Thank you Gracias!

For those of you who don’t know, the city of Gracias is our closest getaway. It is our small slice of paradise outside of La Unión and within a bus trip’s reach. There is a bank, grocery store, and post office there among other fantastic places such as general merchandise stores, restaurants, hotels, and cafés. This past weekend it was time to pay Gracias a little visit. Unfortunately the only time the bus leaves is at 5 in the morning, but Lori, Kara, Harriet, Beth, and I thought that it was still entirely worth it to go.

Our primary reason for going was to pick up some packages that had been mailed to us. If anyone is ever interested in sending me something you have to send it to the following address:

Brooke Osekavage
Hotel Guancascos
Barrio San Sebastian
Gracias, Lempira
Honduras C.A.

(Yes, that is my not-so-subtle hint that I would love you to send anything and everything to me.) The packages and/or letters get to Gracias just fine, but then it gets a little tricky. In order to actually get a package, you have to go check the post office and then personally pick it up. It’s not like college where they let you know when you have a package waiting in the mailroom, and it’s not like home where the package is delivered right to your front door. Sometimes, if the package sits long enough in the post office, they will actually take it to the hotel where it sits again and waits for one of us to come claim it. Now the letters are a different story: the post office workers create a pile of mail that is specifically for the people of La Unión and whenever someone from our little town makes a trip to Gracias and its post office, they pick up the stack for La Unióners. Then they bring it back and deliver it; for us gringos, if they see a name on the envelope that they do not recognize or cannot pronounce, they assume it belongs to one of us so they find any one of us and give us the letter. Anyways, we knew there would be packages waiting for us in the post office so we went… but the post office was closed. Without a doubt this was the biggest disappointment of my weekend. We even went to check the hotel if by chance they had gotten any of our packages, and they hadn’t. We are still trying to figure out how to get our packages, but we were extremely saddened by our unfortunate luck this weekend.

In order to cheer ourselves up we knew we had to do some retail therapy, but first we needed money. The money situation in Honduras is rather peculiar. All the teachers have bank accounts set up with Banco Atlantida for our paychecks to get directly deposited into, but getting that money out to use is slightly tricky. Although we have ATM/debit cards, we have only been able to use them at grocery stores, hotels, and restaurants in bigger and more tourist-friendly cities. Other than that we just go to an ATM and take loads of money out. However, unlike at home where you might find 5 different ATMs within walking distance of each other, ATMs are scarce in this country and are never guaranteed to work. La Unión does not have an ATM and the only way we can get money out here is at the clinic where they have the capability of swiping our cards for a certain amount and then giving us that amount in cash. But you have to hope that a) the clinic is open when you go, and b) that they have enough cash to actual perform this withdrawal. So we heavily rely on big cities to get money. Unfortunately, sometimes the ATMs in said cities are out of money or broken so they are out of service. Apparently the only one in Gracias has not worked in months so we had to go to the actual bank. Now you may think I’m over-exaggerating or whining a bit much here, but you need to realize that the banks in Honduras are beyond frustrating and in-efficient so people avoid them at all costs.

Normally when you go you need to have your passport to withdraw money, but we currently do not have our passports. (This is where the complicated systems in our lives continue.) To make a long story short our passports are in Tegucigalpa because our temporary visas ran out but the immigration office does not have our paperwork ready to get us our residency cards. So we had to send our passports to Tegucigalpa to get our visas extended. Can you see how this might pose a problem at the bank? We all brought copies of our passports to see if the bank would accept those. I talked to a woman who initially said that the copies would not be sufficient, but once I explained our problem and she recognized the kind of sticky situation we were in, she quickly agreed to let us continue with our transactions. Bless her because we would have been in an even bigger pickle!

With crisp bills in our hands and saddened spirits that needed cheering up, we hit the stores. We first filled our empty bellies with fresh pastries from a bakery and ice cream. Then we found a school supplies store and drooled. There were so many different materials that we could never dream of finding in La Unión! I bought new mega-crayons for my students, fun-colored gel pens for me to use for grading instead of the dreaded red pen, and a Disney princess pencil bag. My most favorite purchase, from that store and of the whole day, was the sparkle foam pieces I got for each student. Think of those colored foam squares you can buy at the craft store, now imagine them smothered in glitter! Think of the possibilities and the art projects I can do with my kiddos! My classroom will be getting a majestic facelift with my new purchases.

We finished our morning of shopping at the grocery stores before we had to scoot back to the bus station to catch the last bus back to La Unión by 12:30. Everyone had their own personal list of items they wanted plus wish lists of foods from the others who didn’t come with us. I treated myself to yogurt, cheese (which successfully made it back with the yogurt, both without bursting or getting warm), granola, homemade jam, peanut butter, chocolate toffees, and alfredo sauce. After all our shopping we stuffed our backpacks and tied up our grocery bags, and got back on the bus. We knew our luck had turned around by the pleased smiles everyone had on their face AND the bus ride home was magnificent – we each got our own seat for the entire ride back and I never felt like I was going to be launched from my seat. Thank you Gracias for making our lives a little brighter this weekend!

