I SURVIVED

My first day of my first year teaching has come and gone...

I survived!!!

It was the longest and hardest day I've ever had teaching. In the states I would go in 45 minutes to an hour early to prepare for that day's activities, then I would stay 2 or 3 hours after school preparing for the next day. In Honduras we ride the school bus with our students and walk into the classroom with them, so there's no time to prepare before the day begins. Then after school, the students start leaving at 2:30, and we have to be on a teacher's bus by 3:30. That gives me about 30 minutes to get things done for the next day, NOT a lot of time!

I get on the bus at 6a.m. and I arrive back home around 4p.m., which makes for a long day. When I arrived at school this morning I had a little line of dead frogs by my door, proceeded by parents coming in and out of my classroom asking all kinds of questions in Spanish (which I of course couldn't understand). When I went to do a final count on desks I realized I still only had 19 desks and 26 kids about to walk through my door. I finally found Wendy and I just wanted to run up and hug her (I ended up doing this before my day was over). It's great to have someone who can help and translate for me!

After we had a brief meeting with the whole school outside we had the students line up and go to the classrooms. I have some of the CUTEST kids ever! I have a little boy in my class named Jose who has the best disposition. He was just as happy as can be this morning. He was telling me all kinds of things and just smiling the whole time. I felt bad that I couldn't understand a word of it, but hopefully my Spanish will improve quickly. After the first twenty minutes the cuteness of the kids started to wear off and my classroom became a complete MAD house! The school is so loud, one volunteer has already almost lost her voice from talking so loud. The kids didn't understand a word I was saying to them and it took every ounce of patience I had to keep going. At one point (as my kids are screaming and I can't regain control) I look outside my door to see other students passing in the hallway and I see all of my fellow volunteers struggling just like me. I saw Anne, who teaches Kinder (preschool in the U.S.) passing by my room with her 26 kids all holding hands to walk to snack. They were just weaving in and out of people, talking, and looking scared of everything. At the end of their line was Anne's assistant Fanny holding a screaming girl in her arms and dragging another screaming little boy behind her. At that point I just had to laugh! The school was in complete disarray today--hopefully that won't be the case tomorrow.

Honestly the day is a blur at this point. Anything that could go wrong did and I just kept telling myself "One day at a time, just make it to 2:30 and everything will be ok!!!" We had a lot of down time today because I didn't plan enough activities and some things that were suppose to happen in the morning ended up getting canceled. I learned from today and I will have tons of different activities planned for tomorrow!

We do something at school on Monday mornings called "Acto Civico". The whole school assembles outside to listen to one of the Spanish teachers and then one of the English teachers give a brief presentation on different values. It was canceled for this morning because there was too much going on, so we're now doing it tomorrow morning. Guess who's first up to bat for the English teachers....that's right - yours truly! AHHH! I have no idea what I'm doing so I'm just going to wing it the best I can. I'm giving a talk on citizenship!

I was talking with most of the other volunteers on our ride home from school today and I said "I know that if I can make it through this year and have a successful classroom I can make it in ANY classroom." I truly believe it! With that said, I'm up for the challenge...

Bring on tomorrow!

Promise yourself to be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind. Look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true. Think only of the best, work only for the best, and expect only the best. Forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future. Give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others. Live in the faith that the whole world is on your side so long as you are true to the best that is you! –Christian D. Larson