el programa de navidad

The Christmas Program.
well. I'm glad that's over with! Our morning started with a ride down the mountain at 6:30 in the morning. During this ride, I somehow dropped my cell phone out of my pocket into the streets of Villa Verde and it was kindly picked up by one of my neighbors! We got to the church about 7 and got ready for the kids to come. We practiced from 8-11:30. That day was the first time we worked with the drama people from Tegucigalpa so it was a lot of moving around and deciding stage placement. My girls were SO GOOD. We all brought books and just sat and read together or played Uno or Memory... it was wonderful, I was so thankful that it was only my girls dancing because I had no boys to keep in line! Still, it was a long morning and my girls were happy to go home for lunch. The teachers and I ran to a restaurant that had baleadas for 8 lempiras! (that's like 30 cents. and they're delicious) Then it was back to the church at 1 to begin decorating. We had an interesting decorating set up- we had to tape about 32 pieces of poster board together and then nail it onto a wooden frame for the back drop to two huge canvas paintings (of the town of Bethelehem of course). Not only did we have to do this almost impossible task once, but we had to make one blue posterboard creation and one black. Of course by the time we had it all taped together, the posterboards had slowly gotten taped together farther and farther down so that when we tried to nail them on the wooden frames.... it was disastrous. I'm sure there was a better way to have done it, but by the time we got to that point of realization it was too far into the process. We were all tired and ready to go to bed and we were only halfway through our day! The principals had estimated we'd be done setting up by 4:30, but 4:30 turned into 5:30 and we had to eat supper before the kids started coming at 6:45. We ran to the same place as lunch and I left early to find some safety pins in case my girls skirts decided to fall down. I went to several, several stores looking for 'ganchos'. One store, the guy brought me to hangers, clothes pins, bobby pins, and diaper pins-- apparently all are called ganchos but there weren't any actual safety pins. Very frustrating. It was getting kind of late, and I still needed to get ready so I decided to give up and walk back to the church. Surprise.... I got totally lost. Gracias is not a big town, there's no reason I should have gotten lost but I did! I asked lots of different people how to get to the church or the big paint store that I knew was right by the church and every person told me a different direction. Remember how I dropped my phone in Villa Verde? So... no way to contact anyone. Perfect! It was about 6:20 and I needed to be ready at 6:30 so I finally grabbed a mototaxi and he brought me. I was so thankful I gave him 100 lempiras (about $5) which is an obscene amount of money for a taxi ride but I didn't even care I was so happy to be alive and not lost! With about 3 minutes left I threw some clothes on and skipped the very, very necessary 'wash my hair' part of getting ready... I'd been working in a hot church all day so I felt pretty disgusting but! Such is the life of someone who is completely directionally challenged. :) My girls arrived looking lovely and their skirts stayed up so we were saved from that humiliation. The program started out fine, but when it was my girls' turn to get up on stage, I told them to go ahead and go and I started walking over to the floor where I would remind them of motions. Some other teacher (I'm pretty sure someone from Tegucigalpa) was standing by the stage and yelled at my girls that they couldn't start yet and told them to get off the stage.... and as soon as they walked back down, their music had begun and they were supposed to be dancing! They walked/ran to the middle of the stage, stood like they were ready for the song to begin except it was already beginning and... oh it was terrible. I kept mouthing, "JUST START HERE!" and would do the action... and then would say it again while the girls continued to stand there without moving, staring out into the audience. I felt so bad for them! Finally someone in the sound booth started the song over and my girls danced beautifully, but it was a ridiculously stressful moment!

The rest of the program went well, we finished about 10 pm and went home exhausted. I was pretty proud of myself on Tuesday and Wednesday because I actually required that my students work for awhile and they complied! Our party was great, I went home and packed in about 20 minutes (seriously), and hung out with the girls and our neighbors for our last evening in Honduras. Thursday morning, we woke up and drove to San Pedro Sula. Normally we take the bus, but the family of one of my students offered to take us in their van service. It took about 3 hours instead of the usual 5-6 on a bus, so that was awesome! We relaxed in San Pedro for the evening and left for the US in the morning.


So. I'm at home! Wedding stuff is starting, so it should be a busy, fun couple of weeks. I'll be in Em's wedding on January 2, drive to Omaha on January 3, and fly out early on the morning of January 4. See you then!

Estaré en casa para navidad! (i'll be home for christmas!)

WEEK TWO: SHEPHERDS

I will be home in six days. Crazy. We've been working on our Christmas program, so that's been keeping me busy which is good. Monday is the night of the program and we have to be in town at 7:20 am, we're practicing for 4 hours, have a break for lunch, the teachers stay and help decorate until 4, be back to practice again at 5:30 until the program at 7, have the program and stay to clean up afterward! s0.... looking at a very long day with school on Tuesday morning :)

This week was shepherds (pastores) and I hid pictures of the Christmas story characters around the school and made the kids a scavenger hunt page to try and find them all. They LOVED it. They were a little better at keeping secrets this week so that's good :) Only 3 people found Baby Jesus, so I was excited about that hiding spot :) The kids were pretty good considering the crazy schedule this week so that was nice. My only frustration was with trying to teach "Research Projects" - which includes bibliographies, sources, taking notes.... bah. Hopefully they are able to understand eventually! It's especially frustrating because there is not a lot of resource books in our library. The project is for the students to research a country (not Honduras or the United States) because that was about the only thing that could be researched with the books, and even those are sadly lacking in information. Example: most of the books have maps with the USSR still labeled. So... who knows how accurate the information is, and I don't know how many of my kids have access to the internet (plus that would make another rich/poor division between my students), but I suppose they can still gain the research project experience even if the information is completely inaccurate!

I'm really happy with things here, but as it gets closer to 'being home' time, I've started thinking about the things I will NOT miss about living here ... here are some of them:
~ not being able to flush toilet paper/having to throw that trash away
~ the billions of mosquitos/spiders/ant bites that I have had for four months now
~ rocky terrain wherever I go
~ having to pay things in exact amounts (everything is done in cash here and no one ever has change)
~ crappy internet
~ I'm going to put 'cold' nights, but I know I can't really complain based on the blizzardy weather in Iowa right now :)
~ not being able to drink tap water
~ no carpets anywhere
~ people not being able to call me back!!
~ not being able to watch Broncos games
~ my family and friends!!

So hopefully not having all these things in the US will balance out the nasty weather that I am not looking forward to AT ALL!

See some of you in a week! The rest of you... whenever :) Have a good 3rd week of Advent!

angels we have heard on high!

First week of Advent: ANGELS

My family celebrates each week of Advent with a different character from the Christmas story (apparently that's not how all families do it :)). The first week we talk about the angels and have Secret Angels (like Secret Santas). So, since the teacher gets to decide everything and I miss Advent with my family.... this week, I had my class participate! We read Luke 2 and learned different Christmas songs each day (they don't know any Christmas carols!) We also drew out Secret Angel names ... by the end of the week every single one of my kids knew who their secret angel was, including mine. So.... we may need to work on the keeping secrets thing. :) But, overall it was a wonderful way to begin getting ready for Christmas. The weather here is so nice and I don't watch tv to see ads, so I kind of forget it's Christmas. The girls and I had a bonfire a few weekends ago and in the middle of chopping down wood for the fire, Kirsty chopped down a tree that we've decorated with lights and ornaments and that's about as winter-y the house has gotten!

