Cold Showers and Hot Tortillas

It would be easy for me to say that not much has really happened and that is why I haven't posted in a while, but that would only be half true.

Not much has happened. I still wake up really early--on purpose--5 days a week and try to sleep in the other two. I still cook every monday. Nothing really changes day to day. But that is not to say that things here are not exciting.

For example, showering has become a competition, with myself, to withhold a scream for as long as possible. We have reached the Honduran "winter" and we experience lows in the 50's during the night and mid 60's during the day. So it is really not that cold here. The one hinge to it all is that we do not have hot water. I am now able to completely bath in less than 5 minutes and use less than 2 gallons of water. If it were avoidable I would avoid it, but for now, my biggest fear is not longer having all the kids come in the morning, but rather the 5 minutes of bone chilling bathing.

The Totem Pole

Another example of a less painful nature was the month of November. When you take into account that we have sporadic internet, no TV to watch, and we spend every minute of every day together, we occasionally have to "create our own fun." During November we decided to put a moratorium on shaving and go through with a very manly no shave no-shave-November. When I say very manly, it was a very poor attempt on showing our braun but given that the men were the only ones doing it, it is de-facto manly.

Man-partment Family Portrait

My experience was less than thrilling, but I will include photos to show you the most exciting part (that being taking the photos). Most of my month after November 12 was filled with upper lip discomfort and the strange feeling that my face was always dirty. Once the itchy phase passed the only annoyance was really the mustache. But all-in-all my facial hair is nothing to write home about. Making this entire paragraph a little bit ironic.

Another self created means of entertaining is the student impressions and application of said impression in non-academic setting. This should encourage all of you to come visit and see these kids in action so that you can see how spot on my impressions are becoming and why acting these out when at the mall in San Pedro can be quite humorous. I will attempt to get video of this, but it will be hard to do.

But as winter vacation quickly approaches, going home tends to dominate the discussion. I have done my best to avoid this at all costs. Don't get me wrong, I am looking forward to going home as much as the next, but thinking about it, pining for it, practically drooling on the front row in my class doesn't do much other than make all of my awake hours suck. Rather, I have taken the really-getting-into-Honduran-things route. I am pretty sure I am the only one on the team that has gotten really into Honduran food as of late. It is really nothing special, but when done well, the simple can be really good.

When we were in Copán, I ate at this Honduran restaurant that was absolutely awesome and since then have been obsessed with finding the best corn tortilla. You all are probably thinking how can those things in the grocery store ever be good. I'll tell you, when they are made with real, fresh corn. Corn tortillas will never be as good as flour, but they are cheaper and very tasty here. I like to think I am finally hitting my stride with Honduran food. But then again, I am sitting at the computer salivating over a Mellow Mushroom Cosmic Karma.

I hope to update more regularly, but usually the times that I am able to sit down and type out a good post are the times that I do not want to sit at my computer. I am looking forward to coming stateside, and if you are interested in donating some school supplies to my classroom, let me know. See you all in a week. Hasta luego.

Thanksgiving and Beyond

Blogging can be difficult when you are busy, feeling stressed, or just have nothing to talk about. Fortunately, my problem has been the first two, but I have waited too long to tell you about all the stuff that I am afraid this update may not be as eventful as some other ones. But here I go.

As most of you people stateside kno, last Thursday was Thanksgiving. Nothing was different here. It's like they don't celebrate it here...oh wait, they don't. But as a courtesy to us, the teachers, we were given a long weekend and a short half day to prepare for our feast. This was actually they Thanksgiving I found myself most looking forward to in a long time. Not because I don't like Thanksgiving with my family, even though not having an hour debate about which movie to see and then not getting tickets was not missed. Rather I love thanksgiving with my family, especially my mom's cooking and having my cousins in town. But I was just excited this time around.

I mostly think it was because our team was doing all the planning. We were buying, preparing, and serving the food. We got to create a little bit of USA here in Honduras, which is really comforting this close to a very long break. And we got to share all of this with the Honduran teachers and a bunch of other people affiliated with the school. All in all we had a T-day feast with about 30 people.

Norah and I were in charge of dessert. We made and upside down banana cake, oatmeal raisin cookies, chocolate cookies, and two pumpkin pies. Norah and I actually have a tradition of making cookies every weekend, so we were thrilled to try out something new.

Our display was complete with cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, and most importantly a turkey. I really was a beautiful occasion and one that was even more special being able to share it with people who we interact with everyday.  But the best is yet to come--long weekend with enough time to travel.

So off to Copan we went. Copan is a city in western Honduras most famous, scratch that, only famous for the Mayan ruins right outside of town. And maybe coffee.

This ruins are not the greatest of the Mayan territory but they are the most ornate. I was not entirely impressed by the size of them. I mean, having seen Incan ruins with their giant stones pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle, it is hard to top, but the designs that are so accurately carved in the stone are magnificent.

We didn't do much but eat, drink and sleep, but it was all worth it. Every time I travel I wonder why the food we buy in restaurants cannot be found in Cofradía. We even went to a Honduran food restaurant that was leagues above anything you would find in Cofradía. This restaurant was the equivalent of the Chinese restaurant in you city where all of the Chinese people go (the Canton Cooks of Honduras if you will). I mean, I am in the same country. It is the same food. Why does it taste so different?

Our tour of the ruins was by far the most entertaining part of the weekend. Notice how I said entertaining, not informative. Our tour guide never really made anything up, he just didn't seem to know very much. Also he kept sharing really weird things with us:

(Before buying tickets, talking over the plan)
Henry (tour guide): Tickets to the park are $15 and to the tunnels is another $15. I really do recommend the tunnels. You will get to see the temple Rosalila, which is quite beautiful and colorful.


Us: Let's just do the main park and decide later.


(Begin tour and walk for about 20 minutes)
(Stop at the first really temple)


Henry: I like you guys, so I am ] going to be honest with you. It was smart not to buy tickets to the tunnels. There is really not much to see.


(Laughter ensues) 

This was only one of many strange occurrences that happened with Henry. Most of which were brutally honest, completely pulled out of his ass, or just plain strange. Like I said, entertaining, not informative.

In the end, it was a great trip, a great weekend, and a great feast. By the way, I'll be in Atlanta in three weeks?!

Posting new pictures in a minute or so.

A Harsh Reality

I have been having a spectacular week. I have noticed that the more prepared you are and the more though you put into making lessons fun, the better they are, and the less you actually have to teach. I mean, it is never going to be perfect, but my patience is not running low and I am in a generally better mood. That is not to say, however, that I am not excited for it to be Friday. One week closer to Thanksgiving which is going to be an extravaganza beyond belief. More on that to come.

But the mundane is not interesting and I am not here to bore you (even though that is probably themmost common side effect of reading my blog).

Yesterday I was grading an assignment when a came across an irregularity in one of my student's work. His work from the week before had been excellent which made me think he was really reading my suggestions and trying to improve. I was really impressed, he had followed my suggestion to a "t" and that almost never happens.

Bu upon reading his work this week I noticed that he had reverted back to his old ways. It was so striking in fact that for a while I sat an wondered how this could have happened. He receives feedback from me every week and I couldn't see any reason why his work would take a one time adventure to excellent town and then back again. So I looked at his work from last week and realized it was not his writing. I told him in my comments to come see me when he read this.

This morning I asked him about the irregularity in his work and he told me that it was indeed his work and that he wrote it. WHY DO THEY LIE? DO THEY REALLY THINK I AM THAT STUPID?

It obviously was not his work, so I asked him again. This time...he lied again. He told me his mother wrote it. This was probably the most unbelievable thing he could possibly say. For one moment imagine a student who is learning English dictating to his mother the words to write on the page. By the way, he is dictating in Spanish, and the writing is English. The only way to do this would be to announce every letter individually. This would take forever.

So I called him on it again and he finally admitted to it being another students handwriting, a girl nonetheless. We all know that boys and girls at age 10 have handwriting that looks nothing alike. I briefly spoke to the two students about why this is bad and told them I would soon have a punishment for the both of them.

I decided to give both of them the same punishment, a falta menor. The real story is that my male student had asked for help to which my female student was much obliged. But when trying to help him, he was stubborn and so this female student just wrote it for him.

When I gave them each the form to be signed by a parent, I explained why each of them was wrong. Jasson was wrong for allowing Susana to do his homework and for trying to turn it in as his own. Susana was wrong for doing Jasson's homework and writing in his journal. Yes, she was just trying to help but if Jasson is being stubborn then don't help him, never should you do someone else's assignment for them. But the moral is not my point.

Both of these students were visibly upset until lunch. Susana changed her attitude once I spoke with her mother who brings lunch everyday. Jasson, however, did not recover. At the very end of the day I pulled him aside to ask him why he had let this effect him the whole day. This was not his first falta, but he had never acted this was about anything, he was literally a negative-nancy zombie all day. His answer was one of those times when you hear something and immediately you feel like you have been punched in the stomach.

"My mom is going to hit me."

I just stood there for about 10 seconds searching for something to say that would ease the situation. But the truth is, there is nothing I could possibly say to him. No child should have to fear going home because when he is in trouble his parents hit him. Sadly, this is common place in Honduras, and many of our students receive the same punishment.

