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