Bitter Ends and New Beginnings

It’s barely a week into the second quarter, and I can already feel some major changes setting in. We have a new schedule (I now have World History three times a week for 40 minutes) which is proving to be a MUCH better arrangement. The weather has been beautiful, I have some great ideas for my classes, and La Colonia (the fancy grocery store in town) has frozen turkeys! This means we don’t have to go all the way to the capital city (a three hour ride by bus) to get our Thanksgiving meal (which we are having on Sunday for some reason).

 I must admit to being a little put out about having Thanksgiving on a Sunday. It means that I have to worry about being ready to get up early and tech the next day, which I feel will severely detract from the whole food-coma experience. There seems to have been some sort of dispute about when and where the great feeding was to take place, so I can only assume that this is the best arrangement for all concerned, and be content with getting a Thanksgiving at all. Goodness knows there are bigger things to worry about…

…for instance the imminent departure of our dear Megan, a fellow volunteer who works in the organizations office. She is heading home for a shoulder operation, and makes her the second volunteer to leave us (the first I have not blogged about due to the private nature of their departure, which I have no intension of blaring out all over the internet.) Tonight we are getting together to say goodbye, which is a great excuse to eat at the taco stand near Megan’s house (which is delicious…the tacos, not her house.)

On the matter of school things are getting…interesting. The parent teacher conferences last weekend went pretty well all things considered (exactly 50% of the kids parents showed up, which is a marked improvement over the beginning of the year.) Most of them were really concerned about their kid’s performances, many of which were abysmal. I am fairly certain that most of the parents had no idea how their children were doing, due almost entirely to the fact that the kids are in the habit of lying through their teeth about their homework (that will soon be changing as we are implementing school wide homework journals, which have to be signed by both the teachers and the parents.)

Meanwhile, in the classrooms, the battle between good and evil is reaching high school soap-opera levels of intensity! We have our hopefuls and near hopeless causes, good girls gone bad, bad boys making a turn around, bullies, budding artists, and enough drama to choke a Honduran street dog (which can, and will, eat ANYTHING!)! A few kids may soon be leaving the cast of our little theatre, while at the same time we are greeting a few new faces.

The biggest change though, for me at least, has been in me. Today on the bus ride to school, I looked up from my morning reading (“Brimstone” by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child) and saw the mountains basking in the sun, draped in the last vestiges of mist. It was truly breathtaking, and I thought “that is what I came down here to see.” But as soon as I thought this, another image popped into my head. The day before, seeing my students in 8A actually getting excited about their research topics in World History. And the way their faces lit up when I showed them how to draw a cube in perspective, and they felt that amazing sense of accomplishment when the little box took shape on the page as if by magic. I remember that feeling back when I was first learning how to draw. And those feelings, that excitement for learning something new; it was MY ideas that gave it to them, my teaching that helped them to achieve that goal.

The mountains didn’t seem quite so spectacular anymore.

Making (Up) the Grade

What is with the school system down here? I spent three hours this morning putting my final grades for the first quarter together in nice neat Excel spreadsheets, only to discover that there is some special “official” spreadsheet that I have to use! This one is for the Department of Olancho (a Honduran department is the rough equivalent of a US state, in case you’d forgotten.)

Now, one would think that all I would have to do is copy and paste all the grades into the appropriate cells and be done with it. Any REASONABLE person would expect to have to report their student’s final PERCENTAGE grade. But no, in Olancho the powers that be think that it’s best for grades to be submitted with their point value. Oh, and the total number of point MUST be out of 100. This means scaling all of my World History grades down to the appropriate levels, as the final point count in that class was out of 114.

And of course, because that was just not simple enough, the final exam grade had to be included in the point count…and EVERY class is required to have an exam grade, including my Art and Activities classes which, guess what, didn’t have an exam.

And so it was with a malicious glee and resounding resentment that I spent the afternoon re-calculating my grade book to fit the Honduran system of measurement. Oh the final grades came out the same for both our school (which, sensibly, uses percentages) and the Department forms in the end, but I did have to make up imaginary test grades for over 60 children.