Essentially because of me he will be hit by his mother. Yes, I did not turn in someone else's work. Yes, I did not lie to my teacher. But had I known this I might have given a different punishment. My excellent week had quickly taken a turn for the worst and I somehow felt solely responsible for this child's pending doom.

But, the fact is that I cannot base my punishment off of what a particular family practices at home. Simply knowing that Jasson faces a physical punishment at home is not justification for giving him a lesser punishment. Moreover, Susana will not be hit tonight and she is far less guilt than Jasson. Even though it pained me to see him walk away today, his house is beyond my control.

This was the harshest reality I have faced since being in Honduras.

Crisis (Hopefully) Averted

I would like to begin this post by saying that if you don't have parents as awesome as mine, you would be walking around with very calloused feet.

This morning on my walk to school, approximately 25 steps from my starting point, the worst possible thing happened to me: my Chacos broke.

Let's not even consider that I didn't see this coming and cut straight to the devastation. I was shoeless and it was a bad omen to start the day. I continued on my walk to school half muttering, half screaming obscenities to myself about how I am now without my absolute favorite footwear in the world. The best parts about Honduras: I can eat a great meal for less than a dollar and it is always Chaco season.

I show up at school and take a closer examination at my failed foot attire and begin to share my discontent with the other teachers. But there is no time to waste. I have to figure our how to get another pair of Chacos down here.

The funny part is that I had this debate 4 months ago when determining how many pairs to bring down. Hindsight being 20/20 and all I should have just brought them all, but I didn't see as clearly back then. Silly me, I brought my newest pair thinking they would last longer and I wouldn't have any problems. HA! Gotcha sucka! Honduras ruins everything.

Back to damage control. Steph's dad is coming down on Friday, that is just 2 days away so I need to think fast. I decide to call my parents and rush deliver my sandals up to Massachusetts and hope they arrive in time to make it into Steph's dad's baggage.

I called my own father during school but was interrupted too many times by second graders storming the library and then a 1st grade cout d'etat of the computer lab. This does not bode well. So I send an email with all the necessary info to both biological parents in hopes our Balser army can spring to action and my feet don't become gangrenous and fall off. Now I wait. Until I can get home and call home to confirm.

I arrive home to 2 skype voicemails from the greatest mother of all time. First message: Calling Steph's dad to determine feasibility of disaster aide emergency drop. Second Message: No way, Jose.

Depressed and dejected I accept a skype call from dearest mom and she explains her reasoning upon which I begin to tear up. So we continue our conversation for long enough for B-squared (Billy Balser, for the unfamiliar) to walk in the door and immediately come up with a genius plan to go to Fed-Ex right now and, as we say down south, "get 'er done." He springs into action. Just as fast as he came into the skype conversation he was whisked away by his paternal instincts to rescue his young cub.

I feel relieved that I will be getting my Chacos and go to report to Steph about the whole ordeal when I mention a joke my mom made about the street she lived on. Steph laughs, but then replies, "Wait, that is not the name of my street."

Quickly back to the line just in time to catch my dad after he has already dropped off the package. I give him the proper address and hope that it all comes out in the wash. Now I just wait here patiently for my golden slippers.

Way to go Ma and Pop!

A Scary Sense of Normalcy

I have this long post drafted and saved somewhere in the abyss of the "interweb" about how horrible my week was last week, but as it has passed and too much time has gone by to finish up the post, I may just throw it up here and have it stop mid-thought. The long and short of it is my class is completely disrespectful to each other and to me and they had a horrible week last week. But during this horrible week, they did accomplish some good things and arrived at our class prize which was shaving my hair into a mohawk. So I have a mohawk and my class is doing better this week.

But this post is neither about mohawks, nor about poorly behaving children, but rather that harsh realization I had today that everything around me has become completely, utterly normal.

There have been some occurrences in the past few days that have really brought this to light, but it was not until today that I actually gave it credence. It happened when I was sitting on-duty over the soccer fields during lunch and nothing surprised me. The same boys as always were playing soccer. Kids were running all around playing the same tag game they have since the first week of school nearly 2 months ago and still not being bored of it (and I am still not sure what the rules of the game are; this is no normal game of tag). The same 7th grade girls eat lunch in the hallway everyday. The uniforms the students wear no longer weird me out. Everything has settled into a state of normalcy.

I know the best place to get baleadas. (This is not a fact but opinion considering there are about a million places to do this and for the most part they all taste the same.)
I have a fruit guy that gives me a good price.
The ladies at the supermarket don't really need to scan my groceries, they already know what I am buying. Yet, they have never asked me my name.
I found Honduran Lempiras in my pocket the other day. This is the true indication that I live here. For only can money survive the wash when you live in that country.
I have even come to expect that when I turn on the shower, it will not just be cold, but freezing, and it doesn't bother me that much.

While all of this is great to have and makes me feel comfortable, it is still a little scary. To feel so comfortably disconnected from a world I am so familiar with is slightly scary to me. Or at least enough so to think that you all would want to read about it. Life in Honduras has become normal. I guess this is a good thing, but it still freaks me out.

Rough Day and Banned Books

This week has really been a roller coaster since coming back from Belize. On Monday and Wednesday I was fighting an extreme uphill battle to control my classroom and promote listening. Tuesday and today, for some reason, were much better and I am not sure I can explain why. Yesterday I sort of freaked out at the kids and later on at the apartment. In class, I became so fed up with the talking during instruction and all the dozing faces that I slammed my hand down on the table. The slam was a bit louder than I thought it would be, but it got everyone's attention, and fast. I let my patience get the best of me and in a brief escape I ended up scaring my class into submission.

It is hard to maintain a positive-reinforcement environment when the students are not focused on the goal they are working towards. But the truth is using discipline ends up making me crazier and doesn't work half of the time. You basically just have to find the students who are following directions and acknowledge them for it every 5 seconds; this makes others seek the same type of approval...or so they say. I tend to take a more wholistic approach and have class goals, but I have recently changed directions because it is always the few who ruin things for the many. Essentially I have begun to flood the market with Smackers (our classroom money). I think it is working. If the Republic had national holidays, today would have been Let's-all-act-really-nice-for-Don-Josh-so-that-he-will-put-beans-in-the-bean-jar-and-give-us-a-bunch-of-Smackers Day.

Regardless, I felt guilty about the hand smack and reflecting on it later, even though it worked, and it worked well, I am not running a tyrannical republic; we are more of an oligarchy, except I have 51% of the vote.

But this one incident led me to have sort of a break down at home. I feel like I am not teaching them anything. Like they are not moving forward. Every measuring stick that we have to go off of here (teachers notes from last year, our new English curriculum, other teachers) is ahead of where I am. We are reaching the end of the first quarter and I have to do all of these final tasks that take a look back at everything and I just feel like I am not moving forward. Samira help put things into perspective and was a good person to talk to. She is a returning teacher who has tons of insight and is a great resource to have here. She basically reassured me that I was teaching them and that it takes time to understand what it really means to be an effective educator. And also not to set the bar so high. We are already doing a great thing here and it is important to keep that in perspective.

Onward!

The second part to this blog is more of an ethical question that I encountered today.

I have two really high-level students who enjoy reading more than anything else. One of them is a overly studious girl who just happens to be a Jehova's Witness (I mention this only because it seems like all of the JW's, as I call them, are super smart and speak English really well) and the other has early-onset teenage angst at the age of 10 and doodles all day in class. Anyway, I handed them both a copy of the first Harry Potter book to start reading, knowing that they would enjoy it and want to read the whole series (which we have in the library). I gave them these books on Tuesday and they are already deeply involved in one of the greatest fantasy series children should read.

Naomi, the JW, comes to me today to tell me how much she loves the book and how awesome all the characters are (She already likes it and there is so much more to come). But then she mentions to me that her mom does not want her to read this book. WHAT!?

I am pretty sure it has something to do with being a Jehova's Witness, but I am not sure and the fact is, if her mother tells her she can't read it then what can I do?

So Naomi mentions to me that she will just keep the book at school and take a different book home. I didn't really acknowledge this comment because I didn't want Naomi to think that I supported her openly defying her mother. But I do believe she should clandestinely read this book, and all of the ones that follow. Naomi has such a mind for learning and is an incredible student who should be allowed to read whatever she wants. But as her teacher, it would be wrong of me to support such blatant insubordination of her mother and of her families religious beliefs.

This is my dilemma and I truly do not know what to do. For now, I am going to let her continue to read and finish the first book. But I will have to dig deeper when she asks me for the 2nd.

Pictures will be up on the "interweb" shortly. Click the link at the top of the page.

un-BELIZE-able

There comes a time in every BECA volunteers adventure when they must leave Honduras in order to come back. That is to say, I needed to renew my visa. So off we went to Belize.

We left on a Thursday around 5:00 AM an set out for belize. Over the course of the next twelve hours, we took the following modes transportation:

A private van > a small boat > a hired van > a truck bed > a bigger boat > a school bus > a different school bus > another boat > then a short walk.  I would draw a diagram but I couldn't find a map of central america large enough to fit al of the symbols and transfer points.

