Christmas break seems like a long time ago, but since that’s where our last entry left off, I’ll travel back in time for a minute. Stepping off the plane in one degree Chicago weather was a little rough after being on a tropical island the day before, but my mom and sisters brought some old winter coats to meet us at the airport, and from there, we just got used to the climate change. It was so great to be home and see everyone in so many places. We spent the first 3 days in Wheaton with my family, did 3 Christmases there—one on Christmas Eve, Christmas morning, and Christmas night in Wisconsin.
Here's Christmas Eve...my sisters, Caitlin and Rachel, and my cousins, Chelsea and Olivia:
...and Mimi and Aaron:
...and my parents:
In Wisconsin, we got to enjoy the snow a little more, and even cleared off an ice rink on the lake to play a little hockey. We just spent a couple of days, and then we headed back to Wheaton. A note on Hela, our cat: she is enjoying her year-long vacation with her dog cousins, and has learned to play with the border collie. They wrestle around and chase each other, and when they are tired, the dog lies on her back and the cat sits on the dog’s face. Very weird. Hela has also gotten pretty fat because she eats dog food all day. She doesn’t look like she’s been missing us too badly.
Here's the little fatty on Christmas:
Everywhere we went, the food tasted amazing, but going from mostly fruits and veggies to American-style holiday food was a rude awakening for our digestive systems. I don’t think either of us felt hungry the whole time we were back home, but we still pigged out as per tradition and felt happy and comfortable and loved the whole two weeks we spent visiting.
Here's one of the richer indulgences of 2009: Oreo Cheesecake! (With my mom and brother, Brad):
I thought we might experience a little more reverse culture shock, but once we were back, everything just seemed normal, like we had never left. When we got back to Honduras, again, it just seemed as if we had never left. It was a relief to be back here and not have to get used to things all over again like we did in August when we first arrived.
After Wheaton and Wisconsin, we met Aaron’s brother and sister-in-law (well, basically), and drove down to Virginia to spend a few days with Aaron’s family. It was a Christmas miracle that all of our stuff fit in the tiny Yaris along with four of us and a dog, but it all worked out. It was still nothing compared to some of the bus experiences we’ve had! There was a serious lack of bags of crops and grains, and there were no kids sitting on top of the seats hanging out the windows.
Virginia was a little warmer than up North, so we got a little walking and biking in…biking on a paved road was amazing. It was really nice to spend time with all of Aaron’s family at once, because they are so spread out that it doesn’t happen often. We had a little photo shoot out back on the mountain...
Here are Daniel (Aaron's brother) and Meghan (his fiancee), with their rarely-sitting-still-much-less-yawning-of-boredom dog:
And here are Jeremy (Aaron's brother), Meghna (his wife), and Alaina (our niece):
All four brothers:
And everybody:
Our Christmas tour had one more stop: Beverly, MA. We stayed there 3 days, did some much-enjoyed grocery shopping, saw lots of friends, and re-visited our favorite restaurants. It was hard to leave and fly back here at the end of the trip, but I think the part we were most dreading was just the long travel adventure we had before getting back to our house. We’re going to be so happy to be back with friends and family next year, though…our trip was way too short!
We left Boston at 4 pm, stopped in Ft. Lauderdale, took a 9 something flight to San Pedro Sula in Honduras, arrived at 1 am, and waited in the airport for several hours waiting for morning to come. Luckily, there was a little area to sit down in next to a closed Wendy’s booth (we were afraid that the whole place would shut down and we’d have to figure out somewhere to spend a few hours). Our bus didn’t leave until 6, so we killed some time just talking to another foreign teacher coming back to Honduras from the States, and then Aaron tried to use an ATM. There were two machines right next to each other, and they looked about the same. Aaron typed in the amount he wanted to withdraw (about $100), and the machine just shut down. He checked the balance of our account using the other ATM, and it turns out that the first machine had subtracted the amount from our account without giving us any cash! He asked a policeman about it, and the guy just laughed at him and said something along the lines of, “oh, you used THAT machine?! Everyone knows that machine doesn’t work!” So…not so helpful. After we found a ride to the bus station, took our two buses back to Gracias, and did some grocery shopping, we stopped off at the bank for a little chat about our ATM situation. This turned out to just be the first of three visits in order to get our lost money back, but eventually, it worked out. At one point, though, our account got down to about $15. Close call!
