What to do when you are in Honduras and in the middle of cooking dinner you run out of gas...

So Friday night my housemate Marni and I are trying to cook dinner and of course in the middle of cooking dinner we run out of gas.  We frantically look at our watches and realize the only place we know that sells gas is closed.  What to do?  We decide to act quickly and head out into the dark, rainy, muddy streets of Cofradia in search of some place to sell us a new gas tank.  We walk to the nearest pulperia and ask if they know a guy (everyone in Honduras knows a guy or a place, it's always your best bet just to ask someone).  She says she knows a place and tells us that "he" will take us.  "He" being a man sitting eating his pork chop dinner inside of the pulperia.  The woman says "He will take you as soon as he finishes his meat".  The man finishes his meat and off we go.  We walk to several places to have no luck.  Finally we arrive at another pulperia where they sell gas tanks (chimbos).  We are in the process of getting one when the woman asks us what kind of top our gas tank has.  Marni and I are oblivious to the fact that there are different types of tops to gas tanks and like many times before look like silly gringas.  To make matters even better this woman closes her pulperia in 15 minutes and we did not bring our empty chimbo with us as we did not want to lug it around all of Cofradia with us.  So, the nice man that helped us find this glorious land of gas tanks proceeds to help us yet again in our time of crisis: "I can take me, you, her and your chimbo on my bike".  I try not to laugh out loud as I realize that this man is completely serious.  I say, "that is so nice of you to offer, but with the rain and the mud I don't think it will work". Problem averted.  So we find ourselves a mototaxi and our driver takes me, marni, and Olvin(the nice man helping us) to drop off Olvin where we originally found him.  Then we proceed to our house to pick up the empty chimbo, the driver takes us back to the pulperia, the woman digs through the pile of gas tanks to find one that matches ours, we get back into the moto and head home with a new chimbo.  The driver charges us 50 lempiras, we pretty much have to pay it no matter what cause he already took us three ways.  We pay, we have new gas, and we have dinner.  Great Friday night!  You gotta love the Cof.    

What's next?

My apologies again for the delay in blogging, but here come a couple posts for ya all at once. 

   So a couple of Fridays ago I believe that I had one of the most interesting teaching days that I have had yet in my teaching career.  Fridays are generally hard days for me because it is the end of the week and I only have one planning period on Fridays, and of course it is the first period of the day.  Therefore, I am stuck with the lovely children for the remainder of the day (except for recess and lunch, gracias a dios).
  The day started off just like any other, full of promise and the question that often floats through my mind of, what will today bring?  The day started off with some ultimate frisbee which was good and great until some elbows were thrown and some students needed some ice.  We don't really have ice or ice packs here so I proceeded to send the student to the glorieta (cafeteria) to get a topogio(popscicle in a bag) to put on their face and that I would pay for them later.  Then we are back in the classroom and some students begin to have some problems about the possesion of a pen.  One student claims it is his and another claims it is his.  I have no idea who the pen belongs to, so I take each student out to the hall and get his side of the story.  Eventually I figure out which one is lying and so I keep giving him chances to fess up.  Of course, he proceeds to keep lying to me.  Finally I tell him that I know he is lying to me and how I know he is lying to me.  I think he was impressed at how well I knew him after just a few months that I could tell he was lying.  Then I told him if he admitted to it it would be a falta menor rather than a falta mayor (in the office the next day).  He finally admitted it.  After dealing with that I come back into the classroom and a student frantically asks me for a piece of tape.  I ask her why and she points to a rather sizeable rip in the butt of her pants.  I crack a smile, try not to laugh, and tell her that I don't think that tape is going to fix that.  She either needs to tie a sweatchirt around her waist or get a pair of gym pants from the office.  She opts for putting a friends' sweatshirt around her waist.  Later, just nearly making it through another week, only 30 more minutes to go till the weekend, one of my students doesn't look so good.  She asks me to go to the bathroom cause she thinks she is going to be sick.  I tell her to go and take the trashcan on the way out if necessary.  She come back, tells me she has thrown up, so natrually I ask if she needs to go to the office or go home.  She just looks at me like I'm crazy and keeps on working.  Oh what the days of teaching will bring. 