Please pray for my family this week. I have been missing them a lot over the last couple of weeks and I can only imagine (and hope) that they are feeling the same. I do not like not being able to call them whenever I want or realizing that I still won’t see them for months. Bless their hearts for willingly sending me here to Honduras to complete God’s work and to fulfill my dreams. Their support has been the greatest gift throughout my decision to come here. Just pray that they are all doing well and that the time passes quickly until we see each other again. I know it’s not easy to go this long without seeing or spending time with their favorite daughter! 

My week in a blink

I was sitting on the bus coming back from Gracias this weekend and realized that I had not posted a blog in a while! (Sorry to anyone who may have been checking for a new one only to be disappointed at my laziness.) Then I tried to think of what on earth could I actually write about since my life has been rather uneventful since we have not traveled anywhere, and my mind instantly drifted to my students and school. I realized that I could conjure about a pretty decent blog that highlighted the events of last week.

Grades: Our first partial officially ended and I have turned in my very first ‘final’ grades as a teacher. At Abundant Life, a grade of 65 or above is considered passing, and if you have a 64 or below that you are considered to be failing. I am proud to say that none of the ninth graders are failing my math class! The two students that I was worried about slid past with a 67 and a 69. Phew! Hopefully they do better this next partial because those grades were too close for comfort. In third grade I only have one student who is genuinely failing third grade – Elman. He may be a sweet and curious little boy, but he is truly not the best student and I am worried about him. I already keep him after school twice a week to give him extra help, but his mom asked if he could stay every day. Unfortunately I have my own work to do so I told her that I could not manage that, plus I would really like to see him learn how to study on his own. Other than him I have a few other students who are failing a subject or two. Overall everyone is doing much better than I thought! (In my classes anyways. I did get the chance to look at their grades for the subjects that are taught by other teachers and they are not doing so well. I am realizing that my group of kiddos is not the brightest bunch in the school, but I still have hope for them.) Parent-teacher conferences are on Saturday so I will have the joy of explaining all their grades to their parents, wish me luck!

Third Grade: We had an excellent week in science! Our new unit is on plants so this week every student got to plant a seed in their very own cup. To be honest I was a little nervous about the soil that we put in there so I have been praying like a fool that God helps those seeds sprout. They also all passed their science quiz with flying colors (all A’s and B’s)! I think that is one of the best tests/quizzes that they have taken as a whole. Unfortunately they performed at the exact opposite level for Reading. We are focusing on ‘sequencing’ for two weeks and they all bombed their quiz. While they know the vocabulary that I taught them, when they had to apply the skill to a 1^st Grade comprehension level reading passage, they panicked and dropped the ball. Good thing it was only the quiz so I have another week to work on that particular skill with their little minds.

In math we reviewed all of our multiplication facts from 0-7 and they are rocking it! I have started them on timed multiplication tests to practice their facts. They have 2 minutes to get 35 problems entirely correct. If they pass, then they get to color that facts’ number and put it by their name on the wall. We have begun counting (U.S.) coins and that has proven to be a challenge. Another challenge is making sentences in Basic English. This unit focuses on daily activities and once again they know the vocabulary fairly well, but they cannot use them in context. I am trying to teach them how to conjugate verbs for different subjects in order to make more coherent sentences, but everyone is struggling. (For example: “I get dressed” instead of “I am get dressed,” or “he takes a shower” instead of “he take a shower.”) I know with more practice they will start to remember the rules, but I will know that they have really mastered the material when they can speak correctly formulated sentences.

Speaking of knowing how well my students are doing… I have noticed a minor detail but a rather big one in their English skills! A few of my students are now answering the question “How are you?” like a normal human being instead of sounding like a robot. If you ask any of the younger students (and probably quite a few of the older ones) “How are you?” they will automatically answer “Fine thank you, and you?” It’s just what they have been taught to answer with, like you or I would answer “Cómo estás?” with an instant “Muy bien, y tú?” But I have had a breakthrough with a few of my little ones who actually answer the question with how they are really feeling instead of their automated, pre-recorded response! The first time I heard it, it actually caught me off guard, but then I immediately felt proud that they are learning.

Outside of class Rolando made my week by gifting me a pair of earrings :) He wrapped them up in a plastic bag with a note that said “You are my favorite teacher in old the school” (yes, he put ‘old’ instead of ‘all,’ but I overlooked it because his gift was so precious). They are beautiful purple beaded earrings and I instantly put them on to show him my gratitude and that I loved them, but more importantly that I love him more.

Ninth Grade: On Tuesday I gave a homework assignment to my students that consisted of 16 problems to complete, all that would help them prepare for their quiz on Wednesday, and I gave them about twenty minutes to get started on these problems in class. Unfortunately only 1 student received a passing grade on the assignment because 4 of them decided to not turn it in, 4 chose to only do about a fourth to half of the assignment, and 2 made the worse decision to copy the homework. I had more zeros on the assignment than I knew what to do with so I decided they all had to be punished. I scolded them on Thursday about what it means to be a good student and doing their homework WITHOUT copying it from someone else (all topics that I have previously discussed with them in the same scolding manner). I proceeded to tell them that everyone, except the one girl who actually did the assignment and put effort into completing it, would receive the following punishment: they would all lose their participation point for that day, have to keep their failing grade on the assignment, and then have to stay after school on Friday to re-do it since they neglected it the first time. They all thought I was kidding about the last part, until I showed up to their classroom after the last bell rang on Friday afternoon.

