PLANS TO PROSPER

Cancelled Weekend Plans Update

2012-02-11T19:29:00.004-06:00

No Spelling Bee today (see previous post). Here's what I ended up doing with my free time.

Daniel and I took a little day trip to el centro, a part of town we used to frequent in our dating days. Now that I don't need to pass through centro in order to see him, we rarely go.

However, there is a great craft supply store there (again, see previous post). . . and so the idea struck. We stretched it into an afternoon--lunch, a visit to the surprisingly great museum that I'm surprised is here, some pants shopping for the hubby, and craft stuff for yours truly.

I used to try and go to the museum in centro as often as they changed exhibits. They had a Picasso exhibit about a year ago, and they also host a European film festival every year (but I missed it last year... or maybe it didn't happen... ?) Well, this month it's a Salvador Dali exhibit of his illustrations of Dante's Inferno. There was an illustration for each Canto. Here's one of my favorites.

At my craft-store-of-joy I purchased lots of felt (have I mentioned that I'm going to make a stuffed felt owl for each of my students for the end of the year?), and some cardstock to make my valentine's gift for the kiddos. If you don't understand the owl frenzy, let me just say that it has to do with the owl I made for Twana's niece (see prior post), which the kids just loved. My second stuffed owl hangs out in the classroom with us. They like owls. So do I.

VDay present for my loves.

Hey, by the way...Can you name, in less than 10 seconds, the northwestern four corners state? How about finish lines of civil war poetry? Do you know much about the missouri river? Or which president was in office for the Louisiana Purchase? Well, some impressive Honduran middle schoolers can answer those questions and much more! Yesterday classes were canceled because our school was hosting the Knowledge Bowl, a two-day academic event in which groups of students from schools from all over the country came to compete in 30 minute-ish rounds of questions. All teachers had to help out. My job was a reader. It was stressful... I had to make sure to read slowly, clearly, and follow the specified order of "toss up" versus "bonus" questions, and judge weather students' answers matched the given answer or not. But, over all, it was pretty darn fun. And yea, I'm seriously impressed by what these kids know. It makes me wonder how I have ever learned, and lost, so much information!

Spelling Bee Disorganization (or, Cancelled Weekend Plans)

2012-02-11T12:47:00.000-06:00

This year I told my friend, Stacy, who is heading up the spelling bee at our school this year, that I would help coach the spellers. In part, I signed up because I felt guilty about not doing Challenge Club this year, and I wanted to be helping out after school in some way.

The way Spelling Bee works here is this: first, each grade level does an in-class spelling bee; then, all the class winners from each grade level compete and are narrowed down to the top-three spellers of each grade. In theory, speller #1 competes at the first competition, speller #2 at the second, and #3 is the backup. However, we were never given any word about the secondary competition this year, so it looks like spellers 2 and 3 are out of luck.

I found this picture here in an article about Indian kids
being good spellers. But don't they kind of resemble
my students a little bit? :)

Anyways, we went to the Discovery School (a bilingual, not-Christian school here in Tegus.) yesterday to a meeting for coaches. The idea was to determine who would help out in which way (as a word caller, a scribe, a judge, etc.)

It turned out that our middle-man from our school must have forgotten to return some paperwork, because Stacy, Dan (another coach), and I weren't in the bag of names being "raffled" for helping positions. Since they had enough helpers, many of whom had traveled from across the country to be there and needed to participate in order to validate their long trip, we three were left job-less. And a little bit resentful of attending a meeting from 4:00-6:00 on a Friday afternoon that ended up not pertaining to us at all. (In addition to pulling names to assign helpers, the meeting consisted of the leaders of the school trying to make motions to change the rules of the game the day before the event. T.I.H. This is Honduras.)

So (not-all-that-unfortunately), it is now Saturday and, instead of being stuck inside a room watching kids spell, I'm about to leave and buy some of my favorite things: craft supplies. I think I am going to make these for my students for Valentine's Day:

Happy Saturday!

The Foot on the Bus

2012-02-08T18:42:00.001-06:00

I'm choosing to write about The Foot on the Bus.

Not about how many times I've tried to contact the U.S. Embassy without success.

Not about the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad (and yet slightly redeemed) week that I had when February began.

No. If I decided to give in and vent and rant and rave, I would release the seething rage I feel every time that snooty operator at the embassy answers the phone and gives me the her cold, curt replies.

I imagine she looks something like this.

Instead, I'm writing about something I've wanted to tell you about for a while now, and that is--there is a foot on my school bus. Yea... a foot.

Believe me, the curiosity/suspense/confusion you're probably experiencing right now as you ask yourself, "what in the world is she talking about," is surely something like the feelings I felt during the several months I spent riding Bus 8 with Don Marcos (the driver) and Doña It's-been-too-long-for-me-to-ask-you-you're-name-now (the nanny) trying to imagine a reason or a purpose behind The Foot that sits in front of me every day.

Ever since the first day of school, there has been an artificial foot lying on the floor next to the driver's seat. It's a left foot, and very realistic. Veins and all. There's even a suspicious red coloration near the cut-off part that would be attached to the calf. It's got a slight Morton's toe (which I used to call surfer toe, but I googled it and now know right terminology). It's flesh colored... but more of of gringo color than that of a latino.

At first I didn't think much about The Foot. It brought up images of those prank feet that you sometimes see hanging out of some jokester's trunk. No one seemed to pay it any mind--not even the children (which is odd, don't you think?).
But then, I'm not sure when, I really started to believe that that Foot meant something. I mean, why else would it ALWAYS be there, when other seemingly random items get tossed daily. Could it be someone's prosthetic foot?

When that thought occurred to me, I tried a few times to get a good look at Don Marcos' left foot. It wasn't easy from my seat behind the driver, so I'd try to stealthily turn around and sneak a peak while exiting the bus. His foot seemed fine... not like a fake-footless stump might look in a shoe. Then there was one day when I saw him out of the bus, walking around the school, and that was when I was pretty convinced that his left foot was real.

So my suspicion rested, for one day, on the Doña. Had I ever seen her feet? I'd never paid attention. Well, the next day she wore sandals, and two perfectly good feet stuck out of them. Wrong again.

And so, just last week, when I saw that the Doña was in a happier mood than usual, and Don Marcos wasn't paying attention, I just asked it; "Doña, do you know anything about that Foot?"

And after all the wondering and assuming, all the stories and possibilities that ran through my mind on my many tedious trips to and from school, the bus foot mystery came to a boring resolution--it was a gift from his father... a recuerdo.

Now I guess the mystery that remains is... why would his father give him a fake foot?

Here's the proof... I snuck a cellphone picture the other day while
pretending to listen to music. WHY he chose to buckle up the foot
instead of his seatbelt that day is unknown... but it was a helpful
position to photograph.

Snooty Operator photo is from blogodidact.blogspot.com

"le va a doler el cuello"

2012-01-28T11:13:00.000-06:00

"you'll hurt your neck"
or
"his neck is going to hurt"

I hear this phrase all the time here, and I'm wondering what it is that preoccupies everyone so much with other peoples' necks.

So, I ride the school bus to work every morning with the students. My interest in the neck-worries started on the bus, where I would hear the bus nanny constantly say, "le va a doler el cuello." Basically the scenario would be: kid falls asleep; kid's head tilts to one side; nanny wakes the child up telling him not to do that or his neck would hurt; kid inevitably falls asleep in the exact same position.

One day, the bus driver took it upon himself to ensure that all the kids arrived free of neck pain. He turned around and saw a child sleeping in some awkward position in the front row. When his attempts at verbally waking the child up weren't working, he tried calling the nanny up to the front of the bus. It seemed so urgent. The nanny didn't notice at first, so he called and called until she heard him ("Look at Johnny there...le va a doler el cuello!") and came to the poor sleeping child's rescue.

I was just at an event with Daniel and his family; a 70th birthday party extravaganza for someone I don't know. Daniel's brother was sitting in a chair at our round table that was not directly facing the stage, so he had his head turned to watch. Of course, mom-in-law says, "turn your chair around, le va a doler el cuello!"

Ok, I get it, nobody likes a crick in their neck. But I honestly must admit that when I see people sitting/laying/sleeping in an awkward way, my first thought is rarely about how their neck might feel tomorrow. Apparently here in Honduras, proactive measures are taken to avoid neck pain. How kind.

I think I'd like to read you...

2012-01-27T15:47:00.000-06:00

Lee and Low Books is one of my favorite little publishers of children's books, and I just found out they acquired Children's Book Press... so maybe they're not so little anymore. The thing that sets them apart is their dedication to publishing culturally authentic books for everyone. Mexican-American? Korean-American? Peruvian-Scottish American? They probably have a book for you.

Here are two of their recent award winners that I'd like to take a gander at.

because Mangrove trees are quite familiar to me...
and, ok, I guess like to feed families, too.
And I'd like to know how mangrove trees did that?

because I love free-verse novels
AND it's won several awards.

Chickenpox

2012-01-25T18:34:00.000-06:00

Chicken Pox or Chickenpox? I've seen it written both ways. Well...

Chickenpox are not so noticeable on darker-skinned kids, I now realize.

3C has been attacked by a spreading case of the Chickenpox. It began with a student who came back to school after a family trip, and realized a few days later that his cousin had given him Chickenpox. No one realized that he had already exposed the class to the infection (probably because it is contagious before the spots show up), until yesterday, when a student's mother came by to let me know she was going to bring him to the school doctor (yep, our school has a real doctor, and some nurses too) to see if he had bug bites or ... something else. It turned out not to be bug bites. Today, two of my boys who commented about "bug bites" yesterday are also home with Chickenpox. It appears that two fourth graders have it, too.

Anyone seen the movie Contagion yet? I just saw it, and this situation keeps bringing to mind.

How old were you when you got the Chickenpox? I think I was a baby. Most people I know got it really young. A few of my students say they've had the vaccine... but many have not had either the vaccine or the real infection. I don't know... I just find it strange. Maybe they're more sheltered than I was... but to have various third and fourth grade students who have yet to catch it seems odd.

Let me just say that the peace of having 4 students absent from an already not-too-big class is making for some calm days. We are getting extra great behavior reports from special teachers, too. I think I'll take some Chickenpox now and again...

3 Months, 9 Days

2012-01-21T17:06:00.001-06:00

3 Months and 9 Days

Or, How to Plan a Wedding Fast

It wasn't a shotgun wedding or anything. We just knew that we wanted to be married, had time-off in the summer, and thought--why wait? After getting engaged on April 21st, we were married July 30th. Here's how we made it happen. (It wasn't even that stressful!)

1. Have your Bridesmaids' dresses made in Honduras.

The whole color scheme of my wedding was ultimately decided

by the shade of yellow that the designer had available.
photo by Josh Morris

My sister, along with Daniel's sister and brothers, comprised our wedding party. I was SO fortunate to have my sister in Honduras with me for my last month before summer break. That gave us time to have her fitted with a designer. Daniel's sister, living here in Honduras, was also able to be fitted with the designer. This prevented me from having to choose a bridesmaid dress while home in the summer with my other million things to do. (It was also nice that I could bring the designer a picture of whatever I wanted!)

2. Get a package deal on your vendors.

Photo by Josh Morris

My mom hunted for locations while I was away, and we ended up choosing The Chapel and Tavern in the Garden in Port Orange, Florida. They had a special promotion going on in July, so we got the use of all four of their buildings (the chapel for the wedding, the Tavern for the reception, an old train for the guys to get ready, and a gorgeous house for the girls to get ready and for Daniel and I to spend the wedding night). The promotion also included the catering and DJ. A lot of decisions were made in one.

3. Know People.

photo by Josh Morris
I LOVE my bouquet!!!!

My florist has been my neighbor my whole life and she's awesome. I just showed her my (pinterest) collection of flowers I liked and said, "make something I'd like"... and she totally succeeded! She has also worked with the Chapel in the Garden lots of times and so she knew of things I would need/not need--things I would have never considered. This is her : www.pinkflamingoatpetals.com/

My friend, Mandi, just happened to e-mail me the week I was stressing about finding a photographer while in Honduras, and said that her husband was doing some wedding photography. I saw some of his work, liked it, (he even speaks Spanish!) and bam--another decision made fast! This is him: Morris Media

4. Make your own invitations.

Ok, So I guess this part probably doesn't belong in a list of how to do things FAST. We spent a while designing our invitations, choosing a printer, and then correcting the mistake that made them print without cropping everything off, but we think it was worth it. Without tons of planning time, I think wedding details can tend to get too "off the rack" (read: from Michaels or Target). You know... I wanted to just be married, and many times that meant saying, "the heck with it" and going with an easy version of something I would have otherwise made (because I'm a make-it-yourself kind of girl). However, when it comes to paper... I'm hesitant to give away that kind of responsibility.

Which is why I also made my programs.
My good-with-computers hubby designed the image.

AND I painted some rocks as table numbers and decorations.
I guess that's not paper... but it's crafty, nonetheless.
(If you check out my post about how he proposed, you'll understand the rock thing.)

5. Seek assistance.

Get those talented friends to work!

My friend, Rachel, painted my fingerprint tree guestbook.

My wonderful sister made my little cake and cupcakes!

My mother grew tons of succulents after I decided on them as my favors.
I made the little paper flags that served as guests' escort cards.
And my mom, sister and I spent one evening stamping, tying,
and gluing the little tags to the pots.
They said "T & D" and "Let Love Grow"

6. Go dress shopping your first day back in the U.S. and do not return home without one.

Ok, so this picture was actually taken the day after the wedding... but it seems
that I never acquired any pictures from dress-shopping day.

I looked at dresses in Honduras, but they were all too pricey (being imported) and nothing I really fancied. I considered having my dress made, but, never having tried on a dress style I loved, I didn't even know what to ask for. Plus, the time crunch would have been stressful. So, on my very first day home, my mom, sister, and best friend, Mackenzie, went to some local dress stores. Fortunately, we found my dress in town and got a great seamstress to alter the heck out of it since I didn't have time to order one in my size.

6. Be a teacher.

This is just a little something that made the short engagement possible. Having a month and a half prior to the wedding to do nothing but wedding stuff is a very helpful bonus.

7. Pick a great guy.

a Josh Morris photo

The most important of all--choose a man who can help without needing to be told what to do, who knows how to calm you down when you feel overwhelmed, and who cries when he sees you walking down the aisle, letting you know that it was all so worth it!

Why DO Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears?

2012-01-19T16:09:00.001-06:00

This is the book we have been reading and acting out this week at school:

THIS is an idea of the disgusting creature that, very literally, buzzed in my ears all night last night.

Is that considered ironic? Well, regardless... it was terribly annoying.

But it left me wondering... why DO mosquitoes buzz in our ears? I mean, I'm sure we've all been there. You are rudely awoken by the annoying noise and swat it away, only to have it return less than a minute later. So next time you pull the sheet up over your head, but then you can't breathe and have to position the sheet just so in order to cover everything except your nose. If you're lucky enough to fall back asleep that way, the sheet will inevitably slide off and you will be re-awoken by the buzzing once more.

I googled the question to see what I could find out about the buzzing mystery. (It took some creative rewording to get past the children's book results.) A lot of message board type sites offered answers like, "they buzz everywhere, you just hear it by your ears because your ears can hear," or other uninspired responses like, "They just do it to annoy you."

I did find one promising answer. I can't guarantee their credibility, but I'll share what they have to say anyways. It's from a site called www.lifeslittlemysteries.com

________________________________

"The commitment a mother bears her children, biological imperative though it may be, can produce some astounding behavior. Fathers, take note. Not one of the 3,000 known species of mosquitoes features a male willing to dine on blood for his kids.

In most species the female requires a meal of blood to aid in egg production, in addition to her usual diet of nectar.

To find victims, the mother-to-be follows cues like our body heat, moisture and carbon dioxide emissions. In particular, the carbon dioxide we exhale attracts the insect to our heads, where they fly around looking for a tasty spot.