In just those few quick and easy modes of transportation the team arrived in Belize just as the sun was setting, but how sweet it was. In case you are wondering, we had to go to Belize because in order to renew a visa for Honduras you must leave the CA-4 for at least 72 hours. The CA-4 or the Central American Four refers to Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua. Belize is the closes one not part of the CA-4, so we went there.

This trip was exactly what we needed. We were coming up on the end of the first quarter and things at school have become quite stressful. It had been the compounding fatigue of teaching and the recent departure of one of our teachers that had built up quite some tension and this vacation couldn't have come at a better time.

I had never been to the Caribbean, so this was a first for me. The temperature was perfect, the beaches were beautiful, but I think the best part about it all was that Belize is actually a developed country. You can actually tell the difference from the moment you step off the second boat onto Belizean soil. The people speak English, which was a huge shock at first. I knew they spoke English, but they still have this Hispanic look to them and when they ask you a question like a Jamaican guy it throws you for a loop. you can also find brands that are more popular in America in the grocery store.

The city we went to was called Placencia, Belize, the best beaches on the mainland. It was nice to finally sit down at a decent restaurant and eat amazing food, in a bathing suit. There was also this hodgepodge of American and Canadian ex-pats who had moved down there to grab a slice of paradise and exploit the tourism industry. We ran into plenty of American families and fellow travelers all taking breaks from Central America and just relaxing on the beach.

It was a great 3 days just relaxing and swimming. Our beach side cabanas even had american cable TV so I was able to catch the Braves' playoff games, even though that ended up not so good. All in all it was a well deserved and much needed vacation.

Sunday rolled around and we had to take the great journey back home. This time there was less transferring but here is how we got back:

Walking > boat > school bus > boat > little bus > small boat > hired van.

I stopped at customs 8 times in 3 different countries and only got 5 stamps. Bummer.

Pictures to come soon.

Suspended...

When I was 6 years old I was in first grade. Much like I am today, I was a very talkative boy and this tended to get me in trouble in class. I must have a had a bad string of days in the first grade because I was bringing home a bunch of yellow lights. Good students stayed on green. Those who had to be warned multiple times about their bad behavior were moved to yellow, or worse yet, red. If you had to move to yellow, a note went home to your parents and it had to be signed and returned the following day.

My father, though cool he may seem to all of you, was very upset with me for the number of yellow lights I had brought home as of late and therefore threatened me that if I came home with another yellow light I would receive  the worst punishment a boy, age six could ever get...I would be grounded. (To this very day, I have never been grounded by my parents.)

But sure enough I could not keep my thoughts to myself and I was given another yellow light. Remembering my dad's threat, I attempted to conceal my wrongdoing by forging my mom's signature in the most elegant block lettering possible. I even had to ask her how to spell her name before I could commit the egregious fraud. Yea, I know, I was a clandestine rebel in the first grade.

Probably to the surprise of many, my teacher did not believe my mona-lisa-of-a signature and I was handed down....a red light. The jig was up. I walked back with my tail between my legs and had to confess to my parents my attempted failure.

The reason I tell you this story is because today I had to give a student a red light...a falta MAYOR. In layman's terms (or English for the most of you) that means receiving one day of in school suspension in the office of the director.

About two weeks ago one of my students handed in one of our weekly assignments which is to write in a journal your thoughts, opinions, and reactions to the book you are reading at home. Each student is also to include a short summary of what has happened in the book. This particular student brought me her journal, in which she has copied the back cover of the book she was reading and expected me not to know. I approached her about it and gave her an opportunity to tell the truth. She lied. Eventually I got her to admit that she had plagiarized and I sent a note home to her mother and spoke with the students at length about how wrong of a practice this was...it is stealing.

Today was her day again to turn in her work. She had done the exact same thing. I knew that this action had to go punished, so I left that up to her. She could tell me the truth and I would give her a falta menor, or a disciplinary slap on the wrist. If she chose to lie, it meant a falta mayor and a serious discussion with her parents and the director. She lied. She lied about 10 times while looking me in the eyes and assuring me that the writing was her own.

I began to consider that maybe she did not understand the assignment and that is why she was plagiarizing, but then again I gave her an opportunity to come clean and admit her wrongdoing but she did not and maintained a not-very-well conceived lie. I had no choice. With one dishonest claim I gave out my first suspension.

To this day I have never forged my parents signature for anything. You can even ask my mom. She has even tried to get me to sign inconsequential documents like a race registration for her and I just won't do it. I guess I am afraid of getting grounded. I found out many years later that my parents we trying to hold in their laughter when I presented them with the red light and the forged yellow-light signature.

The point is I learned my lesson in first grade about what is right and wrong and I have never done it again. I hope today a 5th grader learned her lesson about stealing other people's ideas and trying to pass them off as her own.

I am not sure what lesson I will learn from this. I am sure tomorrow's meeting with her parents will bring some light to the issue.

The Battle of He Said, She Said

Did you know that the average 5th grader has 5 writing utensils on his desk at any given time?
Did you know that a pencil must be sharp enough to kill a small rodent or it is not suitable for writing?
Did you know that touching another man's eraser deserves corporal punishment? (no, that is not a euphemism)
Did you know that jumping rope is a full contact sport?
Did you know that white-out flows like water in Cofradía? God forbid someone have a documented mistake.
Did you know that a student must visit his backpack at least twice an hour for him to retain ownership over it? I swear, it is like dogs marking their territory...over and over again.
Did you know that tattling is the only from of recourse against a fellow classmate?

I really don't understand why 5th graders care about the most inconsequential things. My class has become a battle of "he said, she said." 

I am pretty sure I hear the phrase, "Don Josh, she is bothering me" about 20 times a day. But bothering has a very broad definition here at San Jeronimo Bilingual School. It could be touching someone else's pencil or calling each other names. Fifth graders cannot simply leave each other alone. The pencil thing is what kills me.

I have put little glass jars on all of my tables so that students do not have to return to their backpack for every little thing. The beginning of the day is the artful stuffing of every possible writing utensil into this jar. But no one else is allowed to touch anyone's pen, pencil, eraser, pencil sharpener, or white-out. Some of my students bring 5 pens a day. If the person next to them does not have a pen, sharing is not seen a viable option. This is just crazy that of the 5 pens, a 5th grader feels he or she must use all 5 at once. Using it without permission might as well mean calling in the national guard, or worse execution on the spot. 

I really just don't get it. When I was in fifth grade did I really care about who touched my pencil or if someone put his arm on my side of the desk. But really the question is: did I tell the teacher about it every time it happened? 

I honestly do not remember. I do not remember caring so much about what someone else was doing unless I ended up bleeding or hurt. What really gets to me is the name-calling.

Almost all of my students feel the best way to retaliate is by calling another one a name. This problem has gotten so bad that I have had to resort to giving out falta menores for every incident. A falta menor is  like a pink slip. Enough of them and you get suspended. Needless to say the amount of name calling has gone down. I have one student in particular who gets picked on the most. He is larger than the rest, smells pretty bad, and cannot speak English that well. He gets called plenty of names, but instead of telling me about it or ignoring the other students, he uses size to try and intimidate the other students and often responds by calling more names. This is the point where I notice this is all happening. He is out of his seat and calling others names.

He now feels that I always punish him and that I am being unfair. I do not know what to do. I know the other kids pick on him, but I never see it. I only ever see him retaliate. What would you do if his actions are disrupting the class even if he was provoked? Our relationship has become tense and it does not help that this students has also failed to turn in many assignments. 

I have become a mediator for a bunch of ten-year-olds who care about the most meaningless stuff. Sometimes I just want to shake them and scream "MIND YOUR OWN DAMN BUSINESS." But that would not go over so well and they wouldn't listen anyway.

Economic Guidepost: The use of scarce resources is always costly

This afternoon we were standing around the copier as we always do discussing some interesting stories from the day. You see, the copier is like our water cooler. The only difference is the water cooler doesn't take forever to produce what you want and generally provides relief, as opposed to the copier which brings frustration.  For anyone who has not yet celebrated their 40th birthday it is hard to imagine a copier that does not do double sided printing, let alone collating and stapling. So we do indeed spend many minutes at copier re-feeding paper to print double sided and then sorting back in the classroom.

The reason I was at the copier this afternoon and not this morning like I normally do is because for the past two days, the electricity has been out at school for the majority of the day. Since this occurred two days in a row, I decided to stay late today and make as many copies as I could in the event I show up tomorrow and there again is no electricity.

I was there with Norah, the Kinder/Prepa teacher, and Ashley, 2nd grade, and we were humorously comparing handouts. I was copying math worksheets and a "design your own experiment" project packet, while Norah was copying lunch-bag-puppet cut-outs. (Do you see the humor in this difference?) Ashley was copying a math worksheet somewhere in between academically challenging and visually appealing.

As we compared papers, we started talking about how none of us should really be waiting in line and how the loss of electricity totally changes the game plan. It happens with sudden realization that you cannot pass out the homework and your students will not be able to practice at home generally causes the WTF face and subsequent damage control game plan strategizing. But I digress.