I finished teaching the choreography this week, so now we just have to perfect the dance! They have moved the program to be next Monday, December 14, so that gives us a lot more time. Wednesday and Friday of this week we are getting out of classes at noon to go to Gracias and practice on the stage where we'll be performing. The program is a really big deal- people from the school in Tegucigalpa are coming and it's going to be televised. The outfits are 525 lempiras each because a seamstress is making all of them. That's about $25 each which is a LOT of money for the families here. That's kind of frustrating because the students will only wear it once, but if they don't have money to buy them they can't be in the program. As teachers we've pretty much decided to pay for any of our students so that they can be a part of the Christmas ,program, but it's a little frustrating. It's an expensive school so most of the students are from wealthy families, but there are also quite a few scholarship students and I wish there weren't expenses that caused division.

I think it'd be really great to find some families from the United States that would be willing to support students for the Vida Abundante Schools, so if anyone is interested , let me know and maybe when I'm home at Christmas I can get more information out.

Speaking of being home for Christmas.... that's in two weeks! I almost can't believe it. Things have gone so quickly here and I'm sure with our Christmas programming, it will just go faster. I'm really excited to go home but not really excited about the snow. I've almost forgotten what real cold feels like :(

Hope your weekends are wonderful, pray for me and my kids this week that we don't kill each other working on this dance! And that the boys won't die of boredom while I teach the girls for 2 hours a day! Second week of Advent: Shepherds! Woo!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!

Well, it's the end of a work week. Honduras does not, in fact, celebrate the Pilgrams and the Mayflower but our school follows the American calendar so we get Thursday, Friday, and Monday off! My roommate Rachel and I are going to celebrate Thanksgiving with the school in Tegucigalpa. They're making us a real Thanksgiving dinner so that should be great! :) After Thanksgiving, things are going to be CRAZY. We are doing a Christmas program and each teacher is in charge of teaching choreography to their class. I'm teaching a dance to a song called "Mary's Baby" which is a parody of "Sherry, Baby". Example of some lyrics?

Mary, Mary's baby, Mary, Mary's baby, Mary-y-y-y-y-y's Baby....

Jesus's mother tonight!

Yup. pretty good. Anyway, the program was supposed to be on December 16, but it's been moved up to December 9 and they gave us the DVDs ... this week. We have 40 minutes each day to teach the move to the kids. My class only has a dance with the girls so I have 13 6th grade girls that I need to teach a two and a half minute song to- I think we're at about 30 seconds. :) Anyway, it's minorly stressful, but I yelled at the girls today and said if they wanted to waste my time then I would go ahead and tell the principals that they didn't need to schedule our dance. That got them to shut up :) We were actually pretty productive at the end of the day, but I'm still nervous about how it's going to turn out.

Today at the end of the day, Mr. Lara (one of our principals) had to talk to me about something so I was rushing to put my stuff in my room and go to his office when about 6 third graders surrounded me. I have a rows system for my music classes where I give the row that earns the most points a sticker at the end of the day. Those third graders wanted their sticker! So, I quickly tried to cut out the ones that they wanted and then noticed I had a girl crying in my room with another girl glaring at her (oh yes! finally sixth graders acting like they're supposed to!) Apparently, they were fighting over the dance and talking about how bad the other was.... so I had to solve that and get the girls on their buses- I did a little trick I learned from my parents and made them each say one nice thing about each other and then give each other hugs. It worked- they're totally best friends now- and I didn't even have to lock them in the bathroom together! (common VP occurance :)) Finally, I was able to go to the office and get my own stuff figured out. :)

Speaking of principal's office visits... I had an evaluation this last week. It was pretty good, I was glad it was at the end of the week instead of the beginning because the beginning of the week I was an emotional wreck. If they had tried constructive criticism on Monday or Tuesday I would have probably burst out crying or something equally unprofessional. ;) But actually didn't have a whole lot of criticism- constructive or otherwise! They haven't actually visited my classroom or seen me teach a lesson, which annoys me a little bit. They base their observations off of if my kids have their workbooks filled out and parents don't complain. When they asked for comments or questions, I requested that they sit in on one of my classes and actually comment on how I interact with the kids. But! I can't complain- they didn't complain about me so I suppose that's not a bad thing :)


I talked to 3/8 family members tonight plus about 2 seconds worth of zach and olivia.... it takes a lot of time to get through everyone, so it sometimes takes me a while but I'm kind of bummed I'm missing Thanksgiving. I'm starting to get really excited for Christmas and am realizing how many traditonal things I'm missing from this time of the year- Turkey Bowl (although I don't think I've actually gotten up for that in a couple years.... ), putting up Christmas decorations (we cut down a regular tree with a machete and hung some lights and ornaments ;)), Advent wreath (I'm for sure buying candles and making my housemates celebrate Advent each week), egg nog.... anyway, I'm excited to be home to get the tail-end of all that stuff!


That's about all for now. I've been thinking a lot about our pastor Chuck and his family tonight- he's in Heaven now... so strange. And wonderful right? But anyway, I've been thinking of their family- pray for them with holidays :(


Talk to you all next week- Enjoy turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, GREEN BEAN CASSEROLE!!!

The Love of God (look up the sandi patti lyrics :))

Well a lot can change in a week. Last week's blog I wrote about being completely content and loving life here. That part hasnt necessarily changed, but I probably had the saddest weekend in Honduras this last weekend :(

So, I've been dating a guy from here- he's the PE teacher at our school and a wonderful human being, not to mention how amazing he has been as a boyfriend. I really, really liked being in a relationship with him. However, we had a discussion this weekend about our faiths and his isn't quite as solid as I had originally thought. slash.... I kind of avoiding talking about it with him because I was afraid that would be the case. I know, dumb. But! all that to say, I decided to end the relationship this weekend, and as break-ups usually go, it was pretty hard.

The reason for this blog isn't to complain and make people feel sorry for me, but I thought I'd at least let you know how sad I was to explain how surprised I am at how well I am doing a few short days later! This summer was an amazing time of growth for me spiritually, and while I can't help but grow spiritually in a place surrounded by so much of God's beauty, I haven't pursued a relationship with God as much as with Ramon lately. Since Friday night, I have been forced to talk to Jesus about everything and beg Him to make me feel better.... and He has! Let me give you a few examples of the ways He's done it.
~ my wonderful, wonderful roommates- the girls that I live with are full of sweet advice and encouragement. One of the girls said that the thing I'm going to want to is go to the boy for comfort and that won't really help and they've all gone out of their way to be there for me. Saturday we hung out just us girls and I genuinely enjoyed myself. I didn't want to go to my room and cry or be alone. That has been my experience with every other ending of a relationship, so I know God is helping me out!
~ I've been reading through notes from my summer and every sermon talked about God's love and His longing to be the One that fills us. This is definitely a lesson that I need/want to learn and it's so encouraging to have verse after verse, note after note of abiding in Him
~ my mom sent me a book for my birthday called The Satisfied Heart.... sometimes books with titles like this make me not want to read them, especially when I'm single and wanting a husband. blah blah blah, I know that's partly the point of the book but also that it's for single and married people alike! :) anyway, I'm on Day 5 today and everything in it is perfectly in line with what I need to hear. I keep it under my pillow because I know as soon as I wake up I'll think about how sad I am, so I quickly try to counter it with a little God note :)
~ talking with all my friends/family from home.
~ On Monday, I went to school sad because since we work together, I knew it would be a difficult day of minorly avoiding him... one of my students randomly gave me some candy and a card with a Bible verse- Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. How appropriate and kind of Him to give me a reminder right away in the morning!
~ On Tuesdays I have music with First Grade which is seriously the worst grade ever. I dread Tuesdays and Wednesdays because of their class! However, Tuesday the kids were PERFECT. I think God knew I just wouldnt be able to handle naughty kids that day. Now today (Wednesday) they were back to their horrible little selves but ... I could handle them today :)
~ I taught some of the classes the song "Skiddamarink...I love you" for music, and at one point this week, I ran to the bathroom to cry and second grade was on a bathroom break. The girls spontaneously broke into song and hugged me. It was precious
~ Our neighbor Paola really liked us dating- as in every chance she got, she would talk to us about when we were getting married ;) she now goes out of her way at school to come give me hugs and kisses. A little fourth grader- so beautiful!