The telltale buzz that precedes the poke of her proboscis is not some guttural pre-meal grace, but rather the high-pitched whine of rapidly-beating wings."

________________________________

Who knows what the truth may be. Perhaps, as the African Folktale suggests, the mosquitoes really are just buzzing around to ask, "is everyone still angry at me?" As the story goes, when they ask that question, the always get an honest answer..."SPLAT!"

Owl for Evie

2012-01-17T16:52:00.002-06:00

My weekend was quite relaxing, but productive and full of crafts (i.e. my favorite kind of weekend).

I got to go to the feeding center on Saturday, which is always a weekend-booster.

I got a jump-start on Valentine's Day and made a few quick things to give to the hubby.

I also made a little owl for my friend, Twana's, niece. Twana's (twin) sister, brother-in-law, and their daughter, Evie, were in Honduras visiting before they flew back to China, where they currently live. It just so happened to be Evie's first birthday while she was here. So, of course, we threw her a party.

Here's the owl I made:

I altered/enlarged the owl ornament pattern that I found here: Felt Owl Ornament Pattern

Twana with Evie

Making Coffee on a Sunday Morning

2012-01-15T07:51:00.002-06:00

This is my new coffee-making procedure at home. They sell these little cheesecloth socks in the coffee aisle at every grocery store. All you do is put the coffee inside and then pour hot water through it.

I do have a real coffee-maker... but I think I have given up on it. The coffee it makes always tastes terrible. I've tried messing with the ratios, I have tried replacing it's built-in filter with a paper filter, and my last attempt was using my new Starbucks Christmas blend coffee; thinking surely that would taste better--but no.

So, aside from the fact that little coffee grounds sometimes escape through the cloth, this method produces much yummier coffee than my cheap-o coffee pot.

No church for me today, unfortunately. Daniel helped our pastor find a person to hire to run their sound equipment and get everything set up on Sunday mornings (our church rents a place each week instead of owning their own building, so there is a lot to get ready and take down on Sundays). So, since Daniel is the one who knows about all the equipment and who found the guy, he had to wake up and leave wayyyyy too early this morning in order to help him out his first week on the job.

I decided to stay home, instead of getting to church three hours early and then sitting through the two hour sermon. I'll listen to a sermon online today.

Happy Sunday. Enjoy your coffee. :)

The Amazing Voyage of Jackie Grace

2012-01-14T07:43:00.000-06:00

I found a cool blog called Vintage Children's Books My Kid Loves . On that site, I came across this book, which looks like a perfect book for boys (I'm always on the hunt for those).

A look inside:

My class rocks.

2012-01-13T19:54:00.003-06:00

It's Friday and I love my class.

That's all I have to share today.

Aren't they precious?

ALA winners

2012-01-12T16:10:00.001-06:00

So, as I was saying I missed being up-to-date in the children's literature world... I did a little surfing today and stumbled across the American Library Association's winners from 2010. Yea, it's a year old. But it reminded me of lots of book I've read and lots I haven't, too. This link is mostly just so that I can go back and find it if I need to... but if anyone else fancies a look, here ya go: 2010 winners

I (finally) finished the Bible!

2012-01-11T18:20:00.003-06:00

I did it!

Up until today, I couldn't honestly say that I had read the entire Bible. In spite of being in Bible studies since 9th grade, I'd never stuck to a reading plan that took me through every single verse. I had probably read something from all of the books in the Bible, but not every verse from every book. I have the "One Year Bible", but the out-of-orderness of it bothered me and I quit after a few weeks. I tried reading and checking off the little boxes in the reading plans that come in the front of some regular Bibles, but I never kept up with it, and the same-old-story goes for every other reading plan I had ever tried.

BUT, I actually stuck with a plan--and finished it. But here's the thing--and don't judge me! It was a one-year reading plan, but it took me two years and 10 days to complete (having begun on January 1, 2010). My two-year stretch might cause some to question my stick-to-it-ness, but the way I see it, it just shows that this time I had double the amount of perseverance--two years worth!

But, seriously, let me explain. A fellow teacher from my first year in Honduras came from Birmingham, where she attended this huge church, with a pastor who has since written books and become quite renowned. The church did a sort of new-years-resolution project that was so radical that they called it "The Radical Experiment." It involved reading the whole Bible, praying for the whole world, committing your life to multiplying community, sacrificing money for a specific purpose, and spending time in another context--all in a one-year time frame. This teacher and my friend/roommate, Twana, who were jointly reading through the Bible, inspired me to give this reading plan a try.

Something I really enjoyed about this reading plan, compared to others I've tried, is that it is arranged in chronological order. This meant that instead of plugging along through some of the seemingly relentless Old Testament history, it would sometimes be mixed with some Psalms that David wrote during those events. It made for a nice mix.

Here is a link to the "resources" page of the Radical Experiment. If you scroll past the "pray for the world" section, you will come to the Bible reading plans. The first is the chronological plan I followed.
I can't find the cool book-mark shaped version that I used and cut out in order to always have with me, but I do have another more compact version saved on my computer. If you want it, I'll e-mail it to you.

So hooray for me. I'm very happy to have completed this, but I'm also happy to not have a "plan" for a little while. I just want to dig into the Word wherever I want at the moment.

"Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight," declares the Lord. -----Jeremiah 9:23-24

Coffee and Children's Books

2012-01-10T19:29:00.004-06:00

Today I had coffee with my friend Sarah after school. Sarah used to teach first grade at Pinares, but she switched to third grade this year. Ironically, when Sarah was a first grade teacher, I got to see her and chat every day because of a mutual planning period. Now that she teaches the same grade as I, however, we barely get a chance to say three words to one another during the day (no mutual planning period this year...) It's sad because she is pretty much the coolest, most joyful and caring person I know.
Anyways, we went for coffee and then stopped by Spain's Cultural Center which has had a children's book illustration exhibit on display for a couple months now. It's an awesome exhibit because it's art + children's books = two of my very favorite things. I had been before and seen the display, but I noticed again a book they have set out, called The War of the Numbers (published in 2009 in Spain, written/illustrated by Juan Darién.)
It's a very creative, fun story about how the poor number 1 feels sad about being so small, so he fights back with a new secret weapon--the minus sign. Pretty soon, all the other numbers get beaten down to measly old zeros. But the ending is happy, when the one and zero unite to create a new number: 10!

It's been almost 3 years since I finished my master's degree and spent quality time with really cool children's literature, and I miss it. I want to do more to keep up to date with what is happening in the Kid Lit world. Maybe I will keep sharing what I find. :)
Happy Tuesday.

Rich and Poor

2012-01-09T19:42:00.000-06:00

"Honduras, the second poorest country in Central America, suffers from extraordinarily unequal distribution of income, as well as high underemployment"
(from the CIA World Factbook; cia.gov)

I was looking up some information about Honduras this evening, trying to remember some of the startling poverty statistics I've heard and forgotten over my years here. This site , or the CIA factbook, might interest you. This list of countries by GNI was intriguing as well.

I learned that 60% of Hondurans live below the poverty line (and although I gave up the search before I could find out exactly what I was looking for, I've been told that most of that 60% is way, way below the line). I learned that the GDP per capita in Honduras is $4,200 (compared to the $47,000 GDP of USA.)

What got me thinking about all of this was a conversation with a student's mom today. This particular mom is quite fascinating. In a country where 0.5% of the population have a Masters degree, she has two, and is in the middle of a PhD. at Harvard. We were mulling over the lives of the kids at our school; kids who come from that teensy-tiny percentage of elite citizens of Honduras; kids whose whole worlds include their home, their school, their church, their swimming lesson club, and maybe the mall. These kids aren't allowed to walk around outside. They literally can't.go.outside. many times. Our school playground is their outdoors. Their trips to the U.S. or Europe are their chances to walk around on city streets because walking down a city sidewalk is something they have never done in their own country. This particular mom was telling me that her son went to the Quincy market in Boston, and it was his first time in a market "because he would NEVER be allowed to go to a market here!"

All of this is just swimming around in my mind a lot lately. How these kids who bring in things like iPods, iPhones, Toms shoes, and $300 headphones for show-and-tell are also kids who can't leave their houses and who don't know a single thing about the way life is in their country. These kids, who are most likely the future of this country--the ones who will fill the professional and political jobs in 20 years--are the most sheltered from the way of life facing 90% of the population. These kids who have so much more than most kids, and yet, in other ways, have less.

My heart just breaks for the kids in Honduras, both the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor. They are all missing out on so much.

(Now, I can't let you leave with a bad image of my students in your mind. Yeah, they are spoiled and, many, rich; but they are also the most precious, loving, and compassionate kids I know. I adore them. They still pray every day for the poor kids they served on a field trip in second grade. When they hear about problems like poverty or natural disasters or war, they brainstorm ways to help. My prayer is that these kids really do fill up the important jobs in their country and, with the purity and innocence of third graders, find ways to change things.)

Marriage.

2012-01-07T13:47:00.001-06:00

My darling sister, Mallory, informed me that my last blog post was titled, "Summer is here"... and it's now January.

The creative bug in me (and that jealous bug that sees such cool blogs out there and wants to be like their authors) has been itching to write for some time now. But how do you pick up and get started again when so much has happened??

I guess I will write about the major, most life-altering event that has happened since my last post: I got married!

My photos were taken by Josh Morris.

Since I got married and then left the country right after the honeymoon, I didn't see anyone after the wedding until our trip to Florida for Christmas break. So this December, Daniel and I got to see friends and family pretty much for the first time as a married couple. Everyone asked us one (or more) of these three questions:

a) "So, how's married life?"

b) "What's the most surprising thing you've experienced about marriage?"

c) "What do you guys eat?"

Sometimes I didn't know what to answer... but as more and more people asked the same questions, it got my brain in gear. here are some answers to those common questions:

a) Married life is absolutely wonderful; completely comfortable; totally strange; sacred; perfect; messed-up; scary; easy; and hard... all wrapped into one. At least that's how it seems to me today, in my pensive mood. Ask me when I'm frustrated or sick of things not being done the way I've gotten used to them and I might choose one of the more negative adjectives. Or ask me after a cozy, wake-up-slow Saturday morning and I'll probably pick "wonderful". But over all, my love for Daniel is growing every day (which is such a cliché, I know, but it's true...) and it is a pleasant surprise every time that sudden realization hits me--"Oh my gosh! I'm actually married!"

b) I think the most surprising thing to me about marriage is how hard it is to budget and manage money. I think I expected money stuff to be easier with two incomes, but it's not. Also... when your money becomes "our" money... how are you really expected to buy gifts for one another without them knowing?? Any advice on that would be appreciated!

c)I'm a vegetarian (well, a pescatarian...) and he eats meat. That part has not been an difficult as so many people seem to think. Sometimes I cook, sometimes he cooks. Some things I make are: fish tacos; a layered "mexican lasagna" with beans, cheese, etc; Soups; pastas ; omelets ; salad ; curried lentils/chickpeas over rice ; pizza ; and so on. Daniel makes Honduran stuff, like baleadas (tortillas with refried beans, eggs, avocado, cheese, cream, etc. inside), or plato tipico (basically all the stuff in a baleada, just out on your plate instead of in a tortilla). He also makes some delicious pancakes :)

So, that's that for now. Next time maybe I'll post about something else that's been happening in my life, like my amazing group of students this year, our plans to move back to the States, our travels, or whatever strikes my fancy.

Summer is here.

2011-06-16T08:00:00.000-06:00

The birds tweet-tweet-tweeted me awake this morning, earlier than I had hoped, but they are an exceptionally better alarm clock than the dog or the smoker's cough next door. I've been feeling like a blog abandoner, and have had growing urges to type out a message or two, but with the end of the school year happening in Honduras, and wedding plans gaining speed in los Estados I developed an aversion to my laptop. What I once checked with regularity, I started avoiding for days at a time, in order to delay the elevated heart rate and breathing that 17 new, wedding-related e-mails could induce in me. I've never considered myself a very good decision maker, and yet that is exactly what I'm expected to be right now. I'm working on it.
Yesterday marked the transition between school year and vacations. My friends, Mallory, and I celebrated by taking a day trip out to a water park on the outskirts of the city called Aqua Splash. It's something we've passed many times, heading out of Tegus, but none had ever gone. After sitting in dead-stop traffic for a half hour, we finally arrived around noon and prayed that the empty-looking expanse of colorfully painted pools and slides was open. It was. Some of the only other guests there were 15 or so orphaned teenagers, and their puppy Pieblo, who live in a home with a Swiss couple. It was fun getting to know them a little, and one of them, Daniel, made sure to let us know when the park turned on some of the slides that we thought weren't working. We returned home shockingly quickly, with that tight-skin/tired eyes feeling of spending a day in the water and sun.
Mallory and I will fly out on Monday, albeit on separate flights, back to Florida...which for me is now considered WeddingPlanningLand, because the planning I had been able to try and skirt and avoid while I was busy being a teacher finishing out the year is going to start full-swing.
The next couple of days will involve packing (tomorrow the school will help me bring some furniture and boxes to my new apartment for next year... so today I actually need things to get into boxes!), moving, mole-removal, bridesmaid dress fitting/pickup for Mallory, suit-picking-out for Daniel and his brothers, one last pre-marriage counseling session with the pastors, a potential last-Sunday day trip with the in-laws, and a goodbye to mi amor until he flies into Orlando a month after I do. I hope my dear sister can keep up the pace as she says goodbye to Tegus as well.

Ciao for now.

I got engaged in El Salvador!

2011-04-30T12:31:00.000-06:00

I thought it was just a walk on the beach to go swimming. At 11:00 in the morning, and with my friends Cara and Sarah along for the trip, I certainly wasn't expecting a proposal! But, alas, my amor had spent his free hour in the morning, while we girls took a quick walk to town, creating this message with the rocks that are oh-so-pleniful on this black-sand beach in El Salvador. When we headed out for our swim we took a detour to walk along private property (it was easier than the rocks, and Daniel assured me it'd be fine.) Turns out he had planned for the guard to kick us out...conveniently in front of his "Marry Me". I didn't notice it at first, honestly. But when he took my hands in his and I felt them shaking, I knew.

He had to ask me twice, because my initial reaction was a series of, "Oh-my-gosh-are-you-kidding-me-really???" I hope the my tears conveyed my joy a little better than my verbal responses. :)

Subtly Moving Towards Domesticity

2011-04-07T21:06:00.000-06:00

For having a mother who cooks gorgeously, I'm sort of a novice in that area. Oh, I've had a few short-term relationships with culinary endeavors--mostly thanks to some great friends in Mexico--but I never managed to develop routines, habits, or skills in the kitchen.
This doesn't help a girl out when she needs to, say, plan a birthday party for her boyfriend. My idea of having a mix-and-match pasta bar was basically shot down (for logistic and practical purposes) by my mother, who was here visiting me at the time. She revamped the menu, spent most of two days in the kitchen, and helped me realize that I may have been a little hasty in confidently proposing to feed about 40 people without having ever done such a thing in my life.
Here are some things I learned:
1. Appetizers can, and should, be prepared ahead of time. Those dips and bowls full of random goodness don't just get thrown together minutes before guests arrive (even if it appears that easy!). They take thought, time, and effort (and a whole lot of ingredients brought from the States!)
2. You should maybe have some stand-by recipes to turn to. Thanks to mom's delicious repertoire of Italian dishes, I was saved from what could have been a disaster and a bunch of hungry guests.
3. Although all my go-to grocery stores have entire aisles devoted to tomato sauces, pastas, and cheeses, it's quite possible that the ONLY store to carry penne pasta or ricotta cheese is the overpriced american imports store.
4. It's high time I learn my way around a kitchen.

And so, this leads me to my newest (and hopefully not short-lived) routine. Something I just deemed, "Domestic Thursdays".
Daniel has class on Thursday nights, leaving me generally very available (read: often bored). Lately I have also been holing myself up whenever possible to avoid spending money before spring break travel plans.
SO, hungry and unable to shop, last week I rummaged through my random bits and leftovers and created Quinioa, Lentil and Veggie stuffed peppers!
On Saturday (yea, ok, not a Thursday), I whipped up some Zucchini fritters with Dill Tzatziki sauce!

