The Scoop

Many things have happened in Honduras that I haven't blogged about, but I'm sharing now because a lot of things are changing...

When I got to Honduras I was placed in a house with Michelle and Jackie. The two of them did not get along. There were fights and tears and ultimately Jackie decided to move out and live in some dorms by herself. Leaving Michelle and I in the house. Well about four or five weeks after Jackie moved out Michelle left to go back to the United States. She was having some issues with anxiety and it wasn't something that could be effectively treated in Honduras. So her dad flew down on a Wednesday and they flew back to the U.S. the following day. It all happened very quickly. Now I am currently living in my house alone. Peggy did hire a new long-term volunteer, named Candice. She will be flying into Honduras on December 2nd. She is going to stay during Christmas and until next June. She will be taking over Michelle's third grade class and be my new roommate. So I'm excited for that!

Since Michelle left there is no one to teach third grade currently. They need an English speaker in the classroom and we only have 5 Hondurans on our staff that are bilingual. Wendy ( my aid), Fanny (Jackie's aid), Claudia (Anne's aid), Oscar (computer teacher), and Olban (the Religion teacher). Peggy did hire a full-time sub to come until Candice can take over but the guy she hired is also a farmer and has a lot of crops coming in right now, so he can't come everyday -- leaving Peggy with no other choice than to pull Wendy, Fanny, or Claudia from our classrooms. Since the third graders need a consistent teacher it has been decided that Wendy will teach them until January 14th. That will give Candice four weeks of observation before she is just thrown into teaching in Honduras. That means I will be teaching solo for the next six weeks. It'll definitely be a challenge, as everything has been here. But I'm going to take it as a time to grow and become an even better educator. It will teach me more patience and how to effectively teach my class in new and innovative ways without having a full-time translator present. Just like living alone has taught me more independence, and has given me a lot of time for reflection.

Keep me in your prayers as always! It's going to be a challenging six weeks...but I know I'll come out on top!

As some of my students say to me : Te Quiero Mucho (I love you a lot!)

“You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore”
- Christopher Columbus

Limonada

The First Grade day of lemonade making was a hit!

The day before we made the lemonade the students made "Lemonade Stand" signs. I split them up into six groups in each class to make the signs. Here are some of the groups with their creations :):

Leah, Anyelo, Pablo, Genesis, and Jose Maximino

Javier, Maria Jose (Mom - this is the little girl I want to adopt!), Jose Alberto, and Harold

Joseemir (what a face!), Kimberly, Ildellynne, and Jose Rejinaldo

This was my favorite sign:

Katherine, Nelson, Mariela, and Carmen

I went outside ten minutes before I had the students come out so I could get set up...

Ready to go

Lots of Lemons!

Mr. Ball and the sixth graders came to help us...

Big Group ready to start squeezing some lemons

Jeff and I share a lot of siblings between our classes. Here are some of the sets:

Milca and her big sister

Anyelo and his big brother Carlos

Solangel and her big sister

Harrison and his big brother Chris

Miss Varela (Wendy) was a HUGE help. She was great with the kids and did most of the cleaning after we finished making our lemonade. I am so grateful for her...

Wendy with Maximino. He is so bad in my class but oh so cute!

Me with Omar. Look Mom -- I'm wearing the dress you sent me :)

Anne, Jackie, and Jeff were all amazing helpers. Since Anne and Jackie just teach for half of the day they are free in the afternoons to tutor the low students in 1st - 6th grade. On this particular day they didn't need to tutor anyone, so I got some extra hands :)!

Anne cutting some lemons

Jackie cutting lemons

Jeff handing a lemon he cut to one of the students

It was so great to see the sixth graders helping the first graders. After the lemonade had been made, my students had to write down the steps they took in their Science journals. The sixth graders helped them write all of the steps in English. I loved watching them work together: 

Amanda getting some help

Rachel working hard

We had a great day -- and the lemonade tasted pretty good too :)

"The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way"

The Official Countdown Begins...

Exactly 30 days (1 month) until I'm home :)...can you believe it? I know I can't!

I have something to do every weekend until I fly out so the time is just going to zip by...

11/20-11/21 - Friday night we're having a karaoke party -- should be interesting! On Saturday all of the volunteers are going to the Morano families property to hang out and eat. The Morano's own a big clothing store in Juticulpa and they have four kids at our school. There kids are a little on the crazy side in the classroom but they're a nice family.

11/26-11/27 - THANKSGIVING! I know Thanksgiving is on the 25th but since Hondurans don't celebrate we have to work that day. Since we also have to work on Friday we are celebrating on Saturday so we all have the entire day to cook and prepare. More on this in a later post...

12/4-12/5 - A small group of us are going to Rosita's farm. She's going to cook for us and we get to ride her horses!!!

12/11-12/12 - OAF retreat and Maki's 26th birthday. Maki wants to have a big celebration for her birthday so I think we are going to hang out in one of the school classrooms and have a dance party. I'm pumped!!

12/18 -- FLY HOME!!! YIIIIIIPPPPPPPEEEEEEEEE!!

"Live life fully while you're here. Experience everything. Take care of yourself and your friends. Have fun, be crazy, be weird. Go out and screw up! You're going to anyway, so you might as well enjoy the process. Take the opportunity to learn from your mistakes: find the cause of your problem and eliminate it. Don't try to be perfect; just be an excellent example of a human being" - Anthony Robbins

Cincuenta Días

We have been in school for 50 days now. Some days I can't believe we've been in school for so long, but when I realize we have 170 school days this year it seems like it'll never end.

My kids have already come so far though and it makes me excited to think about where they'll be in another seven months.

At the beginning of the school year they didn't even understand "Put your chair on top of your desk and line up". Now they can do that flawlessly. I'm still not sure they know what their desk actually is, but they know the routine.

In the beginning a good chunk of my students were getting 30, 40, and 50 percents on their spelling tests. Now those same students are getting 60's, 70's, and 80's. They are starting to learn how to sound out letters to create words and that's pretty awesome stuff. It's great to see their face light up when they've sounded out a word correctly! I've been giving a spelling test where the students just have to identify the correct word out of three. Next week some of my higher students will start doing an actual spelling test and I'm very excited for that.

For the past month we have been discussing "matter" in Science class. We've done a nature walk, a sink/float station, and an identification center. This week we are talking specifically about "mixing matter", so today my students are going to be making Lemonade. I realized around 2:00 yesterday afternoon that this hands-on activity could go really badly. So I ran down to Jeff's room and asked if he and his sixth graders would like to help out. Luckily he agreed, so now I'll have another adult and 21 eleven year olds helping. That should make things run a little more smoothly. Yesterday the kids created the most adorable signs that say "Lemonade Stand". I'll be sure to take plenty of pictures today so you can see them. Hopefully it's going to be a fun day!

Tomorrow I have my first set of parent/teacher conferences. I should probably be nervous about them, but I'm actually excited to be able to sit down with my students parents one on one. I would love to be able to tell them face to face how wonderful their child is or what their child needs to improve on. I'm lucky that I have Wendy because she can translate everything for me.

Wish me luck...

“Overcome the notion that you must be regular. It robs you of the chance to be extraordinary” –Uta Hagen

Honduran Sing-A-Long

The other day on the bus ride home a song came on the radio that all of the Hondurans LOVED, so they sang it at the top of their lungs. I love them :):




“You are so much sunshine to the square inch” –Walt Whitman