Work?: Apparently Hondurans and foreigners have two very different ideas about showing up to work. This has happened in the past but it was really bad this week and extremely frustrating for the rest of us: some of our teachers decided to not show up for work and didn’t give anyone advanced notice. The 1^st grade teacher showed up late every single morning because her maid apparently quit so she had to take care of her daughter (thus continuing the cycle of ‘not showing up’). While this is a totally legitimate reason to be late in the morning, she did not let anyone know that she wouldn’t be on time and the 1^st graders ran free and wild until someone noticed that they were without a teacher. The 4^th grade teacher was in Tegucigalpa all week for a doctor visit. Again, a completely fair reason to be gone, but she didn’t tell anyone that she wouldn’t be at school for the entire week until Monday at dinner time (after already not being present all day or answering her phone). And one of the Spanish teachers didn’t show up to school on Friday because, as her sister put it, “she had better things to do.” Seriously? You would be fired instantly in the States for doing something like that. The rest of us teachers were running around like chickens with our heads cut off all week trying to cover their classes.

Volleyball: We have been participating in a community-wide volleyball tournament over the past few weeks. The kids at the public school organized the event as a fundraiser for their school, so the teachers at Abundant Life put together a team to participate in the tournament. We played our final games this week because we weren’t the BEST team. We had a lot of fun playing and did our best to compete, but we fell a little short. Even though we didn’t make it to the playoffs of the tournament, we were valiant players and had battle scars to prove it – Cassidy twisted her ankle pretty badly, Kara and I both had bruises on our arms that looked like someone was abusing us, and there were a few scraped knees as a result of playing on a concrete court. We are going to keep practicing so that we perform better in the next tournament, and we are also going to request that they change the times of the games because they had us playing after dark and usually at 8pm (to their advantage because as teachers, that was too close to our bedtime to function at our best).

T.I.H.: I have had the unexpected joy of witnessing a few of the students driving this week. A fifth grade student was seen driving through town in a truck, all by himself. A sixth grade student was cruising around on a motorcycle, also all by himself. And a ninth grade student was putting through town behind the wheel of a big bulldozer. They have taken seeing your students outside of class to a whole new level!

The Weather: The seasons are changing in La Unión. Some people call this the rainy season and others call it winter, but whatever it is, I’m not sure I like it. We had a lot of rain due to Hurricane Sandy (all my prayers go out to those who were more deeply and directly affected by the storm) but that is just the start of a long and very moist winter for us. The temperatures are dropping and rain is more frequent. We no longer have rain storms, just rain. The town is supposed to be in this constant state of ‘damp’ once winter is in full swing – always misting, cold, and with plenty of mud to share. Since we do not have heating of any kind down here, I’m preparing myself to start looking 10 pounds heavier with all the layers I will start wearing to school.

Health: Please be praying for our teachers this week; last week we had multiple teachers out at one point or another. Kara has a parasite of some kind in her system and it doesn’t seem to be leaving her alone. She’s already been to the clinic once to seek care but she’ll have to go back this week because the meds aren’t working. She has been sick after every meal and has sharp stomach pains. Mrs. Turcios was in Tegucigalpa all week to seek medical attention on a bad knee. She is quite overweight and desperately needs to shed a lot of it if she wants any hope for relief on her knee. Mr. Bustillos (the secondary Spanish teacher) has an unknown disease or condition that has rendered him helpless. In his past something happened that left him paralyzed; however, since then he has regained motion in his legs but still cannot use his hands. Sadly he relapsed this week and was sent to Tegucigalpa because he could not walk and needed emergency medical treatments. Beth was feeling very under the weather in the middle of the week.

Halloween

What did you dress up as for Halloween this year? Something scary? Something silly? Something clever? Perhaps something a little on the scandalous side? If you live in Colorado, did you have to design your costume around your winter coat? Whatever you dressed up as I hope you had a spooky holiday filled with an absurd amount of candy, pumpkins, cob webs, and face paint!

Here, we do not celebrate Halloween. In fact, the holiday Halloween, as best as I can describe it, is similar to Lord Voldemort’s name in Harry Potter – it is forbidden to even mention it. Halloween is so frowned upon, that we would be asking for serious trouble if anyone heard us talking about it or if we tried to do anything for it. I cannot offer you any reasonable explanation for this extreme thinking so I will only describe it to you.

Heather and I discovered just how extreme Hondurans’ ideas are on Halloween in various and surprising ways. She had a discussion with the Honduran men that she works with and she commented heavily on how defensive and opinionated they were. She said that she had never seen them stand so firmly on a subject or seen them get so worked up over any topic; they simply would not budge on their opinions. We later discovered that our next door neighbor had been waking up at 4am every morning for the week preceding Halloween with an army of women who were all praying for countries and people who celebrated the holiday. They spent several hours each morning praying fervently that whoever celebrated this holiday would change their ways of thinking and lifestyle to follow God instead. Then on the actual day of Halloween we went to women’s group at the church. Although the topic was far from any idea connected to Halloween, the speaker somehow found a way to incorporate it. Her opinion on the day was equally as strong and she had no hesitation in sharing the horrors of Halloween so that everyone would agree with her. Then, as a group, everyone prayed passionately for the souls that celebrate this holiday. Needless to say, I felt a little uncomfortable whenever any Honduran mentioned Halloween because I did not want to be condemned to hell by them.