Zucchini Fritters!

And, finally, tonight I just had to use up the mountains of packages of spaghetti that were leftover after the party last month, so I recreated my mom's Spaghetti Pie (a party favorite) and made it a vegetarian version.

All in all, I'm quite happy with how things are turning out... although I know I have a long way to go.

(check out my Pinterest page for links to some of those recipes I mentioned!)

A little insight for your April.

2011-04-01T06:27:00.003-06:00

"God continually introduces us to people for whom we have no affinity, and unless we are worshipping God, the most natural thing to do is to treat them heartlessly, to give them a text like the jab of a spear, or leave them with a rapped out counsel of God and go. A heartless Christian must be a terrible grief to Our Lord."

(Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, April 1st.)

Why English is Crazy and So Tricky to Explain....

2011-02-21T20:34:00.004-06:00

Because "mature" is not pronounced like "nature"
"Busy" is pronounced "/bizzy/"
Because words like "honor" and "homage" have a silent 'h', but "home" and "hold" don't.
"I", "eye", "ay"
There, their, they're
and why on earth are there so many ways to spell ketchup?

I'm just glad this is my first language.

It's a car!

2011-02-19T09:59:00.006-06:00

It's an overcast Saturday morning. The kind that makes it hard to get moving. So far I'm a batch of pancakes, a cup of coffee, and one internet sermon into my day. Later I'll be heading out in the new car with Daniel up to the school to help out with an alumni soccer event they're having, while Daniel spends a few hours practicing with the worship team at the church.

So, yes, my newest news is that I bought a car here in Tegucigalpa!
It was something I've talked about most of this year, and only dreamed of last year. The truth of the matter is that after a few years in Mexico and one year here of relying on taxis and buses, I was pretty much over it. That may sound snobby of me, but when you add the safety factors into the inconvenience of the public transportation options here in Honduras, owning a car became the best option for me.

Finding the car was a bit of a process. Using connections from church, we'd had and lost several car options... including Toyotas and Hondas from the mid-nineties and a 2005 VW polo in need of a new 'gear box'?

The thing is, here in Honduras cars are expensive. Like, loads more than a used car in the States would be. I think it's because nearly everything is imported from the States, and just the shipping and taxing of imports add up to thousands of dollars. So, without any real money, and without a church support system in the States (like many of my friends here have used to buy cars), cost was another thing standing in my way. I didn't want to spend thousands on a piece of junk... but I couldn't afford anything else.

I think God helped us, because the car Daniel found is SO much nicer than anything else we'd looked at, and for MUCH less money. Actually, the mechanic who checked it out for us and then subsequently did the oil change/tune up on it thought we spent the double of what we actually did. He told us they "gave it away"!

Yeah, I said "we spent" because this car is kind of our joint endeavor. Daniel is able to borrow money through the school he works at, so he helped me out with that by getting a little loan... and of course with the whole finding/testing/buying of the car. So we're sharing this sporty little car that is OH SO different from my beloved Honda CRV sitting up there all lonely in Florida.

I learned to drive in a Suburban and a mini van. My first and only (until now) car was an SUV. And now I'm plopped into this ultra low, two-door, zippy little thing that feels like a space craft. I had to do serious shifting and adjusting just to feel like I could see over the steering wheel, out the mirrors, and through the back windows (whoever thinks spoilers are cool must not understand what it's like to be short and nervous about not fully seeing what's behind you!)

I've spent this week practicing, and so far, it's been really good! Yea, drivers here are insane. The roads suck. Half of the traffic lights don't work and the other half of the intersections are either free of signs/lights all together, or the people just totally ignore them. Driving here is indescribably different from driving in Florida, where the roads are all straight and fast and well-maintained. Here, I feel like I'm flying and I'm only going 35, maybe 40... because I'm constantly on the lookout for a pothole or a manhole without the top (people steal them to sell for the metal).

Anyway, I guess that's all I'm going to tell you at this moment about my newest adventure here. I just ask that if you're the praying kind, that you please pray for my safety and that I may use this new freedom to bless other people! I've felt stifled in the 'mission' aspect of my life here, mostly due to lack of transportation. And now that I have it, I don't want to miss on opportunities to serve others.

(did i mention it even has leather seats??)

A little cacti in my life...

2011-02-13T12:04:00.004-06:00

It's been an interesting week or so, full of fun and friends and teaching and my new student teacher. As I imported some of my recent photos, I noticed a cactus trend that I thought I'd share with you. My adorable boyfriend made me some awesome decorations to use in my classroom as we embark on a western-theme. I haven't put everything up yet, but they include some "wanted" posters, a cowboy with a lasso, horse shoes, and a super cute cactus, which I incorporated into the facts and opinions bulletin board you can see in the background below:

This weekend, after an unsatisfying trip to the bathing-suit-maker's store (after 3 visits, and weeks after they said they'd be finished, they still are not finished. Viva Honduras.), and after a delightful lunch with friends and amazing food, we passed by a nursery where I picked up these little beauties, which I have since named Jude, Jezebel, and Job. I'm praying I don't kill them like the several failed attempts in college. (Rachel... I hope this makes you smile.)

Friday News

2011-02-04T16:25:00.003-06:00

1) I have a student teacher!

After a day's delay due to all that alleged snow in the north, Kelley arrived safely and has spent two days in 3C with me and my wild things. It is unnerving and yet feels slightly natural having her there. I'm excited about what this means for the next few months of teaching. Already her help has been amazing. Today I left school almost all caught up--something that hasn't happened on a Friday afternoon in a long time.

2) Something I've been happy about in the classroom lately is how well my kids are responding to a kid's book I really enjoy: The Thing About Georgie, a fun chapter book about a 4th grade boy who is a dwarf, struggling with the fact that he'll never be a musician like his parents and fearful that the new, normal-sized baby on the way will be.

3) Pray for Honduras. Think Mexico City and Man on Fire and you'll have an idea of what has been going on around here lately. Nearly every day my students' prayer requests relate to some kid or another (or adult, actually) who has been kidnapped. Praise the Lord that one 15 year old in San Pedro Sula made it home this week! In our latest staff meeting we learned that the climate of our school's families is one of fear. Our kids are the kinds of kids targeted, and many of them are terrified. It makes me feel ill just thinking of the possibility of something like this happening to one of my own.

4) These verses from Jeremiah chapter 9 spoke to me this week. Hmm... reading it again after writing the above makes me think about them together. What do you think?

v. 23-24.....This is what the LORD says: "Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,"

not by works...

2011-01-30T11:13:00.002-06:00

So I guess I'm admitting to you now that I've spent the past few weeks... well, lots longer than that if I'm honest... dragging myself deeper and deeper into pools of self-pity. Why am I even here? What am I doing with my life? Am I good at anything? Am I special? Am I as invisible as I feel? Those are the kinds of questions that would smack me in the face and leave me sad and frustrated and feeling pretty worthless.

I've been going to this church, and I have been pretty excited about it. Honestly it's the first time since the church I grew up in back in New Smyrna that I feel like I belong and people know me. The only problem is that it's been hard for me to get over this self-pity thing that I struggle with (along with feeling timid and embarrassed) and let God use me to serve in the church. Yesterday I went to a retreat the church had for servers. I think essentially I was invited because I'm with Daniel (who is like their favorite because he can do everything in sound and music areas) and, ok, so I have helped out a little with the children's sunday school and once or twice with the powerpoint during worship. But I'm not a server. I hold back and just wait for people to find something for me to do that doesn't require me to speak too much Spanish or for too many people to be looking at me at once. So anyways, I went to this retreat and I felt pretty dumb. I didn't know to which group of servers I belonged and I didn't have anything to say when we talked about what we wanted to "plant" for this new year in the church because I don't even know where my area is. Once again, I realize I'm feeling like a baby Christian... needing to be spiritually fed and guided instead of ready to pour out and love people like God wants from me. I decided to skip church today and take advantage of a quiet house and the chance to listen to some sermons in English. Two sermons later, I'm feeling heaps better. Pastor Mike from First Assembly of Gainesville preached a sermon called "mission" that spoke directly to my heart and where I'm at right now. He (well, God) reminded me of the most basic and essential element of my faith that I somehow had lost track of--that it's based on God's grace and my faith and not on any performance on my part. He helped me see that although Christianity shares several common principles and ethical rules with many other dominant world religions, it is different in one way. The one thing that makes it all make sense, and leaves me no choice but to choose this faith as my own, is that those principles and ethics aren't what matter. That a performance-based salvation system doesn't make sense because somewhere there has to be a line drawn to show how good is good enough. But with Jesus... he is the cut-off line. It begins and ends with Him. He blesses the 'poor in spirit' and not only those who have it all together. THAT is why Christianity is different. And today, that is what He showed me. That I can't wallow in that self-pity anymore because it's not, and nver was, about my performance. I even wonder if moving here (and to Mexico) was rooted a little bit in my need to perform for Him. To reassure myself that I was doing something worthwhile. However, it's not about doing anything. Jesus already did it all.

But it's funny how a whole sermon about not being able to "perform" enough for Jesus makes me so fired up to do something, anything, in His name. It's funny how the only thing required of us is to turn around and look to Jesus... and yet the simple act of doing that makes all that other stuff--serving, helping, loving on others--so desirable.

So, come on people...let's get it out of our heads that we've got to pull ourselves together in order to be good enough for God. He decided to love us and die for us when he knew we were utter crap. Knowing that he sees more than crap when he looks at me gives me what I need to make it through this day, and hopefully many more.

Happy Sunday!

2011-01-28T23:13:00.002-06:00

This is me--trying to squeeze something blogworthy out of my oh-so-normal-for-me life.

1. I have a student teacher arriving this week! Never would I think that I would be "learned from" and never so soon in my teaching career (year four)... but I guess that's how things roll when you work in latin america and in a school with such a young staff. I'm nervous, but also excited!

2. I have to plan a field trip for our grade level... to an orphanage that they went to one year and now no one can find the phone number for. That's stressing me out a little because once I actually get that number--that's when the real work begins.

3. I want to buy a car, and might have an option... but I don't exactly have money. So, this is an obvious problem. However, the potential option may also be really cheap or perhaps even come with a payment plan, which makes it harder to refuse. But the thought of how much life for me would change just by living here with a car versus without one is mind boggling.

4. I actually regularly attend and consider myself a part of a church now, where Daniel and I go together. I'm just trying to get over my aversion to speaking spanish and potentially making mistakes so that I can actually serve. I'm really frustrated with the way I'm so automatically timid. Why do some of us turn out that way?

5. My most amazing friend, Rachel, is getting married on March 12 and I get to be a bridesmaid! I'm SO excited to be there, to see her, to see my other darling friend, Jess's new addition as well!!

I hope you, whoever you are, are doing well.

homesick

2011-01-04T20:15:00.002-06:00

Today I was watching a movie, with the Spanish subtitles (only because they came on and I didn't bother to remove them...), and I noticed that the word "homesick" was translated as nostalgia. It got me thinking about the word, and I looked in my dictionary. The only thing it listed under homesick were nostalgia and to miss. I must say, however, that the way I feel today... the day after leaving my family after a beautiful vacation, is not nostalgia and it's more than missing. It's the first time I can say that I truly feel sick about not being there and utter dread at the prospect of working in the morning. That can't be a good way to get started again. And yet, I know, deep down, that God is faithful. He is constant. And even though I feel like a leave being tossed in the wind, not even knowing what I feel, God knows it all and is in control.

I just looked up and saw this verse that I had posted over my desk, and it seems fitting. Acts 17:26-28:

From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28 'For in him we live and move and have our being.'

Well stated

2010-10-30T08:35:00.002-06:00

I just finished a great book called, "When I was Puerto Rican" by Esmeralda Santiago. It's an incredible memoir of growing up in rural Puerto Rico in the 50s/60s (read: one-room hut, dirt floors, no water/bathrooms, etc) and went on to move to New York with her mom and 10 siblings, get accepted into the Academy of Performing Arts, and later to Harvard!

There is a part in the book that I sticky-noted and later read-aloud to those of us who would understand just how accurate it is. It talks about Esmeralda's observation of her culture's expectations of dignified behavior, and how different those expectations are for men and women. Anyone who has spent time in Latin America is probably familiar with this view. Here's the passage:

"I started school in the middle of hurricane season, and the world grew suddenly bigger, a vast place of other adults and children whose lives were similar, but whose shadings I couldn't really explore out of respect and dignidad. Dignidad was something you conferred on other people, and they, in turn, gave it back to you. It meant you never swore at people, never showed anger in front of strangers, never stared, never stood to close to people you'd just met, never addressed people by the familiar tú until they gave you permission. It meant adults had to be referred to as Don so-and-so, and Doña so-and-so, except for teachers, who you should call Mister or Missis so-and-so. It meant, if you were a child, you did not speak until spoken to, did not look an adult in the eye, did not raise your voice nor enter or leave a room without permission. It meant adults were always right, especially if they were old. It meant men could look at women any way they liked but women could never look at men directly, only in sidelong glances, unless they were putas, in which case they could do what they pleased since people would talk about them anyway. It meant you didn't gossip, tattle, or tease. It meant men could say things to women as they walked down the street, but women couldn't say anything to men, not even to tell them to go jump in the harbor and leave them alone."

(page 30)

You should read the book.

TVs, Microwaves, and everything else that makes life "Normal"

2010-09-27T17:23:00.005-06:00

I just popped in a "House" DVD to watch on my new TV, after nuking a cup of water for my tea. It may sound mundane, but until a few weeks ago neither of these things were options. That's because my amazing dad came to visit and left me with goodies--including a really incredible TV and a shiny microwave that is changing my life.

I must admit--and I should stress that I do not want this to sound ungrateful in any way!--that the fact that two electronics is "life changing" makes me a little sick. In fact, I took pride in living without a TV or microwave. Yes, it was tough trying to gather several friends around a laptop in order to watch movies. And reheating spaghetti in a skillet or toaster-oven does require some creativity. However, knowing that I was living life without these seeming "essentials" made me feel pretty good about myself.

Trying to convince my dad of this, however, was unsuccessful. In his mind, a microwave and television are nearly as high on the list of basic necessities as toilet paper and running water. So, on his last day in town, we found ourselves comparison shopping in electronics stores.

Now I can only try to remember those "good old days" without a large screen and a quick way to cook things like frozen burritos (which, I'll have you know, take 2 minutes in a microwave versus an hour and a half in the oven. I mean, really..?). Hopefully I wont lose too much of my former self as I get more and more accustomed to once again being a part of the real world.

It's sad, isn't it, when something like popping in a DVD for background noise while I grade papers makes life seem more "normal." I kick myself a little every time a thought like that runs through my head.

I guess I should just end by saying that I will no longer take for granted these "basic" electronics. I will smile each and every time I press a power button. Ok, ok.. I will try.

Dad came to visit!

2010-09-27T17:04:00.001-06:00

You can see pictures here: Dad's Visit

A few fotos and a quick update.

2010-09-03T15:53:00.002-06:00

Hello to my select few fans! It is my favorite time of the week: Friday afternoon, and today I have decided to spend a couple of my precious favorite minutes with a quick update.

Below is a picture of my new house in the city. This is just the front gate. Once inside, there are entrances to several houses. Mine is the peach one in the back. I love it here. Just a couple of blocks away is anything I need. There is a great, big tree out front, and I have inspiring and lovely roommates.

This next picture was taken at an adorable cafe in a nearby town called Santa Lucia. I had visited the town several times and always went crazy over this teeny tiny house hanging onto this cliff. Well, lo and behold, it is now a cafe, so I could actually see the inside. It's a tea cafe and they also seem to sell herbs and I think food too. If you come and visit me, I'll take you. :)

And here are just a couple more pictures to enjoy. I would like you to pay particular attention to the spledorific clouds that we have here. They are always huge and gorgeous and contrasted with a bright blue sky.