So, I have my kids, my roommates, my family, the mountains, and the promise of a really good friendship with Ramon. And, if I didn't have all that, I would still have Christ and I'm just now starting to realize that- surprise! - He can be enough! He can make me complete and whole and satisfied.


Anyway, that's been my week. I hesitated putting it in my blog because ... relationship-y stuff can be annoying, but .... it's part of the Honduran experience! and my life experience! So... for those of you taking notes on prayer requests... you can just add that my ex-boyfriend becomes a fantastic man of God :) and send up a lot of praises for how wonderful life still is here! I'm going to be home so soon, I can't hardly believe it!

Saturday morning oatmeal

This morning we had oatmeal for breakfast and it reminded me of when we were little and we would have oatmeal every morning. I'm a pretty nostalgic person and I usually wish for simpler times and for the days when we were little and could do whatever we wanted, but I don't get very nostalgic here. I don't know how many times I've told people how content I am here or how much I love my life but... it's been a lot of times. :) My friend Kirsty asked me today if I was really excited about Christmas and going home. Of course I am excited to see my family and friends and to be around familiar things again, but for probably the first time in my life, I'm not waiting for the next thing to happen. I live every day happily and when the next day comes along, I start over. I think we are almost conditioned and expected to live our lives in the future- waiting to graduate high school, finishing college, finding someone to marry, having your first baby... and then when we have all those things, a good job, a content family, a big enough house, then we can start enjoying life and relaxing. I'm so happy I don't feel the pressure to accomplish something or to have a good enough life here. It's great. Now, I say all this in the month that I have to start paying off school loans, so we'll see if my attitude changes but right now I'm pretty mellowed ;)

School has been pretty good. My kids earned a game day this week (they've been working for it for probably a month now so... I'm glad they finally got it!). I brought Twister, Uno, cards, Scattegories, Scrabble, Old Maid, Crazy 8's, marbles, Go Fish, Snow what, Hangman, Checkers, chess... it was great. I gave them the afternoon to play in the field or play games and they had a blast. Next 'prize' they're spelling out is Party Day so... maybe they'll have that when we get back from Christmas break. :)

I am starting reading groups with my kids next week. I just finished a story called Spy Hunt with them about young Andrew Jackson and his brother spying on a neighbor they suspected was a Tory! Imagine trying to explain the difference between the Rebels and the Tories- who are both groups in the US but it was before the US was a country so they were called colonists but the Rebels wanted to become a country and the Tories wanted England to win the war and stay colonies.... try explaining US history to students just to background to a story ;) I am now on the patriotic section of my Abeca curriculum in Reading so instead of making them read all the stories, I let them choose from these selections: Mounted Calvary (the continued story of Andy Jackson and his brother!), The Crimson Arrow (a story of a young colonist and an American Indian that become friends), or Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell (the first woman doctor from the US). Pretty exciting stuff. Most of my kids chose the continuing Jackson story so I'm going to split them up into 3 separate groups and then have a group for Arrow and Dr. I'm interested to see how it goes- I'm giving out four different roles - Reader, Recorder (answers the questions), Illustrator, and Vocab Finder. I'm going to have them rotate each day, so we'll see if the roles thing works. I've changed my reading curriculum from the beginning of the year and have been writing my own tests and quizzes and the kids seem to be doing a lot better, so it would be great if they could do these literature circles! I think when I go home I'm going to bring back a suitcase filled with as many Great Illustrated Classics as I can bring with my weight limit :)

This evening, I think we're going to go los aguas termales (hot springs) and tomorrow our filipino neighbor is coming over to teach us how to make a dish! She and her husband are teachers at the school and I think we're going to start a Bible study which I'm excited about. Hopefully next week is a good week- I'm pretty sure my kids are going to just start getting back into the rountine and then it will be time for Thanksgiving! Oh well... such is life :)

at the fiesta tipica

more mayan ruins

me and my roomie rachel!!!

umm... boyfriend. and mayan ruins :)

this is what the mayan ruins used to look like- including the pink rock. and that thing the chief is sitting on? doubles as a sacrificial alter!!

some stones with pics

ruins...

me in a tree :)

copan!

did you know our last name fits in the mickey mouse song?

When I was student teaching I had a student call me Mrs. Van Poaf all the time and I thought that was probably the funniest mis-speak I would here of my name but that was before I taught at a school where English is not the students first language. Since I teach all the music classes, I have a lot more students that are able to mess it up- here's a few of my favorites!

Miss Wee-Pee
Miss Pepe
Miss Vedder Floog
Miss Bludder Blue


cute huh? :) and these aren't just how they say them, I get cards all the time with my name written out :)

Speaking of cards....
This week my kids have been crazy. I think it has something to do with not having school on Monday, but I'm too tired from my own weekend at the Copan Ruins (I'll put pictures up later) that I didn't want to deal with it! I got really annoyed with my kids during a Language lesson on apostrophes because they weren't listening and half of them kept trying to get up and wander around the classroom. So, I did the whole teacher/mom thing- I put my plans away, sat down at my desk and started reading my book. The kids were absolutely silent and kept looking at me. I looked up and said, "Oh you guys don't want to learn today? That's fine, you can just talk, I'm going to read my book." (ha I love being a teacher... just not at that moment!) A couple girls said they wanted to learn and one even brought up her book and asked me to explain it to her :) I got up after a couple minutes and we spent the rest of the class period discussing why it's important to be a good student and respect the teacher/other classmates, etc. It was pretty fun. At the end of the period, I had about 12 students hand in cards that they had made while I was lecturing them telling them they were sorry for not paying attention during class. Slightly ironic and funny but I appreciated it :) I suppose they were a little better today, but I don't see them too much on Wednesdays so we'll see how tomorrow goes! :)

One thing I love about my job and the kids is how trusting they are and how they assume that since I'm their teacher, I will make everything better. My class is pretty relaxed for the most part, but the last couple weeks I've had five different students cry and they come to me for help. It's so sweet and I just love it.

Not much else to say. Things are great! I will try very hard to put some pictures up soon!

21 de octubre

Well, today is the first time I forgot to bring the key to my classroom to school. Two months of responsibility! That's a record! Don't you even worry, the office had a spare. :) Just some updates...



We didn't have school on Thursday last week because the national Honduras futbol team won their game on Wednesday which qualified them to go to the Mundial (World Cup). They have only gone one other time in 1982ish and so it's a really big deal (obviously- they practically declared it a national holiday and no one went to work or school!). So, that was fun but the kids have been CRAZY ever since. I actually had a pretty tough week with them because they've started getting a little snotty... I know, I shouldn't complain... it's sixth grade which is like automatic-snottiness year but my class has been so good for me so far! This week though, they've started muttering things under their breath (usually in Spanish. cute.) or rolling their eyes or not staying seated and talking all through my lessons. So, that's been fun to deal with. Oh well. I guess that's what I get for wanting to be a teacher. :)



We have a three day weekend this weekend so us teachers are going to go to the Copan Ruins. These are some Mayan ruins about four hours from us so I'm really excited. It will be a nice chance to relax before things start getting crazy. We have first quarter grades due in a couple weeks as well as a Tipica Fiesta to plan. I won't write too much about that right now because I'm sure I'll have more to say when it's over, but basically we all dress in typical Honduran clothes, sell food and have a program. They've been pulling kids out of my classroom for about two weeks now to learn the dance so... they better be good! :)



Just some other random things that I always think to put in a blog but never have a reason to- I don't think I've talked about them before but if I have, sorry :)

~ everyone here loves Michael Jackson. I was working on a language lesson on proper nouns and asked the students for some famous people, thinking they would list some futbol players or a president or something- first person? Michael Jackson. Boys are also constantly showing us that they can do the moonwalk- Eduardo is a third grader that likes to moonwalk down the bus aisle when we ride into town with them!

