December in Tela

After several weeks of rainy weather, the sun came out long enough for Sara and I to enjoy the beach a few more times before heading back to the US for Christmas. We both couldn't believe that in December, while it's freezing and snowing in other parts of the world, we were able to go to the beach and even jump in the water and lay out under the sun!
The two pictures below show my some Christmas decorations in my classroom. We were all strictly told to have our classrooms fully decorated by the first week in December. Luckily, I had Cinthia, my aide to help me out. She luckily had a lot of experience creating intricate and elaborate signs and posters which they are so fond of here, complete with metallic paper and glitter!My kids made Christmas trees using construction paper and wrote letters to Santa (the picture below). After spending almost 5 months on learning how to write letters, I think they're finally getting the hang of it! On one of our last weekends in Tela before going back home for the Christmas break, I decided to take another trip to San Pedro Sula to buy the last of some Christmas presents. It's a larger city, about 2 hours away from Tela. I ventured out on my own and made a few friends on the bus there, and from the big souvenir market I went to. While I was making my way through the huge market, full of stall after stall of everything you could think of, I met Maria Theresa, who owned on of the stands(the picture of me and her is below). She was the nicest person, and even offered to walk me back to the central park (several blocks away) so I wouldn't loose my way! The entire walk there, she was the most patient person to talk to, always speaking in Spanish very slowly, taking extra time to explain things, and giving me enough time to fumble through my Spanish vocab and tenses, to work my way through the conversation. Wow, I really do appreciate talking to people like that here! I feel like I learn so much in those conversations, too bad they don't some around too often, my day to day practice with Spanish is mostly limited, it's only on weekend trips that I get to really put it to the test!

On our way to the central park, we picked up Maria Theresa's 103 year old mother! Yes, I said 103!! Her name was Josephine, and she was selling fruit in a stand along the street. She was the cutest and most tiny lady I've ever seen! We made another stop at what looked like a little workshop garage, where there were men cutting up huge pieces of wood. She ran back and forth across the street to the shop collecting bags of scrap wood. She ran around like a little energizer bunny, it was the most adorable thing, I seriously wanted to take her back to Tela with me! When I offered to carry some of the bags, she laughed, and insisted in carrying it all on her own. She had a huge bag of scrap wood (the bag looked like an old sack that several lbs of rice would come in). Needless to say, it looked very heavy. This 103 year old lady then proceeded to balance this huge sack of wood on her head!!!! we still had at least 5 more blocks to walk! Maria Theresa laughed after seeing the expression on my face, and explained that her mom does this all the time, and if you try to help her, she won't let you! I couldn't believe it!!! I think another reason why I completely feel in love with these two women was not only because they were so generously kind to a complete stranger, but also because they had the same names of my two aunts, and it made me feel comfortable right away!!! :)

Our high school choir competed in a Christmas concert with other choirs from various places in Honduras. Schools even came from as far as Tegucigalpa, about 6 hours away. Too bad Sara and I didn't get to see our school actually perform, we had to leave early to teach our classes, and our school was going to be the very last ones to sing.


Sara and I were invited to a formal Christmas dinner at the big, new, and expensive resort in town called the Telamar. Graciella, the founder of our school, organized a fundraising dinner for needy children. So all the teachers, including us, and various other people from town, attended the dinner. It was a very fancy hotel, complete with huge silver platters and a full course meal. For a few hours it actually didn't feel like we were in Honduras anymore. The atmosphere was completely different than anyhting we've been in since living here. After dinner there were these amazing dancers that performed, they even did a dance with fire. You can click on this link to watch a quick clip of the dance that Sara took:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68HdAF7VZ5o
On this past Tuesday (Dec. 18), our school visited the local hospital to give gifts to children that were patients there. We took a small van (20 kids all stuffed in a van) to the hospital. Our class arrived first, and a nurse took us to pediatrics where the kids passed out presents to babies lying in cribs, and to toddlers in little hospital beds. The kids were very excited to pass out all the presents they had brought!On Thursday night (Dec.20) our school had our Christmas program. My class sang "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" and Sara's class sang "Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer." After the program we had Christmas dinners in our classrooms with the parents and students. The entire night was pretty hectic, and not very organized, with a lot of kids and parents running around, but all in all I think my class had a good time, and enjoyed a lot of good homemade food that the parents prepared!

