Week 3: Becoming a teacher

Day 15 August 22
I let myself sleep in. I had made a long list of things to do over the weekend to prepare for school but the first two things on the list were: clean up the house from the potluck so we don’t end up with loads of roaches and laundry so I have something to wear to school (we haven’t gotten our uniform polos yet.)
I got as many dishes done as would fit into our drying rack and swept out the house. There was some left over chicken soup, so I reheated it and had breakfast (sharing with Sierra who’s been fighting a cold for about a week, I think she plans to see a doctor soon.) I baged up all the trash and put it by the door. Sierra had done the roof at 6:30 and gone back to bed, just to make sure our neighbors wouldn’t have to find it and feel like they needed to do something about it. I started my laundry and alternated tasks as various things became more dry until I had swept, mopped, and scrubbed all of the downstairs, done the dishes, laundered the kitchen towels in the pila, and done my laundry and hung it up to dry. I didn’t feel like taking four trips down the block to take out the trash so it sat by the door until Alan and Abby came home from helping Ann and her family with some mission work in one of the near by el deas. I asked them about my flashlight, at which point they told me of the night’s adventures. Abby and I went out on the street while Alan used a broom to pass it down to us.
We gained some free food and sodas from hosting the event, and I’m taking advantage of this opportunity to use 2 liter bottles to make separate holders for our cooking utensils, knives, and silverware.
The whole cleaning and laundry thing took a few hours more than I expected, but it was important. Then I got to work on school stuff and finished up everything I could do without going to school. I finalized my lesson plans, prepared the supplies for class activities, and made a couple more signs for the room. Caroline and Beth sent a teacher-wide text about hosting a movie night at their house and I still had an hour and a half until that, so I went to Casa Villamil for dinner and internet.
All the outlets were taken again, so I only had the half hour to 40 minutes my computer can survive without being plugged in. I’ve decided that every building in Honduras needs more outlets. And they are so strangely distributed within each room. I figure it must have something to do with which walls are easier to wire than others.
I saw my first Yaris in Honduras. I’ve seen tons of Toyotas, but this was the first Yaris. She was a light green four door sedan. I think it’s a fairly logical car for trying to navigate the narrow streets of Copan. That, and from what I understand, cars don’t last very long here, so something sturdy and cheap is a good way to go.
On the way to Caroline and Beth’s, I saw Nilvio’s father across the street and then I saw a small boy, looked to be in about the third grade walking up ahead. His father said something to him in Spanish and pointed at me. I waved and Nilvio became very bashful very quickly. This was the only reason he didn’t come to the open house! His father and I chuckled and kept going our separate ways.
At Caroline and Beth’s, we watched the Darjeeling Limited. As always, Wes Anderson did good work. Caroline had told to bring pillows, since they don’t have enough chairs and we’d all be spread out across the floor. I heard Christopher trying to trade his overly fluffy pillow for someone’s flatter pillow. Perfect match. We traded, both very pleased with our new pillows (we kept our old pillow covers, though).
I was exhausted halfway through, and decided to go home and sleep. The others went to the guys’ house to hang out a little while longer. They’re headed to the hot springs at 10. I figure I can go another time, I told Ann I would meet her and her family outside of the church at 5 til 10 and then I plan to head up to the school for more work.
Also, stepping on an ant hill while walking someplace and having them attack your feet is just not as fun as it sounds. The ants here are a lot more aggressive, dedicated to taking you down, and painful than the ants I’ve encountered in VA.

Day 16 August 23
I have officially doubled my time spent in any country other than the states. I believe I was in Spain for 8 days, Italy was probably around 6, and Canada was 4 (I think.) The states was roughly 22 years and 2 months minus 18 days.
Nome, Judy’s puppy who’s name is from our affectionately calling her “No Name” for two weeks, makes me want dog soup in the mornings (which is not served around here, if it was, I imagine there’d be a lot less street dogs running around). This dog is adorable, and lives next door to me, and while Judy is working at Picame all day, the dog is put up on a line in the “yard.” She barks nonstop for hours. On days when I go to school, not such a big deal. But on the weekends, when I could sleep in, the barking starts at 6. Even once I give up and am doing work around the house, the incessant barking drives me mad. I’ve watched a few of my neighbors come out of their apartments to stare the dog down, and she gets quiet as soon as she sees someone, because all she wants is attention. Judy Shhhs her periodically, but this dog needs serious training and I don’t see that happening. Ever. Sweet dog, but she drives me insane.
