I love weekends!!

It's not that I don't like being with my students or going to work 5 days a week because most of the time I really do, but no matter how great the week is, I am always looking forward to the weekend. I love having the free time to be with people and build relationships.

This weekend has been exceptionally great and it is only half over at this point. Right after school on Friday, we went to play soccer with the street boys. After a great time of play, feeding the boys, and washing their feet, we packed up and headed to Agafam (the Honduran version of a county fair). It was great! We ate great food, played some carnival games, threw a frisbee around, and rode the farris wheel. It was fantastic!

We got back kind of late so I was excited to sleep in today.....I guess I should learn that sleeping in here is just not ever going to happen. I woke up to a super loud pounding sound coming from our kitchen. I eerily crept out of my bed and into the living room, then peeked around the corner into the kitchen to see a man's hand reaching up under our door into our house. Needless to say I panicked a little bit and ran back into my room. I had no idea who this was but assumed they must be trying to break into our house. I ran into the bathroom and looked out our tiny little window to see the man hired by our landlord to make repairs to our house, standing on the platform attached to the back of our house with a sledgehammer and chisel, breaking away the cement underneath our kitchen door leading into the ally. I still have no idea what exactly his purpose was for breaking our wall, but now we have a nice hole under the door and more cement chunks keep falling off, so hopefully they have a brilliant plan to fix this little problem or the bugs are soon going to become even worse.

However, I didn't have long to worry about this issue because today is birthday-day and full of lots of birthday fun! :) This morning we went to celebrate our friend Jenna Miller's birthday (she works with Micah Project). She loves baseball so we went to a baseball field and had a kickball tournament with about 60 people. She even made team shirts for everyone to wear (my team was the Dodgers). It was so much fun seeing all of the Honduran boys trying to figure out this "baseball" form of soccer and hardly ever did I see them throw the ball when out in the field, they just kicked it all the time. I guess I just never came to the realization that not everyone knows how to play by baseball rules because we in North America just grow up knowing the game so I found it kind of funny that they even had to explain to these teenage boys how to run bases. (Sorry Travis, I know you will be a little disappointed by this).

Now it is time to go to the next birthday party for our friends Julie, Merideth, and Kaytie. We are going to go bowling and I have never been bowling in Honduras so it should be fun! Tomorrow will include church, frisbee with other teachers and some Micah boys at IST, and hopefully even a little afternoon nap if I'm lucky.

.....and this is why I love weekends :)

New President!!

Today Honduras' new president (Pepe Lobo) was put into office. Not only was this history in the making as Honduras is taking back their country and trying to get back on their feet again, but it also meant no school for us because many streets were shut down for the inauguration. I want to thank all of you for your prayers these past few months for Honduras and the lack of peace we had been experiencing. Things have definitely calmed down and returned to normal......let's hope now that the new president is in place that things continue down this path.

With a full day off of school, us teachers were free to do what we wanted = which resulted in a picture scavenger hunt all over Loarque (our community). It was a lot of fun and good to be outside for a long period of time since that doesn't happen often. Lots of laughs were shared as we traipsed all over our neighborhoods while the Hondurans looked at us like we were crazy. We even ended up in the middle of a pick up soccer game with a bunch of Honduran guys who had no idea why a bunch of white girls were jumping in their game. I seriously am blessed to have such a great community of North Americans to hang out with because we find plenty of ways to entertain ourselves!

The rest of the day included lunch with friends, a little down time to myself, and now Bible study in a little bit. Not a bad way to spend a day off of school, that's for sure!

Fish heads and fun times

It seems that I have become very comfortable living within the little bubble we refer to as the North American community here in Honduras so it is nice when I am given the opportunity to branch out and see what Hondurans accept as "normal."

Today after church I was invited to go to lunch with the Honduran family that adopted me. They asked me if I like seafood and to be honest, I have never been a huge fan, but I haven't tried it in a very long time and I have been surprised at what foods I do like now that I am older so I told them seafood sounded great! I didn't know what the menu said because it was all in Spanish so I just ordered what everyone else was getting (which I was told was fish stuffed with shrimp - sounded pretty good).

When the waitress brought out our food, I was shocked! It was an actual fish stuffed with shrimp! It tasted amazing, but took a second to get over the fact that I was opening up this fish and eating out his innards while his head was flopping off the side of my plate and his tail and fins were scraping my arm. I was told real Hondurans eat the eyeballs as well - let's just say, in this case, I am happy to claim that I am not Honduran as I did not eat them.

I love fishing and even playing with dead fish (as my family can attest too); however, this was a whole new experience! After the meal, the waitress brought us a bowl of water with a lime slice in it, which we were told to wash our hands in because apparently lime is the only thing able to get rid of fish smell. It was a great afternoon, full of lots of laughing and new experiences and I am so blessed to have a family down here that is willing to take me in and spend time together.

But from now on, I think I will make sure to order food that doesn't have a head :)

Back and in the Swing of Things

I returned to Honduras a week ago after a refreshing trip back to the states to visit my family over Christmas break. It was fun to be home and great to see family and friends again. However, several people accused me of slacking on the blog writing, and all I have to say to that is, I am guilty as charged. When things get busy, the blog is the first thing to be ignored. So, I will attempt to get better at updating the blog and in the meantime update you on my first week back in Honduras.

School started soon after we returned and as much as I was dreading returning to the daily work schedule, it really hasn't been too bad. It took a few days to get my students settled down and focused back on school, but now I am surprised at how smoothly class is rolling. I don't know why, but my students are particularly excited about our class this Partial (Quarter). Maybe it is because we are currently studying William Shakespeare in preparation to read Romeo and Juliet and for the first time I actually know what the book is about and how it will end before I start teaching it and I'm sure some of that excitement is rubbing off on my students. Whatever the reason, it is nice hearing students say, "I'm so glad we have your class first today! It's a good way to start the morning!" {Which reminds me, one of my students in class the other day told me (after I told them writing 3 paragraphs should be easy for them by now), "Ms. Jones you play soccer like Ronaldinho, write like you are Dr. Seuss or something.....everything in life must seem easy to you!" - it made me laugh}

As far as soccer goes, we have 3 days left of regular season play. Yep, that's right, with only 4 girls soccer teams in the conference that means we only play 3 games. Our first one was on Saturday, we have one tomorrow, and one Thursday. Saturday's game did not go so well, so I am hoping things go better tomorrow, but after a miscommunication that left us with no soccer balls and no equipment at practice today, I'm getting a little nervous. As long as they give it their all, I couldn't be more proud of them.

Well, back to the school work now, but I will update again soon!.....hopefully :)

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....