Quickie Update!

Let's just say teaching while you're sick is the pits. I've gotten to a point where I do not get sick very much anymore. I do not like it when I do. The last two days I've been fighting the onset of a cold, using the netipot, drinking water, eating more oranges than my stomach knows what to do with (that's not true. My stomach loves them, especially with salt), and sleeping all the time. However, today it became apparent, that the cold was here and ready to stay. I went down to the market, loaded up on ginger, and then went to the farmacia for some numb-these-symptoms pills. Wish my luck!

I've been in a bit of a teaching lull, and need to work my way out of it. Go-go energized Sarah! I'm hoping that getting my kids jazzed for a competition with fourth grad 'B' will help me get there.

The Copan fair starts this weekend and an artists, I believe from Tegus, is coming to make a mural with recycled items. Mostly, bottle caps from plastic soda bottles. We have some friends that are local artists and are helping out with the fair, and the boys need 3 large garbage bags of bottle caps. The Mayatan fourth graders are doing their best to find them all over town (for once, the amount of garbage here is helpful) and competing for the win! The winning class will get a popcorn party. I really enjoyed the fair last year, and hope to enjoy the first half this year.

For the second half of the fair week, we have off from school. I will be taking advantage of this opportunity to travel. In all my time here, I have yet to go to any of the Honduran beaches. So, I have been saving up my money and am just going to go for it. I am going to Roatan. The most expensive, well known place in Honduras. I leave in a week and 2 days and I am stoked.

In 6ish weeks, my lovely parents and wonderful grandparents will be here to visit. I have already booked their hotel in Copan and our hotel in Antigua. We will be staying in tree houses and I am pumped!

Also, right now, I will refuse to think about anything after that point. However, it seems like bunches are people want to stay a second year so I'll have all my Honduran friends and old gringo co-workers to come visit should I find a way to do it next year!

That's my quickie update!

Parents.

I am not a parent. I understand that it is easy to criticize when the child and the situation is not yours. However, I also understand that a teacher gets a unique perspective on the child's life and the way in which parents influence them.

In any society that I know of, the working class has an even harder balance between family and money/work. I have several students whose parents really are not there to help with homework. Who cannot be supportive in their child's academics. I have parents who say that they cannot help because they don't know English, and I try to encourage them to help in other ways, because they can. I have other parents who cannot read, and that really does limit their ability to help, or even know if their child is doing the work.

I have many parents who expect their child to be completely self motivating. I will tell them how capable their child is, if they would just put in a little more work, they could improve by leaps and bounds, and they will tell the child to study more. To do their homework. To do whatever is lacking, but not actually do anything to help. I want to tell them that they need to help. That their 9 year old son is not going to be self motivating. That he needs to be pushed. But, I feel that is a line I cannot cross. I do not feel like I am in a position to tell parents how to be parents.

I have high achievers too. Their parents push them to do well. It's great. But there's balance to be had there as well. A 9 year old does not need to be in a world of trouble because one of her grades is below a 95. There is one particularly bright student, who is more than a handful, whose parents tell him that he doesn't need to be the best. That's okay. He doesn't need to be the best. But, they also tell him that he can fail a class, as long as he doesn't fail too many, because he can still be passed on to 5th grade with one failed class. He then comes and explains this to us when we try to get him to study.

My students call report card day “Dia de la Faja” or “Day of the Belt.”

One thing I really want to remember when I am a parent: Kids tell their teachers and their classmates your family secrets.

The Pros and Cons, though the Decision is Made

 

 I'm reached the midway point when I have a difficult time holding on to my life here. My focus is already beginning to shift to what life will be like back in the United States, and to be perfectly honest, it scares me. I know I will adjust, I know it will be fine, but I also know that it will be difficult. And at times, very sad. Leaving my students especially, will cause me to miss this place.

