Taxi Rides

Taxi rides here tend to follow a script, especially if it's just me up front with the driver. If he's feeling chatty, he starts by asking me where I'm from, how long I've been here, and how long I'm staying. Then he lies and says my Spanish is good. Are you married? Kids? What are you doing here? Do you like Honduras?

More times than I can count, I'm told, "You know, I lived in the United States for a few years. I really liked your country." We talk of the work they did and the money they were able to earn for their family. And then often this question: Why do people in your country not want us to come?

I never quite know how to respond. I say the economy is difficult and people worry about jobs. People worry that immigrants will be a drain on our country's resources. I say that many people, including myself, are not opposed to immigration and even welcome it. I try to explain that for the people in the States it's not personal, but of course to the person sitting next to me it is.

I'm now at the point where I hope the driver is feeling chatty. The conversations are necessarily limited by language barriers, but the removal of other barriers more than makes up for it.

That's Lava Behind Me. (Look closely.)

Despite the definitively more laid back approach to schedule here, we don't have any holidays from January until April. The rest I felt from my Christmas vacation was quickly used up, and I also had a friend visiting Guatemala for a month. My good friend Katie is a pediatrics resident in Philadelphia and is working and studying Spanish in western Guatemala, so we decided to meet up halfway in Antigua for a long weekend.

We climbed Mt. Pacaya on Saturday morning. I had actually gone up last June when I visited my friend Paul, and it was great. They bus you pretty close to the top and then you hike for an hour and a half to the lava flow. The lava flow this time wasn't quite as visible, though we were able to get much closer. I'm not sure if that's a good thing. However, it's a pretty amazing thing to get so close to flowing lava: one of the guys with us was able to roast some marshmallows on it. The lava is slow, but when it changed direction and the guide looked at us seriously and told us to head down, I didn't hesitate.




We also visited a really interesting monastery that's been restored and turned into a cultural museum with both ancient artifacts and modern art. They found a few crypts below that you could go down and see also. Now, while everybody knows that I'm an excellent photographer, my camera just wasn't taking good pictures those days, so the photos I have are pretty random. Kind of like this blog. And my life.

Halfway

I’ve passed the halfway point in my teaching year here. Though they didn’t have an exam week to close first quarter, the school decided to reinstate it for second quarter. Just when I thought I was getting to used how things work here. We were told to keep a regular schedule but soon I found I was practically the only secondary teacher doing so.

I still have so many moments where I just shake my head, not knowing what’s going on. My ninth graders asked if they could watch a movie when they had some free time. When I saw it was an R-rated horror movie, I of course said no, only to later find them watching it on the large Smart Board in the computer lab, a row of preschool kids with their noses pressed to the classroom window watching a woman in a bathtub spewing blood.

When I was giving one exam to the 8th grade, I saw a group of 5th graders outside my window fighting with big sticks. I scolded them to put them down and be quiet and I thought they were gone, but as my class settled back into quiet, the whole lot of them ran by, sticks in hand, screaming, “To Fight!” The whole week felt crazy, and I’m glad it’s over and we’re back to the “normal” routine. There is an order to how things work here. It's just that usually, I have no idea what it is.

Overall, lots of things combined to make January an incredibly difficult teaching month and there were moments when I didn’t know if I’d be able to finish out my year here. But somehow a corner has turned (lots of corners this year. I’m not exactly sure what shape this life is.) I’m happy to be here. When I’m asked if students can go play soccer for an impromptu game, I readily cancel classes and go sit in the sun and cheer them on. When the ninth graders sullenly refuse to play a review game I have planned, saying they would rather write sentences, I just say ok, and try again the next day. One of my students casually mentioned to another volunteer that I’d changed since the beginning of the year, and it’s about the best compliment I could imagine.

Christmas Program

School Christmas programs tend to be the same the world round: lots of proud parents and lots of cute kids, a few who participate loudly and with pride and the rest not having a clue as to what's going on. I love this picture of the maternal class (2-3 year olds). The tallest boy in the class is also, as you can see, the most enthusiastic singer.

