El Alba

On this third of September in the year of 2008 I present to you an extensive photo album of our school, El Alba. Allow me to provide a brief history...

El Alba bilingual school is, as you may have guessed, a bilingual school started by "El Alba bilingual educational services" In 1995. We are located in the the central area of Honduras. One hour from the capital and only three hours from most of the tourist areas like Copan, San Pedro, Tela and a few others I can't pronounce. You can check out the web site here (www.elalba-bilingualschool.com) but its really horrible, so don't bother.

El Alba is a very small school. We only have about 250 students and we cater from kindergarten to eleventh grade. Upon completing the elevinth grade a student has fulfilled his or her obligation to the school and is considered "Graduated!" Often students will travel to and from the United States and their classes will need to transfer.

Transferring credentials from a US school to a Honduran school is always tricky. For example, Honduran students take a class called "estudia civica." As you probably figured out this translates to civic studies. See, Spanish isn't so tough after all. Civic studies emphasizes the importance of our natural resources, organized labor, special skills and how they impact the individual and/or community. This is a big deal here, because industries like bananas, coffee, tobacco and corn are huge!

In the summer it is common for students to obtain jobs selling corn or working on some sort of farm. However, many families in the school own local businesses. What we would call "Mom and Pop" stores are very common. One of my favorite restaurants is owned by the family of Fabricio, a tall and very well behaved student in the 9th grade.

Each grade has a room and the teachers rotate. The ninth grade, being what we call secondary, is upstairs. All my classes are upstairs due to the fact that I am a secondary teacher. Each room has one air conditioner and three fans mounted to the wall. We are equipped with 4'X8' dry erase boards anchored into the concrete and every teacher gets a free eraser! Most classrooms have windows on each side for a good cross breeze. The students use your typical desks that you would find in any other high school.

We have left handed desks and right handed desks. Often my 7th graders will steal each others desks and then we waste ten minutes searching the school to get a left handed desk for Dennis even though he wont be taking any notes but class can't start until he gets his desk because, "Meester how can he learn eef he doesn't haff a desk?". (run-on sentence)

The school has a basketball court and a soccer field enclosed in a cage. This way we cut down on pedestrian injuries. This cage is very important, because all of our students have bladder infections resulting in a steady flow of traffic to and from the bathrooms. Everything, with exception to the indoors, is outside. The students eat outside and have most their meetings outside. Indoors we keep the classrooms, offices, kitchen and lounge area.

It is a small school, like I said, but very beautiful. I enjoy going to work every day. Not only do the students brighten up your day, but the faculty is amazing. We are very laid back, due to the fact that we don't have many resources. They expect much from their teachers, but always offer support when needed... and all the fresh coffee a gringo could ever want. I have been told by many of the staff that I drink a lot of coffee.

God Bless and enjoy the photos

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