Friday, January 28, 2011

Amy’s Top 10 Ways to Take a Warm Shower

1.       Become a master of adjusting the water faucet one micrometer at a time.
2.       Take a shower in the early evening, before the temperature cools off, so that the air temperature outside the shower isn’t cooler than the water temperature.
3.       DO NOT run any water anywhere else in the entire building while someone is in the shower. It reduces the water pressure, thus reducing the temperature in the bizarre water heater contraption that also serves as a shower head that depends upon a very precise water pressure.
4.       Wait for the constantly fluctuating water pressure to peak. This involves a lot of trial and error and a willingness to wait a couple of hours until the water pressure comes back up.
5.       Don’t take a shower right after a power outage as strong water pressure depends on a strong power supply.
6.       Don’t take a shower when the lights are dim. (See #5) The power, like the water pressure, constantly fluctuates.
7.       Wait for a warm day to heat the water in the river and in the black plastic water storage tank. Warm water gets even warmer when it runs through the water heater.
8.       Learn to accept that the Honduran standard of hot water is a lot cooler than the US standard of hot water.
9.       Appreciate every day that there is water coming to the shower. We are heading towards the dry season when this may not be true.
10.   Take cold showers.

The end of the quarter

It's the end of the quarter tomorrow, so, with piles of papers to grade on my desk and grades to compile, I thought I'd take a moment to write in our blog.

Some people are wondering what the students are like. I like to reflect on what my thoughts were in the week before we came to Honduras, while we were packing up our house and getting ready to fly out of town. "The students have been learning English since Kindergarten. They should have great English skills." "This is a private school where the kids want to be there. I bet I'll have great students who want to learn." "The website says that I'll have a yearly plan and a curriculum to work off of."

Are all of you laughing? The reality is that all of my students in all 5 classes except for one are English Language Learners. A big part of my job is deciphering what they are trying to say rather than what they are actually saying. "Will you borrow me a pencil?" is a classic example. Another part of my job is to teach them words like homozygous and uniformitarianism. Some of the children may have attention deficit disorder, but we don't know. Things like that aren't tested for here.

"But you have the class curriculum? That must help." Are you kidding? I finally found last year's yearly plan tucked away in my desk drawer in a folder under other random papers. Coming in at the start of the 2nd quarter the way I did, I am 5 or more chapters behind and falling further behind every week. I am fortunate that I have a book that comes with CDs that provide worksheets, quizzes (although I have to amend them), and a vague teaching plan for each section. I use the book and outline the rest.

What about all of the students wanting to be there? Who was I kidding? What kid wants to be in school? They're middle school students. Half the kids are scholarship students and tend to be the ones that try the hardest. The other half are children of wealthy parents that can afford to send their kids here. There is a rumor that the wealthy kids don't actually fail each year, whether they do the work or not. I am lucky that my largest class size is 13 students. My 7th grade classes are shrinking, so are now down to 10 and 11 students each. (My big fear now is that they'll combine them.) When I started, 4 of my 5 classes where in complete chaos. The former teacher apparently had them reading and working on projects while he sat with his feet up on his desk tossing a ball into the air. I am proud of my 7th and 8th graders that they, for the most part, can now sit somewhat quietly in their chairs and appear to be paying attention in class. I am now working on getting them to take notes, do their classwork, and turn in completed homework. (Kyle says, "Hi.") I think I am a really hard teacher.

It is now a week after I started writting this blog posting. My grades are turned in, the report cards go out next week. I've signed up to have parent-teacher conferences with about half of my students. 2 failed 9th grade science (what I like to call Pre-Physics), 9 out of 27 failed 8th grade Earth Science, and 8 out of 21 failed 7th grade Life Science. Sigh. (This is actually a little better than I thought because I thought half of 8th and half of 7th grade failed - I'm glad to note it's less than that.) I've decided to stick with the hard line, though, and not give the kids an easy out. Is it too much to ask for them to turn in their homework and not cheat?

One on one, the kids are great. They have their moments, good and bad. 7th grade can get really, really hyper, especially 7A. It's amazing how crazy 10 kids can get. My better days are when I'm long on patience. I constantly remind myself of a Facebook comment one of Alex's co-workers from Yellowstone made, "I hope you're teaching, Alex, and not Amy. Us Leos do not have a lot of patience." I'm gradually learning to teach and very gradually learning to teach kids who don't know how to learn.

It gets better every week!

