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!