Lights

I may or may not have blown the electricity on my block here in Gracias.

Let me backtrack. Since having moved to Honduras, one of the biggest things that I have learned is to never take anything for granted. Paved roads, for example. Another example would be the ability to walk around outside without being verbally harassed by men (light hair and skin makes girls targets, I think). But one of the most important things that I have come to appreciate is electricity, and more specifically, electrical outlets. I have one electrical outlet in my room. That means that I can plug in one electronic device at a time. This becomes especially harrowing at night, when I have to choose between my fan, my alarm clock, and my many electronics (phone, computer, ipod, camera, etc) that all need to be charged. Furthermore, my one electrical outlet only has two prongs, so I can't even use it half of the time.

But there are realistic solutions to such problems! One of the teachers at my school so kindly lent me a 3 prong adapter, as well as a surge protector. So last night I very excitedly plugged in the adaptor and then the surge protector. It was plugged in for a good ten seconds before the entire house went dark. As the children started screaming and excitedly looking for candles (apparently the loss of electricity is a fairly common occurrence), I looked out the window and saw that I couldn't see a single light in any house or any street lamp in any direction. And the teachers who live up the mountains just told me that their electricity blew out last night too. oops.

And there was nothing that we could do! The children lit candles and we sat around in the dark for about an hour, and then the lights came back on. But then they went off again half an hour later. And this morning they were on for a while, but then went off again right before I left the house. So the moral of my story is, appreciate your electricity! Some of us down here don't have it, and not having electricity is a major bummer. Also, don't use surge protectors if you're not sure of the havoc they could wreak.

I had parent-teacher orientation last night and it went so well! I am super excited to meet my little kiddies on Monday. I should probably feel more nervous than I do, considering that small children's educations are in my hands. But I think it's going to be such a fun year!! :)

Photos!

Let's see how this works.

Here is our school!! It's incredibly gorgeous.




A coffee plant outside of one of the mountain houses:



Our school is in a cloud forest!!



A street in Gracias, and a gecko that was climbing on a wall in the living room of a lady's house!




Wow, it took forever to upload those. :) enjoy!

Also, Parent-Teacher orientation tomorrow night... haha, should be lots of fun!

Mosquito bites

I got nine, I'm counting them, nine mosquito bites while I typed that blog. I think that means the blog was too long. Here's three of them.

I have a real job

Haha. Those pictures are of me drinking coffee (I just took it right now, look at the pretty cup!) and beautiful Honduras from the hotel cafe that I'm currently sitting in.

I have to admit this, although I don't think many people would be surprised to hear it- but I started looking for teaching jobs abroad because I just really wanted to travel. After I accepted this teaching position in Honduras, I focused my thoughts primarily on the travel side of the experience. I wanted to see Honduras! And other central American countries! But now I am here, in Gracias, and I've seen the school and been through orientation, and it's finally beginning to hit me that this isn't just travel time...it's a real job! I am being trusted with providing education to actual children. Alarming.

In any case, here I am. We finally arrived in Gracias on Saturday, after a seven hour drive in a crowded van (the last two hours of which were spent on unpaved, bumpy, mountainous roads), but we made it. I was so thrilled to finally be in Gracias, and it truly is absolutely spectacular. The city itself is quite small, and isn't what I expected. I thought it would contain many culturally Honduran stores, but most of the places here seem to sell things you can buy at a dollar store in the US. Most people in Gracias wear clothes similar to clothes in the US, and other than some beautiful pottery, I haven't seen anything that has struck me as culturally "Honduran." That's why I need to travel!! Even though most of the stores sell American things, Gracias is very poor. Most of the houses are just little colorful huts with thatched roofs, and all of them have a pila in the backyard for doing laundry, or getting water if the water stops running. (Last night the water in my house stopped because of the rain, and the family offered to put water in a bucket for me so I could wash up this morning.) There's crazy wildlife here too, yesterday I saw the biggest toad I have ever seen in my life. He was as big as Kipper when he was a little puppy! But anyway, I can find mostly anything I need here, including peanut butter!!!!! yay. I live in a house with a really lovely family right outside of Gracias, and they have been so kind in bringing me into their house and making me feel welcome. I hope my Spanish improves this year, because I am constantly frustrated with how little I understand.

Gracias has a lot of really cool things that I am totally looking forward to experiencing. For example, there are natural hot springs in the city, which is naturally hot water that comes out of the ground that people can go to swim in and relax. We went a couple nights ago, and it was incredible! I have heard of hot springs but have never seen them, let alone go swimming in them! That was pretty awesome.

In addition to seeing the house and town I will be living in this year, I was finally, finally able to see Vida Abundante! I live about five miles away from the school, which is literally located up in the mountains of Gracias...and it is one of the most beautiful schools I have ever, ever seen. The setting is spectacular; located in the Honduran mountains, in a cloud forest, with beautiful flowers and wildlife everywhere. Honestly, it is impossible to look in any direction without seeing a magnificent butterfly flying around. Yesterday I saw one that was purple with pink spots! The campus of the school is so cute too; I absolutely love it.

The classrooms are extremely modest, but we are doing our best to decorate them as much as we can. I've started decorating mine, and with my lack of art skills, it seriously looks like a kindergartner (kindergardener?) did it. I will be teaching the second grade, as well as computer classes for the ninth graders. Haha, who put me in charge of computers? That should be interesting, especially since I haven't seen any computers at the school yet. And I don't know anything about computers!