That's all for now my friends!

In Honduras Again

2010-08-20T17:19:00.003-06:00

After a wonderful, amazing, family-filled summer, I am back in Honduras and have successfully made it through two weeks of planning and the first 2 (half) days of school.

My awesome summer included a few weeks of sun and fun in Florida, (the Boy came to visit, too!!) a quick trip to see my amazing Jessica Albright in Indy, then a week with family in Pittsburgh. It ended with a surprise extended stay in Florida and then a lovely free week in Honduras before going back to work.

I got to spend my 26th birthday being treated like a princess by Daniel and went back to work a couple days later feeling refreshed, but not quite ready to get back into the swing of things.

The newest thing about this year is that I am living in a house in the city, and no longer up on the mountain of the school. This is so much better in so many ways (i.e. I am now 5 minutes away from stores, restaurants, malls, taxis, everything....) whereas before I had to take a bus for anywhere from 25-45 minutes just to get to the city. The only downside is riding the school bus to work everyday... I'm praying I can be an awesomely productive teacher in order to feel anxiety-free about leaving at 3:00 when the kids leave and arriving when the kids arrive in the morning.

So that is my quick update. Life is good. God is great. yay. :)

Loved this book.

2010-06-06T19:20:00.002-06:00

I just finished reading a great Young Adult novel called Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy. I really miss all the great books I got to read in my Children's Literature program in grad school, this gave me a taste of the kinds of quality books I was fortunate to read all the time.
Here is a portion I loved from the book. Sometimes I need to keep this in mind:

"Lizzie Bright Griffin, do you ever wish the world would just go ahead and swallow you whole?"

"Sometimes I do," she said, and then smiled. "But sometimes I figure I should just go ahead and swallow it."

I'm grouchy... apparently.

2010-06-06T19:16:00.001-06:00

One of our vocabulary words last week was "grouchy". I'm trying not to take this student's example sentence too personally... how could I, with this hilarious illustration!?

Soccer saved Honduras.

2010-06-05T09:04:00.001-06:00

Soccer saved Honduras. Check out this news article that summarizes how Honduras qualifying for the World Cup this year, the first time in 28 years, helped them through the political crisis of last year!

Rich people and horses.

2010-05-22T17:24:00.005-06:00

I didn't really have plans for this Saturday, so when I heard that two of my students would be in the same horseback riding competition, I decided to see if I could go and watch. I got a ride from the lovely Nicole's family, which was the only way I would have been able to get all the way out to the location.
The ride out was an event in itself. This particular student is German, but was born in the States and grew up here in Honduras. In the car ride, the languages flying through their SUV alternated between Spanish, English, and German. Spanish seems to be the language of choice among the kids, and even the mom most of the time. I wonder how a family decides what language to speak to one another in such a situation...?

So, when I thought about attending this event I guess I should have researched a little better the kinds of people who attend and participate in equestrian events. Let's just say they're not the kind who wear jean capris, layered tank tops, and flip flops. [more and more, I am realizing how much I stand out here due to my sloppy American style. Little did I know that here--in a third-world country--is where I would feel my most frumpy and under-dressed. The women here, even those without lots of money, never seem to leave the house without heels, a perfect pedicure, crisp clothes, and straight-from-the-salon hair. It's a lot to live up to. It makes me constantly wonder what my Honduran guy sees in me considering his other options!]

So, there I was, little old frumpy me in my Floridian casual-wear, already feeling out of place, when it is brought to my attention that the president's wife has just arrived. (This is the new president by the way, Pepe Lobo, not the interim prez who visited my classroom). Her kids were competing, too. You should have seen the security! There was an armed guy in a blue shirt everywhere you turned. There were camera men from TV stations and photographer's too. There were the snobbiest looking, plastic-surgerized ladies at every table.

And then there was me in my ripped jean capris. Oh golly.

Here is a picture of Nicole riding amid the gorgeous Honduran landscape!

2010-05-19T06:57:00.001-06:00

Today I was confused and thought it was May 18th (I blame it on end-of-the-year-itis) and so I read the May 18th entry in Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost for His Highest" (which I love, by the way). And I loved it so I'm reproducing it here for you. Probably against copyright. Please forgive me.

CAREFUL UNREASONABLENESS

"Behold the fowls of the air." . . . "Consider the lilies of the field." Matthew 6:26, 28

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they simply are! Think of the sea, the air, the sun, the stars and the moon - all these are, and what a ministration they exert. So often we mar God's designed influence through us by our self-conscious effort to be consistent and useful. Jesus says that there is only one way to develop spiritually, and that is by concentration on God. "Do not bother about being of use to others; believe on Me" - pay attention to the Source, and out of you will flow rivers of living water. We cannot get at the springs of our natural life by common sense, and Jesus is teaching that growth in spiritual life does not depend on our watching it, but on concentration on our Father in heaven. Our heavenly Father knows the circumstances we are in, and if we keep concentrated on Him we will grow spiritually as the lilies.

The people who influence us most are not those who buttonhole us and talk to us, but those who live their lives like the stars in heaven and the lilies in the field, perfectly simply and unaffectedly. Those are the lives that mould us.

If you want to be of use to God, get rightly related to Jesus Christ and He will make you of use unconsciously every minute you live.

2010-05-10T17:46:00.004-06:00

It's countdown time here at Pinares. Me, I'm not big on counting down. It makes the end goal seem much farther down the road than I think a countdown is intended for. Plus, even though lately I come home exhausted from trying to control 22 students who are tired and hot and overworked, I'm not ready to let them go yet. Half of the time I feel like I have completely failed them as a teacher and I need more time to just catch them up! The other half of the time I just love them so much that I don't want to let them go yet. I wish everyone could meet them. They are funny and precious and curious about God and the world and just plain cute.

If you didn't notice, I haven't really posted any pictures lately. That's because my camera was stolen over spring break. But, thanks to my generous Uncle Brian, I now have his free hand-me-down. So, in honor of now having a camera, here is a tiny visual update (I don't have much... the camera just got here!)

Daniel and I went to a remarkably American-esque mini-golf establishment here in Tegus. It was his first time playing!

This is his, I'm losing and I don't like it Face.

Where would we be without the internet?

2010-04-15T18:02:00.002-06:00

I haven't had internet in my house for the past few days. It has something to do with a confusion regarding the payment of our last bill. Not really the end of the world, and yet the way I haven't quite known what to do with myself in the evenings would suggest that I'm more than a little bit dependent on my online connections. I can't call anyone because I don't have skype. I can't search for lesson ideas in my spare time. I can't just waste hours on facebook or reading blogs or writing emails. Which, I'm forcing myself to realize, is a good thing. But tonight I had to come and get connected a some friends' house. And it made me stop to realize that what we do with our free time nowadays is the internet. I could walk into any teacher's apartment right now and I guarantee that everyone who is not cooking dinner is probably using their laptop in one form or another; perhaps talking on skype, streaming some tv show, chatting with friends, or facebook stalking.
What in the world did we do with ourselves and all of our free time before the internet and "social networking" (perhaps the biggest irony of our day!) came and took over!?

I hope our internet problem gets solved quickly. But, in the meantime, maybe I'll start knitting again.

Semana Santa.

2010-04-01T22:33:00.002-06:00

Holy Week. Here in Honduras, some things really are still kept holy. Not like in the States, where somewhere along the road we abandoned our "old fashioned" conviction of taking a Sabbath day to close stores and be with family. Many places don't even close on Christmas anymore.
But here, as I walked the abandoned streets and blocks and blocks of closed-up store fronts, it was refreshing to be amid a culture that takes this holiday seriously. Our savior is alive! Yes, even though the very Catholic observance of Holy Week does seem to skewedly focus on the death over the resurrection, the fact that they take the time to focus at all is nice. And although it may be frustrating that there are hardly any buses or taxis on the roads, making it difficult to get around; and although I'd like to take these days to visit some places I haven't had time to see, but they're closed; I am still pleased by the simple fact that everything is closed, and I'm forced to relax. Which, after my fun trip to the beach, I'm happy to do. :)

A long weekend (finally!); good friends; a good story...

2010-03-08T16:32:00.005-06:00

Well, it seems that Swine Flu is spreading itself around Tegus again. Unfortunately, several kids at Pinares caught it, including one of my students. On Wednesday my kids weren't allowed to come to school, and then when even more cases were discovered they just closed all of the elementary for Thursday and Friday. Which meant our first long weekend in a long time! If you read my previous post about Donald Miller, or if you've read his latest book, you know what I mean by living a good story. I feel that I did a pretty good job this weekend!
So, I started with a little TLC by spending a lazy Thursday meeting friends for lunch, hanging out by the pool at Hotel Maya, and dinner with the novio.
On Friday a group of 5 of us headed up the mountain to the entrance to the national park we live near, called La Tigra. Our amazing friend and coworker Janice borrowed a car and drove us there--she's the best! We took our time and hiked for a couple of hoursout to a waterfall where we ate lunch and then we kept hiking across the mountain to the other entrance that is in a tiny pueblo called San Juancito, it's an old mining town that still has abandoned wood-and-tin-roof-houses built by the New York mining company that split about 50 years or so ago. Once in San Juancito we walked out to a little hostel (really just a cabin big enough for 5) owned by a German couple who moved here about 11 years ago. They made us a delicious vegetarian dinner and we got a tour of their awesome property!

We left earlyish on Saturday because Sarah and I were going to meet up with Macayla that afternoon to head out to a transition home. The ministry that Macayla is very involved in, Manos Extendidas, recently started a transition home that houses 4 girls who were in orphanages or detention centers. This was their response after discovering that most of these young teen girls would wind up pregnant within 6 months of leaving the orphanages. So Sarah, Macayla, and I spent the evening baking, watching a movie, and just having fun with these wonderful, precious girls. Oh, and we got our hair done, as well. :)

And to top it all off, I even went to a little museum of Honduras' air force with Daniel on Sunday. Let's just say, by the time my alarm went off at 5:30 this morning, I felt quite accomplished, but also not really in the mood to let my long weekend of amazingness end!

Living a Good Story

2010-02-13T11:50:00.004-06:00

Does anyone else love Donald Miller? I recently finished reading his book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years and I want to read it again and again so I don't forget it. Here's a quick overview: After a film crew tried to turn his life/book into a movie, Donald Miller began to examine what it takes to make a good Story. He writes about living your life like a good story... He says it involves pushing characters forward through tough situations, dealing with tragedy, moving way far out of comfort zones, and takes place in memorable settings, among other things.
So, I've kind of been trying to look at my life as if through the lens of a video camera. I've still got a long way to go to make it movie worthy....I need to work through a lot of my deep-rooted issues and take some big risks and try something hard that I would normally tell myself I could never do. But, on the upside... thinking of living my life like a good Story gives me some comfort when I begin to doubt and worry about living here in Honduras. When I wonder if I'm wasting my time. When I fear that I'll never settle down, or that I'm pursuing something empty instead of going back and getting serious.
When those kinds of thoughts arise, and believe me it's not uncommon, I'm just going to make myself remember that a good Story or a really great movie was never about someone seeking the easy or comfortable or conflict-free way. Or, as Don would say, no one would want to watch a movie about a guy who spent his life working for a Volvo and finally got one, testing the windshield wipers as he drives away at the end.

The President

2010-01-20T17:40:00.006-06:00

Our class field trip to the Palacio Presidencial ended up being just as rushed and trying as it began. We learned only one week ahead of time that this particular day would be the perfect day to go visit Tegucigalpa's version of the White House because several important people, including the president, would be conveniently absent. We were invited by the father of a third grader from another class. So, we quickly threw together the outline of a field trip, slapped a permission slip together, and got all our kids on board in only a few days time.

The day of our field trip started out fairly uneventful... excluding my student whose two-cars of bodyguards had to follow close to our bus and hang out with us all day. However, sometime during the trip down to the city it was revealed to us that we would have the chance to meet the president when he arrived at the Palacio at noon. How exciting! The kids strolled through the halls of the Presidential mansion on air, knowing that soon they would get their picture taken with the president. One of my students planned to ask him why she sometimes doesn't have water at her house.

To make a long and frustrating story shorter, I will summarize by saying that the President's people kept changing what they told us. First, we could see the president before we left to get to Pizza Hut for our planned lunch. Then, it was better for us to go eat lunch and then return to the Palace for pictures with Mr. Prez. Then they decided it was better to wait for him. Finally, they changed their minds and said we should go to lunch and come back in an hour. So, knowing that we were already dangerously close to our deadline of having our school buses back up the mountain, we flew our kids to the Pizza Hut down the road, force-fed them while curious parents pretended to help, and jammed them all back into the bus within 45 minutes.

At this point we should have already been back at the school. The deadline for the buses to be back is 1 hour before dismissal. We took the liberty of stretching that a little, but knew we were pushing our luck a bit. However, our contacts told us that the president was definitely THERE waiting for us. Well, It was a lie. After herding our kids off the bus and into a room where we would await the president, we learned that he was "on his way" and he'd be there "in ten minutes". So, already waaayyy late, we had to break 66 third-graders' hearts and tell them we just had to leave. Talk about disappointment!

But, this story gets better!! I guess the president felt bad for standing us up. SO his people called the school before we had even made it back to school and said that the president wanted to come get his picture taken with the third graders at school the next day. Doubtful, we decided not to even tell our students that this might happen. BUT it DID!! The president showed up the next day and took a picture with all the classes! Our kids were SO excited (me, too... not gonna lie!). President Micheletti is a friendly, grandfatherly, smiley man. It's too bad he's no longer the interim president as of January 27th, when Pepe Lobo takes over.

So that's the story. Cool.

Feliz Año Nuevo

2010-01-07T16:18:00.002-06:00

I just got back from a glorious and well-deserved (if I do say so myself) two week vacation in Florida. I must admit that the time at home made me long to live in the States again soon... a sentiment that I don't always feel. (especially after my nightmare of a flight home, which began with me being forced to buy a return ticket since I don't yet have my residency visa... and ended in the wee hours of the morning when I finally arrived in San Pedro--just 4 hours away from my home...) (p.s. I am sorry to complain about air travel. Anyone who has watched this guy on youtube should feel guilty for griping about the miracle of human flight. )

If you haven't heard, I signed on for another year here at Pinares. And despite my previous statement about living in the U.S. again, I'm looking forward to the year ahead. I wont dwell on that lurking, 'what-might-I-be-missing-back-home' feeling that tends to dwell in the back of my mind. I'm excited at the opportunity to live in the city next school year, instead of up here on the cold mountain. My Spanish is improving daily and I love when I realize that I can now express some thought that I previously had to skirt around for lack of the right words. My students melt my heart every day. Life is good.

So, 2010 is going to be great. I'm setting my mind on making it so.

2009-11-22T20:40:00.002-06:00

Time is flying by. The season is changing. I've experienced a bit of the wet and cold weather that I've been warned about in the Tegucigalpa winter. I'm loving my class more and more each day. I have gone to the feeding center with Macayla a few times and have started helping her get the jewelry-making ministry going again (see the link for Semillas de Dios for more info.)
I have been meaning to write about one particularly memorable birthday party I attended last month. It was one of my first eye-openers to the class of students I'm teaching.
The birthday girl is the granddaughter of an important family. Grandpa is in charge of all of Honduras' police. The party was particularly posh--with basically any kind of party fixture you could have (bounce house, popcorn and cotton candy, clown, piñata, hot sub makers, cakes, waiters and tents, etc, etc, etc.) But what really made an impression was my ride home! I was told they would bring me back home, and I expected to get a ride with the family when it was all over. But, as the party was winding down, grandma told me to let her know when I was ready to leave and she would tell the driver. So, when I let her know I was ready she flagged over the driver, who led me to their big SUV along with the body guard. Both of them were armed!
On our way home, whenever we would hit a lot of traffic, he would just sound a siren to clear the way! I found out that this student rides with her driver and body guard to school every day, and there is always another car of security following them. When I met with her family during parent-teacher conferences, the body guard was standing outside the door where he could see us. Crazy! AND...there is even more that I don't feel comfortable publishing on a blog. But, if you can, pray for her and her family as elections draw near and instability is possible.
So... that is just a glimpse into the life of one of my students. I'm surprised more and more each day when I learn about the families that have kids at this school. I knew more or less what it would be like when I cam, but it is still quite impressive sometimes.

