Christmas Excitement

After coming back to Honduras post-Thanksgiving break, things have been moving on full steam, giving us teachers little time to catch our breath. Collecting late work, grading projects, making up quizzes, and all in a race to get it done before Christmas break.

However, even with the craziness of school, I have still managed to fit in quite a few personal activities outside of school. The main thing I am involved with is The Micah Project. I have grown to love the boys from the street who show up to play soccer with us. I ask that you continue to pray for these boys (and Rosa, the one girl who comes) and that they will turn their lives around and give up their addiction to shoe glue.

The past week at school has included lots of fun holiday activities as well. Monday we spent class time reading Christmas stories and playing games, Tuesday was color day (meaning the students were allowed to come to school in their own clothes instead of their uniforms if they wore red and green), and now today included the results of the high school door-decorating competition (which my class won!) and the 4^th and 5^th grade Christmas concert (which I had the best intentions to show up to early in order to get good seats so I could video tape the performances for my roommate, a 5^th grade teacher. However, as I was walking from my classroom to the teacher’s lounge to get the last of my stuff together for the day, I came across a soccer game going on. One of the guys called me over and insisted that I must play because they were a man down. Of course I couldn’t refuse and as a result I showed up to the concert sweaty, with stained dress clothes, and furthermore was banished to the back row. Oh my, why must my love for soccer be so strong?)

I can’t even imagine all the crazy events that will be included in the next 2 days, but what I do know is that in 3 days, I will be headed back to the States to see my family and I am pretty excited about that!

Recent happenings.....as of a month ago.

It seems like I am always apologizing for not updating my blog. Please do not see this as a sign that nothing new has been going on in Honduras because that is far from true – in fact, these past few weeks have been some of the most exciting and busy days so far.

Let’s go back to Thanksgiving: I spent Thanksgiving riding on a bus from Honduras toNicaragua. My Thanksgiving dinner was a Nicaraguan version of a hotdog. I went with a group of 5 friends and had an amazing time traveling around the country. We started out in Managuathen headed to Granada, a colonial town right on the lake that is extremely gorgeous. We did the typical tourist things such as eating dinner on a walking street while being entertained by street performers, visiting an art museum, and buying souvenirs from street vendors. We also went up into a bell tower of a church to view the city and explored an old prison (now I can say I have been in prison in Nicaragua!). The next morning we moved on again, this time sailing on a ferry to the island of Ometepe. This was by far the best part of the journey. We never planned where we were staying until we reached our destination, then we would pull out the travel books and see what looked good. This time we were drawn to a little hostel located on a coffee plantation at the base of a volcano…..doesn’t it just sound awesome?! The hostel was basically an old barn that looked like it may have been used previously for storing coffee beans. The plantation owners rented out whole sections of the barn to visitors and offered them cots to set up with a sheet and a pillow. The cost for this resort location: $2 a night. Why don’t they offer bargain deals like this in the states? We spent the night playing cards while surrounded by people speaking languages from around the world (we could have pulled off a great Tower of Babel reenactment with people from Australia, Belgium, Argentina, New York, and many more!) The night spent in our cots was much too short, but lead to the next great adventure of the trip: Volcano climbing! We woke up at 4:30 a.m., armed with flashlights and rather large water bottles, and began our hike up to the top of one of Nicaragua’s famous volcanoes. Starting out in the pitch dark was a bit tricky, but made it even more exciting. We ate lunch down in the crater of the volcano then headed back to the plantation to pack our bags and head back to Tegucigalpa. After the hike, we were muddy, wet (since the cloud covering poured down on us the majority of the time we were on the volcano), bloody (from falling on all the sharp rocks), tired, but equipped with lots of new jokes and stories to tell.

It was probably one of the most untraditional Thanksgivings I have ever had, but I think that’s what made it so wonderful!

(Our group on the ferry to Ometepe)

(The volcano we climbed up and down into the crater)

(On our hike up the volcano)

(We got MUDDY!!!)

Honduran Thanksgiving

Just to clarify: there is no such thing as Thanksgiving in Honduras. However, we got lucky because we teach at a North American school, so therefore, by default we receive a "Thanksgiving Break." Our students don't really care what this means, they just care that they get a 5 day weekend to enjoy thanks to their gringo teachers.

On Friday, the school threw a Thanksgiving dinner for all of the faculty and staff at IST. We went to a very fancy inn, dressed in our finest clothes, and had a wonderful dinner on the rooftop of the inn. It was a great time of visiting with coworkers and friends while enjoying the Honduran version of a Thanksgiving meal (they got surprisingly close to the real thing and left all of us satisfied). I should also mention that there was a talent show right before the meal was served so we could enjoy the various talents of those with whom we work. My friends and I decided to participate in this talent show as well. When we arrived we were given the lineup for the show: 3 singing acts, followed by our act. The groups singing chose very serious songs that were sung to Jesus in both English and Spanish. Our act was not serious in any way. We performed a synchronized swimming act, complete with swim caps and goggles, in a mock Olympic routine. The Hondurans loved it and it added a fun element to the evening.

(Above: our synchronized swimming team dressed up and ready to go celebrate Thanksgiving Honduras-style)

Now tomorrow is the real Thanksgiving. To celebrate, I will be getting on a bus and traveling the whole entire day, on my way to Nicaragua. A group of us decided to travel to Nicaragua because we were encouraged to leave the country this weekend; Honduran elections are being held on Sunday, Nov. 29th and there is no telling how things are going to play out after the elections (we would greatly appreciate prayer in light of this upcoming event!). School was already cancelled for Monday, Nov. 30th in anticipation of what could come from election day, so we will have extra time to travel around Nicaragua. Our present plans include a little sight seeing, a lot of resting and relaxing, and the best part, a day long hike up a volcano!

I plan on updating you all upon my return from Nicaragua and will hopefully have some good pictures to share as well. Thank you for all of the prayers for our country and please continue to pray that the political situation would work itself out and there would be peace in Honduras once again.

You can call me Coach Jones

The best day of the year is the first day of soccer season, in my opinion at least. For International School of Tegucigalpa (IST), that day was today. I wanted so badly to help out with the soccer teams at my school this year that I went to the athletic director and told him I would be willing to do absolutely anything as long as I got to be out there practicing with the team. He had a better idea: he made me head coach of the 7th and 8th grade girls team. My own team! I was so excited!