I'll be back home for a little over two weeks, so I hope to see you all soon!!!! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!! :)

Books, books, and more books....

I wanted to do a blog about how much the books and supplies you all donated, and helped us ship to our school has really been helping the kids and helping us to be better teachers for them! Sara and I keep small libraries in our classroom for the kids to use. So far, we've been keeping the books in cardboard boxes, but hopefully soon, the school will be able to build shelves in the classrooms for us, or so they say......

This is the very first time any of the kids have been able to read books, other than textbooks, in school (these textbooks are all too high in reading level for the majority of the kids). Offering them various books at different reading levels, and on a range of different topics, has really allowed the kids to explore reading in a new and exciting way! All of our kids are always excited about choosing new books to read! Sara and I have been more successful in teaching important elements of reading like characters and setting, which have also helped the kids' reading comprehension to improve, this has been a huge problem the school faces. We've also recently been allowing the kids to check out books for our classroom libraries, and take them home with them. This unleashed a completely new kind of excitement in the kids, and they were so eager to be able to take books home!

Sara and I have also been able to read aloud many books to the kids. Our kids love this! For many of them, I know this is one of the few times, if ever, that they are read to in English. And again, it's gives us another chance to build on their vocabulary and comprehension!

Before and after school, I've been tutoring kids. The picture above shows Marlon, he is in my second grade class, and we've been working together to build on his reading comprehension and to improve his writing. Using the books we were able to send over everyday has really helped him to improve in school! Like I mentioned before, the textbooks are very difficult for a lot of our kids to read and understand. So by reading one-on-one with him twice a week, using the books at his reading level, has given him a lot more confidence in his ability to read!

This picture below is of Marieli and I. She is in first grade, and attends another bilingual school in Tela. I work with her after school about 3-4 times a week. Other than helping her with homework, we also work on building reading comprehension and vocabulary. During my time with her, I bring along many books from our school. The first time I opened my bag and showed her all the books she could choose from to read, her face completely lit up! She even asked if she could take one of the books home to read more!

Unfortunately, our school wide library hasn't been progressing as fast as we would like. We have all the higher level books, encyclopedias, magazines, and read long tapes, upstairs in the all-purpose room. Some are in a bookshelf, but most others are on the floor and on tables. The picture below shows this. Our goal is to be able to help set up the school's first official library before we leave in June. We want to teach the kids how to choose books right for them, and how to check-out books and return them safely. As of right now, the lack of bookshelves, and a space to set up the library has put this plan to a halt. The school's founder, Graciella, promised us that they are in the process of building shelves in this all purpose room for the library, and that will be the first step. Vanessa, another teacher at the school has been looking into getting tables, chairs, and rugs to be able to use specifically for the library. So hopefully sooner rather than later, the school library will be coming together! I'll keep you updated as that project comes together!So really, I can't say thank you enough for helping us get these books and supplies here!! Sara and I are lucky enough to see how much it helps our kids everyday, and I hope this little blog helps you to see at least a little, what part you all had in that!! :)

The other teachers we work with...

