Beginning of Lent

Hello Bloggers,

Sorry about missing last Sunday's blog, but you'll have to excuse me. I will explain everything in the following :-)

So last time we left off was Sunday the 14th of February. Monday started a full 5 day week at school with plenty of work to do. We are pioneering a school-wide science fair, which is taking a lot of energy. We should be completing it just before Semana Santa (Holy Week).

Speaking of leading up to Holy Week, Ash Wednesday (the day that begins the season of Lent) was on 17th and so we had a school-wide service.

Padre Ricardo (Father Richard) said the service and gave out ashes.

Here's Rony (middle) sitting with his kinder buddy.

It was a good service with lots of music and the ever-present Honduran hand waving.

The next day, Thursday, Liz and I had Maritza, one of the Honduran 7th grade teachers, over for a spanish-speaking only dinner. She brought her husband and her friend Carola. Carola has been studying english for some time now and wanted to meet us Americans.

Maritza made yucca con chicharon, which is basically yucca (a root-like vegetable), fried pork rhines and a cheese pepper topping. It was pretty good but I could live without the fried pork rhines.

Oh, and Maritza brought her two children also.

Friday came and after a long week we were never so happy. This picture was taken at one of our favorite restaraunts in town, Oregano's. We volunteers, were being treated to dinner by Kristi and Rob Privette before they left the next day to go home. Kristi and Rob are a couple who volunteered down here two years ago. Kristi is a high school science teacher in the states and Rob is a veterinarian, but they both are still involved in Olancho Aid. During the week that they were here Rob helped in the office and Kristi helped at school. She observed in my classroom and later gave me advice on how I can manage my class better...thanks Kristi.

Annie's son Tommy, enjoyed the meal too.

Besides making lesson plans for the next week and chores, we had the 6th and 7th grade youth group on Saturday. We had a few newcomers that weekend.

We talked about Lenten resolutions.

Then came Sunday, and it was a good one. I say this because on a rare occasion I get beyond my thick skull and do something smart like following good advice. This Sunday I followed the advice of taking Sunday off and using it for rest. In the morning my roommate Liz, Annie, Tommy, Annie's husband, Henry, Padre, a group of 19 volunteers from New Hampshire (who are here doing medical service for a week) and I went up to the little town north of here, Jutiquile, and went to mass.

Here is Tommy and Annie.

Here are the New Hampshire volunteers mingling with the locals during the sign of peace (la paz).

At the end of mass Padre brought all the New Hampshire volunteers to the front of the church to introduce them and explain to the congregation what they were doing here.

After mass, Liz and I were dropped off at one of my student's, Christian, property. He had invited us earlier that week.

Alejandro and Lupita, also 7th graders, walked us around the property when we arrived.

A rural plot of land.

Here's one of the neighbor's houses.

I was happy to be there.

This is Christian's little brother, Edward (I believe). Although he looks like a little man, he's only in kinder.

Alejandro and Lupita are cousins....but honestly, everyone seems to be cousins down here.

So what did we do all day....well, fish swim, birds fly and Hondurans (aka catrachos) play soccer... and so we played.

And then we ate and talked.

And then we played some more soccer.

We repeated this cycle of play, eat, talk, play until the sun went down.

It was a great way to spend Sunday.

The next week, this past week, was another full 5 day week with lots of things to teach, tests to take, science projects to work on, etc. However, outside of school some exciting things happend. On Tuesday evening I got a phone call from our principle Annie. Here's how it went:

Annie - "Hey Dan."

Dan - "Hey Annie."

Annie - "Guess what?"

Dan - "What?"

Annie - "There a new volunteer coming who will be living with you. He's from Boston and likes to play sports."

Dan - "Great. When is he coming?"

Annie - "Tomorrow."

I was excited that there would be another male volunteer for the first time since September, but I was a little shocked about how soon he would be arriving. Apparently someone in the office had thought someone else had told me, and that person had thought someone else had told me...you get the idea. Even if it was a geniune mistake in communication, it still adds to the wisdom any volunteer in Honduras should be told, be flexible and expect the unexpected.

Luckily though Tony, all 6'6'' of him, turned out to be a really cool guy. Here he is playing my guitar. His first day was a little rough though: he left Boston at 3:00 that morning, on the busride from Teguc to Juti, his bus broke down, and when he arrived a lightening storm hit leaving us without power or water. Badly wanting to be clean after a long day, he took his first Honduran shower outside in the rain. Liz, my other roommate, and I felt a little guilty because we had planned to play some "newcomer" tricks on him, but then reconsidered when we realized that just living day to day life is challenging enough.

But there was a good part to that day too. The group of volunteers from New Hampshire invited us up to Nazareth (the school where they are staying), for some dinner.

Benita did the cooking for us.

Then again on Thursday, the New Hampshire group took us out to dinner at a good restaruant in town, La Fonda's.

