Day 203 February 27
I woke up around 9 (after having a dream about waking up at 10; it was strange to discover it was only 9) and started cleaning up after the party. Abby had done most of the cleaning the night before, but I finished hunting out dishes, sweeping up, putting furniture back, and wiping up the counters. I got all the garbage gathered by the door and started on my laundry. Tammi came by for a while, since she had left her bag here, and we chatted. I showed off my care packages to her also. I made coffee and wiped up the window panes that lead to the pila room and washed and bleached the lace curtain that hangs in the front window. It was filthy. I chatted with Abby for a while when she came down and continued with my work when she left. I let myself move slowly. I’m finding these slow, cleaning Saturday mornings to be perfect.
I cleaned my computer and camera as well because the dust has been doing a number on my electronics. I was able to get internet from my room for a while (on and off, though). At 5, Luis came over to call his sisters because I have a ridiculous number of seconds but no “saldo.” (There are days when you can buy triple or double saldo, but it actually only gives you triple seconds. You use saldo when you text, call the states, or call a digicell phone. You use seconds when you call anyone, so you can call a tigo phone and only use seconds, which is what Luis did.) He then bought me saldo. Yay working things out!
I cooked a dinner of pasta with mushroom sauce and ate with Abby and Allan. After, I read in bed until I fell asleep to the lulling thumping music from the park (the old market has been transformed into a party arena. I have not been to check it out.) Luis was supposed to come around 8, but at 8:30 I went to sleep. I got a text around 10:30 saying he wasn’t coming.
Day 204 February 28
I woke up around 6, but stayed in bed until a little after 7. I got up and cleaned up some before showering and heading out to the market and other shopping. At our church group we had made a bet on the superbowl, and while I had wanted the Saints to win, I bet on the Colts, so I was a part of the breakfast making team. We decided we wanted to set the bar for future bets, and we wanted to set it high. We were doing crepes with various fillings. I had to get some veggies, as I was in charge of scrambled eggs and mixed veggies. I picked up some veggies I’d never bought before, including yellow peppers, snap peas, and radishes. I got home and scrambled up the eggs, with a bit of milk, butter, salt, and pepper. I melted some butter in a pan and mixed in milk to cook the veggies in a frying pan. The color was nice. There was white, purple, orange, yellow, and green. It just looked pretty enough to eat, and they were a hit.
I went to church at 10, after packing up my food (never sure when church is going to end, but I wanted to reduce the likelihood of me being late as much as possible, as I was on the losing side of the bet.) Church was not nearly as packed as last week, but it was still pretty full. It was a normal lengthed service, a bit less than two hours. However, in the beginning, a woman from an aldea had a seizure. I was near by, and helped clear the area while it finished. There’s not much you can do for seizures except make sure they don’t injure themselves during and get them to a hospital after. The latter wasn’t an option. She lay down, unconscious, for a while after. Eventually, she sat up, and by the end she walked out on her own. It was scary.
There was a wall-eyed gringa who was taller than me sitting next to me. She kept asking me questions about the priest and the homily that I simply didn’t know the answer to. From her questions, I gather her Spanish was better than mine and she was trying to hammer out the details, but I understood less than her.
I went home and met up with Abby and Allan. I grabbed my food before we headed up to Rachel’s house for worship. Lauren, Blair’s girlfriend is in town for the week, and Matt is off house hunting and job searching for his to-be wife. We listened to a sermon, which is one of the best we’ve had so far, I thought, and sang for a while after. The sermon and talks we were having kept getting interrupted by a boy and his sister, who was pushy and cut her own hair. It seemed to me like they were mocking us. On one of their visits, they asked for cookies. Rachael said that she did not have any cookies, but she had oranges. She said she would only give them if she heard one little word, “por favor.” After minimal explanation and coaxing, the boy said it and he got the orange. The girl refused. It was explained several times, that if she just said please, Rachael would give her the orange. She just wanted to hear that, and nothing more. The girl left. We could hear her brother trying to convince her to just say the word. She came back later, but still wouldn’t say it and finally came back and said she wanted an orange, please. Rachael gave her the orange immediately. It was strange, and I can’t quite figure out the reasoning behind it.