The picture above shows Vilma Mendez (Ms.Vilma), and Marlon (the 1st grade teacher). She is the elementary school principal (grades 1-6). Sara and I aren't really sure what she does all day, she's rarely in the office, especially when we tend to need her the most. She doesn't get to work until 1:30 because she works at another school (we start at 12). Most of the time when she is at work, she wanders around the school passing out papers that need to be sent home (usually seconds before the bell rings at the end of the day), or she peeks her head into our classroom to announce something to the students (talking only to the students), but doesn't even bother to explain to us what she said. We usually have to ask the kids what she announced, just to try to stay in the loop. She doesn't speak any English and most of the time Sara and I feel like she doesn't really appreciate having to deal with us because of the language barrier. We're pretty sure she doesn't do much but think up random holidays for us to celebrate, make posters for, and plan a presentation for. Added to her duties, I'm pretty sure, is to tediously draw grids/charts (for every teacher, showing every month and every day) into a log book, which teachers are supposed to sign into every day, but nobody really does.
The picture above shows the Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Donaldson. She is very nice, and speaks English pretty well. The kids in her class have adorable uniforms, they all look like little dolls. She was the kindergarten teacher of Carlos Palacio, one of the teachers at our school, his picture is down below, after Marlon and his class.

In Honduras they have a grade between Kindergarten and 1st grade, called Preparatory (Prepa). This is Ms. Marla, the Preparatory teacher. She is very sweet and always smiling. She speaks English pretty well also. She was the second grade teacher last year, and was very helpful in getting me situated with the textbooks and teacher's guides at the beginning of the year. She's always willing to help (whether it be helping me translate to parents, or lending me nails to hang up bulletin boards).
Claudia Mejia (Ms. Claudia) is the aide in the Preparatory classroom. She is one of the nicest people I've meet since living here. She has two daughters; Khenelma, who is in Sara's class, and Claudia, who is in my class. Her kids are also very sweet. They had us over for dinner a few weeks ago. Claudia made delicious chicken tostadas with fresh salsa. She is 28 years old.
This is Marlon, the 1st grade teacher, and his aide, Rafael. I'm not sure how old Marlon is, but Rafael is only 16. Marlon is an interesting character. He is always very helpful and friendly towards Sara and I, even though it sometimes becomes borderline annoying and overbearing. He is genuinely a nice person, but can often be very blunt, and kinda lacks normal people and social skills. His English is very low, which doesn't make a great model for the students in his grade, especially at their young age. He tries hard, but hasn't had any professional training as a teacher. His entire family (mom, brothers, and sisters) has lived in New York for over 15 years, and he has hopes of eventually being able to move there and live with them.This is Carlos Palacio (Mr. Palacio). He teaches Grammar and Math to the 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. He was born in Honduras, but moved to Miami, FL when he was young, and just returned to Honduras a few years ago. His children and family are still living in FL. He is very nice, and extremely helpful, always translating for us during staff meetings. He jokes around a lot with teachers as well as students, and doesn't ever seem to take things too seriously. He has a classroom right beside Sara, and I often sit outside his classroom on my free periods, and all day long we hear him yelling at the kids saying, "Why are you still talking!" or "Why are you out of your seat!" He is 31 years old. He and Vanessa are the strongest English speaking models for the kids here.

Vanessa Valasquez (Ms. Valasquez), teaches Literature to the 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. She is 28 years old, and lived in Boston for 8 years, before moving back to Honduras about 2 years ago with her 3 year old son, Anthony. I don't have recent picture of her, but I've often talked about her in prior blogs, and she is in the pictures from our trip to Copan. She is the daughter of Graciella, the founder fo the school. She is also the volunteer coordinator, and has helped out Sara and I a lot since we've been here.

This is Hector Velasquez (Mr. Velasquez), and he teaches 4th, 5th, and 6th grade Science . He is Graciella's youngest son and is 19 years old. While growing up he attended bilingual schools, so he speaks English pretty well.