As soon as the school bell rang at the end of the day, girls scurried out of classrooms to catch the bus that takes them out to the practice field a few miles away. Among those girls was Ms. Jones (that's me), running to catch the bus, soccer boots in hand. When we got out to the field I anxiously strapped on my boots and joined the other coaches. This is when I realized that none of them speak any English at all and could not tell me what was going on or how the events of this first day were going to play out. One of the coaches had all the girls sit on the bleachers and started talking to them while the rest of us coaches were lined up before them. Suddenly, I heard him say the words, "Ms. Jones" followed by something else in Spanish. Then everyone's eyes were on me and it went silent. Apparently I was supposed to say something. I had no clue what. Luckily one of my students looked at me and said, "He is asking you to tell us about yourself." I wish I could say this was the only awkward moment of the day, but that would have been a lie and made my life too easy.

Finally it was time to meet my team. I didn't remember that 7th and 8th graders were so little! We walked out onto our field: a dirt field filled with lots of gravel and large, sharp, jagged rocks sticking out of the ground - as if I didn't hurt myself enough playing on grass, we might as well make things a little more dangerous! I was given a bag of soccer balls and a sack of scrimmage jerseys and then told to begin practice. The soccer balls were extremely flat and almost impossible to control when kicked, but still managed to break a piece off of our goal, which was made of old rotting wood sticking up out of the ground. We only managed to lose one ball in the bush during practice and I have no idea what positions my girls play because I don't know the words for them in Spanish and they don't know the words for them in English.

And yet, none of that mattered.

Despite everything that went terribly wrong today, I was out on that soccer field with a group of girls who want to learn to play soccer and that is one of the most wonderful things in the world. We have a lot of work to do if we plan on qualifying to San Pedro, but I think we are up to the challenge!

Hope House

This week was somewhat frustrating. It had already been a pretty long week and then Thursday morning my computer cord broke, leaving me without any resources for class (our school is highly based off of technology, so no computer means trouble). I was able to make it through Thursday and Friday without my carefully thought out class presentations, which were all locked within my dead computer, but when the weekend hit, I was ready to take a break!

Today (Saturday), I was blessed with the opportunity to go to a place called Hope House. Basically, we went to play with kids all day. Now I know, you would think by the weekend I would be sick of being around kids all day long and just want time to myself, but this was different. These kids didn't need me. I wasn't responsible for them. I was able to just go, be carefree, and be a kid myself instead of a strict, rule-enforcing authority figure.

Hope House is a home created by a man and his wife who decided to start adopting Honduran children in need of a home and now have 15 of the most beautiful children whom they now call their own. We went to help them out by playing with their kids for the day, but in all actuality, we were the ones who were blessed by the experience, not them.

As soon as we showed up, kids came running out of every corner of the house, hugging us and pulling our hands to come play with them. No introduction was needed, they accepted us into their home as if they had known us forever. We spent the day climbing hills, looking for tadpoles, playing hide-&-seek, soccer, frisbee, and board games, and having a fantastic time all around!

It was awesome seeing the way this family exalted God in their home and I am so thankful that for today at least, I was able to be a part of it.

(Below: Playing "Go-Fish" with Alex and Hector)

(Below: One of my buddies for the day. We went all over together and had a great time hiking and tree climbing!)

(Below: Jenny with Allie. She was the cutest little bilingual 3 year old I have ever met!)

Another typical Honduran day

Headed home from school on the bus today, we suddenly came to a stop, the driver put the bus in reverse, and we started backing up. Not unusual for Honduras because the streets are narrow and the cars drive where they want to. Also, on many occasions, too many lanes of traffic start coming at you creating a roadblock so your only option is to reverse and wait for them to thin out before you continue. This wasn't the case however. Rather, as we passed I realized that a truck was parked in the middle of the intersection sitting diagonally, blocking almost all traffic and making maneuvering the bus around it extremely challenging. The truck was completely deserted and the best part: the front tire had been removed as if the driver had the intentions of changing the tire, then mid tire-change gave up and went for a Coke (at least that is the story I made up in my mind.....which is quite probable). I couldn't help but stop and think, if this had happened in the states, people would be irate, the cops would be called, and the truck would be towed within a short time span of when it was left. Not so in Honduras. Here everyone just finds a way around it and goes on with their life. I love it!

As we continued on our bus route home, we randomly saw a big ol' cow making it's way up the street amidst the traffic. In case you didn't know, I live in the middle of a city that lacks farms or livestock of any kind in the immediate vicinity of our neighborhoods so you can see how this was a little odd. Again, in the states, this would draw immediate attention and life would come to a standstill until the problem was taken care of. In Honduras: hardly anyone even turned to look and the cow peacefully continued on it's wayward journey up the hill into one of the neighborhoods.

Just another typical Honduran day.

A hint of Fall

Today is exciting for many reasons.

1.) It is Halloween and I love any excuse to dress up as something silly and go hang out with people.

2.) Despite the Honduran heat, our house feels like Fall after baking pumpkin sugar cookies all afternoon.

3.) I decided to put aside school work for the day and I actually had a very productive day making my costume, rearranging the kitchen, and just taking a well deserved break from thinking about school and students.

In Honduras, Halloween is not celebrated. In fact, Christmas decorations are popping up left and right because without Halloween or Thanksgiving to celebrate, Christmas is the next holiday Hondurans have to look forward to. The North American teachers are all getting together to have a costume party anyways and I'm interested to see how many looks we get walking down the street with our costumes on. I'm hoping that if we use our imaginations and pretend really hard, we can trick ourselves into thinking it is Fall and that it is chilly outside instead of just another hot day.

For those of you wondering, I am completely healed after our car accident and I was in school teaching all week long. It was so good to be back with my students after not seeing them for a few days. Again, I am so thankful for all of the prayers!

Well, I better go put the last few finishing touches on my costume and get ready to celebrate Autumn :) .....oh how I miss it!