So, I have decided to compile a list of things I miss about living in the United States:

1. My family
2. Dishwashers
3. Clothes wash and dryer
4. Fast internet
5. Having more than 1 set of sheets (though, if I had a washer and dryer, this would be less of an issue)
6. Having more than 1 towel
7. Reliable electricity
8. Less corruption
9. Not being leered at
10. Not struggling to understand the things that are said to me
11. Fitting in
12. Reese's
13. Quiet
14. Having places to go camping
15. Easier travel
16. Smooth roads
17. Humanity toward animals and people
18. Spayed and neutered animals (the alternative is poisoning the trash once a month, or so)
19. Access to books
20. Drinking water from the tap
21. Vegetables that don't have to be bleached
22. Not wondering if every stomach hiccup is going to be another bout of food poisoning
23. Not having parasites
24. Knowing that no one will be prescribed Amoxicillian for pain
25. Being able to use a more extensive vocabulary

On the other hand, as I wrote most of these, there was an upside to the way they are here. Washing my clothes and dishes by hand is very therapeutic and forces you to slow down the pace of life. It makes you plan. I really enjoy being challenged to understand another language. It's also nice sometimes to NOT fit in. Or to know that the noise level is because of being close to everything, which is great. Travel here may take longer and be more of a hassle, but it's also really interesting. I like the cobble stone streets. I know that not everyone in the States is Humane either, and many people here are. At least I have tons of fresh vegetables. My stomach has gotten really strong. I can get antibiotics for myself easily (and I know that I won't abuse them).

Here I have the following advantages:

1. I can walk everywhere
2. Walking everywhere, means constantly running into people I know
3. I get exercise and fresh air every day!
4. The mountains are beautiful
5. The animals that we use on a regular basis, are also a part of our regular lives
6. I get to be more involved in my students' lives
7. People can holler up to my window and invite me places
8. My phone is pay as I go
9. I prepare and eat real, good food all the time
10. Life goes at a pace that I can feel and absorb the little moments
11. I've gotten to know another culture, and another people
12. 
    I've gotten to know another language
13. I have a tight community
14. I live alone
15. I have a turtle
16. Even after a year and a half (+) everything is still interesting
17. I have developed so many small, but daily relationships with the people I see
18. I learned to cook here
19. I've learned what I can live without
20. I've seen religion through the eyes of a different people
21. I've seen Americans through the eyes of a different people (both good and bad)
22. I love the flora here
23. Medical care is cheap
24. I have a gas stove top
25. I live in harmony with several types of wasps, ants, and spiders

While writing this list, I find that most of what I love I don't know how to put into words. I went to San Pedro last week, and it was amazing. There is no event or explanation that I can explain to another person, it was just the company, the feel, and the stories we shared. My life here is similar. That, and I've grown into myself here. I am stronger, more sure, more aware, and more willing. I still have many things I struggle with, but I feel like this put my life-progress on the fast tract. There's a big part of my that doesn't want to leave that, but if I stay, I'll just get comfortable, and there's more in store for me.

Times are A'changin!

The changes in my outlook, understanding, and habits have been large and many. It starts in very small things, but the spread has been huge and intense. My active pursuit of information, practicing problem solving skills, enjoying the details, prayer, silence...everything. I've banished myself from TV and have, on a completely unrelated note, become much more productive and happier.




My house is now peppered with a myriad of quotes and Biblical verses, including one that covers my TV screen. I made a coaster out of old T-shirts that had holes and were too stretched out to wear. And as of today, I've made a list of things to do daily. This is not a do-it-or-die list, but a to-have-the-best-day-possible list. I've posted it in a place that I must see it everyday, several times.

Most of the changes in my life revolve around the spiritual changes I've been experiencing. It seems that everyone at English-church has been experiencing something like this, but not like this. We've all just been have growth present itself in different ways.

I find that the simplicity of awareness in and of itself is amazing. It helps to be surrounded by beautiful mountains and have a gorgeous flowering mango tree outside my house, but I'm graced with being aware of the beautiful things around me. I'm really trying to focus on enjoying the small things. I think we lose a lot when we allow the small things to go unnoticed.



On a very different note, but involving many of the same people, we had a girls night chocolate party. We ate chocolate, chocolate no-bake cookies, hot chocolate, ice cream with chocolate fudge, Nutella, and we watched the movie Chocolat. I cannot express how awesome it was.





I know a lot of people who feel guilty when they enjoy their food, or count calories just to be angry with themselves later. I refuse to do that. I ate a ton this weekend, and I'll do better during the week, but if I had the chance to do it again, I would. Though, on a more regular note, I think I want to incorporate more raw foods into my diet. I've read a lot about raw food diets, and it sounds awesome. I don't have any desire to have such restrictive rules though, but I do believe in balance. I will continue to enjoy eggs, pasta, meat, but I can replace some of my cooked meals, with raw veggies. I'm rediscovering my love of raw carrots and green beans! And raw veggies are healthier anyway. I don't have to go all the way to enjoy the benefits of more raw foods in my diet (plus, it would also mean just more veggies, which I could stand to do anyway. My current diet consists of probably 90% carbs and protein, and that's just a little excessive.)

