Escuela Mayatan honors the traditional US holiday by making us a (mostly) traditional Thanksgiving dinner (pumpkin pie with icing?) and giving us the traditional 4 day weekend. We had 2 really nice dinners with some of our new friends. Last night's dinner included some Hondurans who enjoyed their 1st Thanksgiving feast. Luis commented on how much he liked all the food, especially the 4 slivers of pie he tried.
The town, despite moving into hot & sweaty weather, is preparing for Christmas. Fake Christmas trees are popping up in living rooms (visible through doors propped open to let a breeze in) and on rooftops. Christmas decorations have appeared in stores, although, thankfully, not in the mass abundance as in US stores. Christmas turkeys have appeared in the streets. There is a particularly large and fearsome one on the road to Escuela Mayatan that is very cocky and chased Alex on Wednesday morning. He was hoping it would and I am more than happy to let him play the decoy so I can make my hurried escape.
As our 3rd week here comes to a close, I (Amy, this time) am thankful for the following things:
-I have learned how to unlock my classroom door mostly on the 1st try.
-I have learned how to turn on the shower so it is mostly warm most of the time.
-We now own 4 candles so we're more prepared the next time the power goes out.
-I am grateful that I brought my gray sweater - the first 2 weeks were a little on the chilly side.
The newest teacher, Hallie, who arrived one week after us, asked us last night, "Things get better after 3 weeks, right?" (She's actually getting along well, but we're all in the adjustment period of living in a new country.) I told her that I think that there are so many basic things that we have to learn how to do again that we take for granted in the US that of course there is an adjustment period. Opening doors, using the shower, using the toilet, buying groceries - where to find the food, what it looks like, how it's packaged (or not packaged) and how to ask for it, new food, food that is cheap here but expensive in the US (pineapples, papayas, platanos), food that is expensive here but cheap in the US (apples), where to use the Internet, doing the laundry by hand either in our shower or on the pila....
For those of you who have snow already, Alex and I celebrated our Thanksgiving holiday today by going for a hike in the jungle and adjusting to sweating. Sweating! We haven't done that for years.
Happy Turkey Day to all!
Friday, November 26, 2010
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Dust and Books
It has been two weeks already with Amy finishing her second week in front of the students. Her anxiety is waning and she is doing well. The students are starting to warm up as well as they have been through a couple of teachers this season. One who didn't work out and a substitute filling in until Amy came in, so it stands to reason there will be some adjustment period. Escuela Mayatan is the only private not for profit, non religious, bilingual school in all of Honduras with 300 students and they will have their first graduating class in 2012. Every Monday morning All students and staff gather around the perimeter of the outside basketball court for an assembly to sing their national anthem, sing a song, recieve anouncements then head off to class.
The grounds here are beautiful, nestled into the side of a hill with many various tropical plants and trees. The windows on the buildings are gridded with screens and with no means to close them, so at times it can be very noisy. Espesially during shop and music classes.The cafeteria is a small walk up to and pick what you want building serving chicken, beef, pork, totillas, salad, cake, ice cream and drinks. Some days might have a bit different menu. There are some very large trees here with air plants growing on there trunks and branches. Another fun feature is the cherping of the gecko.
My first task at school, which I suggested I would do, was to clean out and organize all the books in the store room. Now, this room had text books, teachers' resource books, novels, magazines, old spiral binders with old "stuff" in them. Loose books, books in boxes, books on shelves mixed with papers, books on the floor mixed iwht papers, books in English, Spanish, even a book or two in French and German, and, what?!, even romance novels? Oh, and a couple of books the kids shouldn't be looking at. C'est la vie. So in I went.
As I dug in, I found hidden under the rubble and dust bags of Christmas decorations, years-gone-by lost and found clothing items, paper school projects and a couple of mummified tree frogs and dried beetles. One day, the librarian came in and looked through some work books and said with her Honduran accent, "My god! This was my daughter's grade school book. It has her name in it and now she is in her second year of University!"
I sorted and stacked and sometimes I sorted and stacked a stack again until I had multiple copies of the same books together and books with like books. Next, the books were surveyed and some made the grade while others received an F for being too F-outdated, too F-damaged, too F-useless, or too F-many of the same copy. We promptly stacked these books outside in the breeze way so teachers or students could gander at them to see if there was anything to their liking.
