School's in session!

Sorry we missed our post last week, we didn't make it to town this week and our carrier pigeons didn't work out. So you get two posts now. Enjoy!

P.S. We can't post pictures this week because the internet is being too slow...we've tried two days in a row now and no luck...sorry! We'll have lots of pictures to share when we're back for Christmas!

Part I (last week by Melanie)

This entry is a little late, but we didn’t go to town this week, so here it is now…I’ll mainly talk about last week, and then Aaron will write about this week. So, last week we had a full week of work days even though there were no students. We spent our days amongst the construction crew and dust and decorated our classrooms, planned a little bit, etc. The decorating took all of an hour or two per classroom, and actually, I couldn’t even get into my classroom until Friday because the workers were camping out in my room and the key mysteriously went missing every day before the administrators showed up and worked their magic to extract the key from whomever’s pocket it was being hidden. I spent a whole 2/3 of the first day just decorating my door, since that was about all I had to do at that point. We are supposed to use a fairly set curriculum, but we aren’t getting our books for another week or two, and we didn’t have a printer or copy machine, so besides thinking of activities to do on the board or orally, it was pretty close to impossible to plan much. Many “work” hours were spent playing Scrabble, walking down to the river, getting to know the other teachers, and learning useful tidbits such as:

~If someone asks you if you’d like coffee, specify that you want it amargo (bitter), or you will get more sugar in it than a can of Coke. By the way, all of the sugar here is “in the raw”…big brown-ish crystals. It’s pretty good…the honey is really good, though.

~They don’t seem to care what you are doing while you are at work, but just that you are there for the expected hours. Some teachers missed their ride because they didn’t know where the meeting spot was, and were instructed to set their watches ahead 10 minutes. Not a good way to start the week.

~Along the same lines, it doesn’t seem like anyone is going to be checking in on our actual teaching style, lessons, etc. So long as we have a plant on our desk for parents’ night, stay in dress code, and don’t let our kids touch the walls when they line up in the morning, I guess they assume we can handle the whole teaching part. We’ll see. I’m really glad that we’ve both taught before because this would be an overwhelming place to learn.

~The cleaning staff mops constantly…they mopped my room 4 times in one day, even if no one had been in there in between moppings.

~Baking at home here is rare for most people…we get a lot more wows by bringing banana bread to school than by anything professional that we do there.

~If you get invited to a social at the hot springs (which are very nice, and very fancy by Honduran standards), don’t assume that other people besides the foreigners and children will actually get in the hot springs. They will bring delicious food, though, and you will be excused from being wet and towel-clad while you eat it because you are a foreigner and don’t know what’s what.

~The house that stands empty next to ours used to be rented out to a peace corps volunteer, but then one night a bolo (drunk guy) threatened to kill her dog with a machete because it was barking. She complained to the Peace Corps, and they moved her. That seals the deal on NOT getting any pets while we’re here.

~We can get butter at a person’s house near the school, but we couldn’t find it anywhere else in town. There are a lot of situations like this…it’s kind of like the opposite of Wal-Mart and big superstores down here. Instead of one-stop shopping, you almost have to make as many stops as the number of items you are looking for. Different stands in the market sell different items…there’s the spice places, the produce places, the tortilla ladies, the bread people, tamale people, cornbread people, bean people, grain people, medicine people, rope people, horse accessories people, shoe people, bowl people, woven mat people…the list goes on. And then there’s tons that you can’t get in the market because it’s a specialty item sold in just one store or just one person’s unmarked house. For example, on Saturday, we went looking for a hammock. Pretty much everyone has one, so we figured it must not be too hard to find them. We looked all over town, asked several people, and came up with nothing. We finally found out from someone that the hammocks are made and sold at the prison, which is about a 2 hour hike or so through the mountain roads (again, unmarked). So I guess everyone knows to get their hammocks at this prison…the most natural thing in the world, right? I go back and forth between thinking these little searches and errands in town are charming and just being frustrated at the inefficiency.