~ We use peanut butter in everything at our house. Cereal, stir-fry, on our favorite Intenso cookies, sprinkles and coconut, leftover birthday cake, leftover Chinese, pancakes, on a spoon with chocolate frosting from a can... seriously everything. It's funny. and a little sad haha

~ We come to Guancascos every week to use the internet. There's always really loud music playing, and the last few times of coming, the Spanish version of "Piano Man" has been playing. Reminds me of home...

~ I realized after a few weeks of coming that all the games I brought to play are not very good for inviting our Spanish speaking neighbors over to play- Scrabble, Taboo, Scattegories... all games that include a great deal of English language knowledge. I brought Twister too but... haven't used it yet. Luckily, there were some Uno (that means One! :)) cards left at the house so we've used those as well as regular playing cards

~ I don't know if I've talked about our shower yet but we have a hot (electric) shower... slightly dangerous sounding but not as bad as having to take cold showers. We had a mini debate with the Honduran teachers this week about if hot or cold showers are better. Us spoiled Americans decided we would rather go dirty than take a cold shower and the Honduran teachers insisted that they would always choose a cold shower over hot. I might try it one of these days but... probably not :)

~ Speaking of hot showers, they've been much needed on these 'freezing' cold days. It was about 60 the other day- I think the coldest it gets here in the mountains is 45. The kids came to school wearing three layers, hats, gloves, and complained all day how cold it was while I stood in the front of the classroom sweating :)

I put some pictures up on facebook- some are repeats of pictures on here, but if you'd like to look, feel free! :) Well, I don't have much else to add. Thanks for reading!

LB

Things have been really good lately. I haven't written because there hasn't been anything special and new that's gone on, so sorry! Let's see, what can I talk about today....

Our friend Kirsty moved up to Villa Verde! She has been living in Gracias, but decided to live in the mountains when she realized how much fun we have up there. :) It's been really fun to have her hanging out in our house every night, eating supper with us, visiting our neighbors and coming to church with us.

I'll talk about church a little bit. There's a little, tiny church near our house that all our neighbors go to. They have services three times a week, but we only go on Sundays. Service is at 7 pm so that's a little different. I think there are about 20 people that attend when we are there. The 'sanctuary' is one room with some cut-out, white letters reading "Cristo les ama" (Jesus loves you!). There's also a couple random crepe flowers hanging from the ceiling, a verse written on the stage, and a big pile of wood with more crepe flowers sticking out of it. There's a few benches without backs and some plastic chairs to sit in. So! Not much to look at, but obviously that's not the point of church so I don't mind! Our neighbors are so kind to us and get so excited when we show up for church each week. The service begins with some singing, people sharing songs, and one or two people giving a testimony. Every Sunday, the congregation refuses to let the service continue until us teachers get up and do a little musical number. :) We always sing in English, but we try to sing slow, pretty songs so they at least feel our emotion! Maybe one of these days we'll actually sing in Spanish. :) The singing is my favorite. I don't know most of the songs and they don't have any hymnals, overhead projectors, or slips of paper with the words on them, so I just have to listen and watch, but that's usually enough. There was one week that the 'pastor' (Don Luis- he was also our guide when we hiked in Celaque) was practically doing an Irish jig across the stage because he was so excited. His granddaughter, Abi, (who's 3, I've talked about her before) decided to mimic him, but with her sweater pulled over her head. She fell into the pile of wood and crepe flowers :) That's another thing about the service. Little children are running around the entire time. One night, a cat came. There were seriously 6 kids up at the front of the church yelling, "Gatito!" through the sermon. :) Lots of different people give the sermons. If it's one of the older men giving the sermon, it's pretty hard for me to understand them, but I can still follow along with the passage and get the gist.

I love the atmosphere of the neighborhood, but of all the things from the United States, church is one of the only things that I feel I don't get enough of here. I've been spending a lot of time reading through my journal of notes from sermons this summer at the DTC or Westchester or from my devotions and that has helped. :)

Anyway, life is great. Yesterday, we were cleaning up our house and found a billion ants had decided to make a stop in our garbage, so we made a bonfire and burned a bunch of trash. That was fun. :) We were a little nervous we'd end up burning down the entire national park but! it's still there!

Well, that's about all for now. Honduras lost against the US 3-2, but they play El Salvador tonight so I'm hoping for a win. In case anyone's keeping track at home, BRONCOS ARE STILL UNDEFEATED!!! OH! Also, Jacki's friends are coming from the US tomorrow so not only is that exciting, but they're bringing seasons 1-5 of The Office. Now all I need is for my friends and family to move here and I'll be set for life ;)


Que pase una buena semana! (Have a good week!)

a little bit of this, a little bit of that (a pot, a pan, a broom, a hat)

Not much has happened since Sunday other than the usual happenings of Honduras, so I thought I'd use this blog for random thoughts and tidbits of information!



Funny things my kids say:

~ Today I was talking about human beings and my student Mario (seriously the biggest troublemaker, but I can't be mad at him! Dumb :)) thought that I said human bean, so he held up his pointer finger and thumb to be about the size of bean for clarification.

~ We had a language test where I had the students copy sentences from the board and underline subjects and verbs. Sentence: Jesus and His disciples went up the mountain and prayed. Sentence about a third of my students wrote?: Jesus and His disciples went up the mountain and PLAYED.

~ The kids in my class are obsessed with the idea that I'm in love with Noel Valledares, the portero (goal keeper) from the Honduras futbol team. Examples of how it's brought up?
1. The other day I was doing a long division problem on the board and messed it up and the kids said, "Miss, you are confusing us. Who are you thinking about that you can't concentrate on math? NOEL???"
2. My entire birthday was full of, "Just wait until Noel comes, he will sweep you off your feet and say, 'Miss Vander Ploeg, you are beautiful, I will take you to all my games for good luck.' "
3. One boy brought in a picture of Noel for me to hang on my wall (which, of course, I did).
4. One day I was talking with our PE teacher Mr. Bran, and Edith (the girl that instigated all this Noel stuff in the first place) said, "Miss VP, are you cheating on Noel???"

~ Love is seriously in the air at Abundant Life Christian Schools. We've had about 4 student couples show up this week in 4th through 6th grade. One started in my class this morning. Hernan (air-nahn) apparently asked Eunice (ay-ooh-nees-ay) yesterday who she liked and she wrote on a piece of paper that she liked him (precious!). She ran up to me with a bunch of girls this morning and told me all about it. THEN (sixth grade drama) Hernan showed her note to all the boys in class. She was super embarassed and hid her face for about one and a half class periods. I asked her how things were going at lunch and she didn't seem to shaken up so... we'll see how it all unfolds!