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Real Conversations With 7th Grade Students

Real Conversation With 7th Grade Students
The 2 classes of the 7th grade are a big challenge for all of their teachers. Will they stay in their seats? Will they come to class with books, notebooks, pencils? Did they do their homework? If so, did they bother to use their book or did they just guess? (Yes, class, “Directed Reading” contains the word “Reading”. That means you have to read while you fill out the worksheet.) And will they ever stop talking? Since all of my students are English as a Second Language learners, they are sometimes actually amusing as they (occassionally) try to express scientific thoughts in their 2nd language.
This week, we are learning mitosis and meiosis, otherwise known as cell division, something that is not quite in the realm of a Structural Engineer. It’s challenging. I found some videos on Encarta Encyclopedia and we are drawing out the processes together in class. It’s actually going fairly well, for the 7th graders. Friday, we drew mitosis, or single cell division. The video was at the point where the cell was starting to split and the chromotids (parts of chromosomes) have split apart with half moving to either side of the splitting cell from their previous location lined up neatly down the center of the cell.
The cast of characters: Miss Amy (me), Jose Rodolfo (one of the brightest kids in the class who loves cell division because it’s so easy), Anuar (a very bright student who gets into trouble all of the time because he’s had a lot of family problems and craves the attention of any adult available), and the other 10 members of the class.
Miss Amy: Let’s draw the next step. What’s different about this next step from our last drawing?
Jose Rodolfo: The chromatids are moving to their final destiny.
Miss Amy: (Trying not to laugh) Very good answer. It’s actually “destination”, though. A destination is a place. Destiny is more of a calling. Such as the chromatids’ destiny is to become a new cell. Or perhaps my destiny is to be a teacher.
Anuar: I don’t think so.

