End of Quarter II, Beginning of Roommate VI

This past week was the last week of Quarter II for my 7th graders. That means all week they had final exams and I only taught the 5th graders, whom do not have exam week.

These are the students lining up before school.

This past Sunday I got a new roommate and I hope I don't scare this one off like the last 5 :-)

Her name is Liz and having lived with her for a week, I can say she is a great person to be around. She is in her early 30's and has spent the last two years working in US embassy in Mexico City. Before working for the government however she got a masters in education. So she has taken a couple months off from work to get back to the classroom for a bit. Not only is she full of great advice and information, but she also had a desire to teach math to 3rd-5th graders, so....I happily let her take over the 5th grade math classes.

Like I said she is full of great ideas, and so when were chatting about how one of our common goals is to become better at Spanish, she suggested that we invite a Honduran over once a week for dinner. Here she is after we are about to have our Honduran guests arrive on Tuesday night.

Henry is who Liz and I invited. He is a gardener at school. He actually lived in Florida for five years and so speaks some English, but at this table we asked him not to use it. On the left is Peggy, my roommate for the first three weeks after Christmas break. It was her last night in Honduras before she needed go back to Connecticut and finish college. She was great to live and I started seeing her as a "The Olancho Aid mom" because she was always wanting to make meals and pack lunches. It was sad to see her go.

For our Tuesday night dinner, however, she invited one of her Honduran friends over, who also cleans our house, Benita.

This is Benita's son, Fernando, who is a 2nd grader at Santa Clara. He didn't feel like eating so he decided to hang out in the living room and play monster truck games on the computer.

Her is Peggy and I the next morning when she was about to get on her bus to the airport.

The week continued and the 7th graders took their tests. Here is one of my "challenging" students, wearing my sunglasses on the busride to school. The 7th graders like to hangout on the back of the bus.

The just couldn't get enough of my sunglasses.

Eventually, after much test correcting and finalizing quarterly grades, the weekend came. On Friday we had our little guitar session and Saturday was full activities. Saturday night though, Honduras played an exhibition soccer game with the US, which actually took place down in Carson, California. So, I gave my first roommate, Mario, a call to see if he was free. 2 hours later, Mario, Mario's current roommate, Jay, and myself were grabbing dinner at Chester's Chicken and heading back to Mario's to watch the game.

Here is the three of us each with a barriga llena, corazon contento (full stomach, happy heart). Jay is a bit older than Mario and I. He is a grandfather from New England, who, after retiring, wanted to do service work. This is his second time to Honduras and he spent a year in Haiti doing public health work. He has been sharing his personal reactions to the devastating earthquake which happened their recently. On a lighter note though, we watched the game and even though US lost 3 to 1, it was a good night.

Today, Sunday, I went to mass with Sarah, Beth and Nicole (other volunteer teachers at Santa Clara), and then met up with two high school seniors from Missouri who we had met earlier in the week. They have been down here in Juticalpa for a month, even though we didn't know about them until this week. They told us that their Jesuit high school mandates that seniors take the month of January off to "serve." Since one of their Dad's is a doctor and does medical work in next town north of here, they decided to come to Juticalpa. Apparently, they have been doing a lot of physical labor and medical work, but this past week, their last in Honduras, they came to Santa Clara to help in the classroom, help the gardeners and play with the kids, which is where we met them. One thing they haven't done though is get out into town much, so we took them to Central Park and got tacos and gringas with them. We assured them they wouldn't get sick off the local food...I hope we were right.

That's all for now, hasta luego, (until later).

busy busy

This is week two since we got back from Christmas break and teaching at Santa Clara is busy. Besides it being the end of the 2nd quarter and having to prepare final's tests, the 5th grade teacher has been having chronic voice loss from teaching. She consulted her doctor over the Christmas break and he said if she didn't make a change she could damage her voice permanently. So I have taken over her math classes. I am happy to do this...but it is pushing me to grow in my capabilities.





