You might be in Honduras if...

1) When asking where something is, people respond by making kissy faces at you.
     Well, not AT you exactly. When pointing at something, it is customary down here to point with your lips rather than your finger. This is VERY disconcerting if you are not from around here. Especially when your students do it to point at the chalkboard behind you.

2) Clothes hung on the line to dry, when left out in the rain, are considered to have an extra rinse.
     Because honestly, it's just too much work to wash them again. They'll be a bit stiff, but at least they don't smell bad anymore.

3) When looking at a dog in the street, you wonder what that growth is between its legs.
     Nobody spays or neuters dogs down here. Being a spoiled gringo, I'm used to pedigree, clean cut (in more ways than one) canines kept on leashes. Here they wander free, keep their own packs and territories, and scare the living daylights out of anyone who walks past their house at night. The blind corners on the doorways get you every time. Thank goodness most doors have fly screens and wrought iron gates.

4) The sound of distant gunfire late at night seems normal to you.
     What is this, downtown Baltimore city? Apparently two major families in the city are feuding and things have become a bit edgy of late. They aren’t looking for gringos, but it’s still best to keep indoors after 9 in the evening.

5) You have a high speed internet connection and no running water.
     I think I’m down to only three or four showers a week, depending on how much work I have in the evening. Honestly you sweat so much at night there almost isn’t any point in showering in the evening, you just end up waking up as filthy as you were when you got home. I would make an effort to shower more, but we just cleaned out the pila two days ago, and the water stopped running just as we started to refill it. If we want to be able to flush the toilet and do the dishes until we get water again, sacrifices must be made. On the plus side, all the dirt helps to keep the sun off.

Making Stories

So we pick up with our intrepid adventurer getting over the flu on a pleasant Monday afternoon. At least it was pleasant for me, because I got to sit inside working on lesson plans while me fellow teachers had to be outside in the hot sun marching.

Why marching? Well as stated before we only had two days of school that week because of Dia del Niños, which is like Mothers Day but for students. At the start of this weekend is a big parade where all the schools march through the city to show their patriotic spirit. Despite the fact that we are not an officially registered school, we somehow got roped into marching anyway. So Monday and Tuesday afternoon found my fellow teachers marching on the soccer field while I sat in the office, recovering from the flu. Thank you flu.

Sadly this was not enough to get me out of the actual parade, which was more like a forced death trudge than a festive march. From start to finish we were marching for FIVE HOURS without a break in the Honduran sun. I’m just glad I remembered to put on sunscreen…mostly. I neglected to put any on my chest, thinking it wouldn’t be necessary as I had every intention of keeping my shirt on during our trudge through town. However about an hour in I undid the top button of my shirt in an attempt not to pass out from heat exhaustion. I now sport a bright red arrow just below my neck pointing toward my navel.

Thursday we finally began our vacation. Myself, Jeff, Lacey, and Maki had decided to head to the North coast of Honduras to spend a long weekend in the Bay Islands drinking, eating, and scuba diving. But getting to our island paradise was going to prove challenging. You see there are two ways to get to the coast from Juticalpa. One is to get a nice Greyhound style coach to Tegucigalpa and from there another one up to La Ceiba, the main city on the North coast. This is rather expensive though (all be it comfortable). The other, much cheaper option, is to take what is commonly referred to as a “chicken bus” direct from Juticalpa to La Ceiba. The rout is much shorter, and goes right through the heart of the rural Honduran mountains.

We opted to be cheap, and got what we paid for.

There were some spectacular scenes along the way, but these were detracted from by the sheer agony of riding an old rejected US school bus for twelve hours on a winding mountain road full of holes (the road, not the bus…for the most part). Have I mentioned that potholes are a national pastime in Honduras? The journey would have been cut in half if we didn’t have to spend so much time weaving from side to side dodging holes and other vehicles. The only escape from the heat is to open the windows, and the only escape from the clouds of dust is to close them. How is a rainy season so dusty? The icing on the proverbial cake was the crazy Honduran preacher who got up and began ranting in Spanish at us for an hour (I timed it). Initially I didn’t mind, but the more he went on the more I was reminded of the guest speakers at KKK rallies on TV. My mind was quickly filled with horrifying scenarios in which I and my compatriots were lynched in the backwoods of Honduras by a mob of crazed, machete wielding locals.