We were discussing how simply having a class set of textbooks would be so much more beneficial. Almost all of the math classes 3rd-9th grade use worksheets to do as homework. That is a ton of paper that could be better used for any number of things. The other downside is that it teaches students a bad way to use their notes. Since 1st grade these students are required to bring a folder to transport homework to and from school. While this facilitates keeping track of their homework, they often leave their notebooks at school and just bring home their homework folders. How do you expect to succeed at homework if you do not have examples to use? Having a textbook would allow me to use the problems already printed in the pages and the students would be able to write their homework directly alongside their notes. To summarize, I am using more paper, more toner, and more time than is necessary if I only had a class set of used textbooks from which my students could work. Paper and toner are very scarce (costly) here in Honduras. They keep telling me time is abundant, but I have yet to hold that to be true.

But this is only Math class. The middle school English teacher often spends his morning, when there is electricity, copying pages of a novel he is reading with his students. Imagine just having copies of the novel. Paper, toner, and time saved.

I am not shocked or angered by this. I have come to use the phrase, "Honduras: embrace it...or it will crush you." Yes, there are hand motions that go along with this.

But this is just to give you a little glimpse into the scarcity, and therefore costly nature of what we do here at BECA. One of my goals this year is to develop a better system of donations so that we can get the resources that are best suited for the volunteers on the ground. I am having a hard time deciding which should be first...a better copier or more books.

Independence Day...this time for real

The past week and two days has been a tough one in my classroom. But, as part of the SJBS we hold weekly upper school meetings to discuss any classroom problems we have or any other thing that should concern us all. This week I brought some concerns about controlling my classroom and the best suggestion I got was to vote on a set of classroom rules that the students come up with and that way they will feel connected to them, and in theory follow them more closely. The trick to all of this is to subversively get the rules you, as the teacher, want in there.

I presented the classroom meeting as such:

I asked the students to all sit on the floor in a circle and raise their hands if they were ever frustrated in school, and if this frustration prevented them from learning.  They all raised their hands. (I am cackling inside because my plan is working.) I asked them what bothers them in class. Then I told them we were going to make our own classroom rules and come up with them together. We brainstormed on the board about potential rules and then voted on the best and combined some because they were redundant.

It just so happens that tomorrow we do not have school. Tomorrow marks the anniversary of the day on which Honduras gained its independence from Spain: Honduran Independence Day. However, it seems only fitting, and entirely coincidental, that today, September 14, 2010 the Republic of Don Josh (This is what my classroom is called. I mean, after all, we do have our own currency.) we wrote our classroom constitution. It reads as follows:

We the people of the Republic of Don Josh, in order to build a more perfect classroom, establish the following rules:

I. Treat people the way you want to be treated.
II. Respect people's ideas, decisions, and things.
III. Take responsibility for yourself.
IV. Ask permission before taking.
V.No pushing in line.
VI. No tattle telling.
VII. No complaining.
VIII. No name calling.

All the signatures.


Can't wait to find out how my newly autonomous classroom will function.

Happy Honduran Independence Day.

Traveling Abroad...in the same country

About 20 minutes ago I returned from a brief trip to the capital city of Tegucigalpa (known as "Tegus" to the natives). September is a month full of celebrations all in preparation for this Wednesday's Honduran Independence Day. And as such, September is filled with strange holidays that give us strange time off. This past Friday was día del niño which meant a half day at school and a chance for us to try an do something fun this weekend. Our Honduran friends who happen to be in a band were playing in a free concert in Tegus so we decided to make a trip out of it and see the capital.

Tegucigalpa is like being in a different country. There is nightlife, there is good food, there is actually some culture, and it is significantly cooler so we were not sweating the entire time. Generally it has more of a Latin feel to it, what I had originally expected when coming to Honduras.

Our vacation was relatively brief considering we spent close to 10 hours in transport and only one complete day in Tegus, but it felt like much longer. The honest truth is that it was great to get out of Cofradía and San Pedro. Though life here has become routine and normal, the constant strain of the heat and lack of social outlets can be very taxing both mentally and physically. The heat we experience in Cofradía weighs heavily on one's desire to do active things, not to mention your comfortability while sleeping.

Tegus was very much the opposite. The climate is comfortable enough to wear pants and not sweat and there is a life about the city that does not exist even in a city the size of San Pedro Sula (2nd largest behind Tegus).  Walking around the city was very enjoyable and you could easily notice how much more developed it was than Cofradía and the difference in the daily schedule. For example, businesses on the weekends here start up around 7 AM and close around 5 PM and even earlier on Sunday. A few of us were out of bed and in the city by 8:30 this weekend and we struggled to find an open coffee shop or place to get breakfast. But finding a good place to eat dinner was no struggle. In Cofradía, finding a place that sells dinner is like pulling teeth.

It was a great escape but a dangerous one. Being away from the normal can be fun and refreshing, but it also makes the return a little more difficult. It is hard to believe that I am in the same country when these two cities are so different.

I will post pictures soon after I get a chance to finish some work I have. I ended up becoming the ad-hoc photographer for our band-friends and was back/on stage taking pictures of them which I will post soon enough.

Back to normal...planning.

Perfection...does not exist here

The oven in the apartment has this little quirk where the door does not stay open by itself. You can literally hang the most minuscule dish rag on it and it will stay open. Try to push it down and leave it, no chance in..Honduras (Yeah, that was really cheesy).

Tonight my cooking team and I attempted the never-before-done PIZZA. That's right. Good, hearty, american style pizza with home-made dough; I used Mellow Mushroom as my inspiration. I have to admit it seemed near impossible but we had to try. You see, the team has been craving pizza for a few weeks now. The ironic part of it all is that this past weekend we all went and got pizza in San Pedro Sula--we did this in 3 separate groups.

Nonetheless, we set out on friday to do pizza on Monday and so we carried out plan through until the end. We strategically collected all of the ingredients at a super-awesome super market in San Pedro, and moseyed around the Sunday Market here in Cofradía to pick out the remaining vegetables and cheese. We even made the dough the night before so that we could execute in a timely fashion.

The dough had risen and smelled appetizing, the sauce was stewing on the stove, we had sliced all the toppings and we began constructing. We were doing it! It smelled wonderful. There was flour all over the apartment, but we didn't we were successfully making pizza.

We pulled the first one out, and the comments starting coming, mouths started watering, needless to say, I was starting to feel pretty proud of my efforts so far. People were all eating and we were finishing up the second round of pizza.

We made a total of 6 pizzas. Numbers 1-4 were devoured in minutes and came out looking delicious. I even added a little touch I learned from "the Mellow" and added parmesan cheese on the crust with a little olive oil to make it stick. We were feasting. Then it happened.

We were pulling out the 5th pizza, our second margarita, to put the basil on for some final touches. Upon re-entry into the oven I let the oven door go. In an instant, the door came flying up and Giulio had no choice, drop the pizza or burn a hand. He dropped the pizza. Our beautiful tomato-basil creation landed face down on the floor of the oven. Admittedly, this was all my fault as I was the one who let go of the oven door.

In case you haven't figured it out yet, I am in Honduras. This means that we do not waste. Yes, I scraped  the remnants off the bottom of the oven and smeared them on the bottom of our pizza. The failure was in digestion in a matter of moments. WE ate the whole thing...it the DU DU.

The pizza was still good. Number 6 came out right, but a silly, insignificant, faulty oven door kept me from delivering perfection at the dinner table. Honduras, I will get you back.

Aggghhh F!
(our new favorite phrase when something goes wrong)

If you are interested in donating a new oven door, please contact Laurence Birdsey at BECA.*

*Not a serious request, unless you are feeling super generous. We would much prefer velcro.

Demoralized!

This one will be short.

Today during lunch I was on playground duty. This is mainly to make sure that one kills anyone else while fighting over control of the soccer ball and/or soccer field. Anyway back to my story...I was on duty on the playground when one of my students pulls up some pavement next to me. It was her birthday and I thought that I was making it a good day for her, when she tells me, "Mr. Tim was more good than you."

And he takes one to the stomach!

One of my students blatantly comes out and confesses her desire to have her old teacher back. I was not too offended considering they had him for two years and probably do not remember the first two weeks of 3rd grade when he sucked too. But still, that sucked to hear.

I asked her why he was better, to which she replied that he helped her with his homework and he let them play soccer. THIS GIRL DOESN'T EVEN PLAY SOCCER! The helping with homework thing I understand. So I responded, "Ashley, have you asked me for help on your homework?" She hadn't. So I told her all she had to do when she needed help was ask and I will be there for her.

5 minutes later another student comes up to me and clears the whole thing up.

"Mr. Tim did everything for Ashley. She never did anything herself. Mr. Tim was not perfect."

I feel much better. Mr. Tim was not perfect, but amongst BECA teachers, he did do his job well and connected with the students. If Mr. Tim wasn't perfect, I'm alright not being perfect.

Note: Mr. Tim has been tremendously helpful to me in these first few weeks. He has been my steady email correspondent. Much praises to Tim, except for the part where he left me a turtle without so much as a note.

Taming the Beast

I am losing my voice. I have to recharge my patience at night, but I almost lost that a few times. I am pretty sure I have lost a few student papers already. Luckily, though, I have not lost my sanity.