Accident Update

I'm aware that it has been a while since I last posted on here. I apologize. I think it is about time I caught you all up to speed though, so here we go:

Last Saturday, I was in a car accident with 2 other teachers. We were riding in the backseat of a taxi, driving down the "highway" going about 60 mph, when we unexpectedly came up on a line of cars that had come to a standstill. The taxi driver slammed on his brakes, slowing us down to about 45 or 50, but we were unable to avoid the collision and slammed into the back of the truck in front of us. None of us were wearing seat belts. We were all watching out the front window, realized what was about to happen, and had a few split seconds to decide how we were going to prepare for the impact. My roommate chose to curl up and burrow into our friend Kristin, while Kristin and I just sat there, realizing there wasn't much we could do to protect ourselves.

I was sitting behind the driver and hit the seat in front of me with my face pretty hard. After the driver hit the airbag, he flew back and hit me again, so essentially I had a double impact. My lip started bleeding pretty bad and started to swell right away, but the adrenaline from making sure the other 2 were ok kept me going and distracted me from any pain I may have been feeling.

It is only by the grace of God that we were able to climb out of the taxi, relatively unharmed outside a few bumps and bruises. No matter how many times we replay the scene in our heads, we have no idea how we stayed in our seats and did not go flying forward outside of the fact that God's hand was on us and he was looking out for us that day.

The next day we were all pretty sore and I had a very bad headache and kept getting pretty dizzy. My roommate and I decided to go visit the school doctor Monday at school, just to make sure everything really was ok. I taught my first period class, then went to see the doctor and he told me right away that he was going to get me a doctors appointment because he felt I needed x-rays, just for precautionary reasons. I went back to class and kept teaching, then was pulled out in the afternoon to go see a neurologist.

The neurologist did an extremely thorough examination and after fully assessing the situation, told me I had the symptoms of Vertigo. To test this, he had me stand up, stick my arms straight out, then close my eyes. I immediately fell over (don't worry, he was a good doctor and caught me before I hit the floor!). He then had me walk, one foot in front of the other while looking down and again I became extremely disoriented, lost my balance, and fell over. He prescribed 3 pretty strong medications to help with the pain and to help get the fluids in my head circulating the right way again (this is the reason for the dizziness and feeling disoriented), had me get a shot, and the kicker: told me I would need to wear a neck brace and rest at home for the next 5 days.

I am almost done with my 5 day rest period and I am feeling much better. I am so thankful for all the prayers and encouraging e-mails that were directed my way and I am still praising God for His protection over us! He is SO good!!

WE'RE GOING TO THE WORLD CUP!!!!!!!

Tonight has been a night full of miracles. Honduras, on the verge of elimination from the World Cup, was doing all it could to qualify for a coveted spot to South Africa for the 2010 World Cup. Things looked dim. Even if they beat El Salvador in their match tonight, they were still depending on a win (or at least a tie) from the U.S. to earn them a direct ticket to the cup. In the second half of the game between Honduras and El Salvador, Honduras put in a beautiful goal, off the head of Pavon in what probably had to be one of the most challenging headers to pull down I have ever seen. It was pure magic.

However, the United States was currently losing 0-2 to Costa Rica. Soon after, the States pulled off a goal putting them at 1-2 with about 20 minutes left in the 2nd half. As time ticked down, I sat on the edge of my seat, praying the States could get their act together and put in at least one more goal.

I guess you have to live in this country to realize how important it is for Honduras to go to the Cup. In case you haven't been reading my blog (or the news), Honduras is in a time of political strife. Their national soccer team is the only thing keeping this country united. They needed this.

With mere seconds left on the clock, the U.S. was able to bang a shot into the back of the net, clinching a spot not only for themselves in the Cup, but for Honduras as well. Cheers erupted from houses up and down the street as people began celebrating their long awaited dream-come-true. It was glorious.

As we walked back to our house tonight, Hondurans leaned out of houses, car windows, and stopped on the street to scream "thank you" to us North Americans. They realize that our tie is the only reason they are going straight to the Cup, but what we all also realize is that Honduras, "the little country that could," put their heart and soul into these qualifying matches and their efforts have finally come to fruition. They did it. And it is a beautiful thing.

In this moment, right now, this country is more unified than it has been in months. What an amazing answer to prayer :)

WORLD CUP 2010 HERE WE COME!!!!!!!!

P.S. - Tomorrow was just declared a national holiday since Honduras is going to the World Cup, meaning there is no school!!!! A country that loves soccer so much, they shut down in order to celebrate?!?! God DEFINITELY knew what He was doing when He called me to live down here!!! This country was made for me!

Honduras vs. U.S. - My dream come true :)

As a fanatic soccer fan, when I was offered the chance to travel to San Pedro Sula to watch a World Cup qualifying match between Honduras and the U.S., I accepted literally as soon as the offer was made. This was the offer of a lifetime!! Watching my original home team play my new home team....it was going to be epic.

After a fun Friday night full of soccer at The Micah Project, dinner at my student's house, and a rousing game of Spoons with fellow teachers, we were awake bright and early on Saturday in order to leave for San Pedro by 6 am. Packed in a small busito with 15 people including our bus driver, we were all in a funny mood and wished we had a video camera to start filming our new mock-umentary to air on tv.

7 hours later, due to road construction, we finally arrived. After a quick lunch, we headed to the stadium (at this point, you need to realize we are 4 hours early for the game so that we can stand in line to get in. Although we had tickets, they oversell the seats so you have to be early to assure entrance). We had to park a long ways away and hike up to the stadium, surrounded by flocks of other Honduran fans, swept along in a wave of white and blue. Everyone stopped and stared at the large group of North Americans dressed in Honduran jerseys. They could not figure out why these gringos were not cheering for the U.S. Pictures were taken of us, news crews directed cameras towards us, and still we hiked on, getting more and more excited the closer we got.

We got to the stadium and took our place in a line that wrapped around all over the place, waiting among hundreds of Honduran fans for our chance to enter the stadium. Almost as soon as we got in line, a police officer walked over to our group, handcuffs in hand. He got a few of his military buddies together and informed us that they were going to escort us to the front of the line and get us into the stadium right away. As we were walked to the front, angry cries erupted from all around us from all of the Hondurans who had already been waiting for hours. I gripped tightly to my friend Kristi and whispered, "Please don't let them kill me."