still alive and surviving : )

So… I realize it has been a while since I have last posted.  My apologies.  It is easy to fall into the trap of my life being like a bubble and forgetting to make contact with the outside world.  I am alive and well, and continuing to try to take things one day at a time. 
We just finished our fourth week of school.  I feel like I have a pretty good handle on my students, my classroom, and the material that I am teaching.  Everyday is still an adventure.  I never can quite guess what will make complete sense to them and what will take three or four different explanations.  I am getting pretty good at re-explaining things in many different ways though.  My paraphrasing skills are pretty top notch. 
My classroom got a bit of a make-over last weekend which has been a blessing!  The classroom pre make-over had a very high ceiling that was basically just the metal roof with the exposed metal beams.  The lights were also very high.  This made the room quite hot, especially in the afternoon as the sun heats up the metal and rather dark.  The parents of my students were in our classroom for a meeting a few weekends ago and decided that it was too hot and too dark to work in there.  Thus, they raised money to make a drop ceiling (the typical ceiling we have in most schools in the US with the styrofoam like rectangle tiles that slide into a metal grid).  On Monday our classroom was very nice and cool, however very dark because the lights had not been moved yet.  Tuesday we had lights and coolness.  The classroom is like a completely different place.  I feel quite spoiled, but I love it!
In other news.  We have had many celebrations as of late.
Día del niño                                                Last Friday we celebrated Diía del niño(Day of the children).  Students came to school just from 9-12 and had a party all day.  The teachers (Honduran and American) did a funny skit as if we were all students in a classroom.  We all picked things to mock that happen on a daily basis in our own classrooms.  We were quite unruly.  Afterward the American teachers did a dance.  Us female teachers did a dance to Flo Rida’s Low and the male teachers did a dance to Beyonce’s Single Ladies.  The guys were in dresses and everything.  It was quite a hit with the students.  they loved it. 
Día de Independencia
On Wednesday of this past week was Honduras’ Independence day.  We did not have school, so we were free to enjoy the day by watching parades, sleeping in, etc.  I got invited to go to spend the day with a student’s family.  They are Jehovah’s Witnesses do therefore they did not celebrate Independence Day.  Instead, they picked myself and another teacher up in the park , drove us to their house (30 min away) where we had the girls show us their rooms, and of course started watching The Princess and the Frog.  Then we all (11 of us total: 9 family members and 2 teachers) piled back into the back of the pick-up truck and headed for a river.   We got to the place in the river where they wanted to take us so we pulled off to the side of the road and hopped in.  It felt soooooo nice to be cold.  We splashed and played and ate some lunch and splashed and played some more.  Then we went to my least favorite part of the day: the cave.  We got to a place further down the river where there was this cave.  We began to enter and right away it smelled awful.  The wonderful smell of bat poop wafting through the air.  We proceeded to go further into the cave and then we had to step in water as the whole floor of the cave was ankle deep in water.  I was pretty disgusted as it was from the bat poop which covered all the walls and now I was afraid there would be snakes in the water.  Not to mention that now there were bats flying all around me and touching me as they flew by.  It was an experience, however I was quite glad when we left.  I had bat poop all over me. 
Día de la maestro
On Friday it was day of the teacher.   Students showered me with cards and gifts.  I got numerous cards about how great of a teacher I was and how I was so nice and how they love me.  It was quite the ego boost.  I also was given some pretty sweet wooden earrings, and snickers bars.   Sadly, the boys in my class were up to their same shenanigans and had to have a good talking to on several occasions.  
Most importantly though is what I discovered yesterday: Las Rocas.  It is this swimming pool that has been created by some gringos from the other bilingual school here in town.  They have basically taken a whole bunch of rocks and cemented them together to form this awesome pool.  They have a couple high places to jump off of, a place long enough to swim laps, and good food and drinks.   They pump the water in from the river and then add some chlorine to it.  They drain it out and scrub it down once a month.  I feel we will be frequenting Las Rocas quite a bit. 
Overall I am still doing well.  I still have not stopped sweating.  I don’t know that I ever will, but that is something I am getting used to.  The water situation is also getting more normal to me.  I barely even notice when we don’t have water.   I am preparing myself for another week of school.  Friday we have a half day for a teacher institute day, so that will be nice.  For a late Day of the Teacher celebration we (Honduran and American) are all going to a pool and restaurant on Friday afternoon.  I’m looking forward to it already!