Just one more reason why I believe in God...

2009-10-15T09:48:00.002-06:00

The perfect star inside my papaya.

"Be glad; rejoice forever in my creation!" Isaiah 65:18

Soccer. Is. Awesome. Here.

2009-10-14T22:54:00.004-06:00

Tonight Honduras qualified for the World Cup for the first time since 1982!

What the streets looked like after the game.

Tonight's soccer game was incredible. Honduras played El Salvador tonight, and at the same time the U.S. was playing against Costa Rica. I still don't fully understand the point system for qualifying for the World Cup, but basically the U.S. had already qualified. Costa Rica needed to loose their game, and Honduras needed to win their game in order to earn the points needed to send them to the World Cup. Incredibly, that is what happened!!!
Honduras was winning 1-0 against El Salvador, so we flipped back to watch the U.S. game, because that is what was really going to determine if Honduras qualified. It was amazing! Costa Rica was winning 2-1 and in the LAST 20 SECONDS of the overtime, the U.S. scored a goal that made them tie!!! It was AmAzInG!!!! The whole city flooded Boulevard Morazan and went crazy!! We were with some friends who kept us nice and safe, and we even got filmed by some news crew when someone handed us a big American flag that we waved around!
To make it even better, when we got back in the car to head back to school (because it is a school night after all), I got a call from my principal informing us that the president (that is, the interim president) declared tomorrow to be a national holiday!!! NO SCHOOL TOMORROW!!! :)
I love this country.

Teaching and Soccer

2009-10-11T07:59:00.006-06:00

Last week was only our second full-length, five-day week since we began school in August. With some weeks having half-days, and others being canceled altogether, we are just now experiencing some normalcy. This week it was kind of hard to be a good teacher and get lots of material taught--I felt out of practice. But it was pretty easy to be a good teacher and love on my students. I had one of those weeks where I just ended each day looking forward to seeing them again in the morning.

In other news, poor Honduras lost the big soccer game last night against the U.S.A. It was quite a game; super exciting and it kept you on your toes, but in the end the U.S. won 3-2. Four of us teachers met up with a couple friends in a Chili's restaurant to watch the game. I had no idea that Chilis would be such an important place to watch soccer. When the 4 of us arrived, we approached the two ladies standing outside with lists and discovered that you needed a reservation to get in. Maybe because we're gringas and maybe because we were gringas wearing Honduras shirts, they found room for us and let us in! I'm glad they did because it turned into quite an event. One of the presidential candidates for this November's election was there with his wife, greeting everyone. Some other candidate for something else (I forget) was there as well. If Honduras had won it would have been the best.
It's kind of sad... in the U.S. there are so few people who even know about games like this or who care one iota about the World Cup. Here, however, the whole country was wearing their team's jersey and watching the game. Winning would mean more to the Hondurans.

I just don't know...

2009-09-27T13:02:00.003-06:00

I just don't know who to believe. After arriving in Teguc, I quickly realized that the news coverage of the Honduras coup was biased and incorrect in many aspects. If you watch the news or read an article in the U.S. regarding the political situation in Honduras, you will no doubt hear of the international superpowers' desire to reinstate Manual (Mel) Zelaya as president. However, in my first week here, in the various school orientation sessions when I had the chance to listen to the opinions of Hondurans, I soon learned that this is not the desire of most. Everyone I spoke to was pleased that Mel was removed from power. They rejoiced that they were no longer in danger of becoming a communist nation and they prayed that the U.S. and the U.N. would recognize this blessing.
Wow, I thought. Why doesn't anyone else know they feel this way?
However, the more I think about it, read about it, and speak to various people about it, the more I wonder if these views I heard initially are the views of only one particular class of people. Apparently Mel is well-liked among the poor, something I wouldn't have known by speaking to the more well-off school employees and families. So, I hesitate to choose sides. I really don't know enough (and I doubt that anyone really knows everything). All I want is for the fighting to end and for kids to be able to get to school safely once more.

-------------------------
Some typical sights around the city... The first is against Mel, the second is against those who ousted him:

(image thanks to surchur.com)

(image thanks to http://isiria.wordpress.com/2009/07/05/honduras-coup-photos/)

The Coup, part 2

2009-09-24T14:55:00.001-06:00

I thought I'd include a link to a blog that is posting very regular updates about the situation here in Honduras:

www.hondurascoup2009.blogspot.com

The Coup

2009-09-24T14:43:00.005-06:00

For those who have been keeping up with the news, you may know about the removal of president Manual Zelaya from his position as president of Honduras this past June. Well, on Monday he snuck back into the country, where he has been hiding out in the Brazilian embassy here in Tegucigalpa, causing all kinds of demonstrations, violence, and excitement.
Monday was our first day back at school after our two-week swine flu vacation. During the schoolday we found out about Zelaya's return. Several parents came to pick up students early. Demonstrations had already begun. That night, as I was in a friends' apartment for a small group meeting, we saw buses just returning to the school at 7:00, 8:00 and 9:00 p.m., after leaving the school at 3:00!
School was canceled Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, due to the national curfew put in place in an attempt to control the marches and demonstrators. The curfew was lifted yesterday afternoon so people could get food and water, but from what I hear the stores and streets were mad houses!
The word is that school may resume tomorrow, but I doubt many kids will come.
Here is an article from the Wall Street Journal that does a good job of laying out the basics of this situation. Please pray for Honduras.

After nearly three months in exile, Manuel Zelaya, the deposed president of Honduras, made a stealth return to Tegucigalpa on Monday, taking sanctuary in the Brazilian embassy. He is now using this diplomatic sanctuary to demand reinstatement and stir up his supporters in the streets. This is a dangerous moment, and if violence breaks out the U.S. will bear no small part of the blame.

Mr. Zelaya was deposed and deported this summer after he agitated street protests to support a rewrite of the Honduran constitution so he could serve a second term. The constitution strictly prohibits a change in the term-limits provision. On multiple occasions he was warned to desist, and on June 28 the Supreme Court ordered his arrest.

Every major Honduran institution supported the move, even members in Congress of his own political party, the Catholic Church and the country's human rights ombudsman. To avoid violence the Honduran military escorted Mr. Zelaya out of the country. In other words, his removal from office was legal and constitutional, though his ejection from the country gave the false appearance of an old-fashioned Latin American coup.

The U.S. has since come down solidly on the side of—Mr. Zelaya. While it has supported negotiations and called for calm, President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have both insisted that Honduras must ignore Mr. Zelaya's transgressions and their own legal processes and restore him as president. The U.S. has gone so far as to cut off aid, threaten Honduran assets in the U.S. and pull visas to enter the U.S. from the independent judiciary. The U.S. has even threatened not to recognize presidential elections previously scheduled for November unless Mr. Zelaya is first brought back to power—even though he couldn't run again.

This remarkable diplomatic pressure against a small Central American ally has only reinforced Mr. Zelaya's refusal to compromise short of a return to the presidency, with all of the instability and potential for violence that could involve. It also probably encouraged him to gamble on returning to Honduras on Monday, figuring even that provocation won't endanger U.S. support. And so far it hasn't.

Now that he is back, Mr. Zelaya and his allies aren't calling for calm. His supporters have flocked to Brazil's embassy with cinder blocks, sticks and Molotov cocktails. "The fatherland, restitution or death," he shouted to demonstrators outside the embassy. In anticipation of trouble and with concern for public safety, President Roberto Micheletti announced a curfew. But when police tried to enforce the curfew, the zelayistas resisted and there is now a Honduran standoff.

On Monday Mr. Zelaya said he owed his return and political survival to "the support of the international community." He's getting support from Nicaragua's Sandinista President Daniel Ortega, the former guerrilla group FMLN in El Salvador, and especially from Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. But let's face it: None of that support would mean very much without the diplomatic and sanctions muscle of the U.S.

If the U.S. didn't know about Mr. Zelaya's stealth return, it ought to feel deceived and drop its support. Now that he's back in Honduras, the best solution to avoid violence would be for the U.S. to urge Mr. Zelaya to turn himself over to Honduran authorities for arrest and trial.

How to make September disappear...

2009-09-22T10:26:00.007-06:00

What a crazy month. With September having barely begun, we received some surprising news on the morning of Monday, September 7th. Due to the widespread swine flu pandemic, and the number of Pinares students out with flu symptoms, the school made the decision to close for two weeks in order to sanitize the school and give students a chance to get better. That Monday, when my principal called me out of class to let me know that we would not have class starting the next day until the 21st, I was shocked! By the end of that same school day, several teachers had already bought plane tickets to go home to the states, and some had planned international chicken bus adventures set to leave the very next day. I contemplated going home, but with rumors spreading that the school would need to take away most of our future long weekends away in order to make up these missed instructional days, I wanted to take advantage of this time to see the country! I also knew my family was wanting to make a trip down, so I jumped on this opportunity. I convinced my dad to fly down and Mallory, my sister, was even able to miss a week of class in order to come with him!

For the first week of the vacation, I hung around Teguc for a few days and caught up on classroom things and took a little trip to a park nearby called El Picacho, where there is a huge Jesus statue and views of the entire city.

On Thursday, a group of us headed to La Ceiba, a beach on the Caribbean. Ben and Joy, a brave teacher-couple who have been here for a year, rented a van and Ben did all the driving.

That was such a treat because it gave us so much freedom to go where we pleased! We stayed one night in a super nice resort on the beach, free to all of us because it was loaned to us by a students' parents who own it. From there, a smaller group of us continued down the beach to a much less touristy and much more rustic beach called Trujillo, where the water was crystal clear right off the beach and there were massive star fish all over! In Trujillo we went on a snorkel trip and visited an old Fort (built by the Spanish, like the one in St. Augustine!)

After two nights in our fun, but very simple hostel-ish hotel in Trujillo, we went back to La Ceiba and spent another night in the resort. On Monday I went white water rafting!! The river is incredibly beautiful and snuggled right into a national forest (more like a jungle). Even better than the rafting was the jumping off huge rocks into the white water, and swimming and hiking along the river.

That afternoon my family flew right into La Ceiba!! After a dinner with the big group of teachers, we split off and headed for our hotel, Villa Helens right on the beach. The next day we went to the most beautiful tropical location I've ever seen in my life, called Cayos Cochinos, a little cluster of tiny islands amid turquoise water and the second largest barrier reef in the world! I've never seen a reef like it. It was most definitely the best snorkeling I've ever done! After snorkeling, the boat took us to a tiny Garifuna (afro-caribe) island where we ate a fried whole-fish lunch.

We intended to stay another day in Ceiba and do a Canopy Tour before taking an afternoon bus to Copan, but after learning that the bus schedules were not what I thought, we had to forgo the canopy tour and leave on a 10:00 bus. It was a long day of travel, with a two-hour layover in between our two, 3-hour bus rides, but we finally made it to Copan. Copan was described to me as an island within Honduras. It has been built up as a touristy spot because of the incredible Mayan ruins nearby, but there is nothing else around it. For me, Copan was such a welcome relief from being in a city or stranded in a beach hotel. It reminded me of the traditional Mexican colonial towns I liked to visit, where everything branches out, grid-like, from the central park. In Copan we made friends with our Tuk-Tuk (moto-taxi) driver and he ended up taking us to all the sights we wanted to hit. We saw the ruins, did a Canopy tour, visited a shade-grown coffee plantation, and went to Macaw Mountain bird park. When it got dark (which happens pretty early) we wandered around the town and shopped and ate and just people-watched.
Our hotel in Copan, Don Udos, was adorable and comfortable and made me want to stay forever. In fact, we did end up extending our stay until Saturday, the day before Mallory and Dad flew out of Teguc, because we liked it so much!

But all good things must come to an end, and we

headed back to Teguc early Saturday morning, where I got to show my family my house and school and a bit of the city. I feel so fortunate that I got this incredibly unexpected vacation and visit and was able to see so much of the country already! Honduras is really an amazing place to visit, and it is quite unfortunate the effect that the political situation is having on tourism. So, come visit me and together we can do our part to get Honduras back on its feet again! :)

Exhausted but good...

2009-08-28T18:12:00.003-06:00

I am 4 full-days and 3 half-days deep into the school year. I have been working my tail off trying to get things in order all week. Today was open house. The students left at 11:30 and Open House was from 2:00-5:00. I got to meet some of the Tegucigalpa elite and tell them how great their children are doing (which, after only a week, they really are). My class is sweet and young (in Mexico, my third graders had a year of pre-first before first grade, so they were actually fourth-grade ages). It is taking some getting used to just knowing what their ability levels and emotional levels are. Some of them are really just babies. :) In a good way, usually.

This place is such a mix of cultures and lifestyles. Last weekend I got to help out at the feeding center Macayla is involved with. It is through an organization called Manos Extendidas (check them out: http://www.mehonduras.org/). They have child-sponsorship programs and we participated in their bible lesson and food distribution (of an interesting rice-milk-mush). It was so humbling, and kind of crazy, to descend off of our mountain where some of the homes are mansions with full-time armed guards, into a part of town that only receives water once a week or so and has homes made of scrap materials and dirt floors.

I have visited a few churches so far and am trying to find a fit. Pray that I can get involved in a church here. That was something I never successfully did in Mexico.

Much needed weekend!

2009-08-17T16:55:00.001-06:00

Every weekend the school provides transportation down the mountain on Saturdays and Sundays. The Saturday trips alternate between an outdoor market trip and a mall/grocery store/Sams Club kind of trip. This past Saturday was the latter trip. Now, I tend to be more of a market kind of girl, but this mall trip was necessary for us to stock up on essentials (including the typical essentials we Gringas must have: Raid and a wireless internet router.)
After the long and exhausting shopping trip, instead of heading back up our mountain I stayed in the city with Macayla (my friend who is going on her 4th year here in Teguc.) until Sunday afternoon. I must admit, it felt delightfully liberating to spend a couple days down in the city instead of up on our fairly isolated hill. Macayla lives in a great, super old, Colonial style neighborhood not too far from El Centro. AND she has a car, which is another amazingly freeing bonus!
I got to check out Macayla’s church this Sunday, which was in a pretty poor and supposedly sketchy part of town (another great reason to have a car!). It is the kind of place where orphans attend and addicts fall in from the street, but the pastor who preached was a tall black man from South Carolina and a decent number of Americans are involved as well. All in all, an exciting place to worship! ☺ I’ve been hearing about so many churches in the city and I’m looking forward to experiencing more!
In work-related news, school starts on Thursday and I have more to do than I would have liked. But, in my defense, Hannah (the other 3rd grade teacher) and I could only do so much because our grade-level team leader was stuck in the states unexpectedly after losing her passport. Since Academia los Pinares is very big on grade-level cooperation, we needed her input before we could create our rules, behavior management plans, or lessons. Thankfully she arrived on Friday so we can now get seriously to work!
Please pray that I can do a great job and not be anxious or stressed about starting this new year!

I will post pictures as soon as I find a way. ☺

First Honduras Email

2009-08-12T13:49:00.001-06:00

This is an email I sent. If you read this blog, you probably received the e-mail, too... but I wanted to just stick it here for preservation. More will come soon!

I am so happy to finally have some internet access and feel like I am somewhat connected to all of you who are far away!! I had a couple of opportunities to make phone calls, but I never had anyone pick up, and our house has no internet for the time being. We're hoping to get hooked up soon! I'm sorry for this mass email.. but it's all I have time for right now!