Later, Maki informed me that this chap was making about as good an impression on the other passengers as he was on me. Apparently it was blatantly obvious that he couldn’t read, and that he did not know the Bible very well. He confessed to being in Honduran prison for 7 years, and US prison for 10. This was before God cured him of both a drug addiction, cancer, and AIDS, and then sent him forth to preach the good word. He also claimed to speak English and that he was going to preach to the gringos what he spoke to the Hondurans. If what he said to us was anything like what he said to the Hondurans, I am amazed they didn’t throw him from the moving bus. He knew two lines in English, which he shouted at as even though we were only two seats in front of him. The first was “dis is di Bibblé” and the other “Jisus lub yu” (I have made an attempt to represent the words phonetically). He repeated both sentences ad nauseum  until there was nothing left to add, and I was feeling the nauseum.

We made it to the ferry in the nick of time, and we finally reached the beautiful island of Utila. Utila caters to scuba divers like myself, and I managed to get in four amazing dives on the coral reefs. My fellow tourists did not dive, but did manage to find a beach with white sands and palm trees. We got to eat meat (I miss you meat), sleep in air conditioning (the bus ride was worth it just to wake up NOT covered in sweat), and have a drink in a bar without fear of being mugged or spotted by our students. Friday night we finished our stay on the island with a bar crawl in which we had an amazing talk with a native islander called Evelyn, the owner of Evelyn’s Barbeque, and make of the best cocktails on the island. She is not lying on this point. If you ever go to Utila you must go have a piña colada with Evelyn and have her tell you about the islands. Her grandmother lived on the island before it even had power or pluming, and the way she talks you would think she had been there herself. History, legend, and tall tale all blend together in the most dazzling stories you have ever heard! There are pirates, ghosts, wars, romances, voodoo and intrigue. I want to go back to Utila at the end of my stay in Honduras just to listen to more of Evelyn’s stories.

All too soon we were back on the chicken bus and back in Juticalpa (no crazy preacher this time, but Jeff and I did get checked for guns at a military check point!). The week flew by in a daze, with me melting down again on Wednesday and giving myself a massive migraine. Really it was the kids that gave me the migraine…and the kids outside playing in the street that perpetuated it after I got home. But somehow everything felt better by Friday. I think it’s because this was the first real week of school we have had, and now we really seem to be in the rhythm of things. I’m settled in at the house, I actually have lesson plans now, and my friends here are now family.

Looks like I really did get the adventure I wanted.

Getting Schooled

Oh man what a couple of weeks it has been. I’ll do my best to catch you all up to speed, starting with this post which I wrote last week about the week before that. Actually, I’m not entirely sure when I wrote this…it’s just been that sort of month, but regardless it is about two weeks ago, just as school was starting up (cue segue music into flashback)…

Monday:  Don’t Panic

So last Monday was the first day of school. There weren’t any actual classes, the day was meant as a sort of orientation for the students to the new school. I was assured that it was going to be an easy day; that I would most likely spend it sitting in the back of the classroom listening to one of the Honduran teachers speaking Spanish to the kids, explaining the rules and expectations for the school year.

Boy was I wrong.

He first thing we did was split up into pairs with each volunteer going with one of the Honduran teachers. This immediately became a problem, as my partner only spoke very rudimentary English, which was about as bad as my Spanish. Next we mixed each of our classes with one of the Cardinal classes. I should explain that we share a building with a second school…none of whom speak any English.

I consoled myself with the fact that the Honduran teacher was doing all the work, going through the school handbook with the students, while I sat there trying to look like I knew what they were saying. This was all fine until some random person came into the classroom, and said something in Spanish to my counterpart, who promptly left the room.