This is Suyapa Calix(Ms. Calix) on the right. She is the Spanish and Calligraphy teacher for grades 1-6. She only speaks Spanish, and is pretty friendly. Unfortunately, the kids don't seem to listen to her much. I often go back to my classroom while she's teaching, to get something I forgot, and the kids are often running around the room and/or playing around. To the left of Ms. Calix, is Poala Velasquez, she is the daughter-in-law of Graciella. She helps out in the office with both elementary and high school.
This is Manases Lemus (Mr. Lemus), the Social Studies teacher for grades 1-6. His first name is a little difficult to say, so everyone (teachers included) just call him Mr. Lemus or just Lemus. He speaks no English at all, but is very friendly and always smiling, even if he doesn't talk much! he just recently turned 2o years old.This is Mr. Lacayo, and he is the P.E. teacher for both elementary and High School. He speaks very little English, and most times I have to have him repeat things he has said because he tends to have a different accent. He is also very friendly, always smiling and waving, and asking how you are. He and his wife came with us on that trip to Copan.
This is Mirtala Pacheco (Ms. Pacheco), she is the computer teacher for grades 1-6. She is very silly and always energetic and smiling. She speaks very little English, but likes to try out little phrases with me here and there. Unfortunately, it seems like she rarely ever teaches the kids about computers, and often Sara and I go to her room to pick up our kids and all they're doing is playing solitaire on the computer.This is Cinthia Vallecillo (Ms. Vallecillo), on the right. She started off as an aide in elementary school, but after James (the other volunteer who up and left a week after getting here) left, she had to help teach some of the high school classes that he left behind. And for the past month she's been helping me out in my classroom in the afternoons. Both her and Danira (the girl on the left) are 17 and just graduated from high school last year. They are both teaching his high school classes. That's how desperate they are for English speaking teachers, we have 17 year olds teaching other teenagers practically the same age!
This is Dontonio. He works at the school as a "security guard," and watches the gate everyday. He is the sweetest, cutest old man ever, but I really can't see how the word "guard" could ever be used to describe him! He's always smiling and joking around with the kids.This is Carol, the custodian. She is constantly sweeping and cleaning the grounds of the school. I seriously have never seen her sitting down or resting, she's definitely the hardest working person at the school! She's always smiling, and has a cute little son that is often with her at school, running around and playing with the other kids.

Better late than never.....Abbie and Lindsey's Visit to Honduras

So....over 2 months ago (Oct.13), my two friends and old roommates from San Diego came to visit me in Honduras. Our very first official visitors! An added bonus was that we were going to be able to celebrate Lindsey's 25th birthday together in Honduras! I was pretty excited about them coming to visit, after living together for over 5 years in San Diego, they decided to move to New York, and I hadn't seen them in over a year! They flew into San Pedro on Saturday, Oct. 13, and I met them at the big bus station there. From there we headed to Lago de Yojoa, if you remember a blog that I wrote a while back (in September), Sara and I had already been there. We had so much fun, that I ended up taking Abbie and Lindsey there a month later! We stayed at the same place , D&D Brewery, and the plan was to do a little hiking, see the Pulhapanzak waterfall, and then they were going to come back with me to Tela for a few days, then after that, fly out to Guatemala to see the ruins at Tikal to finish off their trip to Central America. So here's what we did:

SATURDAY:

I met them at the bus station in San Pedro (about 2 hours away from Tela) bearing "welcome to Honduras gifts." Really, they were just rambutans (those little sea urchin- looking things in the two small pictures above). The wierd thing is that they're really rambutans, but everyone here calls them lychees (I just found out there real name thanks to my sister!), they are really good, and are sold everywhere in Tela. Then we caught a bus to the D&D Brewery. Our first night there, the crazy owner Bob, messed up our reservations, and instead of getting a private cabin, we had to stay in the communal cabin that Sara and I had stayed in. Since there was three of us, Abbie and I slept inside one of the private rooms in the cabin, while poor Lindsey offered to take one for the team and tough it out on the tiny, hard, sofa in the communal living room. Luckily the next two nights, we were upgraded to a much nicer, private cabin (which is what we had asked for in the first place) with our own little patio complete with a hammock and chair (the four small pictures below).