I had been waiting for months to try the pincho mixto (mixed meat kabobs).... mmm

Aww and Friday... In the last month we have started to play basketball and soccer with some of the local universtiy students on Friday afternoons. And now that Tony, who can dunk and is probably the tallest person in Juticalpa, was on our team we were ready to dominate.

Things turned out quite different than we thought though. The regular students we play against didn't show up, but instead a bunch of tall local guys did. I thought Hondurans were only good at soccer, but I was wrong. They ended up crushing us 5 to 0. Like I said, expect the unexpected.

Here's Sarah and Megan supplying us all with much need water after the game. (yes notice the water is bagged, not bottled).

Saturday found us at the orphange with the youth group.

We did some reading to the little kids, but the hit of the day was a good game of elbow tag.

go Lupita go

Jose Manuel, a 7th grader, catching his breath with one of the orphan girls.

Sunset outside of the orphanage.

Walking down the road after leaving the orphange.

I just like this picture.

And what is this you might be wondering??? Well, while I was eating dinner at La Fonda's on Thursday night with the group from New Hampshire, we got to talking about little differences between west coast USA and the east coast: I had never heard of a "snowblower" or didn't use the adjective, "wicked" example. "he's wicked smart" (actually this was more Tony's Boston talk). What the New Hampshire group was really surprised about though was how I had never had a peanut butter and fluff sandwich. They were so appalled at my lack of culture :-) they insisted I try one before they left.

It was pretty good.

Saturday night was their last night in town and so they showered us teacher volunteers with gifts: shampoo, Q-tips, peanut butter, etc. Here's Beth with a bag full of goodies. They were a great group and hopefully they make it home safely.

Then on Sunday I decided to go mass in Jutiquile again although today, I am sadly not able to take the whole day off like last week since I have to get some tests graded. Here' Annie and Tommy at mass.

Tommy's cuteness makes makes him a popular guy.

Actually I was pretty popular at mass also. One of the men came up to me after mass and insisted I have my picture taken with some of the local girls, who he kept telling me one of them had been to the states. Don't worry Mom, I am not engaged.

Here is what Jutiquile looks like.

After mass we were invited to sweet bread and coke in one of the local's houses.

And that brings me to the present. Overall things are great here. We have four more weeks before Easter break when myself and some other volunteers head out to Mexico. Currently on my mind, between attending to my teaching responsibilities and running around doing all the things I have just described, is what to do after this year: stay another year, go home, find another volunteer program. We'll see.

Hope you are well and enjoying life.

Hasta luego.

Week of Love and Friendship...and disciplining students.

Hello blog followers. I hope you are having wonderful Valentine's Day whether you are celebrating love between couples, family or friends. Down here in Honduras they call this day Dia del Amor y la Amistad (Day of Love and Friendship).

So what else is going down here?



Well on Thursday, my roommate Liz and I celebrated our friendship with one of the 7th grade Honduran teachers, Maritza, by having her over to one of our "spanish speaking only" dinners. Maritza teaches 7th grade also: Social Studies and Civic Education. She is all smiles and great to talk to...

and not as tall as I am.

The big news on Tuesday at school was Henry's new found turtle. No, there was much more going on than just that.

He's a lot smaller than the 900 pound sea turtles of Costa Rica.

As for academics, this week was a mathematically challenging since my students had to learn to how to convert from one metric unit of volume to another. Here is Hector, Concepcion and Jose Manuel taking a hands-on approach to learning.

I think they liked this change of learning from the normal Mr. Karbousky lectures.

I just had to make sure the blocks remained tools of learning rather than ammunition for a classwide block fight.

7th grade and I did get through the academically challenging week, although their behavior pushed me and other teachers to new levels of frustration. Our principal Annie and myself had to have "a talk" with them after they were all kept in for detention at lunch on Thursday. But luckily Friday arrived right on time, and after they finished their math test we hung out outside. Here are some of them enjoying some music.

Jose Manuel is a rocker at heart.

and maybe Jonathan too...

but no one tops Elmer.

The girls love it when I take out my camera. Here is Dunia and Arleth.

Ivonne.

But the girls got really jazzed when we discovered the camera's "paint" function.

They couldn't get enough of it.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Catching Up on Things

Long time no talk ya'll. It has been two weeks since my last post, but that means I have been very busy and there is lots to talk about in this post. So...not this past week but the week before was the week that the new president of Honduras, Pepe Lobos, was inaugurated into office. That meant we had the day off school. After talking to Padre Alberto (we'll get to him later), he says one of the problems with Honduras is corruption in the government...hopefully this new president will make some positive changes.
Anyway, although we did have school off, we teachers had a meeting to discuss the upcoming science fair this spring. It should be a great experience for the students. More on that in weeks to come. After the meeting though, myself and some of the girls (volunteers) headed to one of our regular restaurants, Tacos Mexicanos. This place will make your mouth burn, which is unlike most Honduran food. I used to be under the impression that the farther south you go from the USA the spicer the food got, but actually, only Mexico seams to have the spicy food. Down here and during my time in Costa Rica last summer, I have found the food to be pretty bland.



