door. At this point the revolving door stopped revolving and a voice came over the loud speaker. Uh oh. Everyone is looking at me pushing at the revolving door. This must have to do with me and my moccaccino. I glance and the bank security guard and he is signaling me to back-track. Dang. No Mocaccinos allowed.

It struck me as not a good sign that my bus station was in the middle of a road flanked by funeral parlors…

Contrary to the assurance I received that half an hour before was a terrific time to arrive at the bus station. I arrived to find the line out the door. An hour and a half later I buy a ticket for a bus leaving 2 hours later than my original plan. No problem. I’m in no hurry. I’m on vacation.

There is a little boy riding a bike with training wheels in circles through the line. One training wheel is slightly higher than the other so he balances slightly perilously. He has crashed into and ran over several understanding people.

On the bus

I’m sitting next to an angel. Grey ringlets escaping from her tight bun, deep creases in her face showing the years of laughter and tears. She offers me one of her packs of tajadas, which I politely decline. She burps grape soda and hocks loogies out of the window. I think she is beautiful.
I think about her four daughters. Again, childbirth blows me away. I try to imagine the powerful effect it must have on a person to share their body—house a growing, living being for nine months. Incredible.

I splurged on a taxi—the $2.50 was well worth it—me not having to make out heads from tails in this crazy un-navegable-to-an-outsider city built into the hills.

The weather has put me into a terrific mood.

maiden voyage

2007-06-20T09:22:00.000-07:00

There is something about getting in a car and driving for the first time, all by yourself, with your freshly non-restricted (silly MI) license.

Similarly, there is something about packing your bag and going on your first cross-foreign country trip (the kind of trip you don´t tell your mother about until you´ve safely reached your destination. Sorry mom ;))

So I find myself in Tegucigalpa, my first home in Honduras. I keep kicking myself for being at the internet and not having my little notebook of all of the funny adventures along the way. But I wanted to write you a little something anyway.

I will ask for disculpe in advance from all those San Pedro lovers, but I just have to say that Tegucigalpa is the FAR superior Honduran city. It would win, hands down, even if the only comparison made was the weather. It is beautiful. It is reminiscent of a perfect May day to hit West Michigan--the kind of day that can´t help but lift your spirits and make you walk a little lighter. It is the first time in a long time that I have stood in the sun and not wanted to run for shelter or scream. Instead, I produced an involuntary sigh of contentment.

I´ve finally been able to relax. Lots of telenovelas, porch sitting, and trying my very best to communicate in Spanish.

A week from tomorrow I will be in Chicago. That is such a strange strange thought.

2007-06-17T20:35:00.000-07:00

Marilyn made me light the gas stove tonight. Our NEW gas stove. The one that made us dance for joy in the candlelight when we lost power during massive house dinner preparation. Yes, that would be the one. The one that I was terrified to light. Correction: I AM terrified to light. But Marilyn was there to help me conquer my fear. Ahem—force me to face my fear. I singed all all the hair off of my ring finger. And the fear remains.

There have been hard moments of saying goodbye. Saying goodbye to Elvis was one of those moments. We held hands all day. More for me than for him.

I won’t miss washing my clothes.
The other day I realized that I didn’t really have any clothes left that I hadn’t sweat profusely in. So I spent over an hour at the pila takin’ care of business. Later that night I gathered all of the dry clothes from the line, brought them in, and folded them up to put away when I noticed that over half of them were covered in bird poop. Back in the laundry bag they went.

I won’t miss itching anywhere on my dirty, sweaty body and breaking out into a rash.

But there are a lot of things I will miss about my home here in Honduras. I will miss all of the people playing and talking outside. The soft breeze that blows through the back porch in the late afternoon. The mountains behind the palm trees filling my whole view as I do the to school loop run.

10 more days.

Another slightly terrifying thought.

2007-06-09T18:32:00.001-07:00

School is officially over.

It is hard to believe. In many ways it feels like I had just gotten started. But I can smile and think of reasons why it was also a very long year. It wasn’t as sad or hard on our last day altogether—mainly because I am having small groups of them come in next week to hang out with me and play with me as we do all the games and activities that are hard in a big group. There will be a small group each morning until 11:15 when I’ll spend time cleaning my room and working on paperwork. So much paperwork. Also helping alleviate the hard, sad part of the end of the year is that I’m ready to hand them over to another capable teacher with fresh energy and enthusiasm. I can leave knowing that I put all my energy into doing the best at my job, confident that someone else will continue it.

Maybe you remember how gullible I am. Yesterday was another one of those times that I was completely in the dark. Apparently Jasmine and Thiago had been telling fibs all week, leading us to believe that we were to have an end of the year teacher’s meeting. At our weekly Thursday staff meeting this week, Thiago announced that it would be at 5pm on Friday—our last day of school. You can imagine how that went over—not too popular of an idea at all. Miss Kenya even wrote on the whiteboard at school that we should ser puntuales (be punctual). And they said they would even have it at our house for convenience. I thought that was a nice gesture on their part, saving us an evening walk to school (on the LAST day of school!) So around 4:50 I went out to clean off the back table and organize the porch. Marilyn swept and I set up chairs. At 5:10 still no one had arrived. I was sitting in one of the chairs I set up, feeling a little ticked that we were asked to be punctual when no one else was going to be punctual...
Around 5:15 Thiago showed up to tell us that the meeting was moved to the other house. You’ve got to be kidding, we thought, but maybe this means that there will be a cake...

There was more than a cake. We arrived at our own personal party—first happy hour and appetizers, music, and posters filled with pictures from throughout the year exclaiming “You Did It!” and “Felicitaciones!” Jasmine dressed up in black and white to serve us. Later we were instructed to return back to our own house and were surprised by a huge dinner feast. They had gone to the special grocery store in San Pedro to score boneless, skinless chicken breasts (imagine that!) and made both chicken and eggplant parmigiana, and all kinds of other deliciousness. We weren’t allowed to help, wash, move anything. Stuffed, we played a rousing game of Fishbowl (also called “The Game” or Celebrity), one round being Charades—in Spanish—which made it a lot harder. Except for the Charades round ;)

It was a good night.

2007-06-09T18:32:00.000-07:00

inhumane

2007-06-04T14:48:00.001-07:00

today it was around 100 degrees in my classroom--in the shade--with both fans blasting. That doesn't even include humidity! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

in the dark...

2007-05-30T13:54:00.001-07:00

I had just been thinking that it had been a while since the power shut off. In fact, I had a slight moment of alarm on Saturday morning that perhaps it was going to be of those no power—do no work—sweat through it—kind of days. We tried to figure out a pattern (maybe we could just read the paper…) to the madness and the our smarts led us to believe that this all day black-out happens on Saturdays usually toward the end of the month. So when the power flickered, my panicked ignited. Whew, I happily expended energy all day long. But when the power went out last night, it didn’t strike me that it would be a long-term kind of thing. So I went on eating my hummus and cucumber in the dark, not even letting my mind wander to the mysterious location of the matches. It toyed with us popping on and off twice (later revealed to be a bad bad sign), before we gave up, and with fear felt around the cluttered “veggie table” hoping for a box of candles. The night continued by candlelight in the house where we tried to be productive all the while having that camping mentality that since it was dark that naturally meant bedtime, even though it was only 7:30pm. But sleep was near impossible without the calming noise and heat banishing fan action. I lay in bed literally shaking with laughter at the conversations taking place on the back porch—in the dark. Because they were so classic and true of my time here in Honduras. Of course it was Hilary, the brilliant, innovative, idea tosser-outer (creator of best-job/worst-job) who I heard say, “Ok everyone, what would be your three events in your own personal triathlon :)” Events thrown out there included Nutella eating, napping, and crossword puzzles. What would YOUR top three events be? So I lay in bed laughing at the ridiculous triathlon events, as well as the stupid college stories—you know, like sawing into secret rooms on campus. What?!

Long after the back porch conversations ended and everyone dispersed to their beds, I still lay, my mind running, thinking about how hot I was. So I packed up the sheet, grabbed the bug spray and headed out to the hammock. It was a weird night. I slept outside until 1:45ish and then decided that there MUST be power by now, so I might as well go in and sleep in the comfort of the fan, without the paranoia of bugs, bats, and ladrones—not to mention a crick in the neck. I arrived inside to find no such luck. But I decided to stay inside anyway. Not even an hour later the phone started ringing. I thought maybe it would just ring a few times and then go away, but it just kept ringing and ringing. So I jumped out of bed, and thinking I had a straight shot at it, I dashed for the phone. I had forgotten our back to back Grey’s Anatomy viewing earlier in the afternoon that we had set up seats for movie theatre style. I managed to crash over two chairs and knock a wine bottle candle holder off of a table onto the floor before I was able to grab the phone. 1. I am super glad that the bottle didn’t break because the thought of cleaning up broken glass in the dark at 3am sounds absolutely terrible. 2. I forgot that I don’t understand Spanish in the middle of the night so the conversation just consisted of…hello, uhhhh, what? The only word I remember hearing was coyote, at which I decided that the phone call wasn’t for me. I stumbled back to bed for another 2 and a half hours before waking to find that the power still wasn’t on, I lost my contact trying to put it in my eye in the dark, and left for school without bothering to make sure I didn’t have toothpaste on my face. What crazy times.

2007-05-27T09:54:00.001-07:00

recent pics to come. I promise.

I fly home one month from tomorrow. Can you believe it?

We hung out with the Paris Hiltons of Honduras last night.

2007-05-27T09:53:00.000-07:00

I’m serious. It was…strange and unreal.

After taking Thiago, next year’s administrator and current house guest, to see Pirates of the Caribbean 3—or rather Piratas del Caribe 3 (we saw it in Spanish. I actually couldn’t remember anything about the first or second Pirates movies except how good Orlando Bloom looked so it was a confusing three hours…pirates don’t always speak clearly…), we met up with Bridget, Hilary, and Laurence who were hanging out with some girls Bridget knows living and working in San Pedro. When we got there, they were on the way to hang out with some Honduran friends they met through these girls several weeks ago. ANYWAY, I was tired and ready to get a cab to go home. Emily, Marilyn, and Thiago—also tired—were on my same page. But Hilary strongly encouraged us to come, at least just for the “experience.” Live a little. So when the BMW, giant SUV, trailed by their bodyguard showed up, we got into the car. It was the first (and probably only) Honduran mansion that I’ll ever visit. A beautifully landscaped backyard complete with in-ground swimming pool (that they never use). The ushered us quickly into the backyard, wanting to close up quickly for security purposes.

I wondered what it is like to grow up behind and surrounded by so much security. To never be able to drive around in your car by yourself. I actually felt less safe in the fancy car than I usually do, just knowing that there was a bodyguard in the car behind us…

There was a complete bar by the pool with numerous bottles of alcohol to be consumed. Vodka, rum, and wine of multiple flavors. A tiny, probably new, ipod was connected to a large speaker that played popular music from behind the bar. I stood there, watching the fancy people chain smoke under the awning of the backyard patio, thinking that I’ve never even hung out with people with this amount of wealth in the United States. They all spoke English perfectly and have either completed or are working on degrees in the United States. Ernesto is heading to Duke in the fall to get his Masters in Civil Engineering.

They pulled out Estilo magazine—the equivilent of People or US Weekly of Honduras—showing the “important people” out at the most trendy—must attend see and be seen kind of events in the country. They pointed out their classmates, and family friends--including the owner of Pepsi in Honduras, the founder of Megatel, a cell phone company, and the wealthiest man in Honduras. The people that hold the power and make the decisions. And here I was hanging out with their sons—the next generation of elite.

And I had no idea what to say to them.

So I brought up corruption. :) When I told Thiago this, he laughed and said, “Ohhhh, you’re the hippie protester they sent security in here for.” :) Nah, it didn’t go like that at all. But it was an interesting conversation. I just knew that I wasn’t there to chain smoke or get sloshed, so I might as well take this opportunity to at least try to have a meaningful conversation.

I’m glad I went. It was an experience—that’s for sure. But I never could shake the unnatural feeling I had being there.

It was a marathon to remember.

2007-05-27T09:51:00.000-07:00

It learned about myself in both training and running in it.

I persevered at ran 4 laps on Wednesday without walking a step. Jasmine wouldn’t let me—she ran by my side encouraging me to keep breathing and keep my legs moving. It was the farthest I had ever run in my life. Friday night I slept like a baby—but woke bright an early excited about the big event.

We all walked down to the boulevard, pinned our numbers onto our backs, and waited for our race. As each minute passed it got obviously hotter. And when the race didn’t start until almost 10am, the sun was already high and hot. When our race was called, we laughed to see that us teachers were almost the only ones running in our adult category.

I would say that the first lap was up there with my worst nightmare. I started out too fast so I was quickly overwhelmed by the heat and feeling tired. As I ran around the track people shouted mean comments, taunted me, and told me I couldn’t do it. Which is bad, but even worse, I think, when you are doing something that is very hard for you, something you aren’t really good at, and therefore something you don’t particularly enjoy. It was like the men on the street with their hissing and taunting, their hard, uncomfortable stares. Only times 100.

I didn’t want to do it anymore.

Which started up the debate in my head. Because I didn’t want to be a quitter. I’m not a quitter—I thought to myself. I’ve been training for this! There are lots of hard things in life that you have to press on through—what does this say about you, Sarah, if you give up now?

But my anger at the bullies didn’t make me want to run faster or longer. I wished and wish that it would have. When it came down to it, the marathon was no longer fun, and that it why I wanted to do it in the first place. Not to prove to a bunch of other people that I don’t know that I could do it, but to prove it to myself. As I finished the first lap alone, I didn’t have it in me to face the people again. Tears mixed with sweat and stung my eyes—so angry that I let them get to me, that I couldn’t block it out, that I couldn’t make it my own race. But if it were going to be my own race, I wouldn’t have decided to do it in the first place.

I had an unbelievably better time cheering for my colleagues, buying them water and handing it out at the top of the hardest hill to talk yourself into climbing. But shortly after I started handing out waters, Jasmine jogged by. She looked tired and asked if I would run a lap with her. I ended up doing the last two laps with her, and we finished the race hand in hand. Having had time to rest, I was able to help her keep her pace, and use all of her own encouraging phrases to help her finish the race. She said she doesn’t think she could have finished without me, and I know I wouldn’t have finished without her.

So the marathon didn’t go exactly how I thought it would. But things you look forward to rarely do.

I checked weather.com after the race. 93 feels like 101 degrees. Not everyone can say they attempted a marathon in that heat!

p.s. Today is cloudy (of COURSE), and right now at 11am it is still only 91 feels like 94. The injusticia!

So I’m training for a marathon.

2007-05-27T09:48:00.000-07:00

Slightly absurd, yeah, I know. I’m not a runner. But I am signed up for Cofradía’s very own little 5K marathon taking place this Saturday. I’m kicking myself for not training sooner—like in flat Michigan, in a not-as-tropical climate. It takes place on our one nicely paved road—the boulevard leading into town. 5 laps for women, 7 for men. So far I’ve run 3…I wanted to run 4 today, but I didn’t want it bad enough. It was hard to want it bad enough when I went to run by myself, and having to go to the bathroom with urgency. I think I spent the whole first two laps scoping out the side of the road to see if there was anywhere to relieve myself. No go. I’ll let you know how Saturday goes…cheer for me around noon eastern time!

We’ve kind of stopped cooking as we all began training for the marathon. Not that we don’t want to eat—we do—we’re just subsisting on the massive amounts of leftover tortillas given to us after various community social events (there’s a lot to do with a leftover tortilla—blank slate my friends). I think it also has something to do with the death of our third burner which coincided with the start of our “training.”

As this week finishes up, I will start my final week of normal classes at school before exams. It is a strange feeling. The feeling of the end hasn’t hit me yet.

I am having job leads. This is good—good for my self esteem.

On Monday Orlando came up to me (while I was teaching) and wrapped his chubby, sweaty arms around me. I looked down at him, found him looking up at me, and had such joy to hear him exclaim, with much enthusiasm, “I love vocabulary words Miss!!!!”

We’re doing multiplication these days. Blows me away. These are the kids that, once I introduced borrowing and carrying, completely blanked on how to add and subtract. Watching them learn is so beautiful.

job woes

2007-05-19T12:28:00.002-07:00

It is hard to grasp the knowledge of the small amount of time left in school. Two more “real” weeks which is only 10 days which sounds completely ridiculous. Then comes exams, recuperations, a week of vacation, and a 5 days of saying goodbye and packing up before it is again unknown when I will make it back down to Honduras. And it is unknown what will be the location for the next chunk of time in my life. And I am a person that doesn’t deal with that all that well. The kind of girl that has a plan and a back-up plan and a back-up back-up plan. But I’m learning to trust. That God will show me the next stretch of the path when I need to see, and that for now I just need to be obedient in where I am and what I am doing.

I was going to send a cover letter and a resume today, but it always just strikes me as WRONG when I feel like I should delete parts of my cover letter about my passion for urban education or Spanish since those parts wouldn’t be as relevant for the job. So maybe I won’t apply for the job...

2007-05-19T12:28:00.001-07:00

This week Irma came up to me with little pieces of Styrofoam in her hair. It should always be a red flag if someone comes up to you with little pieces of Styrofoam in their hair when you aren’t using little pieces of Styrofoam, but in fact, Styrofoam cups. Before I had the change to scold her for destroying the materials for our science experiment, she said to me, “Hello, I come from the Far North.” At which point I burst out laughing. It had to have come from a movie. I don’t think I ever used “Far North” exactly to describe coming from Michigan.

The weather has been glorious. And by glorious I mean heavily clouded to block the sun’s rays :) It has been ominous these past couple of days and I have been excited with the prospect of a thunderstorm (slim chances). Yesterday the nubes just couldn’t hold it any longer. It was the first downpour in months. The kids went nuts. They immediately jumped out of their seats to peer out the window and began to chant and sing in Spanish about rain. Good thing there was only about 5 minutes left until lunch so after heavily warning them about not getting “too wet” or splashing mud all over their uniform which would “make their mothers very angry,” we went to get a closer look at the rain. I have definitely learned that it is NOT worth it to go against a flow that strong. You just strive to keep their flow under your control. Way less stress. Way happier life.

My children have made it out of the present

2007-05-19T12:27:00.000-07:00

That’s right. They now have a minimal vocabulary to communicate that things have actually happened to them in the past. It is beautiful when they whip out one of those words. Said, ate, went, was—all sweet sweet music to my ears. I couldn’t help but laugh when Orlando was trying to tell me something—I think he was actually tattling at the moment and he got a little caught in his words. The whole class paused while I called on Orlando for his statement, he sputtered, “He, he…He he he he…He SAID (which he yelled)” and I broke into a grin, which may or may not have been all that appropriate in the moment, and had to chuckle silently.

Sometimes I feel like my students and I are at about the same place in our ability to communicate in another language. I’ve got them beat at reading and writing though ;)

Pinnies have revolutionized P.E.

2007-05-19T12:26:00.000-07:00

I never even knew what a pinny was—well, unnamed I am familiar with the team marking strategy that goes way back—shirts vs. skins, etc. But having colored mesh shirts to distinguish soccer and kickball teams has really done a little something to save my sanity twice a week. No longer is my mind spinning from trying to remember which kid goes with which team—mentally trying to calculate if I decided on even table numbers against odd table numbers, or if today I decided to switch it up and it is tables 1,2, 7 vs. 3, 4, 6, 5 or something else random. Which leads me to strenuously trying to mentally categorize the kids into their table numbers while they run down the field. Which leads to why I usually just stand it the shade and cheer for everyone hoping that they figure it out. Once in a while I give my (wo)man-produced whistle to make an announcement or remind them to be conscious about their “accidental” pushing.