So there I was, staring down about thirty students, none of whom were inclined (or capable) of conversing in English. Some order was maintained by the student aid who continued to go through the handbook, but as the hour ticked by both she and I became rather worried. Neither of us had even the slightest idea as to what we were supposed to do once we finished the handbook (which we inevitably did) and were quite at a loss as to when the Honduran teacher would be getting back.

Desperation finally drove me to seek out Maki, who was just as surprised as I was at my counterpart’s sudden departure. Maki was having an equally stressful time trying to control the mixed classes, so we decided to split them up. “Finally,” I thought, “now they’ll HAVE to listen to my English”.

Yeah right. They barely listened to me at all. I was assigned class 8B, which I soon found out was composed of the most difficult children in the school. The kids had absolutely no interest in playing the “get to know you” game that the other volunteers had recommended and it was all I could do to keep them in their seats. Eventually Maki once again came to my rescue, bringing in a bundle of papers the kids needed to fill out.

Just when we thought the worst was over a tree frog, who had apparently been stuck to the roof of the classroom watching me flounder, decided that things were going a little too well and promptly dropped from his perch onto the floor in the dead center of the classroom. There was a wet “smack”, a moment of silence, and then pandemonium broke loose. Girls screamed and jumped up on their chairs. Boys began laughing hysterically. I swear it could not have been anymore cliché unless the accursed amphibian had landed on my head, as I stood there telling the kids to quiet down and fill out their paperwork.

The rest of the day is a bit of a blur. The only other thing I can remember is collapsing into bed that night thinking “at least tomorrow will be calmer. I’m sure the students will be under control once they start their regular classes.”

You would think I would know better than that.

Tuesday: Meeting my Nemesis

I like my weekly class schedule. Monday mornings are completely free, so I can spend all the way till lunchtime planning my classes for the week. The problem is, I didn’t have Monday classes this week, and thus, I didn’t really have anything planned. To make matters worse, Tuesdays are my crazy days, in which I have all four of my subjects as well as all four of the classes. And to complete my morning of nightmares my first class was World History with 8B, the little monsters I had rescued from the suicidal tree frog the day before. “It’s ok”, I once again lied to myself “they’re pretty badly behaved. I’ll just spend most of the class time explaining the rules and expectations in my class.” On the bus ride to school I even came up with a writing assignment for them. We could discuss why we study history, and I could ask them to tell me about their favorite parts of history.

Rule one of teaching in another country: Learn what the students are like BEFORE you get to the classroom.

As I quickly discovered, Honduran students don’t like to discuss things. The mentality is “get the answer and move on”.  Why write three sentences when you could write one. Why write even one for that matter, when a few summery words on the page will suffice. Honduran students (and many Hondurans for that matter) are like type writers: great at regurgitating what you tell them, but without an original bone in their body. Don’t even TRY to ask them to see something from another perspective. Maki tried that in her Religion class later in the week. When one kid said that the Bible was the most important book in the world Maki, in a fit of academic fervor, suggested that were she a Muslim she wouldn’t think that. The kid looked at her like she had just suggested that the world was square and said “so you hate Jesus then?”

But I digress.

So there I was, halfway through my first ever class period, and already I was cowering in a corner frantically trying to come up with something to do. I tried to look busy and ignore the ever increasingly frequent question of “meester, what do we do now?”

Rule two of teaching in a foreign country: overplan.

Finally I had an idea. I practically ran to the teacher’s supply closet and grabbed a stack of paper and colored pencils. “We’re going to make timelines” I announced. And so we did. Looking at the brightly colored pages I eventually collected, I think our first real class is going to be on how to make a proper timeline. You’re adults now, time to draw like it.

Anyway, so first period came and went. Eighty minutes has never been so long. Walking down the hall to my next class felt like a death march. My next class was 7A Science, and I only had slightly more planned for that than I did for World History. Did I mention I’m teaching science now too? I found out last Sunday, when the Honduran who was supposed to be teaching it left to go back to her old job…the day before classes were due to start.

