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!!!! :)