Mass was an adventure. First, Ann and I were waiting in different areas and it was at 10 that she got up to go in without me and saw me. Ann explained as we walked in that there was no holy water to cross yourself with, that they take a branch to fling it on folks in the beginning of the service, like Easter in the states. I found it to be good practice in comprehension. Songs were nearly impossible for me to follow (except the one with the verse that repeated “Halleluiah Señor” six and half times.) The reading and homily proved difficult, but I made out a lot of the nouns and maybe one in ten verbs.
The main statue of Mary was beautiful, but along the walls there were several porcelain Marys that were pretty creepy looking. I hope to get some pictures of the inside of the church soon, but I don’t want to be disrespectful, so I’m going to figure out how folks would feel about that first. The church is deep and narrow. It looks very large from the outside, and can fit a lot of people, but it’s not as big as it looks. The ceiling is very high, but painted white. (That is something I’ve been curious about, the average person here is pretty short, but all of their ceilings are very high. Even in my house, except going up the stairs, where we can easily hit our heads.)
Communion is a lot less organized, you get up and join the line when you want to. There’s no order to it. Also, everyone receives the bread in their mouth, no touching with our hands. That’s something I’ll have to get used to. I was able to figure out that they are trying to raise 30 thousand lempiras for something involving Tegucigalpa. The rules for kneeling also appear to be different, or at least followed differently. Ann has referred to the church as being “very Vatican II.”
After mass, I picked up bread and peanut butter (which is the single most expensive thing I buy, but it is such a staple for my diet right now. It’s also probably the most protein I get when I’m not eating out, which I’m trying to do less. I’ve even started making my own mango jelly.) There’s a Mini Super half a block from my house that Abby refers to as “Target” because they have everything. It’s also very crowded on Sunday mornings, apparently everyone goes shopping after church.
Since I finished off my first jar of peanut butter for lunch, and they don’t recycle here, and I have very limited supplies in the classroom, I decided to clean it out and see if I can use it for something later on. Maybe a class project terrarium? Or just a flower vase where you can see the roots? It’s slightly opaque, but you can still see through it enough, I think, for it to work as some sort of critter container. I also made my last jelly jar into a glass (it’s really shaped a lot like a glass, not a jar. Handy.)
I worked for a long time at school, got everything as organized as possible. Planning, reworking, and getting more and more specific about my lessons. I doubt I’ll be able to keep that up, but until I get the hang of things, I’ll try to keep it up. Play the role of teacher until I am the role of teacher! I walked back with Megan and Vicki, getting advice along the way.
It’s off the bed early tonight as the morning some of the parents will be there to watch us start off the year (just for the morning assembly, not in the classroom.)

Day 17 August 24
So, with the onset of school, the honeymooning period is over.
Up at five, showered, dressed, packed, cooked lunch, and headed out by 6. Sierra and I made it to school by about 6:20. Though, at about 5:45 one of the 6th grade students was outside my window (where the outdoor hallway runs by the stairs.) We had an awkward little conversation about being excited for the first day. With her and her 7th grade brother living here now, we might not be able to host as many roof bonfires. I’ll try to bring it up with the others, but as I haven’t organized any to begin with, we’ll see.
So, there’s this crazy thing where teaching is hard. That must be why they have classes and books on how to do it. Nothing went as I expected it to. One the one hand, I knew nothing would be like I expected, on the other hand that meant I didn’t really know what to expect. They never stop talking. I think it’d be easier to gain control of the classroom if they had any idea what I was saying.
It didn’t help that there was road work that prevented all of the students from arriving on time. I had students and parents pouring into my class all morning, which also meant we postponed the assembly. We stood outside for 15+ minutes before they decided to cancel it and then we had to come back later and have another 20 minute period taken up for the actual assembly.
There are five other classes out during my recess and lunch periods, which makes it very difficult to get all my kids back for class. I ended up being 10 minutes late in delivering them to music class because they have music right after recess. I had them on time to their Social Studies class, which is right after lunch. Norma, the Social Studies teacher has a son in my class, and I’m sure he was good for her class, but he was a brat for me. I’m redoing my seating chart for the morning.