As the ninth grade homeroom teacher, I was reponsible for working with them to prepare something for the program. I asked the other teachers what classes usually do and was told they sing a Christmas song. I get a chorus of painful groans when I ask the students just to take out a notebook or sit in their seats, so I couldn't imagine getting a group of 14-year-olds to sing a Christmas carol in front of the school and parents.

When I asked the principal for advice, she told me she had seen the girls practicing a Christmas dance to "Jingle Bell Rock" so why didn't I have them to that? Both their dance moves and costumes were based on the movie "Mean Girls" and while I did work with them and they kept assuring me it would be great, I still had nightmares of inappropriate dance moves, scantily clad students, and me having to claim responsibility. But like so many other things here, it turned out just fine. The girls practiced a lot (usually during science class, which was fine by me) and we were all proud of how it turned out.

The boys' role was to stand on the side and snap their fingers. Though they didn't do this with too much enthusiasm, they participated and some days you take what you can get. Lots of days in fact.

Right now I'm home for Christmas for 2 weeks. It's been really wonderful to get caught up with family and friends and just be home.

Some Things You Just Can't Get Away From

A few days ago, I was at the home helping some girls with their homework when somebody came into the library, said something in Spanish I didn't understand, and all the girls dashed out. The cause of the excitment turned out to be a box of candy they had opened and were handing out: Peeps. One of the girls offerered me some. I wasn't sure how to say, "My teeth hurt just thinking about those things" in Spanish, so just said no thank you.

And then last night I went to the Mall with some of the other volunteers to watch a student Christmas performance. The kindergarten class recited a poem and one little boy kept grabbing the microphone from the MC to repeat the poem again or just talk. A few of my junior high students played a few songs on the guitar. You could hardly hear them, but the most entertaining part was watching them pluck out the chords with concentrated expressions. The choir sang some Christmas songs, and it brought tears to my eyes. They were stunning, and it finally felt like Christmas to me here.

Aftewards we went to the movies. Nothing looked that good but someone mentioned that The Day the Earth Stood Still wasn't bad. It wasn't until after I bought the ticket that I was told it starred Keanu Reeves. Luckily, he plays an alien, a built an excuse to not have to actually portray any human emotions. And I got to eat my favorite Honduran food, the caramel corn at the movies, so it wasn't a wasted night.

Next Sunday, I head home for two weeks. I haven't been as homesick as I thought I would be here (Thank you Skype!) but I cannot wait to just be at home and with the people I love.

A Few Student Pictures

Here are my 9th grade girls. Last Wednesday Honduras played Mexico in a World Cup qualifier, which meant that students were out of uniform. When the kindergarten teacher was painting the Honduran flag on her students' faces, my students saw and insisted that we all get it done too.


Here's the 8th grade class. All of it. They can be a bit mischievous but are incredibly sweet and funny and want to learn. No matter how crazy my day gets, I can count on them to be a breath of fresh air.

And here's a few snapshots of the seventh graders. They made cell models (just like I did in 7th grade with Mrs. Sunquist!) and then went to teach the 4th graders about cells. I'm not sure either group learned anything, but they had fun.

Día Típico

Last week was Día Típico at our school. This meant school was cancelled for the day so teachers could decorate in the morning. The title Typical Day referred to the traditional dances and food that would be in the evening, but the day with teachers was pretty "typical" as well. At first I was frustrated that we weren't getting much done, and I wonder how long it will take before the phrase "If I were at home...." quits springing so quickly to mind. It turned out to be a really fun day with the other teachers, and I learned another lesson in how to just be with people and not always needing to be busy doing something.



The teachers prepared decorations and also put out traditional clothing and artwork that students had brought in.


Here I am with some of my students who had come to prepare for their dance that night.


I don't have many pictures of the actual event because, as usual, I'm terrible at taking pictures, but here's one I like of some of the preschoolers before their dance.