I survived my first week!

The first week of school is now under my belt.  I feel it was a mostly successful week.  Procedures and rules were introduced, through trial and error I learned that I need to talk more slowly depending on the subject, I began to get to know my students, and I sweat A LOT!

The first two days of school my room did not have electricity because of some downed power lines after a large storm.  It made for a very dark and toasty day.  The morning was bearable, however the afternoon was not so pleasant.  After lunch on day 2 my students kept saying "Miss, Miss" in a whining tone.  Then one student said, "Miss, my legs are sweating", to which I wanted to reply, "so, my legs are always sweaty".  I resisted and instead we went outside and had science class at some tables where there was more or a breeze.  Thankfully the rest of the week we had electricity so we had both lights and fans.

I have 24 students who I think I am going to really enjoy teaching.  It has been fun to see some of them open up and let me see more of who they are.  The second day of school I let my students ask me questions in order to get to know me better.  One of the questions they asked me was, "Miss, do you have a boyfriend?" "No", I replied.  Their response: "You should get one".  Later a student asked, "Miss, have you ever been to Los Angeles?"  "No", I replied.  The student's response: "You should go there.  You should find a boyfriend there".  So apparently when I get back to the states I need to go to LA and find a boyfriend.

Towards the end of the week we did an experiment in science class to practice the Scientific Method.  We compared two types of dish soap to see which soap, solid soap or liquid soap, would make bigger bubbles.  They had a lot of fun.  Here are a few pics : )

do you like piña coladas and getting caught in the rain?

so on Tuesday I was walking through Cofradía with Andrea and Steph making our way through several school supply stores seeing what kind of goodies each place had to offer.  At one point Andrea and I split off and went to another store while Steph looked at another.  Andrea and I stepped out of a store and looked up at the sky.  We were in awe at what we saw. A very dark sky but a gorgeous rainbow.  Probably the brightest rainbow I have ever seen.  Just as we were taking in the beauty a "dust tornado/hurricane" type situation happened.  All of the sudden the air was dark and we could see a swirl of dust and rocks coming towards us.  People started running off of the street taking shelter in their homes and started yelling "huracan".  Andrea and I just kind of looked at each other "what do we do?".  We tried to cover our eyes and not being anywhere near home, we just hid behind a wall around the corner.  We were fine, but quite covered in dust.  Then, it starts to rain.  I mean huge raindrops.  Suddenly the roads of Cofradía started taking their typical form when it rains: muddy, swift river.  It started to POUR.  We ran into a random store to wait it out.  As we are standing in the store looking at the clothes and other items, waiting out the downpour, we realize the store if flooding.  Water is leaking into the stores through the doors because the it is raining so hard.  Finally we decided to venture out once it stopped raining so hard.  We made our way to the house.  Wading through the rivers that were the streets of Cofradía and completely soaking wet.  Sadly there is no piña colada in this tale, but it would have been a great way to end the rainy experience.  

THANKS!

Thank you SOOO much to those of you that gave monetarily towards BECA and the tables for my and Josh's classrooms.  We have enough money to fund the building of the tables!  Tomorrow Miguel, the man constructing the tables, will be coming to school to get the money and get to work.  Hopefully he can build them before school starts on Monday so our students will have them from day 1!

Thanks again for all of your support!  You guys are AWESOME!!!

Last hoorah before school starts!