Besides much lesson planning and such, we had a mass on Thursday. It was given by a priest, Fr. Dan, who runs another organization here in Olancho called Project Eden. It is centered around agriculture and healthy living. This is the organization that my friend and once roommate, Mario, is part of. Later in the week, Friday, Padre Dan, Mario another guy, Jay, and I went out for dinner.








Here are some of my female students in their "mass day" uniforms.

And the guys.

Finally Friday came and I couldn't have been happier to have some time off. When I was in school I never thought that teachers could be happier than their students that the weekend had arrived, but I know it is true now! However while we were finishing up school, but still had about 30 minutes left of class a group of men came to fumagate for mosquitos. They seemed to be in a hurry because we didn't get to finish the day and we had to leave early.

We even got a little fumagated ourselves! You never know what is going to happen down here.

So we got out of there and the beautiful weekend arrived. And what better way to start it than playing some guitar. Some of the other volunteers have voiced their desire to learn guitar and so I am helping some of them learn. Here is Beth, the southern bell from South Carolina.

Then on Saturday we celebrated our director's, Carlos', birthday. He's the man. The weekend was good and relaxing. Also, today, Sunday, the organization gained a new volunteer for ten weeks and I gained a new roommate. Her name is Elizabeth and she is 31. She is nice. She will be helping out at Santa Clara.

As for the upcoming week, I get a bit of a break because it is testing week and I will be administering tests mostly.

I hope all is well with you and may you see all your days as full of infinite possibilities rather than "normal" or "routine." Que le vaya bien (Have a good day)!

1st Week Back

The break ended and it was time to say goodbye to friends and family. I flew out of San Francisco on a redeye flight Saturday night.


Golden Gate

We, volunteers, arrived back in Juticalpa Sunday afternoon, and before we knew it were back at school on Monday morning with our students. The week was a "getting back into the rhythm of things" type of week. However, we got through it, even with a few minor colds, and Friday arrived.

We were happy to have the weekend so we decided to go out for dinner.

It was good to see volunteer friends again. However the volunteers from before the break weren't the only ones back in Juticalpa. Three volunteers from last year, John, Eric and Peggy, came down with John's family and their friends. Peggy is here for about 2 more weeks to help with office work, but John, Eric, John's family and friends were here to retar the roof of the special needs school of the Olancho Aid Foundation (there are three schools in the OAF: a high school (Cardinal), an elementary school (Santa Clara), where I teach, and the special needs school (Nazareth)). Eric, John, John's family and friends along with Hondurans worked during the week on the roof while we long-term volunteers taught and on Saturday morning we got a chance to see the project.

(pardon the format)

They would transfer tar from 55 gallon barrels to 5 gallon buckets and then use a pulley system to lift the buckets to the roof.

Once on the roof they would pour the tar into 25 gallon barrels...

and make a fire under them to heat the tar.

When the tar had the right viscosity they would spread it on the roof with paint rollers...

then put a layer of water-proofing paper ontop of the tar.

After a couple of layers of this, this is what it look begins to look like.

Here are some pictures from the top of Nazareth's roof.

After working on Saturday the special needs students of Nazareth had us gather for a show.

But it wasn't just a show to entertain. It was also to show some important people what kind students Nazareth provides for. Mark, above, a friend of John's family, is from the Rotary Club in California (he and his family are actually from Woodland...small world). The came down to meet with the Rotary Club here in Juticalpa. The idea was to have the two clubs collaborate in funding Nazareth, which is totally tuition-free for its students.

Angel, as well as other officers from Rotary Club, Juticalpa, seemed to think that Nazareth was a worthy project to get involved with. Thus, not only was the new roof a positive step for Nazareth, but now there seems to be a solid source of funding for the future.

If I have talked with you since I started my time here with the Olancho Aid Foundation you might have heard me say that one of the struggles we volunteers have had is that our students at Santa Clara were different than what we expected. We thought they would be poor children who were struggling to afford clothes and such. However on the first day of school we were greeted with students who were well groomed, had full bellies and had parents using Blackberry phones. We questioned what value we were providing children who weren't struggling (at least financially). It was not easy for some of us to deal with, in fact some volunteers decided to leave due, in part, to this.