Well, I only arrived Saturday, not four days ago, but it feels like forever! We have had a pretty regimented schedule since we arrived, including communal meals (necessary due to our empty houses and kitchens and no stores nearby) and meetings. Several of the school families, including the director and his wife, and the elementary principal and high school principal, have hosted some of our meals the first few days. There are 17 new teachers this year, so there have been lots of new people to meet! Four of us met in Houston and were on the same flight in to Honduras and it was fun getting to know them. One of them was my roommate, Hannah. She's also teaching third grade with me and she's so sweet! My other roommate, Twana, is the elementary art teacher and she's super great, too. (And she's white, fyi).

Most of the teachers live in the school apartments, which are enclosed within the school walls and off to one side. However, we live across the street from the school's back gate. We live in a big house that is on the same 'compound' as a family of 8! They were also on our flight, and the six kids and even the mother with a 5 month old arrived excited and stress-free! They have lived here before (for 3 years) and they are helpful in letting us know how certain things are done around here. Plus the baby is fun to have around! In the house right next to our compound there are four guys who teach at Pinares. I've only met the two new teachers and the returning guys come sometime this week. Other Pinares teachers live in other adjoining houses as well. We hosted a game night at our house the second night becase our house is the best! It's got a big, open living/dining/kitchen area and lots of seating!

The school is only 7 miles outside of the city, but because it is 7 miles up a winding hill, it takes a long time to get to the city or back up. We drove into town yesterday afternoon to do our first big shopping trip. We had to hit a plastics store for any kind of plastic household item we'll need. Then we went to a mall that had a wal-mart style store, and a department store, where we bought cleaning supplies/groceries.. even a toaster oven. Our house was pretty much empty, which is a little frustrating because so many of the apartments are nearly fully stocked from past teachers.
The shopping trip was so exhausting and we spent a lot of money to get set up.. but it's nice to have our house semi-stocked.Macayla (my friend who teaches here) met up with us and helped me shop. I was also glad to get in and see the city a little bit.

That's one of the only hesitations I've found so far--the location of the school in relation to the city. While there are definite advantages to being up here (cooler climate, calmer atmosphere) it's also quite a commute into the city and there aren't any grocery stores or markets up here (aside from a hole in the wall kind of store that has a few essentials). It's going to require some effort to not isolate myself up here on the mountain.

Ok, I'm trying not to make this a novel right now.. but I'll add that this school is like night and day from Lincoln school. Oh my gosh it is huge and gorgeous and my classroom is a REAL classroom!! I have an overhead projector and a microwave (the kids eat lunch in the room) and regular desks and lots of supplies. AND, the school personell and administrators are really amazing. They are all so supportive and yet firm in their goals and beliefs for the school. They are really encouraging us spiritually as well as with basic things like our health and safety.

So, I think this e-mail is just a random collection of paragraphs, but at least it's something. I left my camera/computer cord at home.. so pictures may not be posted or sent any time soon unless I find a cord to borrow. I'm still in a weird transition phase.. it hasn't quite sunk in yet, but I am sure it will soon, especially when I spend some more time in the city. I'll try to continue updating my blog instead of sending more mass e-mails, so check it out in the future! (www.taralpeterson.blogspot.com). I am missing everyone, but having fun!! Send me some love! (and for those who might want to get a phone card or some Skype credit, my house phone # is 011-504-211-9091)

Tara

P.s.
One of my roommates and I have already staked out a place for our compost pile :)

AND, we are getting our MAID soon! ( All teachers are expected to have one.) She'll probably come 3 days per week. For the whopping salary of about $7 a day--a fair wage here! :)

August 8

2009-08-06T05:53:00.004-06:00

I've always liked my birthday. No, not simply because it's my day to eat cake and open presents... I have actually always just loved that it is on the eighth day of the eighth month. It's a good time of the year.
Well, this year, my birthday is a big deal for three Important Reasons. First and foremost, I will turn 25 years old. Let's not dwell too much on that fact, it's pretty straightforward. The second Important Reason that this August 8th is great is that it is my graduation day! In just two days I will officially be finished with grad school and in possession of my M.Ed degree in Language Arts and Children's Literature. I won't be going to my graduation ceremony, however, because of the Important Reason #3: I am moving to Tegucigalpa, Honduras on the same day. That's where I'll be teaching next year, at Academia los Pinares.

So, this Saturday, when you may think it's neat to write 8/8/2009 if you happen to be writing the date somewhere... just remember that it's a huge day for lots of reasons--in my world, anyway.
As my mother would say, Peace Out.

Home stretch

2009-06-17T16:27:00.002-06:00

This is my last break during grad school. After the next (mini) semester, I will have my M.Ed. and head off (on graduation day!) to Honduras to teach again. You know, I recently heard someone state that being a teacher is harder than being a brain surgeon--teachers have to know how to reach every student in whatever way will work for him or her, but a brain surgeon (according to this person) does mostly the same things over and over again.
Now, I'm not sure I'd go that far in an appraisal of the job of a teacher, but there is a good point in there somewhere. Man...teaching is hard! I know a lot of non-teachers who don't think it is, but my motto has generally been: If you think it's easy, you're probably doing something wrong. It's scary to think of the responsibility teachers have. It plays out something like this :
1. the teacher enters.
2. 25 or so students enter.
3. the teacher must be an authority, but also warm enough so that the kids care about what she has to say.
4. the teacher must learn everything she can about her students--their interests, abilities, home lives, and struggles.
5. the teacher must then design instruction that will somehow engage all 25 of the different little people in front of her.
6. Most importantly, and most difficultly, the teacher should somehow find a way to make kids want to explore, learn, discover, and enjoy the world, in and outside of the classroom and school year.

Boy. I have two years of experience and another degree and I still feel nearly as clueless as I did on day one.
I guess the great think about teaching is that, even though it's really hard, it's a good kind of hard. I think it's hard like mini golf. No one plays mini-golf perfectly, but since it is social and fun, you keep at it. In mini golf, have to focus to get it right, and you generally keep a record of what you've done, and after 18 different holes, you might only get one hole-in-one--but it's enough to pump you up for the next round!

Wow. All cheesy metaphors aside, I'm pretty excited to get back in the game!

Tegucigalpa

2009-06-14T19:51:00.003-06:00

To whom it may concern:

Next year I will be teaching third grade in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras at Academia Los Pinares, a bilingual Christian school very similar to where I taught in Mexico.

More to come.

:)

Teaching and Technology

2009-04-17T09:26:00.002-06:00

It's everywhere. We can't escape it. It's technology from the black lagoon. Ok, well, maybe it's not all bad. What am I saying? I subscribe to it as much as the next person, with my daily texting, facebooking, and even twittering.

But I can't help but be slightly unnerved at the enormity of this new techno-culture. With people, young and not-so-young, inserting acronyms into their daily conversations ("o.m.g. that is such a cute shirt!") it makes me a bit nostalgic for the times when the computer was a novelty... a once-daily connection to the not-quite-as-huge social network of emails and, perhaps, message boards. Now--and I include myself in this shift--it's a never-ending, always wired, continual feed of news and tidbits into anyone and anything we could ever imagine. Everything is instant and at-hand.

In the grad-school world of education, we often discuss how this is, or is going to affect our classrooms. It already has, to some degree. With children being constantly stimulated with games, computers, phones, and movies, it's tricky to find ways to engage them in class.

As much as it excites me that so many school here in Alachua County have smart-boards in every classroom, I'm also a bit nervous for what this means for myself as a teacher in the twenty-first century. I already feel farther behind than many, when I once felt as if I was keeping up with the changing times.

I didn't mean to go off on such a tangent... I have papers to write! But this stemmed from a couple of articles that NCTE brought to my attention.

High schoolers using twitter to study Dante:
And the possibility that texting can help reading skills.

Apparently Blogger isn't up on the times. Otherwise they would know not to insert that dashed, red line under the word, "texting".

I was told to share this...

2009-02-13T21:56:00.004-06:00

For those who don't know, I'm getting my Master's degree in Language Arts and Children's Literature. This semester I am taking a class with the same name. It is focusing on writer's workshop and reader-response to quality literature. Anyways, we are instructed to write, edit, and polish pieces throughout the semester in the way we would conduct a writer's workshop in our classrooms. We recently turned in our first "published" piece, which could be anything we wanted (writing prompts are pretty disdained around here...). After we shared our pieces, my professor implored us all to share our pieces somewhere, with someone, "that's the whole point!", she said.
Therefore... here I am, and below is what I wrote for class. Aside from not wanting to just hand it over and say, "Read This!", to someone... I figured it kinda, sorta related to the nature of this blog. Here ya go:

Same Difference

I pushed through the bustling crowds, my quick strides appearing much more determined than the slow meander of your average extranjero in the street market. Colors danced all around me, but I didn’t let my eyes linger on anything—not yet. I was, in fact, quite as determined as my fast pace suggested—eager to distance myself as much as possible from the others. I’m sure you’re familiar with their type; those loud, overly-American tourists who draw everyone’s attention and give the locals a just reason to roll their eyes and scowl. Those people who think that, by yelling, their words will somehow translate and the Mayan women will understand that they want the same tablecloth in a different color. The kind of person who will order food at a restaurant and openly express her disgust at finding some unknown cut of meat or potentially amoebic salad.
The last thing I wanted was to be recognized as that kind of American, so I squeezed my way down the main strip, past the rows of shops and venders. I dodged groups of children calling, “Amiga! Compre algo de mi. Algo para tu familia. Si Amiga….”. Friend! Buy something from me. Something for your family. Yes, friend! I reminded myself not to buy from them; not to support families that keep their children out of school in order to make money from the soft-hearted gringos. Just beyond a man with a push-cart full of bananas I found my freedom in an alley full of locals selling fresh tortillas, cheap shoes, and pirated music.
Moseying away from the Americans with their dollars and their English and their cameras and their money pouches tucked into their neon-colored shirts, I tried to appear as separate as possible. Could they tell that I came to this country with them? Surely my manners, my Spanish, my appearance would spare me the automatic label given to my loud compañeros? I wondered what that label was. Rich? We buy seemingly everything in sight and stay at the nicest hotels. Rude? We snap a picture whenever we please. Arrogant? In everything we do, is there an implied superiority?
Marveling at the depth of my own observations, I found my way back to our beautiful hotel just in time for the three-course dinner served nightly. After stowing my bags of souvenirs, I took a couple choice pictures of the Marimba band playing in the courtyard before finding my seat at the table and promptly declined the steak dinner the waiter was serving.
“No, un plato vegeteriano por favor.” No, a vegetarian plate please.
Alas. Am I really any different?

Semillas Honduras

2009-02-09T19:31:00.001-06:00

Please pray for, and consider supporting, my friend Macayla's new project with teen girls.

http://www.semillashonduras.blogspot.com/

we're not in Kansas anymore...

2008-08-17T18:35:00.002-06:00

I doubt anyone is still reading this blog (if you are, comment so I have some kind of idea...) but I felt the need to update for a few reasons. Reason #1: I wanted to say a little something about the present status of my life. Reason #2: I'm bored.
So, here we go with reason #1.. which, actually, is a direct link (cause?) to reason #2...
I moved over to Gainesville last Monday (August11). For those who don't know, Gainesville is considered northern central Florida, which means it is stuck right in the middle of the state. I don't technically need to be here until the 22nd of August, but I figured that I should give myself some time to acclimate to my new surroundings and get some important things done like, oh, registering for classes. So far I've been here for about 1 week, and that leads me into the aformentioned reason #2-I'm bored. Why did I give myself 2 weeks to acclimate? Well, I suppose my A-type personality didn't fare well with sitting around in Edgewater, unable to figure out the University of Florida's online methods of signing up for everything. But it turned out that coming here really didn't help much b/c the people I needed to talk to were on vacation this week. So, it looks like this upcoming week will be my time to resolve all of my issues. I just hope that process will take up a few more of my daylight hours than my pitiful daily activities did last week.

In other news, I'm missing Mexico like the glaciers miss the O-zone layer... my friends are starting a new year of school tomorrow, and I keep picturing everyone happy and together and preparing for a bright, shiny, fresh new year. I also can't help but picture my former students in the hands of inexperienced teachers, and wishing I could just fly over there right now.

But I really should stop this whole dwelling thing. I doubt that it's good for me.

July 1--Home Sweet Home

2008-06-21T13:34:00.006-06:00

I have only about a week left here in Mexico, and while I'm excited that teaching will be over, I think I may go into depression upon returning Stateside and leaving wonderful people and an incredible life here. And even though the last few weeks of school are pure craziness and disaster, I want to cry at the thought of not hanging out with such sweet, precious kids everyday in my upcoming year.
God has blessed me SO much with school this year. I have the greatest job ever. I'm pretty sure I laughed every day.. I received countless little gifts and smiles and notes. I was brought sushi, yogurt, and mangoes-on-a-stick for lunch. It has been unforgettable.

Here are some pictures of yesterday--it was Ice Cream Day and also Hi Seok and Michelle's last day with us (lucky early leavers!)

Hi Seok, sadly, is moving back to Korea on Monday. I'm so proud of that kid. He came here to Lincoln this year for his first year in Mexico. When he started he spoke and understood a fraction of the English he now knows. He has also managed to become a best friend to most of the boys and girls in my class.

He also called me yesterday, which he does every so often to ask about homework. This time, however, it went something like this:
Me: Hello?
Hi Seok: Hi. I am Hi Seok.
Me: Hi, Hi Seok. How are you?
Hi Seok: Fine. Do you see the white things???

(It was raining and hailing at the time. I was at my window watching the hail when he called)

Me: Yes, I do! Hi Seok... did you call me to tell me about the hail?
Hi Seok: Yes.

Our conversation continued... and included his asking me, "but, I don't understand. How does it happen?".
How cute is he? I couldn't love him any more.

I'm looking forward to seeing some of you very soon! Enjoy the end of June.

Matthew 6

2008-05-31T18:45:00.003-06:00

It is very clear in the Bible that God will take care of our every need. In fact, I think this is a central theme in Jesus' life and ministry. Take, for example, these words that Jesus spoke in his Sermon on the Mount:

25 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? 28 "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

And if this doesn't catch our attention, the Gospel is FULL of examples of why and when we shouldn't worry.
Hungry multitudes after a long sermon? Just make 5 fish and 2 loaves feel tens of thousands of people!
Need some money to pay your taxes? Just tell one of your buddies to open up a fish's mouth and there it will be!
Going on a long journey? Don't take food, money, or extra clothes! God will provide what you need along the way!

I kind of feel this way here in Mexico. I have never wanted for anything... in fact, I have more than I need! I make a fraction of what I would be making in the states, and yet it is so much more than what so many Mexicans earn.
And, something particularly wonderful about living in this community, when I don't have anything to eat for dinner, I can round up my wonderful friends and create a feast! I just love it when 6 or 7 hungry girls can pitch in things like cheese, tomatoes, flour, yeast, and vegetables and create wonderful, made-from-scratch pizzas!
The night we made pizza I was really reminded of God's promise to provide for our every need.

I am a worrier... Although not always on display, my fears and worries are always there. I hope I can always be able to step back and see God's hand... see the 20/20 hindsight that I so often forget about... and be thankful!

Check out some of the pictures of our recent events, including a few of the pizza-making fun, spirit week, and Charla's wonderful homemade pesto and pasta. (This year could certainly be called the Year of Food for our house!!)

Springtime

Mallory Came to Visit!

2008-05-10T16:30:00.003-06:00

I was so fortunate to have my best friend and sister come hang out with me for a week! She just finished her spring semester at UF and came down for a break. We started out fast, leaving early the morning after her arrival for San Miguel de Allende... a huge ex-pat colonial city. It was beautiful and artsy, but I was a little turned-off by the number of foreigners.
We spent about a day in all (we left early, not staying the second night as we had planned). We explored a local art university, drank coffee overlooking the plaza, and spent a morning at the hot springs.
While in Guadalajara, I tried to show Mallory the sights--some of them Mexican, others not (like the Indian restaurant).
We were invited to dinner at the house of the Cardenas family, the family of my student, Zuriel (the one responsible for the Pandas Praying Club). She made delicious Pozole (a soup with hominy) and taquitos. After discovering that Mallory's name in high school Spanish class was Chela they whipped out, and gave her, a mug engraved with that name (who knows why they had it..?).