Every activity that involved class participation, only the person I was speaking with at any given moment was paying attention. I’m learning it’s very difficult to threaten consequences/ask them to change their behavior/chastise them/give new instructions when they don’t understand what you’re saying. I find myself giving class instructions and then having to give each student an individual explanation of those same instructions.
I’m hoping part of it is that their still coming off of summer and that part of it is they don’t remember that much English. Maybe once they get used to English again they will respond better to it.
My break for Social Studies and Spanish class was a lifesaver. I went back in fresh and inspired (I found a book in the teacher’s lounge with 25 inspiring accounts of first year teaching experience that start out crappy, often the first 4-8 months, that end up going really well.) I came back in and dove in headfirst. It didn’t really work. They still didn’t know what was going on. But, when I went to read them ‘The Giving Tree,’ an activity I almost cut from the schedule because I thought they would talk, carry on, and be bored, especially my two punk kids who laughed at everything.
They sat and listened attentively and afterwards gave me an overview of what happened so I even knew they understood. It was great. We then cleaned up and went out to the buses where I kept them together until their bus arrived, which Megan complimented me on. Maybe I should just read them books for the rest of the year. That’s what, 2 books per class period, I teach 6-7 classes a day, so roughly 14 books a day. Sounds good to me.
I stuck around school for a while, got some work done, but I really just wanted to go home. Christopher and I walked back and got baleadas to go, which was awesome (he hadn’t eaten since breakfast, but I had an egg and cheese sandwich for breakfast at home, another for recess, and then a third and a PB and J for lunch, so I wasn’t doing too badly.)
The brother of the girl I saw in the morning was in the yard playing with a soccer ball. Though he’s older, his English isn’t as good. We talked briefly about the day. He asked if I lived here alone and I told him I live with a second grade teacher and the first grade teacher. He said his favorite teacher was Mr. Christopher (Meester Chreestopher) because he brought a big toad to class (Christopher had been pretty excited about that.)
At recess, 2 hours into the day, I told Vicky I’d decided I don’t want to teach primary school long term. I know that the first several months of this are going to be really tough, so I won’t actually make that decision until then, but I am so envious of the secondary teachers right now. There are students in my class that I like, but for now, the students that frustrate me overrun thoughts of them. Some of the behavioral problems are obviously rooted in lack of understanding. One of my boys just says, “No” to every task I ask of him because he doesn’t know what I’m asking. It’s infuriating, and he’s loud about it so the entire class is watching to see how I respond. As soon as I explain the task to him in simpler terms with more direct hand motions, he is willing to comply. Then there’s the duo who laugh at my every move. I never thought I’d care what third graders think of me, but it actually bothered me. Not that I let it show, not any of it, but it did bother me. I split them up for tomorrow.
I made them late for lunch to practice walking in a straight, quiet line. They just can’t seem to stop talking. Every time I turn around, they’re all talking. I manage to keep calm, I just repeat my instructions and say we won’t stop until they get it right.
Lots of repetition doesn’t just apply to lack of understanding, but also to instructions they DO understand.
Some of my activities did go decently, like the “Going home graph” (we did a bar graph for how many students were going home with which bus driver/walking/being picked up) and the making of the Award Chart cards, though some of them didn’t completely understand the instructions, I’ll be able to work with it. Also, none of them have tried to argue with me about anything, (except for “No!” boy, but I’m hoping that’ll get better as he learns more English. He’ll be starting tutoring next week.) I just need to get the same sort of authority going for when I lay down rules, and being held back from recess will begin tomorrow morning. I’m just not good at being strict and I have the awful tendency to smile when they’re talking. No more smiling as of tomorrow, unless they’re all really good. Maybe I’ll be tired enough it won’t be a struggle to keep from smiling. Oooo, or maybe I just shouldn’t eat and then I’ll be really cranky. See how they deal with Hungry Miss Sarah (Meess Sahdah.)
I still have plenty of hope that things will get better. This week is the first step in a long line of lessons I have to learn. I know I’ll just be exhausted from being with the kids all day and then going home to finish lesson plans and grading. Megan helps a lot with just asking how we are, listening to our frustrations, giving advice, and last but certainly no where near least: she takes anything we need copied into town to get copied for us. Awesome.