So this weekend we all hopped in a busito (a large van that has about 14ish seats) and headed for the northern coast to a town called Triunfo de la cruz.  There we rented three cabañas on the beach and relaxed from Thurs morning to Sunday afternoon.  The cabañas cost us between 300-400 Lempiras each night.  We had 4-5 people in each cabaña.  Roughly that translates to about $4 a night for each person.  So great!  (If anyone wants to come visit me while I'm here feel free.  Getting here is the most expensive part.  Once you're here it's pretty cheap to get around! )
We arrived at about 10:30am and immediately put on our swim suits, I lathered up with LOTS of sunscreen, and hit the waves.  The water was clean and clear but sadly a bit warm.  It was still refreshing though.  Once lunch time came about we quickly realized that our 300 lempiras ($15) per person for all of our meals while on vacation was not going to get us very far.  We stopped at several restaurants on the beach only to learn that a a typical plate cost between 100-160 Lempiras.  Clearly this was not going to work out well, thus we did the best thing you can do here in Honduras, we talked to the locals.  We came to a pulperia where several men were relaxing with some beers.  We asked them if they knew a place that was more affordable and explained our budget.  A guy named José lead us to a place that his cousin owned.  It was much more affordable.
The rest of vacation was nice and relaxing until I got sick the first night.  Another lovely case of digestive problems.  I just chilled on the beach all day going back and forth from falling asleep listening to the waves and running to the bathroom.  Thankfully it passed.
The only other eventful part of the trip was a day trip we took to a national park off the shore a ways.  We swam in the ocean, took a jungle hike (aka the jungle from hell.  SOOOO many mosquitoes.  We all got brutally attacked.  Too many bites to count), swam through a small cave, and snorkeled.  It was a fun change of pace from laying on the beach.
Now we are back.  We have this last week to prepare for school and then we start on Monday.  I'm starting to feel really nervous about teaching.  In some ways I'm really ready for school to start and I'm ready to have a normal routine.  On the other hand I am starting to feel the way I feared I would feel: I don't really feel like I had a long enough of a break to be mentally prepared to teach another year.  I guess ready or not, here we go.  I think I am a little bit intimidated of being compared to their past teachers since everyone is only here for a year at a time.  I hope that I can be strict enough and also not too strict.  I am still not sure what I want to do for a reward/punishment system.  I have both liked and not liked things I have done in the past.  I also hate that I do not start of end the day with my students.  My students have Estudios Sociales (Social Studies) first thing in the morning and then they have Español (Spanish) last.  I think that is going to be really challenging.  The first thing in the morning and the end of the day are so crucial.  I am kind of bummed.  I guess I have the next six days to get pumped and ready to go.  More thoughts to come later.    

We Need You!

Friends and family I am writing this blog post as a request for help. I greatly appreciate all of your thoughts, wishes, e-mails, and prayers but now I need a little help from your checkbooks. As we have been preparing for the school year it has come to our attention that we are about 50 desks short this year. Myself(6th grade) and Josh (5th grade) have been talking and we would really like to have tables and chairs in our classrooms instead of desks. Since we are 50 "seats" short now is the perfect time to have some tables and chairs built!

We asked the junta (the group of Honduran parents and administrators that meet bi-weekly to discuss school matters, including approving purchases) if they could help us out monetarily with the chairs or the tables and they agreed that they could fund the building of the chairs if we could fund the building of the tables. This is good news folks! The chairs were the most expensive part. Between Josh and I's rooms we will need 12 tables, 6 for each of our classrooms. A table costs $30 dollars to make and thus we are looking to raise $360 dollars for these tables.

How can you donate you ask? Go to http://www.becaschools.org , enter into the site and make a donation to my class (Miss Laurel) or Mr. Josh's classroom. The first $360 dollars raised collectively between our two classes will go to the purchasing of the tables. Want to do more? Right now there is a back to school fundraiser going on. This fundraiser helps to raise all the necessary funds BECA needs for this current year. Feel free to donate to my classroom or any of the other classrooms. Every little bit helps, even if you are only able to donate $5 at this point in time!

Any questions, thoughts, or comments don't hesitate to let me know. I check e-mail pretty much daily : ) laureldeeter@gmail.com

Thanks everyone!

last day of summer academy : )

here's a pic from the last day of our summer academy. We didn't have the greatest attendance that day, but it was still a fun way to end our two weeks with the kids!