~ I have a picture of my family on my desk from a few years ago in front of a mountain in Colorado. My two cousins are with us and my kids come up all the time and just sit and stare at my family and talk about how beautiful they are (true :)). More importantly though, every single one of them wants me to bring Zuzu to Honduras and give her to them. (This picture was taken before we had Bailey, so I hope she doesn't get her feelings hurt :))

Interesting things since leaving the United States
~ I have watched tv three times- once at a Chinese restaurant in Gracias- a Spanish soap opera that was ridiculously enthralling; on our Tela/beach vacation- we watched all kinds of music videos (excuse me Shakira, SheWolf! - is that popular at home??), an episode of One Tree Hill (for any 2nd East girls/Shayla... none of the other girls had seen it before and they were seriously all on the edge of their seats- remember the episode where Nathan and Haley get married and Cooper drives the car off the bridge with that 17 year old and Nathan and Lucas jump in? .... yeah. that was the episode :)), and an episode of Friday Night Lights! ahh... television

~ I haven't looked in a full-length mirror once. I don't think they don't exist here. Apparently I look great though, no one has said anything to the contrary :)

~ Power goes out all the time here. This week we had the power out for two days at both our house and the school. This means no hot water, no lights (bedtime usually gets bumped up to 7ish), no bell at school (someone blows a whistle), and we don't have a copier (reason I was writing the Jesus sentence test on the board in the first place)

hm... well I can't think of any others at the moment. Fun huh?

so i tied the shoelaces around them and kept walking! these pics were taken after our hike so you can get an idea of how wet we got from the rain :)

so we went on a 6 hour hike in the mountains. i bought these shoes in tela when we were at the beach and had never worn them before- 20 minutes into the hike, this happened. and then about an hour later, the other one fell apart too.

jacki and sarah attempting to hang up my hammock. so far our attempts have been unsuccessful- i'll let you know when we get it up!

that little egg/booger looking thing? that's what you eat :)

Lichas- a type of fruit down here. You peel off this prickly skin and eat the white fruit inside.

Us and our guide... see the waterfall in the back?

Our house and our beautiful view!

Azucena and me after she smeared chocolate on my face :)

my cake!

My kids celebrating my birthday

climb every mountain!

This week we didn't have school on Tuesday or Wednesday due to the political curfew, so Thursday was like a Monday and Friday was like... a Friday. So you can imagine the amount of work we got done and how crazy my kids were! I had two tests that I was going to give on Tuesday and there was no way I could push them back, but my kids didn't really study during their two days off so.... that was slightly frustrating. But hopefully we have no more interruptions and my kids will get back into the routine of things!
Things at the house are still really great. One of the teachers that lives in town came up and stayed with us this weekend just for fun. We talked, watched some of The Office, played Speed Scrabble, and stayed up really late (11!) Saturday we slept in (8!) and then went for a hike. I think I've mentioned how we live on the edge of Celaque National Park, but haven't actually gone in? Well we did this weekend! Our 55-year old neighbor is a Celaque guide, so when we mentioned that we'd like to go up sometime, he volunteered to go with us. Jacki, Rachel, Kirsty, Mr. Bran, and I all left at about 9:30 in the morning with lunches packed by Sarah, full water bottles and smiles on our faces. Don Luis (our neighbor/guide- Don is the same as Mr.) stopped frequently to show us different plants- leaves used to make soap, stems you could snif if you had a cold, flowers that you put in hot water and drink if you have arthritis, this fluffy plant that they use to make pillows... he knew everything! The frequent stops were great, but when we weren't stopped, Don Luis was booking it up that mountain- I really thought I was going to pass out :) Our ultimate goal was to get to this waterfall that we can see from school so I just kept hiking up, waiting until we got to this waterfall. The scene I kept picturing to keep me going was from Samantha Saves the Day! (yes the American Girl book)- Samantha and her friends go to this secret island and find this beautiful waterfall and they have a picnic lunch and play in the river and have a great time.... Well. It wasn't quite like that. We hiked up the mountain for about three hours and arrived at the place where you can see the waterfall... I'll post a picture but it didn't really seem any closer to me than it had from the bottom of the mountain. Also, there wasn't a spot to eat lunch! All the other girls said it was totally worth the climb but I'm not so sure. I suppose I'm glad I went. :) The walk down definitely made it worth it for me though. It was much easier and the scenery helped remind us of many songs from musicals. At one point us girls were running through the forest singing "Wonder of Wonders, Miracle of Miracles" from
Fiddler on the Roof, the next moment we videoed us singing "Climb Every Mountain" from Sound of Music. About halfway down, it started pouring rain, so of course we had to sing "Singing in the Rain". It was so funny. I'm sure Don Luis and Mr. Bran thought we were crazy jogging down the mountain singing operatic songs in English. It was great :) We arrived at our hosue 5-6 hours after leaving, completely drenched and we just lounged around the rest of the day. It was great and I'm not too sore so MAYBE I'll do it again.


Also, if any of you are interested, here's a quick update on Honduran politics...
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/09/27/honduras.president/index.html

It's not super informative, but it at least tells a little bit. We haven't been affected by it too much in Gracias or Villa Verde as far as seeing demonstrations or upset people, but it's something to be aware of!

PS Happy Birthday Grandma! Hope the Broncos win for you like they did for me!!! :)

birthday!

So yesterday was my birthday... it was a fun, crazy day. It started off with God giving me the most beautiful sunrise I've ever seen... the rest of the day we were in a cloud so that was pretty exciting. My kids gave me little gifts all day (I got some earrings, a bracelet, two teddy bears, a plastic flower.... and lots and lots of cards). It was so sweet. At the end of the day I had music class with the third graders where they had also made me lots of cards and had torn up construction paper for confetti that they threw when I came into the room (reminded me of New Year's Eve at my house :)). It was practically impossible to carry on a normal music class because they were all so excited. That ended up being ok though because about 10 minutes later the teacher that does Spanish with my kids at the end of the day came in and said she was taking over the third grade class and I needed to go to my classroom. I walked in and there were streamers, balloons, signs, and super-hyper kids all over the place. They sang me "Happy Birthday" - which apparently the entire school could hear. Some students had brought in a HUGE chocolate cake, some Ritz crackers, popcorn, and lemonade which we passed out in complete chaos. Apparently it's also tradition to take frosting from the cake and put it on the face of whoever's birthday it is so... by the end of school my entire face was covered in chocolate frosting. This would have been perfectly fine except that us teachers were going into town for a birthday supper and in order to do that we usually jump on the kids' bus right at 3 so I had to quick try and clean myself and my classroom up before the bus left!

We arrived into town just in time to find out there was a 4 o'clock curfew for the entire country of Honduras. Right before I came to Honduras, the government 'escorted' the president Zelaya out of the country because he'd been trying to put some things into the constitution that would make it easy to set up a dictatorship. Honduras has had a man named Micheletti in charge since then. Apparently Zelaya showed up in the country and everything went into lock-down mode. SOO. We were in town and everything closed so we just went back up the mountain. Today they cancelled school because the curfew went until 7 am and students wouldn't have been able to make it to school. We came down into town again to try and have a birthday lunch but... once again everything is closed. So we're using the internet and sitting around and we probably won't have school again tomorrow! Always something interesting here :)

But, all around, my birthday was wonderful. Thanks for all the birthday wishes!!

This week in Music I taught the fourth grade class the song "Lord You are More Precious than Silver" (I don't know the real name :)) except that I taught them the second verse because I felt like they might relate to it better.

Lord, Your love is higher than the mountains.
Lord, Your love is deeper than the seas.
Lord, Your love is wider than the oceans.
Nothing on this earth compares with You.