We made it in and found a seat in section "Sol" on the hard concrete seats. 3 1/2 hours till game time! I was SO excited! We passed the time by talking about the game, playing cards, doing the wave, watching 3 men jump out of a helicopter and parachute down to the field with Honduran-Flag parachutes, and all the while, taking in this beautiful culture I have grown to love so much.

Honduran fans are intense. Their team scored the first goal and shouts and cheers erupted. The U.S. quickly responded with a goal. Or so I thought. As soon as the goal went in, the stadium went eerily silent. Not a sound was made. Not even a hissing boo. Was there a call on the shot that I somehow missed?! Nope, they really did score. It was almost depressing watching the U.S. players run to the sideline to celebrate with their teammates in this dead silence. The U.S. ended up winning 3-2.

After the game we went to Quiznos for dinner and all eyes were on us as soon as we walked through the door. Despite our Honduran jerseys and insistence that we were Honduran fans, we were the enemy.

The next day we left San Pedro around 10:00 am. Packed back in our busito, we had a pretty uneventful journey until our driver decided he was tired and wanted to stop for coffee. He was gone for quite a while and we all just wanted to get home. He finally reappeared and that is when we discovered that if you spend L50 on food, you got a ticket to ride a horse, so he was off horse ridding. Go figure. Soon after, my friend Meridith was kicked in the leg by the same horse (which led to many humorous retellings of the time Mer was kicked by a horse at a rest stop....only in Honduras). She is doing better now but is still pretty bruised.

The journey continued, now about 2 hours out of Tegus, and the bus broke down. Stuck on the side of the road, people sat on rocks grading papers, making lesson plans, or just trying to knock plastic bottles down by throwing rocks at them. Our bus drive hitchhiked to go get gas, put it in, then we pushed our bus down the hill in an attempt to jump start it and sat on our rocks waiting and hoping he could get it started and wouldn't just keep rolling down the hill.

Hours later than expected, we made it home, tired and overwhelmed with things we had to get done for school the next day. With everything that went on, it all combined to create one of the best, craziest, most amazing weekends I had ever had in my life!!!! Friends, Landon Donovan, horse kickings, and broken buses - This Is Honduras :)

Postal Experience

I just recently received 2 boxes from my parents at the post office by the airport in Tegus. I didn't know what they were going to be sending me, so receiving the boxes and opening them to see what was inside was equivalent to Christmas morning. (By the way, I want to thank you (Mom and Dad) again for being so generous and shipping my stuff down here for me. You have no idea how nice it is to have all of the stuff you sent!)

Basically, here is how the post office works:

You walk in a sit on a bench along the wall, waiting for your turn to be helped. Then you walk up to the counter and flip through a notebook where they hand write every package that comes through the post office and find your name. Packages are piled everywhere, stacked on top of each other in what seems to be mass chaos (I'm sure they have some sort of system, but to the untrained eye, there seems to be no rhyme or reason). After providing identification, the postal worker will go in search of your package. Once they locate it, you must sign the notebook and pay to receive the package. This whole entire process can take quite a while, between flipping through pages of names to searching through hundreds of boxes for the correct package.

This is yet another Honduran experience to add to my long list of things I find humorous or amusing about this country. Oh and by the way, receiving mail and packages from the U.S. can take up to 2 months, so by the time something is received here, the sender usually completely forgets what they had sent! :)

Trapped under a pile of school work. Be back soon.

I'm sorry I haven't updated my blog recently. I have so much to tell you all, but I am currently trying to dig my way out of a constantly growing pile of schoolwork. First partial (a.k.a. first quarter) is ending soon and I am busy getting all of my grades entered online for the students, writing my partial exam, and keeping up with the daily task of lesson planning. Please don't give up hope on me!!! I promise to write a real blog post soon, so keep checking back for updates.

Full Day of School!!!

We finally had our first full day of school today! I know it doesn't sound like anything to be really excited about, but after only having my students in class for 26 minutes a day, it was nice being able to actually have them for a full period and be able to explain things to them in detail instead of talking as fast as possible to try and teach them something in our short amount of time.

This was also the first sign that things may be on the way towards returning to normal. Wishful thinking? Maybe. But at least things are calming down a lot.

I spent most of my day trying to convince my students to do the assignments instead of asking me tons of questions about soccer and who my favorite teams are (they are still perplexed that a girl knows so much about soccer!), but overall, it was a fantastic day.

To conclude the day, we had our first Bible study meeting with the girls in my neighborhood (there are about 8 of us who decided to get together to have a Bible study each week). It was a great time of destressing after a challenging couple of days and it was great hearing that all of us are dealing with the same stuff being teachers and living in Honduras. We are going to be rotating houses each week so that one house doesn't get stuck hosting the Bible study all the time, which will be fun to finally have people over at our house.

(P.S. - remember the bug infestation we have in our house that I talked about a few posts back? Well I just went to eat some delicous pastry type things I had bought from the local panaderia and they were full of ants!! Don't worry, I didn't let the ants get away with stealing my food - I ate it anyways, but I had to flick a lot of bugs off first! Oh the joys of having a house that is full of cracks and impossible to seal completely :)

Back to school (for today at least)

My life has become a waiting game. I never know what is going to happen from one minute to the next, so I sit and wait and check my e-mail obsessively to find out what the game plan is.

Last night I had been sitting around lesson planning when the e-mail came in saying that school was going to be closed for the third day in a row. I cast aside the grade book that had captivated my attention for so long and kicked back to relax for the night.....that is until 9:00 p.m. rolled around and I received a phone call saying that the administration changed their minds and they were going to be reopening school the next day after all.

We ended up having a half day of school, making it hard to accomplish a whole lot during the 25 minute class periods. It sounds like we will be having a lot of half days in the weeks to come because although curfew has been lifted during the day, we are still confined to our houses under curfew between 4:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. so we cannot have a full day of school or the bus drivers won't make it home in time for curfew (one bus driver had to go so far as to sleep in his parked bus at school overnight because he didn't make it home before curfew started).

It was suggested that we would most likely not have school tomorrow, but there has been no official word on the situation yet, so we plan and we wait. At any second of any day, school can be cancelled, full-time curfew can be reinstated, and life can continue with this craziness......but as for now we aren't focusing on the future because there are too many uncertainties, so we live in the moment, taking it as it comes.