We left together to go into town for the grand opening of the Victoria’s Supermarket. It should change the face of Copan. We got there, but it had only been open in the morning and was closed already, because it was Sunday. They woudn’t let us come in to look, but we could see the rows of shelves and…shopping carts. This place blew my mind.
I got my things together and headed to Villamil to take care of some business and chat with folks. I caught up with some old friends I hadn’t talked to in a long time and left in time to make dinner before Luis came over, late. We talked for a while, but he left around 9 and I went straight to bed.
Day 205 March 1
I could not get myself out of bed at a reasonable time. The morning air was cold, and my under-blanket air was warm. It was too nice to leave. Except at 5:45 when I rolled over and saw the clock, 15 minutes after I like to leave, I then managed to hop up and take a quick shower.
When I got to school I set out all my new animals and put my stickers in the home-for-stickers, I loaded up the new crayons and colored pencils, and set the googley eyes with the art supplies. I was ready.
Carolina informed me that she had played pool with several of the vigilantes from our bank (the men who stand around central park with semi automatic weapons and dark sun glasses.) They asked her about the young woman who is pretty and so nice because she always says hello when she passes. That would be me. I have the only armed men in town on my side. Win.
My first student interaction was with one of my students who used to be a great student, but has recently fallen into the pit of socialization during my class time. Because of a girl. I completely understand, but he’s been obnoxious, a distraction to his classmates, and his grades are falling. He came up to me and said, “Miss, I’m sorry about my class work and I will be more good in school.” I told him that I thought that sounded wonderful and I thanked him. Man, you don’t even have to show me your signed slip saying you showed your parents your progress report…I already know.
I spent the morning showing my kids my new supplies and getting them as excited as I was…followed by an explanation of the new rules to preserve the new supplies and why these rules were important. I think it was a nice combo.
They were as excited as I was, and about the pen pal letters too. I was really impressed with several of my girls who took a pencil and started editing their letters for English grammar mistakes. Mostly, they were just excited to see what their new friend in the United States had to say. Marlon was as amused as I was that his friend wanted to know if it was hot or cold here and if we had lions and tigers. Fernando was excited to get my cousins letter, the girls were jealous. I had to explain that Princess Ann was the name of the school and elementary=primary. There were several other phrases I had never thought of before, but the kids ate it all up (aka, for example.) They also liked hearing about the beach, so I might suggest a lot of writing about the mountains. I think that this time we’ll do buddy writing. Pair them up and have them help and edit each other, with me getting the final call.
The day was high energy and, for the most part, really good. I read one of my new books and had a relaxed toutorias with just casual English practice. I think I’m finally drawing Juan out of his shell, but time will tell.
I downloaded some anti-malware and help-your-computerness to try to…help my computer. I’ll need to finish it all out tomorrow, we’ll see how it goes. Her overall slowness is ridiculous. I then walked back with Megan and went straight to tutorias with Isaac. I think I finally found a way to get him talking more. I can get small answers and reading out of him, but otherwise, getting him to talk in English is like pulling teeth. He will demonstrate he understands, but he never wants to talk and he will answer as minimally as possible, trying to get away with hand motions when he can. Today we essentially played “Where’s Waldo” with the book we read. We took turns. First I would describe an action, color, or thing, and he’d have to find it on the page, then he would, with words, describe an action, color, or thing. I will bring more busy pictures to future meetings. He used words I had no idea he knew what they were, and he responded to words I didn’t expect him to know. Some he needed me to define, but I did all of my definitions in English.