Much to my surprise, and great elation, class 7A are almost the exact opposite of 8B. They raised their hands and asked relevant questions. Still not the greatest at actual discussion, but I can work on that. Most thrilling of all, class 7A has Nemesis. Nemesis is a Honduran Hermione Granger (if you don’t get the reference where have you been for the last decade?) Her hand is up two seconds after you ask a question, her English is wonderful, she listens to ALL your directions, and she actually writes proper sentences! Along with Nemesis, class 7A is blessed with Tony, Alex, and Fransisco, all of whom are willing participants. There are only two bad eggs in the class, and generally the worst they do is put their heads down and sleep. I can handle that kind of misbehavior.

Bolstered by a successful science class, I went on to have 8A Art (with Michael, the blind kid) which went surprisingly smoothly, back to 7A for Activities (I really do LOVE that class), and wrapped up the day with 7B Art. I went home feeling pretty good about myself.

It had been a rough start, but I had made it.

Wednesday: And things had been going so well

Wednesday started out ok. My first period was free so I had breakfast in the cafeteria. The breakfast baleadas they make are fantastic! Then I had 8B Art, which went surprisingly well. But later in the day was a second Activities in 7A, and something (I really am not sure what) went very wrong. Maybe the kids were just feeling all riled up because we were playing a game. The goal was to walk through  a maze of desks blindfolded, being guided verbally by another student. This was meant to be an exercise on following directions, which is ironic seeing as how they didn’t listen to a word I said. Things just kept getting more and more out of control, and the more they ignored me, the angrier I became. I know that this is probably not the healthiest response to dealing with problem children, but it’s not as if I was speaking Greek. I made the directions clear; I gave them second and third chances to behave. It was meant to be a fun exercise, but at every turn they flung my kindness back in my face.

Finally I had had enough. We put the desks back, and I had them spend the rest of the class period writing in silence a full page about why it is important to follow directions and listen to the teacher. If I heard so much as a whisper from someone I wrote their name on the board. If they acted up again, they went to the Consejera! The Consejera is a cross between a guidance counselor and a Catholic school disciplinary nun. Needless to say, you DO NOT want to get sent to her.

It killed me to have to do that to 7A, but I am not about to spend the rest of the year letting them get away with murder in my class. Never the less, reading Nemesis’s beautifully written letter about how the teacher is like the captain of a ship, and must be listened to in order to ensure learning and fun, I almost cried.

I drew some comfort from the fact that I was not alone in my tribulations. In fact it turned out that almost every single teacher had similar problems. I was starting to realize that Honduran children are not used to structure. In actuality, the country seemed to be the perfect breeding ground for middle-school hellions. We ended all the classes 20 minutes early to have an impromptu school meeting in the cafeteria to go over the rules again and to lay down the law.

Wednesday may have been over, but Friday had never looked so far away.

Thursday: Broken In and Starting Over

Thursday I only had 2 classes, one first thing, and another at the end of the day. First was Art with 8B. By this time I had found my rhythm with the Art classes, and everything went swimmingly. I might actually have some good artists come out of that class! However the day ended in much the same fashion as Wednesday. We ended classes early AGAIN to have a talk with the kids, but not before I finally broke down in 7B Activities. Once again they just did not follow directions, no matter how often I repeated them. This time I had them write about what they would like to do in Activities class, and how they expected me to trust them with cooking or woodwork later in the year if they couldn’t follow the simple directions for a game now? This time I couldn’t get mad though. I was spent. I did end up sending a girl to the Consejera this time, and I hope it got the point across.

I went home and locked myself in my room. What was I doing wrong? I thought I had good lesson plans for Activities? Sure it was the first week, but we were playing games and learning about teamwork! After much introspection and internet searching, it finally dawned on me that I was spending too much time trying to be a teacher, and not enough time teaching. I was structuring my class like an after school special, practically spoon feeding the kids these goofy lines about cooperation and teamwork. No wonder they weren’t listening, I wouldn’t listen to this dribble! This was meant to be an activities class. What they learned wouldn’t be through reflection writings or discussion, but through hands on projects.