When we finally got up the mountain and home again, we got to unpack and relax for a day before school started. Our house was fine over break, and besides a missing rusted wheelbarrow and a sweater eaten by some animal, all was well when we got back. It didn’t take long to get used to wearing t-shirts again, and spending most of our time outside. No seasonal affect disorder here…there have been a couple of other cold fronts, but the rainy season is now over, and it’s just going to keep warming up from here on out. It’s really good that we live up on the mountain now, because it gets really hot and dusty in town without rain, and up here it gets hot during the day, but always cools down at night. One night during the cold front last week, we seriously considered moving the stove into our bedroom and baking bread to heat things up before we went to sleep, but in the end, it wasn’t worth the risk of something in the oven coming loose during the move. It’s easy to pick out the tourists during the cold weather, though…they are usually wearing shorts and a t-shirt, while everyone who lives here is wearing sweaters and hats. We did meet one really interesting couple from Quebec last weekend. They looked to be in their late 50s or so, and they had driven all the way down from Quebec! They had their yellow lab with them, and they were just road tripping for a couple of months before ending up in El Salvador to visit their son, who is doing some volunteer work/surfing down there for a year. They have an ecotourism business in Mexico and they do a lot of kayaking there, so who knows, we might meet them again sometime.
Our neighbors did a lot of work on their comedor (little restaurant in their house) while we were gone, and they stopped us and invited us in for some coffee and sweetbread one afternoon. We’re slowly getting to know them better—one of their kids is in my class, and she’s been walking to school with us every day. All the kids like coming up to our house to giggle and chat and play little games like “who can balance a stick on their head and walk across the road fastest” or “where is Abby’s stomach/nose/eyes/ears?” I don’t always rush out eagerly when I hear that “Oh Mrs. Seeeeeebens/Mrs. Melaaaaaaanie” coming through the gate outside, but they’re really sweet kids, and it’s fun to play with them…kids are so easy to please and so carefree. A couple of weekends ago, and probably tonight as well, we went to the neighborhood church. There are only about 10 or 15 people that go there, and it’s just a little one-room cinder-block building. It’s decorated inside with a sheet and letters cut out and glued on it, and there are a few simple benches and a table up front. One guy plays the keyboard, and they sing a lot of pretty long praise songs where everyone just sings and claps. While they sing and during the sermons/readings, which are also done by family members, the little kids just kinda run around and play with the odd broom or cup lying around, leave their bottles or toys on the table holding the keyboard up front, and just find ways to entertain themselves without anyone trying to make them sit down. We couldn’t understand all of the preaching, but from what I gathered, the message wasn’t fire and brimstone, but just more about acting out faith every day and not just at church. The atmosphere was so laid-back and simple, and my favorite moment was when the power went out for a minute or so during one of the songs. The keyboard didn’t work, but everyone just kept singing in the dark, and then eventually it and the lights came back on before the song was over. We’re probably going again today, not necessarily because we get a lot out of it in a religious sense, but just because it’s a good way to spend time with our neighbors and be able to share some experience with them. I wish we could go with them to pick coffee sometime or help them work in the field every once in a while, but we’re pretty booked every weekday with school.
We have a new neighbor now as well—another Gringo from the U.S. He’s just graduated from a Master’s program in Spanish, and he’s here staying at his friend’s house for a few months just to practice Spanish and figure out what he wants to do next. He doesn’t have electricity, screens on the windows, or any of the luxuries we have (like internet and a hot shower), so he’s roughing it a lot more than we are. He has more time to get to know the other neighbors, and he goes to town more often than we do. Mostly, though, I think he just reads a LOT of books. He’s had some helpful tips on our garden, though, so we’ve given that another shot. This time, the weather should be better, and we added a lot of manure from the road to the soil, so that should help fertilize. If all goes well, we should see some sprouts in a few days.