I had another first, today, though. At tutoring, as his mom runs a restaurant, and I’m there when other guests are not, I saw a chicken get killed for the cooking. It did not run, but it was held down. I could see where it would have. It was, apparently, Isaac’s first time seeing it too. I think my composure helped him stay composed. He was not expecting it to continue moving after, and I explained that they do that sometimes. I compared it to pulling legs off of a spider. The leg is dead, but can still twitch, for a time. He seemed to understand this, to a certain degree, but still didn’t want to watch, which I said was okay too. His mom came out and asked if I was okay. She had been a bit nervous about it happening in front of me, but it was apparently unavoidable. I told her I was not worried, because I wasn’t. It certainly was interesting.
I got home and chatted with Abby for a while and tried to steal enough internet to download the files I wanted. A bit after 7 I headed to Blair’s for his birthday. I thought I was going to be late, but apparently the set time was 7:30, so my 7:10 entrance made me early. I stopped off in a tienda with Blair and his girlfriend Lauren. We went back and talked about books. I was given full access to his collection in the house and the collection in the office, which I’m really excited about. I barrowed The Stranger by Albert Camus before I left. Some good literary conversations were had and I realized how much I had missed them.
At the gathering lots of pizza, chips, salsa, and cake was had. For my second dinner, I didn’t do too badly. Judy, Luis, and Jorge came. It was the first time I’ve ever really talked to Jorge and he was pretty funny. It was a good time.
I walked back with Luis and when we said our goodbyes, I went home and went to bed, later than I usually like.
Day 206 March 2
I was running late, again, shocking? No, not anymore. Though, I got out of bed 20 minutes earlier than the day before, I ended up leaving 10 minutes later, and then arriving at school 5 minutes later. Many of my students beat me, which is a first. I was greeted with, “Miss, you are sleeping.” Which, judging from the speaker’s grasp on the past tense, I gather she meant, “You slept in.” Which is fair. I did get to catch a spectacular sunrise on the way to school, though.
We had a fun time in reading groups working on our letters. We brainstormed answers to questions we were asked and questions we wanted to ask as well as information we wanted to tell them about our lives. The kids are really into it, I love it.
Overall, we had a good day. Learning about the physical properties of matter proved to be difficult. They’ve never been introduced to any of this conceptually, so in English it’s just blowing their minds. They can’t quiet grasp what I’m teaching. I think we’ll just spend a long time doing experiments and other hands on things for this unit.
My after school tutoring went smoothly and then I left a little early to walk home with Sierra. We ended up walking back with Josue, also. I wish I had more time to spend with her. Alex caught up with us, too.
I went home for a bit before tutoring, but then trotted over to Isaac’s house. It went well. He’s really starting to talk more, so I try to allow for a certain amount of conversation at the end. We did have to struggle through the spelling homework, though. Beth and I have starting doing it on the computer and this week’s unscramble came with an extra unscramble, where you had 17 letters and had to use them to figure out a 4 word sentence. I couldn’t do it and couldn’t get in touch with Beth to find out. I didn’t want to give up and teach him that lesson, but unscrambling one word can be hard when you’re an English speaking, unscrambling one when you have no idea what it might be when it’s your second language is very difficult and to use a compilation of characters to figure out 4 words in another language….and I couldn’t figure it out. We had a chat about the importance of trying.
I left to go meet up with Rachael for coffee and saw the priest on the way. He seemed to recognize me, which surprised me. I got to Rachael’s office early and she wasn’t there, so I went home to read The Stranger for about 10 minutes. I went back and waited. She had been working in Villamil because of the construction next to the Urban Promise office.
We got smoothies at Vamos a Ver and talked about family, life, and the future until we got cold. We then moved to Café Welchez, which I have never actually been in before. We talked about God, the Universe, and everything until they closed. We were shocked to see it was 10 minutes to 10 and neither of us stay up past 9. We parted ways excited about the conversation and the idea of future coffee dates and went to sleep.