New Year’s Eve Adventure

New Year’s Eve Adventure
It was roughly 5 pm on New Year’s Eve when our landlord Gilda (pronounced “Hilda”) came to our door to give us some very tasty pan dulce, sweet bread, that she had made. She also invited us to a fiesta at the house of some relatives of hers. We had told her in the past that we would like for her to speak Spanish as she speaks better Spanish than she does English and to give us the chance to practice our Spanish. It is also funny to note that both parties are pretending to understand (or thinking that we understand) more than we really do. She gave us directions to the location in Spanish, as we had asked. Amy and I understood, or so we thought, most of the directions and we would glance at each other for encouragement and comfort. We did know fiesta time was around 10 to 10:30 pm.
At 9 pm, we ventured two blocks to the town square where boys were having a blast with their fireworks. We sat down on one of the long concrete benches and admired the smoke filled air. A favorite firework was a small loud whistling one that shot spiraling horizontally through the air. The boys were, of course, shooting them at each other. We sat cautiously amused and hoped we didn’t become a target. There were a couple of close ones. Another favorite was a triangular “bomb” that was about the size of a 4 inch cube that made us jump even when we were expecting it. We were getting ready to leave when we happened into an ex-pat we had met before we left for Christmas. We chatted with him (or, rather, he chatted with us) and his Honduran wife (of note is that he is at least 50 and made sure we knew that his wife is 27) until five minutes to 10 when we set out on our way to find the fiesta.
Down the cobblestone streets we went, past shops, bars and residences with New Year’s spirit playing loudly through speakers. Eventually, we strolled along a quiet moonlit stretch of road to the “place” where we thought we were supposed to end up. (An unrelated side note: At this moment, Mariachis are playing outside at the restaurant next door. Can’t beat that. Back to the story…) We stood in the empty street in front of the big construction supply store looking around wondering, “There doesn’t seem to be anything around here that looks like a party. There aren’t any cars, no houses, no lights. I could swear!” “I thought you knew where it was.” “I thought you knew where it was.” “I understood it to be here”. “Look half-way up that street to the right, looks like there is a party there. Maybe that’s it.” (Another side note: Now we have the church on the other side of us singing. Church music and Mariachis mixing. Where else can you get that! Aye, aye, aye!)
We took a chance and headed up the road to redeem ourselves. Alongside the house was a driveway that led to the backyard where there was a party, complete with tables underneath free standing canopies. We walked up to the open door of the house and saw one of Gilda’s nieces, so we were very proud to have found the party. We entered the house and walked up to a table where three ladies were sitting. They all looked at us smiling and seemed very glad to see us saying, “Hola, hola.” Amy approached them and asked for Gilda. They, speaking in Spanish and not knowing what Amy asked because she didn’t pronounce it quite right, shrugged and asked, “Que?” Amy repeated, “Gilda?” They looked at each other then turned to Amy and said, “No, no Gilda”. We decided to go out to the backyard to ask and look around. We promptly received the same response.
Walking back to the street, we asked each other, “What do you think?” “I don’t know.” Suddenly a teenage boy approached us and said, “I speak English. Who are you looking for?” We told him, and he shook his head saying, “No, I don’t know.” Feeling defeated, we thanked him and decided to walk a bit further up the road. We made it about half a block, but both of us felt like we were going in the wrong direction, so we turned around and began our descent back down the road of unknowing. It is said you have to descend into darkness before you reach enlightenment. Fate had it that we would have to walk back by the non-party party. As we approached the driveway there were a couple of ladies and a gentleman watching us and talking amongst themselves. We walked by, saying hello again, when the gentleman asked, “Are you ok?” We said yes and explained our predicament, adding that it was Gilda from Annie Express and she also works at Maytan School. He relayed this to the ladies and they said, “Oh, si. Rapid Spanish Spanish Spanish.”
After a moment of holding our breath at the prospect of a breakthrough, the gentleman told us that Gilda’s party was down about two blocks and to the right but we would need help finding it. “The kids can take you there but they can’t do it right now so would you like to come in and have a drink and a bite to eat”? We looked at each other. “Well, uh, what do you think?” “You should come in. You can eat and the kids will take you there.” We felt we might be intruding, but also didn’t want to add insult to the offer. He insisted and in we went. We sat down at the tables and people were smiling and waving at us like we were old friends. There were a few who looked like they were wondering who the hell we were. I struck up a conversation with a boy, the son of the gentleman, who it turns out lives in Rhode Island and came home for the holidays. Amy sat with the man’s wife and chatted with her. I eventually joined them and we each had a plate of food and a beer.
After about a half hour, two ladies said they would take us to our party. We said our goodbyes and off we went. We arrived at a large gate at a house that was very quiet as if everyone was sleeping. One lady knocked on the gate. In a moment the gate opened and a groundskeeper appeared. The lady explained our predicament in Spanish, but the groundskeeper shook his head and we understood him to say, “There is no one here.” He did motion for us to go up the hill past the party from where we came, so off we went again to find the Gilda, one lady making the trek up the rough cobblestone streets in clog type shoes and the other in high heels. The two ladies had to hold hands to help support each other, sacrificing for fashion Honduras style. We wound our way up the hill to a house with another big gate where we entered into the backyard. We saw some kids from school, who were trying to hide from us, and began feeling confident. There was a small party going on but we didn’t see any Gilda or Ada or Annie.
Our escort talked to another lady, the host, about our plight. They chatted in their expressive manner, and the host said that Gilda was not there but she would call her. As they conversed on the phone, Gilda agreed to meet us at the first party so off we went again, back down the hill to the first party. When we arrived, some of the partiers were dancing in the backyard. We sat down and started on a second beer when a lady motioned for us to come out on the dance gravel. Taking advantage of the opportunity, we stepped into our dancing shoes. We got in three dances when Gilda appeared. I grabbed my beer and off we went waving goodbye. As we walked with our long lost Gilda, she told us that the people throwing the party we were at were relatives of her sister-in-law, Ada and the young girl we saw when we were there the first time had strolled over to Gildas party but failed to mention that she saw us. Gilda also told us that the lady that called her on the phone told her there were a couple of gringos looking for her. We can only imagine that conversation:
Lady: Buenas noches, Gilda. Happy New Year. We have a couple of gringos here who are looking for you. Do you know who they are?
Gilda: Ha, ha. Oh yes, they work with me and live at my house. We’d forgotten all about them.
Lady: Do you think you can do something about them. They’re apparently crashing New Year’s parties all over town.
Gilda: Yes, of course, I’ll come get them.
We arrived, finally, at the beloved party where we were promptly fed again. This party was to the right and behind the big construction supply store where we were at the beginning. If we had walked another ten feet, we would have been able to see down the dirt driveway to the party.
We brought in the new year and watched the fireworks out over the town. We all hugged and wished each other un feliz ano nuevo. It was very nice. It was a nice quiet ending to an evening of the unknown. Maybe... We stayed until about 1:30 am and figured it was time to head home. The shortest way home was to walk by the first party we had stumbled onto. As we strolled down the middle of the street, we could still hear the music flooding out from the back yard and as we looked down the driveway to the backyard, we could see people still dancing. Before we could pass, two ladies looked up and saw us. They waved their arms and beckoned us in. We waved, took a few more steps and looking at each other, smiled and headed down the driveway back to the dance gravel.