Shower Talk

I've mentioned to a number of friends now, that in my Honduran life, no shower goes to waste. In practically every shower, something other than myself gets cleaned as well. Every three of 4 days, I put Dulcinea in her first home to sit while I clean her tank, in the shower. Periodically my mop or a pair of shoes will come in with me for a washing.

Most commonly, it's my clothes. My original reasoning for washing my clothes came from the irrational fear that my land family will stand around and wash me do my laundry in the pila downstairs. I know this would never happen, but whenever I think of going out there, that's what I imagine. Then, on a slightly more logical note, they don't keep the pila filled. This means I would have to fill each bucketful for rinsing, instead of just dipping a bucket in to rinse, which is how I do it in the shower anyway. I am able to scrub on my shower floor. And then, the most amazing part about washing my clothes in the shower, is that I get to use hot water.

I usually wash 4-7 articles at a time. I fill a bucket with detergent and hot water to sit. Whenever it strikes my fancy, I go in for a shower. I do my personal washing in the between times, when a bucket is filling for a rinse. It certainly makes my showers longer, but I secretly (or not so secretly) enjoy showering. As I finish rinsing each article, I hang it on the cloth rack on the inside of the door, and when all is done, I get hangers for all the clothes, hang them up, and put them on the porch. Except for my underwear, which gets hung up around the house on the tops of curtain rods. My windows seem to sport a kind of underwear garden after big loads.

Since I never use the pila, but wet/clean clothes appear on my porch from time to time, I wonder if my landlords have figured out my secret. Or if they think I wash my clothes with magic.

On the days that I don't bring something in to wash with me, I usually notice that the shower could use a good scrubbing, and take advantage of the soap and water around me to take care of that. My shower always has a bucket, for soaking, and an old toothbrush, for scrubbing, and that about covers my extra-shower time needs.

In the theme of showers, my next 6-week-focus, in another 5 weeks, will be shower stretching. Since I don't run much anymore, and more than one doctor in my life has told me I need to stretch daily, I figure the shower is as good as any time. It's warm, it's daily, and, again, it will prolong what I already enjoy. Plus, it will help warm up the muscles. I really only stretch when my tendons get so tight it hurts to do daily things. That's not a particularly good sign, and I'm too young for that sort of thing. So this will help me out in the long run too.

The End of January is Upon Us

At this time last year, it was still rather cold, but it appears that December and January have swapped places this school year, though December never got as cold as last January. Now, the heat is upon us and my students are already antsy in the afternoon hours of the school day. The difficult part about this, is that I know it will only get worse, much worse, before the end of the school year. As things wind down, I do see the things that I will miss about my life here and I am thankful that the heat and the dust will be sending me off. It will make it a little easier to say goodbye.

The dirt gets so dry, that as I walk, the dusty ground will billow out and consume my feet. It's pretty entertaining, except that the dust makes the rocks slippery. I've witnessed a few giant trucks going up into the mountains, toward Llanitios. They have been carrying giant spools of something. I know that the resources in these remote communities must get there something, but I find myself in awe that these trucks can manage the mountains.

Several of the oddities in my life here revolve around the bathroom. Whenever I am not in my own home, I find that I check the back of the commode before using a toilet to make sure it already has water. The frequency in which I discover that the commode does not have water is pretty high. I then either find another bathroom, or fill it myself from the sink. In my home, I've had to rig up a rubber band to the lever that pulls the stop up when you flush, because the plastic that had been doing the job snapped, and so while my toilet fills with water, I had to lift it by hand every time I flushed. Too much hassle, if you ask me. Which you didn't, but there's my spiel on bathrooms anyway.

After living in Latin America for a year and a half, I still don't really know any of the traditional dances, but I have finally been getting into the dancing mood. The only real trouble with this is most of the people I'm around don't want to start dancing until much later in an evening and I'm a sleepy person later. I've been looking for a balance. We shall see.

I also find that I've gotten more comfortable with other things I used to not be so okay with. For example, I have “crazy ants” just like every other house in the area, and generally they are harmless and out of the way. You just learn to coexist with them, and on occasion one will tickle when it finds itself accidentally on your arm. However, on occasion the crazy ants will get thirsty and they will attack one of my drink supplies. This usually doesn't happen for long periods of time, nor is it a constant. More often than not, what happens is that I pour myself a glass of water, realize I have poured in a few ants, shrug it off, and drink it anyway. What? They're small.

