last weeks of school

Hey Ya'll,



Dan here wanting to get caught up on things. As you might know from the last blog school is coming to a close (we have one more week)! For 7th grade that means my students are taking their 4th quarter final exams. After that there will be an end of the school year party day, recuperation exams for students who didn't make grades and some paper work, but then it is onto vacation. Year 1 of teaching...almost complete!



Life is good here in Juticalpa. Good people to be around and each day is full of things to take care of, places to go, people to enjoy and experiences to be had.



Mario and I are doing well in the house. We're keeping up our good cooking: lately it has been sweet corn from his farm and mucho mantequilla (a lot of mantequilla which is sort of a butter/sourcream sauce). We put it on pretty much everything although a dietitian might tell us to do otherwise.

One thing that happened lately which was fun was the Math Olympics 2010. Apparently every May there is a day where top junior high and high school students from all around take a math test, and then the top students move on to a larger regional competition. So last week our principal Annie informed me that we would be going and that I would be chaperoning our students. Three of my 7th graders got to go and three 6th graders too.

So we jumped on a bus that was also taking students from other schools and drove up to the next town Catacamas. In the picture is Annie's husband, Henry, who is a math teacher at another school in town. He shares my affinity for math which makes him a really cool guy. Actually, I don't know if I mentioned this, but Annie, Henry and their baby Tommy, are going to be moving to the states this July. The reason is in part because Henry wants to study math at a US university so he can go on to become a professor. All of us here at Olancho Aid are very sad to see Annie leaving because she is such an amazing educator and person, but we all understand their decision and hope them the best.

Anywho, here are the top mathletes from the area lining up to sign in.

Here is team Santa Clara.

Jonathan is a little math genius. I majored in math in college and he was explaining math problems after the test to me in clearer ways than I could understand them myself!

There were probably 300 students, 30 teachers and some administrative people there....I was the only white person, haha.

The students were split into 3 levels according to which grade they were in. The grades ranged fom 6th through 12th. Here are some level 1 students chatting nervously before the test.

There were 5 problems and the students had 3 hours to complete them.

The level of concentration in those classrooms was intense.

But with the spirit of math in the air it was over before we knew it.

Someone smarter than me told me that life is about balance, and since Friday was all about academics, that meant Saturday was time to party. We volunteer teachers got invited to one of the Honduran teacher's birthday parties. We did some dancing and socializing. Here are most of the lovely ladies I have been fortunate enough to spend a year with.

Then we went out dancing at a local dance club.

Here I am working on my bachata with Iveth, one of the Honduran teachers at Santa Clara.

But the real stars of the night were these two. At one point everyone had cleared the dance floor and they had everyone's attention with their suave dance moves.

My old roommate in college believed that if you have a big night, you should get up the next day and do something active rather than laying around trying to recover. In keeping with that, myself, Mario, a short-term volunteer Sam, who lives in the same colonia with us, decided to cut the grass of an overgrown soccer field near our houses. Here is Sam with showing us how to get the job done with 21st century technology.

Here is me attempting to get the job down with 15 century technology, but I have always wanted to use a machete.

Mario was the real expert at using it though.

After mowing the lawn we were exhausted and thirsty. We noticed some coconut trees nearby and since we had our machetes we decided to have a drink.













Having recovered from a big weekend of dancing, it was back to school for our second to last week of the year, but my last week of actual teaching since the last week is for testing.

It was a week of review and trying to bring closure to some of the things we have been learing. Many of the students though are more than ready for vacation and don't want to do any more school work. I can't blame ... many of us teachers feel the same way.

My students did get a hold of my camerca at one point,

and they do love the spotlight,

very much.

This weekend that is coming to an end now, was fun and full of activity. 2nd grade's First Communion, lunch at our bus driver's house (Victor), a get together with american teachers from another bilingual school in town and our last Life Teen (youth group) meeting. Here are some of the youth group students enjoying some soda and chips.

Here is the youth of Life Teen along with Sarah, Beth, Rosie, Sam and myself.

These have been some of the highlights of the past two weeks. I hope you enjoyed them and I hope life is finding you well.

Hasta luego (until later)

The School Year Coming to an End

Hola,

Glad to see you again. Last time we talked I believe I was announcing my decision to stay for another year. Before getting too carried away in the future though let's look around and see where things are at now. Well, we are in the homestretch of this school year. We have 3 weeks left of official classes followed by a week or so of grades and paperwork before we are out for the summer!

Many of us teachers begin each day with the thought that the end is near. It is bitter sweet for some. Sweet in that everyone can't wait for a two and a half month vacation, but bitter in that many of the teachers will not be seeing their kids again once they go back to the states.

However before too much emotion takes over there is still work to be done. For me that means trying to fit in all the things I wanted to teach this year, but never seemed to get to. This past week in math the 7th grade learned about scale drawings and proportion, then we made proportionally correct floor plans of our classrooms. Next week I hope to get my kids thinking about the value of their education by looking at the children of Afghanistan and Pakistan that Greg Mortenson (3 Cups of Tea, Stones Into Schools) has been building schools for who otherwise wouldn't have an education.

This sounds great in theory, but another reality at school is that kids are getting harder to keep focused on school. They know the summer is close too! I am having some of my greatest challenges in classroom discipline right now....which brings to my next point....Fridays.

Our regular Friday basketball games with the local university students is nothing short of sacred. We really let out the steam from a week of frustrating students, grading, lesson planning, and all the curveballs teaching can throw at you.

