Grades...
It seems that I haven't written for a little while. This is mainly because there hasn't been too much going on besides school work. Grades for the first quarter were due today, so I have been working like crazy to get them done. The schools down here divide the school year into quarters and each one is completely separate from the other- so I had to calculate final grades for each one of my 175 students. In order to do that, though, I had to finish grading all of their papers and stories, which took quite a long time to do as well. So I literally worked all weekend long with just a few breaks. I was pretty disappointed with the grades of my students... in most of my classes I had anywhere from 5 to 11 students that didn't pass (out of 25 students)- they just don't do the work and so they get zeros on everything. Hopefully this will be a wakeup call for them.
Two weekends ago we went with Cleo to see her new grandson that had just been born the day before. That was an interesting experience because we went to one of the public hospitals where all the women and their new-born babies were in one big room together. I felt really out of place because here I was in another culture surrounded by lots of women who were all breastfeeding their babies. Needless to say, childbirth and pregnant women are not things that I am used to...
This past weekend we took a break on Friday night and went to out to Pizza Hut for one of our coworker's birthdays. It was fun and we got to practice our Spanish a lot. Saturday we worked all day and then went to a costume party that some of our American friends were throwing that night. The party itself was alright, but it was really fun to dress up. Brian dressed up as a lumberjack/hick, Anna was a Japanese woman, Jason was a ghost (with a few sheets) and I was a European hitman. I found this really great toy gun at the "Everything" store that looks really real (plus it shoots darts really well). Then I slicked back my hair with a little pony-tail and dressed in tight all black clothes. Here are some pictures (I will put more up, but am not able to transfer them now):
Cleo and her grandson
Miss Godoy (our principal) and Lucia (it was her birthday)
notice the pony-tail and the gun
Brian and his sweet cut-off flannel shirt
the whole gang
Copan Ruinas
This past weekend we had a four day weekend because of some national holidays, so we decided to take a short trip. We ended going to the town of Copan Ruinas in the far west of Honduras- three miles from Guatemala. We left at five in the morning and took an upscale bus on the seven and a half hour long trip. Copan Ruinas is a small, quaint Spainish town with cobblestone streets and quite a bit of tourism- mostly because of the Mayan ruins that are close to it. We stayed in a really nice hostel run by two Belgium couples for $6 a night each- two rooms with a private bathroom. Friday we saw the ruins, which were absolutely amazing! It had been a city of 25,000, but it suddenly died out in 900 AD and the city was lost in the jungle until the 1800's when people became interested in it again. There are huge piles of rubble everywhere, which used to be buildings and temples, but there are also buildings that have been restored (cleared the dirt away and put the fallen blocks back into place). There are lots of carvings and different pieces of art- most of which are in pretty good condition. The Mayans were a very interesting race- a mix of asian and middle eastern culture, religion and language, but also distinctive in their own way. Anyway, I won't bore you with more history, but it was really interesting to see all that stuff.
That night (Friday), Brian started to feel sick so he went to bed early and I followed shortly after. Both of us hardly slept at all that night- we both came down with fevers and my stomach was really hurting. I spent the whole night trying not to throw up, and it worked until I got in the shower the next morning... I just barely made it to the toilet when everything came up. We were scheduled to go horseback riding that morning and at breakfast I obviously wasn't feeling too good, but we ended up going anyway. I am sure that my mother would have disapproved, but it ended up going fine. We went on a four hour ride through the mountains to an old hacienda that grows coffee and tobacco and then back down along a river. I was light-headed some of the time, but the adrenaline helped me out some when we got to canter on the horses. Then I came back, threw up after lunch and slept the rest of the afternoon. The next morning we got up at four and made the trek back to Tegucigalpa. I didn't end up eating anything else until lunch that day and then rested.
The trip was good, but very tiring. I am still not feeling very good but I haven't thrown up in a few days. It might have been the food, the change in water or maybe just a virus- but whatever it is, it is different than what Brian has- and it is the sickest that I have been in a while.
Here are some pictures:
pics
Here are the pictures that I promised.
This is Cleo posing with Brian and Jason.
Our fellow teachers, Antonio and Lucia at the school
Me grading papers in the teacher's lounge
Brian went on a field trip with the 10th grade to see some pre-historic caves
Villa Nueva
Yesterday Jason, Brian and I went to visit our friend Cleo's house. She is an older lady who works as a cleaning lady at the church and school, and she is one of the most joyful people that I have ever met. She comes over to our house and cleans twice a week too, so we have gotten to know her really well (I know, we are really spoiled- but everyone down here has someone help clean). She has taught us how to cook traditional Honduran food, and she stays for dinner sometimes too.
Two weeks ago she invited us to come to her house and we were finally able to make it yesterday. Her house is about 15 minutes away in a colonia (neighborhood) called Villa Nueva that is built on the side of a pretty steep mountain. The whole colonia is really poor. There isn't any running water so a water truck comes every couple of days to give people water, which they store in big 30 gallon barrels. Cleo's house is two rooms- a small kitchen and a living room/bedroom, both of which are fairly small. She lives there with her daughter, Karen, who is 9 months pregnant right now and her son, David, who is 13. Someone left David on her doorstep when he was 5 months old, so she took him in and is raising him as her own.
They made us tortillas con quesillo (two corn tortillas with cheese and bologna in between that is fried) and banana soda (people here love it, but it tastes kinda funny). Then we talked for a while- they don't speak any English, so our Spanish has been getting a work out. Cleo's ex-husband came by and we got to meet him. He is living with another woman now, which is fairly typical for most "families" here. Then we all walked to the new property that Cleo has bought- it is on a very steep slope and there are only stairs that go to it. There is a small wooden shack on it right now, but she wants to eventually build a house on it. And we are going to try to help her do it, but it looks like it will be more work that we had thought. It is a long way to carry the material and we don't have the expertise to build everything (especially since it is on such a steep slope). They build everything down here out of concrete and bricks/rocks, so it is different that what I am used to. But we are going to talk to the pastors at the church and another missionary who has experience building, and we will see what we can do. All in all, it was a very sobering experience. We really do live like kings.
I will upload some more pictures soon.