Curfew Removed Temporarily

We woke up this morning, mentally preparing ourselves for another long day trapped indoors. However, not long after waking up, we received a phone call saying that the curfew had been lifted temporarily so that people could get out and replenish their supply of food and water. The school bus was to come around and pick us up at 10:00 a.m. and curfew wouldn't begin again until 5:00 p.m. Thrilled that we were finally being released (even if for just a few hours) and even more thrilled to see all of the other teachers again, we set out to buy groceries.

Heading out of Loarque on the bus, we passed our local grocery store that hadn't even opened yet and already there was a line of people waiting to get in that stretched clear down the sidewalk! A ways down the road, we prepared to get onto the Honduran equivalent of a highway, but after getting onto the on ramp, we noticed all the cars were going the wrong direction! Our bus driver was forced to back his way off of the on ramp in the midst of several other cars who were just as confused as we were about whether they were getting on or off and which direction they were supposed to be heading in the first place. We resorted to taking back roads which added immensely to the length of our journey and got stuck in lots of traffic jams, but finally made it to La Colonia (the grocery store).

The grocery store was chaos!! (Think Black Friday shopping times 10!) Every square inch of the store was packed with people, food was flying off the shelves as people pushed and shoved to reach their desired items, and the check-out lines......wow. After standing in a line for over an hour that wrapped clear around the back of the store, we had moved maybe 10 yards total, meaning we had almost made it to the farthest corner in the store from the cash registers and still had a LONG way to go. Some people attempted to use shopping carts, found it impossible to push them through the mass of people, then proceeded to lift them in the air over their heads and carry them. Others found items to use that they could substitute for a shopping basket: flower pots, large cooking pots, baskets, garbage can lids, discarded crates or cardboard boxes, and ripped plastic coverings that keep cases of pop together.

After being in the store a couple of hours, the chaos became too much and several of us lost hope. We set our food items back down and walked out of the store. We made our way over to a fantastic restaurant called "Big Baleadas" where we had a great lunch of baleadas and chilaquiles and were given the chance to hang out and talk for a while as we waited for the other teachers to finish shopping.

I don't know if the insanity of the day was spurred on by panic because people are losing hope that this situation will be resolved quickly, or if people are just that desperate for food. Whatever the case, we are now back on lockdown for who knows how long. I ask that you all continue to pray for peace in Honduras, safety for all involved, and patience for all of us as we deal with the chaos.

Under "house arrest" and craving freedom

If someone ever decides to write a book on how to survive as a teacher in a third world country full of political unrest, let me know because that is one book I would buy.

After the big swine flu debacle during which we earned ourselves a wonderful 11 day vacation, we finally returned to school yesterday and resumed our classes. By the afternoon, several of my students had been pulled from my class (I didn't know why though because the woman who came around to pull them out did not speak English). Why can't I ever have all my students in one class at one time?

I continued teaching as normal, frantically trying to prepare my students for the rather large book quiz they would be having the next day. The day ended, I went home, and within minutes was alerted that ousted Honduran president Mel Zelaya was back in the country......not good news.

But wait, it gets better. Protesters were said to be filling the streets around the Brazilian Embassy where Zelaya is currently staying. A curfew was instated between the hours of 4 p.m. and 7 a.m., forcing all of us to stay in our houses under the threat of being arrested and thrown in jail if we were caught outside. After only having one day of school, we were informed that due to the curfew, school would be either postponed in the morning or cancelled. We quickly got our answer concerning the status of school when the curfew was extended from the original 7 a.m. time to 6 p.m. that night = no school.

We are now 22 hours into our 26 hour lock-down and already I'm tired of being in my house. The streets have been freakishly quiet today since the vendors and cars are not streaming past our house making their usual ruckus. My roommate and I have been passing the time by grading assignments and watching Gilmore Girls, but patience is wearing thin as we experience what it must be like to be under house arrest.

We have been trying to keep tabs on the situation through the news, but news from the U.S. is so far from the truth it is almost comical. On a side note though, our Honduran friend was quoted in an article from BBC, which was exciting to see (what can I say, I only hang out with famous people - and the fact that he is going to read this blog post is pretty funny).

It is unclear when we will be allowed to return to school as we are waiting for things to die down and return to "normal" (since moving to this country, I don't believe I've yet experienced normalcy and I'm slowly losing grasp on the definition of the word).

So recap: Zelaya's back, school is closed, the U.S. view on the situation is a little skewed, and I think I'm going to go ahead and write that book myself....

Reunited with my soccer ball once again!

In order to bring my soccer ball to Honduras, I had to deflate it to fit it in my suitcase. Problem: I do not have a ball pump in Honduras. This means that for the past month that I have been here, my soccer ball has been lying in my closet deflated and looking absolutely pathetic. That is until yesterday. Matt Goasdone (a teacher at IST) came over to my house with his pump so I could inflate the infamous ball. I was so excited, I started pumping it up right away, completely thrilled over the idea of being able to finally use it again. But then, no joke, as soon as I finished filling it with the correct pressure (which trust me, it took awhile because I'm a stickler when it comes to inflating that ball) it started down pouring the most massive raindrops I have ever seen in my life. Sage and I had been sitting on the ledge of our balcony the whole time and as the rain started, we could barely even see the pulperia across the street anymore the rain was so thick. However, I was determined. We both sprinted out to the street, ball in tow, and stood in the rain for a while. Within seconds I was completely drenched and the streets were rushing with water, but instead of feeling the defeat that quite possibly was the only appropriate response to the situation, I just started tricking right there! It was glorious! Everyone was staring at the crazy gringa, wondering what she was doing with her soccer ball in the rain, but I didn't care - I was in my own world.

(*For those of you who have just recently met me, you are probably wondering what the big deal is about this soccer ball. For those of you who know me, you know exactly what that ball means and why this is significant!)