I am past "hump-day" of my second week and I am quickly learning that everyday is different and you must easily try to put the bad behind you. Do not let it linger. It will eat you alive. Teaching 5th grade is exhausting and the students have let the grace period slide so their personalities are starting to come out, all the good with the bad.

-I have one students who always hums or taps on the table while other people are talking. How can he not se that this is annoying?
-I have one student who has invented her own language...tattle telling.
-I have another student who takes severe offense to any breach of his personal space or insult to his pride. (He also uses his hands to force people to do what he wants all the time. I like to think of him as a frustrating oxymoron. If you have any suggestions on how to teach these kids to speak what they feel instead of using their force, please leave a comment.)
-I have one students who finds the sky incredibly entertaining. Or maybe he just has ADD and looks at the same spot when he is checked out.
-I have one student has not done any of her homework yet.
-I have one student who has a weird obsession with her back pack and touching things on my desk.

-I also have a student who sits next to one of the least motivated, distracting students and resiliently never gets involved in bad behavior and always does her work...well, very well.
-I also have a student who is amazing at soccer and a math/english genious.
-I also have a student who loves to share every detail about her everyday life.
-I also have a student who participates in PE regardless of the activity. Did I mention he has a broken arm.
-I also have a student who always tries his best and is not afraid to ask questions.

So you see there are two sides to it all. Even when things look like they are going to come crashing down on my head, a student surprises me with excellent work or shows me that humanity does exist in 5th grade in Honduras.

I have always been amazed when children speak a foreign language. It's is truly one of the funny/interesting-for-no-reason things that always surprises you when you see it. Today on the way home, I saw something that topped that:

Two of my students (Johny and Ramón) live on the route to and from school. I generally walk home with these two and talk to them about everything. Today some other teachers accompanied us. As we were walking the Johny and Ramón lagged behind because they were deep in conversation, remembering all the cool things they used to do when they were kids...you know, like in 4th grade. I didn't realize until we were half way home, but the entire conversation was in English. These are two native Spanish speakers having a conversation with each other in their second language. That, my friends, is way cooler than seeing little kids speak a foreign language. It just put a smile on my face to know that because of what I am doing here, and the people who have done it before me, will help these kids actually be successful in a 3rd world country. The only reason: they are bilingual.

I think my students finally realize that I am here to stay. Let's hope the beast finally settles in to school life and I can ease up a bit.

Small victories.

Excuse me, sir, I believe you dropped your turtle

It is Wednesday. Is the week over yet?

It us hard to imagine that I have only been teaching for 3 days. Literally everyday feels like two, and when you are planning in advance, the days just seem to blend together. This is not to say, though, that I have had a bad first few days of school. In fact, they have been quite enjoyable. Long, but enjoyable.

I will definitely need to post a picture of my classroom soon--and of course one of my class--but there has not been enough time yet to make it worth uploading the pictures. I will do this before the week is out.

The first couple days has just been a ton of repetition. I feel as though I am trying to start a tracktor-trailer without a spark plug. Every routine, every rule, every procedure has to be explained, and then explained again, and then explained again, and then you have to make an example out of someone. There is just so much to do before I can effectively teach my class that I constantly have to remember to teach how to learn. It is really easy to just breeze through material, but the kids won't understand it. For example, I have a banking system in my class. The students can earn money (or SMACKERS as I call them) when they perform exceptional work or make the classroom a better place for everyone. Using this money they can also buy treats and other rewards. I also use this money to "tax" them for behaving badly and if they forget their materials, I will charge them to use mine. They love Smackers. They think it is the greatest thing since sliced bread. But I had to teach them all how to use the bank and keep track of their personal funds. About half of my students can now tell you what the words deposit, transaction, and withdrawal mean.

I could go on forever with stories about school, and in time I will, but for now I have two I want to share; one short and one long.

I assigned my students to write me a letter telling me about themselves. I prompted them with a sheet of questions. They were required to answer 6 questions when writing me this letter. The best response I have gotten so far (authors note: my students refer to me as Don Josh): "I am really happy that I am in your class Don Josh. Sometimes I look up at you and think that you are so tall that you are somewhere in the sky. I wish I would be as tall as you."

That will be 2 smackers for complimenting the teacher.

Story two. This one is much better.

I have planning first period while the Social Studies teacher is with my class. I was in the office when a parent (Michael's mom) comes in to give me the rest of her son's school supplies. I talked with her for a moment and then she left. I returned to my classroom to find a gatorade bottle filled with small brown pellets. I quickly looked over it thinking the Social Studies teacher left something behind and I would just return it later. I did not think, "What is this strange gatorade bottle doing on my desk, and why is it filled with brown pellets?" Those were not my thoughts as any sane person might have wondered. Instead I went on moving into the next lesson and organizing my things to begin. I started teaching, glanced over at my lesson plan when I noticed a strange blue receptacle lying at the foot of my desk. It looked like an ovular bowl with a fake plastic palm tree in the middle and it appeared to be filled with water. Knowing that I did not put this blue thing there I looked closer when I realize that THERE WAS A TURTLE PLAYING INSDIE THE WATER.

Dear Class,

DID IT NOT OCCUR TO YOU TO TELL ME THAT THERE IS A TURTLE IN THE CLASSROOM!

Sincerely,
Don Josh

Why is there a turtle in the classroom? Why did nobody mention this? Who brought it here? What is going on right now?

These are all the questions I have now vocalized to my classroom as I pick up the "tank" and place it on the desk. In unison, my class responds, "oh, that is just Dribble, our turtle."

Oh yeah, by the way Don Josh, we have a class turtle that Michael has been taking care of, now you have to take care of him.

I don't know the first thing about caring for a turtle, nor had anyone up until that moment told me that we had a class pet, that this class pet was still alive, and that I was now the keeper of this class pet.

Dribble a red eared slider about the size of a flattened (ellipsoidal?) baseball. He constantly looks like he is trying to escape from his tank, which is breaking by the way, and he is pretty hungry all the time. I am still shell shocked about this whole thing.

The fact that the mother, who has been caring for this animal the entire summer and has come to school to drop the turtle off, fails to mention this to me in our 2 minute discussion absolutely boggles my mind. The fact that Mr. Tim, their former teacher, did not once mention it to me is unbelievable. The fact that the two returning teachers did not mention it astounds me.

Welcome to Honduras. Remember to look both ways when crossing the street. Be sure not to drink the tap water and always bring a bucket into the shower in case the water goes out. This is your classroom, and here is "How to be a teacher in 4 weeks." Good luck with the class turtle. He needs to be fed 3 times a day and his water changed weekly.

Is it Friday yet?

Reflections

I have been here over a month now. My perspectives have changed, Confradía has become more of a home to me, and I have had plenty of time to reflect about my experience so far. School is about to start on Monday, and before things get real crazy I thought it would be a good idea to clue you in on some thoughts I have about this experience and about Honduras in general. Much of my conclusion (which will surely change drastically over the next few months) come from a comparison to my previous Latin American travels and is important to take into account.

1. Hondurans are not warm people. This was the biggest shock to me from the get go and still bothers me to some degree. Sure, there are the few families who are connected with the school who have welcomed us with open arms and invited us into their homes, but they are few and far between. On the street we are stared at to the point where I begin to question if I am actually in the right place. Everyone refers to each other as "usted," the formal 2nd person, and there is a large void of community apart from that of the church; and even then there are too many churches to form a substantial community.  It is strange when compared to Argentina where everyone wanted to talk to you and practice their English, if not at least inquire a little bit about your reasons for being here. In Honduras I do not feel the same hospitality and warmth that is so prominent in Latin families.

2. Poverty is eye opening and also strange. I know I have talked about the relative cheapness of everything here but I truly feel that it underscores the concept that we in the States have of poverty. People here live off very, very little. The area in which I live is the most affluent part of town, and it does not extend very far. The majority of the residents of Cofradía do not have regular access to electricity or running water and live in overcrowded homes. Their means of earning a wage is often selling homemade tortillas or typical Honduran food for little profit, barely enough to feed their own families. Because poverty is the prevailing norm, it affects the "upper" classes as well. The super market lacks many of the luxuries you can find in the bigger cities and even the rich eat the same foods as the poor. They all come from poverty and allow it to pervade their society in every aspect. But even amidst it all, there are few who travel without cell phones or TV. I can't help but think, "why is your children are running around barefoot while you sit there and talk on the phone?" It is hard not to judge this occurrence, but what would you do?

3. CAFTA is not the saving grace of Central America. If you walked into the mall, the only way you would know you are not in the US is that everyone is speaking Spanish. Prices are written in Dollars, the brands are American, and the businesses are foreign owned. American brands are everywhere here and it is part of what cripples their economy. Pepsi and Coke are ubiquitous, Frito-Lay controls the snack foods industry, and the amount of used american clothing for sale is astounding. Yes they provide their own services, but everything that these people are using comes from the United States.  Other than fruit, and it's derivatives, Hondurans have no industry to call their own. How can you increase your national wealth if you are constantly working for other countries. The profits from these companies leave the country instead of being reinvested in their own economy. They want to trade with us primarily because we want their fruits and veggies, a lot of them, too. The other thing this constant entrance of American brands does is create desire to want to be in the US, leading me to #4.