Next thing I knew, the hoards of students descended like flies on....well, you get the idea. Papers were flying, books were flying. You would have thought it was gift time at Christmas. It was a sight to behold. The kids were so excited and it looked like a hurricanito came through. Small boys had stacks of books as tall as themselves were carting them home at the end of the day. Girls put books in boxes so they could team up and each take an end to get them home. I failed to mention that within the rubble was an old fax machine, an old computer moniter, a disassembled ceiling fan and an old overhead projector. One girl asked me, referring to the fax machine, "Can I take this home?" "You need to ask your teacher. I don't think it works," I said. She replied, "I just want to play with it." Another boy took the moniter home and the disassembled fan just disappeared. By the end, all that was left were a few books that also received an F from the kids and some bags of used up paper. I enjoyed the whole ordeal. It was a treat to watch the case of the disappearing books, especially as Amy and I left at the end of one day to see one of the primary students, probably no more than 10, clutching his new Biology book.
I don't know whatever happened to the overhead projector. It was gone, then it was back, and then it was gone again.
PS Being in Honduras, our computer has automatically switched to Spanish. Google in Spanish, Blogspot in Spanish, even Spellcheck in Spanish. Please forgive our typos in an effort to get home before dark.
The grounds here are beautiful, nestled into the side of a hill with many various tropical plants and trees. The windows on the buildings are gridded with screens and with no means to close them, so at times it can be very noisy. Espesially during shop and music classes.The cafeteria is a small walk up to and pick what you want building serving chicken, beef, pork, totillas, salad, cake, ice cream and drinks. Some days might have a bit different menu. There are some very large trees here with air plants growing on there trunks and branches. Another fun feature is the cherping of the gecko.
My first task at school, which I suggested I would do, was to clean out and organize all the books in the store room. Now, this room had text books, teachers' resource books, novels, magazines, old spiral binders with old "stuff" in them. Loose books, books in boxes, books on shelves mixed with papers, books on the floor mixed iwht papers, books in English, Spanish, even a book or two in French and German, and, what?!, even romance novels? Oh, and a couple of books the kids shouldn't be looking at. C'est la vie. So in I went.
As I dug in, I found hidden under the rubble and dust bags of Christmas decorations, years-gone-by lost and found clothing items, paper school projects and a couple of mummified tree frogs and dried beetles. One day, the librarian came in and looked through some work books and said with her Honduran accent, "My god! This was my daughter's grade school book. It has her name in it and now she is in her second year of University!"
I sorted and stacked and sometimes I sorted and stacked a stack again until I had multiple copies of the same books together and books with like books. Next, the books were surveyed and some made the grade while others received an F for being too F-outdated, too F-damaged, too F-useless, or too F-many of the same copy. We promptly stacked these books outside in the breeze way so teachers or students could gander at them to see if there was anything to their liking.
Next thing I knew, the hoards of students descended like flies on....well, you get the idea. Papers were flying, books were flying. You would have thought it was gift time at Christmas. It was a sight to behold. The kids were so excited and it looked like a hurricanito came through. Small boys had stacks of books as tall as themselves were carting them home at the end of the day. Girls put books in boxes so they could team up and each take an end to get them home. I failed to mention that within the rubble was an old fax machine, an old computer moniter, a disassembled ceiling fan and an old overhead projector. One girl asked me, referring to the fax machine, "Can I take this home?" "You need to ask your teacher. I don't think it works," I said. She replied, "I just want to play with it." Another boy took the moniter home and the disassembled fan just disappeared. By the end, all that was left were a few books that also received an F from the kids and some bags of used up paper. I enjoyed the whole ordeal. It was a treat to watch the case of the disappearing books, especially as Amy and I left at the end of one day to see one of the primary students, probably no more than 10, clutching his new Biology book.
I don't know whatever happened to the overhead projector. It was gone, then it was back, and then it was gone again.
PS Being in Honduras, our computer has automatically switched to Spanish. Google in Spanish, Blogspot in Spanish, even Spellcheck in Spanish. Please forgive our typos in an effort to get home before dark.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Churches, Restaurants and Cobblestone
Well, Amy and I are settled in our cozy one bedroom apartment. Everything here is made out of concrete, so our walls are concrete also with a cheery yellow paint job accented with blue striping bordering the baseboards and ceiling. The floors are red clay tile. The town is situated along a hill so the streets are up and down and for the most part either dirt or cobblestone. The streets are narrow, as are the sidewalks, and the traffic can be speedy, especially the three wheeled BMW mini taxis. The cobble can take a bit to get used to when walking in or across the street. We live about 4 ½ blocks from the town square and the open air market where we go for our fruits and veggies. At times there will be music in the town square along with a roaming rooster or horse. Outside the bank are about six police, half with hand held metal detectors and the others bearing their automatic rifles, but they tend to be personable and say hello as we pass by.
