The End of one journey...the beginning of another

I made it back to the states on June 20th.  It feels great to be back and being able to visit with friends and family in person.  I am so happy to be in control of how hot I am, but am still having a little trouble getting used to the air conditioning.  It is just TOO cold. 

I managed to have an interview and get hired within my first days back.  I will be working for a school district in Buffalo Grove, IL very close to the same area I was working before.  I will be an ELL teacher and will be helping to work with 4th, 5th, and 6th grade ELL (English Language Learner-- English is not their first language) students by going into their classrooms and helping or pulling them out and working in small groups. 

I am SUPER excited for this job.  I love teaching, but I was starting to feel burnt out from being a classroom teacher and was ready for a bit of a change. 

This will be my final post.  Thanks for all of your love and support.  I look forward to catching up with you all soon. 

winding down...

So my time here is starting to wind down.  I finally bought a plane ticket back to the states.  I will be happily joining you all back stateside on Monday June 20th.  : )

Looking forward to catching up with everyone in person!

The Lovely Ladies of The Hosue!

We have had a new member of the house named Amy these past three weeks.  She has been a very fun addition to the already super cool place that is the house.  We love her and wish she could stay forever.  Sadly she will be leaving us shortly to continue on in her traveling through Latin America.
The Ladies of the House from left to right: me, marni(2nd grade teacher), Erin (3rd grade teacher), Steph (kinder/prepa teacher and my roomie), middle/center-Amy.  btw- this picture is from before school at about 6:20am.  Notice how chipper we all are : )

Semana Santa

My parents and sister came to spend some time with me during Semana Santa (the week before Easter).  They came on a Wednesday afternoon and came back to Cofradía with me to experience what my life is like at school and in town.  We went to my host family's (also Nicolle's house from my class) house from the beginning of the year and they got to meet and experience the joy and love that is that household.  We laughed and visited with the family and enjoyed a delicious meal of fried chicken and tajadas.  At school they got to experience the joy of the Honduran manualidad (small craft projects to make things for the house).  We made vases and fake flowers.  It was an experience and I was SOOOO thankful to have three extra sets of hands to help out.

On Friday we headed to the northern coast of Honduras where we spent the night and then hopped on a ferry to take us to the Bay Island of Roatán in the Caribbean the next morning.  We spent three lovely days in Roatán enjoying snorkeling, swimming, zip lining, mom and Kaci went parasailing, went to a butterfly garden, and mom and Kaci swam with dolphins.  We came back and got to enjoy a little bit of time together in San Pedro.  Their time here flew by so fast.  They left on Wednesday and I was left to veg and enjoy one more day with ac and a television by myself.  I then returned to Cofradía and started the joy of searching and applying for jobs.

Día Típico

About a month ago we had a large event on a Sunday at school called Día Típico.  Basically each grade represents a department from Honduras and is responsible for making a choza (hut) to represent their department.  Lots of bamboo, palm branches, sticks, and even clay to make authentic wood burning ovens are brought in.  Parents from each grade work together to make a hut like structure in which food typical of their region will be served.  Also, one student from each grade has to wear the typical dress of that region and answer questions to judges that come around and give points to each grade for their huts, food, decorations, and representative student.   This event was great because us teachers basically had to do nothing but come in and enjoy it.  I banded together with Andrea and Stephanie and we walked around buying any food and juice our hearts desired and then went and shared them all.  I probably tried about 8 different juices in the course of 2 hours.  Talk about sugar overload.    

Lago Yajoa

One weekend Andrea, Stephanie, and I all went away for a relaxing weekend to a lodge right on Lago Yajoa called Agua Azul.  We just relaxed, ate great food (including multiple milkshakes), played a lot of cards, went kayaking, and slept a lot!!!  It was great. Lago is probably one of my favorite places in Honduras!

Music Rocks!!!

 check out some of my students jamming out at drumming club afterschool.  They meet with a member of a local band called Montuca and have really learned some cool stuff.  All of the students are mine except for the keyboarder.  Fabiola is on the snare, Fernando on bass drum on the floor, Maryuri(longer darker hair on the cowbell type thing), Melking on the bongos, and Amely is sitting in the chair playing the funky metal thing.  By the way I have no idea if any of those drum names are correct.  Enjoy!  drum club video

long time no write...

first of all, Aunt Teresa, yes I am alive.  Also, thanks for the valentine's day card : )

So it has been a while.  Things have sort of been same ole same ole here in the du.  A few weekends back I did one of my favorite past times, bowling.  It was just like bowling in the states.  Same cheezy cartoon bowling pin videos and everything on the screens.  Only difference was the music.  Reggeton all the way.

The heat is back people.  The heat has been back and will only continue to rise.  Also, there has not been rain in quite a while and it is SUPER dusty here.  A bus goes by and you have to hold your breath and close your eyes more than normal.  If I walk the back way to school my feet look like they are a completely different ethnicity than the rest of my body.

My class has put my compassion and patience to the test these past three weeks.  The hormones and the attitude are present in full force in my 6th grade classroom.  So much so that discipline has been a large problem and I've had to implement a new discipline system.  I feel like it is helping a great deal, however some students still seem to struggle.  Sadly one students these past three weeks as pretty much self destructed and today wound up getting himself two weeks of out of school suspension.  It kills me to watch this student struggle and I only hope these two weeks help him turn over a new leaf rather than return to school with more anger.