SUNDAY:

We decided to go hiking at Cerro Azul Meambar National Park. Learning after the mistakes Sara and I made the first time we came to visit the park: instead of coughing up the $6 to get a ride in a car up and down the huge hill leading up to the park which is just over 4 miles one way, we hitchhiked up, and decided to walk back down, but it ended up getting dark and started raining, plus we missed the last bus to our hotel, so we ended up paying more than the $6 to get back home! The picture below shows us getting a ride up to the park. Abbie and Lindsey rode on the back of the truck, while they let me ride inside because of the really bumpy, winding roads, plus the crazy way the guy was driving, my motion sickness couldn't have handled it! This just goes to show how unpredictable the weather is here...when we first started out in the morning, it was sunny, and as you can tell from the first picture, and then the one after it, it started to pour only after we were already riding up to the park! Abbie and Lindsey were soaked, all while sliding and bouncing around in the bed of the truck. We were laughing so hard, I HAD to take a picture of them, from my warm, and covered seat inside the truck!:)We finally made it to the park, and luckily the rain let up a bit. We weren't able to do the longer, 4 hour hike, because it was already pretty late, and we didn't want to miss the last bus back to the hotel, like Sara and I did last time, so we did the shorter hike, and stopped by one of the freezing cold waterfalls to go swimming. After that, we headed back to our hotel, where we enjoyed some good food and beer. I had my very first hamburger since living in Honduras, and it was delicious (of course there's a picture of that too)! The other picture below is of Abbie and Lindsey under the freezing waterfall, and a picture of us with Bob and some other guests eating dinner and talking.

MONDAY:

Today was Lindsey's 25th Birthday!! After breakfast, the owner of the D&D, Bob, took us on a tour of the plants around his hotel. He showed us different kinds of orchids, ginger, and many other plants. He even cut a piece of actual ginger root for me taste, and showed us another type of ginger that you could wash your hands with, it left your hands smelling really nice (the picture of Lindsey to the right shows that plant).

Abbie's sinuses had been bothering her all weekend, and when Bob heard about this, he insisted that she try his home remedy which he swore would fix the problem. I figured it would be some weird plant to eat, or to grind up and put in tea or something....... but this was far from it! We were completely grossed out to find that this "home remedy" was to eat termites! Before we even realized what he was doing, he stuck a twig into one of the huge, black termite nests in his garden, and when he pulled it out it had dozens of termites crawling around the twig. Then he proceeded to eat the termites off the twig as if it were completely normal! We couldn't believe it! Needless to say, Abbie, Lindsey, and I turned down his offer to try the nasty little things! After this, we began to call him "Crazy Bob".

Bob's tour was far from over. He took us to his little "museum" (the picture above)where he showed us his many ancient artifacts he's found in the area while digging to build pools (in the glass case behind him). In the picture, he's asking Lindsey for a piece of hair. He put it on that flat stone paper press in the background. The part that looks like a rolling pin rolls back and forth on the hair, taking off all the pigment, and leaving behind only a flat, twisted, white hair. He makes all his guests do this. Just another reason why the name Crazy Bob suits him so well! Then he offered to give us a ride up the mountain, to see a great view of the lake, and drive us through one of the nearby villages called "Las Vegas", yes, that's the real name! The first picture on the top of this blog is a picture Bob took of us, you can see the beautiful lake behind us. Then after we drove through Las Vegas, he took us back to the hotel, where we left to go see the Pulhapanzak waterfall.I also wrote about this waterfall in my September blog, Sara and I came to visit it last time too. If you remember, I hiked behind the waterfall with a group of friends we had made at the hotel, so this time I thought Lindsey and Abbie would have liked to do the same. When we got to the park, we found out that they now offered a zip line tour that went straight across the top of the waterfall (a 43 m/ 140 ft drop)! Lindsey was brave enough to try it, especially since it was her birthday, but Abbie and I decided to stay behind and watch, we weren't quite ready to take the plunge. Below you can see a picture of Lindsey before the zip line., with the massive waterfall behind her. Below that picture, is a one of her on the zip line. (you have to look closely at the top to see her tiny body dangling way up high over the waterfall) After the zip line, we walked down the waterfall a bit until we got to a platform where we were going to start the hike behind the waterfall. Everything started out ok, but as we started to head closer to the waterfall I realized that the water was coming down a lot stronger than the last time, it it was a lot harder to see( the guide explained that it was because of all the recent raining). Lindsey and Abbie weren't too happy with me for a few minutes as we stood there under the gushing pressure of the water, yelling at each other, not even being able to see in front of us! Haha, I thought they were going to kill me for dragging them into this, but then, we turned around to go back to the more calm parts of the waterfall, and we were ok. We even got to jump off some of the boulders and into the small swimming holes like I did last time.