Sometimes though, when time has passed a bit, consolation come. This week we learned a little more about the funding of Olancho Aid. We learned that the tuition that the middle/upper class students of Santa Clara pay, helps pay for Nazareth, which doesn't charge tuition. So maybe we volunteers aren't working with the poor, but in a larger sense we are helping to provide for the special needs youth who wouldn't otherwise have a chance at education. This is motivating for us.

Ok, enough of the deep stuff...who are these Nazareth students?

These are two deaf girls who did a dance for us to music. (think about that)

A down syndrome student singing.

A down syndrom girl performing a Shakira dance.

A young man singing.

A skit.

A young woman, with cerebral palsy, reading a poem.

The students giving hearts and hugs to John, and his family and friends.

All together.

And actually if you look closely in the back of the group picture you can see why a new roof was needed.

After all of that, John's family took us out to dinner which included good food, conversation, drinks and dancing.

Although Christmas break was great, it is good to be back.

Holidays

Long time no talk, let's get caught up on things. Currently it is January 1st, 2010 and I am finishing up a two week break back home in California. Tomorrow I fly back to Honduras until June to complete the school year.

I think I stopped blogging a couple weeks before our Christmas break and so let's pick up there........those weeks consisted of tests, projects, and getting progress reports turned in. In the final days before the break, however, we enjoyed pre-Christmas parties, a Secret Santa gift-exchange, good-byes to our short-term volunteer and my roommate, Danielle, and last but not least, a Christmas show.


The Christmas Show was a reinactment of the birth of Jesus, complete with a manger scence, student actors, the entire student body singing Christmas carols, and a live donkey.

We used a gym in town and decorated it for all the parents to sit, eat and enjoy. The kids did well in the reinactment and songs, and I think the parents enjoyed it as well.

They even let me accompany the student body with my guitar while they sang their songs.

So the time before the break was good, but all of us volunteers were more than ready to get back to the states to see family and friends (and enjoy the pleasures we had been missing since we came to Honduras like showers with hot water, home-cooked meals, etc.) This picture is of the day I arrived back in San Francisco. My folks, Michael and Kathy and her folks had lunch and chomped some chocolate.

Back in Santa Rosa, I spent my days doing things I consider "vacation"...running in Annadel State Park, sleeping in, seeing friends and family, and did I mention taking hot showers :-)

Christmas was great and New Years was as well. We had some close family friends come up to visit. Here's Elizabeth (long time family friend and now girlfriend of my older brother Kevin) making Bailtini's (Bailey's made into a martini)...too strong for my taste.

The ladies (my mom, Emily, Madeleine and Amy) having fun while cooking.

And boy did they cook!

And then on News Years Eve we hiked some more in Annadel State Park.

We discovered some redwoods along the way. Here's lumber jack Ben...

and the hiking crew trying to stay in frame.

Our time together wasn't without some minor gliches. Here is Elizabeth's car at Les Schwab's after the breaks went out....no accident luckily.

But that didn't keep our spirits down.

After the break incident, we grabbed some lunch...

up in beautiful wine country, Healdsburg,

and then went wine tasting!

(sorry about the format). I learned that when people swirl the wine in their glasses they are letting it "breath" instead of seeing who can make the coolest whirlpool effect :-)

Salud!

Later that night Emily and the rest of us enjoyed Ed's guitar playing....

food...

presents.... (my older brother Kevin)

(more presents)... (Steve and Amy - my god-parents and longtime family friends)

converstation....

and each other's company. (The Karbousky's, Duncan's and Gallagher's)

Actually it was a double celebration because it was Steve's birthday ... he was turning 25 :-)

We ended the first decade of the new millennium playing "The Game" (similar to the game telephone but only using written word and pictures).

And what better way to bring in the new year than Ed playing his bagpipes in his full Irish regalia.

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Leaving for Honduras tomorrow, I already know I will miss my family incredibly. However, this vacation, like all things, will pass and life goes on. We just have to learn to live in each moment and cherish the memories.

Hope your holidays were wonderful and your new year is full of joy and love.

(next entry will be from Honduras)