Day 207 March 3
I got to school around 6:20, which was a little better than the rest of the week. I hadn’t realized how much the absence of two students had helped my classes behavior until they came back. I went ahead with the plan and played Division Bingo in prep for our test on Friday. We spent the science unit demonstrating how different types of matter occupy space, including blowing up balloons, making water balloons, popping balloons, and going outside to throw water balloons. It was grand. I’m just going to drive home this vocabulary with all hands on activities.
Our last class was pretty rough. I don’t know if it was them, or me, or both, but usually I can sober them up when they get too energetic by lowering our class points. In the last 35-40 minutes of the day, they lost 10 class points. An unheard of thing. Usually it’s only 2-3.
I had an “after school special” on different types of music, but somehow the girls got sidetracked to their fathers and how long it had been since they’d quit drinking. One girl’s father had just made it through his first 3 months, but the other’s father has been sober for 3 years. I really had no idea what to say and they were both fine, but they explained what life was like before, and it seemed to have been very different. “Now they are cristiano, Miss.”
I walked home with Megan and then rushed to the bank to get my pay. I finally decided to get it in smaller bills because when I got it in big bills I would buy things just because I was in a locale I knew could break it, or buy extra things because I felt guilty for making them break it. I should be able to save some money now. I then bought saldo for my phone and, literally, budgeted out my money. I put in post-it notes with the amount and the purpose for the money including my Guacamaya bill for last month, a set amount for the coming month, my bills, 500 lemps for each week of the month, and my savings. I hope to actually retain all of my savings this month, because I’ll need it when James is here.
I started reading when Abby came home and asked if I wanted to go running. Sierra and I had plans for a coffee date, but she had just postponed it by 2 hours, so I could! Abby and I went for a 30 minute run, and I think I talked the whole time, which was good for my lungs. I stretched really well in the shower.
I went to San Rafael to meet Sierra. It has a really nice ambiance and one of the works speaks impeccable English. It almost feels more strange to speak to him in Spanish than in English. He has a pug-something mix which was adorable and I loved him. When Sierra saw me with the dog, she commented that I need a dog in my life (she’s seen me with dogs before, but usually dogs I won’t touch.) Sierra and I talked for a few hours and then went our separate ways. It was nice to catch up.
I made a dinner of veggies cooked in milk. Chris called to ask if he could shower but called back 20 minutes later to cancel. I just read in bed and went to sleep around 8:30.
Day 208 March 4
I was running late again, so I snagged a taxi. It was one of the guys from church. He pick up one of the caseta workers, since he was going up anyway. I thought it was nice.
At school I had a long chat with Ann. Apparently my voice has been getting louder again, so I’ll try to work on that. We shall see.
My kids were still not where they usually are, which was frustrating, but they were not as bad as yesterday afternoon. We got through and worked more on letters. I think it’s a great exercise for them. After recess we reviewed for our math test, practiced past tense verbs, and had fun with density. I filled a glass with honey, water, and oil. We then put in a variety of things that floated on some liquids and not others. At the very end we made a hypothesis about the hand sanitizing gel I have in the room: It was more dense than oil, but less than water. It actually floated on the oil. We were wrong! On man.
We went to lunch early, and left early to go to the buses for a field trip to the public library. It was a lot of fun, and for the most part they were very good. The librarian gave them a tour and then they had some free time. They were read The Frog Prince, in Spanish, and then we all made paper frogs. We then loaded back up on the buses and went to school for the last 30 minutes of school, which were a little difficult to manage—not surprising, but we made do.
After school, one of my mothers came to talk about her daughter, who’s progress report had a variety of behavioral problems she hasn’t had before. This girl is gorgeous, and there was recently a social/maturity shift where that matters. All the boys want to be near her, all the girls want to talk to her. Her English is poor, but she’s suddenly getting attention and it’s harder to pay attention, and she lacks the motivation—she gets attention anyway. I didn’t go into all of it with her mom, but I did say that things have been better since I moved her away from a large group of boys. I pleased to see that her mother was aware of the shift. She said that she and Nahomy had talked about “how to deal with all this new attention, right, Love?” So, her mom and I are on the same page and Nahomy has promised to stop talking, but we’ll see.