It was nice to see our kids at school again after break. Things in my class have been going really well, but I’m attributing at least part of that to the absence of my most high-maintenance student whose family is taking a vacation in Guatemala right now. He’s a nice kid, but he drains so much of my energy all day long, and it’s been nice to be able to put that energy into my other students and successfully carry out more creative lessons. The second quarter ends next week, so then we’ll officially be halfway through the year. The school just started 2 new classes, a younger one and an older one, for almost 40 new students. I’m not sure what that puts our total enrollment up to, but it’s a significant chunk of new kids. They are just learning English this Spring, and the plan is to have them integrated into the regular classes next fall. This means that there is no space for storage, library, or planning anymore, though. We just sit outside on the ground somewhere during free periods, and the teachers that have lots of free time (the music and art teachers) just kind of walk around and try to look somewhat busy by talking to the administrators or the cleaning ladies or texting on their phones. The new kids don’t have their uniforms yet, though, and one day last week I saw a girl wearing a white tank top over a t-shirt. The tank top said: “Buy me a shot…I’m tying the knot” in iron-on letters. I’m pretty sure she got that secondhand somewhere, and I’m also pretty sure that neither she nor any of the administrators knew what that meant.
At school, the administration has started doing teacher evaluations. This consists of pulling out two “random” students from class, checking their notebooks, and looking through their work-text books to see how much has been completed. Then, if you are a woman, they meet with you to tell you to use the books more or that you are doing a good job, or if you are a man, they just avoid confronting you and say nothing. Not the most effective evaluation, in my opinion, but I guess it’s just another one of those things that comes down to cultural differences in the workplace.
Aaron’s kids have been working on a garden in back of the school lately. They are really excited about it, and are getting pretty competitive about which garden bed will be best. Aaron asked them to bring in old clothes to work in, and some of them are pretty funny, too…for example, one girl just brought a pink dress to wear over her clothes. It’s funny to look out back of the school and see a bunch of kids doing manual labor, but they love it and it’s a great chance to get out of the classroom.
Here's Leonela in her pink work dress:
Jenny in the orange shirt and all the kids doing their manual labor/wandering:
David and Marquito hard at it:
My class took another river trip last week to catch tadpoles as part of our amphibians and reptiles unit. Again, there were some noteworthy outfits on display, like the girl who wore a ballerina leotard as a swimsuit, or the boy who just wore his boxers.
Jasson and Fausto, two of my favorites:
Kimberly catching tadpoles in her ballet outfit:
Maria Jose (Mary Joseph...actually a common name) in her swimsuit with the other kids:
Deyssi and Lorean, cold:
Fausto again, mid-action:
It’d be nice to think of more field trips to do, but it’s hard due to lack of transportation. I want to try to get my kids outside more in the second half of the year, though…they’re finally at the point where they can handle it and not just go completely nuts once we leave the classroom. One big exception to this statement: a couple of weeks ago, some students from the Abundant Life school in Tegucigalpa came to our school, half to do a mission presentation, and half to play soccer. We didn’t find out about this until a few minutes before the soccer game, but we were supposed to bring all of our students up to the field to watch. It had been raining a lot, so it was muddy and slippery, and most of the kids just made mudballs, slid down the hills on boards, climbed trees, collected seeds and flower petals, or found some way to entertain themselves besides watching the game. They were a bunch of monkeys, but it was a lot of fun to just let them go wild and sit back and take pictures and laugh.
A couple of kids "watching the soccer game":
And here's an average day in the lunch line:
This weekend, we did our usual town day, and then some friends came up and we grilled chicken and veggies on the fire and they stayed overnight on our spare mattress. We got sheets for them and everything, so now we’re all set for our visitors to come! Our first ones are my friend Amy from college and her cousin. They’ll be here in 2 weeks! After that, Aaron’s parents are coming for a week, some friends from Landmark are coming, my parents might come, a couple more friends are coming for a vet mission trip, and maybe a friend of mine from home will come, too! We can’t wait to have everybody and show them around our life here!
There isn’t a lot else to report, but life is good, and we’re happy to be missing out on winter! It’s hard not to think about next year, and we do think about it a lot, but we’re trying to just enjoy our time here and take advantage of everything we have.
1 comment:
great entry!
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