4. Emigration. There is a student in my class who barely knows his father. Johny is by far the nicest boy I have met so far. He lives with his grandmother, mother, aunt, younger brother, and his cousin in a small, green house on the way to school. His father first tried to go to the United states 6 years ago but was deported from the Mexican border of the Rio Grande. Johny's father made numerous attempts to enter the states and as far as Johny knows, his latest attempt was successful. Johny cannot afford new shoes for school and I have not yet met his mother, she is always working. Honduran families, almost half of them, depend on family remittances from the US. This money is often what puts food on the table, a roof over their heads, and clothes on their back. Adult children are responsible for of caring for their aging parents and their children with such a small wage. Poverty is difficult to escape, especially without access to education or skilled labor training. For many, the United states offers better wages, better lifestyle, and a better future for their families, but all at the expense of a father or mother's presence in the life of their child. Johny carries around American coins in his pocket because that is most of what he knows about his father. Johny would not be a student at SJBS if he did not receive the necessary remittances from his father in the US. Johny is not unique.

Yes, there are two sides to this story and I see both of them. A treacherous journey to the United States is often was saves these families from starvation, and who can blame someone for doing a job few others are willing to do to send over half of their monthly salary home to their children.

5. Life is simple when there is not much to do. I have definitely been on an emotional journey since arriving here, but boredom was never a stop. It can be frustrating when the lights go out and there is no internet; even more frustrating when the water is shut off. I can get hot as hell without any escape, but it never gets boring. In the absence of TV, internet, driving, concerts, sporting events, good food, and familiar company, I always find a way entertain myself here. I have already read 4 book since arriving here and began a 5th last night. There are always lesson plans to be written, travels to plan (found round trip flight to Cuba today for $250), or endings to be written to the prompt, "You know you're in Honduras when..." (Best response so far: ...you see a woman breast feeding on the back of a moving motorcycle.)  I am not bored and enjoy the simple things that Cofradía has to offer. Getting up early on a weekend just to catch the market before it closes, for example.

That's all I can think on right now. My brain hurts a little. I want Mellow Mushroom.

I Have to Visit Spain

After just over a month of training and preparation, it was time to take a quick vacation to the beach. I promise that sometime early this week I will include a "reflections" post, but since I just returned from the beach, I figured I would write about that first.

The vacation was partly sponsored by BECA as part of a team bonding and final preparations before the school year starts in JUST ONE WEEK. We elected to go to a Garifuna town outside of the more populous Tela, a beach city on the northern coast.  This was a good idea as far as transportation and accommodations were concerned, but a bad choice when talking about food and what to do.

The first day was nice. We hung around the beach all day, had a pretty decent dinner and just relaxed away from Cofradía. I was also able to get some good spanish practice in by talking to some of the locals. I know I have not mentioned this aspect of my year so far (and there is much more to come in this blog post), but we have not had the opportunity yet to really speak spanish. We spend most of our time at school, speaking english, or with each other, speaking English. We have tried to institute Spanish-only time, but the truth is it is much more inconvenient and people end up not talking. So the new rule is that whenever we are with a non-English speaker, we have to speak in Spanish. This has worked out well as we often times have just one Honduran with us, but if forces everyone to speak in Spanish. Any way, back to the vacation.

After a pretty lazy day and limited, expensive food options, we decided to go into Tela the next day and see what that city had to offer. We ended up separating a lot that day which was a nice change of pace. We also had a local tour agency approach us about a snorkeling trip that we ended up taking. I spent most of the day in Tela with Matt. We enjoyed the beach, walked around, contemplated buying soccer jerseys and bought some fresh fruit and such to bring back as an alternative to fried fish (and I mean the WHOLE fish).  We came back to Triunfo and ended up showering and turning right back around and going into town for dinner and drinks.

But day 3 was really the kicker. Up until this point, the vacation had been a bit of a let down. It was not that I didn't enjoy the beach, rather the food was expensive and fried and i was hoping for a bit more luxury that we have had in Cofradía. None of these things were true and I was a little irked by that. But deciding to take the snorkeling trip was the saving grace. We basically spent the entire day traveling around by boat, stopping occasionally to swim on clear beaches and eat. What made this day awesome was that we ran into a group of Spanish dentists who were doing the same tour through a different company. You may be thinking, "dentists? really? that is what made you day awesome?" Let me explain.

This group of dentists were all between the age of 23-26 and they were all women, very attractive women, except for the one man, Jose, who they, and I liked to call "El Suerte/The Lucky One". They were in Honduras finishing up a month of volunteer work in the area. They had finished their stay and were doing some final traveling before heading back to Spain. We chatted with them where we stopped for lunch, and it was the best spanish practice I have had yet. Hondurans do not speak very clearly and their Spanish is not very grammatically proper or fluid. The Spaniards had very clear diction, a nice change of pace, and used the grammar I learned while taking Spanish classes.  Needless to say this was a positive experience. Beautiful, spanish-speaking women on the beach. We invited them to grab a beer when we all got back to Tela and they actually showed up. They had to leave that night for their next destination, so we couldn't keep the conversation going too long, but all in all it was great practice. The only thing is now I have to go to Spain to verify if all Spanish dentists look like this.

But alas, I am back in Cofradía, sunburnt, sweaty, and it's raining outside. I posted pictures from the vacation, so click the link at the top of the page or go here to see the latest.

¡Viva España!

My Classroom Needs You

At the end of this blog post I am going to ask you to donate to my classroom. But before I do, I want to explain to you why it is that I need this donation. I have explained what I am doing in Honduras in many capacities, but I want to tell you more about how things work at my new school.

San Jeronimo Bilingual School was founded in 2004 with the help of some Americans (the founders of BECA) to provide low-cost bilingual education to some of the poorest parts of Honduras. With the help of some local leaders and land owners the school was built about a 20 minute walk from the main square in a town called Cofradía. SJBS in conjunction with BECA wishes to provide a high-quality, low-cost education to Hondurans in hopes that they will continue their education and become contributing professionals in a country desperately in need of highly skilled citizens.

San Jeronimo Bilingual School is a separate organization from BECA (Bilingual Education for Central America). SJBS is directed by a parents association, elected from the families who attend SJBS. Many of these families are part of the wealthier population in Cofradía and are in charge of making any decision related to the finances of the school. They approve new construction efforts (they are currently building more classrooms and just finished a new amphitheater), they determine the salaries of full time Honduran faculty and staff, and liaise between BECA and the Honduran Ministry of Education. Additionally, this board of directors, or La Junta as they are called here, determine the tuition per year and monthly payment schedules of all students.

BECA contributes the teachers and provides scholarships to students who cannot otherwise afford to attend a bilingual school. This is what separates SJBS from other bilingual school sin Honduras. In most bilingual schools fewer than 10% of the students are admitted on scholarship and tuition is close to $2400 a year. Considering the average salary of a Honduran is $300 a month, this is a near impossible feat for poor families. This cost does not include the transportation necessary to even attend these schools. The flip-side to all of this is that SJBS has over 35% of students here on scholarship, most of whom pay absolutely nothing to attend (they earn tuition is other ways) and SJBS's annual tuition is only about $300 a year. With BECA's help, SJBS can continue to function in this manner, and function successfully.

However, we are still in Honduras and money is still tight regardless of the financial support of private donors, the parents association and BECA.  This is where you come in.

SJBS needs over 50 desks for the upcoming school year, which starts in 2 weeks. SJBS cannot afford all of these desks so I have stepped in to help with this matter. My classroom is one of those classrooms that needs new desks, but I have a better idea: I want tables. Tables are better for group learning, cheaper than desks, and generally last longer. But you may be saying, "Josh, there is no way you have 50 students in your class, who else needs desks?" The 6th grade class also needs desks, but is opting for tables. This would allow us to use the available desks for the middle school classes and not need to replace anything.

One of the scholarship fathers is someone who does a lot of manual labor for the school and has built tables and chairs for SJBS in the past. He has quoted us at $30 a table (including labor). We need 12 tables in all bringing the total to $360. 360 DOLLARS! That's all it will cost to provide a necessary item for our school. SJBS has agreed to purchase the chairs so all I need to do is find the money for tables.

BECA is currently running their back-to-school fundraiser and I am asking you to help my classroom get tables by donating in this drive. Yes, $360 will purchase tables for my classroom, but $500 can help send a student to school. By donating to my classroom or to the 6th grade classroom (Ms. Laurel Deeter) you will be helping my students succeed. So please take just a few minutes to help my class purchase tables. You can sponsor a table for just $30 or half a table for $15 and make all the difference in the lives of 25 students who can speak English better than most 10 year olds I know. Follow this link and click on the 2010 BECA Classroom Sponsors icon that takes up the whole screen. I only have 2 weeks to raise the money, please help me out.