Day 18 August 25
So, today was infinitely better than yesterday. Moving my kids around and laying down the ground rules harder helped a lot. I still need to get tougher, but I think my learning curve is pretty sharp so far. I got up at 4:45 this time, and Sierra and I left about 10 minutes early, but the construction and mud along the way made us walk slowly for several hundred yards and that put a dent in our timing. Also, there was a very proud rooster standing on top of a truck. I took pictures, he’s quiet handsome and he knows it.
I got to work writing up my board and rearranging where my kids set (which worked so well. My two punks were a lot easier to deal with once separated.) I didn’t let the kids in until 5 minutes to seven and I think I’ll keep it that way from now on. I control the pace the moment they walk in the door.
During our ‘morning meeting,’ I talked to them about behavior and how it was going to change. There were still some troubles, but not as many and I cracked down on a lot of behavior.
I also got into math, which is like candy for these kids. Math can be done without a language barrier. It’s something I remember from before I learned how to read. Those silly “words” didn’t make any sense on paper, but I could get into some math. Nilvio, who I’ve mentioned before, is new to the school, and was having a hard time with himself, but he was great with my math games (which they love, so they make a good time filler when my lessons run too fast. It was great to see him improve and get his self esteem up. Most of the class was much happier with math, too.
I tried to have a model write up, but the kids don’t understand paragraphs, on the highest end, and forming complete phrases, on the lowest. I’ve altered my lesson plans for the week to accommodate sentences, paragraphs, and capitalization/punctuation. It should be interesting.
Reading before lunch is not as effective as reading at the end of the day. They were too energetic and uninterested compared to the first day. I’m going to try it again, but if it struggles a second time, I might rearrange my regular schedule (which is not yet in practice) by doing science before lunch and Reading before they go home, instead of vice versa.
They were actually a few minutes late to lunch because they were so excited by a filler game I was playing where I would think of a number and draw a question mark in the middle of a square. On either side I wrote “Numbers smaller than my number” and “numbers bigger than my number.” As they guessed, I would place their guess on the appropriate side. As they got the hang of it (and some never did, but so far that’s how everything’s been) I let them come up and think of a number, dictating if it was bigger or smaller. Eventually I’ll switch out the phrasing for “less than” and “greater than” and then get into the < and > symbols, but not yet.
I ended the day with spelling words, and assigned them to go home and write 10 sentences, one sentence for each word. This was apparently the worst homework assignment ever. When I assigned the math homework, some of them asked for more. What?! Who does that?
I have separate subject notebooks and then I have a homework notebook (or rather, had them set up these notebooks.) I stapled the math homework worksheet into their homework notebook. Repeated over and over (as repeating tends to do) that all homework went in their homework notebook. But, I was giving them a chart to help with addition and subtraction. I explained how it worked, demonstrated it, had them practice, told them it was not homework, that it had no instructions, and even as I went around the room stapling it in their math notebooks, I repeated the same things. I still got a call tonight from Vicky, who tutors one of my slower students, and said he was convinced it was homework, he just didn’t understand the instructions (the board even had the math homework as the “Frog Worksheet” and nothing else.) I confirmed her suspicions and hope no one else was that confused.
She also told me he had a very hard time with the words “add” and “subtract” which I deliberately went over in class, with their symbols to help refresh the students’ minds. We’ll see tomorrow how many got it.
But back to spelling homework: as I was writing it on the board, in big bold letters, across the center, I heard a lot of commotion. When I had told them what the homework was, they were displeased, so I assumed it was a continuation of that. They got louder, so I turned around and asked if there was a problem. Finally, someone said, “Miss, it’s a permanent marker.” A permanent marker on my whiteboard. I didn’t know what to do. 6 kids jumped up and grabbed expo markers and began marking over the writing. I followed suite and erased as we went so we could see what still needed work. Sure enough, after going over it several times, it came off.
Of course, in this time, the rest of the class had gotten out of hand and those at the board had started drawing pictures (one of which was accompanied by “Miss Sarah I love you”), but it was the last ten minutes of class. I reigned them back in, made sure everyone understood the homework, made sure everyone had their homework notebook in their backpack and sent them off.
Megan now calls me her bus-duty buddy because I’m the only teacher who stays with her kids at the pick-up zone, but I like to see them off.
