Waka Waka

Picture 55 kids (27 in one group and 28 in the other) throughout the day screaming, talking back, running around the room, hitting one another, stealing various things, defacing my property, and not understanding a word I'm saying the whole time! It's frustrating, it's chaotic, it's emotional draining, and some days it takes every ounce of patient and energy I have to go on...

BUT...

Every morning I wake up I'm excited to go to school. I LOVE my students already and they light up my day. They may drive me crazy 95% of the time, but then there's that 5% when they're doing what they're told. Sometimes a student will understand a certain thing I said or they'll work a problem out on their own and those moments make everything worth it! For example -- I had an insane day at school today. Most of the other volunteers I work with have committed on how crazy my kids are. So I sat down and had a meeting with Peggy on what we can do to stop some of this crazy behavior. I have kids punching one another (a student today had a bloody nose because of it), stealing things from the classroom (which has happened more than once), laughing at me as I discipline them, physically trying to fight me, constantly talking to one another, and just zoning out completely when I speak. My aid is going to make numerous phone calls home, and I'm going to have at least two conferences with different parents. Even though my days are filled with such extreme stress, something always happens that makes me smile. I have been putting numbers up (like my Aunt Karen does in her classroom) to keep track of how many days we've been in school. I have a "star helper" who comes up each morning and leads our calendar time. The same student is the "star helper" for the whole week. The little girl who leads calendar in my second group has not been able to tell me all week how many days we;ve been in school. Today though she started to count the circles we already have up -- "one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.." and then she looked at me and said "nueve". I didn't even care that the answer wasn't in English, I just wanted to cry because I was SO proud of her! It's those moments that make me love my job! Children are the most beautiful blessing!

I have so much going on tomorrow, this weekend, and next week...

Tomorrow is "Dia del Nino" (Day of the Child) at school and we are having a huge celebration. I get to sleep in an hour since we're starting our day at 8 instead of 7 :). This is the final schedule that Peggy sent us:

Dia del Nino: The agreed schedule was:
8-9 Desfile practice (this is our practice for the parades we have next week)
9-10 Field day stations/"juegos" (I'm in charge of macaroni necklaces with Jackie)
10-11 food in classrooms (I can't wait to try all of this great food I've been hearing about)
11-12 bailando (yes, we will have a marimba band at school)
12 pm + We will stay to clean up and potentially finish any parade decorations that haven't be finished already.

Next week we have parades to celebrate the Independence of Honduras. This means I only have to be at school from 7-11 or 12 Monday and Tuesday to participate in the parades and then I'm free the rest of the day :). We were suppose to celebrate the "Day of the Teachers" on Wednesday, but the money that was going to be spent on that party is going to buy tables and chairs that we desperately need at school. That means I get a 5 day weekend...WHOO HOO! I haven't decided what I'm going to do yet. Some of the volunteers talked about going to El Salvador or going to the North Coast of Honduras. There are suppose to be some pretty sweet beaches to check out. I know whatever we decide to do will be a good time.

Here are some random funny kid stories:

I asked my kids the other day to tell me what their favorite songs were. Most of them said "Baby, Baby" by Justin Bieber (he is HUGE in Honduras), but one little boy said "Waka, Waka" and come to find out it's a Shakira song. I love Shakira! I used to think if I listened to her songs often enough I would learn spanish. I actually use to fall asleep to her music hoping the language would somehow seep into my brain. Obviously that approach didn't work, haha! The other day the song "Waka, Waka" come on in the bus and it's jammin'. It's got these great African beats to it that I love. Then someone told me it was the official song for the World Cup, so most of you have probably already heard it. If you haven't, give it a listen sometime!

This next story was told to me by Jeff Ball (the sixth grade teacher) but it is too hysterical not to share with all of you. Mr. Ball has been doing journal entries with his students everyday. The question today was "If you could travel back in time, or go to the future, which would you choose and why?" Jeff started telling the kids cool things they could see in both places. He said "You know, going back in time could be really cool because you could see dinosaurs and..." At this point one of his students said "Oh Mr. Ball, you definitely don't want to do that!" Jeff told this kid that he needed to wait until he was finished, but then he wanted to hear why it wasn't a good idea for him to go to the past. So Jeff finished his spiel and then asked Charlie why it wasn't a good idea for him to go to the past. Charlie said "Well if you go to the past, as soon as you get out of your time machine a dinosaur could come along and crush it...then you would be stuck! It just isn't safe". Then Jeff says "Ok, so you're going to the future then" and Charlie says "Yeah, it's way safer". HAHAHA. It's funnier to hear Jeff tell it in person, but I just had to share.

There were two birthday's at school this week. Wendy's birthday was on Monday and then Karol's birthday was today. Karol teaches PE at the school. Sylvia (our "dean" of students) is having a party at her house tomorrow night to celebrate. I'm stocked to go out out with the Honduran teachers for the evening. They always make me laugh, even though I usually don't understand anything they're saying. I know the night will be full of eating, laughing, and dancing. After school today someone told my counterpart (Rosa or Rosita) that my birthday was on Saturday. She said she's going to sing to me at the party. and then crack and egg over my head, and throw flour in my face. I guess that's a tradition here. Then she said she was just kidding because she thought I would be mad, but I told her to bring it on! Ha! I think it would be funny! I'll keep you all posted on whether or not I'm egged tomorrow night!

Buenas noches :)

“Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it. You must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.”