Thanks,
Josh

The Gourmet Honduras

I am sitting here in the apartments on a semi-lazy Saturday after making my final move to the apartment I am going to live in for the duration of my stay in Cofradía. To make a long story short, the teachers who were training us were living in The Guy's Apartment (I call it that because all of the men will be living there as of tonight) and so for a week we were spread out amongst the extra beds on the floor, not the actual floor, rather floor 3 of the building. But now the trainers are gone and we have spent the better half of today cleaning up the apartment to make it sanitary before we move in. I defrosted a freezer for the first time--now we have a clean fridge. I swept the same floor about 13 times, and there is still dirt lingering--this is Hondo. Now we have the cleanest rooms in BECA...for about 2 more days. After a days worth of scrubbing, mopping, and the occasional pineapple break, I am writing this blog just before I go hop in the pool.

However, the title of this post is not "Dirty Apartment," it is "The Gourmet Honduras" and so I will be talking about food, gasp! As is tradition for any Balser expedition, the local cuisine must be addressed in full detail. So I want everyone to brainstorm as many ways as you can think of to combine tortillas (both corn and flour), beans, rice, cheese, and avocado. Are you thinking hard? How many edible combinations did you think of? I assure you that you have yet to think of them all. Even I am surprised when I see these same ingredients miraculously appear on my plate in a slightly different arrangement and most always with a different name. I mean, come on, who are these people trying to fool? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Only these roses usually cause digestive problems. I am afraid to report that Honduras lacks in the culinary variety that I may have hoped for. I am, however, now addicted to fried plantains and have started to make them myself, and I am able to have a fulfilling dinner of one of the aforementioned combinations for only $1.30. The real gourmet Honduras happens 5 nights a week, alternating between the volunteer house and the apartments.

The first week in the apartments was also the first week of communal cooking and I am pleased to report that I have not been disappointed.  It has actually been quite a relief to have some semblance on American style food with the limited resources we have had. We are still in the team trial phase of figuring out the final cooking teams, but every meal has been fulfilling. One night we had a mediterranean theme, the next night stir-fry, my night we served a southwest style bean, corn salad on top of tortillas with melted cheese, the closest thing we could find to mozzarella, and another night we had breakfast for dinner when a team successfully attempted pancakes. Needless to say I have been happy to have a variety of food styles and a variety of vegetables.

So far my diet has been strictly vegetarian in the house/apartment. We are given a food/house needs stipend every two weeks. This stipend adds up to about $22 a person for two weeks. Part of this stipend in automatically taken out and given to the communal dinner fund. Every night we eat together our food budget is about $10-11 for the whole group. That works out less than $1 a person per night to eat. This budget is tight, but entirely do-able, assuming you do not buy any meat. Fruits and vegetable are very cheap here and pooling our money together for many expenses goes much further than buying individually. Most nights we have enough money to have a good dinner and some type of fruit for dessert.

I had a feeling I would become somewhat of a vegetarian while I was here so the no meat policy has not bothered me in the slightest. Besides, I end up getting some type of meat for lunch 3-4 days a week (this will also change once school starts).  For now though, I will continue to experiment with my ability to make typical Honduran foods and will report back any successes, or failures, I may have on the way.

I think my stomach is starting to grumble. I'm going to go make some tajadas (fried plantains).

Independence Day

The cool breeze is unbelievably incredible this Sunday, much better than other afternoons on the porch of the apartments. Today marks a great day in my BECA experience, Independence Day. I have moved out of my homestay and forever more will be living in my permanent residence--the apartments. I really do feel like a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. Moving out of that homestay has been the light at the end tunnel for the past two weeks.  Many of you have wondered about my homestay and I am not sure I have painted much of a picture of it.

All of us volunteers have been living with parents of San Jeronimo Bilingual School (SJBS) students. Needless to say, each of our experiences has been different in so many ways. One girl has the awesome homestay with flat screen, swimming pool, and movie nights in San Pedro. Others have the community chef who sells her "fixins" to the neighborhood around the dinner hour. The men on the teaching team have not been so lucky.

It is not that our hosts were not friendly, rather they were not great hosts. Dinner was, at best, an afterthought and usually the same most nights. During this final week, I have run into my host mother while with some other volunteers and she begins to brag that I have been given pizza hut and KFC for dinner, while others receive typical Honduran cuisine. While I appreciate her effort, I wish I would have gotten more typical Honduran cuisine.  It can be hard sometimes not being judgmental, but when you are being compensated for service and you have done it before, I expect a little more.

But that is all behind me now. I am now living in my apartment and could not be happier to not be living out of a suitcase, not have to rely of a fan the size of my face for air circulation, and not to have a bathroom that leaks a putrid smell, and water for that matter, into my living quarters. I will sleep easy tonight knowing my shower will be a slight improvement and my clothes are dry.

In other news, one of the BECA board members is here visiting this week. Anna (that is here name) was one of the people who interviewed during the process, and we did so in a Starbucks on Capitol Hill. That's right, she lives in DC and I plan on catching up quite a bit. I am going to try and take some more pictures this week of the general condition here in Cofradía. Have a Happy Independence Day everyone.

"I am going to echar agua to you, meester!"

This is the phrase most often used by Moises, the boy with whom I am currently living, and it is Spanglish for "I am going to throw water on you, meester." Meester is the accented pronunciation of Mr. here is Honduras.  He is a roudy boy and has endless amounts of energy. My nickname for him is chancho, which is a slang term for pig. Why do I call him this you ask? Because of the way he eats. Moises is 8 years old and can eat like it's his job - but not one of those jobs you would want to watch someone do. It is probably to most disgusting display of human ability I have witnessed in person. We begin with a tamale, best pictured as a solid hot-pocket. It is made of corn--i know, you're surprised--some sugar, salt, water and oil all mixed together and cooked inside of a corn husk. They come out as these very thick, very heavy hot pocket looking things. They are awesomely tasty. The common way to eat them is with this crumbly cheese that smells, and tastes like smelly feet (us gringos call it the smelly foot cheese) and a sour cream/butter/salty cream called mantequilla. You average person would take about 20-30 minutes to eat 2 of these; they are extremely filling. Moises manages to down both in about 7-10 minutes, all the while smothering them with this cream stuff and forcing it into his face. What's left at the end is a chubby little boy, exhausted with white cream and crumbled cheese in a messy arrangement on his face and shirt. One word: CHANCHO (pig). Maybe you will all be lucky enough to see a video of this at some point this year.

I finished up my first week of practice teaching and I am feeling positive. I had an "ah ha!" moment today while finishing up my lesson: kids learn so much more when they discuss it together.  You can really teach them into you and they are blue in the face, and they won't understand and you will have a blue face. But today, in 15 minutes, I salvaged a lesson I attempted yesterday and I am pretty sure they will remember it simply because I made them explain it to each other.

I have been lucky this past week because our practice class is mainly 5th graders. If I haven't told you yet, I will be teaching fifth grade, and this has given me an opportunity to both teach and observe them as students. I can already tell who I am going to have trouble with and who are going to be the allstars and I am writing it all down. Also, 5th graders are tiny. I guess that's what happens when your country doesn't use growth hormone on every other kid, and most professional athletes.

That's all I really have for you today. This weekend I am moving into the apartments and I couldn't be happier. I hope you enjoyed this post and held your food down; you only had to read the description, I have to watch it and eat at the same time. Looking forward to some comments or feedback. Have a good weekend everyone. Go Braves!

Up to the Mountains/I'm Actually Teaching?

Some of you may have noticed, and some of you may not, but I posted pictures from the first two weeks here in Honduras. I hope this gives you a glimpse into what the school looks like and where I spend most of my time. The second half of the pictures are just a few snapshots from the team's weekend trip up to Buenos Aires...and no, not the one in Argentina.

We were looking for something fun to do and a bunch of people had mentioned going to Cusuco National Forest about 30km away from Cofradía. Confradía is the jump off point to visit this reserve and so there are fairly regular transportation options from the town square. Did I say options? What I meant was fairly irregular trucks to hop into to go up there. The reason for such transportation scarcity is that the town just below the reserve is a small one, and the road leading up to it is very rocky. So we did as my guide book said and as a friend of the school told me and found someone heading up to Buenos Aires and paid a hefty 35 lempiras a person to go (35 lempiras = $2). The journey lasts about 2 hours but we only traveled 16 miles.

We settled into a very sub par hostel up there and got acquainted with the town by searching out food. The funny thing about restaurants in Honduras is there is generally no menu. You just sort of ask for dinner and, depending on if they were expecting people, it can take any where from 15 minutes to 1 hr 30 minutes to prepare. That night it took the latter. It was worth the wait because we got a well sized plate for about $2.50--oh yeah! that included a coke. At this very same dinner we got a guide to take us into the forest and lead us to a waterfall the next day. Just show up when we want to go and he will take us.

Our guides name was Ibis. Ibis' family ran the restaurant we ate at and owned a coffee farm just below the actual reserve. So basically he led us to an amazing waterfall on his property, stopping at his house along the way. He only uses this house during the harvesting season, and it is also where he prepares coffee to shipped directly to an exporter. He exports through a company called Honducafe. on our hike to the waterfall we passed through many of his coffee fields and learned a little about the process of growing and de-shelling coffee. His family does pretty well for simple farmers. Coffee is Honduras' primary export, and because he sells directly to the exporter, there is no middle man taking a cut (YEAH FAIR TRADE COFFEE).