The fourth grade class is usually pretty rowdy, but on Thursday they were ridiculous. Sarah is their teacher and she had had a pretty hard day getting them to be quiet, so she wished me luck as she practically ran out of the classroom. So, instead of doing my usual warm-up songs, I used a breathing exercise to have them kind of calm down. That.... sort of worked... Most of the songs I teach the kids are upbeat and use lots of actions so that they're excited for Music but I decided that might not be a good choice for this day. I randomly remembered this song and thought I would try it out. This song is actually really special to me because (sorry in advance Zach!) when Zachary was a baby I used to sit in his room for hours rocking him (I'd maybe sometimes wake him up to rock him back to sleep :)) and I'd sing this song over and over again. It was always such a beautiful time singing in the dark to Jesus while rocking my baby brother. So, I decided to teach it to these kids and they loved it. A calmness fell over the room immediately. I had them do a few actions like lifting their hands way up for the mountains, dipping their arms way down for deep, and spreading their arms out wide for the ocean, but mostly they just sang from their hearts. A lot of the students had their eyes closed and THREE girls started crying. WOW. How precious to hear children worshipping God and to be able to join in. I had music with them the next day, and since it was a Friday I let them choose what songs they wanted to sing for the last half. I had some our usual songs brought up, but I had several kids (since they forget to listen to each other, they all just keep saying the same thing :)) raise their hand and say, "Can we sing the song of the Lord?". So we did.


I love my job!

random people in the crowd at the game

this maybe gives you a little idea on the amount of people at the game.

our precious neighbor luis. he was sad we were leaving.

abi hiding under the table :)

candido fernando and abigail. and me with one earring missing.

Sarah and me at the futbol game

my boys playing futbol against the fifth graders at Dia de Ninos (Children's Day)

We fashioned a bar to hang our clothes on! and our dresser thing is full too!-- but no more living out of suitcases!

my room. complete with pictures and letters to remind me of all of you at home :)

most of the girls in my class after they won their futbol game 4-1!!!

Weekend Happenings

HI!

All right, sorry it's been awhile since I've written, things have been pretty crazy. Let's see what all have I done....

Well a couple weekends ago, we took a five hour ride on various buses to get to San Pedro Sula for a Honduran futbol game. The first half was not quite what we were expecting .... couple things happened: 1) there was some tear gas when some people got a little too roudy waiting 2) they accidently made double numbered tickets so a) there were twice as many people there as usual and b) people were not getting the seats they paid for because someone was already sitting there 3) the crowds were absolutely ridiculous. People were completely squished together and as we got closer it just got worse and worse. At one point I had a little girl next to me with her family and she couldn't breathe because her face was being smashed into the person next to her and it was too tight for her to move. That was a little scary, but we pulled her up into the air and then they let her go inside. So. That was standing in line the two hours before the game started. When we got in, there weren't any seats because of the ticket mix up so we watched the first half on a tv in the vendor area. Second half we managed to find a spot right in the front row and it was FANTASTIC. Totally made up for the first half. Honduras scored 4 points total and won the game, the crowd was crazy and I LOVED IT. It definitely made me a futbol fan for life. We had jerseys and facepaint and went all out. It was great.

This last weekend we went for an 8 hour trip to Tela, which is a beach on the shore of the Gulf. Let me try and describe the bus system in Honduras.... it's insane. We may start at a bus stop in a school bus with a few other people, but along the way we pick people up at other bus stations or on the side of the road and by the time we reach the next town, there are three people to each seat and sometimes people standing in the aisles. Then we get off and as a group of American girls, we are immediately surrounded by 8-15 men yelling and grabbing us and trying to get us to get on their bus for the cheapest price. So we'd eventually find a bus and start the whole process over again. Like I said, insane. Oh, another thing that we discovered on buses is that people are constantly trying to sell things. We would stop to pick passengers up and people would swarm the bus and try to sell you food and drinks through the windows. Some people would even get on the bus and try to squeeze through the aisles to sell their things. One of the creepiest things I experienced was two 20-something-year-old men dressed up as clowns that would do an act and then go up and down the aisles asking for money. blech. Even better, in the last two weeks the exact same two clowns have been on THREE of our buses. yuck yuck yuck. Anyway, there's a picture of the bus for you!

This weekend we had Monday and Tuesday off - one day to celebrate Dia de Maestras (Teacher's Day!) and one day for Honduras's Independence Day. Five of us girls went to the beach and had a wonderful, relaxing time. My friend Sarah and I actually spent more time in our air conditioned room with our cable tv because we didn't really want to get sunburned but.... that was just about the kind of vacation I needed. :) We enjoyed the pool and the beach at night though! It was a great time to spend with all the girls and not just the ones I live with. We also met up with a couple girls that work at the school in La Union. They work with a British organization that places people in various countries. Renska is from Holland and Laura is from Scotland. It was so fun to hang out with them and get to know them! The whole weekend was wonderful. My two purchases were some sweet tennis shoes for $12-- to better play futbol :) and a hammock for about $7. Our house is looking wonderful and homey so we're going to try and find a place to hang the hammock up.

School started again today (16th) and it's really nice to have a 3 day week. I really missed my kids this week though so I was actually pretty excited to go back to school this week. I have a whole wall covered with pictures that the kids draw me, although I think I caught one of the girls drawing one today during my math lesson and after telling her three times to put it away, I took it away and didn't give it back until the end of class and ... I did not get a picture from her today. :) Today we rode down into town on the school bus which is always an experience. Today I had a crowd of kids wanting me to sing songs from Music- I love that all the kids know who I am and like the songs we do. Today they wanted to sing "I had a little turtle", "The Bumblebee Song", and "Apples and Bananas". So good. So funny.


This weekend we are probably just going to sit around the house. My birthday is on Monday (!!!!) so we might celebrate by going out to eat or to the hot springs, but nothing too crazy since our last couple weekends have been pretty full! I'm excited to see what the rest of the week is like. I can't believe I've already been here a month!!!

I have had the most enjoyable last few days. On Friday evening, our friends Dennis and Vicente were in Villa Verde with three people from a church in Michigan that buy supplies for our school. We went out to supper with them and then spent time with our friends. Saturday, we cleaned up our house a little bit and brought our laundry to be done by some of our neighbors. Us girls attempted doing one load of our white shirts last weekend, and while we were fairly successful, it took us a long time. Since we haven't really done any other laundry since being in Honduras, there was a lot between the four of us and our neighbors offered to do all of it for us. Paying for it is definitely worth it- my clothes were clean and dried in the sunshine. Wonderful. It's pretty much decided that Sarah and Jacki will just stay in the house with Rachel and me. We seriously enjoy every minute of our time together- every night is full of ridiculous laughing and dance parties and getting to know one another. It also is going to save us money! So on Saturday, we went into town and picked up a bunch of groceries and some things to make our house a little 'homier'. We bought a bunch of mats four about $2 each, a shower curtain rod (up until this point we've been using the shower curtain as a bathroom door because we didn't have a rod big enough for the shower, but this meant when someone showered, the bathroom was inaccessible, so the rod is a drastic improvement!

One thing about shopping in Gracias is that there aren't any Walmart or Target-like stores. We had to go to one store for our shower curtain rod and a pot; another store for our cereal, peanut butter, sauces, and other more American food; several stops through the market for various fruits and vegetables; and then we always stop at a place that sells homemade fresh fruit popsicles that are delicious! The lady who owns the store gave us some sample bags of her chile salsa and pico de gallo salsa that were wonderful as well, so we'll have to go back for some full jars.

One of our favorite treats to make involves cookies called Intensos (they don't really do candy bars here, it's more cookies or chips). Intensos are kind of like those Kuebler elf cookies except better. This weekend we discovered that if you add peanut butter and sprinkles... oh my goodness, they're so good. We've maybe gone a little overboard on eating them but that's ok. We realized this weekend that we haven't really had any snacks since being here so we're just trying to change that a little bit!