The only trouble is that the pinnies don’t actually fit my children. They fall of their small bodies and catch around the elastic at their waists. I have taken to knotting the pinnies on either shoulder (or both for the littlest), an endeavor that takes about 20 minutes of P.E. The more hardcore players who just want to get playing often let the pinny fall to their waist, and they let it hang down in tutu-fashion. Or in their frustration toss it into a tree, to come back to collect later. And then I am back where I started, chasing them around the field asking, “Blue or orange?”

2007-05-07T14:59:00.000-07:00

thoughts of wireless internet or drinking water that comes from the tap are blowing my mind today.

4 more real weeks of school. UNreal. Yesterday we realized that there are no more days when it will just be us. That is even crazier than the 4 weeks of school reality. We´ve laughed about how many visitors we get for being backcountry Honduras :)

2007-05-06T13:43:00.000-07:00

I've realized that no one emails on the weekends. Except for me. And I'm slowly learning to be ok with that.

It's raining. It's like the break in the fever. May it be the end of the 97 feels like 107 degree weather in my life.

a story I recently shared with a friend...

2007-05-06T13:40:00.000-07:00

so I´ve been trying to spend lots of my free moments wandering to different students´ homes to hang out with them and their families. I had Tuesday off from school and decided to go play at the house of one of my favorite families (mostly because I met the beautiful baby just days after she was born). When I go we usually play duck duck gooseand run through their tiny one room house in pursuit of the ducker.This time when I went into the house to set down my backpack, I was startled to see a big momma chicken in the corner. She had made her nest in the corner of their one room house! My student, Juan Carlos,went right over and lifted her off of her nest to show me all of theeggs she was sitting on to hatch. There were two little baby chicks just chillin´ and he told me that they had been born that morning. He encouraged me to try to pick up the mom, and laughed at my nervous false-starts. I didn´t want to hurt her! And I didn´t know where to grab! It was a good think I hesitated because when he reached down to show me how to do it she gave him a peck! I don´t know how sanitary it is to let a chicken and her babies live in the corner of your one room house, but that wasn´t what I was thinking at the time. I was thinking that it was all very Wendell Berry :)

Wednesday

2007-05-05T13:13:00.000-07:00

It’s almost 8:30 and I think I’m going to head to bed. I’m writing because I have the time, but I’m also procrastinating going to bed because 8:30 is such a wimpy bedtime.

I’ve been having funny teaching dreams lately. This morning I actually woke up putting my kids into alphabetical order without a list, or something ridiculous and stressful like that. I had one I think you’ll appreciate—but I’ll set it up for you first. I am a history non-buff. I’m actually rather ashamed of my lack of ability to retain a single historical fact—it is perhaps physically impossible for me. I’ve passed all classes containing historical information only by the sheer endurance of my short-term memory. Anyway, that mixed with being asked how to write moustache during journaling time, and looking at the word with complete lack of confidence in my spelling of it—I mean, come on, how often do I write the word moustache. Had I ever written the word moustache before that very day? My nightmare: I had to teach a lesson on Thomas Jefferson. I felt good about it. People were asking me if I was going to prepare and I responded, “What’s there to prepare? Everyone knows about Thomas Jefferson.” Then I got up in front of the class and all I could think of to say was that he had long hair and a moustache (the latter isn’t even true, right?) I think I woke up sweating from that one.

Though not the only time I have woken up sweating lately…

So yesterday was “labor day” around here, making Monday night “Friday night.” We stayed up until at least 10 and were eagerly anticipating sleeping in the next morning until at least 7. (I know--weird life). Until…I woke up at 11:32, sweating profusely, mere moments I’m told, after the power went out. This was one of those sleeping-without-the-fan nights that would have been unbearable. So I put on the flip flops and headed out to the hammock. Bridget followed soon after (our room is an oven), and I actually managed to sleep comfortably until 2:30am when I decided to head back into the house. The power stayed out until around 11:30 that morning—but we missed it due to our río adventure.

It started with packing 11 people, 3 coolers, an inflatable pool and raft (with oars) into the back of a pick-up truck. After boarding, the truck actually played dead in front of our house for at least a half an hour. We sat there crowded into the truck bed, sweating on each other, contemplating the possibility of this trip not really happening. But after a few minutes of clunking and banging, she roared to life and we were on our way. We drove only about 15 minutes out of town and another 20 off-roading down a path to our vacation destination. Our first sight was of a man sitting inside of a pila taking a bath. It made us chuckle and slightly jealous—who wouldn’t want to chill in their pila!?

It was here at the río that I encountered the grassy piece of earth I’ve been fantasizing about all year (who would have thought I would fantasize about Commons Lawn :)) The trouble was that it turned out to be grass like any other grass in Honduras—so sharp that it cut through my towel scratching up my legs and spreading a rash wherever it touched. (This always happens when I try to play duck duck goose, too). So I hit the río in a giant blow up boat with two miniature oars that weren’t really cut out to do the job. Lisa took front, me lounging in the rear, and we paddled full force toward tiny tiny rapids in the distance. When we realized that we were kicking and paddling with everything in us and still not moving, we decided to give up. To give you the contrast of our competitive natures: Lisa felt like a failure, while I commented, “That’s alright. This is a very nice distance to view the rapids.” ;)

walk on the shady side of the street...

2007-04-14T13:52:00.000-07:00

So I'm sweating back in Honduras again.

It’s hot. It’s really hot. I don’t want to touch anything or anything to touch me. Peter emailed to tell me that there was some wet snow that came down in Chicago, and I immediately began fantasizing about swimming in a slushy. Mmm. Such a nice thought. It hit 102 several days last week, and living in a house with no air and functioning in a classroom without even glass on the windows, it’s been a little toasty. A lot of sitting around in our bathing suits or in towels, staring into space, thinking about ice cream, and getting nothing done. Monday is supposed to be the hottest day of the year. But there are a lot of rumors. Other rumor: Either on April 17 or the 24 the suns rays are going to be so dangerous that we can’t have school because no one should go outside. They are calling it something that translates as “sun explosion,” though as appealing as that sounds, it’s not exactly what they mean. We are also having half days every day next week because of the heat. No one can concentrate or stay hydrated the way things are right now. It’s gross.

I’m not sure what I am going to do with all my free time next week. Maybe harass more principals about wanting me to teach for them next year. Maybe start a doctorate thesis. More likely, probably soak different parts of my body in a laundry bucket of cold water.

Life here is funny sometimes.

Last night we were such a sight. Laurence peeling a potato, Hilary eating half of a (bigger than a basketball) watermelon—digging in with a spoon. Anna in her school clothes covered in flour, hands sticky with dough, Bridget eating cornflakes for dinner on the front steps…all of us sweating profusely. We were sweating so much while eating dinner (outside even!) that we had to wipe off! I had to pull my shirt up and wipe sweat off my face and neck so that I didn’t sweat on my food! Oh gosh, I’m back to talking about how hot it is.

I got home from the internet place the other day to find Laurence prowling around the premises with a fist full of leaves. “What are you doing Laurence…” I asked him, baffled at the sight. “Looking for leaves.” And that was it. Later, near his work space in the house, there was a giant bag full of leaves. Bridget was going to use the phone, but was hindered by all of the leaves and asked, “Where did all these leaves come from?” “That’s just Laurence’s’ leaf project,” we responded. And that’s not weird at all.

It reminded me of the time that there was a glass jar full of dirt on the side of the kitchen sink for a couple of days. At least we thought it was dirt and assumed it was one of someone’s projects…like the avocado seed sprouting on the counter. A few days later, someone requested that the owner of the project take it elsewhere or despose if it. As it turns out, our Oregano bag had broken and the entire time it was a big jar of Oregano on the side of the kitchen sink. So odd.

other thought from Guatemala

2007-04-14T13:50:00.000-07:00

I have a somewhat resistible, but nevertheless undeniable urge to buy one of those large pieces of beautiful cloth that women use to strap their babies to themselves. I mean, why not have a real deal baby body strap rather than to buy one in the who-knows-when future from Baby Gap or Urban Outfitters or wherever they would sell something like that. But the resistible part of the urge comes from the obvious uncertainty surrounding the time frame for a child to potentially leave my body and need to be then strapped to me (or my husband).

I didn't buy one :)

The volcano adventure in pictures...

2007-04-12T14:36:00.000-07:00

thoughts from Guatemala (SB07)

2007-04-10T13:47:00.000-07:00

I often struggle to answer the question, "What is the craziest thing you have ever done?" How exactly does someone define crazy...? Risking mortality or laughing in the face of danger (not one of my hobbies ;)) I usually think of the time when we skinny dipped in a lake formed in a crater in Nicaragua. Or that time in college where we sled down the steep hill in a row boat filled with a dozen people onto a just barely, not really, frozen pond. These days, I would probably answer moving to Honduras to teach second grade :) but I'm quite sure that yesterday takes the cake for craziness in my minimally risky life.

Walking down the street in Antigua, Guatemala we met Manolo, a Guatemalan man with a long, curly ponytail and a quick grin. He talked us into to paying $8or so to take a bus 2 hours away and hike up Pacaya, an active volcano--one of those things you don't tell your mother about until much later.

It immediately started out funny because everyone who got on that bus with us were members of our ¨peer group Antigua.¨ There was the beautiful guy with floppy hair named Ian that Anna met and kept running into on her first day here, and calls her ¨substitute boyfriend.¨ There were the two girls that went to the same teacher conference with us in Tegucigalpa whose house we went to for Thanksgiving. Yeah, weird, huh. There was a guy named Vance who went to Hope and roomed with a guy I went to high school with. AND the guy who spent the whole 10 hour drive next to me on the bus to Guatemala sat with me on this bus. And there was also the guy who tried to sell us his writing at a bar the previous night. So so random. We had to laugh.

The actual hike was ridiculous—only worth it for the story. It downpoured the ENTIRE time up the volcano as we hiked uphill through the woods. So giant streams of muddy water cascading towards us as we thought of mudslides. It finally stopped raining when we got to the part where we had to hike over the loose lava rocks. That was the tricky part. Probably over an hour of careful stepping over sharp, loose rocks. We didn´t go all the way to the lava, though we had some about foot from our feet. We could see it glowing red down beneath the very rocks we were stepping on. Some of the rocks were white with ashes. Think super unsupervised. After we got to the loose rocks I never saw our guides again.

A lot of our group headed straight to the lava. Like next to falling, burning liquid. So so scary. I decided that I didn´t need to get that close. (As it turns out, my bus buddy Jacob melted the soles right off his shoes!!!) Anyway, it started to get really foggy. We couldn´t see more than 10 feet ahead of us! And we knew we only had half an hour before dark! So, without our group, we decided to start heading back. The only problem was that we couldn´t see which way to go and it was a giant field of big lava rocks. This (not very encouraging) man kept telling us to hurry because we only had a few more minutes of light. What got us to the end of that part was seeing a light in the distance of what we later found out to be a man sitting on a blanket with his daughter. WHY? Anyway, after that we still had to hike down a steep, wet hill with the tiniest flashlight known to mankind. Anna teared up with fear. But I thought it was awesome. I mean, when will I ever do that again?! I knew we would make it fine as long as we went slow and stayed together. It started raining really hard for the last part of the hike. People kept falling in horse poop that they couldn´t see in the dark. (That was another funny part. The whole beginning of the trip we were surrounded by men with horses that kept saying, ¨Taxi? Taxi?¨ hehe :)) But we made it safe and sound to the bottom. And took a picture. I felt like I was on survivor.

2007-03-17T13:40:00.001-07:00

We recently watched Marilyn learn about Sloppy Joes for the first time. The whole concept of it was so out of her schema—“How do you eat it?” and “Isn’t that thousand island dressing?” She was so incredulous that we couldn’t help, but chuckle. “She obviously never ate elementary school lunches,” was Anna’s response.

A random smattering of thoughts...

2007-03-17T13:36:00.000-07:00

So we have a new teacher these days. His name is Laurence and he arrived a week or two ago to help us out with preschool and kindergarten. He was walking down the hall the morning after he arrived and, of course, my students all got up to gawk at him, being a new face in our territory. I invited him in for a quick introduction and allowed the students to ask him questions about himself. They were the standard, “What is your favorite color?” “Your favorite game?” “Your favorite animal?” Until it was Fabiola’s turn. She says to him, “Mister Laurence, are you a carnivore, an herbivore, or an omnivore?” with complete sincerity. I had to stifle a laugh—I think I might have even pulled that coughing, choking thing to cover up the uncontrollable giggle. Laurence handled it like a pro, responding that he is an omnivore :) I was so proud of Fab. We had just taken a test on it the previous week :)

I’m trying to think of other recent moments that have made me smile. Today I was going to make copies down the road and there were two horses randomly wandering down my street, meandering into the intersection unattended. I just wonder where they came from, who they belong to.

OH! Strange moment of the century. Well, maybe century is exaggerating a bit, but this left me flabbergasted. I was walking home from school today and made a quick stop to buy bananas. Then we went on our way walking home and a bus passed by (a bus always passes by). What made this time different was that Jill Girtz and Sylvee Harris—TWO CALVIN STUDENTS yelled my name and waved as they passed by in the bus! They must be on the Calvin Honduras semester, but I didn’t know that. And what are the chances that the bus they were on to go who knows where would pass me on my way home from school!?! If I hadn’t stopped to buy bananas, I probably wouldn’t have been passing at the right time. So so crazy. The world gets smaller by the minute.

Other news: we have 15 volunteers here from Claremont-McKenna College in CA so life is bustling with activity. It is fun to meet new people. They went through a rigorous application process to be able to come and spend their spring break volunteering at our school. So they all really want to be here. We’re trying to make it a fun, memorable experience for them.

Peter made it successfully and safely to Honduras on Friday night. It was so good to spend some time with him before putting him on a bus to El Salvador early Saturday morning. I’m really looking forward to him coming back next Monday and having him here in the Cof. for awhile. I’m assuming he made it to El Salvador…

It rained on Friday night. Thunderstorm rained. It was a beautiful sight. I don’t think it has rained like that since before Christmas.

I can’t believe how time flies.

2007-03-04T16:01:00.000-08:00

There has been a lot going on down here. The passing of time has brought many changes. Time and change happens in such an odd way here. Because the weather is always relatively the same, there isn’t that seasonal change that goes along with the progression of time. If you told me it was September, that I was being fooled all this time, I just might believe you.

Friday was one of those classic days that I always want to remember and treasure from my time here. Because of our short day of school, I was able to talk to a good friend on the phone, and then return home to read in the hammock. A good book—do you ever read something and it puts into words so many things that you have been thinking about life? It was one of those times. Where I wanted to have my journal handy to record the words I found to describe thoughts swirling around in my head. Emily motivated us to work out early—before dinner—since Lawrence’s welcome dinner would probably go late and give us reason not to work out :) It was pretty much like we were filming on location for some aerobics video. Marilyn, not in her workout clothes, danced around us, lip synching in support. Emily’s friend Dave, a current visitor, was pushed to the far edge of the back porch behind the hammocks with his binoculars at his eyes, bird book on his lap—totally ignoring the six awkward, sweating, jumping girls prancing, no lunging, around the porch to loud, energetic music. It was one of those moments where you can see yourself from the perspective of someone else and the whole picture just appears so ridiculous that you can’t help, but laugh. So Lawrence is a new member of our team—a friend of Hilary’s—who arrived on Friday. Of course he showed up just in time to catch all six of us, in sports bras belting out Ain’t No Mountain High Enough while doing step-ups on the back porch. We were all half in transition to towels—me in the shower—when we heard Brown Eyed Girl come up next on the music shuffle. We quickly abandoned changing and showering to dance around, singing into dumbbells. What a sight we were. What a sight. Afterward we kicked dinner into high gear, pumping out a delicious Indian food feast to welcome Lawrence as well as the guests in town. It was a good night.

I like those times.

It has been a busy time for me. Last time I wrote, Grace was on her way down. I got to spend five terrific days with her—showing her the ins and outs of my life here, and took a nice, relaxing trip to the beach. Then exams happened. Today, parent teacher conferences… Preparations for Peter coming! What a whirlwind! It hardly seems reality that when I sadly put Peter back on a plane for the United States, I go on spring break, and then it is the second week of April already!! It is kind of happy, sad, exciting, and overwhelming all at once. I’m starting to be forced to think more seriously about next year. I’ll keep you posted of course.

I have to go type up some cool stuff about dinosaurs, but stay tuned. I have more to tell you.

2007-02-16T13:25:00.000-08:00

I just saw a little old woman on the street wearing a white t-shirt that said, ¨You should see this wet.¨ HA! If only she knew! I couldn´t stop chuckling as I passed her. It reminded me of the young professional at the immigration office wearing a middle school varsity jacket or our school watchman Wilmer and his t-shirt that says, ¨Don´t play stupid with me. I´m better at it.¨

hehehe hahaha

Trying to...

2007-02-14T15:41:00.000-08:00

love.

Love never gives up.

Love cares for others more than for self.

Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.

Love doesn't strut,

Love doesn't have a swelled head,

Doesn't force itself on others,

Isn't always "me first,"

Doesn't fly off the handle,

Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,

Doesn't revel when others grovel,

Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,

Puts up with anything,

Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly.

2007-02-13T19:13:00.000-08:00

You’ve gotta love the internet joints that let you eat an ice cream cone while checking your email. This would never fly in the States ;)

I want to tell you about something that happened recently. I know I’m getting pretty terrible at telling you about things the day that they happen.

Wait! I do have something to tell you about from today! So, electricity out, right, (whoooole other story) so no bells. We just walk around saying “ding” really loudly before I ring my goodwill (purchased) cowbell violently to get the kids wandering in the far corners. At the ding, my kids are supposed to line up in our designated spot by our door. It is often common to find them playing dog and owner in the hallway (hopefully not with the class jump ropes also involved…), pushing and shoving, or doing the splits (You’d think they’d tire of doing the splits, but they really don’t). Sometimes I’m lucky if I find them even near the spot where they are supposed to be. Anyway, today I finished filling my water bottle, took a deep breath, and tried to mentally prepare myself for stepping into the hallway and facing the rest of the hot, fanless afternoon. The sight before me gave me both a wave of confusion and amusement because there, in two straight lines, were all of my students sitting on the floor, rocking from left to right, chanting something incomprehensible (later they told me, “uno, dos, uno, dos…) . In fact, kids from other grades had also joined in! So…you roll with it, right? I had them to the wave forward and backward :) and then started them rowing. As they chanted row, row, row, row—switching from left to right—I couldn’t help, but chuckle at the completely ridiculous situation.

This week is a long one. I feel like tomorrow should be Friday, but it’s only…Wednesday. The best news about that is that Grace is coming in one week!!!! AhhhhhH!!!!! I can’t believe it! It is strangely still so surreal to me. It probably won’t feel real until she steps off the plane. I can’t wait.

2007-02-12T14:59:00.000-08:00

I think I’ve had a little too much free time on my hands lately. It’s better when I can keep busy. Much harder when I have time to start thinking about missing people that I love and start to worry about the future/jobs/applying/moving/leaving my team here. I’ve been trying to keep the free time in check—trying to use it to do things I’ve been meaning to get done (really pick up all of the crayons on my classroom floor). And instead of getting sad about missing people, sitting down and writing emails to keep in touch. My strategy to battle missing people: Write everyone (this only works if they write back). Another strategy: Get out of the house. When I feel down I would much rather be alone thinking about my misery. But I always try to do the opposite because I know it always takes my mind off stuff and drags me out of the blues.