All in all it was a great weekend getaway. I have a feeling I will be revisiting Buenos Aires often to go hiking and explore the reserve. next time though I will probably camp out in the forest and pay the entrance fee to go check out the ecolodge.  We ran into a bunch of British scientists who were there studying different parts of the reserve. Some studying monkeys, others birds, and others were study the people studying. Word to the wise: British scientists do not make friendly travelers.

Another point of note is that I began teaching yesterday. The way our orientation is structured goes as follows: We receive two weeks of teacher training. Then 2 weeks of practice in the classroom at our "summer academy." Then two weeks of vacation/final preparation.

The teacher training is where we learn everything from how to make lessons, to how second language learners acquire a new language, to classroom management strategies, to how students from poverty learn. The Summer Academy is when we break up into two teams and teach on a rotating basis to gain experience in the classroom before the real year begins. Yesterday was our first day, but today I will be teaching my first real lesson--wish me luck.

Only two weeks after I arrived I am becoming less nervous, and feeling quite positive about teaching. The students really do bring an energy that we haven't had yet, and I can't imagine what the school year must be like. I'm not sure if I have said this yet, but I am ready to move into my apartment. The homestay  experience has not been terribly positive; then again, how could anyone replace Claudia and Alfredo from Buenos Aires (Argentina, that is). I am just tired of living out of a bag and ready to not have to plan every minute of my day so that I have everything I need in 5 different places.

Don't forget I posted pictures to my picasa site. If I am successful at placing a link on my blogs main page, you will see it. If not I will figure out another way to share it.

It's been great talking to you all. Things are all swell in Honduras.

When It Rains, It Pours!

I have not taken many pictures yet, because most days I do the same exact thing. Something else that happens everyday is rain.

You might think that I mean rains like it does in Florida every day at 4PM. This is a little different. Cofradía has some amazing views just outside of town. By appearance the city is surrounded by mountains that every day are clustered by the biggest clouds I have seen. And these clouds can be both good and bad. I will explain:

Big white clouds are usually good, they protect us from the super hot sun and generally when the clouds are fluffy and white, the humidity is not as bad. They also make for a great backdrop to the mountains around school giving the landscape that quintessential image you may or may not think of when you think of the central american landscape. These clouds are usually present in the morning. Sometimes it is a little more gray and then the humidity skyrockets so that when the sun pokes through the clouds, the heat is immobilizing.

Around 3:30 PM or so they real clouds start to roll in. The wind picks up and cools things off a bit (but really not a whole lot) and you can start to see the approaching storms. The humidity and wind start to battle it out for supremacy at which point the wind wins and then it becomes a game of will I make it home for dinner or will I have to wait out the storm until my computer is safe.

You see it rains here everyday. Another interesting anecdote is I have yet to use my rain jacket. If you think that is strange, you are correct. Let's review. It rains here every single day, and by rain I mean it comes down for a solid 2 hours or so. I have also never needed to use my rain jacket. I too am surprised by this. I have been trapped at the apartments, in a convenience store and at school, but never had my rain jacket.

Some other interesting things that happen when it rains are the electricity goes out. This make for a very interesting time especially when the water then gets shut off. The water thing I don't quite understand. During a torrential downpour, I don't think anyone should be worried about running out of water. So here we are at the apartments, with no electricity and no running water. The next step is getting home. You may want to consider the raging river that has just formed on the streets below and how you plan to cross it. As I mentioned, Cofradía only has two paved roads. These paved roads do not come with a sewer system and so the water just flows within the curb like a...oh yeah, river. If you are lucky enough to live on the paved road, your biggest obstacle is crossing without a bridge, if you live off of these roads avoiding the giant pools that have formed and the potential for moving earth underneath your feet should be your primary concern.

I promise to take some photos in the coming days an post them to my picasa site. Though I wouldn't want the 1st Street stream to run away with my camera. Until then, stay dry.

One Week In

So, I am one week in.

Things have started to become routine here, and I feeling at home around town. Yesterday we went to San Pedro Sula, which is the business capital of Honduras, to "see the sights" and get a feel for what goes on there. We spent the majority of the day walking around and seeing the different sections of the city. It turns out you can buy a ton of used American clothing there and pretty much anything else that we export. I was actually pretty shocked to see so many familiar brands and stores, but with a Central American twist.

During our sojourn to the city I passed by 2 separate bike shops and yes, I obviously went inside. The first one was pretty disappointing. It was a bunch of knockoff parts and the only variation in the bikes was the color and size. Needless to say, this is what I expected based on bikes I see around town. The next shop I stopped into was a bit more legit; as in they sold spandex with real teams on them. I chatted with the owner for a bit and he told me he rides 100K every Sunday with his father. I need to figure out a way to ride with him. He also had a pretty sweet mountain bike that I was oogling over for a good minute.

After this stop we went to the mall. The mall could have been transplanted from the US. The best part about it was the A/C. Another interesting point of note was the number of duplicate restaurants in the food court. The choices were 90% American and there was even variety amongst those choices. You could have Popeye's, Chruch's, or KFC. Also Subway and Quiznos were available. We walked around there for a while before heading back to Cofradía. All in all it was a useful trip, as I am sure I will be making it a number of times, and it was good to get out of town for a bit.

As far as everything else goes, I am staying very busy. We are in the thick of planning our first lessons while at the same time planning for the practice teaching academy and continuing to learn how to teach. At times it can be overwhelming, but I just have to focus on one subject at a time and then it flows a little better.

I am getting hungry so I am going to get something to eat. Sorry to cut this one short but there will be plenty more to come. Feel free to comment or send me emails. It's also nice to hear what is going on back home.

Two Days of Spanish

The past two days have been spend almost entirely in Spanish. There have been some requests to hear what my regular day is like so I thought I would tell you a bit about my schedule here in Honduras and how it will not be like this ever again.

The day usually begins at around 6 AM when I wake up because the sun is already high in the sky or because there are dogs barking, or because there are roosters crowing, or because the baby I live with runs into the furniture in his rollie-walkie chair. I try to sleep for a while and then end up getting up and out of my room by 7:45 to eat breakfast and walk to school. School is where all of the training takes place and it is about a 15 minute walk from where I live. At 8:30 we start Spanish class. This is less as like a class because I am not learning anything new but rather informally discussing whatever I want. After this we take a quick break.

From 10 to 11:30 all of us either work on lesson planning or organizing material or have individual meetings with the teacher trainers. In these meetings we get ideas, talk about things we are nervous about, get questions answered, etc.

At 11:30 we have lunch. Lunch has been AWESOME. Lots of vegetables and variety. I wish I could take lunch and make it dinner. Dinner has been bland. But such is Honduras. The from 1 until 5 we have teacher training with the occasional break. After that we are free to do whatever.

We usually head back to town and scatter to some degree. One of the girls has an amazing homestay. When I say amazing i mean, A/C, a real oven, always running water, and...yes...wait for it....A POOL. So we go and hang out in the pool. This is 1 of 2 pools in Cofradía.

Then at some point after that I eat dinner, shower, go to the apartments to work on lesson plans and other stuff and then go to sleep usually before 10.

That's a day in the life of us volunteers. Things are getting much better here. I getting used to the schedule and familiar with the team. I finally have a roommate so that should be fun. I am also becoming a lot busier and keeping myself occupied. So things are looking up from this end and I am still taking small steps of improvement. I imagine once I move into the apartment I will experience another huge leap forward. Thats all for now. I will post again soon about some common themes I see and some foods I have been eating. But I will keep you all in suspense.

¡Hasta Luego!

Better Shower = Better Day

I am not certain I will update this blog everyday as I am doing now, most likely I won't, but I felt after yesterday's post and as everything is still new I will post more regularly during these first couple weeks.

Today was a much better day, and I imagine the next few weeks will be an emotional roller coaster. Last night I spoke with our program administrator about my bad shower experience and she offered some "peace corps seasoned" advice. To explain a little more: Google the word "bucket." Find an image and select it. That is what I use to shower. The shower head works (surprisingly) but the water pressure is so weak that this method would be more ineffective. So instead I rinse off with the shower, cut the water off, and turn on the spigot below to fill the bucket. With a smaller bucket I can then rinse off the soapy regions of my body. This will take practice, but already I am improving. This is how most Hondurans in underdeveloped regions shower.

I have also already learned something about myself: I definitely need human interaction to remain up beat. Last night all of us volunteers met up at the apartments to play board games and socialize. This was a great way to spend the night and also a good bonding experience. This time limits the amount I spend alone which is when things become a bit "down."

Orientation is going well. There are two professional teachers who are here to train us from another bilingual school near Tegucigalpa. The classes are very interesting and informative. We often learn in the style that we sill teach--very effective. The classes can at times be motivating and daunting. We just got a hold of the curriculum binders from last year's volunteers and it is a ton of material to go through and organize, re-learn, and create lesson plans for. By the way, did I mention I then have to teach it while preparing for the next unit. I have a newfound respect for teachers (shoutout: Mel). Your job is not easy.

I am again signing off for now. I am bringing my camera tomorrow to take some pictures of the team, the school and maybe some kids. Baby steps...my new motto.