Garbage Day!

So, we have had a very LARGE pile of garbage in our two garbage cans at the house. It smelled something awful. Let's just say that today when I had to take it out I gagged twice and thought I was going to throw up. We were wondering how to go about getting our garbage taken care of and as were sitting at the breakfast table today we heard some yelling from the street "basura, basura!" So we poked our head out and sure enough our land lady was yelling for everyone to put their trash out and we could see a large truck up the hill completely full of trash coming our way. So we proceeded to put out the trash and then asked our land lady if garbage day was every Friday. Her response was great! She said "No mi amor, siempre hay basura aqui" (no my dear, there is always garbage here.) as she laughed and shook her head as if that was such a silly question to ask. She must have been thinking, "Oh gringas, so crazy". Then she proceeded to tell us in Spanish that garbage day could be everyday but Honduras would always be dirty. We proceeded to then ask her if she would always yell "basura" when they came and she said yes. Bottom line, there is no garbage day. Just have to listen for the yelling.

Unpacked and it Feels SOOO Good!

We have moved into our permanent residences! Yesterday I was dropped off at the house by my host brother and cousin. I headed into my room and began to unpack. It is amazing how satisfying unpacking was! It feels so good to know where everything is and to have everything organized the way that I want. The simple things in life! I am living in the house with four other girls. I share a room with Steph, across the hallway from us are Marni and Ashley and out back Erin will have her own room. We have not met Erin yet. She come today! I’m excited to meet her.

Since last night was our first night moved into our permanent residences we began our group dinners as well. As a group we decided that we would have group dinners Sunday through Thursday nights and be on our own on Friday and Saturday nights. I volunteered to cook dinner last night for the first time along with the help of Andrea(the administrator) and Steph. We had great plans to make a broccoli pineapple stir fry with a teriyaki orange glaze however we were unable to track down broccoli or teriyaki sauce : ( We prevailed though and pulled off a great stir fry with tons of great veggies (carrots, onions, green beans, and corn). We even had the added bonus of some shrimp! Andrea had been given a generous bag of shrimp from a student last week. We even managed to make a delicious sauce using garlic, soy sauce, water, brown sugar, and orange juice. (kudos to Josh and Nathan for making the sauce a success). The only fail was the rice. Cooking enough rice for 12 people (3-4lbs.) turned out to be a more challenging feat than we had anticipated. The rice was a bit underdone and the bottom layer, quite burnt. Oh well, you live and you learn. Word to the wise, when cooking 3-4lbs. or rice, best to divide it and cook it in two different pots : )

I will post pictures of the house soon. One more thing, think wet thoughts! Hopefully when we return to the house today after school we will have water again! It’s a little tricky when the water doesn’t come for a while and the pila is almost empty. Can't shower, wash dishes, or flush the toilet. Pray for the water to come!

karaoke and baleadas

Wednesday of this week our group got invited to go to dinner at the Zelaya's house. The Zelaya's are the family that owns a large amount of property that includes the land the school is on. They are very wealthy and very generous! They have four children that I know of. One is named José and is 24. He is kind of a stud and hangs out with us frequently. Another child of theirs is named Irma. She is going to be in my class. It was fun to talk to her and to watch her sing Karaoke. That brings me to the fun part! Karaoke!!!!!

I have never actually sung Karaoke before, but on Wednesday night I sang loud and proud! They had a microphone stand with two microphones and a very large selection of music (in English and Spanish) ranging from the 70's to present day. The selections were quite overwhelming but once we started it was hard to stop. The fact that alcohol was involved truly added to the desire to sing as well, which made the evening all the more interesting. I belted out Summer Nights from Grease with several other volunteers. It was a good time. Backstreet Boys, Christina Aguilera, Savage Garden, Enrique Iglesias, Sugar Ray, and many other fabulous plasts from the past. Between singing we took a break and ate some delicious Baleadas. Baleadas are flour tortillas with a wide assortment of things inside. Generally they include refried beans, cheeese, and eggs. The ones we had also included chicken and chimol(fresh salsa with chopped up tomatoes, pepers, onions, and lime). It was delicious!!!