The Cardenas Family!! I love them so much.

Mallory shopping in the Artisan Market.

The cathedral in San Miguel. It's pink color is the natural color of the sandstone in the area.

Cross-cultured bus ride. :)

Abril...

2008-04-20T15:32:00.005-06:00

Springtime!
I'm sorry about the time between posts. Here are some things that I've done lately.

Balnearios
Well, at the beginning of my spring break I traveled a few hours outside of the city to a place they call the balnearios. Which is this natural spring-fed pool you can pay to enter. It was really cool because we drove through endless dry, baren desert... finally we pulled through this cute little pueblo (the kind with little old men sitting outside doing nothing buy watching the cars go by). Emerging on the other side, we were at the balnearios. We climbed down a few stairs and were immediately in the middle of this gorgeous ravine cut out of the rocks by this water! Totally unexpected based on what you have just driven through.

My Best Friend's Wedding
I went home for most of my spring break because Mackenzie got married!!! I can't stop telling people how wonderful the whole process was! The preparations, the rehearsal, the wedding, the reception-everything-was perfect!!
After having been away for so much of the pre-wedding process, I didn't really feel like I deserved my Maid of Honor title.
But, I'm just so glad I got to be a part of it. I doubt if I'll ever again see anything like the Booth wedding.

Felicidades Mackenzie and Martin!!!!

April....
So, since returning to Mexico, I've jumped right back into the swing of things.
School has been a little crazy, with the Mexican school board telling us that we would be administering their big standardized test two days last week, but they ended up never showing up. Those tests are tentatively scheduled for next week, but who knows. Can you imagine the school board just NOT bringing the tests on the week (or the days) they told the school the children would be taking these important exams. Wow. I'm not in Kansas anymore...

I went to the Zoo yesterday! It was my first time and, aside from normal things about zoos that have never really please me, and aside from the rude people who threw sticks, chicken, Cheeto's, and other miscellaneous items into animal pens with no staff anywhere near... aside from all of that, it was a lovely zoo and a really great day! The highlight was having a giraffe eat from our hands on the safari!
Next up: Mallory is coming to visit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Semana Santa y Semana Pascua.

2008-03-15T10:01:00.002-06:00

I have been a bad blogger this year. I haven't updated very much, and for that I am sorry. School has been forging ahead steadily. We had a fun ecology week, in which we took a field trip to the Bosque de los Niños, a place we went last year also. It really is a perfect field trip for these city kids who never get muddy and get the chance to really be among trees. We finished up ecology week with a brave endeavor. Four of us teachers brought our classes out and we set up six centers where the kids could do things like make recycled paper, create "creatures" out of garbage, make signs petitioning the school to stop using paper towels and paper cones (for drinking), and sort trash in a relay. The kids did very well amidst our craziness and I've got more than one of them boycotting styrofoam plates from the school store and one mom told me that her son now writes on the backs of old napkins at home because "Miss Peterson would like it".

This week we had mini olympics, another great chance for the city kids to roll in the grass and run around freely. After the two longest school days of all time, I am now enjoying the first day of my glorious two-week spring break! In Mexico, they always get the two weeks surrounding easter off for spring break, the first week is semana santa (holy week) and the second week is semana pascua (Easter week). For those who don't know, I will be coming back to Florida on Tuesday the 18th for the wedding of my best friend... which seems so surreal after living in my Mexican bubble for a year and a half...

In other news, I thought I should post something about what has occupied a lot of my time over the past few months. I found a master's program at the University of Florida that pretty much encompasses all of my favorite things about teaching. It is a specialization in Language Arts and Children's Literature, and it focuses a lot on writing, and language acquisition, and multicultural children's literature. I spent about one solid month studying for the GRE, preparing application essays, requesting letters of recommendation and transcripts, and marveling at how easy it was to do it all from another country. I sent the application at the end of February and am still waiting to hear.

Lately, though, I've been wondering about my decision to move back to the states and pursue this degree. Although at first I felt a definite peace about the decision, I've been thinking a lot about the Kingdom of God here on earth and what that means for me. I have been wondering if I should use my gift of singleness and freedom from debt (so far...) to continue working for God abroad, while I can do it easily. If I get my masters now it will mean doing it entirely on loans, something I haven't had to resort to yet, and something that would require a "normal job" to pay them off.
So, I would appreciate prayer for this situation. I just want to know where God would want to use me. Where ever that is, I'll go!

"I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues"

2008-02-15T18:06:00.003-06:00

I feel very fortunate to have what has affectionately been named The Whimsical Tree residing directly outside my bedroom window. This amazing tree is like no other tree I have ever seen. The most spectacular thing about it is that, although now it is full of pink sprouts of what resemble something close to fiber-optic wires, come May or June the flowers will fall off and be replaced with these insane, white cotton-balls that like to shed all over the place. (I will be sure to post a picture of the cotton balls whenever they arrive this year...)

View of the Whimsical Tree from my room

If you have ever paid particular attention to Dr. Seuss' illustrations, and seen the crazy trees I have seen since moving here, you might come to the same conclusion as I have--that Dr. Seuss must have visited Mexico!
"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not." Dr. Seuss The Lorax

New Address--Take Two.

2008-02-11T16:29:00.000-06:00

Ok. Really. I'm usually patient with all these unorganized things that seem to happen all the time here. However, I am just a little bit over this.

It turns out that the second mailing address I received was, in fact, also wrong. Just by a little bit.

Check out the sidebar again for the <> real address.

New Address.

2008-02-09T11:19:00.000-06:00

Please make note of the new Texas address on the sidebar. If I already informed you of the new address, you will notice that this one is a little different. That's how things roll here... they give you a new address and then later, after you tell everyone and change your magazines, etc, they let you know that the first was wrong.
Viva Mexico.

Seriously?

2008-01-30T18:56:00.000-06:00

They're so crazy.

I would just like to note that today I received the "my dog ate my homework" excuse for probably the third time since I began teaching here in Mexico.
And they are completely serious.
Here it must not be the most ridiculous and clichéd explanation of all time.

Operation Christmas Child

2008-01-24T19:09:00.000-06:00

If you belong to a church, or maybe even if you don't, you may have participated in a Christmastime charity through the company "Samaritan's Purse". It involves filling a shoebox with toys and necessary items for children from different age brackets.
My family and I have done this for years and, although we were told that these boxes would go to needy children all over the world, I admit that I didn't really think about them once the box left my hands.
That is forever changed now after I was able to participate in an event that distributed these very boxes to street children and orphans of Guadalajara!
I didn't know it when I agreed to come help. All I knew is that I was going to wake up at 7:00 to take a long bus ride to a park to help (on my last Saturday before returning back to work after Christmas, mind you...). Charla and I got to the park very quickly, which meant that we were there at 8:15--the time we were told the helpers should arrive. Now, some of you may know that, in Mexico, when you are told to arrive at 8:15, that means nothing will start until 9:00, if you're lucky, and that you would have been better off coming late. Well, we still can seem to shake our American punctuality, and we got there super early.
I'm not complaining, though, because it was a great surprise to see huge trucks pull up and unload the Samaritan's Purse boxes. It was fun to help set up the carnival games, and to say hello to most of the Christian community we've met since moving to Guadalajara.

Charla and I were posted at the "Pulseras" (bracelets) booth with some Lincoln School staff members, Ruben and Sylvia. We helped teach kids a bible verse "El Señor te guardará de todo mal. El guardará mi alma." Psalm 121. And they made the bracelets with the different colored beads that represent different steps in the story of salvation.

I will admit that I felt some pangs of guilt, telling these children that God will protect them from all bad things. The truth is that, as a Christian, God doesn't promise to take all the bad away. But he does promise that he's always with us through it... we just have to know where to look. I hope these kids can come to learn that, as their lives are surely full of more struggles ahead.

Above: Sylvia telling the children the meaning of the beads.

Left: The speaker giving a message to the children.

Opportunity.

2007-12-28T00:03:00.000-06:00

It is really amazing how many opportunities we have as Americans (or Europeans.... or any other people group from wealthy, free nations...) . I am researching opportunities for next year. I have so many options. Graduate schools, teaching abroad in international schools, going wherever I please. As cool as it is, it is also intimidating. Perhaps more intimidating than anything else. I'd almost rather have less opportunity. This would make things (like decisions) much more manageable. Goodness.
What. To. Do.
?

Blessings and Gratitude

2007-11-26T20:55:00.000-06:00

I am so blessed! This year I celebrated my second Thanksgiving away from home, but I was fortunate enough to have 55+ guests at our backyard Thanksgiving feast! We invited people from school, church, bible study, and friends of friends to our event! We had so much food that we ended up donating 4 pies and 2 entire casseroles to an orphanage!
It was a LOT of fun, and I felt so grateful to have met so many wonderful people over the past year!

Save the Pandas!

2007-11-25T21:07:00.001-06:00

I promise I had nothing to do with this!
Zuriel, one of my wonderful students, loves the Giant Panda bears from China. I've been hearing about his fascination since the first week of school when, before our morning prayer, he asked, "Miss Peterson, can you pray for the Pandas?"
"The Pandas?" - my intelligent response.
"You know, the Pandas. In China. They are dying".

So, that was when it began. In the beginning of November, my students brought in science projects relating to our habitat theme. Zuriel, of course, chose to create a diorama showing the bamboo forests 'before' and 'after'. He did above and beyond and created a wonderful project. But that's not all. Zuriel stayed up late making panda pins (which he drew and mounted on plastic and cut out), and he brought them to school on Presentation day with a poster entitled "Pandas Praying Club" (please read club with a long u sound.. because no matter how much I correct it, he will always pronounce it the Spanish way). Zuriel created a club that now meets on Thursday mornings before school, where we assemble outside to say a quick prayer for our endangered friends of the east (and the west, if you count the San Diego Zoo....) So, the phrase "Save the Pandas" has infiltrated our classroom... I hear it many times a day. I'm excited that I have a young activist blossoming before me. :) (Oh, and I almost have them all refusing the Styrofoam plates from the school's lunch store!)

Zuriel's panda project presentation.

Andrea's ocean habitat.

Hi Seok researched the Sahara Desert.

Tania did the forest.

I found this. And I like this. I will share it with you.

2007-11-19T21:20:00.001-06:00

When Earth's Last Picture Is Painted

by Rudyard Kipling

When Earth's last picture is painted
And the tubes are twisted and dried
When the oldest colors have faded
And the youngest critic has died
We shall rest, and faith, we shall need it
Lie down for an aeon or two
'Till the Master of all good workmen
Shall put us to work anew
And those that were good shall be happy
They'll sit in a golden chair
They'll splash at a ten league canvas
With brushes of comet's hair
They'll find real saints to draw from
Magdalene, Peter, and Paul
They'll work for an age at a sitting
And never be tired at all.
And only the Master shall praise us.
And only the Master shall blame.
And no one will work for the money.
No one will work for the fame.
But each for the joy of the working,
And each, in his separate star,
Will draw the thing as he sees it.
For the God of things as they are!

Guanajuato

2007-11-11T21:22:00.000-06:00

I let too much time pass. I should have written a decent description of my weekend in Guanajuato immediately upon returning, to capture some of the awesomeness in writing. However, I did not. And therefore I'm not bubbling over with the perfect adjectives to use in explaining the sheer beauty of this place. You will have to come up with some adjectives yourself. And maybe, if you're lucky, I'll add some more to this post in the future, describing my trip.
What I will tell you is that walking through this city is like being in the streets of Europe. And that I went to THE most perfect location for a wedding. And that I loved it in Guanajuato.
Enjoy my 210 pictures at the link below. You wont hurt my feelings if you don't look at them all.

Guanajuato

Comment with some good adjectives!

Honesty and Initiative.

2007-10-31T18:23:00.000-06:00

So I have this little notebook in my classroom that I use for keeping track of the kid's Spanish (or Korean) speaking.
All it entails is a vertical list of the student's numbers, and the days of the week written across the top. If they speak in Spanish in class, they must put a tally mark next to their name in that day's box.
Well, I haven't touched the thing for weeks! Someone, each Monday, sets up the page with the numbers and the days of the week. This past Monday, after school, I returned after school to see that not only had someone set up the columns for the week, but three students had tallied for Spanish usage!
I can't remember the last time I've actually told a kid not to speak Spanish in class.... they're just so honest about it.

I taught them about "taking the initiative" this week. (That was a common theme at home when I was young... right mom?). However, unlike last year, I taught it to describe what they were already doing, rather than what they should be doing.

Gotta love them.

In other news, there is no school tomorrow OR Friday, although tomorrow is an in-service day. And, I'm going away for the weekend. Expect some pictures soonish!

What you've missed...

2007-10-20T12:58:00.001-06:00

Ok... so I felt a little guilty posting about the luxury beach vacation without posting anything about the daily life things that I've been doing lately. Here is my attempt to reconcile....

During our life science unit, we briefly studied animal instincts. The kids tried to build bird nests to demonstrate that they do NOT have that instinct!

Three of the Lincoln teachers and myself were invited to the home of my student, Zuriel (the little guy in the picture) for lunch. His brother Isaí is on the right. Their parents work at Lincoln and they are the most precious family! Just look at that sign above them, "Welcome to your Mexican house". After eating, we went to a local park and played football and soccer for a couple of hours. It was a really good time.... and quite possibly my first time playing soccer!

There are still friendly (or not so friendly) guests in our classrooms. This is a picture of a black widow that I was fortunate enough to watch as she caught her prey, a bee. I took a video and used my awesome Mac computer's abilities to create a video for my kids to watch. It was perfect timing since we were reading Charlotte's Web and also studying insect life cycles and food chains. I will try to post that video somehow, someday.

A couple of weeks ago was the fifth anniversary of the kid's club in Arenales, where some of us have been volunteering on Saturdays. There was a big party, and Holly, Christen, and I were in charge of face painting. It was a big hit, even though our designs were pretty bad since the only tools we were given were QTips and very sticky, thick paints. The kids didn't seem to mind, though. Of course. Only Americans like me have high expectations for all things, including face paints.

Megan, Melissa, Christen, and Myself
(On a side note, 4 Mexicans have now told Christen and I that we look like twins. She is the girl next to me in this picture. What do you think?? We don't see it.)

Birthday parties are a big deal here. The biggest so far for my class was Michelle's ... her mom brought lunch plates for each student in both third-grade classes, and gave out boxes of chocolates to each student after school!

Soy de Gua-da-la-ja-ra!

2007-10-19T17:46:00.000-06:00

I had a bad attitude going into today. After school we had to participate in a festival, in which each class was required to prepare some kind of game or activity. Fortunately, my room-mothers are awesome and took care of a lot of stuff, bringing supplies and food to sell. However, I was still negative-feeling sorry for myself for not getting planning done before Friday, and thus having to work on the weekend.
I cheered up about everything, though. Our booth was the Water Balloon Toss. Noone really played it the right way, but it turned out to be really low-key, and VERY popular! What really changed my attitude was a short, funny conversation with a tiny and cute little boy.

boy: after hearing me speak in English: "ohhh.. hablas inglés?" (do you speak English?).
Me: "Sí. Y tú? Hablas inglés?" (Yes, do you?)
boy: "No! Soy de Gua-da-la-ja-ra!" (No! I am from Gua-da-la-ja-ra)

I think you probably had to be there. But he made me laugh. And even though we were the last table to clean up (because the balloons became so popular that all the big kids wanted to buy them just to throw at people), I left feeling satisfied.

(Ok... so satisfaction came in a large part from the fact that we raised $100 for our class! All from water balloons and these snacks that look like styrofoam and taste like nothing until you smother them with chili, lime, and salt--a local favorite.)

Now I'm off to bible study.