So I deleted my class planning folder for actividades and started over. I wanted the kids to think more creatively, but I had to keep them entertained. How was I going to do this? Puzzle games. I looked all over the web for puzzles to give them in class. During my search I also found a great idea for a science lesson plan!

I finally emerged from my room several hours later. My roommates must have thought I had lost it (and maybe I had), as I quickly disappeared out the front door, only to return with an egg shaped rock, giggling maniacally. I had a plan…

Friday: Crash and Burn-ing Trash

Friday I strode into my 7A Science class with confidence.

“Today”, I announced, “I am going to test your ability to listen and take notes. I will start by giving you a lecture on my favorite prehistoric creature, during which you will take notes. At the end there will be a pop quiz.”

Chorus of groans and “Nooo Meester!”

So I began my lecture about the now extinct Cattywampus. I began by saying how it went extinct during the last Ice Age, and no trace of it was ever found. I went on to describe its green scales and reed like mane, its huge nasal cavity and clawed feet (like a chicken). I told them how it made it’s home n a swamp in order to hide from its enemy the Bunyip, which looked like a huge saber-toothed badger. I finished up the lecture by showing them all the fossilized Cattywampus egg that I owned. The kids were really impressed with that, and it took all my willpower not to start laughing.

The kids studiously took notes, and then I gave them the quiz. I marked them then and there, and handed them all back. Every single one got a zero. Not because of any inferior quality of their notes either. Seeing as how the Cattywampus never existed, it couldn’t possibly have had green scales, or been hunted by saber-toothed badgers (which didn’t exist either…I hope). The expressions were priceless. I told the kids that they should have listened harder to my lecture. Didn’t I say that no trace of the Cattywampus was ever found? If so, then how could I possibly know all that information about it, let alone own a fossil egg?

“You have to listen” I told them, “but more than that, you have to question everything!”

It remains to be seen if the lesson actually hit home, but one thing is for certain, they are not going to forget the Cattywampus. I still hear the word uttered with horror in the hall sometimes.

The rest of the day was not so exhilarating. The stress of the week finally caught up to me, and it was soon apparent that I was coming down with something. The game of football (soccer) with the teachers after school only made things worse. Oh I didn’t play, but I did have to sit at the side of the field inhaling smoke for the whole game. You see there was a huge bonfire on the other side of the field, and the wind was blowing the smoke strait at us. No matter where I moved, the smoke followed in a huge noxious cloud. It was a big fire.

Why the big fire you ask? Well here in Honduras, that’s what we call recycling! That’s right. Most Hondurans dispose of their trash by burning it, plastic and all. I probably have lung cancer now.

Needless to say, I spent the rest of the weekend with a horrible case of the flu, aggravated by trash smoke inhalation.  

When it rains, it pours...and then it floods

It's early evening and the afternoon heat has finally broken. The sky just over the courtyard wall is beginning to glow orange, while still a pale blue directly overhead. Feeling the warm air against my skin, dip a bowl into the cool water of the pila and begin to wash away the grime and sweat which has accumulated over the past 24 hours. Man that water feels good.

It amazes me how my definition of things has changed since coming down here. Especially my idea of what it means to be "clean". For example, my idea of a shower is now dumping bowl fulls of water over my head from a concrete tub we keep behind the house. It really needs to be cleaned, but we can't until Sunday, which is the one day we have reliably running water.
Another trial of hygiene has been laundry. All laundry here must be washed by hand in a bucket of soapy water, rinsed out in another bucket, and then hung up to dry. Now, for the record, I do not have a problem with this, however my work schedule and the weather does. Washing by hand takes time, something I do not yet have as I am helping to set up a school by next Monday. It also requires nice weather in which to dry the laundry outside. I don't know if I have mentioned this before, but it is currently the rainy season in Honduras. This means that, surprise surprise, it rains a lot. Especially in the afternoon when one is hopping to do the laundry.