I stayed at school working for another few hours and the new guard, Chando, stopped by as he often does to have awkward broken conversation with me. He mentioned the bright sun coming in the window and I said it only happens after school and I have curtains but no…I pulled out my curtains and showed him where a rod would go. He said he has rods and I pointed out that I have no…and pointed to where curtain rod holders would be. He said he could come in on Saturday and put them in for me. Awesome. Go broken Spanish, Go!
I finally walked home with Ann, Alan, and Abby. Back through the construction site, which is becoming the bane of my existence. I got home and tried to go shopping with the 70 lemps I have left ($3.50 or so) but most places were closed, including the bank, market, and post office, and the place I did find, didn’t have bread. I bought pasta and jelly. That’ll make a solid meal. I have 6 eggs, 3 pieces of bread, a bunch of garlic, cheese, milk, and PB. I’m set.
I spent some time out in the yard, which I’d never actually ventured into before, to pet Nome, who’s been quiet recently. I made sure to only pet her when she was sitting nicely and quiet. I doubt my five to ten minutes made a difference, but I can try. She’s the only dog in Copan that I’m willing to pet and I certainly miss petting dogs.
I’m struggling with Thursday and Friday, not to mention next week. My goal had been to fill out this week so I could have next week done by Friday, but I find that activities I thought would work before I met my kids, just won’t, or won’t make any sense to them, or won’t take up anytime. Mostly, they just don’t make sense to them.
The 6th grade girl who lives a few doors down from my window offered my skittles while I was working on my bed. It’s a very strange experience. I would have had to go downstairs to get them anyway, as there’s a screen, bars, and airflow vent things between us. I said no thank you, but that I appreciated the offer.I borrowed some resources from Sierra, but they’re mostly aimed at kinder and first grade. Some activities carry over, and some would if my kids knew more English. Some of the other teachers came over to make a fire, but Sierra and I stayed in working on lessons and activities.
I’m going to have to get very creative very quickly in a way I’ve never thought to be creative before.
But, I consider today a huge success. After yesterday, when I felt like this year is going to be ridiculously difficult (and I still do) but also feeling helpless, that I would not be able to help them. There were many times during yesterday when I felt like I would fail my kids, my school, my coworkers, and myself. That I just wasn’t cut out for it. I’m sure there will be days when I feel worse than I did today, but I think feeling like that on the first day, with nothing else to compare it to will be the worst, because I really wasn’t sure if it can get better and now I know it can and will. There will be ups and downs, but there will be ups. I even received my first artistic gift from one of my students. She folded it up nicely and wrote “Para: Mis Sar▓ah” on the outside (the big block is a scratched over letter of some variety.) It’s now hanging on my bedroom wall. I guess I won’t have to work too hard at filling up the empty spaces on my walls.

Day 19 August 26
This morning, I got up around 4:45, and went downstairs to make breakfast and lunch for the day, as I usually do for my shower. We’re out of purified water (I’d started drinking sprite the night before just to have something to drink. We knew we could get water on Wednesday when we got home because Picame’s day off is Tuesday and in the mean time we’d just drink lots of water at the school), and so I just decided to cook my pasta with milk. More expensive—yes, but also available. I added some garlic, butter, lemon pepper, and garlic salt (always need more garlic!) It turned out alright.
I wasn’t sure what I’d do for food for Thursday, since I probably wouldn’t be home in time, again, to go to the bank, but I figured I’d deal with that later. I went up took a shower, got dressed, and was spraying down with bug spray when it started raining pretty hard.
I knew my roommates wouldn’t want to trek through that construction site. Abby was looking to ride the bus with the kids, and Sierra offered to pay for a cab up (about a buck.) Apparently it’d been raining all night, because as Sierra and I headed downstairs, Megan called Abby.
School’s canceled. Because of the rain. We’re in the tropics, in a country with ocean very close on either side of it, that has a “rainy season” and a “hurricane season” (or, two rainy seasons) and school is closed on the second day for rain. We couldn’t believe it, but since the buses had already been getting kids in 10, 20 minutes late because of the construction they cancelled school. Unbelievable.
We were celebrating. Now we can go to the bank, the market, do research for more and better class activities online, go to the post office, sleep! plan for next week, grocery shop, get water, and relax a little. Abby went back to sleep, but Sierra and I were too wired so we set to relaxing (watching a little TV she brought on CDs) and made a pact to set out on the town around 9:30.