SO, we went dancing in the city. It was my first time ever! I didn’t really want to go because by the time people leave for these kinds of activities is always after when I usually go to bed. But I felt it necessary to prove that I’m not totally lame-o, so I decided to go. Another reason for my hesitation was that we would have to ride in the back of a pickup truck. Real wind blown hair, right? Not exactly the reason for my hesitation…but anyway, Luis, who we refer to as nice twin (who knew there were two? I just thought he was around a lot!) showed up to escort 8 of us girls + Fermin out for a night on the town. We got all fancy, swapping clothes and jewelry, ooohing and aaahhhing over clothing items not brought out for everyday Cof. wear-al. We pulled out the make-up—Marilyn had to pry mine open with a knife because it melted shut (no joke) and I think Anna even blow-dried her hair. We should have taken a picture. The ride there was good—beautiful to look up at the stars. Too bad it was so windy that I had to keep one eye shut after a close call with my contact blowing out of my eye. We did, however, get stopped by the policemen with big guns on the way home—probably to ask Luis what the heck he was doing with 7 Americans in the back of his truck. The actual dancing experience was alright. It is more fun to have someone to dance with for the fun salsa and meringue, bachata and cumpio(?) songs (especially if they know what they are doing :)). Luis rotated to dance with all of us, but there was only so much he could do :) The place played the most random mix of music ever—from P.Diddy to the Beatles to classic salsa to techno. It was laughable and impressive at the same time. It was nice to get out.

Other random news:

They actually sell cornflakes popsicles. No, this is not some kind of sick joke. It even has its own name—a more sophisticated name than cornflakes popsicle.

I was making granola in the toaster oven when it started on fire. Not the granola, but the toaster oven. Something must be done.

Our blender is on its way out. We had actually retired it to the blender graveyard which we just recently sent to the trash (who needs various blender parts anyway?), but took it out after further testing. Since then it has acquired a crack in which it shoots out the liquid that you are blending. It is safest to blend with two people. One monitoring the speed and the other holding it shut. Maybe duct tape?

It is getting hotter. On Saturday when I went out on the back porch to assume the writing you from the hammock position, I turned around and walked right back inside. Similarly, when I arrived home from school today I almost immediately removed all unnecessary clothing, made a banana licuado, and found a place to write you from in front of the fan :) This could be a long summer (Feb-April…) I think amplifying the problem was the lack of electricity until 3pm today. If you remember from my earlier blogs the kiddos tend to strip and not learn when it gets above 90. This afternoon didn’t go well when there wasn’t a fan to blow around the warm air.

The extensive free time was due to a week full of half days (school ending at 11:15am) followed by a weekend with no plans. Today, being our first full day back at school, was one of the longer days of my life.

More soon,

shubs

2007-02-07T15:05:00.000-08:00

Continuing with the bug theme...so teeny tiny ants (a new species that we´ve spotted in the house) decided to infest my empty contact case and feed on the dried up saline solution. I know it is blurred, but thing entire extended family, here.

Look closely in the bottom right of this picture. You will see white yarn. It is a contraption I rigged up to hold up our fan that took a hit and no longer stands on its own. It is strapped to a concrete block.

We´ve been doing a lot of this:

With increased baleada consumption, a couple of girls had increased waistlines. No longer. I´m to the left of the orange pole wearing the dark clothes.

We hadn´t had a power outage in a long time, but last week it went out right before our alarm clocks were supposed to ring us awake. It was out until the afternoon, so breakfast was by candlelight. The box is the good ol´ cornflakes.

My first loaf of bread baked from scratch.

These pictures deserve their own story...but for now I will let you come up with your own...

2007-02-04T16:33:00.000-08:00

In Honduras you can’t be in a hurry or have an agenda. You just go with the flow as things work themselves out. A half dozen people will give you information they are certain about, but in the end, sometimes, maybe most of the time, it isn’t even true. Even seemingly “simple” or obvious questions about bus station locations or bus schedules—there isn’t a way to really know.

That said, I went to the beach two weekends ago (yes, I’m trying to catch you up). When flying back to Honduras after Christmas, I noticed this interesting stretch of coastline that created almost a perfect triangle cut into the country. The beach and the forest around this area looked beautiful and untouched. Anna also noticed it, and we decided that that was where we wanted to go for the weekend. We were actually able to find it on the map (the triangle part helped ;)) and planned the bus route. When arriving in San Pedro to get on our first bus, we couldn’t find it. We got directions from people on the streets, and ended up at bus station that didn’t have buses to take us to where we wanted to go. We had an address from a guidebook for another bus station supposedly in existence, but it didn’t seem to be where it was supposed to be. We asked people about this one, but no one seemed to know about it. Finally, we found someone who thought they knew someone who might know where it was…(this seems to happen a lot). But this time he did! We arrived at 4:30, but bus tickets for the 4:45 bus were already sold out. No problem. We weren’t in any hurry. We got some licuados and grilled cheese sandwiches before heading back to the bus station for take two. To make this long story shorter, we eventually got to the beach we wanted to be at. It was so nice and relaxing—a longer than expected trip, but it was so worth it. We spent the day reading, journaling, and dozing on the beach. I must add that I’m not a dozing-on-the-beach kind of girl. I’m way too much of a control freak, also afraid of sunburn, bugs, and rabid beach dogs (don’t worry mom). We went to dinner at a little restaurant down the road, and that is when we first asked about transportation from the village to the beach town where we would catch the bus again back to San Pedro. He said, “Well, sometimes there are buses on Sunday, but sometimes there aren’t. It depends on whether or not the guy who drives the bus decides to…” Ehhhh…well…there was always the option of getting to Tela by cab and supposedly someone would probably be driving around sometime around the time we would want to go to Tela…. It all sounded a little sketch. Later that night Bridget and Lisa went for a walk on the beach. They realized that the village we were staying in I split in two by a lagoon that once in a while floods and covers the road. The place to catch the bus was, of course, located on the other side of the lagoon. At that moment, it was possible to walk through shallow water to get to the side with the buses, but it was unknown whether or not that would still be true in the morning. I pictured us walking through the water with our duffle bags over our heads :) They also found a man with a canoe that would take us across the short distance. Marilyn and I decided to take a walk on the beach and check out the situation for ourselves. It was confirmed that the buses were indeed going to run on Sunday, and that it would only cost us around 10 cents to take the canoe to the bus. But what time? Who knows?! I think they said, “Maybe 7, maybe 8, maybe 8:30…” Lisa and I decided to leave the hotel around 7:30 to hopefully walk to the canoe, boat across the lagoon, and catch an 8am bus. (That might sound kind of early to ya’ll, but I am usually already teaching by then!) We gathered up our things and started the trek to the canoe, only to see a big yellow bus driving down the road toward us!!!!! I checked my watch—7:43am. You just have to laugh, right? So we boarded the bus that would later drive through a shallow part of the lagoon to take us to Tela.

You just never know.

2007-02-04T12:21:00.000-08:00

There are so many things to tell you. I always let this happen…shoot. Besides the fact that I left you with a really disgusting image!

Anyway, I should add that the flies around here are of a breed. Or maybe they’ve just been raised differently. I grew up with the notion that if a fly lands on your arm, your leg, or any other body part, you give it a little shake and it takes care of the problem. I mean, horses just give that toss of their tail and bam, flies be gone. Well, it doesn’t work that way in Honduras. If a fly lands on your arm, and you give it a shake, little or even violent, and it hangs on for dear life. It doesn’t go anywhere! It often takes a multiple violent shakes for a fly to leave! Or it just has to make up its mind on its own to leave. Maybe the flies down here have claws?

This is more common than you know (or want to believe to be true)

2007-01-27T17:12:00.000-08:00

I lead the kind of life where, more often than not, as I bring my toast up to my mouth I see an ant crawling on my arm, and smash it skillfully with my chin before taking a bite. Or side swipe 'em with the side of my face.

yes. I admit it.

2007-01-14T16:23:00.000-08:00

The hammock feels good today. My body suspended in air and gently rocking in the breeze tranquil-izing all of the rolling emotions within me today. If only, every so often, my eyes didn’t beg to be shut. This entry might take awhile. To give you a more complete picture…I have hooked the laptop to the extension cord running out the door to the back porch so that I can be lying peacefully and writing here in the hammock to you. My right leg is draped over the hammock reaching to the plastic chair so that the gentle rocking can continue.

I was planning on writing you today about how my 23^rd birthday passed here in Honduras, but somewhere between that decision and now, I have decided to write about something else. **I must note that it was at this point in writing that I saw a giant uuumm iguana, perhaps, crawling on the outer wall of our house, yelled for anyone to come witness this animal spotting with me, tripped over the cord of the computer, cutting the power and losing the entire entry…

but here we continue. Today was big for a couple of reasons and the reasons kind of intermingle one with another (causing some up and down emotions, let me tell you). I had been trying to get a hold of my mom these past couple of days, starting on Friday so that we could reminisce about that day 23 years ago when we first laid eyes on one other. But no one was home. I tried her work. I tried that night. Nothing. I tried the next day, and sent an email…as each day produced no communication with my mother, I started to worry. Wouldn’t she expect that I would call on my birthday since (I was fairly certain) she wouldn’t be able to get through to me…What if something happened at home—would she know how to contact me, or would someone else? Those were the thoughts crossing my mind with some fear last night, and mixed with an intense Grey’s Anatomy episode viewing, they also came up in my dreams. I woke up every couple of hours from dreams filled with death, sadness, and grief. I felt increasingly farther away and out of contact. When I woke up around 7, I started to tell myself—Sarah, you’re really not all that farther away than California—pretend you live in California (it didn’t work). Finally I decided to try again to call my house. When my mom picked up I could barely speak I was so overwhelmed with relief. I was laughing and crying all at the same time—crying from joy and the release of all my irrational fears that had built up over three days (she was so confused!). Laughing because my mom and grandparents had tried to call on my birthday (with no success) only to listen, confused, to a Spanish speaking recording over and over and over…

You see, each year as far back as I can remember, both my mom and my grandparents call singing—they don’t even say hello, but just break out into song. I remember one year in college my mom left the singing message on my answering machine, and with a cold, the singing was so bad (sorry mom ;)) that we kept the message on there all year long so that we could listen to it when we needed some extra cheer. Anyway, on Friday I was thinking that that was the only thing that could have really made my birthday better (you know, besides the obvious…foot massage, Jacuzzi, etc.) would be those phone calls. I was thinking that when I heard the phone ring inside. It was for me! I went inside not knowing what to expect—probably a call about a homework assignment—but when I said hello, the singing began…in Spanish! My Honduran host family from when I studied in Tegucigalpa during college had called to sing! They passed the phone from family member to family member—each one giving me messages of love. Immediately, tears started pouring down my face. It was so special.

So lots of emotions. And intermingled with this is what I want to end with—my surprise when I realized that it has already happened: Already, life here in Honduras has become the real, the normal, the stable. This is where I am, what I am doing, what I have some feeling of control over. That wasn’t the case when I first got here. Life in the States, my relationships there—that was what felt concrete and stable to me. But so quickly that has all become fuzzy, muddled, and unsteady, out of my hands. I remember thinking to myself, and even saying out loud during vacation, that I needed to be writing things down—so that I could remember what I was feeling, experiencing, reflecting on…I wish I would have listened to myself more because now those thoughts are somewhere else, perhaps also suspended in air, somewhere between Atlanta and San Pedrizzle. I’m struggling making sense of thoughts I had outside of Honduras because they know longer fit into the context of what is currently real to me. I think that is what I am trying to say.

Anyway, parent-teacher conferences down. Painless. Iguana gone. Dance aerobics on the back porch in ten.

you can call it festive...

2007-01-13T13:59:00.000-08:00

or headache inducing...

we didn´t really want to draw more attention to ourselves...

(Can you NOT stop yourself from imagining clowns coming out!?)

What was wrong with this?!

:)

Thank you all

2007-01-13T13:57:00.001-08:00

for your outpouring of birthday wishes and e-love sent my way. I think that was the best part about being in the States—remembering how many fantastic people there are in my life, being reminded how much they love and support me, and being able to communicate with them easier. Minus the easier communication part, a birthday is good for that too. I’m overwhelmed by how thankful I feel and blessed I am by the relationships in my life. Thank you for making me feel special and loved as I marked 23 years of being around ;)

I love you.

**p.s. Hold tight. I will email you back. It’s just that the list of people that I wanted to email at least doubled!

Thank you all

2007-01-13T13:57:00.000-08:00

Back in the Hond.

2007-01-13T13:47:00.000-08:00

That is what I have been telling people. Though you haven’t gotten the full story. I’ve been putting off writing—call it a mix of business, laziness, and intimidation, but here goes nothing, prompted by the list of 13 people I wanted to respond to last night. Hopefully a little blog will help keep people informed as I plow through the emailing.

It was a harder, longer process getting back to Honduras than traveling to the States. After three hours of sleep two dedicated friends (one old, one new) helped my load up the weighty bags and head to O’ Hare to head out. I must say that the rest of my time in the States continued to be very dream like and smooth up to this point. My new friend pulled up with coffee waiting for me in the front seat, my (previously unweighed) bags weighed in at 50.5 and 51.5 which made my mouth drop open. I made it quickly and safely through all security measures, a tearful (on my part, of course) goodbye, and here is where I can say that things took a turn for the crazy. I boarded my plane and got all cozy to fall asleep immediately, but then the pilot came over the intercom, "The sensor thingys on one wing flap aren’t talking to the sensor thingys on the other wing flap (at least this is what it sounded like to me)." He said that they would just turn the plane off and see if that would correct the problem because apparently that is supposed to work. It was the most eerie experience. Everything went pitch black and silent. Children started to cry. The darkness lasted a minute before the plane was turned back on and the plane fixin’ was determined unsuccessful. They said they would call some mechanics, but that it would take them 20 minutes to get to the airport. Don’t ask ME why they don’t KEEP some mechanics at the airport in case something like THIS happens. Whatever. So they had us get off the plane. I’ll fast forward ahead to keep you reading. Three hours later I was back on the plane. When they went in to fix the silly common problem, they found that the hydraulic pump was busted. Yeah, that means nothing to me either, but the pilot told us that had we taken off with the silly problem, because of the hydraulic pump problem, we would have had to figure out how to land the plane without gears…which sounds like a bad idea to me…so I am thankful that we didn’t take off that morning. When I was on the plane there was still an itsy bitsy tiny chance that I would be able to make my connecting flight in Atlanta—only because the pilot agreed with all the other pilots on the radio that we would fly at a lower altitude "through the weather" which would just make for a bumpier ride. They didn’t know that "the weather" would include a tornado. We ended up circling over Roanoke, Virginia for an hour waiting for things to clear up. I didn’t know until after we landed at 12:15 that a tornado had touched down in Atlanta around noon. SO, missed the connection. (I must add that they tried to make up for everything by serving unlimited snacks and beverages. That was pretty cool :) )At first I was bummed that there was no way that I could get back to Honduras by the end of the day…

but Delta treated me well. They put me up in a hotel, gave me a shuttle there, and food vouchers. I’ve never felt more adult in my life than checking into that hotel. Isn’t that weird? But it is true. To get a room key and go up to my room. It was big pimpin’. I’ve never slept in a bed that big before :) It ended up being such a blessing to be alone and unwind, journal, nap, and read. It is a time I am thankful for. I was able to sleep in the next morning a little—I mean, anything is sleeping in the day after getting up at 2:30am! The Atlanta airport was nutso, but by 2pm I was back in the Hond.
And a little on that…

It has been harder than I thought it would be to be back in Honduras. Probably because I didn’t think that it would be very hard at all. I mean, after 4 months, I thought I had this down. I envisioned coming back and just picking up where I left off, in all aspects of life. Everything was so routine and normal before I left that I thought I would come back and everything would fall back into place. But it hasn’t been that easy. Call it culture shock, but the little inconveniences of life are rubbing me more than I want them to. Somehow I managed to get 20 mosquito bites my first day back—wearing bug spray. That night I had nightmares about being attacked by ants in my bed and I actually woke up and had to check because it isn’t all that improbable. I had forgotten how dirty not only I am all the time, but everything in my life is all the time. And I was spoiled by a variety of foods in the States that I don’t eat while I’m here (ironically, I picked beans and homemade tortillas for my birthday dinner haha). Somehow instead of feeling good to be back with my housemates, our differences seemed magnified. Maybe because before Christmas I just had a general fuzzy ache of "homesickness" while not longing for any specific home or place. But since returning from the States, the ache comes bringing specific people, places, and hugs to mind. And once again I feel very far away from them. But each day gets easier. Yesterday helped…

There was a downpour when school was letting out. Anna and I decided to pack up quickly and try to hitch a ride with one of the students. I grabbed my poncho that one of my students half ripped the hat off, (during one of the worse weeks) so now I have a giant gaping hole around the neck region. I put it on anyway, which ended up being a good decision not because of the protection it provided from the rain, but because of the looks on peoples’ faces and laughter that came when seeing me wearing it! It might have helped if we were walking home, but the minute we climbed into the back of the truck and started off for home, it billowed out behind me like a giant bright yellow cape, whipping water all over everyone nearby. I peeled it off carefully and stuck it under one foot while gripping for dear life onto the slippery truck top. We arrived home to find no electricity. It didn’t return until around 7pm so that meant lesson planning by candlelight and cornflakes for dinner. That was the kind of experience that bonded me and my housemates together in the beginning, so it was good to have one of those again.

so, that’s life folks.

so I've been meaning to do this for awhile...

2006-12-27T16:29:00.000-08:00

you know, internet being free and all...

Back in the Hond I had been thinking a lot about hygiene, germs, and health and stuff. I had pretty much come to the conclusion that I must have an immune system of steel. I mean, I saw a lizard just hanging out with half of his body submerged in our water supply. And we have been meaning to get these little pouches that you toss into the water so that all of the insect larvae floats to the top and you can get it out...standing water...who knows what we're breeding--but we haven't gotten around to buying them yet. I happened to see my housemate, also, drop a glass off the side of the pila into the pila and we had to fish it out...germ central. No sickness in my life. Case and point, right?

Well, until I enter American air or something because I'm pretty sure I was slammed with a cold before I even stepped off the second airplane. No worries, friends, because I didn't even notice right away. I was too blown away by everything going right.

Making plans to come back home was weird. Something so anticipated and welcomed caught me so off guard. There I was drilling "Up on a Housetop" into the kiddos heads, making musical instruments (biggest flop of my very short teaching career by the way--beans=EVERYWHERE. I spent all of recess piecing them back together so that we would have them for the Christmas program extravaganza!), and BAM why are you not packed? Friday night I actually got a little stressed about packing (not stressed enough--I HAD to finish cheesy The Wedding by Nicholas Sparks before I even entered my room...) and then I went and sat on my bed and realized that I have barely anything so that makes packing pretty darn simple (p.s. I ended up packing WAY too much, of course, but I did pack for outdoor winter activity involving snow which there has been none of). The Wilf (Don Wilfredo) took Anna and I to the airport in the morning and there was never that "Ok, now you're doing it" feeling. But a different feeling hit me at the airport. As I sadly hugged Anna goodbye before she boarded her plane, I realized that there was a very short amount of time when I was doing this alone. This being everything--the life/the job/el resto in Honduras. I said goodbye and left a beautiful community of friends in Grand Rapids, got on the airplane only to enter into a team only hours later that now has become another family. But I didn't realize that right away--probably because it didn't happen right away.

Anyway, back to the airport. I checked the TV and panicked when I didn't see Atlanta on the departure list...then looking more closely I noticed that strangely "Atlanta City" was listed. I didn't stress, but Anna and I thought it reasonably possible that I could end up in New Jersey by the end of the day ;) The flight to Atlanta City ended up taking off an HOUR late. I stayed remarkably calm despite the short amount of time between my arrival and my connection. I just kept thinking--you'll get there when you get there. Now where did you put Grace's phone number? Worst case I'd just chill in Atlanta for some hours and read or something. But then the flight attendants jumped into action. I've never seen anything like it. It was like something straight out of a movie. Before everyone had boarded the plane they were already yelling at people that hadn't buckled their seatbelts. Fierce is an appropriate word in this situation to describe them. We couldn't have taken off more than 10 minutes after I boarded the plane. We ended up in Atlanta only 15 minutes late. Then...immigration. I prayed that everything would work out smoothly and quickly so that I could book it to my next gate. The lines were very long and mine got held up by someone needing a translator. But they let me through with no problems and I rushed to my gate and boarded only 5 minutes after arriving. It was like clockwork! We pulled into GR just a little after when we were due and I was so excited that when I saw my friends I started running down the little hallway. We caused a little ruckus at the airport that night :) And since then it has been a dream.