My six week improvements are going well. I'm now in my second week of flossing and haven't missed a day yet. I can already feel a big difference. I've also mapped out the whole rest of the year, which happens to end with December 31, just by chance. I get really excited when I think about the changes I'm going to make over the course of the next year. I feel it is very manageable, but that by the end of this year, I will be a much healthier, happier, well informed individual.

In the theme of self improvement, I've been doing lots of research/having conversations on topics like protein consumption, minimalism, and over population. I have a variety of friends here who have read “The China Study” and I'm hoping to borrow “The World Without Us” soon. I find that I really enjoy these as thought exercises. There's so much to learn about the world, and I want to know it all! I wish that could happen.

Yesterday I went to a student's birthday party. He has a pet bunny, Boxy, who was also present at the party. Halfway through the party, I confiscated the poor over-stimulated, terrified bunny. I let them pet her, but only from my arms. Once she calmed down a bit, she kept licking my arm. My students mocked me because I, not even realizing it, coddled the animal and cooed at her to calm her down like she was a baby. But she was a scared little baby!

On a turtlier note, I've discovered that Dulcinea recognizes her food bottle and will follow it around the tank trying to get at it when I move it from it's normal location.

My Life is Consumed by Photos!

Most of my brain-time is spent hunting for the next photo, or potential future photos.  I have even dreamed about taking photos.  I spend time online scrolling through other people's photos and photo taking tip websites.  I'm starting to really get into this, though I know uninspired days are coming, I also know that they will pass.

Along with all my time spent taking, editing, looking at, and researching photos, I also spend some time online finding more self-education and self-improvement sites.  I find it refreshing and it helps me feel like I have some idea of what kind of life I want to live in the future.  As always, I know this idea will change over time, but it's nice to have a vision of what it might be like again.

New Year's Eve was a lot of fun.  After months of not staying out past 10 or 11 (and being tired and checked out around 9) on any given weekend, I feared the worst would happen on New Year's.  I decided to push my limits and I drank a pot and a half of coffee before going to spend time with Angela and her family.  I wasn't very talkative, but at least I wasn't dead and miserable looking trying to stay out of everyone's way.

At midnight a shift was made to ViaVia, where I danced the night away, with no one in particular, sometimes with a group, and sometimes solo.  I really enjoyed myself.  By the time I went home, it was very late and I was very tired.

I still had 5 days before school and I enjoyed a trip to the mall (for the thrift store, which is huge!) in Chiquimula, Guatemala with a few of my girlfriends.  We had a good time and we all found some fun items.  I found a Williamsburg, Virginia shirt and took a picture, but opted out of buying it.  On the way to Chiquimula, at a bus change, we ran into some of our other coworkers who were busing back to Copan after their vacation time.  It was really amusing (you know, to us).

With the start of school, I used the half week to recap all our rules and procedures and review basic vocabulary and a lot of what we covered in the first part of the school year.  I've also been teaching my kids about goal making and stick-to-it strategies (not unlike those I've been using for myself with the 6-week gig, which is going swimmingly).

On Friday, at lunch time, we were notified that we needed to take down everything from our walls and move all furniture to the middle of the room because the school was being painted.  My kids and I used the last class period to achieve this goal, which was chaotic, but I think there's nothing wrong with a little chaos on a Friday afternoon.  The school is being visited by a bilingual school association of some sort that we want to join.  They will be monitoring our classes, going over our lesson plans, and judging is the school is worthy.  The school decided it was in their best interest to paint the school to make us look a little more together and professional before they came in a week.

Unfortunately, when I went in on Sunday, at 10:30, when it was all supposed to be finished, and I could put my room back together, I was informed that my room was one of 3 that were skipped.  They painted it while I waited, and instead of taking 2-2:30 hours, I was at school for 6.  I was not foodily prepared and was very hungry when I did get to leave.  Only the furniture was taken care of, I decided to work on the posters after school for the next four days (I got a fair bit done today).

I have been getting out of my house a little more and have had the pleasure of meeting, getting to know, and helping a variety of tourists around town as well as getting to know more Hondurans I have always seen around but never talked to.  It has been tiring, but I hope to "catch up" on some sleep tonight and continue putting my life back together at school.

(PS, I think today's photo was my favorite so far.  I had no idea what I was going to take a picture of, and I stumbled upon this.  Ooo and Ahhh over it for me?
http://antesandafter.blogspot.com/2011/01/10-copan-grate.html)