This week has been a whirlwind of deadlines, decorations, and rules. I learned about the school's creed/mission (email me if you would like to hear about it, it's worth hearing), and panicked when I was told that this Friday is parents' orientation, and Monday is the first day of school. What?? Since I only found out officially what classes I would be teaching yesterday (unofficially I knew a few days ago), that's not that much time to get my stuff together. The school also requires that we turn in a ton of paperwork (notes for parents' orientation, lesson plans for each week, a letter to the parents, etc) so I am very busy. I want to explore Gracias but I feel extremely overwhelmed with everything I have to get done. I can't help but think, though, that these first two weeks will be the most challenging, and after that I'll be able to relax a little bit.

I'm being literally eaten by mosquitoes as I type this, but to my left is an absolutely exquisite mountain, so it's worth it. Even though I'm overwhelmed and still trying to get settled in, I feel like I can really do some good here, and that's an incredible feeling. I'm hoping to get some pictures up of my house and the school soon, but the internet here is pretty slow so we'll see how that goes.

The next two weeks should be pretty interesting for me. I kind of doubt that anyone reads this...but if you do, stay tuned :)

Que bonita la camisa!

Today in Tegucigalpa, I

1) Complimented some very giggly and very adorable little girls on their clothes
2) Sat in a bank for a couple hours before learning that the store across the street from said bank was fire-bombed by a bus yesterday
3) Was on Honduran TV for being a teacher at Vida Abundante
4) Ate three traditional and extremely delicious Honduran meals
5) Hung out in a police station in Tegucigalpa... quite the experience
6) Remembered to throw out my toilet paper instead of flush it

My life is amazing :)

Here we go

Oh my goodness!! I feel like the last 36 hours have been a crazy, exciting, wonderful whirlwind of new things. After leaving my house at 4am yesterday, and two painful layovers in LaGuardia and Miami airports, I am finally in Honduras! I flew into San Pedro Sula, which is the second largest city in the country. I was amused by the lack of security at customs (they didn't even look at the paperwork I filled out on the plane) and was also amused at myself because I literally wandered around the baggage claim area for a solid five minutes because I couldn't figure out where the exit was. However, when I finally did find my way out, three awesome guys from Abundant Life were there to meet me! Their extremely kind demeanor immediately put my nerves at ease...I was so nervous. I had actually wondered in Miami what would happen if I just flew back home to Cleveland, because it's really scary, moving to a foreign place for ten months. But as soon as I arrived here and met the people I'll be spending my year with, I knew that this is exactly where I want to be right now.

The guys took me out for lunch, where I had my first official Honduran meal, which consisted of chicken, sweet corn, and plantains! Totally delicious (para chupar los dedos...finger-sucking good!!!) :). The other teachers arrived later (I absolutely love them, they are wonderful!!) and we spent the night in San Pedro Sula. San Pedro Sula wasn't what I expected. It is very industrial, and although there are a lot of stores and restaurants, it still looks extremely impoverished, with trash and graffiti everywhere. I was unhappy to see all the American chains there; we noticed that TGIFridays restaurants are everywhere in the city! Obviously we avoided all of those and only ate traditional Honduran food yesterday.

This morning we woke up early to drive to Tegucigalpa, the capital! The drive was long, but the scenery was absolutely gorgeous. The mountains here are so beautiful, like straight out of a picture book. The tops of them are impossible to see because they are covered in clouds. Honduras is so lovely, but it's hard to watch the poverty. Most people seem to live in shacks, and when we drove up here we encountered several people, children and adults, coming up to the car windows and trying to sell us food. It's hard to say no to begging children.

Anyway, I feel extremely lucky (and moderately guilty) because we have only been given the best hospitality here. Right now I am staying with another teacher in a woman's house here in Tegucigalpa; we'll be here all week before heading to Gracias. Her house is really lovely and she has been so kind to us. Tonight we're going to watch the Honduras-Costa Rica soccer game, which should be really fun. I'm so glad we're going to have a chance to explore the city before heading to Gracias. We are already devising plans for travel, too. It seems pretty easy to travel to Guatemala and Nicaragua, and it's possible to take a boat to Belize. I hope we actually do everything we are saying we want to do!

I am so happy and excited; even though it's only been a day, I feel like I've already had so many amazing experiences! I'm pretty happy also because I'm going to be forced to learn how to speak Spanish properly here...it's not like Europe, where everyone speaks English.

Sorry this is so long; they won't all be like this! Everything is just so new and exciting right now! Send me emails or post comments, I would love to hear from all of you.

Hasta luego!
xoxo

It's still on

Quite a few of my family members and friends have contacted me over the past couple weeks to ask me about my upcoming trip to Honduras. Thank you so much to everyone who expressed concern, I really appreciate it! Anyway, I just thought I would confirm that unless something really dramatic happens, we are still heading to Gracias in August. The US State department has indeed issued a warning for US citizens and advises not to travel to Honduras, but that warning will expire before we leave. Also, from the people I have spoken to, it sounds like the coup was relatively peaceful and that small villages, like the one I will be living in, have not really been affected.

Let’s just hope the political situation continues to resolve itself in the next month. Thank you so much again for your thoughts and concerns.