Lucky for me, this last Tuesday we had our teacher's planning day at one of the other volunteer houses. This particular house is in a gated community about 10 minutes drive outside of Juticalpa. The volunteers call this community "Florida", because of the very cushy conditions provided there (and it really does look like an old people's community from Florida!)

In Florida, they have reliably running water EVERY DAY. They have a covered patio to hang their washing up in on rainy days. Their pila is even inside in a utility room. But greatest of all these things is that they have a washing machine! True you have to fill the thing with water using a bucket, and then again for the rinse cycle, but you can wash a whole load of laundry at once! So in between lesson planning, I decided to avail myself of the amenities. I was even able to wash my bedsheets, which were beginning to smell like old cheese (and not the good kind you enjoy with a nice Merlot).

I didn't quite have time to finish drying everything, but as it was sunny out I just took them home in a plastic bag and hung them up on our own line. I was just happy that my sheets were clean, and promptly put them on my bed, dreaming of the blissfull sleep I would have that night.

In the meantime, I and a couple other volunteers had decided to have a good meal that evening of roast chicken and mashed potatoes. We needed a few more things though, so we headded off to the shops.

Then everything went wrong.

Just as we finnished our shopping, the monsoon hit. Most of the city is on an incline, and our house is at the top (or there about), so to get home we had to fight our way past raging torrents of filthy water. In some places you could litterally not see the road. Over the course of 20 minutes there had been enough rain that, looking down one of the sideroads two blocks from our house, we could see a car almost totally submerged!

The worst part though was my laundry. I could not have been wetter if I had dropped it in the pila. To make matters worse, I hade left my window open and now half my bed was soaked! I stripped the bed and set the sheets up on the backs of several chairs in the living room (I left the rest of the laundry on the line; a completely lost cause).

At least we still had a good meal to look forward to right? Wrong. No sooner was I about to set about peeling the potatoes when the power went out. Have I mentioned we have an electric stove? This is why I prefer gas.

So there we all were, sitting around a few candles (I came prepared!) in the common room, sharing a meal of soda and half a bag of chips. I sat under my sheets like a tent. We were going to try and make the best of a bad situation, and were just about to play a stiring round of apples to apples, when Maki got a phone call.

It seems the Santa Clara Elementary School dosn't have very good drainage...

So ten minuites late we were piling into the back of Carlos's truck to head down to the school. It was only lightly rainging at this point, so the ride was pretty bad (for more details on riding in trucks in Honduras, see my earlyer posts). I have said before that there is no more of a white-knuckle ride that riding in the back of a Honduran truck in the rain...I was wrong. Doing it at night is far worse. There are places where the road is washed out, or where you can see the slope below you is slowly washing away, and all you can think about is what if this is the rain that finally collapses it? The roaming mangy dogs are also quite unnerving on dark Honduran streets in the middle of the night. The word "chupacabra" was mentioned more than once...and to be honest, they really do look kinda demonic when they're wet and their eyes are glowing in the headlights.

The school had about and inch of water in it, including the library. So we set about sweeping. Yup, sweeping. Thankfully some extra help from the college arrived, and we soon became a well oiled, water moving machine. We even got to chase a few frogs out of the school...frogs the size of Honduran cockroaches (which is big)!

Wednesday was painful. Jeff had school, and I had to do more planning. Lacey, who was already getting sick finally sucummed and had to take the day off school. Wednesday evening though, we finally got our roast chiken and mashed potatoes. My bed and sheets were mercifully dry by the time we got back from de-swamping the school, and I hear they are putting in a better drainage system already!

By today the last of my clothes are dry. A bit stiff, but dry none the less. And they don't smell either! That makes them good enough to wear!

So like I said, you  really have to re-define things down here, especially what it means to be "clean".