The only logical thing that Heather and I came up with is that they must have heard horror stories about what some people do to celebrate Halloween. They see it as purely a satanic holiday, which translates to any person who celebrates it, is worshipping Satan himself. I’m not sure if they think we all sit in circles and chant to Satan or perform sacrifices or become possessed by his spirit, but I imagine their ideas aren’t far off from that. They are convinced that followers of Satan have chosen to target children because they are so young and innocent, and their minds are easily manipulated – which explains why you mostly see children dressing up and celebrating the holiday. I so desperately wanted to cry out that Halloween has turned into this commercialized holiday where you get to dress up as your hero or some goofy character and then stuff your face with a ridiculous amount of candy until you get a belly ache! However, I knew that I could convince no one that our intentions with the holiday were harmless, so I never confessed to celebrating Halloween. If I am going to live in this town for another 7 months, I don’t want anyone thinking that I worship Satan. 

Copán Ruinas

Right after our weekend in Tela we had the blessing of yet another 3-day weekend, so we took off to Copán Ruinas. Simply put these are Honduras’ biggest and most impressive Maya ruins, and the most tourist-ready town we have been to. It wasn’t the relaxing, white-sand beaches of Tela, but it was my favorite place that we have visited so far!

This time we left at 5 in the morning for a long day of traveling on 4 different buses to get to our destination. All of our rides were smooth and problem-free (thank the Lord!) except for a little overcrowding and invasion of our personal spaces, but that is to be expected. We made it to Copán by 1 and checked into our hostel, the Blue Iguana. It was actually a very nice hostel! We had well-pressurized, hot showers and internet (unlike our homes in La Unión), and it was a very clean place with decently comfortable beds. My only complaint is that both mornings we were rudely awoken with fireworks (once for some unknown reason and the second time for another wild birthday party) – so much for a quiet get-away! The bulk of our trip was dedicated to embracing our inner tourists: we spent a lot of time souvenir and gift shopping, eating amazing meals, and visiting the ruins.

Souvenir and gift shopping. A little retail therapy is good for the soul, and we needed a lot of therapy. I can only speak for myself, but I am pretty certain everyone else would agree with me – I easily spent way too much money for only being there two days, but I would not return a thing that I bought! Is it too early to talk or think about Christmas? Not for me! I got all of my Christmas shopping done in one hit :) (I am extremely proud of myself.) In all fairness, like I said, Copán is probably the most tourist-friendly town in all of Honduras so we all had the mindset of getting our souvenirs here where they were available. I am not going to reveal any of my secrets of what I bought for whom, but I will share with you the treasures that I found for myself. I splurged and purchased quite a few things: a necklace with a royal blue charm, miniature statues from the ruins to use as book ends or as future classroom decorations, a painted mask, an English-Spanish book about the ruins for my future classroom, a fish puzzle-box, a hanging Maya calendar wall-piece, a colorful belt to jazz up my school uniform, a very nice leather backpack (this one is my favorite and was my biggest treat to myself), and a Honduran flag, button, sticker, and t-shirt. I am still excited about all my new goodies and I cannot wait to share more with my friends, family, and future students!

Amazing meals. Normally I wouldn't bore you with the details of what food I digested over the weekend, but we had such special meals and such treats that the re-telling of my trip wouldn't be the same without these descriptions. Saturday lunch we went to a place called Via Via and I had delectable chicken fajitas with cheese empanadas and a strawberry smoothie. For happy hour we experienced some fine dining at San Rafael Café. This place is a wine and cheese bar, and it certainly was the happiest of hours with our 5-cheese platter and glasses of Chardonnay! For dinner we ordered small plates at Twisted Tania’s because we were still quite full from our other meals. I shared a nacho platter and then finished my day off with a mouth-watering piece of carrot cake. Sunday morning we wandered into Café Welchez for coffee with milk and a ham and cheese croissant. For lunch we visited Mary’s Pupusería for pupusas (tortillas stuffed with your filling of choice) and smoothies.  I, of course, ordered a chocolate and banana smoothie to satisfy my sweet tooth. Then for our final meal we returned to Twisted Tania’s because all of their menu options sounds incredible the night before and we were sad that we weren't more hungry then to try things! Lori and I decided to share dishes because, as I said, everything sounded fantastic and we couldn't settle on one thing. We devoured tequila shrimp in spicy pasta, a rib eye steak with a jalapeño sauce drizzle over it, fresh sautéed veggies, and a brownie with ice cream for the grand finale. We ate so much rich and delicious food this weekend! You may notice that a lot of what I ordered had cheese in it because we do not have normal cheese in La Unión so that was the best treat.

The ruins. Here we bought tickets to see the residential and ceremonial ruins, and to go underground to walk through the excavating tunnels that archaeologists created to see hidden ruins. We also hired a tour guide to show us around because we figured he was worth the price to hear all about the history of these ruins. We visited a residential area first where it is believe that families would live in little compounds. It was common for a Maya man to marry multiple wives and then have all of his families live in the houses adjacent to him. (Sister Wives anyone?) There were pods of these ‘communities’ all around. The houses were small little structures that had mostly been destroyed. All that we could tell that was inside of them were beds. Around the homes archaeologists found skeletons and built replicas of them to show to visitors. When the people died they were generally buried with all their belongings right next to their houses. We also saw a well that served as that area’s primary water source.