This weekend we will experience Día Típico (typical day) on Sunday.  Each class is representing a department of Honduras and has a booth that is decorated and sells food.  One child from each class dresses up in the typical garb of that department and also several students do a presentation.  And of course like any quality Honduran event there will be multiple fútbol games  Our class is representing the department of Yoro, Honduras.  We spent the past few days making fish and butterflies out of dyed corn husks (the decorations are supposed to be made out of natural materials).  I'm excited to experience Día Típico and REALLY excited to experience all the great delicious food!  Best part is that it is such an event that it takes Monday to clean up so NO SCHOOL MONDAY : )  

Happy Friday and Happy weekend friends and family!  Pictures to come!

turning over a new leaf

So as my previous post stated this first week back was a difficult one.  The second week back also proved to be very difficult as one of my student's fathers was shot and killed on Tuesday morning.  He was also the husband of the woman that owns and runs our cafeteria at school.  Needless to say two funerals in two weeks was a very overwhelming way to ring in 2011.
Things have continued to start to look up and get better as this week has begun.  The student whose father died has returned to school and we started a new semester this week.  Getting excited about teaching some new units has been harder than normal to do, but I think I have finally gotten over the hump and am feeling more positive about things.  This week we are going to Zanmorano (a bit outside of Tegucigalpa) for a teacher conference.  That should help to pump me up and motivate me.  Plus, I never pass up a chance to go to Tegucigalpa.  I'm hoping to get to hang out with my host family from my semester abroad again : ) We leave Fri or Sat and come back Tuesday.

The Lord giveth and taketh away...blessed be the name of the Lord

    Today I did the thing that I never thought I would do while here in Honduras; I attended a Honduran funeral.  Miss Sandra, the pre-school/kindergarten teacher from school, passed away yesterday from a life long battle with Lupus.  She has had large complications on and off throughout her life and was recently struggling greatly with her disease.  She has not been able to teach since mid September or October and has had many treatments and surgeries.  She was well enough that she was able to join us for our Thanksgiving Dinner celebration at our house, but she quickly got worse again shortly after.
    She was a kind woman with heart of gold.  The children loved her and she will be greatly missed.  Today was a difficult one.  We hopped on a bus to go to her funeral which took place outside at the gravesite.  It was a beautiful ceremony which celebrated her life.  It was obvious she had touched so many lives with the crowd that gathered to return her to the earth.  It is always hard to say goodbye to someone but it was especially hard to watch her husband as he literally buried his own wife.  She leaves behind a husband and two boys (Andres-8th grade and Gabriel-7th grade).  Please keep their family in your prayers.  They have a long road ahead of them.

Birthday in Honduras = success!

My birthday was on Wednesday or this week and I was a little nervous about having my birthday in a new place and even more nervous about turning 25, or a quarter century old as my friends like to put it.  My students were very nice to me and threw me a "surprise" party during the last period of the day.  They have social studies in another room.  I was working in our classroom and a couple of my students came in insisting that I come to the room because there was a huge problem and the boys were in trouble.  So I went and when I walked through the doors they sang happy birthday to me.  We had cake and doritos and chips and salsa.  I felt loved.  A student even gave me two pairs of earrings : )
Later that night my fellow housemates also sang to me and had decorated two cemitas (delicious sugary cake roll things that I love) with frosting and put a candle in each one.  On Friday night the celebration kept going as one of my students invited me and my housemates over for dinner and cake and ice cream.
Like I said I have felt very loved!  Maybe 25 won't be that bad.  After all I can finally rent a car!

should have been a quick trip but...

So what should have been a quick 7ish hour trip total back to Honduras ended up taking almost 24 hours.  I left my parents' house at 2:30am on Monday morning to catch my 5:35am flight from Chicago to Miami.  Everything seemed to be going so smoothly until I got on the plane.  Why they even let us on the plane I'm not sure.  Take off time goes by and an announcement is made; the captain is not here yet.  Then the stewardess proceeds to say he is not even at the airport yet.  Two hours later a captain shows up.  Apparently the original captain that was supposed to fly us got ill and it took that long to find a replacement and get him there.  We finally take off after sitting on the plane for 2 hours.
We land in Miami.  I know I'm cutting it SUPER close.  We land at 11:20 and my connecting flight to Miami leaves at 11:40am.  I get off the plane at 11:30 hoping I can run for it.  Nope, no such luck.  I missed it.  So I go to a desk and get on the next flight.  Except the next flight was at 7:20pm.  Awesome, a 7 hour layover.  Not so awesome.  At least they gave me a food voucher for lunch and dinner and bumped me up to first class for my flight.  Great time to have my first First Class experience.  I had ice cream on my flight.  It was great!  Then I arrived in San Pedro and they didn't have my bag.  But there were some people we knew from town waiting to take a church group into town from our flight so we hitched a ride with them.   I finally made it to my house at midnight.  LONGEST DAY EVER!!!!  I went and got my bag yesterday.  All is well.