{ My soccer ball and boots }

An unexpected coffee find

After lesson planning and grading all day long today, my brain was fried. I still had so much to get done, but the ability to concentrate on the task was quickly diminishing. My roommate and I desperately needed coffee, but we still do not own a coffee pot and there are no coffee shops anywhere nearby. This was quite the dilemma. However, we were so desperate, we set off in search of coffee and were not going to stop until we found some. We remembered passing a pulperia that had more potential than anywhere else we had ever been, but still the outlook seemed grim. Upon reaching the pulperia, we discovered that it was actually a computer store (they fix computers and provide internet for people who want to come in and use their computers). This was the farthest thing from a coffee shop I had ever seen in my life. Sage was persistent though and began questioning the lady about where the nearest coffee shop was. After quite a bit of dialogue, the lady invited us in and told us she would sell us coffee. Jackpot!! She walked through the door connecting the shop to her house, went in her kitchen, and made us some coffee. We also requested ice so we could have "iced coffee" since it was so hot outside and the lady willingly obliged. It was quite comical sitting in a computer shop drinking our coffee, but we didn't care - we were content. Sage also bought a cooking from the lady and the total for the 2 coffees and the cookie came out to be a grand total of L6 (that's 30 cents in America!!). As we were leaving the lady was laughing, saying she had never heard of anyone putting ice in their coffee :) Sage translated this to me and then the woman (in perfect English) turned to me and said, "Oh you don't know Spanish? Not at all?" This caught us off guard that she could speak English so Sage began translating and then we realized: wait, we could actually understand that one! We left the shop happy, content, and determined to return the next time we were in need of coffee.

Island Paradise

I just got back from Roatan, Honduras, which is an island located in the Caribbean. I spent 5 days there and thoroughly enjoyed soaking up some sun and relaxing on the beach. After traveling 7 hours by bus and then catching a ferry that lasted another 2 1/2 hours, we were tired of constantly being in a moving vehicle by the time we hit the island. Our first night there was spent embracing the Caribbean lifestyle and checking out the carnival going on, as well as attempting to eat dinner at a restaurant when the power was out.

The rest of the trip just kept getting better. We took a tour of the reef in a glass-bottom boat, snorkeled (I got to see lots of different schools of tropical fish, jellyfish, and tons of cool looking coral), went kayaking through the bay, layed on the beach under palm trees enjoying the sun, and had the most amazing food and coffee ever!!

It was great getting to know some of the other teachers better and building relationships with them. We had a dock behind our hotel we would go lay on almost every night and we would talk and stargaze because the sky was so clear you could see the Milky Way perfectly. It was an awesome vacation and a good way to relax while our school is closed.

The day time stood still

Today was our first day off of school so to celebrate, we decided to escape to El Centro (downtown in Tegucigalpa) to explore the amazing city we live in. We made sure not to take anything with us so that we could walk the streets without getting robbed and then we set out for a day full of adventure. After being tied down to schedules and time limits for so many weeks now that school is in session, we decided that today we would leave behind all watches and time pieces and forget that time existed.

We hopped on a bus in Loarque (the slowest bus known to man), and what seemed like an eternity later, we arrived in El Centro. Our first order of business was to visit several street markets. It was fun being in the streets among all the people, but we quickly got tired of the machismo culture and decided it was time to move along in our adventure. My friend Michelle had heard about a poetry cafe where we could go to get coffee and it sounded amazing so we decided that was going to be our next destination. But then we got lost.

We ended up heading back to central park to get directions and after successfully locating someone who could point us in the right direction, we got distracted by a large, cathedral looking building at one end of the park. The gate was open, so we decided to wander in and check it out. After a little investigation, it appeared that it was in the process of being repaired so we probably shouldn't have been in there, but it was an amazing building anyways with a really cool fountain in the back (and besides, it's not like I haven't snuck in places I shouldn't have been before, so I was completely unfazed by the fact that what we were doing may have been illegal).

Anyways, our quest for the coffee shop continued. It was now getting close to lunch time and we just so happened to stumble upon an incredible little restaurant called Tex-Mex, complete with pictures of dancing jalapenos and incredible food (especially the chilaquiles!!). We finished our food and sat around talking for awhile and just before we were about to leave, a group of Honduran women that had been staring at us throughout our whole meal walked past our table and one of them slid a post-it note under my roommate's plate and then they continued out the door. The note read (in Spanish): "Hello girl. My son would like for you to call him and his number is 8888-3333." .....I wish I could say that stuff like this doesn't happen often in Honduras, but I can't because then I'd be lying.

After laughing quite a bit over the events of the day thus far, we continued on. This time we knew we were on the right track because we spotted the tree that was described to us as part of the directions to the coffee shop (remember they don't use street names - only landmarks). It was then that we saw it: the cutest little coffee cafe/poetry club! However, it was closed. We were a little bummed, but it's ok because it just added to the adventure.

The sun was still pretty high in the sky at this point, so we decided we would explore more of this section of the city because there was still so much we hadn't seen. It was then that we found a great textile shop that is sure to make us go broke because the owner was extremely nice and they have a lot of great fabrics that could be used for decoration or skirts if we can find a good seamstress. We also explored the walking street (a street lined with stores that no cars drive down so people can walk wherever they please). This section of town was our favorite so far - until we walked a little further.....

After exploring the majority of El Centro (and even seeing the president's house!), we came upon a wide open courtyard. Pigeons waddled aimlessly across the brick cobblestones and people leisurely strolled around the little markets on the outskirts of the courtyard. On the far end, there was a huge building with amazing architecture and big wooden doors that were propped open - so of course we went in. Apparently it was a Catholic church and as we walked in, we were amazed by the beautiful paintings, carefully carved statues, and high vaulted ceilings. There were lots of people in the church kneeling and praying, so we made our way over and sat among the people for awhile, taking it all in. We eventually made our way back out, still excited about this unexpected find.

The sun was starting to get a little lower, so we decided it was probably about time to get home. However, we had gotten so turned around in our sporadic exploration of the city, we weren't exactly sure how to find a bus back to Loarque and even if we did, it was getting too late for it to be safe to take the bus. That's when we got lucky. We found a busito headed towards our section of Tegus and fortunately they had just enough room to fit us in. The busito was a 9 passenger VW van that we managed to cram 16 people into and is probably my most favorite mode of transportation to date!! It was awesome :)

Hopefully I will be able to explore more sections of Tegus in the near future, but for today, I'm glad we could let time disappear - even if it was just for a little while.

Soccer, Swine Flu, and Supporters of Zelaya.....could this day get any crazier?