So Saturday we went into town for a hammock search as well as some wiffle ball! We played with a bunch of other Gringos up by the famous castle in town. Everywhere we go here is a beautiful view…it’s amazing. Anyway, we had our pictures taken there by some photographers working on a tourism project, so maybe we’ll show up in some brochure somewhere. After wiffle ball, we got some Chinese food at the one restaurant in town that doesn’t serve platos tipicos (typical dishes), and went back to some friends’ house to hang out. We spent the night down there because we didn’t want to walk back 5 miles in the dark, and then the next morning we went to Santa Rosa, a bigger town that you get to by a 1.5 hour bus ride. The way there was fine, we got some good grocery shopping in and even found some cheese (although we hear that all the cheeses that aren’t Honduran cheese just taste like Swiss). We bought a ton of stuff, and then loaded back on the bus. We thought we were the last ones on the bus, since we took the last seats (and by seats, I mean 3 to a bench made for 2, and 2 to a seat made for 1. No, we were NOT last…there were at least 75 people on that old school bus by the time we got on the main road back to Gracias. There were people sitting on sacks in the aisles, and we would occasionally pull over to let more people pile in the back door and squeeze into the standing room in the aisle. Whew, we were glad to get back, but then we still had to talk a taxi driver into letting us cram our stuff into his little go-kart type of vehicle and take us up the rough dirt road back to our house. Lots of taxi drivers refuse to even go up here, so it’s really hard to find one that will do that and put up with all of our stuff and weight, too. Getting back home in the taxi was an adventure in itself, with some close calls for breakdowns, stalls, a downpour (there are no sides to the taxis), and the taxi driver’s girlfriend deciding to come along for the ride (apparently he must be a great guy because he is worth sitting next to two wet, smelly Gringos and their obscene amount of bags, crates, a small windshield, metal wire, and other items they bought or inherited from their friends in town.)

So that brings us through the weekend (LAST weekend). This week has been a lot busier at school, which is mainly why we haven’t been to town all week. We had all sorts of preparation for parents’ night on Tuesday, and Monday was just spent planning, having various meetings, and having a praise session led by one of the Evangelical administrators. It will be interesting to see what the religious atmosphere of the school really develops into this year, since 9 out of the 10 teachers at the school have different personal philosophies and beliefs than the Abundant Life organization, which runs the school. Actually, this is going to get a little personal, but during this praise session at the beginning of the week, I had kind of a shift in perspective. The situation itself was not going to change, so I realized I had to approach this year and this discrepancy in philosophy with new eyes. We came here to immerse ourselves in a different culture, and that’s exactly what we have found ourselves in. I have been hurt by Evangelical notions (or at least, some individuals’ interpretations of these notions) in the past, but I should not feel personally attacked by anyone’s religious views. No religion is established for the purpose of harm, and they each have value and something worth learning. The people in this organization do a lot of good, and seem like they genuinely believe in their cause and their work. For them, the Bible is at the center of their lives. For others in the world, it may be another religious text or traditions and stories passed down to them. If I were immersed in any of these other religions, I would try to learn from it while keeping my own beliefs intact, and there is no reason this situation should be different. For most of the children at this school, their families have chosen to enroll them in this Christian school, knowing that they will be praying in school and abiding by certain rules. This is not a public school, and this is not being forced on anyone (except maybe the teachers!). So, we’re here in the Honduran culture, but we’re also working within this school’s culture. We don’t have to fully share in the beliefs of either, but we are here with open minds and we are willing to experience both. I also gave some consideration to the idea of raising children in a particular religion, and I think that it’s beneficial in the way that it’s beneficial to learn a language. If you don’t ever learn a language as a child, it’s impossible to ever fully acquire language, and learning a second one is out of the question. In a similar way, by growing up under some religion, ANY religion (and a child really can’t use reasoning and logic to choose his or her religious beliefs), he learns about faith and God and what worship is, and then as he matures, he can apply these learned principles to his own evolving beliefs, and might even be able to understand, respect, and accept other people for their ideas. Anyway, these rambly thoughts have just been forming and incubating in my mind recently, and have helped me come to terms with my role as a teacher here and the extent to which I can support and participate in the school’s philosophy.

Enough deep thoughts for now…tomorrow is Friday and it’s time for another weekend! P.S. Remember to send Aaron an email for his birthday on Sunday (the 7th)!! Next weekend, we have a couple extra days off, so we’re planning on doing our first weekend trip then. Hope those at Landmark and other teachers/students are getting off to a good start with their year! Thinking of you and wishing you well!