Third Time's a Charm

2007-10-16T17:51:00.000-06:00

I had been to the beach town of Manzanillo twice last year. I really didn't need to go again. However, when the opportunity presented itself to rent a private house on the beach - splitting the cost to make it affordable - I had to jump on it. Especially since it came after a particularly hard week and a year that, to date, hadn't given a day off yet.
I owe a big thank -you to Charla for spending most of Friday (our surprise day off of school) on the phone with a travel agent in Texas, and for getting us a price that ended up being $200 cheaper than the listed low-season price.
Can you believe that we could only round up 4 people to go? Well.. I guess that making the decision the day we wanted to leave didn't help our cause. At 6:00 p.m. we had the OK to come to the house that night. So Charla, Megan, Becca and I left at 6:40 to get to the bus stop at 7.
It was pretty spontaneous. But totally worth it . Check out the pictures below.

Waiting for the bus on the side of the street.

The front of the house.

One of the bedrooms. I am in love with the paintings in this house!

Grilling up some veggies!

A breakfast with a view!

This is our private pool/bar/grill in the back of the house, ON the beach.

The sunset view from the house.

Becca, Me, and Charla in our pool.

You can't help but praise the Creator at times like this!

The dining room... with more awesome art!

The inside view from the back doors

A pretty flower in a photo that I didn't rotate (sorry)!

and beyond.

2007-09-20T18:59:00.000-06:00

Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." James 4:13-15

I found verse this sometime last week. God is certainly trying to tell me something through it, because I have been worrying and wondering about next year. Do I stay? Do I go to another country? Back to the States?
After reading and returning to these verses, I understand that I'm not supposed to know right now. I wont know until I know, and that is okay. In fact, it's better. If I knew, I would always be living with one eye on the future, instead of giving my 100% here.

So, just to inform you. (Whoever you may be who still reads this blog...)
I could be here another year. I could not. I could be here forever. I could move to Calcutta and work with orphans and widows. (Okay, maybe not on the last one...but you never know.) The point is, I'm going to have to give up the control once and for all and just ride this ride.
That's actually a pretty exciting thought, isn't it?

Independence Day Fun

2007-09-15T10:32:00.000-06:00

Click to see pictures!

September 2007 at Lincoln School

September has come and is halfway over. The mid point was marked by the celebration of Mexican Independence Day at Lincoln School. On Friday we had a special flag ceremony with Mariachi guests and costumes. Some of my parents sent in cakes, drinks, and candies for a party. (Unknown by me until that morning!) It was a busy, but fun day... a good prelude to the holiday this weekend!

Por Fin!

2007-09-10T15:04:00.000-06:00

I finally did what I've been wanting to do since I moved here-I helped in an impoverished community. My roommate, Jacque, got in touch with a girl from a local church who is ministering to a poor community called Arenales (I think that's how you spell it). She does a bible club with the kids (ages 3 to 12) on Saturdays, and she goes during the week to have bible studies with their parents. Six of us Lincoln teachers went to the kid's club last Saturday. We didn't know what to expect, but our only job this week was bringing the snack. We got there and cleaned up the musty, moldy, cement house where the club is held, and we prepared the food. There is no running water in the house, so some of us went across the street to borrow water and haul it back in buckets. The kids began arriving soon after we got there, and we spent a good hour just playing with and getting to know them. I must say, they are pretty darn good at understanding my gringa Spanish! The bible lesson was so cute! The girl who leads it, Jessi, is so fun and animated. She held the attention of the three year olds all the way up to the ten/twelve year olds!! She had the kids get in a big circle, lay hands on us, and pray for us. It was so sweet to see the tiny little kids with their eyes squeezed shut repeating her sweet prayer. Before the kids left, they all came to give us our goodbye besitos, the cheek kisses that are the normal greeting/farewell here. From the tiniest girl of 3 to the bigger kids, they all made sure to despedir us before leaving. I loved it and I loved them and I want to continue helping there every weekend!!The house across the street, where we got our water.

"...and it comes with snacks"

2007-09-02T13:25:00.000-06:00

Wow. I love my class. And it really doesn't have to do with the fact that I get presents from them. I've been with them for 8 days now (not 10 since I missed 2 for the wedding) and I've already received 3 gifts.
-a sushi lunch from Hi Seok, a new Korean boy to our school.
-a thermos/coffee mug from Larissa.
-some sort of yummy caramel treat made by Jorge's grandfather ("My grandfather makes these, Miss Peterson. Not my father...my grandfather")

I can get used to this. :)

By the way. Does anyone recognize the quote in the title?

One week down.

2007-08-27T16:09:00.000-06:00

I thought that I could never love any kids like I loved my first class, but I'm realizing that I was wrong. I realized it on the first day of school. They are so darn sweet! And so far they have had wonderful behavior! Today was the start of the second week of school, but it was only my fourth day with my kids, since I took off Thursday and Friday to be in Jess's wedding in Lansing, Michigan. It was a whirlwind trip, and right now I am exhausted, sick, and without a suitcase...but it was worth it. I had a great time!
Now I must buckle down and get things done. This year is already feeling different. There are new teachers (and they're all great!). I have new roommates (and they're great, too!). But I'm not tutoring Alvaro anymore, and once I get this schoolyear under control, I feel like I'll have more time on my hands than I should. I am still wanting to find a place to serve in my free time... especially now that I am less stressed about the whole teaching thing. Pray that I can get involved somewhere!
Well, I would love to post pictures and update you some more, but it is time to grade and plan.
I miss everyone!

...and more birthdays...

2007-08-19T20:19:00.000-06:00

The time is here. We met. We planned. We worshiped. Last week was a typical back-to-work week at Lincoln. We start the day with a bible study, break into departmental meetings (in which we take forever introducing ourselves to the new people, and the Mexicans who have 20 something sons or brothers advertise their availability...), and try to find time to prepare for the first week of school.
This week was better for me this year because, since I am not new, there were a whole slew of meetings in which I did not need to participate.
I think I'm ready for the first day of school. This week is going to be weird, since I will be gone Thursday and Friday to be in Jess' wedding in Michigan, so planning was different--but also easier as I consulted last year's plans (being a second year teacher already has so many advantages!!)
Tonight was the third birthday celebration I've had since returning to Mexico! Yes, it is the 19th and a full 11 days past my birthday!
The first celebration was at school, where the August birthdays had a cake and a small party with the administrators (and a small bonus!). Then at bible study Friday night the August people were celebrated also. FiNaLLy ( I hope) tonight everyone and their mother came over to our house for cake because today is Chris' (a new Lincoln teacher) birthday. Despite my protests, I was included in this as well.
I think my birthday "party" total this year is six.

Tomorrow will be here so soon. I'm nervous. But in an excited kind of way.

Family, Friends, Birthdays, and a Brother from Belgium

2007-08-12T08:30:00.000-06:00

Florida's tax free week and “Back to School” sales have brought me out of my summer repose and back into the reality that is work and real life. I returned to Mexico last night to begin my second year of teaching.
Despite this being the shortest summer I can remember (about 5 1/2 weeks), it felt longer because I didn't have much planned. In fact, I think this is the first summer I've had without a trip to some place (although coming home was my trip, as Mallory pointed out). However, I did manage to have some mini vacations.
Some of the events of my summer included:
1. A visit from the Caligiuris—close family friends. Well, ok. Basically family.
2. A wedding.
3. A morning helping an organization talk to the Spanish speakers of Deland.
4. A couple of trips to see friends (Vero, Sebastian, St. Augustine, Jacksonville)
5. A mini vacation to Orlando with Mom, including Arabian Nights and Epcot.
6. Some knitting.
7. Back-to-school shopping (as a teacher this time, not a student)
8. Dress fitting for my upcoming appearance in Jess Albright’s wedding.
9. Turning 23 on August 8th.
10. The arrival of Nathan from Belgium, Mom’s foreign exchange student until January.

It is always a little hard to say goodbye and leave everyone back home, but this time I knew what I was returning to. I am excited about my new roommates this year—Jacque and Charla—who are joining me in my same house as last year. I have a new group of students for whom I will begin planning and preparing tomorrow.
I think I’m ready.
I DO really love summer. But I love all of this more.
Hasta Luego. ;)

Me, Mallory, and the birthday cake she made me.

I'm sure you already know.

2007-07-29T16:26:00.000-06:00

I have been home for a while, but I just checked out my blog and I didn't want the last post to be "Longest school year ever", because that is over and done with.
I've been home for almost a month now.. wow! I return to Mexico on August 11th and will update you then (if something worthy happens).

:)
God Bless!

Longest school year ever.

2007-06-27T12:48:00.000-06:00

It was mentioned that these extra, unnecessary weeks of school required by Mexico's Secretaria de Educacion Publica are counterproductive. I like that word. It sums up perfectly what it feels like this week. So much for teaching my kids to come inside quietly after lunch, or to not turn around in their seats to chat to a neighbor. They can sense, as well as I, that the end is near. here. long past!.
Yesterday and today were full of randomness. We painted. We made picture frames. We filled out "about me" questionnaire's and guessed who they belonged to. We had a mini "awards show" with the recognitions I'd made for them (Most Friendly, Best Sense of Humor, Most Likely to Be Famous, etc...)
Tomorrow we have practice for Friday's program (we're reciting Philippians 2:5-11, with each kid saying a part. Pretty lame, but last minute...) and then a party.
Friday we come for only the program and then leave.
I love my kids. So much. I will miss them! But this is just TOO much!

What the....?

2007-06-22T11:56:00.001-06:00

I saw this in my local grocery/everything store. I feel very sorry for the poor non-English speaker who unknowingly buys it. Sure makes me think twice about buying anything with any other language on it.

Absence from and return to the real world

2007-06-20T14:32:00.000-06:00

I have been so fortunate to have my mom, sister, and best friend visiting me for the past week and a half. They arrived on Thursday the 7th. Mom and Mallory stayed until Friday the 15th. Mackenzie extended her trip until yesterday (Tuesday) morning.
While they were here, I tried to show them the most Mexican, or just nicest, areas. We visited Tlaquepaque, a quaint artsy town nearby, we did all usual the downtown activities, went to the VIP theater, and took a tour of a Tequila factory in the town of Tequila. They also spent some time in my classroom and got to meet my crazy kids. After Mom and Mallory left, Mackenzie and I went to the beach (Playa Manzanillo) with Joy and Jenny for the weekend. We stayed at a hotel where Joy had stayed previously, and it was SO cute! A little family run place right on the beach with a nice pool. We ended up spending most of the time in the pool because of the startling amount of washed up jellyfish and puffer fish on the shore. After another day at school with me, Kenzi took off back to the states, too.
Now, I'm trying to finish up the week and 2 days I have left of school, without becoming the monster I sometimes feel is growing inside.
This year is just toooo long.
Today's insane field trip didn't help my nerves much, either. I wont go into it, but I'll summarize by saying that it would NEVER have happened in a school in the states. We were downtown, in busy streets, crossing busy streets, with very little supervision. More than once I almost cried or puked from frustration.
However, I don't want to end on a bad note. All in all, my last few weeks have been glorious and I look forward to my summer at home. I return on July 1st.
Click below to check out my pictures!

Visitors!

Yay for Visitors

2007-06-06T14:39:00.000-06:00

This time tomorrow three of my favorite people will be here!!! I am very excited to show them around and have them experience what is now my day-to-day. Hopefully I will have pictures up here soon of our time together.

wow.

2007-06-04T15:12:00.000-06:00

It. Is. So. Hot.

Barranca Pictures

2007-06-01T17:41:00.000-06:00

Here's the link to the album of photos from the Barranca clean up. Enjoy!

http://picasaweb.google.com/Ms.TaraPeterson/BarrancaCleanUp

(Read about the trip to the Barranca in the previous post)

Clean Up

2007-05-27T14:00:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I woke up way too early for a saturday to head out with some of the bible study friends to clean up an area called La Barranca. Charla organized it after visiting this spot with friends, and noticing that it was full of trash. This, of course, is true of many places in Mexico, but the beauty of this place merited our help. We drove down the cliff/plateau edge to reach a spot where we further descended over 400 stairs and a ladder into this absolutely gorgeous canyon. We were wedged between two cliffs, with waterfalls fed by hotsprings, a river with huge boulders, and greenery (in the dry season!).
The 17 of us workes for 2 or 3 hours filling over 50 garbage bags with nasty garbage. Then... this was the interesting part... we hauled it up to the car level assembly line style. However, because we only had 16 people helping, it took many trips. For the last stretch we just grabbed bags and carried them up. What a workout!
After that we went back down into the canyon and ate lunch, relaxed, and some swam in the water or waded in the hot springs.
It was a successful and fun day.
Unfortunately, yours truly did not bring a camera. So, I am awaiting pictures from someone who did. They will come.

Swan Lake, etc.

2007-05-27T08:59:00.000-06:00

We have had many short, weirdly scheduled weeks lately. On one such week, instead of doing our normal stuff for reading, my students worked in partners and created their own countries. They had to think of things like the language, who is in charge, the landforms and weather in the country, three important laws, a national anthem, a flag, etc. Then they created a map and a poster advertisement. We did it all very quickly, and if I do it again I would change a ton of stuff, but they had fun and were creative.

This past friday night I went to see the Russain Ballet perform Swan Lake at a theater here in GDL. It was lovely, and awesome to see in person. Even though our Mexican "salary" only permitted us the nosebleed balcony seats, the binoculars and camera zoom helped us out :)

Have I really lived here for 9 months?

2007-05-21T20:03:00.000-06:00

It's quite an interesting sensation, to linger somewhere between feeling like time has rushed by at light speed, while also feeling like it is dragging. That is where I'm at right now. This week began the six-week count down of the school year, which leaves me wondering: have my students learned anything this year? I must say (much like Macayla stated in her blog) I don't feel like my first year went like so many first year teachers, who tell of unending stress, tears, and not knowing what was going on. It wasn't horrible, scary, or intolerably stressful. My students haven't made me cry (although I have had to pause for long periods during read-aloud time because I couldn't stop laughing at them!) and I haven't ever thought of quitting.

I HAVE received hundreds of hugs. Letters and pictures. Questions upon questions. Compliments and smiles.
I have taught them to divide long numbers, and to see patterns in multiplication facts (For those of you who know about me and multiplication-Fear NOT! I'm ok now!! :)
I have told stories about Jesus, and discussed the most precious, from-the-heart questions that have never been answered for them. I have tried to explain why the English language rarely follows the rules. My kids now "watch" their stories like movies, and beg for their read-aloud.

You know, I'd say that I'm very happy with the profession I've chosen. I can't thank God enough for guiding me to take the path I've taken. I can't say there haven't been problems... but I do think I spent too long lingering on them. My classroom probably wont get bigger. I probably will always struggle with understanding how to reach every student's needs. And I doubt I'll ever know what to say to make them all get along. But I am excited to try.

Springtime

2007-05-06T07:51:00.000-06:00

The sun is shining. blazing. scorching. The rain is not falling. The birds ARE chirping. It's springtime! There has (and will be) a lot going on at school after spring break. It is making this school year fly by very quickly. Two weeks after spring break, one of my students, Yuri, left for the states with her family. They are missionaries heading back for furlough. We planned a suprise goodbye party for her and her sister. Now that she's gone, the class is a very different place without her.
We had the mini-olypics in April, which I wrote a bit about below. And on April 30th it was Children's Day (Dia del Niño). I remember asking my parents why we had Mother's Day and Father's Day, but not Kid's day. Well, here in Mexico they do, and it's a pretty big deal, I guess. The kids all get presents from their families and apparently all of the bowling, skating, pizza, and ice cream joints in town are packed! So, for school we took the kids to a water park (I know, scary right?). Well, it didn't really have pools, just a slide, a wading pool with rafts, and a pirate ship that shot water around. There were many counselors there for supervision and for some games in the morning. The kids had a blast.
That's pretty much it, so far. There will be more to come this month.
Check out the pictures of these events by going to my picture website and clicking on "Springtime at Lincoln School"

http://picasaweb.google.com/Ms.TaraPeterson