Monday, January 3, 2011

Back form Costa Rica


                                                           BACK FROM COSTA RICA                    12/31/2010………8pm
We are now back in our beloved temporary home of Copan Ruinas. We arrived last night, Dec.30th and awoke this morning to one of the typical power outages. We journeyed to the market today for our bi-weekly purchase of fruits, veggies and other supplies. For a special treat today,we are listening to a barrage of fireworks sounds. Occasionally we endure what sounds like a bomb going off and we wait for the windows to blow in. Before we left I saw a young boy buying a “firecracker” that was 3” in diameter and about 14” long. Tonight at 10pm we will be attending a new year fiesta at our landlords friends place where we can practice our Spanish. Aye, aye, aye. As for this moment and many more moments to come we are being serenaded by the hours long church service next door, which will undoubtedly continue into the new year.
Our trip to Costa Rica was great. We stayed with our friends Jose, Bernadette, Sophia, and Isabel Solano. We arrived last Wednesday at 8am to much cooler weather than we expected. The mountains were cloud covered the entire time we were there but the weather was nice anyway. When we arrived we wondered if we made our stay too long, 8 days, because you know what they say about overstaying your welcome, fish and friends-you don’t keep them for more than two days.
Bernadette had a lot of work to do as she works from home writing math textbooks, so it was up to Jose to entertain us for the most part during the day. On Thursday, Jose, Amy, and I went to town where we had breakfast at a locals place. It was small, kind of rough, as in down to earth, and great. We ordered the “platos tipicos” with rice and beans, eggs, corn tortillas and cheese. Yum. A heaping plate for about three dollars, then off to run some errands. “Would you take your tour group here?” Amy wondered. “Oh no,” replied Jose, “This is only for very special people.” (We got to know the Solanos better by taking one of Jose’s guided trips to Guatemala and Belize a few years ago. Jose caters to upper middle class tastes, meaning he sticks to restaurants serving $10 meals instead of $2-3 meals. Still a bargain for most US tourists, but Jose knows that we prefer the hole-in-the-wall places with all of the local flavor.) After a trip to the bank and the inevitable lines at the bank and a shopping adventure at the local farmer’s market, we went back to the Solano’s place for a swim and a walk through the gardens. They live in some condos that are adjacent to and owned by a hotel so they have access to the hotel gardens. The gardens are host to a variety of tropical flora such as varieties of banana and lemon trees, coffee plants, numerous flowers, and other trees such as the beautiful Ceiba and Guanacaste,Costa Rica’s national tree and a symbol of freedom. The gardens are very beautiful. In the morning and evening, we would occasionally walk through the gardens in hope of spotting some of the tropical birds. While Amy was swimming I, earning my stripes as a  master bird-spotter, saw the Blue Crowned Mot Mot tucked away in the trees surrounding the pool area. A very cool bird. We also saw blue grey tanningers, crimson fronted amazon parrots and other birds. Yellow,orange,brown. You name it. I even saw the little pygmie owl. Very cool and cute. Jose quickly learned that if you want to spot wildlife, it’s a good thing to have Alex Rangel along. Amy snuck this line when I wasn't looking. She said I had to leave it.
Each morning we would awake, have our coffee, eat a bit , then Jose would have some options for us to choose from. “Where would you like to go today?” he’d query, wanting to explore local possibilities for an upcoming tour group he’s offering in Spring 2011. One day, we all piled into the car and made the trip up the mountain to La Paz Bird and Butterfly Sanctuary. Getting from one place to another in Costa Rica is quite a challenge. Maps aren’t always the ticket either. There isn’t a straight road in the whole country,it seems, so if you want to go somewhere that is 10 miles away as the crow flies, you have to travel 20 miles to get there and they have a limited amount of signs.It was always an adventure to get from one place to another. We had to get lost at least once or twice a trip or end up driving in circles, and with the traffic, driving on the streets is more like driving on a race track. So, we are on our way to the sanctuary. We get up the mountain to find the road pot-holed and muddy from construction to repair it after it was damaged by an earthquake a couple of years ago. It was slow going for a while but we made it only to encounter rain. Even though Jose negotiated a reduced rate of $20 per person, we opted not to get wet and started back down the road to find lunch.
We had fun on our adventures each day. We went to a zoo which is in a very hard to find, but nice location in San Jose. Unfortunately, Jose had been there before and said not much had improved from the restless animals in cages from 20 years earlier. At the bird park and sanctuary outside of Alajuela, I looked up into the canopy of a tree and spotted the famed Jesu Cristo,or Jesus Christ lizard, so named for its ability to run across the top of water. Its true name is the Common Basalisk, meaning Small King. We also traveled to some nice towns. One town in particular Jose, Amy, and I walked by a local tavern where, inside, there were a couple of ex-pats among the locals. Jose suggested we go in for a beer to experience the local flare. We promptly encountered a very nice old tico (local man) sitting at the bar drinking shots. He wanted us to sit with him but we politely declined as he was already sloshed and it was only noon. For Christmas Day, we bought a pork leg (pierna de cerdo) and Jose made Pernil. He punched holes in the roast and stuffed the holes with garlic, capers (a Christmas gift from Bernadette to Jose) and green olives with pimientos, then baked the whole concoction at 300 degrees while we all left the apartment for our trip to the zoo. Amy tried a new recipe from Bernadette’s Costa Rican cookbook with sliced plantain, apples and a type of sweet potato that is not really sweat, butter honey. Rice and beans and the ever present pastries from the panadoria. Oh, wine. (We think Bernadette and Jose may be under the false impression that we are drinkers as we used the excuse of vacation to have wine, beer, and/or rum and cokes every evening.)
On Sunday, the day after Christmas we went to a Pre-Columbian museum in downtown San Jose that houses stone, clay, and a lot of gold artifacts from the Mayan civilization. The gold artifacts are mostly small pendants and sculptures. When we arrived downtown we heard that there was going to be parade with horses. After we finished at the museum, we were going to head home. While we were waiting for our group to converge I walked to the main street to check out the parade. The street had four lanes with horses and riders galore. I walked back to tell everyone and we found out that it is an annual event that goes on all afternoon. There were thousands of spectators and thousands of horse riders, men, women, and sometimes children. It was a huge party – an excuse to drink, as Jose put it. Riders just kept coming and people were yelling and cheering. We stayed for about 45 minutes feeling we had the good fortune to happen upon this event. When we got home, Jose looked the parade up online, The Oracle, as we dubbed it, to find that it is the largest of its kind and happens each year on the day after Christmas.
Well, Wednesday came much faster than we expected. It seemed as if we had just arrived and it was time to leave. We didn’t over stay our welcome after all. It seems you can keep friends for more than two days, but fish, nah I wouldn’t recommend it.
Well, it is now Jan.1st am. Our stroll to the new year fiesta we were invited to last night was another adventure.