The ceremonial center was the most impressive. It was a big open area that served for community gatherings. In the center was a small pyramid where the king would sit to look over all his people. There were a few still-standing statues here. These represented the gods that the Maya worshipped and the king(s) of their time. A fascinating sculpture that we saw was just a round sacrificial piece. Supposedly that was where the human sacrifices would occur; the heart would be placed in the center of this globe and there was a line carved around the rock to allow the blood to trickle down from the heart in the middle. We also got to get up close to the intricate carvings of the king statues. Our guide told us all about the last king that was believed to rule – King 18 Rabbit. He will tell you that the archaeologists named the king this because he was the 18^th on they found and all the depictions of him (that are carved in stone) look like a rabbit; I personally don’t see the resemblance and would be more convinced if you told me he was King 18 Goat.

We wandered through the grounds to get a feeling of what it was like to live with the Maya. At this site is a famous staircase that boasts the longest hieroglyph in the world with 64 stairs etched with a single hieroglyph. The first ten stairs are the only ones that are guaranteed to be in order because the rest of the stairs were found in shambles and had to be pieced together to the best of archaeologists’ judgment. You cannot climb the stairs because they are well protected, but they look very intricate. You can walk through the ball courts where men would play some sort of ball game to decide who would be sacrificed to the gods. They would play with a ball, which was presumed to be about 8 pounds, that they would hit with their shoulder and hips to try to score points (can imagine using your body to launch a bowling ball?). The historians can only assume that it was the person who won who would be sacrificed to the gods because the Maya would only want to send up someone who was honorable. We also walked among various temples: the jaguar temple which had depictions of jaguars dancing which was used to praise and please the gods, and ask for favors; the underworld temple that was adorned with skulls to represent the entrance to a kind of hell; and a temple that represented the 13 layers of heaven that the Maya believed in.

At the end of our tour we traveled underground throughout the caves. They did a very good job at selling this part of the tour and convincing us to buy tickets, but the tunnels were not worth the $15 we spent to see them. They were just hot and muggy, and all you really saw were walls of previous temples. The only cool thing that I took away from the tunnels was that they proved that temples had been built upon temples by the Maya. Apparently, every time there was a new king in power, they would completely rebuild the city. So while it would appear that the city was constructed on a hill because it was raised up, in reality the city was continuously built upon itself. I did think it was neat to see how these structures had been built upon each other – it was like discovering a whole other world inside of this historic place. All in all the tour took almost 3 hours and it was well worth it with our guide. We learned so much about the Maya cultures and truly enjoyed seeing the remains of this ancient civilization.

*Side note about our bus ride home: on the last bus – from Gracias to La Unión – we managed to get on the bus that took the worst roads to get home. I have never been bounced around that much (it kind of felt like I was getting a good work-out)! At one point the seat that Beth and I were sharing fell out of its holds and we almost ended up folding in half and falling on the ground. There was also a lovely drunk man on the bus who was trying to chat with us; he did manage to get uncomfortable close to Beth’s face so we moved seats. Randomly he decided to get out his hand gun and just wave it around in the air as he too was bounced around like a rag doll. The worst part? Nobody on the bus cared! Apparently it’s normal for people to wave around guns on buses?

This week be praying for a student who decided to run away from home. The majority of these students, if not all, come from tough homes and their lives outside of school are dismal. A girl in 10^th grade, her mother just up and left last year to go work in Spain. A few weeks ago the woman returned, also unannounced, and this set off her daughter. Her anger was so strong that she felt the need to run away. luckily they were able to find her in San Pedro Sula and at least convince her to come back to a neighboring aldea where a family member lives. Currently they are trying to talk her into coming back to La Unión to keep up with her schooling. As you can imagine she needs a lot of prayers through this troubling time. 

Diary from my classroom

Our first partial is coming to a close and I am finally reaching an end in some of my units! (To a normal teacher this may seem absurd since we are 9 weeks into the year, but to me it is a huge victory and worthy of a fiesta.) I thought I would update you on how my students are doing and what’s going on in our classroom. So come on in, take your seat, and spend some time in my third grade class!

We use the Abeka – a Christian home-school curriculum – books here, but I have found them to be rather non-useful. In every subject I have either tossed the curriculum completely out the window or I have created an outline of what the book expects me to teach and then filled in all the information, materials, tests, and projects with my own ideas. There are a few problems that I see with this curriculum. First, it is designed for students living in the United States. All of the content in the book can only be truly understood by someone growing up in that culture. There are sayings and facts that you wouldn’t understand if English wasn’t your first language and you didn’t call the US your home. Second, being designed for US students, the English is above most of my students’, if not all of their, heads. The idea of letting them work from the book on their own is foolish because they would not understand 75-80% of the words. Third, the books are very much old in every way. They are the earlier versions so the information or the learning and teaching styles are outdated. And the books have definitely seen better days; every single one is missing pages, has a torn or bent cover, has drawings peppered throughout the pages, and is most likely falling apart at the spine. Don’t get me wrong, these books and materials have good intentions. I try to use them as much as I can so I’m not creating too much extra work for myself by writing all my own worksheets and tests, but I would rather go the extra mile when preparing for my classes than deal with the headache of trying to teach my students directly from this curriculum.