First of all, today is game day in Honduras. I love game day in Honduras. This means that the Honduran national team is playing in a World Cup qualifying match (today it's against Mexico), and it also means that no matter where you go in the city tonight, you will be able to hear cheers erupt every time our beloved team scores a goal because everyone - and I mean everyone - watches the game. This morning we all headed off to school dressed in our national team jerseys and tonight we are all getting together to watch the game and hopefully celebrate our victory over Mexico.

Now to the crazier part of the day......

School has been cancelled. The health inspector came in and decided that we have too many cases of Influenza A and they shut us down. So basically, we just earned ourselves an 11 day vacation all due to the fact that half of our school came down with the flu and they are worried it will lead to cases of H1N1. It will be nice having time to lesson plan and catch up on grading, yet challenging at the same time because we will be running our classrooms electronically and giving assignments and such online.

As if this wasn't enough to make this day insane, we came home and settled in ready to relax, only to be interrupted by a mob of motorcyclists coming up our street, incessantly honking their horns. They were followed by a LONG procession of cars that were stuffed with people, holding flags and waving them out the windows or from the back of trucks. They were Mel Zelaya supporters. Armed with loudspeakers and microphones, flags and signs, they drove up the street in a steady stream, making quite a commotion. It was thrilling and scary all at the same time.

The day isn't over yet, but I am hoping the craziness is!!

Today I saw Jesus......and monkeys

Today after church, all of us North American teachers took a trip up to Picacho to see Jesus and the zoo. Picacho is a beautiful park that has a giant statue of Jesus that supposedly can be seen from anywhere in Tegucigalpa. The park also has lots of room to play, tons of places to explore, and the zoo. It was a fun experience and we were able to see a great view of Tegus. The zoo wasn't anything extraordinary....until 2 monkeys escaped from their cages, another monkey got in a fight with the raccoon that was housed right next to him and he pulled the raccoon's head through the fence into his pen and kept biting and scratching him. Oh and there were LOTS of vultures circling around overhead the whole time we were there so that was interesting. It was a great day full of frisbee, hanging out, and just enjoying the company of the other teachers.

Oh Rats, power outage fun

We had a power outage today that lasted from 8:00 am until about 5:00 pm. You don't realize how dependent you are on electricity until you have none for long periods of time. Our solution: find something to do that doesn't require electricity. We took this time to explore some more around our community and visited a street market that isn't too far from our house. After that we stopped at the grocery store (ever shopped in the pitch dark? It is quite the experience!) Then we caught a cab and went to MetroMall for lunch and some lesson planning time because that part of Tegus had not lost power. Overall, it ended up being a really great day, despite the fact that I wasn't able to shower or cook the blueberry muffins I had been looking forward to making. Thankfully the power came back on in time for the big game tonight, so I am about to head over to a friends house for a cookout and to watch Honduras take down Trinidad.

Oh and as for the other half of the title of this blog - we have rats in our house. We are working on solving the problem, but it was somewhat disheartening to wake up this morning to find that the delicious rolls I had purchased from the panaderia had been half eaten by one of our little rat friends.

This message has been brought to you by H1N1

While the swine flu epidemic (also known as H1N1) may be nothing more than a faint memory in the minds of North Americans, it is alive and well in Honduras. Yesterday, the entire IST staff was called into an emergency meeting to discuss ways to prevent this disease from spreading in our school. With one Honduran school already shut down this year due to the virus, IST decided to take action before the health department shut us down as well. Their solution: SANITIZE!! Within hours, the whole school building was covered in fliers reminding students to wash their hands, each classroom was supplied a bottle of hand sanitizer to be used as students enter the classroom, students are greeted on their way into school by the principal holding a bottle of sanitizer they must use, and my personal favorite - signs were hung that read:

"Doctors Orders.......keep hands and lips to yourself. NO physical contact. ~Sponsored by H1N1"

Tells you a little bit about Honduran culture, doesn't it? Telling a Honduran to keep their lips to themselves is like telling a soccer player they can't use their feet to play futbol! It is absolutely necessary to greet someone by kissing their cheek! Still, it made me laugh.

The downfall to the "heightened security" though is that students are told if they develop any signs of sickness, even as simple as that of a cold, they MUST stay home from school until they are A.) seen by a doctor and it is determined that they are safe to return to school or B.) stay away from school for at least 7 days, giving their symptoms ample time to clear up. What this means for teachers: STRESS!! Classrooms are half empty due to the new rule meaning many students will be coming and asking for a week's worth of makeup assignments, creating triple the amount of work for us.

Today the school doctor was making his rounds to each classroom to examine all of the kids who felt sick or who "had the sniffles." He graciously made his appearance in my classroom right after I had started to give my students their vocab and novel quiz. When he peeked his head into my classroom and asked that all students who felt ill in any way please stand up and follow him, of course half my students walked out the door!! They returned at the end of the period, healthy and smiling. I now have to make them their own version of the quiz and find a time to let them take it :( Oh the beauty of teaching in Honduras!

Despite all of the downfalls though, us North American teachers are getting quite a kick out of the whole thing and hopefully our sense of humor is enough to help us make it through this ordeal.

I'm just yoking :)

I don't really have curriculum I can use to teach my students. I was given 4 novels and then told to cover them as well as grammar, writing, and vocab. Alright no problem, I thought. It was suggested that I use SAT words for vocab since one of the main goals of students at IST is to pass the SATs and get into college. Easy enough. I decided to start the vocab lessons out fairly easy in order to gauge where my students' were at. Abduct, foil, rash, wrath, and yoke were the 5 words I selected to appear on the first vocab quiz since they are all pretty common throughout our novels; however, when I asked the students to use each of the words in a sentence to make sure they were understanding them, next to the word 'yoke' over 50% of my students wrote, "My friend told me a funny yoke" or "It's ok I was just yoking." I found this highly amusing and quite comical :) .....on the other hand, I now realized exactly how far we have to go before the end of the year!!

Gotta love those loop holes!!