To be continued...

2006-12-16T05:26:00.000-08:00

be back in GR by bedtime.

un be liev a ble.

It´s called strapless, people

2006-12-11T13:53:00.000-08:00

some random pictures

2006-12-10T12:00:00.000-08:00

The day we realized that we had all worn purple to school.

So last weekend we threw a little party. We actually thought it would be so little that we might be the only attendees. I was ok with that. More brownies and hummus for us (not eaten together of course). Then the DJ that we recruited showed up with a desktop computer full of music and a human (large human) sized speaker. It was then that we started feeling bad that we might be the only people at the party...who could we call? Ahhh! We were all dressed up, wearing the dancing shoes, but sitting around eating brownies! Once the music got going people popped out of the woodwork (concrete?) Neighbors showed up at the door. I mean, if you can´t sleep because the neighbor´s music is insanely loud, you might as well go dance! I got some good salsa, bachata, and meringue lessons from peeps with sweet moves. We ended the night with us gringas bouncing around to American pop music classics. Fun was had by all.

Ready for prom Cofradia :)

2006-12-07T18:58:00.000-08:00

On my mind:

It is no secret that I would love someone I care about to be able to come see my life here in Honduras—someone who knows me well to see me in this context. I have often thought that it would blow the mind of some people I know because it is seemingly a different world. I remember this so clearly my very first day in Cofradía. We walked to the pulpería around the corner—down the rocky, dirt road, dodging chickens and loose stones, the stunning view of the mountains in the distance. I could not believe how different my life could look after just a few hours. I have also told you (I think J) that as this year goes on and I’m once again faced with thoughts, ideas, and decisions for the future, it all comes back to the same thing. I don’t want this year to be a little blurp on the timeline of my life, but a paragraph in the narrative defending the thesis (eh, maybe narratives don't have thesis, but you know what I mean). Not just something cool you tell the grandkids.

I am currently engrossed in Mountains Beyond Mountains, the story of Paul Farmer—you may have heard of him, a doctor working with international health issues (namely TB, but I’m not done with the book yet J)—he is both inspiring and how do I put it—confronts you in love. This is an excerpt that made me think. To set it up for you, Paul Farmer and the author of the book are in the airport café in Paris.

He went right on writing his letter. I looked around. The airport, Charles de Gaulle, has an angular, steel-and-glass simplicity, which struck me just then as frighteningly complex, which made me feel projected into a future I didn’t understand. I thought of its duty-free shop, where one could buy first-class pâté, cofit d’oie, grand cru wines. “You started that letter on a hike in rural Haiti,” I mused aloud, thinking now of those arid highlands, of medieval peasant huts, donkey ambulances. “It seems like another world.”
Farmer looked up, smiling, and in a chirpy-sounding voice he said, “But that feeling has the disadvantage of being…” He paused a beat. “Wrong.”

“Well,” I retorted, “it depends on how you look at it.”

“No it doesn’t,” he replied in a pleasant voice. “The polite thing to say would be, ‘You’re right. It’s a parallel universe. There really is no relation between the massive accumulation of wealth in one part of the world and abject misery in another.’” He looked at me.”

“…At that point I thought that what he wanted was to erase both time and geography, connecting all parts of his life and tying them instrumentally to a world in which he saw intimate, inescapable connections between the gleaming corporate offices of Paris and New York and a legless man lying on the mud floor of a hut in the remotest parts of Haiti. Of all the world’s errors, he seemed to feel, that the most fundamental was the “erasing” of people, the “hiding away” of suffering. “My big struggle is how people can not care, erase, not remember.”

Just this week I was having a conversation with one of my housemates about life. I was laying down, staring up at the ceiling, voicing my thoughts on how comfortable, routine, “normal” life seems these days. The little things that seemed so out of the ordinary in the beginning have integrated themselves into my daily activities. Filling the big green bucket in order to do my dishes. Flushing the toilet with a bucket of water. Warning the roommates of a no flush situation while jogging out of the house with a bucket to replenish the flushing power. Eyeing the cockroach or large spider in the shower while soaping up (I actually recently killed the shower cockroach. Caught him in a compromising position. Don’t tell Emily!) The person I was talking to said to me that there was no way she could ever get used to such changes in her life. What would the point be anyway? Life wasn’t like this before coming and won’t be once leaving. It is both amazing and shocking that an experience can be so different for people living and working so closely together.

My friend recently said to me, “Sarah, I talk about serving the poor. You are doing it.” I was immediately horrified and defensive all at once thinking that I somehow mistakenly portrayed myself as some kind of saint that I definitely am not. Yes, I work in an environment where poverty is prevalent. Some of my students, out of uniform and without their wet hair slicked into a perfect part, can be found playing outside barefoot and in their underwear. Or perhaps in clothes not their size, with broken zippers. Some of them play in the river, a.k.a. sewage. Their mosquito bites and cuts don’t always heal like those of the kids I know in the States. They often get infected and, because of missing nutrients, stay for the long-haul. Yes, I have been blessed to find a kindred spirit in Juan Carlos—my wonderful waist-high companion. To be continually humbled by the children that take a cookie or piece of cake, that they have received because of good behavior points (believe me, it takes a stinkin’ lot of good behavior points to warrant a cake!) home to their mom or little brother…without even taking a bite!

But it must be said that there is still a way to be here without really being here--for all of us. There is still a way to let even visible misery become part of the ordinary. To walk past naked children squatting to relieve themselves in front of their houses without blinking an eye. There is a way to lead a simple life without feeling convicted to be committed to simplicity. When it just becomes routine and is no longer intentional. It is far too easy to just live life inside the “gringa compound,” to speak the English, put granola bars on the Christmas list, and crowd around the computer to watch Desperate Housewives, totally blocking from our minds the desperation of cyclical poverty not even blocks from our house.

My colleague ended our conversation by saying, “It’s just a different world here.” But it isn’t, is it? This is the world we all share. This is a world where the gap between the rich and the poor is only growing. In fact, there are more billionaires in the world today than ever before. Paul Farmer says, “We are talking about wealth we’ve never seen before. And the only time I hear talk of shrinking resources among people like us, among academics, is when we talk about things that have to do with poor people.” Farmer commented, entering into Paris, about how much could be done for Haiti if only he could get his hands on the money that the first world spends on pet grooming. Hmm.

This is the same world. And sometimes it seems terribly disturbing. May it always.
And may action follow.

it's been a long time coming

2006-12-05T15:51:00.000-08:00

So Melvin broke his pen in half and painted the interior of his mouth blue…on purpose. Same day, while teaching a lesson I was simultaneously trying to release Amely from the hold of her backpack, sitting upright behind her on the chair, her hair at perfect zipper height. Sometimes these moments are the exploding laughter kind, resulting from life seeming so stinkin’ uncontrollably ridiculous that it can’t be held in. Other times it pushes me toward nervous breakdown. As Christmas vacation gets closer (while seeming so far out of reach), the latter is becoming the more probable response.

Then enter wildlife…

One day last week, right before the school day was going to start, I went to the library to get our class blanket. The kids often use it to lie on while reading and this particular morning we were going to have some reading time. I carried it all rolled up in my arms back to our classroom and started smoothing it out into the corner of the room where we usually have it. THEN, a mouse runs out and startles me!!! I scream and start doing the dance from leg to leg. Several of my students scream, more likely because I did than the fact that they actually saw the mouse. I started to giggle which broke into laughter. My students were looking at me as though I was crazy. The mouse darted into a corner where there is a giant plastic bin of art stuff. I quickly went to get Emily, the 5th grade teacher, who not only has a free period first period, but also is the most brave and animal loving of my housemates/staff. She went and got a trashcan and broom so that she could take the little mouse outside. Meanwhile I began Simon Says with the class. First, Simon Says stand on your chair (Ok, now they are all safe and out of the way). Second, Simon says put your hands on your head (Ok, now they are distracted). I hope you can picture this. So I am on a chair in front of the class and in this position I led the class in songs until the mouse was successfully removed from the classroom.

Today I sent the kids to the same reading corner to have screams erupt (this reading corner has GOT to go). Spider. Not just any spider. Tarantula. Same word in both languages. I don’t know if it was really a tarantula, but it looked close enough to both me and the kiddos to cause some action to be taken. After ordering all of the curious and hero wanna-bes to their seats with loud words accompanied by a fierce look, I went in search of a broom. Then, to the amusement of my class, I began trying to find the large scary beast hidden in my book basket, and then sweep him forcefully into the hallway. Mission accomplished. Back to math.

But there has been a ridiculous laughter moment lately…

After lunch on let’s call it Mouse Day, we were having a class meeting about what reward the students would to work toward with good behavior points. I was making a list on the board of their suggestions--class soccer game, extra recess, extra P.E: and then a kid raised his hand and said, ¨Go to Kentucky¨. Everyone else in the class broke out into an excited murmur and yelled out in agreement. After I got them calmed down I told them that it was probably not a feasible idea that we could go to Kentucky as a class, I even taught them the word passport and we talked about how you need a passport to go to the United States. I was so confused why they would choose Kentucky. I mean, come on. How could they all be this excited about such a random state? Well, then they told me that they went to Kentucky last year and started talking about conos and juegos (ice cream cones and games). It turned out that the whole time they meant Kentucky Fried Chicken! Ah!

Never a dull moment.

To give you more glimpses into our life…

Last night instead of doing any lesson planning or necessary exam preparation, we decided to watch Cinderella Story (yes, with Hilary Duff) on the back porch in the dark—movie theater style of course—while doing stretches (as to pretend to do exercises while really just watching the movie).

Last week what did I find myself doing after my bedtime? Saving all of my underwear from dying a slow moldy death at the hand (?) of the bucket. I’ll tell you one thing. Washing your underwear, by hand, on a cool, dark night to hang on the line is one of the last things you want to do after your bedtime. But sometimes it has to be done.

This morning I woke to the sound of steadily falling rain. I was so comfortable, warm and cozy that it actually didn’t instantly occur to me that the same rain would make walking the 20ish minute walk to school on dirt roads rather miserable. I pushed it from current thoughts and tried to enjoy an extra 10 minutes in bed, sacrificing a shower (who needs them anyway), and enough time to heat water for hot chocolate and then let it cool down before being able to drink it. While breakfasting, the phone rang. I joked that it was about school being canceled. We all giggled, but deep down everyone wanted that to be the case. It was almost as good. Our amigo Doctor Zelaya, father of one of my students, neighbor of the school, was calling to offer us a ride to school in his spacious SUV! We strategically positioned ourselves inside the SUV so that we could all aprovechar this wonderful situation. Marilyn squeezed in beside me and we bear hugged so that the door would shut. She held my left leg crossed over my right so that the Dr. could put it into drive mode. The stragglers crawled into the trunk and we were off, mostly dry and very thankful. The first time we have arrived to school, the whole crew together, in a long time.

I always let too much time pass and then have such a long, smattering laundry list of things to tell you about. And honestly I could tell you something from each and every day of my life here. This will have to do for now :)

Love, Sarah

2006-11-27T17:44:00.000-08:00

We are back after 5 days away from the Cof.

It is strange because most of my time away didn’t even feel like it was spent in Honduras. We stayed with Doreen’s family in Nueva Suyapa (after a ridiculous Dutch bingo connection that I won’t even get into right now). You must know that Nueva Suyapa is considered a slum. Calvin Profs Kurt and JoAnn Verbeek (who lead Calvin’s Development Semester) live there, so I had previously visited, and was wondering what my housemate’s reaction would be. Doreen’s aunt and uncles’ house was under construction. We actually had to walk on piles of rubble and rusty sheet metal to get to our room. None of the rooms had doors (not even the bathroom), but flowing cotton sheets or curtains providing a small sense of privacy. Five of us shared two double beds, which we pushed together and made us feel like Charlie in the Chocolate Factory. Shrieking ensued when a big cockroach was found on our giant bed. To turn the light on in our room we had to plug a plug into an outlet in the hallway. The vote was then that our accommodations reminded everyone of what they picture Afghanistan to be like. So this is where we stayed…drumroll…while we were attending a conference for bilingual school teachers downtown at the Marriot Hotel. Super giant (no strong enough words) choque. Luxurious, extravagant, excessive. I couldn't have felt more out of place. I felt like everyone could look at us and tell that we were the RURAL bilingual school teachers. I was so glad I didn't wear the chacos! So many people in fancy clothes, suits, highlighted, blow-dried, curled hair, make-up, bling bling, heels. None of us even showered before putting on our wrinkly clothes. There was ice water in a pitcher in every room. There were appetizers, fresh watermelon and pineapple juice between sessions! And at the end of the day we went back to Nueva Suyapa. A few of my housemates went to the bar one night and their ride back refused to drive them back to Nueva Suyapa saying that he wouldn't go there at that time of night without tinted windows and a big gun. A lot to think about.

There could be a whole other blog about first time back in Tegucigalpa since I studied there back in the day--stay tuned...but it was terrific and too short. I met up with some Calvin friends doing the same thing I did only three years before them.

It was hard to leave the Calvin folk. I wanted to cling to them since they are heading back so soon to something so safe and familiar. In fact, I know from experience, that no matter how much their time in Honduras has impacted or changed them, life will return very much to what it was like before. Things will more or less go back to “normal.” There will be new close relationships, affirmed or ignited interests or passions, but they will slip back into the rhythms of college life with perhaps only a toe momentarily dragging in the mud. I was jealous of them for having a rhythm of life to return to. I realized that for me there isn’t a normal to go back to. That this, what my life looks like right now, is normal. And that is a very strange thought.

It hit me on the bus—the Zamorano school bus—riding to Tegucigalpa with the school children to meet up with our busito to take us the rest of the 4ish hours back to our house, how much the other teachers and my administrator have become my family. We’ve passed through the initial stages and have reached a point where we have seen each other through all emotions. We’ve seen each other in the great joy that comes from receiving mail or a phone call from a loved one, to the other side of the spectrum—the frustration and sadness that comes from feeling like we have failed. We’ve passed through the phase where we begin to see each other’s quirks that can quickly become annoying. We’ve acknowledged the ways we peeve each other and work on them.

“Marilyn, can you please not leave half avocados in the refrigerator.”

“Yeah, no problem.”

5 minutes later…

“Hey guys, if I only eat half an avocado…what do I do with the other half…?”

“Yeah, that is what I was wondering too…”

“It’s not that you eat half that is the problem, it is that there are already 4 avocado halves in the refigerator!”

“Oooooohhh.”

The thought that hit me so hard in the bus was that we are all broken people. A giant dysfunctional family. We all bring our own weaknesses and quirks along with our strengths. We might drive each other up the wall sometimes, but we are all in this together. We are united in our vision for our school and for our kids, we are doing our best, and we are doing it together. It was and is a nice feeling to be hit with.

Tonight we (meaning the housemates and myself) finally broke into the chocolate chips that Marilyn’s mother brought us (mom, I definitely already chowed down the ones you sent me). Why the heck does this country not sell this food product?!? I want to tell them that if they did, people—like us—would buy them. We made some yummy chocolate chip cookies. Anna and I only made half a batch—which turned out to be 3 cookies per person. Hilary voted a whole batch, but we tried to tell her that we were trying to prevent gorging since it is certain that we would eat all of the cookies we made. But the after making stir fry tonight and having a candlelight housemate dinner on the back porch, we are itching for more cookies. I keep hearing the opening and closing of the refrigerator, a sure sign of housemates eating the leftover chocolate chips (I thought I was the only one to sneak another handful!) After dinner, Hilary (organized game woman) proposed that we should play something. We agreed to a game called Essences—a game where a person is chosen to leave while the rest decide on a person. The first person comes back to ask questions which the rest of the people answer based on the essence of the chosen person. Sounds more complicated than it really is. When I left and had to come back to guess which person’s essence they were trying to portray, it turned out that they had chosen me and were describing my essence to me! It was so interesting to think back on their answers to questions such as: If this person were a type of transportation what would they be? If this person were a color, a beverage, a music genre, an animal, etc! How interesting to know what my essence says to my housemates :) Here is what they decided—I think they did a pretty good job, but I’ll let you decide for yourself :)

If I were a hairstyle I would be a braid—a long, thick braid. If I were a color I would be a soft royal blue. As a music genre I would be folk, as an article of clothing I would be sweatpants. If I were an animal I would be a bear or lion cub—or perhaps a one-year-old lion since it would be less defenseless—though it was argued that a lion cub is not all that defenseless. If I were a type of transportation I would be an affordable, efficient car—like a Toyota. If I were an occupation (other than teacher) I would be a nurse or pediatrician. If I were a beverage I would be a root beer float or a licuado with ice cream, which we then decided is a milkshake. If I were a body piercing, I would not be a piercing, but rather a hidden tattoo. Intriguing.

ok, I'll peace out on that lighter note.

I'm listening to Christmas jams... :D

much love.

recent events in pictures....

2006-11-25T09:37:00.000-08:00

my kiddos :)

Crazies that they are....

working hard...it´s an act... :)

Juan Carlos´ mother had her baby! A beautiful girl named Katherine. I met her when she was 8 days old. Here are some pictures of her with her proud brother and sister.

Trip to Tegus! This is where I studied three years ago!

Beautiful Zamorano where we took a few days to observe teachers and explore a prestigious agricultural university.

I met up with my host family in Tegucigalpa :)

And some SE love! (They were taller than I remembered...)

I observed and got ideas from another second grade at Zamorano. This is my new friend Marvin.

I ended up subbing on Tueday while the 2nd grade teacher took my administrator hiking!!!

It was freezing there! Or perhaps in the 70s...

Leaving Tegus, we had a beautiful sunset. On the road for 6ish hours and back to school the next day! I had missed my own 2nd grade!