I walked home with Carline and Sierra. Sierra came home for a bit and I whipped up some of my new veggie dish to share before she headed on her way. I didn’t have tutoring like usual, because Isaac’s dad is back in country for the week and they took a trip to Tela. His mom is always very apologetic (this is the second time) when he misses school for these trips, but I understand and she takes all the right steps to make sure he doesn’t fall behind. The kid doesn’t get to see his dad very often.
I took some down time to read and watch Abby’s new movie “Blindside” which was pretty good. When I came back down I joined Abby and Allan for dinner (as I have had an insatiable appetite all week. When I don’t have real food I eat candy or whatever else is around. I ate my meal while they were cooking and then ate some of their left over beans on bread.) I went to bed around 8:30 after reading some more.
Day 209 March 5
I think the definition of “late” is going to have to shift, or I’ll have to go to school “on time” again before I can consider my current timing “late.” I got to school and was in the best mood I’ve been in all week, at school. I commended my kids again for their behavior and informed them (since I had gotten an e-mail to this affect) that their was no PE, but they informed me that, yes, there was. Ferjardo was supposed to be absent, but he was here. Okay then. So then I started talking about prep to go to the ruins in the afternoon, and they informed me that we weren’t going. Miss Helen said that they had been bad at the library so we weren’t going to the ruins. This stunned me on a few levels and I said I’d have to look in to it during recess. What a confused morning!
They were the best they’d been all week (because of my good mood? Because of coincidence?) We had a good time making googly-eyed toilet paper roll faces. We then shared them with the class. Just before recess I had them do silent reading or journal writing so I could get pictures of them each being studious. We’re doing a photo project that will go toward 1)a photo to take home in a student-made frame, 2) a photo to our pen pals in VA Beach, 3) the website, because a lot of my kids are up there for “give a scholarship to this student” but their pictures are terrible, and 4) a class collage. They were silent for it, which was great.
At recess I found out that we weren’t going to the ruins because Miss Helen forgot to hand out permission slips. I was shocked at what she had told my kids and when we got back, I explained that they had been good and that it was simply a mistake. I wasn’t sure if Miss Helen wanted us to go on Monday or not, but even if we didn’t go with her next week, I would take them to the ruins some time in the future (not next week, though.) It’s always been in the plan and I don’t see a need for the kids to feel crushed because of her mistake.
The rest of the day went well and I filled in plans to cover up the lack of ruins as I went. After school I chatted with a few students who came and went from my room. Morale was back up and they ended up popping my balloon (which was from science class, but I was mostly done with it.) Caroline called and asked if I wanted to go to the river, but I really wanted to stick around and get more done. Shortly before I was planning to leave, Chris called and asked if I wanted to go on a hike, so at 4:25 I packed up and hurried home. I changed and headed to his place.
Chris, Caroline, Alex, and I headed toward the highway, crossed it, and headed up the hill. It was a beautifully crisp view of town, on the other side of town, which I’ve never hiked. We enjoyed the start of a sunset and ran down the hill like kids (going to the playground.) We split ways to shower and I ran into Tammi who followed me home for some chatting. When she left I hopped in the shower to go to 2 for 1 three course meals at Twisted Tanya’s.
It was a little chaotic in the begging because they were actually full of people. We didn’t have a table and part of the group wanted to go. We ended up staying and had delicious food. We stayed for a long while chatting and catching up. The end was a bit chaotic as well with the bill, and I’m not sure what all happened, but it got sorted out somehow. With at dinner was an anthropologist working a few hours from here who’d never had time to make it out to the ruins. We had some interesting conversations, but I could never quite figure her out.
The others left for Josue’s house to watch a movie but I just came back to read two more chapters of The Stranger and go to sleep.
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