After the gringos had sang for a bit and provided the entertainment the Zelaya family also sang for us. They chose several karaoke songs in Spanish and we sang along with them as best we could (there were some quick fast words that I did not know how to say). My favorite part of the evening though was when Don Zelaya(the father) and his brother sang a song together accompanied by the guitar. Their voices were truly breathtaking and the sweet strum of the guitar pushed the music over the top! I could have listened to them sing forever. I wonder it is a cultural requirement that if you are male and you are around 50 -60 years of age you can sing and play the guitar beautifully. Many of the volunteers, myself included, could not stop smiling the whole time they were playing. It was probably another favorite experience to add to my list here. The singing and laughing and dancing came to a close as we all faced the reality that we had to continue with classes the next morning so we had to say farewell. The family seems so great and I am excited to continue interacting with them in this coming year. I am afraid however for my home visit with them. I am supposed to do home visits for each of my students before the year starts or at the very beginning of the year. I am nervous that when I do my home visit for Irma they will make me sing alone! Oh well, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it!

A Breath of Fresh Air!

So this past weekend myself and 8 others piled into the back of a pickup truck and headed up into the mountains to a town called Buenos Aires for a couple day get away. Physically getting to Buenos Aires was a little more hit or miss than we had anticipated. We were walking back from school on Friday when Josh (one of the volunteer teachers who will be teaching 5th grade) saw a man with a pick up truck and asked if he knew of anyone heading to Buenos Aires that afternoon. The man replied, "I'm going to Buenos Aires". When Josh asked him when his reply was, "already". We quickly grabbed our things from the apartment where we had stashed them earlier and piled in. We were afraid we would not fit but the man assured us that he had taken as many as 20 people in the back before so we should have no problem. We were on our way.

We rode up, up, and up through the mountains for about 1 hour and 20 minutes. The roads were rocky and rough and gave me a good arm workout as I held onto the metal railings of the truck. We arrived in Buenos Aires, got our things dropped off at our hostel/house, and headed in search for food. We came across a restaurant but were told by a large group of not so personable Brits that they had rented out the restaurant for the week so we could not eat there. We would have to try the other restaurant in town. We headed there and caught them off guard. They prepared a dinner for us as we sat and waited somewhat patiently. With full stomachs we headed back to our house and hung out by candlelight. There weren't enough "mattresses" for all of us so we pushed all the "mattresses" we had together in the main room and all slept on the floor.

On Saturday morning we woke up early and headed out for a hike to a waterfall called Cataratas Toucan. We had originally planned on going to Cusuco National Park but at dinner the night before met a man who said he had a waterfall we could swim in on the land his coffee farm was on, we we opted to do with him. He led us on a long hike to the waterfall. It was then that I realized I should have trained for this year in Honduras. I struggled to keep up during the incline parts of the hike.

The air was thinner as well, making it more challenging to breathe. We made it to the waterfall and enjoyed a VERY cold swim.

The water was so clear and it felt strange to be so cold. First time being so cold I was shaking in Honduras! Then we hiked back and took turns going through the pressure washer of a shower we had, slept, and headed to a woman's house for dinner. There we had the most FANTASTIC meal I had so far this trip. Delicious chicken, french fries, and delectable vegetables. Not to mention homemade tortillas. More hanging out by candlelight and sleep. The next morning we woke up very early and headed to catch a ride back into Cofradía. The ride downhill was better than the one uphill. Not so necessary to hold on so tight. Fun weekend. Left me pretty sore though! I can't really go down stairs without looking a bit strange.

finally some pictures!

view of the streets after a hard rain. Notice the man attempting to ride his bike.

here is a view of the cancha where students can play basketball, soccer, and will be having their P.E. classes.

