Maureen's School

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The route shown starts from the teacher's apartment (green dot), to Maureen's school (fourth yellow dot), then the back way to Catalina's house, then to Maureen's house (end).

San Jeronimo Bilingual School

In 2004 BECA, an NGO, and a dozen families in the Cofradia founded this bilingual school. See photo of what I called "the compound." BECA stands for Bilingual Education in Central American and it is also the Spanish word for "scholarship." Here's a link to a new video about the school.

Maureen teaches Pre-K the first level. She was originally assigned to the eighth grade, but her superior Spanish was needed more for the lower grades. She also assists the teacher of the next older class, called “Prepa” and Maureen's is called “kinder.” Maureen shrugged, “Someone got the names reversed at the beginning and no one ever bothered to change it.” The most common explanation in C.A. (Central America) is “that's just the way we do it.”

Class goes from 7:30 am to 11:30 am, to be done before the mid-day heat. I was excited to act as teacher’s aide. So they stand in two lines of twelve to enter the class

room, boys on the left, girls on the right. Well, they don’t “stand” as much as circulate, laugh, gyrate, poke, and grab. The “stand in line” game pulsated with activity. I was mesmerized. And not helping. Once inside, we sat cross-legged for the first activity. The instruction “please sit cross-legged” would have never worked, much too dull. Students were told to sit “criss cross applesauce.” This worked with half of them half the time, which is as good as it gets. We recited the day of the week, the color of the day, some number counting, some names for animals. Time to move for a new activity. We moved to their tables (“Walk ! Walk !”) which immediately became the “sit at the table” game involving circulation, laughter, gyrations, poking, and grabbing. After a few minutes, I managed to get four out of the five children at my table sitting in their chairs, hands on the table, enough so that I could look up to see five other tables happily playing the sit at the table game. I pretended not to notice. We did some activity─I think it was coloring shapes─until it was time for a story. Back we go (“Walk ! Walk !”) to crowd control in applesauce corner. Maureen read a story in English, or rather sang and performed the story, which was pretty entertaining. Time f or another activity at the tables. I succeeded in somewhat settling two tables and felt useful. The new activity using blocks seemed to engage them, and I thought, “OK, maybe we can do this kinder thing.” I looked at my watch. It was 8:05. “Oh, my God, we have three more hours?!” It seemed impossible. You know what? It is impossible. Maureen has a very tough job.

Teachers have to present extremes. Make it fun. Don’t say it; sing it. And act it out, exaggerating. An instruction for standing in line is “Bubble cheeks” = hand on head and cheeks puffed out. See photo for demonstration, next to a door knocker depicting the ancient Mayan bubble cheek god. Kids love to mug, even more fun than poking or prodding, which you can’t do with hands on head, or talking and laughing, which you can’t do with bubble cheeks. She also teaches an afternoon health ed class for middle schoolers. See photo of us following along a workout video called “Hip Hop Abs.” Balancing that fine pre-teen line between “giving it a try” and “sabotaging the teacher’s plan.” I gamely participated until I was winded.

The other apparent extreme is a loud, stern tone of voice I had never heard from Maureen, didn’t even know she was capable. It seemed harsh the first time I heard it. It works, and is even necessary because it speaks the language of their homes. Honduran mothers do not discipline their children (“go outside” with the dogs and chickens); Honduran fathers hit them. Not much in between. They just don’t think you’re serious until you use That Tone. My acculturation experience was gradually understanding why apparently unreasonable behaviors are reasonable. On the other hand, they loved being awarded clothespins as a reward for something good. They wore them proudly on their shirts, and at the end of the day exchanged them for stickers.

I would have liked to have spent just one day observing a public school. 100,000 students are in primary grades but only 57,000 are in secondary, down 5000 from the previous year. (FYI, most of my “facts” come from discarded copies of Prensa Libre, so be advised.) Maureen said they had classes of 50 students, 40 chairs, and 30 books. I did see the children not in school, roaming the streets in packs, looking for fun or trouble, learning about their world and seeing their future. The children seemed quite healthy except for odd untreated bites, sores, and scars. People are smaller here, but even so, the children seemed small for their age, and either scrawny or obese. Better nutrition and nutritional education would be a more far reaching revolution than any coup or land reform.

We walked home, 25 minutes, by “the back way” instead of going through the central park. Bold children stared at me with large black eyes like I was a kangaroo, greeting us with smiling shouts of “Adios,” or the more hip “Bye”, which is actually their common greeting even though we are walking toward them.

Along the way we stopped at Catalina's home.

(I never photographed people in their homes.) She is the mother of one of Maureen’s students, Genesis (in Spanish pronounced “Hennessey”). Mo had told me of a home visit in the fall when Catalina had taken her to meet her own mother, who had

lived for the past two years in a small dark room, suffering from an undisclosed disease and unmedicated pain, which touched my hospice heart. We did not visit mother this time.

Catalina greeted us warmly, and invited us into her simple living room. She has three of her own children, plus two others recently coming to stay with her as relatives were leaving town to look for work. She playfully asked us to guess her age. She did look eighteen, but with all those children we guessed 25-26, which was correct. Her own husband has been in New Orleans for the past two years. “He’s coming home soon,” she murmured, her eyes sadly staring at the floor where her lifeless mantra had fallen. I wondered what kind of life he was making for himself while she was stuck here in Cofradia, married Roman Catholic with five children. We chatted for awhile and she offered us a cold drink, “cold” being unusual here. She opened a new refrigerator, apartment sized by our standards, but large enough to hold a pitcher of orangeade and two carrots, which was all she had. I assume a gift from her husband, a useful status symbol of his success. I imagine she would rather have the husband. It feels unbearably poignant that a culture where family is everything must break up the family so the family can survive.

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Photos

Activity Tables
Anderson with arms outstretched and Genesis at his table looking toward me.

Comments

[Marcia]

Again, let us count our blessings. A poignant picture.