Reading – Originally my plan with reading was just to start at the beginning and build up my students’ abilities to read long(er) stories. I was picking 2^nd Grade-level stories to read from each week, and having fun with them! However, I quickly discovered that their comprehension skills are non-existent in both English and Spanish. They consistently failed the ‘questions’ section on their tests and whenever I asked them to do an activity such as ‘summarize’ the story, even when I explained the concept of a summary in Spanish, they had no idea what I was talking about. So I re-evaluated my plan for Reading and decided to spend more time on teaching comprehension skills rather than just asking them to read a story and translate a few of the words. If there is one thing they can generally do well, it is pronounce words so they are able to say sentences out loud, just are not able to understand them. These past two weeks we have been working on who, what, where, when, why, and how, and it has still been as much of a struggle as when I asked them to read basic stories. But, I am hopeful that if we keep working on these ideas with new stories we read, then eventually they will get them down!

History – We actually made it through a chapter in the history textbook! I do not like the textbook because it’s all about US history, which is entirely irrelevant to my students. They would not be able to develop any kind of connection to the content even if they understood the words. However, I felt brave and attempted to teach them the first chapter – Christopher Columbus. He’s a man that affected all of the Americas and the vocabulary was pretty general and useful. It took us 5 weeks to get through that chapter, and it is fair to say that they did not ‘master’ the material, but at least we made it to the end. I tried teaching it to them through reading the story from various texts, drawing the story in comic form, learning vocabulary and places that are key to the story, completing fill-in-the-blank worksheets, and even acting out the story! We had the most fun acting out the story because I made them all hats of some kind based on their character or role in the story. I was hopeful that this would be the best way for them to remember Columbus, but they still struggled on the test. Since that has been over I decided to stop teaching history (temporarily) because the next chapters are extremely irrelevant to these students and the vocabulary would be pointless to teach. So I have turned my history class into an ESL class to focus on material that is more valuable to them. Right now we are learning “to be” so ‘I am, you are, he is,’ etc. and locations in the classroom and at home. Last week they drew their dream houses to practice the different rooms in a house!

Language – This has easily been my most challenging subject to teach. (If you have any ideas, please feel free to throw them out there because I am running out of them.) Pronouns. These have been the death of my students. Indirect and direct pronouns are extremely difficult to students with English as their second language. If I think about it, there are still times when I have to think about which pronoun to use or I make a mistake. So now try being one my little ones and try understanding the difference between them. I believe they get what a pronoun is and they are almost perfect at using them in sentences, so I am ready to end the unit here. They always groan when this class comes up so it’s about time we finished.

Math – Jake told me that if my students could multiply easily and quickly by the end of the year, then I have done my job. I have taken this challenge seriously. In fact, I have nightmares about going home and finishing the school year right now before my students have finished learning about all the multiplication facts! This week we have been working on multiplying by six. I have taught them many tricks such as songs for the X3 and X4 facts, or counting by 2’s or 5’s on their fingers for the X2 and X5 facts. Soon we will start speed drills to really solidify all those facts and work on getting them to answer multiplication problems quickly. I have elicited the help of the 11^th grade math class to come teach my students how to multiply two-digit numbers by one-digit numbers. I think it will be a fun project for them and a fun day of learning for mine! I am constantly requiring my students to practice adding and subtracting because they still make simple mistakes, and I want them to easily solve those problems too. Their biggest challenge has actually been place value. Since we have to use words to express place value, that language barrier rears its ugly head again and they struggle. Luckily we are moving into money next so I can still find ways for them to practice place value.

Science – The 5 Senses – that is what our unit has been about. However, if you asked my students, they would probably tell the 5 body parts we learned in relation to the senses. We learned all about the eye for the sense ‘to see,’ the ear for ‘to hear,’ the mouth for ‘to taste,’ the nose for ‘to smell,’ and the hand for ‘to feel.’ Now, when I say we learned all about these body parts, I mean we learned the basic parts of each one and any other important words related to the sense like different flavors for ‘to taste’ and different textures for ‘to feel.’ This may have been my most frustrating and yet most satisfying unit. I would come up with really neat or unique lessons for my students to get to experience the five senses, but because of their English level, the lessons usually flopped. I would primarily just feel disappointed that they didn’t get the full experience or quite understand the senses the way that I wanted them to. On the other hand, I am most confident about their test coming up! I have a very good feeling that all of them will pass the test so we can confidently move past this unit on onto the next – plants. I have not been totally defeated by the language barrier because I have been planning exceptionally cool lessons with seeds and plants for our next unit. I figure that hands-on activities are a lot better than me lecturing, them reading, or us just learning vocabulary words.

Art – This has been the most fun class to plan for! I love arts and crafts more than anything so I have let my creativity loose to create fabulous projects for my students. We read a story called “Sock Puppets” so naturally we had to make our own. Ironically, Jake and the guys he lives with have an abnormal amount of pair-less socks so I picked out suitably clean socks for all my students. We went as wild as we could while decorating them: we glued on googly eyes, yarn for hair, and pieces of fabric cut out in ties, bow-ties, mustaches, and shirts. They looked great! Then the students all put on their own puppet shows for the class. Last week we made masks out of construction paper. The students all cut out eyes, a nose, and/or mouth from their piece of paper and decorated them to their liking. The boys all made some kind of evil, devilish looking creature while the girls made pretty, clownish looking masks. I love letting them be creative! I especially love when they run out of my classroom with big smiles on their faces eager to show everyone at the school what they made. I am now in desperate need for new markers in my classroom because we color so often. I only wish I had access to more supplies to amp up our art projects or make some creations that I never thought we could.