Some of the volunteers (L to R: Ashley, Marni, and Steph) working hard on lesson plans

the main lower school hallway, 1st-5th classes are here as well as the learning center, computer lab, and library.

the unpaved path section of my walk to school. This is the path that goes between the pineapple juice plant and the chicken farm.

The paved part of the path that takes you past the cigar factory or back into the center of town. Gorgeous!

recent thoughts...

Things have been continuing to go well here. We are wrapping up our last day of training tomorrow. It has been enjoyable, however I am ready to be done. On Monday we start ¨teaching¨ at Summer Institute. This is a summer school equivalent where lower school (Kinder-3rd) and upper school (5th-9th) will do a simulated classroom. We teach for three hours a day for two weeks. We will teach Math, Science, and Language Arts. Each teacher will teach about 5 or 6 lessons and they we will critique each other. I guess it will be good but I´m ready to just do the real thing. I´m sure as a first time teacher the others are glad we start this way. After those two weeks we have two weeks free to do our own planning and classroom set-up and such. Then school starts on August 23rd!

I am still enjoying living with my host family but I´m kind of ready to move into a more permanent residence. I think I will be living in the house with four other girls which I am pretty stoked about! I really like the feel of the house. We are living with our host families until August 1st. I am really just wanting to actually unpack rather than only semi unpack. The other night it got really chilly and I had to turn on the lights in my room and dig through my suitcase in order to find a pair of pants and a long sleeve t-shirt to wear. Needless to say the combo of cold and light woke me up and it was hard to fall back asleep. I will make sure and saver the time I have left though living with a Honduran family and not having to worry about cooking dinner or making breakfast for myself. They really are a beautiful family and have been great to me so far especially during my brief sickness, making me soup, lots of toast, and even jello! I hope to post some pictures soon. I´m having some difficulty getting them to load onto my computer since internet has been somewhat unpredictable.

reason for long overdo post...

Sorry for the delay in posting. My first few days in Cofradía have been great, however something I ate on Wednesday did not sit well with me. I ended up getting rather ill and was kind of down for the count all day Wednesday and all day Thursday. Thankfully after MANY trips to the bathroom, lots of saltines, gatorade, and toast, I'm feeling better. I was able to go to school today and continue in the training seminars.

The other volunteers are all really great and I am enjoying getting to know them. I am really looking forward to hanging out with them this weekend and spending more time just talking as opposed to talking about education and teaching. I think some of us may venture into San Pedro Sula tomorrow for lunch and to hang out for the afternoon. More to come and hopefully some pictures : )

a long overdo update

I have been enjoying settling into my new home for the next year! I arrived in Honduras on Saturday, July 10^th. I was picked up at the airport and brought to the town of Cofradía. There I was taken to the house of my host family. I will be living with them for the next three weeks and afterward I will move into a house or apartments with the other volunteer teachers.

My host family is very hospitable and welcoming. I am living in a family compound. Basically there are three houses that are all on one piece of land where this woman named Doña Alejandrina lives with her six children. Many of these children are married and have children of their own. It has taken me several days and asking lots of questions to figure out who goes with who and who lives where, but I think I have a pretty good grasp on it. One of Doña Alejandrina’s children has a daughter named Nicole that is going to be one of my 6^th grade students. It has been fun to get to know her and very encouraging as she knows A LOT of English. Yesterday when we were talking she used the word ‘astounded’ in her sentence. I was highly impressed that a second language learner at her age would have the vocabulary to use the word ‘astounded’. Her cousin Angie also lives in the compound and is going to be a third grade student at SJBS (I will use this abbreviation a lot. It is the name of the school-San Jeronimo Bilingual School). Needless to say they are both very happy to talk to me in English and we have played many games of UNO and Go Fish. Nicole also has an 8 month old little brother named Joelito. It is fun to have a baby in the house, minus the joys that come with cloth diapers : ( I have my own room off the back of the house with a nice bed, a few shelves, and most importantly a fan : ) It is HOT here. I have been sweating more than I think I have ever sweat in my life. That includes my track and volleyball days.