I headed out to the bank and cleared up the first priority, which always takes way too long. I went into the market and splurged on veggies and fruits. At the mini super, I stocked up on bread and cheese, new jelly, PB, everything I could think of. I also stopped by the post office to check mail and send a letter (a response to a letter, as I promised I would write back to anyone who will write me and it still stands) but no one from the school had gotten mail.
I went to Casa Villamil, were we had an unplanned Mayatan teacher party as everyone came to check e-mail, work on school stuff, research, etc. I looked up worksheets and other resources for grammar, reading comprehension, math, and handwriting and left with 60 worksheets I’m sure I can make work for my kids during the year, most of which will be used in the next few weeks. I left Casa Villamil and got to bed early, as I’d still been up since 4:45.

Day 20 August 27
I woke up feeling really refreshed. We had just a teacher work day, so no one had to be at the school until 8. I scrambled eggs for breakfast and made fried bananas, peanut butter and apple jelly, and lichas for lunch. I think I cook a lot more here for two reasons: it’s cheap and I really enjoy playing with fire. Every time I want to cook, I get to play with fire.
Sierra and I walked up together, but she was wearing her flip-flops and the mud was intense for several hundred yards. I would ancor myself at the slippery sections and allow her to use me as a railing, but at one point she still slipped in to the half-way-up-your-shin mud. The street had a scattering of folks who lived there who had come out to watch folks try to get by, and why not, it is free entertainment. An old woman was doing laundry in her outdoor pila and she insisted Sierra come down to wash her feet with the pila water. She was so kind and spoke very quickly, but her hand gestures made it very clear what she wanted Sierra to do.
The rest of us went to the pila at school and washed up there so we didn’t trek mud all over the halls where the cleaning staff would have to deal with it. But, after that, I got to work on redoing my seating chart and organizing all my papers, especially my new worksheets which I printed in the computerlab. I also, at long last, got my text books. It was very exciting and means I can now plan into the year with what I want to do. I also discovered I can get internet, when the internet is working, in my classroom.
At the end of the day, I caught a crazy ride back on a taxi cab. It was my first time in a taxi since my first night in town. These vehicles are very small, narrow, and red. They have no doors, just holes, and only one wheel in the front. I didn’t really want to deal with the mud again, but I was also curious about this long round about path to get to school that didn’t involve the construction hill (and it is long and round about) and Michael wanted company because he’s sick (spiking fevers throughout the day, bad news bears.) It’s amazing to me that these cabs don’t flip over on the rutted dirt roads. I thought it was just the cobble that made them last a short time, but now that I’ve seen the back roads, I know that they have to fight even more. Those roads combined with steep hills= short lived vehicles.
I went shopping again and got some Honduran candy for my kids, to help supplement the American candy currently in my “Prize Jar.” I had seen these jelly candies around Honduras, and I have had them at some point in my past, but I have no recollection of who, when, where, or why. I just know I liked them. I had previously only been able to find them being sold individually, but then I found a bag of 100 assorted flavors. It was expensive, and I might eat a few, but it was worth it.
As per normal when I have time off, I went to Casa Villamil for more research and experienced the best storm yet. The rain was pretty standard, though it lasted longer than usual for a heavy rain (which is good, we need it. This has been a weak rainy season) but the lightening and thunder were amazing. I was up on the top level of the café, and could watch the lightening getting closer, but it was still several miles out. Until one bolt that I saw and heard at the same time. It set off car alarms and I could feel the pulse of it. I unplugged and moved indoors (I was under a roof, but at this point I decided that wasn’t enough.) It continued on for a while. I took pictures so folks at home could see what the streets here look like during a rain. Tammi texted us and told us she saw a tree get struck. Shortly after, the power went out for a while
I was impressed to see my yard when I got home, clearly done before the storm, but Estibon had worked on the yard, cleared the trash out, and planted flowers. When I first moved in, the yard was just a place to be avoided, but I guess after the two kids from Mayatan moved in and wanted to play in the yard, and tried to, he decided to make it a place worth playing in. Since, the kids had tried setting up an above ground pool, but it had too many leaks and, forgive me for saying it, but duct tape can’t fix everything.
Shortly before bed, we were informed that we needed to give Megan our bank numbers if we wanted to be paid for this month (or else wait until the end of September) and that Friday would be a teacher work day, just from 9-12. Frankly, my this time I’m itching to have my kids back. After only two days of teaching, there’s only so much I can do and prepare for until I know them better, assess them more, and establish more rules.