Our walk to the school in the morning is a waker-upper. We have about a mile walk, half of which is uphill. We share the morning walk with many locals either walking somewhere, doing chores or just standing outside their home or place of business. Everyone is friendly and we are really getting to practice our “Buenos dias” or “ Buenas” or “Hola”.
There are many churches here in Copan Ruinas. It is nothing to have two churches within about a 1/8 of a mile of each other. The churches are, I guess you could say, open air churches. The doors and windows are kept open and the sermon and singing is in the air. There is a church two lots down the road from our apartment. Every morning at 5:30 am, the music begins. It begins again at about 6:oo pm and lasts for about two hours, maybe a bit more. Oh yes, and on the weekends there is an additional round at midday. Our windows are the horizontal louvered type and are not air tight, nor are the doors, so we hear everything as if we were sitting in the first row. We also have an “open air” restaurant two lots uphill from us with only outdoor seating and last night we had a special treat. Someone was having a party, so there were Mariachis playing until 10 pm. Again, we had a front row seat. We never thought we would be so special.
Actually, we are enjoying our new life here in Honduras. It is a refreshing change. We don’t understand most of the words of the songs, but they are refreshingly different. I guess you could say the air around us is alive with life.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Cleaning house
It's amazing how much junk one accumulates throughout one's life. Here we are, heading to Honduras, needing to move out of our house in one week's time, faced with a household of stuff - stuff we've moved before and would be moving again except for the fact that we would have to pay to store all this stuff. (Am I starting to sound like George Carlin?) I have discovered brand new ways of thinking about all of our stuff. I've been holding onto things that I didn't really like because they're still useful. Old dishes, lamps that don't go with our furniture, damaged dolls. The useful things are getting donated. My friend Nancy came all the way from Portland to help me free some of our stuff to go onto more fruitful lives. We auspiciously burned the worn out dolls on Halloween Day, my grandmother's birthday, thanking them for their time with me. One-armed Raggedy Ann, no-hair Raggedy Ann, the eyeless, one-eared dog. Billy and his blond girlfriend went into the fire together, to be together into eternity, and promptly rolled off the log to opposite sides of the fire. Were they glad to finally be freed from each other?
Along with the junk went the cat. Dan, the vet, came over on the Day of the Dead to put him to sleep. Unfortunately, his injection tumor, the result of his 16 plus years of vaccinations, had swelled up to the size of 2 tennis balls just before our return from our road trip. He was about to enter a time of rapid decline, so this was the time for us to let him go. He's resting next to Julie, his brother who had a long and painful death a few year.
Do we realize that a lot of the stuff that we hold onto is just plain trash? Old papers, set aside to be reviewed and never looked at again. Odds and ends that creep into filing cabinets and drawers. I gave Nancy some magnets to put in the donations box, only to turn around to catch her throwing them away. Perhaps she has the better attitude. Would someone else want my garbage anyway? I'm finding easier and easier to throw stuff in the trash the closer we get to departure - we only have so much storage space and so much time. A matter of hours now, until we need to be out of the house and on the road.
In a way, it's nice to have to divest ourselves of so much accumulation in a short period of time. We're paring our lives down to 2 suitcases and 2 carry-ons. What we have becomes meaningless - what do we really need? The rest is put out to the ether, perhaps to be seen again.
Along with the junk went the cat. Dan, the vet, came over on the Day of the Dead to put him to sleep. Unfortunately, his injection tumor, the result of his 16 plus years of vaccinations, had swelled up to the size of 2 tennis balls just before our return from our road trip. He was about to enter a time of rapid decline, so this was the time for us to let him go. He's resting next to Julie, his brother who had a long and painful death a few year.
Do we realize that a lot of the stuff that we hold onto is just plain trash? Old papers, set aside to be reviewed and never looked at again. Odds and ends that creep into filing cabinets and drawers. I gave Nancy some magnets to put in the donations box, only to turn around to catch her throwing them away. Perhaps she has the better attitude. Would someone else want my garbage anyway? I'm finding easier and easier to throw stuff in the trash the closer we get to departure - we only have so much storage space and so much time. A matter of hours now, until we need to be out of the house and on the road.
In a way, it's nice to have to divest ourselves of so much accumulation in a short period of time. We're paring our lives down to 2 suitcases and 2 carry-ons. What we have becomes meaningless - what do we really need? The rest is put out to the ether, perhaps to be seen again.
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