Strange happenings in Copan Ruinas

We heard this story made international news but we're not sure.
It was the beginning of December, Amy and I went for a walk. We strolled down to the town square to find lots of people, a stage, chairs and people on the stage with a microphone. We sat down thinking there was a show about to begin, but after a little while we realized that there were two lines of people extending out from either end of the stage and nothing was happening, and then we noticed people were stacking the chairs. We decided to leave and figured we had missed the show. A while later we heard out that the President of Honduras was handing out money to the poor. We were disappointed as we thought we had missed seeing the president, then later we were told that it was a representative of the president who was handing out the money. So, we went on our merry way and didn't think much more of it until I went on a guys night out the following evening. We were walking to the German Pub, yes German. This German guy just recently opened his own pub and brews his own beer. It,s great and we are all very thankful to him for the supply of good hearty beer. As we were walking to the pub a couple of the guys started talking about a shooting, and of course we were all intrigued. What! What happened!? As it turned out, right after Amy and I left the square the night that night there was an assassination about 3 blocks away.

The Honduran government representative for Copan County was driving up toward the town square. He had his two children in the vehicle with him, of which attend the school we are working at. Now, The roads in town are narrow and barely wide enough for two cars and are always pretty congested with both vehicles and pedestrians. According to the stories we heard, as he was driving up the road another vehicle drove up beside his car and started blasting away. He managed to turn his car toward the store fronts and in an attempt to divert gunfire away from his kids jumped out of the car and ran into one of the shops where he was followed and killed. Now we have been told that this kind of thing is very very rare hear in the Copan area. Things like this don't happen here. It turns out that this guy was dirty. Evidently it was well known he was involved in drugs. I was also told that sometime in the past he had raped and beat up a couple of teenage girls, but of course he was untouchable. So we have heard that it was a drug ring assassination and supposedly there are many people in town who aren't a bit sorry. The next day we heard that the director of our school was pulled over that night by the police with guns drawn and the whole works. The assassins were driving a red car and she drives a red car. She was not very happy. Strange happenings in Copan Ruinas.