We've actually eaten really well and I like almost every food I try. On Sunday, our neighbors who own a comedor (a small restaurant) invited us down the road for breakfast. They made us baleada, which are basically tortillas folded in half filled with beans, cheese and mantequilla- which is kind of like a creamy sauce they use for all kinds of things. We also had some coffee that they make with pepper and cinnamon- something I'm probably going to have to keep drinking when I come back to the States because it was SO good. Paola also ran up to a little vineyard and got us some little grapes.

Our neighbors are absolutely wonderful. Paola is in fourth grade and it's her grandma and aunt that own the comedor. Her aunt, Sonia has two kids- Abigail (pronounced Ah-be-guy-yil here) who just turned three and Luis who is a year and a half. Sonia is 23, so basically the age of all of us girls. We went swimming with all of them on Sunday afternoon and it was so fun. That afternoon, Sonia came and taught us how to make tortillas and we ended up doing a pretty good job! The kids came over and played in our house- Sonia told us they ask all the time to come visit and we love having them here. They are so precious. That evening we went to church with the family. All in all it was a wonderful weekend.

School coming on Monday morning wasn't that bad either. I had one of those days where I just loved teaching. I have always, always loved kids and wanted to be a teacher, but yesterday I just loved the TEACHING part of it. I'm not sure what it was- it wasn't that my students had this sudden breakthrough of 'oh! I get it!" but they try so hard and I love explaining things to them. I really love sixth grade. My kids are wonderful and sweet and understand humor. Today, the people that are working on our courtyard were using lots of loud tools. Since our classrooms are all open, it made it very difficult to teach and I kind of made a dirty look in the direction of the workers and said something like, "Can you please just be quiet?" One of the boys who gets in trouble all the time for talking piped up, "Miss! Put their name on the board!" since that's what I do if the kids don't stop talking. It was so funny, and of course I wrote 'workers' on the board with several checkmarks. My kids loved it.


After school on Monday, a lot of the Honduran teachers were getting together to play soccer (or as they call it here, futbol). They wanted us Americans to join but none of us play futbol so we were pretty hesitant. The second reason we were hesitant is that our PE teacher, Mr. Bran (who is also our neighbor) was going to be 'coaching' us. Mr. Bran spent last year as a trainer for the Honduran Woman's Futbol team. He told us they're not very good at all but... they're still a professional tean and for someone like me that about the only things I play are a musical instrument or ping-pong... was a little intimidating. However, we girls decided we should probably start bonding with the staff and just play. It ended up being a lot of fun and if I stay on defense, I think I could be a fantastic addition to the team! :)

This weekend we are planning on traveling to San Pedro Sula to see the Hoduran mens futbol team play against Trinidad and Toboggo. All of us girls are really excited. I've been missing my BBroncos so it will be nice to cheer for someone again. We had such a fantastic weekend this past weekend that it will be hard to beat, but I think it's possible. I'll let you know how it goes!


Oh and sorry, I want to post some pictures but sometimes the internet at the place we go is waaaaaay too slow and it's just impossible. I'll try to soon!

The first week of classes was so good. My sixth graders are just wonderful and seem excited to be at school. I had the students write me letters about what they wanted to this year, what they wanted from their teachers, and any goals they had from the year. Most of them wanted to work on their English, have a teacher that was always happy and gave stickers, and many of their goals were to pass 6th grade. :) So we'll see! They are very sweet but very talkative. I was talking with Julia, who is the only other girl that actually has education as a background and I was telling her about all the different 'strategies' I had been using to keep my kids under control- she was saying how she had never had to switch it up so many times and was surprised that I'd used so many different things in the first week. I think my student teaching in fourth grade with a class that NEVER stopped talking has helped me a lot for this class because it hasn't really fazed me to try all different things.

I'm supposed to follow the curriculum (A Beca Book, from Pennsicola College) pretty closely which is good for my first year, but frustrating creatively. I've been adding in a few things of my own and I think that will go pretty well as long as I get all the lessons covered.

Here's a list of some things I've noticed that are very different from the schools I've worked in before.
- We don't really have many supplies. Currently we're waiting for the books for the kids so I have to write everything up on the board and they have to copy everything so the lessons take a lot longer than they should. But hopefully I will be getting the books on Tuesday! I'm also teaching the K4-6th grade music with no curriculum... that's fun. This week I taught them some warm-up songs, the notes of the scales, the Solfege hand signs... depends on the age what songs or how much I teach them, but all the kids seem to really enjoy music so I hope I can keep their interest for the year! I should be getting curriculum next week- it will be all be in Spanish but I think I'll be able to understand enough to get lessons planned out.
- The kids all just call me 'miss' so all day long I hear, "Miss! Can you check this? Miss! I finished!"
- My schedule is to wake up at 5:30/5:45, walk the 20 minutes to school, get my classroom in order, have a full day, sometimes I stay and plan until 4/5 and then we'll walk home, make supper, read or work on some curriculum, goof around with the girls and then we head to bed around 8! It's ridiculous but it's actually been pretty relaxing and refreshing.
-First week was wonderful, I felt a little bit homesick this week but for the most part I have been having an absolutely beautiful time.

oh, a lot of people have been wondering about my address. You can send me letters or packages if you really want but it's pretty iffy on whether or not it will get here in any decent amount of time but I won't complain if you do!

Laura Beth Vander Ploeg
Guancascos
Gracias, Lempira
Honduras

Wish me luck on the second week! Hopefully I can get some materials for the kids!

outside my house

our living room/ kitchen area

from the other side of the house. -- you can kind of see our plastic on the windows and the mosquito netting hanging from our door. That mattress also helps in the bug deterrment ;)

Rachel's and my room

kids playing in the fountain

view from inside the school

catch of the week! a place for the kids to tell me about themselves

our daily schedule

my classroom

my class room

my door :)

a view from the school

the courtyard of the school

a bug caught in our makeshift screen. and my hand.

living on the mountain

August 21 , 7:30 pm

Well I just got home from Parent Orientation. Today was a really good day, but really tiring. I was able to meet some of my students and every single one said they were very excited for school to start. I was a little worried getting sixth grade because other than having a sixth grade sister and seeing her interact with her friends, I don’t really know a lot about them. :) I chose an ocean theme for my room because 1) I am an El Ed major and themed rooms are necessary 2) I had the perfect door saying “Swim into Sixth Grade!” 3) The teachers said we needed decorations and it was slim pickin’s - the ocean seemed best. However, I was a little worried that ocean (since I did this same sort of thing for my first grade class) would seem babyish. (I tried to judge it by what Olivia would think but… she’s happy with anything :)) But I talked to the other Honduran teachers and they reminded me that the kids here stay ‘young’ longer because they don’t really have tv and movies and video games that make kids grow up faster. It seemed to be the case today when kids stopped by so… whatever :) I guess the true test will come on Monday- I’ll let you know if they tear everything down and run me out!
I guess tonight would be a good time to tell a little more about our living situation. My current roommates are Rachel (from Grand Rapids), Sarah (Indianapolis), and Jacki (Bolingbrook, Illinois near Chicago). We’re living in Rachel’s and my house while Sarah and Jacki’s roof gets repaired. They could be here for a monthish but.. It’s ok. It’s been really fun living together- we’re currently chillin, singing along to “American Pie” - classic. It’s also nice during the week to come home, have supper and then work on all our school stuff! Note: sometimes singing and school work is interrupted by what we are beginning to call ’Monster Bug Bash” - various ridiculously huge bugs that want to live with us! Weapons to choose from? A broom, walking stick, a machete left in the house… for the common moth/beetle/spider we’ll just use a flip flop or a piece of nicely aimed candy :) The first night the girls lived here, I was sick and not up in the house yet but I missed out on the bug fest of the century. The second night I was here, and we got smart. Rachel took the plastic wrapping from her mattress and we created a 'screen' with the plastic and duct tape. The next night we added our mosquito nets to the door frame and another window. It’s pretty great. Now we just smash a few big bugs a night instead of dozens and dozens. We’ve also found some big toads sitting in our kitchen. So, living on the edge of a national park has it’s ups and and downs.