Long Daze, Long Nights

                Where am I? What’s going on? As predicted the time has flown by and I can’t believe that it is already the end of the first quarter. Last week was exams, of which I only had to give one (World History), which I got out of the way on Monday. After that I made my escape and fled the country for a few days. Two close friends of mine were considerate enough to get married last weekend, giving me a perfect excuse to go home (thanks Kasey and Alex, and congrats to you both!)

Upon arriving home at 1:30am my first order of business was to stand in a hot shower for at least an hour. Afterwards I collapsed into my own bed for the first time in MONTHS. I swear I almost cried I was so happy.

Waking up the next morning was the weirdest feeling. Where had I been for the last three months? Was I really in Honduras? It all seemed like a dream (probably induced by the anti-malaria drugs I had been taking). I felt like no time had gone by at all. Except that is had, and it was now late autumn instead of late summer.

I spent the following days pretending that Honduras didn’t exist, and eating every burger I could lay my hands on (may I recommend the smokehouse burger at Bob Evans with a side of sweet potato fries. Yum!) The wedding was a great fun (I got the best seat in the house…behind the podium so I could see the bride walk down the aisle. I was the efficient btw.) I relished the food and drink at the reception, and made a complete fool of myself on the dance floor.

But Sunday found me back in Honduras, which was as dusty and full of loud noises as ever. I have decided that there is some kind of break in the flow of time between here and in the US. It feels like I have been away from Honduras for ages (which is good cuz’ if my time home had felt like a dream I may have just turned around and got back on the plane.) It’s sort of like going to Narnia, except it’s eternally summer instead of winter and there aren’t any talking animals…unless you count the occasional parrot.

The school is undergoing some MAJOR changes. We re-organized the classes (8B is now pretty awesome to teach, and 8A has grown in its ability to drive me insane), and we changed the schedule to have shorter classes more often during the week. I now teach World History for 40 minutes three times a week, which is already proving to be a better layout for the kids. Honestly they can’t focus for much more than 40 minutes on anything other than talking or soccer.

We also welcome Michael back to school. He had left the school over a month ago due to a problem with a tube in the back of his head. It helps to drain fluid from his brain and it had become blocked up. As scary as it was, it would have been simpler if Michael had stayed at home. He is WAY behind everyone else now, and I have no idea what to do with him in Art and Activities. His mom is actually looking at sending him to another school (all Spanish speaking, which is great because I don’t think that Michael understands much English), but some nosey busybody decided to stick their nose where it didn’t belong.

This particular olfactory intrusion is some woman that apparently has some kind of vendetta against our organization. I don’t know much, but I gather that she has tried to sue is on multiple occasions, and that she saw Michael as just one more of those opportunities. And so, Michael is back with us, at least for the time being.

It’s only Tuesday, but it feels like Friday I’m so exhausted. From the moment I left home to return to Honduras I was traveling for 16 hours. Then I had to teach the next morning, AND try and do all the lesson planning for the new quarter that I should have done last week. And the grading system on the computer still isn't working and grade are due by Thursday. And we have parent teacher conferences on Saturday, of which I have heard nothing but horror stories. Oh, and the maintenance guys are re-painting the teacher’s lounge and the paint fumes are not helping matters.

At least the weather is nice so I can sit outside.

Urgent Message

We interupt my previously planned blog post for this urgent announcment reguarding another person at the Olancho Aid Foundation Silvia Sanchez, a janitor at Escuela Nazareth, our school for the handicapped:

"On Saturday her 21 year old son was run over by an automobile leaving his legs in a very critical state with more than two fractures in each leg.  He was transferred early Sunday morning to Tegucigalpa.  The doctors are asking that Silvia and her family parchase the pins he needs to have implanted in an attempt to save his legs; it will cost Lps. 10,800.00 each legs including other costs that his recuperation may incur."

To trans;ate the gravity of the situation, there are about 18 lempiras to every US dollar. This means that each of the pins is going to run about $600, which is about how much I currently make in three months! Any help that can be given would be wonderful (and completely voluntary as I have no idea of the rules reguarding talking about this on the internet).

So lets just say that you are aware of the situation, that Silvia is in need of assistancce, and that you know my parents who have the ability to wire me any charity which is given in the spirit of generosity (and in no way petitioned from yours truly)  ;)