Day 21 August 28
The workday was productive. Beth and I have started splitting the work load a little and hammering out what we want to really focus on for the first few weeks. We’d previously done very little collaborating, so I found this very helpful. For the first time since work started, I left at the time we were supposed to leave instead of hours after, but the crew was throwing together some last minute plans for the weekend based on Nash and Theo’s.
The boys had arranged with Julia, the woman who runs Guacamaya Language School, a ride to Santa Rosa (about 100km away, but it takes 3 hours by bus and 1.5 hours by car because there’s no direct route, or as my folks would say, “you can’t get there from here) for the ‘largest arts festival in all of Honduras.’ Tammi road in the bed of Julia’s truck with the boys (law says no more than 3 for extended drives) and the rest of us left school with the intent to take the 4 o’clock bus. Around 1, word got out that there is no 4, the latest bus is at 2. So, we scrambled together and hopped on the bus in pretty short order.
We were all working off of rumor, rumor about times, rumor about festivities, rumors about everything. One of these rumors was that there was a black tie cigar gala. I had a pretty hard time with the black tie part, and I couldn’t bring myself to stuff my one nice dress into a backpack to take with me through several buses and to some as yet unplanned sleeping arrangement. So, I didn’t. I ended up forgetting my camera and Dramamine, so I just had to hope I didn’t get car sick.
The bus ride up was cramped, but we were all sitting. When we changed buses in La Entrada, we were all standing. Luckily it was only 45 minutes, but our arms were pretty sore by the end of it. Caroline’s friend Kelvin, whom I had met at Casa Villamil once, was also on the bus to La Entada. He is an English teacher in the Copan district and had class that evening, but we convinced him to catch the last bus to Santa Rosa and meet up with us for the gala.
Once in Santa Rosa (de Copan, we had to keep specifying which “Copan” we were from), which isn’t as hilly as Copan Ruinas because it only has one hill up, very steep, and then the city sits on top, we had to find sleeping arrangements before they filled up. Most hostels were full because of the festival, except one. It was grungy, but I had no issue with it, it was just a bed. A few of the girls were refusing to stay there, and once it came out that we wouldn’t be able to get in past 10, we all decided to leave.
We ended up in a hotel, spending about 7 bucks a person, and cramming as many people in a room as we were allowed. We’d have cheated the system, but she closed her doors at 11 and said she’d make an exception for us if we all came back as a group. We’d just have to ring and she’d let us in (she had to unlock the door from the inside, so we couldn’t just let the rest in if someone went back early.)
I was in a room with Sierra and Caroline, and we set off for dinner. We found a pretty nice place, pricey too, but the food was great and the portions were fantastic. We met two Peace Corps guys who thought we were also in the Peace Corps. Apparently about 80 volunteers from around Honduras were coming to Santa Rosa for the gala and these guys were wondering if we were part of that 80. They also warned us that the gala was 300 lemps at the door, which we weren’t expecting.
We went back to the hotel and changed, I just made my skirt into a dress to be more formal, and luckily it was far from a black tie event, so I was in the middle section of non-dressy, kind of dressy, and very dressy. We met so many volunteers and learned that they host their big Halloween party in Copan Ruinas, at the house of the volunteer who has a site there (also news to me). But, we’re all invited and apparently it’s a big deal. I now have a place to dress up in celebration of Halloween/Anna and Aaron’s wedding. It was so much fun talking with all those Americans. It was unexpected and a nice change of pace. Everyone had a story, and we got to hear them.
The food and drinks were free, which I wish we had known before we went to dinner, but none the less, we took full advantage. We were all given a goody bag at the door with cigars, matches, and coffee (if you figure that one out, let me know.) As the night went on, there was dancing and I was talking into a merengue by a med student from Atlanta who was just in Honduras for a week visiting his friend on site (he was also asked repeatedly where his site was and repeatedly had to explain he wasn’t in the PC.) And later Tammi convinced Kelvin and me to dance. I still have two left feet, but a good lead always helps.
Rallying the troops to go back was difficult, as drinks were free and that was taken advantage of. Kelvin and I tried to get everyone together and then back to the hotel. A few people hung out in my room until 2, talking and catching up. It was fun.