We had a big group this past Friday since and group of volunteers just arrived on Thursday. Three of them, Rosie, Sam and John have been volunteers here in the past. Like many of the people that come down here, they are great people and fun to be around.

Some of our students even came to the game.

Like always, we played hard until it got dark.

We all had a good time.

This Friday, however, there was a little extra bonus because Padre Ricardo, who is the founder of the Olancho Aid Foundation, invited us over for spaghetti and beers. Here is Beth, Nicole and Rosie digging in.

After a long week, basketball and dinner at Padre's we slept like rocks. Today, Saturday, one of my student's family invited myself and a few other teachers to a river to swim and barbeque. This river, Rio Boqueron, was actually the same river that some of us teachers went to last weekend to go hiking. That hike was suppose to be a pleasant hike with a nice view at the end, but instead it turned into a death march: our guide (the security guard from school) didn't know where he was going, there were all kinds of poisonous and thorned plants, barbed wire, fires, steep cliffs, bees, spiders, ticks and not enough water (I have some pictures on facebook of this if you want to check it out). This Saturday was much nicer.

We went to a nice swimming hole,

cut some wood,

and got the BBQ going.

We cooked up some chata (a variety of fruit in the banana family)

Oh and then we cooked up some great beef and pork. I probably ate a whole cow by the end of the day,

but there was enough for everyone.

It was great hanging out with our students outside of school,

enjoying each other's company,

looking at the fish,

and swimming.

We had a great time. It was a great way to unwind from a long week of school.

Tomorrow we go to Mario's soccer game in San Francisco and then it is onto the lesson planning for next week. Before we know it this year will be over. Before everyone leaves, some of us plan on taking a little vacation throughout Honduras to see some of the islands off the north coast and the Ruinas de Copan (some ancient Mayan ruins on the west side of Honduras). I plan on staying this summer working on the farm with Mario and possibly teaching some English classes. More to come as time unfolds.

Hope all is well back home and life is treating you well.

April in Juti

Hello Everyone,

So it has been awhile since I have put up a good blog, so here we go. We have just finished the month of April and there are only 5 more weeks of school...crazy how time flies. I can remember walking into my classroom for the first time. However, now that the science fair is over, we are doing some fun projects. In geography we made salt dough maps (a playdough-like mixture of salt and dough) of mountains above India: the Himalayas, Karakoram and the Hindu Kush.

Here are the 7th graders making them. Notice Kevin on the left there with a nice wad of salt dough in his hand...perfect for throwing. Yes, he did throw it...I had to make him stand in a corner by himself for a few minutes before he could join the group again.

Some kids got a lot out of it, like Concepcion here.

Also at school, we just had Dia del Trabajo, the equivalent of our Labor Day. Here is our Directora, Flavia, thanking our janitor ladies and garderners in front of the whole school (from left to right: Don Jose, Dona Patricia, Dona Veronica, Dona Marina, Ninera Claudia and Ninera Kenya). They are great people.

In my personal life, I have moved out of my old house, where I was living with all the short term volunteers (they have all gone home for the time being), and moved back in with Mario. I lived with him for about 1 week when I first arrived in Honduras. Here is our house, Betania.

It is a nice little house in gated colonia (community)...muy tranquilo.

la sala

la cocina

y mi dormitorio.

We are still holding our youth group every Saturday. One Saturday night we decided to have a campfire at one of the student's property outside of town. Night tag, smores and telling jokes was a good time.

Some Saturday's though, no students show up for youth group. When that happens we make the best of the situation. Sara has been showing Beth and I (we are the three youth group leaders) her gymnastic's skills.

I have been wanting to learn to do a backflip like the soccer players sometimes do when the score a goal. Looks a little difficult, although Sara can do it, so I asked her to help me learn to stand on my hands. I am up to five seconds!

Also, as I mentioned in the last blog, I am going to be staying for another year. I am going to be moving to another campus, the junior high/high school campus. This is right next to the university that is also part of the Olancho Aid Foundation. Here are some pictures of the university and jr/high school campus.

It is really nice and I am excited about it.

Like most Hondurans, my roommate Mario plays soccer. He is in a league that plays every Sunday. In fact his team recently got second place in their league and so are playing at the regional level.

There team name is Milan.

So, myself and most of the other volunteers decided that a good way to spend the first half of our Sundays was to cheer on team Milan.

So for the last three Sundays we have piled into the back of Mario's truck, while he drives to whatever town he his team is playing in that week.


It has been a good way to get out and see the countryside of Olancho.

Megan's parents even joined us while they were here visiting from New York.

We gringos set up our chairs on the sideline right next to all the Hondurans. We get a lot of attention being white, although the girls get it the worst.

Wearing a hat is important in the intense sun down here.

Hey Ginny.

The games can get rough. The guys that play are between 15-27 (quite a rang) and they play hard.

Ya Mario!

This past Sunday, we decided that since we gringos couldn't stick out any worse than we already do, we would spray paint shirts. The Mario's team got a kick out of it.

After one of the games we were in Mario's hometown, San Francisco de la Paz, and Mario took us to the farm/health clinic where he works. (Mario lives in Juticalpa, but commutes to SF everyday).

So we got the tour of the farm.

Mario got his degree in agro-industrial engineering.

He and is workers produce some great crops.

Mario in his element.

Lovely Ms. Veazey, Sara, with a lovely looking onion.

Mario checking to see if the carrots are ready for harvesting.

It is a beautiful place.

This summer I am still trying to make plans: one option is go to language school somewhere, but another option is to stay here and work on the farm with Mario. Vamos a ver (we will see).

Hope all is well with you, and take care.