So there you go, that is what it’s like to be a 3^rd grader in my class. That is what we have been learning; I am constantly looking for new ways to teach them and get the information across more easily. On a positive note, I have been receiving some encouraging compliments lately. Jake interviewed a few of my students for scholarships and commented on how impressed he was with their English. He said that they would have never been able to talk to him like that last year, let alone two months ago when school started. He was shocked that they understood him and could answer his questions with somewhat cohesive sentences. The used English almost the entire time, only asking how to say a few words in Spanish. He told me that I should be very proud of them! As well, some of the other teachers have told me that they have noticed that my kiddos are using a lot more English and are excelling in the language. I could not be happier to hear that they are finally getting a grasp on the language and others are noticing their progress! I have to give the credit to God for helping me daily to teach them, because I certainly do not have the strength or wisdom to do it on my own.

Be praying for their continued progress. It’s easy for me to not notice how well they are doing or how they are improving because I see and hear them every day. With other teachers noticing how well their doing gives me hope, encourage, confidence, and perseverance to keep moving forward. Praise the Lord that they are understanding me and finding it easier to use the language! 

Telamar

We had Monday off to give us a much anticipated three-day weekend. For our long weekend/short vacation we decided to go to the coastal town of Tela. They have a deal right now that if you stay one night you get the second night free. This meant that one room cost $160 for two nights, and you could fit up to four people in a room, which would bring the total price to $40 per person for the whole weekend… do you really need more convincing to go?

We left at our usual early-morning hour on Saturday for a long day of bus rides to get there. We had to take a bus to Santa Barbara, another to San Pedro Sula, and yet another to Tela. The total travel time is about 7 hours if you can transfer buses quickly, and if those buses don’t go too slowly or stop a lot. The trip seemed to take forever because we were just so eager to get to the beach and relax. Unfortunately, once we finally got there we had to wait an hour in the check-in line before we could actually run free and enjoy the hotel. But! it ended up being worth it because our plans were to meet some Gracias teachers there and share rooms with them this weekend (they were a group of 7 and we were a group of 9 which meant our group was a perfect fit for 4 rooms) but they got there before us and checked in then. Since our group was bigger, when we checked in we split the cost of 2 rooms evenly amongst the 9 of us, which meant… (if you have been doing your calculations you already know the answer)… we only paid $35 each for two nights at this beautiful hotel! Score!

The hotel: I’m not sure how many stars this hotel, Telamar, has but I would certainly give it a lot. Our room was luxurious with two big and super comfy queen beds, a hot and beautiful pressurized shower, cable tv, and refreshing air conditioning. There were three little pools connected together to make one giant one, which was well equipped with crazy slides and a swim-up bar. There was a gorgeous white-sand beach front with little cabanas to sit under in the shade and volleyball courts. The hotel also offered these things that we did not really use: a golf course, tennis courts, three restaurants, tour guides, a smaller and more private pool, a gym, and a game room. Every night they put on a show with karaoke, music, dancing, and something a little fancier like a fire juggler. We had intentions to go into town and explore the city of Tela a little, but we wanted to soak in as much of our hotel as we could so we never actually left, and I am not at all upset about it.

As soon as we were released from the hotel lobby we basically ran all the way to our hotel rooms and speed changed into our swimsuits. We waited for no one. We headed directly to the pool and jumped in quicker than the blink of an eye. We spent the whole evening swimming, playing in the water, rocketing down the slides, and drinking our tropical cocktails while floating merrily in the pool. There are two key details about that night: 1. Getting to swim in our bathing suits without wearing clothes over them like a shirt and shorts. 2. Getting to have drinks without being condemned by every Honduran in sight. We felt at home in this pool. That night we all fell asleep with big grins on our faces :)

Saturday we woke up quite early since we are exhausted teachers and went to bed early (yes, even on vacation we call it an early night), but we also wanted to get the most out of the day instead of sleeping until the afternoon. Cassidy, Lori, Heather, and I found the breakfast buffet. There weren’t a lot of eating options at the hotel besides the restaurants, and we didn’t want to have to venture into town to find something. We were a little hesitant at first because since it is a nice hotel the prices are higher, but we quickly figured that we could pay for the buffet and sit and eat as long as we could fill ourselves up so much that we wouldn’t need lunch. I have never eaten so much food in my entire existence. We ate for a solid two hours – from 7:30-9:30 – without stopping! I promise you that we each had at least 5 full plates of food and we ate every crumb. I was well past the state of stuffed and I was sure my stomach was going to physically explode. Although we were in pain for about a half an hour, it worked! We were not even remotely hungry until dinner time so I would say that we definitely got our money’s worth of food at that breakfast buffet.