More to come!!!

read it in chunks :)

2006-11-11T10:42:00.000-08:00

I had yogurt today for the first time since coming to Honduras—wonderful strawberry yogurt that I bought myself for a treat yesterday and actually saved for breakfast this morning. It was like an explosion in my mouth! Such a foreign taste. So I had to start somewhere and it starts with yogurt :) I can’t believe it has been this long since I’ve written on the blog. Ok, here goes nothing. I wouldn’t say that I lead a crazy hectic life, but it has definitely been full since the last time I wrote. I can’t believe that you don’t know anything about the birthday extravaganza! Ahh! So last time I left off telling you that we were heading into San P for a little outing to celebrate Anna’s birthday. Ooh was it an extravaganza! The extravaganza started as we walked to the bus stop where we would catch either a “chicken bus” (school bus) or the smaller, faster, air-conditioned “Rapidito.” We hadn’t been at the stop more than a few minutes when an unmarked busito (read: small bus or 15 passenger van) pulled up. As it turns out, it was the uncle of one of the students that goes to our school. He offered us a ride into the city which we accepted, grateful to not have to wait for a bus that would take much longer than a direct ride. Crazy that he stopped to pick us up and crazy=the way he drove. It probably cut the trip time in half since he did everything save drive on the shoulder. I was feeling quite ill by the time we reached the city. Partly because I was frantically writing postcards to send out since I would be going to the post office for the first time. The anticipation and excitement was high. I was told that there was a package waiting for me at the post office that my administrator Jon wasn’t able to pick up without me there. I was literally trembling with excitement with the prospect of receiving a piece of mail. I stuffed a large plastic bag into my purse so that no matter the size of the package I wouldn’t have to lug a box around the city. We were dropped off on the side of the road once reaching the city and given directions to take the ruta 5. We were just breaking out the Moon Guide (travel book) to orient ourselves when we hear a little beep. A busito with a ruta 5 sign! So we get in, not knowing exactly where this vehicle would take us, but after saying what I thought was the word for post office, they looked about 50% confident that it would take us where we wanted to go. I was a little doubtful. But…I thought that it would probably at least take us closer to where we wanted to go :) We quickly got disoriented—this little bus took so many turns so fast! I thought that things would start to look more familiar as we headed more and more into the city, that we would maybe see some street signs, but nope. Negative on the street signs. After around 20 minutes we tried to get the attention of the guy who told us to get in. It ended up being three outspoken women who told us exactly when to get out of the bus and which direction to walk to the post office. Amazingly, it was only about two blocks! There were so many windows at the post office that one doesn’t even know where to start! I picked the first line—there was a picture of an eagle and packages in the background so I thought maybe that was a safe bet—and waited for my turn to talk to the woman running the counter. No, not the right counter, and it was doubtful that anyone would help me because we had arrived too late. It was 3:55 and the post office would be closing in 5 minutes. We sprinted (quite literally) to the correct package counter who told us that there weren’t any packages for our pueblo. I tried my best to remain calm and leave the quavering out of my voice to tell them that my amigo was just at this very spot the day before and had seen it with his eyes. I said it a few times with varying levels of urgency in my voice before she agreed to go get the man who also works there to ask if he knew if there were any packages for Cofradía. He found it quickly and I let out a relieved sigh. From mom. :) Birthday extravaganza!!!! But the missing package from Grace? Where could that have evaporated from? They said that there was another spot for letters, but that we would have to come another day before 4—and a weekday. Um, hello. We teach until 2:10—the children don’t leave until 3, it takes 25 minutes to walk home, and anywhere from 45 minutes to 1.5 hours to get to the city. I would have been more discouraged if I didn’t have a package in my hand. While I went to wait at yet another window, Lisa went to ask if it would be possible to give our IDs to someone to pick up our mail if we couldn’t make it before 4. I don’t know what she said, or whether to just attribute it to the birthday extravaganza, but they decided to let us all into the back room where they sort the mail. They pulled out a stack of mail for Cofradia and we could not help but grin, giggle, and cheer as each letter contained the name of one of our housemates. They pulled out one for Anna first and we think it was the sheer excitement (she jumped up and down) and fact that it was her birthday that they let us take all of the mail for all of our housemates even without their identification. I filled my bag with letters and packages of all shapes and sizes. I received all mail sent to me since the day after I left for Honduras! Four letters! Two packages besides the one from my mom! The one from Grace! “Birthday Extraaavaganza!” we chanted once again. We didn’t even care that it was 4:23 and the movie that we wanted to see at the mall was going to start at 4:35 and there was little chance that we would make it. The messages from home was worth it. I could barely keep from crying from joy. We left the post office dancing and decided to splurge on a cab—the best bet to making it to the movie. We had just started negotiating the price to drive the five of us when we hear two beeps…Chevo! The husband of the woman who runs our cafeteria! Birthday Extravaganza! He asks us where we are going and quickly lets us climb into the back of his pick-up truck to take us to the mall. We arrive at 4:34 and file into the movie just as the opening credits are starting. I pull out my Starbursts from Grace :) We get Baskin Robbins ice cream before heading to the bus stop to head home after the movie. I know that Hilary, Marilyn, and Emily are cooking the secret birthday dinner at home. Whole wheat vegetable lasagna, homemade bread, chocolate cake, and wine bought special from the city. We wait as the bus stop for about 5 minutes when a bus goes by for Cofradia. It is so full that it doesn’t even stop for us. It was the first wind of bad luck on the birthday extravaganza celebration. We wait an hour without seeing another bus go by. This is so strange. There were some other women at the stop who kindly directed us to the bus “terminal” (which is really a corner) where we would have a better chance of catching a bus before it was full. They ended up walking with us, wondering why nothing had passed in so long. It was when we got to the “terminal” that we heard about the accident. There were a lot of stories, but the main point concluded was that the road was blocked by big trucks and no one was passing. Cars were backed up for miles. Cabs were offering to take us to the crash and let us off at the back of line of traffic. Not helpful. With no possible way home for a while we headed back to the mall, for dinner, a phone, and internet accessibility. But it was getting late at this point. 9:30pm and everything was starting to close. We were able to call our disappointed housemates and eventually contact some of Bridget’s friends that live approximately 1 block from the mall that offered to let us sleep on their floor. But after visiting with them a while, we decided to try to make the trip home. We found a taxi that said it was possible to pass and he, thankfully, was right. We made it home at 11:30 that night. Birthday extravaganza. What an adventure. The next day was the day with no power or water for 7 or 8 hours—so we ate the lasagna cold, dang it. It forced me to do all kinds of non-technological work and prepare for turning in the first marking period grades and parent teacher conferences on Sunday. Monday a volunteer group arrived to spend two weeks working at our school. On Friday, Jaime and her husband Eli arrived. Jaime hired me to work here in Honduras. She is the founder of the organization and basically the big boss ;) So lots of people around, spontaneous celebratory events with the community and in our house. This is the whirlwind that was these past two weeks.

How am I doing? Wow. This week was the hardest since coming to Honduras. To explain it I have to tell you about Samir. Samir was abandoned by his parents as a baby to go to the United States. He then lived with his grandparents who he calls mom and dad. His grandfather recently passed away and his grandmother diagnosed with cancer. Earlier this year she left for the United States to get better treatment, leaving Samir and his brother Ivis with an uncle that treats them terribly. Marilyn has described Ivis as “dull” from the beginning of the year, but only now do we see him as a shell of a kid while Samir has responded very differently to grief. He is angry. And violent. He has never been taught or shown how to respond to anger other than physically. It has lately gotten out of control. No one in my class is safe from his wrath. He walks around drawing permanent marker on their work. I sat him next to two of my star students hoping that some of their obedience would rub off on him. He poked them in the eyes with a pencil. It was on Tuesday that I reached the end of my rope. I knew that when we were handing out papers, if someone bumped him by accident they would get punched, so I tried to troubleshoot. He ended up punching someone anyway and I asked him to sit outside in the hall. He threw his chair (wood with metal legs), he ripped up all his papers and threw them into the hall, threw the folder I gave him in the trash can, and took all of the students water bottles off of the window ledge where I have them keep them and threw them into the hall. He refused to go to the office. I scrounged up patience from somewhere—probably from the desire for him to remain in my class. He had tears running down his face. Meanwhile the rest of my students were saying that school was so boring that they weren’t going to come the next day. I felt completely defeated in every way. The day was over. Samir came to tell me that his grandmother was supposed to come on Friday, but her plane had been destroyed. He began to sob. I began to cry for him—this small boy that has already experienced so much tragedy, for his disappointment. I cried out of anger that they would fabricate a story about her plane to cover up her canceled return. I began to cry for me. For lack of an answer. For my lack of patience. For what seemed to me failure on my part to be a good teacher. Comparing myself to my colleagues with no educational training and feeling like I should be better at this than I am. Irlenda, the cleaning lady found me first, sobbing in my classroom. She wrapped her wrinkled arms around me, pressed her face into my shoulder and began crying softly with me, without any words. I was so upset I couldn’t form sentences in English, much less Spanish. I think I finally got out something like, “kids bad.” Irlenda is unconditional love and humility. She is an older woman—probably in her 60s—who works so hard and does such awful work, but I’ve never heard her complain once. Hilary says she thinks Irlenda is a diety disguised in human form here to test us. I would say that Irlenda has been a beautiful example and reminder of Christ’s love in my life here in Cofradía. Wednesday I didn’t know what hit me. Emily’s diagnosis was complete physical and emotional exhaustion. I came home from school and had to lie down. I couldn’t stand. I didn’t even sleep, but just laid there from 4-6:30pm. I got up long enough to eat a little something, take a shower, and look at my plans for the next day. I went to bed at 8. I was restless all night with a pounding headache and queasiness. I got up to throw up around 1 and then lay in bed planning out what I would write down for a sub (Jon or a combination of my housemates during their free periods) since there was no way I would be able to teach in the morning. Amazingly, I woke up feeling fine and actually went to school to teach on Thursday. I have been taking it easy since, trying not to push myself too hard. Boy was I glad for Friday to come. I had no idea that Friday would also turn out to be eventful in its own way. The LeapNow volunteers were leaving around lunchtime, so I had planned a little going away game during the period before with our class volunteer Flora. I didn’t realize that her leaving would have such an effect on my class. I mean, she only played hangman and duck, duck, goose with them a few times. I had around ten kids in my class start crying so hard that they couldn’t stop. It didn’t take me long to realize that this didn’t really have to do all that much with Miss Flora. Some of them cried for almost 2 hours. I had to go get our Honduran office assistant Kenia to come talk to them. I scratched science class and we just sang songs for a while with Kenia, in an attempt to raise their spirits. It wasn’t terribly successful. It was a long afternoon. I am even more thankful for this weekend than any weekend before.

Since this is practically a novel already, I’ll sign off here and write more later. 34 days until Christmas break.

Oh yeah. Not only did I have credit card fraud, but I also filed my taxes wrong, and yesterday my flight home for Christmas was canceled and I have to rebook it. Of course. I laughed, but only because honestly, what else can go wrong that would be even harder to fix from here. I’m not sure :) but I don’t want to find out!

I love you. I’m resting. I will get back to each and every one of you that wrote me a beautiful, wonderful letter. They made me so happy. And you must know that I opened everything immediately, my hair flapping in the wind, riding in the back of the pick-up truck, being teased about the positives of delayed gratification :) Thank you so much.

Back in action,

Sarah

a friendly letter

2006-10-28T18:18:00.000-07:00

Dear Electricity and Water,

How are you? You left so fast and didn't even tell me where you were going or when you would come back. I must admit that I have been very productive (though non-technologically) in your abesnce, but I've been missing you these past eight hours. Please come home soon (come back before dark)!

Sarah

2006-10-26T20:12:00.000-07:00

Tonight we lost power. Just like old times :) It did the quick dim and stayed there just long enough for us to comprehend what was happening before plunging into darkness. “The rice is done!” I called out from my spot at the stove not because the rice was really done, but because it had to be at that point. We moved all of the food onto the back porch and went in search of the matches to light the candles we quickly mobilized to locate. We sat down to enjoy our peaceful candlelight dinner when I noticed that the neighbors’ porch light was on. So not fair! What! And then we realized that since the power was out we had just hadn’t turned our back porch light on :) So we actually HAD power at that point. We only kept the light on about 30 seconds before deciding to go with the original idea of our candlelight dinner. I positioned the candle just right so that when I went in for the bite with the fork I actually came back up with food :)

I like that I could lie in the hammock and see the stars so well tonight.

The news that solidified some hope for my nosedive of a day that I previously categorized as hopeless: There is a package waiting for me in San Pedro. It will be the first thing that has made it to this country for me—except a stinkin’ postcard from Calvin telling me that the Spanish department newsletter is now online. Uuuugh, major major groan.

T. G. I. almost half-day F! Heading to San P for Anna's b'day celebration which will almost certainly include Baskin Robbins and a movie :)

2006-10-25T20:03:00.000-07:00

I have a class pet. His name is Freddy. He is a blue, white, and green striped fish. Freddy also is about three fists long and lives without water. Sounds like a special fish, hey? He is also stuffed. But that doesn’t make my class love him any less. I mean, he is not just any fish. Freddy can’t be contained to a fishbowl, but can often be found on the lap of someone sad, riding the bus home to spend the night in a child’s arm, or making his rounds on the playground. I wish I had words to express the joy mixed with amusement from seeing two girls from my class skipping while holding on to either fin. Today I had a note discretely passed to me in class. It was folded several times with a happy face, two stars, and a sad face written on the top. I stuck it in my pocket without reading it as to hopefully show my disapproval in passing me notes while I am trying to teach. I found it later, opened it, and want to share it with you:

Mis sarah caNay Gafa Frede.

Do you know what it says? :) Ha! I will tell you. It says: Miss Sarah, Can I have a Freddy? :) I love it! Today I was so terrorized by children wanting to hang out with Freddy that I took him into the principal’s office and told the children that he was being punished for trying to eat my pencil, and that it was totally unacceptable :)

Speaking of things I have…I have a student that is confused about his identity. I’m afraid of my influence on this situation! Ok, it starts with the roster. His name is listed as Rafael Leonardo. I thought, perfect, a ninja turtle in my class ;) I called him Rafael from day 1. He wrote Rafael on all his papers. It was great. Until I started hearing people call him Leo. Oh no! But…he was writing Rafael on his papers…but he never really responded all that well when I called him Rafael…now that I think about it…hmm…I began to call use both names at the same time. Saying Rafael and then sticking Leo on at the end to reinforce that I was trying to get his attention, in case the first name didn’t work all that well. I even flipped them back and forth Rafael Leo AND Leo Rafael. I noticed that he began to write both names on his papers…oh man. What is your name!?! Then I was grading one of his papers and I noticed that he started writing Rafael an only got through Ra before he crossed it out and wrote Leo! I broke out into laughter that he had now completed a name change. These days he goes by Leo. I try to be consistent in calling him Leo, but I get confused sometimes in the moment and all names come out in an inconsistent order. Poor kid.

I also have some Hierba Boldo. Any ideas? We’ve got nothing. It is a mystery tea that one of my housemates bought—thankfully not in a small plastic bag, but in a regular tea box. It strikes us as strange that there are nutrition facts, but no ingredients…

(Update: Hilary: “Ok, don’t get anything boldo. It tastes like paint thinner.”
Anna: “What is boldo?”
Hilary: “I asked and they said, ‘Oh, you know…boldo…the herb.’”)

I'm not sure how they made the decision to buy it...I suppose we are a slightly adventurous bunch--you know the whole Honduras thing...

As for me. Sometimes the weeks go as fast as the American chocolate in our refrigerator (believe me…VERY fast). Then there are the other days when the kids leave and I sit down on the child-sized chair, lay my head down on the table and frustration turns to tears. This usually ends in me getting up the energy to walk to Anna’s room to propose quitting (don’t worry, I’m not serious :)). We walk home, lay in the hammocks, make licuados, eat that dang chocolate, and prepare for another day. This week has been good. We switched up the seats and I moved the tables into a formation in which they migrate much less. You have no idea how much this helps. As the tables move nearer to one another so do the children that touch each other by accident and end up punching each other. The little things. I also know at exactly what time of day the fan needs to be turned on so that the kiddos (and teacher) don’t get hot and irritable. It’s still hard. This morning I joked with Anna, “Ok, if they come we’ll do it, we’ll figure something out. If not, no problem, I’ll find something to do.” :) I’ve been waking up before my alarm these days. Insane since it goes off at 5:35am. This morning I was pumping myself up as I laid sleepily on the board I fondly refer to as my bed saying to myself over and over, “Today I’m going to love the ones that are hardest to love.” It is always good to remind myself of the reasons I am here on the days when it is hardest to be here. When the kiddos pretend they don’t understand me, or just won’t stop chatting. When they put glue in each others hair or run away and hide under a cactus when they get angry. When communication with friends in the States doesn’t go the way I want it to, when I find an ant crawling into my breakfast, when I go into the bathroom wearing my towel and there isn’t any water for a shower. Those days it is important to remember why I am here.

It is hard to believe how soon Christmas is coming. It has always seemed so distant—at the back of my mind as a wonderful time in the future—dreading the cold, but savoring even the thoughts of seeing friends and family I love so much. Recently it has become a much stranger thought. The thought of actually going to the airport, my bags in the back of Don Wil’s truck (maybe me in the back of Don Wil’s truck) and getting on an airplane to go to the States, but coming back to Honduras. It seems weird and unnatural. Scary even. It is easier to pretend not much has changed when I don’t have to face it everyday. I think I’ll chew on that and write more later.

I love you and goodnight.

to Copan!

2006-10-16T16:12:00.000-07:00

So we headed significantly west this weekend to a town called Copan. It is a town probably not too much bigger than our own Cofradia, but couldn´t be much more different. Copan is a major tourist hotspot, while Cofradia is somewhere where you could hide from the mafia. There really isn´t the chance of anyone wandering into Cofradia without a purpose (like to visit your super cool friend or something). There is a lot to say about my trip to Copan, but I have to head home to make a language arts exam for the kiddos, so this will be short for tonight. I actually might have you vote on what you want to hear about later ;)

Copan. What I will really take from that trip is the stories--the funny stories, sad stories, adventure stories, and inspiring stories. One of my favorite acquaintances was a man named Amir, a wandering farmer from Israel who I found reading a book in bed one morning (we stayed in a hostel). He had cascading blond dreadlocks and a flexible plan. He didn´t know how long he was staying in town or where his next destination would be. He was traveling for an undetermined amount of time--probably for a few more months, and when I asked him if he would return to Israel, he wasn´t even sure. Blew me away.

The other thing that struck me was the number of people that we met doing different things that they found on the internet: Spanish schools, teaching at a bilingual school in Copan, in Santa Rosa de Copan, being dive instructors on the Bay Islands. When meeting these other teachers I couldn´t help but think to myself that their experience could have easily been mine and mine theirs. Such an interesting thought.

I will write more when I get a chance, but I will leave you with a few photos.

Bridget, me, Anna, Olivia (a teacher at the Mayatan school in Copan and friend of Emily), Emily

The town cathedral

Honduras is full of beautiful flowers. This picture was taken at the Mayatan school where we went to visit.

perfecto

2006-10-13T13:18:00.000-07:00

I am a victim of credit card fraud.

I am now going to cancel my only means of obtaining money.

Pretty dang crappy.

2006-10-10T20:53:00.000-07:00

It is hard to not get overwhelmed when I think about the small snippets of my life that add up to the paragraphs of my life that I want to share with you. I’d rather the snippets not multiply into the number of paragraphs that become so costoso (tedious) to read (or find the time to read!)

Yesterday morning when the first children started entering my classroom I wanted to freeze frame them into my memory—freshly showered and hair slicked back or to the side—some with a little bit of gel to hold that look for the rest of the day (yes, those few hair gel-ed know how cool they are). Their uniforms are still pressed, scrubbed back to white, not bearing the marks that so quickly come with play, from the dust that inhabits every centimeter of our classroom, the markers that they play with during class (that I confiscate! It really is amazing how much stuff I confiscate each day! At recess and at lunch I end up with toys—cool stuff like motorcycle airplane transformers and water guns—sticking out of my pockets and pencils protruding from every angle out of my ponytail. What a sight I must be (though I’m slightly thankful for no full length mirrors in my life). Anyway, it is a look surely pioneered by their mothers, an image to lock into your memory, because certainly before 10am, those perfectly white uniform shirts don’t even know what hit them.

There was a day (it must be a few weeks ago now) that I finally became ok with being here. I never questioned my decision to teach here, and as you have read in earlier blogs, I am enjoying my housemates and my students, but there was still a sadness I felt about the change in my life (being a big one) and the ache to be sharing such an experience with the people I love in a more than please-read-my-blog way, but perhaps a them-here-with-me way ;) This day, it was the day after my town-wide search for bananas. I was itching for a banana licuado in the worst way. I tried every little pulp (pulpería=little general store that usually sells what you need in small quantities) I passed on my way home from school with no luck. What?! No bananas in Honduras? What was happening? It was a twilight zone experience. So I went home puzzled. The next day I was walking to where I was going to use the phone and a man stopped me on the street. I was a little startled because I didn’t recognize him, but then I realized he was just stopping me to tell me that there were bananas in the pharmacy (what pharmacy?) because he had seen my quest for bananas the previous day!