After we left the waterfall, we walked back towards the main street where we waited for the bus to come to take us back to our hotel. We were planning to eat an early dinner at the D&D, then head back to Tela, I had to teach the next morning at 11am. While we were waiting by the side of the road, a truck pulled up and offered to give us a ride back to our hotel, which was really close by. I know that many of you may be thinking how dangerous that can be, but MANY people here, girls included, hitchhike, and I figured, there was 3 of us, and we weren't going very far, plus it was in the middle of the day. So, we hopped into the truck. When they found out that it was Lindsey's birthday, they insisted we stop by a "merendero" (a small food stand/restaurant) and let them buy us drinks to celebrate her birthday. After a few rounds, they took us back to our hotel, and even offered to give us a ride to San Pedro (where we needed to catch a bus back to Tela). They were very nice guys, not creepy at all. The only thing was that it was getting really late(around 2pm) and San Pedro was at least 1 1/2 hrs away, and the last bus to Tela from San Pedro left at 5pm. So, after some debating back and forth, we decided it would be better to stay an extra night at the D&D and just catch an early bus (6am) back to San Pedro, and then to Tela the next morning. Plus we didn't want to push our luck, and take a ride with them, while it would be getting dark.

TUESDAY:

We woke up bright and early the next morning, (6am) to start our trip back to Tela. Crazy Bob was nice enough to offer us a ride to San Pedro, he had to go there to pick up something for the hotel in anyways. After a short ride in his truck, he dropped us off at the bus station and we got on a direct bus to Tela, which took about another hour and a half. We luckily arrived in Tela by about 10am. When we got back to my house we were greeted by a not so happy Sara. Rightfully so, she was a little upset about the way she found the house when she got back from San Diego. She had arrived the day before(Monday) afternoon, to find the house completely flooded...and all because of me!!! That's right, stupid me!I had left to meet Abbie and Lindsey in San Pedro early Saturday morning. The water was shut off all day Friday, until I left Saturday morning. Apparently, I had turned the knob on the kitchen sink (to on), and had forgotten to turn it back the other way. So when the water finally turned back on (probably later that Saturday) the water came gushing out. Let me remind you, I had already left for the weekend, and Sara didn't come back until Monday afternoon....so that means the water had been left on for almost 3 full days!!! As you can imagine, there was water everywhere! What was worse, is that poor Sara, had to come home Monday afternoon to a flooded house! She had to sweep all the water outside, by herself, and clean up everything that had been damaged by the water!!! How she was even talking to me when I got back home, I'll never know!!! Luckily, she was really understanding(even though a lot of her things were ruined because of me). Let's just say I learned my lesson!!

Wednesday:

Lindsey and Abbie took a day trip to Punta Sal (Sara and I went there a few months back and I wrote about that on an earlier blog too), while Sara and I went to work. The picture below shows them at Cocalito Beach (a stop on the tour to Punta Sal).

After work, we all went out to dinner and then came back to the house to have some Birthday cake.

Thursday:

Abbie and Lindsey left in the morning to go back to San Pedro, where they were going to take a flight to Guatemala. The picture below shows them at the beautiful Mayan Ruins in Tikal. After staying in Guatemala for about 4 days, they headed back home to New York.I had so much fun with them while they were here. It was really nice to be able to see them again, and meeting in a different country made it that much more fun!!! Hopefully there will be many more visitors while Sara and I are here!!!! *hint*hint* :)