I need to be honest: I was extremely concerned when I signed the teaching contract for my job in Honduras. It wasn't because of all of the political demonstrations going on in the country (which I found out the U.S. media grossly exaggerates!) or because of the fact that I did not feel qualified to be a teacher, but rather, the source of my apprehension was the sub clause written in my teaching contract that stated IST teachers must abstain from dancing. This caused much concern and created many jokes among my family (mostly including scenarios of me getting kicked out of the country for breaking this part of the contract). However, after being down here for a little over 2 weeks, I have found a loop hole to the rule!! After much debate and clarification, I discovered that dancing is allowed as long as it is done in the privacy of my own home, or in a structured setting. My solution: DANCE CLASSES!!!! I joined a dance studio called Chepe's and I go a couple of times a week to learn Latin American style dancing, as well as get my workout in because these dance classes are tough! One of the instructors is the Honduran equivalent to Billy Blanks and won't let you stop moving at all throughout the hour-long dance session. It has been SO much fun and interesting at the same time because I'm a white girl and don't move my hips well, but I'm learning!

Pizza Delivery

I always took for granted the fact that there are road names, house numbers, street signs, etc. in the states. I never realized it, but it is extremely easy to get wherever you wish to go. Not true in Honduras. There are no such things as addresses. I went over to a friends house the other night to lesson plan with a bunch of other IST teachers and we decided to order pizza. It seemed simple enough, but after placing the order, we realized we weren't exactly sure how to get to the house. The way they give directions here is by landmarks (for example, the gym is across from the hot dog lady, my house is down from the store with the chicken on the sign and near the basketball hoops/soccer goals in the street, my other friends live next to the monkey and down from the pagoda) .....see how it works? Simple right? Ha! So we gave directions the best we could and then hoped for the best. The pizza man called about 45 minutes later saying he couldn't find it, but he was next to the Catholic church. Ok, that's easy I thought because that is near my house. We gave him more directions, which he followed, but when he called back again a while later, we discovered he was by a different Catholic church and my directions took him to the futbol fields. This went on for quite a while and finally the guys we were with decided to just have him stay where he was and they would walk and go get the pizza. 2 1/2 hours later, hungry and frustrated, we finally got to eat. Oh my, gotta love this country!

Left in the dark......literally.

For the past 2 Sundays, I have been attempting to go to a church called Iglesia Impacto because they offer English translation headsets so that I can follow along with the sermon. Last Sunday we were not quite sure how to get there and after asking 2 different taxi drivers and a random lady standing on the sidewalk, we gave up and went to an all-Spanish speaking church. This Sunday, I was excited to finally be going to Impacto so I could understand what was going on around me. When we got there though, the building was pitch black - apparently the power went out (a very common occurance in Honduras). What this meant: no translation....again. Even without power, the sermon still went on and a lantern was placed on stage so the pastor could see. As for us in the audience, we weren't sure who we were sitting next to or what was going on around us. [To get an idea of how dark it really was: at one point a man walked up to the group of IST teachers attending that morning and started speaking English. We were so shocked we dared to ask, "Are you a gringo?" He was, but you know it's dark when you have to ask someone that!] Despite being left in the dark 2 weeks in a row, I am determined to not give up yet!

Micah Project

Every Friday teachers from IST get in a van and drive about half an hour to get to the projects. Our purpose: to play soccer with boys from the streets. I have only gone once so far, but once is all it takes for your heart to break at the sight of these men ranging from 6-25 years of age. They are dirty, unhealthy, and have such a strong addiction to shoe glue, they carry old bottles around full of glue and they are constantly inhaling/eating the yellow paste. If they come to play, they are given food afterwards. It is kind of scary playing against them because they have nothing to lose so they play full force, bottles of glue swinging from their mouths or in their hands. It is sad watching them fight over the food that is passed out, but it is an encouragement seeing the directors of the Micah Project there, loving on each and every one of them, no matter how dirty or high they might be. Check out this site to see pictures of some of the boys and find out more about the Micah Project: http://www.micahcentral.org/Streets07/streets07.htm

Wait, wait...........and wait some more

I like to do things quickly and efficiently - apparently I moved to the wrong country for that sort of thing. Even the simple, everyday tasks take 10 times longer than they should. For example, if you get thirsty you must: fill a pot of water, wait for it to boil, take it off the stove, let it cool for about an hour, then once it is semi cool, put it in the fridge for about 6 more hours to give it time to finish cooling off. Finally you may get yourself a drink of water. If this seems tough, try doing laundry, preparing food, using the public transportation - the need to multitask has taken on a whole new meaning! You can waste hours sitting around trying to accomplish one, simple, mindless task.

Well that's peculiar

Adjusting to life in Honduras was surprisingly a fairly smooth transition. The culture and lifestyle are obviously a lot different, but for some reason it hasn't been too hard. I've learned how to use the public transportation, I've learned how to order coffee from the local cafe, I've learned not to jump when I open the kitchen cupboards and cockroaches run out or when geckos run out from between the sheets in my bed, but there is one thing I can't seem to get the hang of: carrying toilet paper everywhere I go. I can't count how many times I've gone to the mall or out in public, needed to use the bathroom, and then remembered, "Oh yeah, I forgot to pack some toilet paper when I left!" It's just not one of those things you think about. Hopefully I'll catch on soon!

You know what they say about those who assume

My roommate and I live in an apartment in a small community in Tegucigalpa. There are 4 different apartments in our one building and our landlord and his family live in the apartment on the bottom floor (we are on the very top). The landlord's granddaughter invited us to a weekly Bible study in their home and we were extremely excited because, being brand new to this country, we were starting to feel accepted. We were told the Bible study started at 6:00 p.m. - automatically we assumed that since we are in Latin America, 6:00 meant about 6:30 or so. At about 6:15 we slowly started making our way down the stairs, only to find that when they said 6:00, they had meant it! They had been sitting around waiting for us to show up and probably wondering why the crazy gringas were so inconsiderate! Oops :) We ended up making really good friends at the Bible study, they forgave us for being late, and we now attend every Friday. We definitely learned our lesson though!

I can't promise anything will come of this.

I have had so many interesting experiences already since moving to Honduras, I decided it was time to start a blog because it would probably be the easiest way to keep everyone up to date; however, I cannot promise that anything will come of this because, while I may be living in one of the most beautiful countries in the world, I am also a teacher and don't have a lot of time for this sort of thing. So who knows, this could be the first and last blog I ever post on this site, but at least I gave it a shot. Anyways, my posts won't be poetic, creative, or even well writen (everything I strive to be as a writer), but they will hopefully be informative. So there you go.