Anna and I started walking to school the back way, the much more scenic route. I’d like to say that it was because of the better scenery, but in reality it probably had something to do with the fact that vehicles (cars, trucks, and buses alike) all seemed to have it out for us as we walked down the more traveled road. It almost seemed to be a game to see how close they could fly past us on the street forcing dust and exhaust upon us. Mom, I’m sure you’re very glad at this moment that we are no longer walking that way. I thought of you in this decision ;) It also takes away the crushed anticipation when we do not get picked up by any students’ parents as they take their child to school :)

And as for funnies…

This first one shows how much my students have progressed because I don’t think they would have picked up on this before. I was reminding them sternly (once again!) to raise their hand when they have something to say. This is so uber important in our setting where there is so much noise from all sides! But instead of saying, “Please raise your hands!” I said, “Please raise your names!” I didn’t even realize my mistake until one of my students pointed it out to me! I started chuckling and shared with my class the mistake that I had made. For the past two days whenever Julia raises her hand she yells out “Julia!” When I questioned what she was doing she said smartly that she was “raising her name.” Ha.

One funny one that got us all laughing in the house was at the expense of one of Bridget’s ninth grade students. Neto was writing about his grandfather that had died from a “heart unemployment.” Bridget caught this while she was grading and asked us all what we thought he meant by that. Finally it came to us. Do you get it? He was trying to say that his grandfather died when his heart stopped working! Stopped working! Unemployment! Ah!

Ok, lastly I want to tell you that Marilyn’s mother is here. We were all excited. New face. News from the North (p.s. please tell me if there are ever any giant tropical storms heading my way…) It has been better than Christmas! She brought us a Delta Airlines carry on sized bag full of chocolates! A box of oreos! Magazines! TV series on DVDs! She brought me facewash! Hilary has a stopwatch! It has raised moral that is fo shizle. Alright. More soon. Exams next week. But hopefully before then.

sarah

another weekend in gringolandia

2006-10-07T07:36:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning not in my usual tranquil state of Saturday morning bliss. Maybe it was because it was not hot enough to sufficiently enjoy the gentle breeze of the fan blowing detering the heat from my slumber. I rolled out of bed, regardless, wrapping my sarong around my shoulders to later wrap around my legs as a means of bug protection during a hammock reading session. I'm reading a book called Shutterbabe--a book about a female photojounalist and her world travels starting in Afganistan covering the war. I'm only about 30 pages in, but her writing style has captured me. It is intriguing to read about how she has chosen to live her life--in many ways that I would choose not to live mine. It makes me think. Before heading out to the hammock I heard two of my housemates--Bridget and Emily--having a conversation about all things fall. I couldn't even listen. I heard bits and pieces of "hot....cider....yellow..." and flew through the common living space to the hammock. I love fall. I love the weather. the colors of the leaves. apple cider. sweatshirts. everything that comes between the beginning of school and the first Michigan snow. I haven't been able to bring myself to look at the Calvin webcam that would show me the envious vista that the current Calvin kiddos get to see each day.

One more week until my kidlets get their first "exams." I'm pretty sure they'll pass shapes, symmetry, fractions, plant parts, and sentence subjects. Thursday was a mess (more about that later) but Friday ended with smiles all around. When they all had lined up at the door ready to be dismissed for the weekend, I made up an impromtu dance and Friday chant. They loved it and we danced down the hall waving our arms. The sight of them copying my ridiculous dance and chant made me laugh so much. That sounds kind of power hungry--but you know I'm not that way :)

Before I head off into the weekend--finish my fresh squeezed orange juice and start scrounging some food--I want to tell you about a funny moment that will escape me forever if I don't write it down. Anna and I were walking home from school one day when we almost ran into a large rope covering the road. Weird, we thought. Where is this rope coming from? The rope continued to the right and the left of the road, with children stepping on the rope holding it to the ground. I was pleasantly surprised that I didn't trip over the rope as Anna and I puzzled, but ready to be home and sitting down somewhere continued on our walk home. As we turned the corner we could see the rope going into tall grass and attached to....A GIANT COW! Of course, we laughed. A giant cow. Right!

ok. food. maybe shower.

a few more parade pics because they are so cute :)

2006-10-05T16:17:00.000-07:00

the costumed kids :)

Oh Melvin!

Another picture of the ¨soccer team¨-notice the non-existant skin between shorts and socks!

Miguelito is tobacco!

2006-10-02T20:27:00.000-07:00

So many times something happens and I can’t help but let out one of those uncontrollable laughs that just has to escape from inside. Most of the time I just want to share that moment with someone—like pop into Anna’s room during one of the more inappropriate times to have uncontrollable laughter. I try to make a mental note—to try to capture the moment exactly so that later I can put it into some kind of adequate words. That’s what I’ll try to do here. But then again when I think about what I am going to write about (not that I really think about it—it mostly falls out of my head down to my fingers and onto the screen) it is usually small little occurrences mixed into the daily routine of life that prove to be the most significant—at least to me—and I hope in some way are interesting to you.

I’ve actually already pre-written a blog that I have to post for you tonight. I wrote it this weekend when I also wrote about my time with Juan Carlos and his family that is so precious to me, but I had doubts that anyone would keep reading if I posted so much at one time—I mean, I’m not exactly shortwinded…ever! But I feel like there are a few thoughts I want to down tonight, so maybe this blog will pass the other blog on its way onto the page…

My computer had a stroke. I’m serious. I forgot if I told you or if I just think I told you that my computer has been a little on the frizz lately. My hypothesis is the heat and the effect that it must have on my computer’s ooooold age. It will start making a clicking noise and eventually blacks out and a little blue screen tells me that it is “dumping physical memory” which can never be good…eeek. It actually had recovered quite well (or so I thought) until…the stroke. I am currently missing out on the use of the a, q, z, 1, and ! keys (Obviously I must not be on the stupid computer since I was just able to type that) which, if you take a look at that line up, are pretty dang important keys! It has been a big pain to say the least of my frustration.

A funny thing happened last Thursday. On Wednesday there was a message on the whiteboard in the office of our school that everyone should report to Actos Civicos (think patriotic all school meeting) first thing in the morning. So of course at 7:10 when the kids are scrambling for their seats, I rounded them up quietly and neatly into their separate lines of boys and girls not knowing exactly where I was taking for them or for how long. We ended up on the grass in front of the flag (I must quickly stop to mention that September is the month of holidays in Honduras—many wrapped up into Independence Day—see parade picks :)). There are the usual national hymn and prayer. But then, all of a sudden the seventh, eighth, and ninth grade students start coming out in costume. They (unknown to their American teachers) have prepared an elaborate play of the Independence of Honduras. Imagine the surprise, delight, and ensuing chaos when a boy rides in on a HORSE! I thought that was going to be the highlight until someone set up fireworks about 10 feet away from all the children. I’m pretty sure I threw my body in front of the second grade. Details now get a little fuzzy. The fireworks get lit and shoot every which way. I not only feared for the well being and bodily safety of the students in my care, but the people in the street that very well could have been hit by the two fireworks that rocketed over the school’s gate and divebombed in that direction. One firework actually hit the tree above the office causing smoke to billow up from what looked like the roof—also a scary thought. Boy was I glad when they stopped setting off the fireworks. My kids had a good chuckle at my horrified face. A couple of them couldn’t help but comment on my transparent fear and concern and the horrified look that apparently accompanied those feelings (believe me, they tried to imitate the face and it DID look funny). Mister Adalberto our social studies teacher did get what appear to be serious burns all over his hand due to the lighting of the stupid fireworks. He did take that day off, but don’t worry, he’s back to school and teaching.

The other night I had one of the smile bursting laughter moments when our power came back on after being out for a good amount of time. I was trying to make guacamole by candlelight—a mildly to really frustrating experience due to the fact that there were some bad spots on all of the avocados I was cutting up. I finally started using my roommate’s flashlight which I tucked under my chin to shine at the avocado—I’m sure it was quite a sight. After cutting up a few of the aguacats (short for aguacates=avocados in español) I headed for my room to grab my own flashlight. It was a hopeless case. I couldn’t see anything and tripped over everything. I went back to the kitchen where I groped around for some matches—crossing my fingers that they would be in the same place where I last saw them (which is hoping for a lot when you share a house with 5 other people!) but there were some! and I had just lit the candle when…the power came back on. It was such a wonderful feeling, but the cause of the bursting laughter was the cheers that came from the street, from the houses all around celebrating that the light had come back! One of us started to giggle at the resounding whoops and hollers from outside and it was contagious. Happy celebratory laughter filled the house.

Always flexible…because life is so comica…

(Jaime, pardon this visa story that sounds so ridiculo when written down) I don’t really have a work visa that lasts for a year. Don’t worry—I’m not being deported or anything (but if I am, I’m heading straight toward chocolate!). There are a couple ideas being worked on—several plans of action—but one in particular sounds so funny it can’t help but be shared. Working at the school, we have several instant friends—dedicated, devoted people that help us out with whatever comes up and begs for assistance. Whether sharpening our knives with a machete, picking us (or anyone affiliated with us) from the airport, bringing us coffee from the mountain, giving us butt injections of antibiotics that contain who knows what, but are used to cure anything and everything ailing the volunteer (they come in three shot series—I’m praying that I won’t ever need this), these friends are around often and watch our backs ;) Our doctor friend hooked us up with his lawyer friend who helped write a letter to the mayor of San Pedro Sula (super industrial important city in Honduras that is only 45ish minutes-1.5 hour-ish away from me—which I might refer to as “the city” occasionally). Here is the ridiculous part. His plan went a little something like this…go to the park in San Pedro Sula on Thursday September 14. The mayor will be in front of the statue in the park at approximately 8:30 am. Introduce yourself to him, shake his hand, and hand him the letter. Certainly he will then agree to donate $4000 (US) so that all the teachers have work visas. Yeah right. That was my thought. That is probably your thought. I mean, how do we even know he will be there!?! Well, it was the day before Independence Day so he was going to be there participating in some special event. And, check this out…it actually worked. He was there. He read the letter and said, “Sure thing.” He probably said something way better and intelligent and in Spanish, but with similar meaning. We haven’t seen a check yet, but that we walked past a statue and this whole thing went down is super laughable to me. What a hoot.

Which leads me to part two of be flexible because life is so super funny. We’ll discuss tomorrow whether or not we have to go to Belize…you know…THIS weekend. No problem, you know, just a little trip to Belize. Ha! That might be the better short term solution to the visa issue. Just kind of funny to think about that might be my weekend plans—and we would probably have Friday off!

So this is getting long so I should probably end this fast. But just a few more things…

We can’t recycle. It just doesn’t happen here. People have checked into it, and we just aren’t sure how it can be done. Getting people to not throw their trash in their yards, out their windows—this would be a start.

That reminds me! One of the funny moments in my classroom! A few kids brought rocks into the classroom, but remember the structure that is my room…I just confiscated them and threw them out the window as I was teaching! Probably a little different than my other teacher friends! :)

Ok, enough. Heading to bed! Goodnight!

I just want to say...

2006-10-01T11:49:00.000-07:00

Read both new entries! :)

Independence Day Parade!

2006-10-01T11:11:00.000-07:00

Ok, here are some pictures! Some more next time I´m here!

Eduardo--check out those missing teeth!

Julia was corn and Orlando was the Bay Islands :)

Melking representing forestry with his mother. They had matching hats! Juan Carlos in his soccer uniform. Not that we really have a soccer team...it was so big his mom pinned the sleeves!

I love this kid! Melvin dressed up as a campesino. Those are his coffee beans his mother is strapping to his stomach :)

The littlest kids dressed up like animals and got to ride in a truck. It makes me sweat to just look at them. And there wasn´t an ambulance waiting in case someone went down due to heat stroke!

%0

2006-10-01T10:33:00.000-07:00

I’m laying here on my bed in my pajamas, listening to familiar music and writing without the gentle hum and breeze of the fan. This is good news folks. It means that I haven’t started sweating yet today. It makes me think (with great joy) that maybe we are heading into “winter” which people already claim we are in, or at least into a season that doesn’t include triple digit temperatures ;) I was actually slightly chilly this morning with our fan on medium, but not chilly enough to crawl out from under my sheet to turn it down or off. It did end up turning off on its own (power outage, not creepy fan) which caused me to wake up since it no longer covered the noise of the roosters, dogs, and children in the street. I lay here on my bed surrounded by pictures of people that I love and am assured also love me, and by notecards with messages reminding me of why I am here. My roommate comes in an out, getting dressed, washing her face, all the while talking to herself asking questions in a grumble incoherent to me. I used to try to answer, but she only apologizes and so I sit here and type.

I’ve been reading a lot lately. Yesterday I finished In the Time of the Butterflies, and I am stretching the Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne out as long as I can. Not only do I feel like I am learning or thinking thoughtfully about something every time I pull it out, it also starts interesting, honest conversations with my housemates about faith, grace, Christianity, and social justice.

You already know I am in love with my students. Every single one of them. The tiny beads of sweat that form and sit on the tips of their little noses by 10am, their giant new adult teeth coming in among the little baby teeth, the giant gaps where the dietes flacos have just come out, their tiny white undershirts under their dressy white uniform shirts, the small belts on the boys’ pants, the brown and white uniforms that look like we are raising up and training an unusually large Brownie girl (and boy) scout troop. I love it all.

But I would say that there is a special place in my heart for Juan Carlos. I thought it strange that last year’s teacher would leave me a note saying that minor behavioral problems could be taken care of by sitting the perpetrator next to Juan Carlos. This intrigued me and I was excited to meet this little boy. It is hard to explain. When our eyes meet I feel like there is communication that goes beyond his English or my Spanish ability. I told him that I wanted to come to his house to meet his family and he said that he would ask his parents. That day when I was walking home with Anna and Emily I was caught off guard when I heard him call my name. I turned to look at where the shout came from and saw Juan Carlos, grinning with joy to see his teacher outside of school, behind a chain link fence surrounding one of the smallest houses I have ever seen. Immediately my insides jumbled up with emotions twisting and turning from every corner. Shock and surprise that this is where my beautiful, smart Juan Carlos spends his time outside of the classroom, overwhelming love for this little boy waving to me with a grin on his face, the desire to sell everything I own to be able to ensure the basic necessities for this boy and his family. This day I met Juan Carlos’ family, his two little sisters Caren and Suelmi, ages 3 and 6, his father, Juan Carlos (who I can Mister Juan Carlos :)) and his mother Wendi who looks about my own age (though I haven’t found an appropriate time to ask) and is 7 months pregnant with little Josué (who I usually say a quick goodbye to with a reminder that he is to stay put for a few more months, but that I am excited to meet him). Later I spend time there drinking hot chocolate (still good, even when you are hot), sitting outside on one of their two plastic chairs helping Juan Carlos with his homework, translating English storybooks into Spanish for Caren and Suelmi (which is indeed as hard as it sounds—my Spanish is so rough right now), and playing duck, duck, goose (where I am frequently the sopa de frijoles—bean soup) which takes me for the first time into their house chasing little Suelmi. Not at all run down, but a simple concrete square, their house is one room with a curtain hiding a toilet in the corner. A twin bed, a crib, and a small table line the three walls respectively. I try to imagine their growing five person family sleeping here or being in here together during one of the violent thunderstorms that often blow through during the night. I get worried by the thought that Juan Carlos, my star student, might one day need to drop out of school to help his father provide for their growing family. My whole being pleads that he stay in school, attend college, and change the world.

In the Irresistible Revolution, the author Shane Claiborne reflects on a time when he attended a rally against sweatshops overseas. The organizers had not invited the typical rally speakers, but instead the kids themselves from the sweatshops to speak. Suddenly statistics had a face and poverty had become personal. I see poverty every day. The children that run around naked in the street, the ones that come to our gate to ask for food, with the hard look in their eyes that tells that life has already been difficult for them in their young age. The rusty sheet metal houses that line the road to San Pedro. The rotting teeth. But for me, it was Juan Carlos that gave poverty a face, and it has become personal.

Later Shane was speaking at a college and some students asked him how to choose which issue of social justice is the most important. He says, “The question made me cringe. Issues? These issues have faces. We’re talking not only about ideas but also about human emergencies. Don’t choose issues: choose people.” He responded, “Come play in the fire hydrants in North Philly. Fall in love with a group of people who are marginalized and suffering, and then you won’t need to worry about which cause you need to protest. Then the issues will choose you.” I can just as easily say, “Come play duck, duck, goose in Cofradia.” I chose the people, but the issues have chosen me.

But now that it has become personal and the issue has chosen me, where do I go from here? What should my response be as a person, but also as a Christian? The thought of combating world poverty is overwhelming. Think smaller Sarah, what can you do to play your part in working against poverty and creating opportunities for those that are oppressed by their socioeconomic status? I can start by pouring my energy and love into my lessons, my students, and my community. I will keep you updated as I continue to reflect on this question and the question of how what I learn from my work here in Honduras will have an effect on me and my decision for what I do next with my life. So much to think about, but for now I need to return my thoughts to fractions, predicates, and plants! This is just a little look into what has been going on in my life and in my head lately. Please keep me posted on you!

2006-09-27T17:10:00.000-07:00

So I feel like I have been neglecting the blog a little bit...lesson planning has been taking the front burner for a while as it probably should ;) But here is a little update for you until Friday when we have a half day and I will hopefully get a chance to tell you some amusing stories and post some pics :)

So the water has been sporatic, but is usually around for at least a half an hour every two days or so. Last night it rained for about 7 minutes, but it was enough time to throw on my bathingsuit and wash (and condition!) my hair. I honestly had no idea that it would make such a big difference on my mood whether I am dirty or clean, but it totally does. Right now I am just making some worksheets on my computer and making some beans. Beans are the biggest pain in my butt ever. Just so that you know. They are way more work than I ever imagined. Just for a few little wonderful morsels of goodness to put on my tortilla. So they should first soak for forever (ie. at least a couple of hours) and then they have to boil for forever (a couple of hours). And the water dries up so fast that you can't really do anything but monitor the beans because they are burning and/or need more water! Usually by the time they are done they have run out of water at least twice so they are half burnt AND the pan has become a mess to clean. So suppose that finally they are soft enough to eat. Then they go in the blender for some nice refried bean-esque texture. The blender is a whole other story! The other day I went to make a licuado (again friends, think smoothie) and all of a sudden giant ants came pouring out of the blender base. I hosed it off with water (prob not the best idea for an electrical appliance) but they continued to come out looking to attack. So our blender moved to live outside. But I wanted a licuado something furious so then went in search of an extension cord. Yes, ladies and gentleman, we blended using a 10 foot extension cord to the porch. As it turns out, the ants are living in the blender motor. Buuuut, after living on the porch for a couple of days the ants seem to have retreated. And we can blend inside once more.

Moral of the story: beans are hardly worth the effort.

Dia del Nino--fiesta time!

2006-09-23T12:48:00.000-07:00

This one actually goes with the parade pics that I need to post next time. A sneak peek for you!

After the piñata

piñata!

class pic--minus the teacher

probably my two favorite kids!

hehe :)

Yesterday is worth documenting...

2006-09-22T22:06:00.000-07:00

So many body fluids in one day…

It started with a nosebleed, three criers, and two bleeding cuts and scrapes before 9am. Then during P.E. one of my boys ripped the crotch of his pants. I spent the duration of my recess duty sewing his pants back together in the office when in walks one of my students who had explosive diarrhea in his pants. He is promptly stripped and wrapped in a sheet toga which he wears for the next two hours while his uniform is washed by hand and set out on the swing set to dry. During my sewing extravaganza I miss the pants with the needle and poke my finger so hard that I begin to bleed so profusely that I needed to stop sewing and search for a Band-Aid. After recess I go grab a snack at the glorieta (mini cafeteria) and I find one of my students (who is supposed to be in Spanish class) wandering around looking a little lost. As soon as I ask him what is wrong he throws up at my feet all over the pavement in front of the only bathrooms at school. When I go back to class and begin teaching, the same kid leans over and throws up in the middle of my classroom. I lean over and wipe it up with the toilet paper I keep in my classroom for the nosebleeds and criers, trying not to make a big deal about it, and trying to continue teaching as I clean up barf. Ugh. Quite the job I signed up for…

But the kids continue to blow me away with their English comprehension. It is amazing how fast they pick up on the words that I use ALL the time like “fighting” and “pushing” which they stick into sentences such as, “Miiiiiiiiiss, Fernando está pushing!!!!” I love it. Another good one is, “Tengo hot! (I have hot)” There are a few kids that still struggle. Yesterday I asked Rafael what he did after school and he answered, “Cornflakes.” To be fair, I do often ask them what they ate for breakfast. But when I repeated the question he said, “Yes.” We’re going to have to set up some tutoring sessions… :)

I am so sleepy or I would write more. I definitely have more to tell you. Tonight we had a party for ourselves—Monday was the holiday Teacher’s Day and though we had the day off from school, we took this evening to celebrate ourselves. It was like all the other Honduran gatherings we have been to—very relaxing and delicious food. Every gathering is like Thanksgiving. Mmm. But now I’ve taken my shower—stayed under the cold water until I determined that I am cold enough to fall asleep. So I am going to head that way.

