After arriving home from the parade, I took about 15 minutes to pack a small carry on bag full of stuff for a six day vacation to the Carribean island of Utila. For those of you who know me well, this was no small feat. I usually have a full sized suitcase for a three day weekend. I was proud of myself to say the least. After gathering the troops, six of us all together, we sent out to find the Rapidito (small van) to Siguatepeque. Once we arrived at the Siguatepeque bus stop, a walk, one taxi and rapidito ride [View Full Entry]

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Today was our only day of school this week. Tomorrow there is no school because we will be marching in the parade and Wednesday-Friday there will be no school due to the national holiday. I 've found a one day school week to be relatively pointless but we had fun playing games and catching up on homework and all that jazz. I had a student bring me a CD he made today. I don't know what to make of it. He may be trying to tell me I have bad taste in music. During quiet work time, I always put on [View Full Entry]

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After a long day of ponponara practice, Sarah and I headed for home and promptly passed out for a few hours. We almost didn't get up Saturday night and once we did, we really had no ambition to go out. Being the troopers that we are however, we prettied ourselves up for a night of dancing and went out to explore a new bar we had heard about from some friends. What we discovered that night: (11pm-2am) 1. It is easy to make an ass out of yourself by wandering around the first floor of a building when the bar is [View Full Entry]

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Not much to report from the beginning of this weekend. I felt absolutely horrible Friday morning and thought that I might pass out in front of my class. Another teacher mentioned this to our principal, Mr. Cesar, who promptly started 20 questions. Being that I was feeling nauseous and it was the morning, I'm thinking he might have been thinking one of two things - I was hungover or I was pregnant. I would choose the first any day. Either way, Mr. Cesar was very sweet. He made the maintenance man run to the grocery store to get me some tea [View Full Entry]

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As one might be able to tell from the title above, my students have a brilliant command of our classroom language, Spanglish. I can't think of the perfect translation of desfilar, but it more or less means to line up and march (i.e. for a parade). Escuela Bilingue Honduras, grades 5-seniors, will be marching in a parade on Tuesday morning at 6a.m. and my students were less then enthusiastic during our 2 hours of practice in the blazing sun. It was rather amusing however, to watch them learn how to march from a cadet in the Honduran army that spent just [View Full Entry]

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I can honestly say that I have not had a dull day with my fifth graders. On Friday, I told them if they spoke Spanish during English classes, they would have to translate their favorite song from Spanish to English and hand it into me by Monday. This is my favorite translation handed to me today. It is a reggaeton song by Daddy Yankee called Rompe translated to English. (FYI-Reggaeton is the equivelent to rap or hip hop in the States). "Break it, Break it, Break it, Break it down. Are you ready? My boom it doesn't limit at the time [View Full Entry]

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Mom, breathe...I know how excited this title must make you, however, I have not found anyone who will let me steal thier babies. But I did find a way to borrow them on a regular basis! I forgot to put the most exciting part of my day on my Friday update. Mr. Cesar (the principal) announced that they would be opening a "nursery" class next year for three year olds. AND if I stay, the job is mine!!! Eeeee! Little baby Hondurans! Really, not too much more happened this weekend or if it did, I can't remember it because I was [View Full Entry]

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Its Friday and I am well rested. I went to take a nap yesterday afternoon at about 5p.m. and I woke up at about 5a.m. this morning. I am ready to take on the world (which to me is a small classroom labeled 5A)! I have some good stories from today or maybe they are just funny to me because I got so much sleep. Upon arriving today, I had a little guy come up to me and say "Meees, you look beautiful today." Followed by, "Mees, also I forget my homework." What can I say? It was a good try. [View Full Entry]

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Thursday, day 4 of the school year. I just have one short story from today. Today, during science, I required my students to get into groups of two or three and come up with their own imaginary living organism and describe how it utilized the 6 life processes, write it down and draw a picture. My favorite was the half-man, half-martian. It gets energy by eating human skin cells and grass (I don't know), uses its energy by running, flying, and expanding, gets rid of waste by vomiting, and my favorite, it reproduces "alone or by 'having relations'". I wish we [View Full Entry]

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So for all of you that were hoping to learn more about Honduras from my blog, you will have to wait until school is finished as the next 9 months will probably be overflowing with stories about the 5th graders. For those of you who know me well, this really isn't a huge leap from my days at Head Start. However, now you have the chance to read them, instead of politely pretend to listen :) Today, I brought my kids outside for science because we are cooped up in the classroom all day and I thought we all needed some [View Full Entry]

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