The other volunteers are all really nice and interesting and have quite a wide variety of interests, backgrounds, and specialties. I think that will make for a really great year. So far we have been going to the school everyday where we have been receiving Spanish classes and teacher training. Despite the fact that most of what we are learning in teacher training is not new information for me it is a good refresher course on some great key things to remember when working with second language learners. The school is about a 20 minute walk from the center of town. It is located a bit outside of the center of town. I walk down a paved road until I come to the cigar factory(recently closed causing many in town to lose their jobs), make a right on to a rocky, dusty, unpaved road. There is a pineapple juice on the left side of the road and a chicken farm on the right. All along the road there are TONS of butterflies of all different colors that enjoy the benefits of the pineapple factory. At the end of the road is a gate with an armed guard, cross another street, and you are at the gate of the SJBS compound watched by another armed guard.

Some of my favorite things so far:

-The town is surrounded by mountains—absolutely gorgeous

-The sound of the rain on the tin roofs—its rainy season and it rains every evening

-fresh mangos and avocados : )

-The smiles on many of the students faces as they see you in town and ask what grade you are going to teach, hoping you will say the grade they are entering into

-cold showers-surprisingly, they have been pleasantly refreshing so far

"Ready or not, here I come!"

My time here in the states is rapidly coming to a close! I leave for Honduras on July 10th. I hope to use this blog to update friends and family about my adventures. The plan is to update this blog once a week or at the least once every other week : )

While in Honduras I will be living in a house or apartment(don't know which one yet) with the other US teachers(13 of us in total). I will be teaching 6th grade, which I am very excited about! Oddly enough, I will be teaching in English but I have no doubt I will still be using my Spanish on a daily basis probably in the classroom a little and for sure around the community.

Upon arriving in Honduras I will first be spending a couple of weeks living with a family to help learn more about the community, Honduran culture, and San Jeronimo School. During that time I will meet daily with the other teachers to begin preparations for the school year. School starts mid August just like in the States.

During my time in Honduras I will be using the following forms of communication:

email: laureldeeter@gmail.com

skype: deeter105

snail mail: Laurel Deeter

Recomendado Don Wilfredo Fajardo

Barrio El Centro

Cofradía, Cortés

HONDURAS

Best ways to stay in contact me are via email and skype. I do LOVE snail mail so don't hesitate to communicate that way if you enjoy writing letters. Just don't bother sending packages with anything of great value as they will more than likely not make it to me. Little packages will arrive just fine.

background info.

HONDURAS

Honduras is a nation slightly larger than Virginia. Home to approximately 7.3 million people (less than the population of New York City), this democratic constitutional republic has never been able to take full advantage of its abundant natural resources and access to both the Caribbean and Pacific oceans. Tegucigalpa, the capital, is located in the Southwest of the country, while San Pedro Sula, the economic center, is located in the Northwest.

Honduras has often been considered more politically stable than many of its neighbors, and the relatively peaceful resolution of the presidential crisis in 2009 is testament to that. After the removal of Manuel 'Mel' Zelaya, the country was governed by an interim president, Robert Micheletti, until new elections could be held, resulting in the election of Porfirio Lobo Sosa.

Honduras is the third poorest country in the Western Hemisphere (Haiti and Nicaragua being one and two), with GDP per capita at $1,260 (official exchange rate), $3,130 (PPP, IMF). Until the recent global recession, Honduras' economy grew at a steady clip, but the distribution of wealth remains very polarized and averagewages remain low. Economic growth has averaged approximately 3% per year over the last decade, yet poverty levels have remained fundamentally unchanged. About 40% of the working population is considered unemployed or underemployed.

COFRADÍA

Cofradía is a medium-sized town located 15 miles southwest of San Pedro Sula, which is Honduras' second largest city and the country's economic capital.

While Cofradía can feel like a small town, it has grown substantially in the past decades thanks to its proximity to San Pedro Sula. The average BECA volunteer may only visit 6 or 7 colonias (outlying neighborhoods) during his or her year in Cofradía, however, the town boasts more than 25 colonias in toal, many of which extend for miles back towards the Sierra del Merendón. Current pop. estimate= 25,000+.