Part 2 (Aaron, this week)

So we got our first week of school in the books, we’ll call it a week anyway even though there were only three days of school. Monday was just another workday but it was supposed to be formal. We were told to be in our dress code and to be there at 7:20 (instead of 8). So we followed both of those edicts and it turns out neither were true. We showed up at 7:20 and the place was dead and when people did show up they were in jeans and t-shirts. Oh well, living up here on the mountain we are pretty out of the loop you might say.
Tuesday was a big day though as it was orientation night with all the parents coming to see what was actually going on at this new school they’re sending their kids to. The day was spent with lots of last minute leveling of decorations and translating letters into Spanish and such. The orientation was supposed to start at 4:30 for the younger grades, but in Honduras people usually pay about as much attention to schedules as they do to the drunks passed out on the sidewalk. The school though is very strict as far as schedules go though and there weren’t many parents at all when it started. 1st grade which has 21 only had 4 parents at 4:30 but they started and other parents trickled in over the next hour, annoyed that it had already started and the people running the orientation annoyed that people came late. It was really nice meeting the parents though, most didn’t really talk to us that much because we spoke in English and most of the questions were directed to the translator (one of the school administrators) but several parents came up afterwards with concerns about their kid talking too much, needing to be in the front, being shy, etc…
It is an interesting school community though. Whereas Landmark was families that are extremely wealthy and those from the upper middle class the school here is the richest families in the area and some of the poorest with about 30% of the student population made up of scholarship students.
After the really long day they had some snacks for us that were left over from the preschool and kindergarten orientation. They were trying to convince the parents to buy these snacks for their kids which looked liked kids snacks from the Ritz Carlton. It was bologna and cheese pieces on toothpicks arranged like a star, fruit salad in special designs, Mickey Mouse shaped pancakes.
Wednesday morning we got to school did a quick change (we can’t really wear our school clothes to school because they would get really dirty on the walk) and got ready for the kids to come. I think all the teachers were anxious and nervous just wondering what their class would be like. So the kids showed up excited to be back in school and when the bell rang they exploded into the classroom. It turns out that my class, the 4th grade is one of the better grades in the elementary school, as far as English and behavior go. Melanie’s class knows pretty much zero English but is a good group of kids while several of the younger grade have no English and are full of behavior challenges. It’s a tough situation because we are supposed to speak only in English and when you try to manage a classroom full of kids who don’t speak English they pay no attention to you. Melanie and I both feel so lucky to have had classroom experience, its hard for us to imagine doing this without any but for the other foreign teachers this is their first time teaching and they are pushing through but it is extremely trying. There were lots of frazzled psyches by the end of the week.
We both have our elementary grade that we teach and then we also teach a subject to the 7th and 8th graders and it is such a change going between, especially the level of English that you can use. In my class the kids are pretty good at understanding directions and concepts but when I am explaining any information it has to be watered down to about a 500 word English vocabulary. Then I walk into the 8th grade class and I really have to change my mindset to speak at my normal level. The first day was pretty overwhelming, just energy wise and we all were happy when 12:00 came and we could breathe out. This week we got out at 12:00 everyday because the cafeteria isn’t finished yet but next week we go until 3:00 and that will present an entirely new set of challenges.
I won’t go into such detail with the other two school days but I’ll just give some random thoughts from the first week:
- What a contrast there is between the energy of high schoolers and elementary school students. I know its probably just a honeymoon phase right now but the kids are so excited about learning and going crazy wanting to show you their work. With high schoolers after trying a creative lesson it was usually just “Ugh, why do we have to do this.”
- Country Roads has universal appeal. In Japan it was a big hit and apparently it is here as well. The music teacher at school isn’t getting here for another couple of weeks so I tried it out with my students, changing a couple of the words to make it specific to here and I think they are now John Denver fans.
- Some of the rules at school will never stick. We had a meeting yesterday and apparently it is a rule that students can’t go to the bathroom at all during class. They have a recess at 9:40 and lunch at 11:40 but that leaves 6 and a half hours where they aren’t supposed to use the bathroom. I know I can’t hold it that long.
- Never take a photocopier for granted. It was great news when we learned that the school was going to have a photocopier, but I never thought it would be such a pain. We aren’t allowed to use it. When we want something copied we have to submit a request at least one day in advance and hope that they follow our instructions on the request form. It is so frustrating not being able to go into the office and copy what we want.