We spent the rest of the day soaking up the Caribbean sun any way we could. We swam in the ocean and read in beach chairs along the beach. We went for a wild banana boat ride – the driver loved us and had us trained to cheer whenever he blew his whistle, he let us swim in the middle of the ocean far from the beach, and our trip was not without a little thrill as we almost got t-boned by another boat. We played and chatted in the pool whenever we needed a break from all that salt. We caught relief from the heat and rays underneath the poolside umbrellas by reading, taking naps, or browsing the internet. We played beach volleyball with all the teachers and some curious Hondurans. It was a top runner for the best day of my life. Giant smiles never left our faces and we kept reminding each other that we were truly on this beautiful vacation in the Caribbean.

We ended our perfect day with a marvelous dinner. We ate at the restaurant on the beach and each ordered some delicious seafood dish. I got grilled shrimp with sautéed veggies and mashed potatoes. Of course my meal was accompanied with a classic piña colada! Our day left us all very very tired but we did not mind since our exhaustion was from playing too hard (if such a thing exists). Sadly we had to wake up early again the next morning to start the trek back to La Union (which is disappointingly not on the coast nor with any body of water in sight). It may have been the quickest vacation but it was certainly the best decision we could have made. There were many times that we discussed cancelling school on Tuesday and Wednesday just to stay a few extra days in paradise! (Too bad Jake wasn’t going for it.) 

Please be praying for all of us teachers this week. This past weekend was exactly the medicine we needed to rejuvenate ourselves. Some of us are beginning to feel burnt out as the first quarter is coming to an end and our students are pushing our patience to whole new levels. We have another 3-day weekend coming up (with more vacation plans) so pray that with this past trip and our next one we are completely re-energized and find new motivation to keep teaching these students. We are all working very, in fact maybe a little too hard! But we absolutely cannot (and will not) give up.

A [much needed] Daily Devotional

I thought I would share with you my devotion from yesterday morning. I read these every morning at breakfast to start my day, but this one in particular really blew me away yesterday both in reading it and in practice.

(This comes from The One Year walk with God Devotional by Chris Tiegreen)

Confidence in God
“Though war break out against me, even then will I be confident” – Psalm 27:3

In word: Feeling besieged? Don’t be surprised. It’s a natural human condition. Few people go through life with a sense of invulnerability. We question our strength, and, when trouble strikes, we doubt our ability to stand. We don’t feel invincible, so we fear trials. When war or even minor conflicts break out against us, confidence often disappears.
            David was no stranger to conflict. He was also no stranger to fear. His understanding of God’s strength and sovereignty did not come by birthright, it came by experience. When he tells us in verse 1 that the Lord is his light and salvation, the stronghold of life, he can make such claims only because there were times when he was forced either to lean on God or to whither away and die. The truth of God’s strength is only learned during times of vulnerability. Strong, confident people learn to rely on themselves. Weak, helpless people learn to rely on God.
            David’s introductory question in this psalm – “whom shall I fear?” – is purely rhetorical. He knows the answer: no one. If we can honestly claim with David that the Lord is our light, salvation, and stronghold, we can ask the same question without any fear of a valid answer coming up. We can be afraid of no one.

In deed: If you’re trying to work yourself into a state of confidence, be careful of where that confidence is placed. The model of overassertive strength that the world urges us to follow overestimates the power of man. Christians are not called to follow it; we are called to place every hope in the almighty God. If we need a source of strength, our inner self will not encourage us very much. God will.
            Learn to speak the words of David. Say them out loud to yourself, if necessary. You are playing psychological games, you are rehearsing the truth. Though war break out against us, we have every indication that our confidence in God is well-founded. Our heart does not need to fear, because we are children of the fearless One.

Now, if you had talked to me within the last two weeks you would know how defeated I was feeling. My students don’t seem to be getting along very well with their English and I was running out of ideas on how to teach them. Everything I came up with, they bombed because they could not understand a word I was saying; my creative juices were dry. I know that I was not failing as a teacher, but it sure felt like it. There were multiple times that I had to physically stop myself from crying in front of my students because I was unbelievably frustrated. So you can imagine, coming off two very hard weeks and having to start again on a Monday, that I was not enthusiastic at all. I really wanted to play sick for the day and just quit on teaching. This was the war that was overwhelming my life.

After reading this devotional I prayed to God that he would help me that day. I prayed that he would use me as his tool and teach these students through me. He knew how to help them best and how they could learn best, so I needed his wisdom in teaching them. I was obviously out of energy and desperately needed his strength to start the week. I put my day in his hands and headed off to school. Now, I would love to tell you that clouds parted and a bright shining light poured out from the heavens with angels singing gloriously, and all of sudden my students knew perfect English. But I had another kind of miraculous victory that day! It was small but monumental at the same time. Every single one of my students stayed in green for the whole day! (In my classroom I have a behavior system based on colors: each morning the students all start out in green. Once they receive three checks for any sort of bad behavior, they move to yellow, and will owe me some kind of extra assignment. If they happen to get three more checks then they move to red and receive demerits from the office.) Therefore! although their English may not be spectacular and they still struggle in every single class, at least my students know how to behave. I was so proud of them all.

I cannot claim this victory as my own. I know God’s hand was in that moment and he guided me all day. I am learning to lean on him daily because this job is too challenging to try to do on my own. It was days like this that make me love my job beyond expressible words and so thankful that I have the strongest man on my side, God.