Speaking of food, on the following Sunday, Liz and I had one of the art teachers, Karol, over for brunch to practice our Spanish. We had a great conversation when she arrived....when she arrived. Besides bland food, punctuality is another little cultural regularity I have learned about. When a Honduran says they will be at your house at 1:00, they really mean 3:00. This is something that can drive us Americans nuts, but if you are patient you learn to live with it.

The next week of school, was a funfilled week because it was catholic school's week. This meant that Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday all had themes or activities, and then Thursday and Friday we had parent teacher conferences.

Monday was dia de los calcetines locos (crazy sock day).

Let's see 'em Kevyn.

Nice.

Here's a fifth grader, Carlos David.

Jonathan, my little 7th grade math wiz.

Me and the girls. I didn't have much in my wardrobe for crazy socks, but I wore unmatching ones.

Yes Alex.

I think quiet Katherine's took the cake.

Then Tuesday was "students dress like teachers and teachers dress like students" day.

Here is the 5th grade Honduran teacher, Ivonne senior, with her 7th grade daughter, Ivonne junior.

Megan, the 6th grade American teacher, with one of her students.

Jonathan, again, dressed as one of the art teachers.

I was flattered when Karol's son Carlos, a first grader, came as me. He really had me pegged. He even had minature sunglasses just like mine. As for my dress, this is pretty close to the 7th grade PE uniform with one of my students hairdos... I got some laughs.

Also on Tuesday was the schoolwide spelling bee. It was pretty intense. In the primilinary rounds some kids were brought to tears.

Here is probably my favorite student, yes teachers do have favorites, Jose Carlos. Sadly he got out in one of the later rounds on the word "encode." I figure he must have never heard this english word and so preceeded to spell it "i-n-c-o-d-e." Your still my hero Jose Carlos.

This is the 6th grade girl who ended up winning. She was really good.

Then on Tuesday night, some Honduran teachers, some American teachers and myself went out to the movies to see Avatar. It was a great movie even in Spanish.

Little Alejandro, the son of one of the Honduran teachers, joined us as well.

We had to stop in the park to get some food before the movie though. We had gringas and baleadas. Gringas are cheese, meat, some seasonings and maybe a few other things in a tortilla, while baleadas usually include beans, cheese, mantequilla (a sort of sour cream butter), eggs and maybe some avacado and meat... mmm.

Wednesday,was a big day for all of Honduras. It was the day of the Virgen de Suyapa (Virgin of Suyapa). The story, according to Wikipedia, says that a man named Colindres, was traveling home from being away at work, but before he reached home night came. He decided to sleep outside, but while he was sleeping he felt a sharp pain in his side due to an object he was laying on. He threw the object only to find it beneath him again when he layed back down. In the morning he discovered it a statue of the Virgin Mary. In years following, the statue has been accredited with miracles throughout Honduras. Our Lady of Suyapa is the patroness of Honduras.

For the special day, we gathered in our nice outfits and said a rosary in spanish and english.

However, after the prayers it was playtime. The rest of the day was dedicated to a schoolwide soccer tournament.

And if you know anything about Central America you know they get excited about soccer.

My 7th grade boys, taking on the 6th grade boys.

7th grade won the tournament!

The rest of week was dedicated to parent-teacher conferences, which went smoothly. Then on Friday we played some soccer and basketball with some of the local university students who wanted to practice their english...it was fun. Saturday, found us doing our youth group and stocking up on peanut butter for the lunches of the week ahead.

And Sunday morning Sarah, Beth, Nicole and I invited Victor, our fearless busdriver, over for lunch at my place. Burritos with guacamole...mmm.

The just about brings things up to now, except for Sarah, Beth and my little expedition to find a tv for the Super Bowl. We had been told that we could watch it at the Bishop's house, who has Dish Network. He is actually from Boston. The Bishop was actually back in Boston, but another priest, Padre Alberto, who he lives with him told us he would let us in to watch the game. When we got there though, it turned out that they didn't get the correct channel, so we ended up talking with Padre Alberto for a bit...and what a interesting guy! He's a chain-smoking, swearing, beer drinking priest with strong political convictions from Malta who can speak about four languages and has built more establishments here than one would believe: an orphanage, a prison, a soccer stadium, and the list goes on. Needless to say it was cool to talk with him. Sadly, I didn't get my camera out before he had to leave to hear confessions. Above is Sarah and Beth in Padre Alberto and the Bishop's place.

If you are wondering how I am doing, I am great.

I hope today finds you the same.