This weekend we’re going to pick up some groceries and supplies in town. We’re going to walk down (about an hour and a half) and we'll be getting a ride back up in a mototaxi- it’s kind of like a clown car with three wheels and no doors- it’s steered by bicycle handle things…. :) It’s nice because then when we come back up the mountain with all our purchases we don’t kill ourselves carrying that weight! One of our neighbors owns a mototaxi so we just call him up when we need a ride and he’ll give us one for 70 lempiras (19 lempiras= $1). Our neighbors here are SO NICE. Tonight Rachel and I were walking home from Parent Orientation and some of our neighbors own a store and invited us in and gave us some Cokes because we were obviously exhausted from hiking up the mountain. They’ve also invited us over for supper and the women there told us they’d teach us how to make tortillas. They also have the sweetest kids that are constantly bringing us gifts. One night while we were over there, Sarah mentioned that she liked their clay wind chimes - they have windchimes with various shapes and this particular one had some little houses as the chimes. Two seconds later the girl, Paula had gotten her little scissors out of her room and snipped one of the houses off and gave it to Sarah! So, we just have to be careful about what we say we like. :) But, it’s very nice to have neighbors that we can hang out with and get a little family flavor.

Well we’ve moved from American Pie to Hairspray so we’re still having a good Friday night but I think I’m out of things to say for right now. Thanks for reading!

PS Our lights just went out. So I’m typing by candlelight. Very dual-century of me, don’t you think? :)

Well a lot has happened since I last posted. I'll just give you a quick list.
The day after my last blog, we started orientation for school. About halfway through the morning, I started feeling really terrible. I was shivering with a sweater on (which is not something that happens in the middle of the day in Honduras)... no good. I ended up going and sleeping in one of the houses nearby and then going back to the hotel and sleeping there too. My director decided I needed to go to the doctor but apparently one of the doctors had died and so all the other doctors in town were at his memorial. The school was so good about finding someone. I ended up having a 103 degree fever and they were a little nervous I might have H1N1 so... that was scary. I had to wear a mask and stay all by myself for three days so... that was once again VERY DIFFICULT for me. I think I willed myself to get better today because I just can't handle all that isolation! Anyway, today I feel MUCH better and was able to go to school and get most of my decorations up.
Everyone has been so kind- getting me food, medicine, helping set up my room, checking up on me. It's been great. I know a lot of you have been praying too so THANK YOU!

I moved up to my house officially last night. It's going to be me, Rachel, Jacki, and Sarah living in it for awhile because Sarah and Jacki's house needs a new roof. So, it will be tight but I think it will be a lot of fun. Yesterday we used the plastic wrapping from our mattresses and duct tape to cover our windows to keep the 4-5 inch bugs out. It was pretty fun.

Well I am almost ready for parent orientation tomorrow. School starts Monday- I have 20 kids in my class. Wish me luck!

This weekend has been great. We took a bus from Tegucigalpa to Gracias. The ride was supposed to take seven hours, but halfway through the drvier decided he would risk taking the van on the rocky roads- this took about two hours off our travel time and we made it without the van breaking down, so it was definitely worth it! All us teachers (Jacki, Sarah, Rachel, Julia, Kirsty and me), our two directors Jake and Vicente, and the driver, his wife and 1 1/2 year old boy all rode in the van- it was just like family vacation for me! :) We played cards, admired the beautiful scenery, listened to some mix CDs some of the girls made for the trip, and of course shared our love life stories- what trip is complete without that?! :)
We got to Gracias at about 5 pm- all of us were so excited. It is such a beautiful town. The weather was absolutely perfect when we got here- sunny, blue skies with a wonderful breeze. We spent a little time getting all of our things into the hotel before heading out to see our school and homes. A note about hotels here; they are absolutely gorgeous- and cheap! (a room costs about $20) Our room/suite has a big common room with three rooms coming off of it and a balcony for sitting and eating. There's a lady that works at the hotel that came in as soon as we had moved in and brought us pitchers of water (water from the tap is not ok to drink here) and poured us all glasses of water. She also went around each of our rooms with us explaining things we need to know about the shower, curtains, etc. Everyone is so hospitable. We're actually waiting for her to bring us coffe and bread for breakfast this morning! (Yes, I'm up before I need to be! But I'll get to that in a minute...)

So after we had been situated in our rooms, we left for the school. It's about a 30 minute drive on rocky roads from the town to the school, so we'll probably just come down here on the weekends. The place we are living is actually called Villa Verde- it's like a 'suburb' of Gracias. :) Te school is breathtaking. I will have to put pictures up because I don't know if I can describe it. We also went to our houses and got to see them, although they're not quite ready. One of the houses has coffee trees growing in their yard, so we'll probaby need to learn how to roast our own coffee beens! I am going to be living in a house with Rachel, one of the teachers. Apparently an American used to live there but left all his stuff there- we went in and there were wheelbarrows, books, a violin, guitar and bongos, scuba diving gear... all kinds of things. The local Hondurans are a little nervous about us moving in and touching his stuff because apparently he is a 'crazy gringo(what they call all white people here)' but the school is taking care of it and hopefully Rachel and I keep only the gringo part of that name and the Hondurans don't feel the need to tack on the crazy. :) Our home is right on the edge of the national park and there's a river running right beneath our backyard. We're planning to clean it up on Monday and hopefully move in!

After looking at the houses we went and had supper at place in Gracias called Guancascos- we're told we'll be spending a lot of time there because it has wireless internet! It's also the place where all mail for gringos goes which I thought was kind of funny. We had a delicious meal and came home and crashed.

This morning I woke up at about 7 just freezing (we have air conditioning in our hotel room, which was great until this morning!) I was so cold, I decided to get up and dig through my suitcases (whcih I haven't really opened yet) and get my comforter. Out comes the comforter.... with soapy, sticky something all over it and a tag saying my luggage had been searched. I decided I didn't really want to deal with whatever had leaked in my suitcase at the moment so I decided to try and get back to sleep because we didn't have to be up until 9- if you know me very well, you know I definitely LOVE my sleep. However, I was still cold and since my problem wasn't solved by my slimy comforter, I decided to just get up and have a look. Apparently my shampoo lid had unscrewed iteself on its journey of the US and had gotten over all kinds of stuff in my suitcase. Thankfully it was mostly on things I can replace like folders and notebooks, but it was on a lot of my school supplies so that was kind of annoying. I got it mostly cleaned out and set some books out to dry. Oh also, I used one of my washcloths to get all the shampoo out and then went to wash it in the shower and the shower head broke off its hose. Awesome. I had to explain to the lady what had happened in my very broken Spanish, but she was very kind about it.

So now we've had breakfast, went on a tour of Gracias and looked at some of the shops, and I'm currently at Guancascos using the internet. We'll have lunch soon and we're going to church at 2 this afternoon. I'm a little tired but still enjoying things and am looking forward to moving in soon and to stop living out of suitcases!!!