Signing off.

A weekend away...

2006-09-18T16:17:00.000-07:00

From the journal…

I’m still dealing with the whole being an adult thing. That this is the beginning of my life post-student—that I can make the decision to go wherever I want next year. I can’t believe that part of my journey includes this very moment seeing this view, being completely surrounded by mountains on every side, and watching the clouds float by at nearly eye level. It is strangely surreal. And I am shivering! The breeze is chilly, blowing my hair, and sending a chill down my back. To complete the dream-esque vista, there is a white stallion neighing on a hill in the distance. It is a very peaceful place to be. We are staying at an eco lodge in the mountains—I don’t really know what an eco lodge is—what makes something an eco lodge, but I’ll describe the place where we are staying. It is almost completely made out of wood. Probably wood found near the premises since there is no way at all that these wood planks made it here the same way that we did-which was on foot down a steep trail-maybe about a mile hike—probably not a mile. I just say a mile because I have no idea :) But we walked for what seemed like a very long time down a path no vehicles could maneuver (I love the chacos!). We were wary the whole way down anticipating the walk back up tomorrow. I’m not anticipating (but dreading if I think about it) the entire ride home. I thought I would thoroughly enjoy the hour long ride in the back of a pick-up truck while we climbed the 9000 feet to get here. But the very large truck to accommodate 11 passengers and their brimming backpacks (who really knows what to pack for mountains/hiking/swimming?!?) that was promised turned out to be a giant Twister-fest with layered sweaty arms and legs. Jon B. had to tell Emily to close her mouth because he was sweating from his perch above her—he actually stood for the whole ride. The twisty turny, sharp blind corners, drive through the middle of small creeks, drive perilously close to the side of a giant mountain left me so nauseous that I ended up having to close my eyes for the majority of the trip—missing any beautiful view that might have been—and deciding whether or not to vomit over the side of the moving truck. Anyway, the whole lodge is wooden. Hehe. The furniture is solid. Dinner was served family style on the giant wooden table—it was so nice to have people cook for us this weekend. We talked about food too much this weekend. I forgot to tell you that I fell asleep instantly after arriving at the eco lodge and woke up listening to my housemates on the giant front porch talking about their favorite meals…nachos, cheese, Italian food. We have big plans to make chocolate chip cookies as soon as we can track down some chocolate chips in this country.

After dinner we played a rousing game of fishbowl—where you put the names of people into a big bowl and then have three rounds where you first do taboo style to have everyone guess the person, then can only say one word, and then say nothing. Dewey Decimal was a hard one to act out! It was good to spend some time as a group doing something not school related. It is interesting to have this group of people that I not only live with, but work with, and hang out with in my free time. I am looking for ways to get involved in the community to not only improve my Spanish, but ensure that we don’t all drive each other bonkers after a few months of this ;)

After the game we went outside to look at the stars. There were only a few lights in some of the surrounding valleys (we could actually see our town of Cofradia and could tell that our house didn’t have power. Go figure. With only 10 seconds of looking at the sky I saw a shooting star. It is the first one that I have seen in years. I didn’t make a wish though. I’m not sure what I would wish these days. Maybe for chocolate chips, but that seems like a silly wish.

And some more (not from the journal)…

The next two days we spent doing activities away from the eco lodge. On Saturday we took a pickup truck up to Cusuco National Park where we did a four mile-ish hike. It was beautiful. I am just going to post a bunch of pictures because they will do a better job explaining than me. On the way home it started to get misty. It was like driving though a cloud (which makes sense because Cusuco is a cloud forest!). Soon it started to downpour cold rain—we couldn’t really complain—any chance to be cold is welcomed in our lives. We started singing every song we could think of that mentions the word rain. As you can imagine, everyone we passed laughed at us as they waved at the crazy gringos. It felt so wonderful to get back to the lodge, change into long sleeved clothes and eat the soup they prepared for us. Yum! We spent a lot of the evening reading, but also played Two Truths and a Lie. Of course I forgot to lie and told them all truths, but in the end it was a fun way to learn more about the people that I spend all my time with. We sure bring a diverse wealth of experiences to one room.

On Sunday we left the lodge early to hike to a waterfall. Sounds easy, but no. It was the hardest hike I’ve ever been on—two hours of steep inclines and uh declines (?). Halfway there I was ready to turn around and walk home thinking that there was no sight that could be worth finishing this hike. But we pressed on and when we got there I decided that it was worth it to swim in the cold (colder than Lake Superior!) water that only one of the other teachers would bravely enter in with me. After the refreshing swim, we laid on giant rocks to dry off some and to enjoy the mist of the cascading water. The hike back seemed shorter (it always seems to do that, doesn’t it), but we did stop a lot less to get introductions to different plants from our guide Carlos, and to eat the different kinds of fruits growing along the side of the trail. We went back to the lodge to eat lunch and quickly pack up for the ride home. It ended up raining the entire way back—and not just drizzling. The rain came down so hard that we could barely keep our eyes open. We were sitting in an inch-ish of water (me sitting on my sopping duffle bag that held my digital camera that I worried about for most of the trip home) with towels and other clothing draped over us to keep us warm from the cold rain. About halfway home it stopped raining so hard and we decided to sing once again to take our mind off the fact that we were so wet and cold. It is amazing how Disney classics can bring a group of similar aged people together. Everyone knows the songs up to the Lion King! Finally we reached home sweet home. I was barely able to hop out of the truck with my sore muscles and water logged bag. Our clothes went straight from our bodies to our clothes line and the comfy clothes went on. We soon sat down to brainstorm food options realizing that we had absolutely nothing. We had just decided on pancakes and then realized that we didn’t have any milk when there was a knock on the gate. The hilarity of what happened next is just another example of the craziness of my life. At the gate was our friend Don Wilfredo who came to tell us that his birthday party was going on and that they were waiting for us. We quickly put on our party clothes and laughed at the good news that this was for our dinner. Walking up to the house we looked through the window and saw that their living room was full of…NUNS! We kind of chuckled as we walked to the door at the fact that you never know what to expect. It was a fun party. After eating some good food, the nuns broke out a guitar and started singing patriotic songs about Honduras. They asked us to sing, but no one in our group plays guitar very well, so Sister Martina played all of the songs that she knows in English which included Yesterday, B-I-N-G-O, and Old MacDonald. Can you imagine 10 Americans singing B-I-N-G-O with a room full of nuns clapping along? I hope so, because then you will have your laugh for the day! :) It was quite something. We came back around 9 and went to bed shortly after.

This morning when I woke up I thought to myself—there is no point getting up because we have no food. It was such a discouraging thought. But I knew I had to get up! Now comes the beauty of living in a community. One of my housemates had already gone grocery shopping, one had already made coffee and saved enough for me, and another housemate was at the stove cooking up pancakes. It was a beautiful sight. As for today, it is Día de los Maestros—Teacher’s Day :) and we don’t have school. I’ll spend the day planning for this week, trying to upload all kinds of pictures for you, and washing my laundry. I hope your weekend was a good one!

Love, Sarah

p.s. Because of all of the holidays in September, we never have school! We had a day off for Children’s Day and for Independence Day which was this past Friday when we marched in a parade! Some of the kids were asked to dress up as different departments (and it seems…natural resources) of Honduras. Some of the parents went all out…here are some pictures!

p.p.s. It took so long for Cusuco pictures to upload that the parade and Children´s Day pictures will have to wait for another time. But here are some for you to look at for now!

2006-09-18T16:05:00.000-07:00

The view from our room.

Anna and I on the front porch.

2006-09-18T15:53:00.000-07:00

weekend in the mountains...

2006-09-18T15:15:00.000-07:00

whoops, this one got in by accident and I can´t erase it! It is Hilary and Emily trying to cut a board to build a desk...it was not a successful endeavor. And it didn´t happen this weekend :)

Fermin, Lisa, me, Anna, and Emily

One of the bridges we crossed :)

Marilyn, Emily, me, and Anna

Driving through a cloud!

The swim in this waterfall was worth the exhausting hike. You can´t tell, but I am smiling very big :)

Karaoke :)

2006-09-18T14:41:00.000-07:00

L to R: Bridget my roomate, me, Emily, Anna, Hilary, Jon the administrator, Lisa, and Lisa Jon´s wife

I'm still alive!

2006-09-15T09:25:00.000-07:00

Hello! Where have I been?!? Marching in the sun preparing for our debut in the Independence Day parade! Whew, I'm glad it is over! We're heading out of town for the mountains until Sunday and I promise a good blog entry and many pictures upon my return :) Just wanted to let you know I am doing well! Our water has returned and is back to its sporatic presence!

What did YOU do last night?

2006-09-10T16:57:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning not able to move my arms and so confused as to why that was the case. Then I remembered the events of yesterday…

I wish I would have had a camera to capture it…but due to the urgency of the moment, my words will have to suffice.

Running water has become something of the past…when we (the housemates and I) think about it, we come to the conclusion that there was probably water last Tuesday or Wednesday, but has been MIA since. We began to look at our pila (large concrete container of water that resides outside of our house) and wonder how the water would sustain the six of us for very long. We use that water to do our dishes, laundry, take bucket showers, and flush our toilet. So we cut out showers and laundry, using the water only for dishes and flushing the toilet. It was still looking pretty low…and our state of filth was wearing on all of us. Probably the longest that I’ve ever gone without at least washing my hair (my scalp was starting to itch something terrible!). By accident I wore my flip flops to the store instead of my chacos and the dirt and dust of the road flipped back up onto my legs sticking to the sweat. On Friday it was rumored to be out for three more days. We hoped and prayed for rain…but nothing. We woke up Saturday disgusted with ourselves and smelling pretty darn nasty. We tried to get things done regardless—planning for school and making lunch together. We were going to try to make some “grilled cheese” using some quesillo—not quite cheddar J and Emily went down the road to the store to get a few tomatoes for us to cut up to stick in our grilled cheese sandwiches. Had we not decided to get some tomatoes we might have missed this momentous event! Emily throws open the gate to our house and yells, “WATER! DROP EVERYTHING! GET THE BUCKETS!” In the middle of our cheese grilling we frantically grabbed every bucket we could find and went stumbling out to the street where people are swarming from every direction carrying every bucket in their possession and gravitating to the beautiful stream of water being emitted from the back of the truck. We quickly joined the crowd, filled our buckets, waddled back up the stairs to our house and poured the water into the pila before going back for another round. I can’t count exactly how many five gallon buckets of water I lugged from the truck and lifted to pour into the pila--enough to leave my arms trembling and my housemates and I with sweat dripping off of our bodies. When the truck finally ran out of water I took a deep breath and joined the crowd of people waving gratefully goodbye. It was worth all of the hard work knowing that our water supply was being slightly replenished. But disappointingly, not enough for anyone to be able to take a bucket shower.

We were still hoping for rain so we lined the buckets up outside in the backyard. Anna, Emily and I were just settling in to watch Spanglish to lift our spirits when we heard the first rumble. The power went first. In the pitch black of our house we frantically started to strip off the sweaty clothes and feel around for our bathing suits. We carefully and quickly exited the house carrying towels, shampoo, razors, soap, loofahs, the works! We set them carefully under the protection of the sheet metal overhang and stood in the darkness in our bathing suits (and birthday suits!) waiting for the rain. The wind and small drops teased us for a few minutes, and while it never rained with enough force to wash the shampoo out of our hair, soon it began to rain hard enough for a steady stream to run down the metal overhand and out of the gutter. It came out of the gutter with better water pressure than our normal shower (when it is working)!!!! We whooped and cheered, danced around and began to bathe. We took turns rinsing and then worked to fill the pila to the max. I can say with full certainty that I have not been cleaner or colder since coming to Honduras. I was able to get the dirt from beneath my fingernails and sit down to scrub my daily mistreated feet. We decided to just go to bed after the showers around 9:30 and it was a beautiful sound when the power came on minutes after crawling into bed and we could turn on the fan.

to my friend Natán

2006-09-09T10:49:00.000-07:00

if you had a casio keyboard you could share your mad skills with the world :) If you go on tour, be sure to stop in little Cofradía :)

I haven’t told you

2006-09-07T20:49:00.000-07:00

that I have developed a fear of dogs since coming down to Honduras. I experienced the scariest moment that I can remember (well, getting on the plane and coming down here was kind of scary, but I mean terror scary…this coming from the girl that doesn’t watch scary movies) while on our little trip to the beach before school started. We were in search of a vegetarian meal and came to a place with a sign that looked promising. But there was a solid black gate that we had to open to get to the restaurant/hostel. We opened the door and stepped inside to find an open area with tables and chairs, and hallways that branched off to where I would guess that the guest rooms are. There was no one in sight so we called out hello. All of a sudden three GIANT, scary, pit-bull/Doberman-esque guard dogs came running at us full speed barking like they were totally going to eat us. I was with three other girls who all took off running toward the gate where we entered. For a split second I considered running, but the dog safety presentation from 5^th grade student teaching stuck with me—that you shouldn’t run. By the time I had thought about running and hesitated I figured that they would have caught me anyway so in a sheer state of panic and terror I froze against the wall and watched as they chased my friends. Two made it out the gate and slammed it shut while another girl jumped up on a chair. I frantically started yelling in Spanish for someone to come help. Finally a woman appeared and I was able to produce enough words to ask her to please stop her dogs from eating me. She assured me that my life was not in danger and with my legs trembling I tried to walk and find the other teachers. All of us shaking we made our way back to the cabana. At this point it is dusk, but more dark than dusk and Emily says, “What is THAT?!?” I didn’t want to know. But apparently there was a crazy animal that resembled something out of the Princess Bride. Like a weird beaver/grizzly bear offspring. That probably isn’t a very good description, but then again, I didn’t look at the crazy thing so imagine what you like. All I know is we walked faster and didn’t make eye contact.

Branching off in the creepy crawly direction…I should let you know the cockroach status in my life. Many of you have heard the stories of my previous time spent in Honduras and the numerous cockroaches that were present. I have only seen one cockroach in my house so far and—I wasn’t allowed to kill it. No, I am not killing. One of my roommates is extremely bug friendly so she actually carries bugs out of our house. I know that the cockroach got tossed over our neighbor’s wall (so mean, hey).

Yesterday my friend Anna (1^st grade teacher) and I were sitting in the office during one of our free periods working on school stuff when a gecko fell from the ceiling and onto her leg. I thought maybe there was a leak in the ceiling or something, but no. Small lizard creature from above. So funny.

Now some funnies from my classroom :) One of my more energetic students, Melvin, was coming into class wearing a backpack that was full and hanging open, carrying a plastic briefcase full of his art supplies, a water bottle and his lunch. Now picture him running toward me at full speed to give me a hug. He trips over his feet and crashes to the floor unable to get up. I couldn’t help it, I had to chuckle. He looked so cute and helpless and confused all at once. I love this kid.

Today one of the larger, eh plumper kids in my class got stuck in his new drum set. He came into the room after band practice and I had to stop teaching in order to help him break free!

Tomorrow is Día del Niño—little kids day. Pretty cool, every kid’s dream! We just have school from 9-noon to play games, eat food, and have a piñata. I’m excited to get to play with my kids all day tomorrow. I’m excited to get to sleep in a little longer. Today after school I fell asleep in the hammock despite the super duper annoying neighbor on his little Casio keyboard playing the same 4 notes over and over for hours this afternoon.

Peace out.

and a few words...

2006-09-04T21:19:00.000-07:00

We are some workaholics over here in what our mentor/administrator fondly calls Gringolandia, our house, but we finally got out this weekend for a soccer game in the city. We hopped on the bus where we spent the entire 40ish minute ride belting out cheesy 80s love songs that were played on the radio. I was so excited I could barely wipe the grin off of my face as we walked to the Olympic stadium. We bought tickets and headed in where it was a high security operation. The guard at the door told me that I couldn’t bring my purse into the stadium to which I responded, “Well then, where do you expect me to put it.” He was less than sympathetic, but another guard took notice when I started shoving the contents of my purse (bug spray, baby wipes, Dramamine, IBprofun, sunglasses case, water bottle, etc.) down my pants or strapping them to my body. He took pity on me or thought I was being ridiculous so they let me enter after a brief search. As it turned out, the entire stadium was decked out with military guards—one every few feet. We didn’t know it beforehand, but this was a pretty intense rivalry! They were there in case things got out of hand! One funny part of the game was when the ball actually got kicked at one of the guards and knocked him over. Again, I was so excited I started to giggle without reason. There were guys tossing bags of confetti (sealed at this point) into the crowd. Danilo, one of the teachers that we work with, made sure that we all got bags of confetti. Even before the teams came out onto the field the bouncing up and down and chanting of cheers began. When they finally ran onto the field confetti filled the air. It was the closest thing to a snowstorm I bet anyone will see in Honduras. Everyone jumping up and down, throwing confetti, and wahooing. It was quite the experience. Then everyone started doing this chant with a hand motion. I joined in not really knowing what they were saying. Danilo quickly stopped me, telling me that I was doing something very vulgar and that my students would see me on tv doing it! Whoops. I’m curious to know what exactly I was saying. I thoroughly enjoyed the game though neither team scored. There were about 15 REALLY CLOSE shots. The fact that no one scored was probably better for safety walking the 20 minutes to the bus pick-up spot. On the way home it started thunderstorming (I told you it does every night!) and our bus slipped off of the road a little bit. No problem though. When we got off the bus we jogged through the muddy puddle-ridden streets in the thunderstorm to our house about 4 blocks away. It was one of those can’t help, but laugh moments. It was an all around great night out

I am still enjoying my job and getting to know my kids. Hilarious things happen everyday. One cause is what I call trigger words. When my students hear these trigger words they break into song. I’m not joking. It is kind of like a weird musical. Trigger words include: Monday, boom, beaver, and clap. I think I might have found them all :) Today they were bad…probably because they couldn’t hear me. The band started practicing after lunch and continued until the end of the day. You might think that it wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but since my classroom doesn’t have real windows or doors, just openings in the concrete, it is pretty much like having class in the band room. It doesn’t help that 99.8% of our band is percussion. My students stood up and started dancing and banging on things, and couldn’t hear me when I asked them to stop! Ahh! I am planning a little better for tomorrow afternoon when it will probably happen again.

Can I just tell you how much I like tortillas? Man, I love tortillas. I love the women that have welcomed me into their home and helped me practice this important skill. I don’t go often because I know that when I got to pick up some tortillas they will make me make them all myself! This is a long ordeal because I am so slow and they have to fix every other tortilla I attempt :) I am so thankful for their patience and encouragement. Last night I made 20 so that me and all of my housemates could eat tortillas and guacamole for dinner. We are pretty much addicted to guac over here. We have an avocado tree in the back that feeds the addiction! We do some weird food combos over here. Last night my roommate ate the guac over spaghetti.

Ok—it is past my bedtime. It is 9:32! Ha! :) Can you even believe it!? But this is the same girl that needs to get up befote 5:30am to wash her clothes by hand. Ugh. Must take shower.

Over and out. Shubs.

The kiddos :)

2006-09-04T21:02:00.000-07:00

School!

2006-09-04T16:37:00.000-07:00

The first day of school photo!

BEFORE!

AFTER!

I took a class picture today that I will put on here asap! I hope you enjoyed this assortment of pictures that hopefully can put some images with my stories!

Love, Sarah

Staff Retreat to Tela and Triunfo de la Cruz--my first weekend in Honduras--life (and scenery) changed rapidly

2006-09-04T16:22:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Honduras--start at the bottom!

2006-09-04T15:54:00.000-07:00

And a last one of the house...the kitchen.

But this is the table we use when we are all together--this was taken during a banana pancake breakfast this Saturday.

Our small table and large library of resource books...

The other side of my room.

My room with the lovely fan.

Our work space--I had a better picture of this, but this shows us in action. Can you spot my laptop? :)

This is my house!

The first view of Honduras as I waited for my ride from the airport.

The view from my red eye flight to Honduras...my eyes were pretty red too.

All of the stuff I dragged around various airports! I had slight back problems for a few days, no joke.

Exactly how hot is it?

2006-08-31T20:01:00.000-07:00

I think yesterday marked the hottest day I have spent in Honduras since arriving. My first clue was when my students started stripping during school. I had to keep telling them to put them back on! It is actually kind of cute--the students always have little beads of sweat on their noses. Anyway, Mister Harvey got very sick and was home just chillin'--well, not chillin'. He took the temperature in our house during the day in a shady corner and it was 98 degrees. Isn't that unbelievable?! It was better not knowing. I'm just conscious of being rather warm. I stay in the shower at night though until I start to shiver which helps the sleeping thing. So, that is how hot it is. Thought I would share :) Time to get back to work!

shubs

I´m such a softy

2006-08-29T15:04:00.000-07:00

I was a goner after one day with my students. My heart doesn´t feel big enough for the love that I already have for them. It was as if in one moment I became their biggest fan. Being a superfan is exhausting though. Whew. It is becoming a habit to crawl into the hammock after school and just lay there for about a half an hour before going back to work on school stuff. It is worth it though for the laughs alone. Yesterday I gave my students some homework and to do this homework it was necessary for them to copy 5 sentences into their notebook that they would then correct (well, capitalize the first letter and add a period at the end). I thought having them copying the sentences into their notebooks about 20 minutes before school ended would be PLENTY of time. For some reason they just didn´t get it. (Well, it very well might have a huge something to do with the fact that I only speak to them in English. I´m not sure I´ve blogged about that before). I did everything to explain it in several different ways, but blank stares all around. Ok, maybe one or two students were copying down the sentences. Finally I was so frustrated that I went to the front and let off this schpiel (who knows how to spell that?) in Spanish that THIS IS THEIR HOMEWORK and they darn better start copying it down if they want to be able to do their homework! When I finished, one boy stood up and started clapping and then the rest of the class followed suit. It was hilarious. But I tried not to laugh, but to make them sit down and copy those sentences! Another funny thing from yesterday happened during recess. The tables and chairs that the students sit at tend to migrate several feet each day. I end up pushing the kids backwards because I am pinned against the whiteboard! Anyway, when trying to arrange the tables a little better, I noticed a stray chair against the wall. I have the students´ names taped to the back of their chair so I looked and it belonged to Maria Jose. I went to take it to where she sits at the table and I found HER BACKPACK CONVERTS INTO A CAMPING CHAIR! Maybe you had to be there, but I burst out laughing that I didn´t notice all morning that this girl was sitting on a camping chair :) Crazy.

So I am really enjoying teaching second grade. I am learning so much. But I´m really missing my community of friends in the States these days. It has been harder than I thought it would be. Know that you are in my thoughts often.

I love the weekend.

2006-08-26T11:13:00.000-07:00

It is my first Saturday here in Honduras where nothing has been planned for me (except a karaoke commitment later today—at the home of one of my students no less!). I slept in until 9:30—getting 4 more hours of sleep than usual. It was Wonderful. Laying in my bed awake, but not needing to get up, but just enjoying the sun streaming through my window and listening to the gentle purr of the fan was the closest thing to home that I have experienced so far. I got up and Harvey (the boyfriend/P.E. teacher) was making us all pancakes for breakfast and a coffee pot full of coffee that came from our friend’s farm up the mountain was still nice and hot. Mmm.

Random note: There is a gecko that lives in our coffeemaker. We haven’t given a name for him or anything, we’re not that tight, but I guess the trick to making good coffee is first checking to make sure there isn’t any lizard poop in there.

I have spent the remainder of this morning moving my still wet laundry to the clothesline in the sun, re-soaking the ones that were left outside during the storm, and trying to combat the kitchen ant issue that arose this morning. In our pajamas wearing socks pulled up to our shins with flip flops we washed down every surface with Limpiox. Then, completely filthy with cleaning supplies, sweat, and four days of yuck, I got to take a shower. So now the lesson planning must commence for the day. But I thought I would write a little bit as I listen to good ole Rosie Thomas.

2006-08-25T15:00:00.000-07:00

It thunderstorms everyday.

After two weeks of abandonment, this afternoon I picked up my laundry and began the endeavor of washing them by hand in the pila (think giant concrete box about the size of a refrigerator box). I got through about 5 articles of clothing when I heard a few rumbles in the distance. “That is NOT what I think I think it is,” I said to my housemates reading and lesson planning in the hammocks on our back porch. But it was, and now a mild tropical storm is blowing on my freshly washed clothes. I continued to wash about 5 minutes into the storm before if just didn’t feel right to be outside. This probably means that our water will go out like it tends to do after a large storm and that I will probably go on in my current stench another day. Last night we also lost water and power for awhile. Our first substantial blackout so we videotaped :) We have lots of homemade candles in wine bottles left behind by previous volunteers. And, well, speaking of losing power, it just happened again. It gets pretty dark in this house when the power is out!

There are so many that have made me laugh lately. My housemates’ creativity when it comes to tortillas for one. We have not only eaten leftover chocolate frosting on hot tortillas, but last night my housemate made garlic tortillas to go with our spaghetti. And boy were they good!

Yesterday my kids had P.E. and it is wonderful that my housemate’s boyfriend is here for a month or two and he is being the P.E. teacher for the whole school. Watching him trying to get my second grade kids to play baseball (in English) was a hoot. They did a pretty good job, but at one point we did do a little yoga in the outfield. During P.E. I found that one of my students used a small string (please try to picture this) from his pants to tie his thumb to his wrist. It got stuck and was cutting off circulation when I found him and he told me that he couldn’t feel his finger anymore. I tried not to laugh as we walked quickly back to our classroom and I cut him out of the mess. Not even an hour later another of my students got a wad of gum stuck in her hair.

Well, that is all I am going to write for now because whenever I start writing I just keep going on and on!

Shoot me an email and let me know how you are doing! Jen Loo, thank you for your faithful blogger comments! :)

Sarah

changed my mind--wrote some stuff

2006-08-23T19:29:00.000-07:00

So I have been a little busy…

This past weekend my fellow teachers and housemates (which are one in the same if you haven’t caught that detail of my life) headed out for a relaxing weekend away from the house and all of the stress of planning for school. I was thankful to not have to drag around my lesson plan book and feel weighted down by the thought that I should be doing something productive related to school. It was quite the journey to get there—three buses—not to mention wandering around between buses looking for the next bus ;) We got to Tela in time for lunch on Saturday and then spent the day reading on the beach and playing in the Caribbean. Our hotel was right on the beach and all 5 of us jovenes (younger teachers) shared a room. We went out for a not quite Italian Italian dinner. The original plan was then to go dancing, but taking into consideration the potentially sketchy situations that could be encountered at the Iguana discoteca, we opted to get a bucket of ice cream, put our pajamas on, pile onto two double beds and watch Ghost (in English!) on our cable tv. The next morning we left for Triunfo de la Cruz, a Garifuna village about a half an hour (another bus) from Tela. The beach there was even more beautiful and tranquil. It was wonderful to be so isolated from the bustle of daily life. We were the only gringos (foreigners/white people) in town. We stayed in cabanas (whatever that means) for $3 a night if you can believe it. Since we had been working so hard we were ready to go to bed at 8:30pm! We ended up sharing for hours about our childhood, families, and their reactions to our doing this BECA position thing. When it was finally time to go to sleep we realized that our cabana smelled like a giant outhouse. This was kind of hindering to the whole sleeping thing. I’ll fill you in on the gross reason (whether you want to know or not). The room with our beds was only separated from the toilet by a shower curtain (not really a good idea if you ask me). Then, in Honduras, you don’t flush toilet paper, but throw it away in the trash can where it sits in the heat all day…and let’s just say…if there is someone amongst you having diarrhea action…well, your room with smell like an outhouse. Yuck and a half. Can I say that I haven’t had diarrhea yet which seems like a weird thing to post on the internet, but I actually look at it as a reason to throw a party! Knock on wood.

Fast forward to this morning. I got up at 5am. Ugh. I don’t remember the last time I have done that. Maybe never willingly. In retrospect I wish I would have slept a little longer (like…5:20). In retrospect I would have also worn my scrubs to bed (which I have been doing lately for maximum bug protection), but I made the last minute decision not to wear them and am suffering the consequences. I wish I could take a picture to prove the damage. You’ll never believe that I’m not exaggerating. That is one thing that wears on me. I’ve tried the prevention method. I’ve tried monitoring exposed skin at all times. For some reason it still looks like I have a bad case of adult chicken pox. It is hard sleeping in scrubs though because of the heat—one of the other uncontrollable variables in my life. It’s wearing to sweat almost all the time. When I try to look through resource books and plan for school the books stick to my legs. After my (cold) shower (the only time I’m not sweating) I put on the preventative bug spray which then mixes with sweat and sometimes sunscreen and sand depending on where I am J I’m surprised I didn’t come home from the beach with dreads. My hair was moving as one single unit.

Can someone tell me if wearing 100% deet is not safe for my body? Can someone please offer to send me more bug spray?

So, I got up at 5. We left for school at 6 hoping to get there by 6:30 to get a few things done before school started at 7:15. Bum crack of dawn folks. Frustration point=kids started showing up at 6:40am…who DOES that! It would take a while and even more energy to justly describe my first day at school today so I’ll just say a few things.

It went really well. It went better than I expected. My kids are generally well behaved. Only two kids went from the green light to the yellow light on the discipline stoplight ;)

A random kid named Elvis appeared in my classroom. He wasn’t on my class list and refused to speak to me in either English and Spanish which was super helpful (not!) So I had no idea where he was supposed to go. I finally got his name out of him which I thought was Alvin which is also what his nametag has said all day. He was one of my three criers…He also brings my class to 28 kids—minor point…28 kids that barely speak English.

I am completely exhausted. I spoke in English with them all day which means teaching mixed with acting, repetition, intentional tone and body language, and a superhuman amount of patience that I need to somehow sustain for the rest of the days of the school year. It was incredibly difficult to walk uphill both to and from school (I’m serious). My housemate Anna and I stayed after school just to clean up, realign the tables, and hang up a few things, walked home—stopping for just a few minutes to get a cold licuado (think smoothie made with fruit and milk) and didn’t get home until almost 5pm (school ends at 2:15 thankfully) where we collapsed into the hammocks on our back porch only then to realize that the store where we make photocopies closes at 5pm…so yeah.

I’m thankful that today went so well and hope that it continues. Right now, so completely numb with exhaustion, it is hard to imagine doing this everyday for awhile…but I’m confident it will get easier.

I have been trying to write this last sentence over and over without success—I want to tell you I have gotten glimpses already of my purpose here and I am excited to share some of those glimpses with you soon.

Take care,

Sarah

So I haven't had time to write

2006-08-23T15:47:00.000-07:00

because of the frantic last minute preparations for the..FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!

p.s. I survived (but I apologize that I am so low energy that I can't write about it right now).

2006-08-18T13:41:00.000-07:00

I think it would be so interesting to read the blogs of the different people that are here with me in Honduras. I’m pretty sure that we are all not just approaching this experience differently, but also dealing with it and responding to the struggles differently.

For example, I don’t tell you that my kitchen sink is broken and we do our dishes with a pail of water that we constantly have to refill from the giant trough of water in the backyard to say poor me, or how terribly inconvenient is my life. I tell you in order to give an example of how my daily activities have changed and share with you a piece of what my life looks like in a place where when something breaks, it might take awhile to get fixed. I don’t tell you about the persistent, creepy man on the plane in order to say whoa I must be hot stuff or something, but so that you may laugh with me about the random circumstances that come up regularly.

So random circumstance: Tonight my team layed some soccer against some Spaniards that are in town working with a (Spanish?) NGO and a clinic in town, our Honduran colleagues at school, and some local firemen (that the Spaniards are staying with). Even though we tried to mix up to make even teams, my team got super creamed. It was still fun. At the end of the game the rest of the firemen on duty came with the truck and turned on the lights :) By then it was dark and we climbed into the back of Don Max’s truck for the bumpy ride home. I sat around in my sweat for awhile waiting until it was close enough until bedtime to shower. The funny part is that I shower and then coat myself with bug spray which I’ve decided doesn’t work because I am now up to 37 mosquito bites on my legs alone. Ugh. I look diseased. I would post a picture, but it is too gross.

I have to get to sleep now because we are leaving the house tomorrow at 7:30am for meeting at school with Principal Mabel and the Honduran teachers and then observing a Honduran public school from 10-noon. The afternoon will probably be spent doing more lesson planning because we are going away for the weekend. School starts next Wed.!!! Ahhhh!! So much to do before then! But I am super excited :) I hope I’m ready by then.

Sarah

Because you can live off-campus for the rest of your life...

2006-08-16T17:09:00.000-07:00

…and now I finally am. I share a house with 5 other girls—interesting, intelligent (ivy-league!), fun girls that like to cook, sit on our porch, and spend time together. Boards on cinder blocks line two walls of the largest room in our house, forming a long desk where our own space is marked by our teacher title (Miss Sarah) on an index card taped to the wall. Our afternoons and evenings thus far have been spent sitting at our long mutual desks planning lessons and sharing ideas and resource books. We pass around the internet cord to take breaks and write emails, and take turns playing music. We go shopping for food, cook meals, and do dishes together. It reminds me very much of my time spent in the dining room and living room at Koinonia—minus the boys and discussions of theology. We do have our fair share of interesting conversations. For example--this is a conversation from the other night: “I want a wedding! But I don’t want a husband. I mean, what girl doesn’t want a wedding. It is all about you. You dress up like a princess and everyone basically worships you. I want to be pregnant, but I don’t want a child. You get to eat whatever you want and people rub your feet.” :) We laugh a lot. It is interesting to live with girls that come from such different experiences.

The past two mornings (Have I really been in Honduras for only 2 days?!?!) have been dedicated to scaring the spiders out of my classroom and sweeping away the 2 inches of dust and bug carcasses covering every surface. It is near impossible to imagine preparing a classroom in the States instead of what I am doing here. If you haven’t figured it out, my time has mostly been spent planning lessons and preparing for school. But no worries, I’ve already spent time with the neighbor women making tortillas, dancing at a birthday party for the school’s Honduran principal, and commuting by way of pick-up truck bed. There’s always time for fun.

There are also things that make life interesting around here...

Dogs bark all night long and then when they bark at you during the day they are hoarse and you say to them, “Stupid dog, you shouldn’t have barked all night long.” I, thankfully, I don’t hear them barking at night because of my wonderful, powerful fan.

Getting up early hasn’t been such a problem for me because of the two hour time difference. We get up around 7, but I feel rested because it is 9 Michigan time!

We have to use a wrench to work both our stove and our toaster oven. On the stove it turns the temperature knob which has no numbers on it, but I hear that turned to 2pm is great for cake. We joked about using a permanent marker to label the knob with the word “cake” and maybe even go farther to label “chicken” and other random dishes right there on the knob. The wrench holds the lever down on the toaster oven so that the toast will cook. The problem the lies in the lack of a timer so there have been some pieces of toast that have gone on the wayside.

Also, our water disappeared for a few hours only to be found out that there is a switch on the side of our house that anyone (including the children in our neighborhood…ahem) can turn to the right and shut off our water if ever they want to get the gringas riled up :)

That is all I have time to write now!

2006-08-15T20:32:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling really far away today.

Here!

2006-08-14T18:44:00.000-07:00

So I’m not in West Michigan anymore. In fact, my life looks much different than it did yesterday—almost completely different. I’ll back up a little bit to catch you up to speed.

After an evening of vetoing more items out of my too heavy bags, and repacking to eliminate all of the essential liquids in my carry on bags, we headed to the airport around 3am. We being my amazing friends that have taken care of me and loved me so well through life transition that feels even bigger than I imagined now that I have actually arrived.

My flights went smoothly. Like predicted, I met nice people on each flight that helped me carry the heavy bags that were near impossible for me to navigate on my own. Picture this: Neither oversized carry on fit into the overhead compartment of my first little plane. I had to take my laptop out of my messenger bag that concealed all of the other stuff that I was trying to get to Honduras with me! Then I ended up being the last person off the plane as I tried to stuff everything back into two bags able to carry! I stumbled off the plane to find the outside stairs to leave the plane. As I walked down the stairs to the airport, one of the stupid carry ons got caught on the railing and snagged me! I ended up slowly backing up the stairs hoping that I wouldn’t fall all the way down! It was in Atlanta where I met Matt, a caver, hired by the Honduran department of archeology and anthropology to explore a newly discovered cave and make a map of it. He watched my bags that were too heavy for me to drag to the bathroom, found out that our gate had been changed, and helped carry my bags to the new gate. He encouraged me in what I am doing this year not only in words, but through his stories of his own crazy, spontaneous lifestyle. Don’t worry, I threw away his phone number ;) Then, enter Antonio. My seat neighbor on the plane to Honduras. He was much more persistent. I spent the whole first 30 minutes of the flight trying to convince him that we should just be traveling companions and that was it. Don’t worry, he wasn’t creepy. But creepy enough that I told him all about my (fake) boyfriend in Michigan who I am very much in love with despite the distance between us. Antonio still wanted to call me every night and visit on the weekends. I just kept telling him that that would be a bad situation. That my boyfriend would want to come down to Honduras and be upset :) Ha! He continued to press the idea until I got so fed up that I told him that if he wanted to chat, he should go find a seat next to someone else because I was going to sleep! I did sleep, and he didn’t bother me anymore. He carried my heavy bags to customs for me. And I chalk it up to another person that God put on my path to help me along my way to Honduras. My whole interaction with him was in Spanish so it was so good to practice and feel that whole communication in another language coming back to me.

My plane came in early which I didn’t mind so much until I realized I had no way to contact my ride. I also had no idea who my ride would be, what he or she would look like. It was on the plane as we descended into San Pedro Sula, that the What the Heck am I Doing? Thought popped into my head. Through customs and out to the front of the airport where I say atop my bags hoping that someone would come and tell me that they were there to get me-this thought remained with me. I combated it with prayer—talking to God about my decision to come and was reassured that God didn’t send me to Honduras to take me away from everyone that I love, to leave me stranded in the campo. There is a reason for me being here and I don’t need to see all the reasons right now. I just need to focus on the small things. And today, that is getting settled, finding out what I do when I am hungry, when I need to get up and what I need to do when I wake up. There is so much I want to share with you about my life here, but there is some lesson planning that must be done. Just know that I am here, safe and only slightly disoriented. Despite being here before, the culture shock is substantial. I am also really enjoying living with so many people, but it is different from my summer dorm room living by myself! More about that later! I love you and wish that you could all come and see my life here—my little classroom :) Hopefully I can get some pictures up soon.

Stay tuned!

Sarah

Where am I going?

2006-06-13T09:36:00.000-07:00

Let me show you! :)

And to zoom out even farther...

So, I'm starting this a little early...

2006-06-13T08:33:00.000-07:00

I decided to graduate from xanga and create a new space where you can read about my life as I embark on this next journey in my life to Honduras.