Look But Don't Touch

I’m still trying to figure out what kind of teacher I am. I constantly am looking back to high school to see if I’m the easy and nice teacher – the really moody teacher – the hard but compassionate teacher – the teacher who always seems unprepared (ha!) – and many more. I definitely don’t think I’m a mean teacher but I really don’t want to be TOO nice and have the kids take advantage of me. It’s hard to find your grove. Should the class be silent always, only ever hearing the pens of the students writing? Is it okay to joke around with the kids? End class 5 minutes early? Accept late homework? I don’t want to be a pushover, but I also don’t want to give homework every night or not be understanding when they have an issue or problem.

Abby, unknowingly, was my spy the other day. Wednesday after school she informed me of the 10th grader’s opinion of me. It went like this:

Abby had a mosquito bite on her eye that made her eyelid swell up. Naturally, her students (and my students) asked what had happened. She replied, “Oh yeah, Miss Sarah punched me in the face last night.” The students said, “Noo noo…she’s too nice…she didn’t do that.” They then went on to say that “Miss Sarah is like, ‘look but don’t touch.’” Que? “Like, she’s cooool, but you know not to mess with her.” Niiiice.

I’m definitely feeling this reputation. They know that I am not going to take any crap but that if they are well behaved, I can be fun. I just hope this reputation goes through to all the grades. With the 10th grade class I definitely have a good flow going, mainly because they are just such great learners. They are interested and intrigued, and while they try to convince me everyday to play games, sleep, and teach me Spanish, they are pretty responsive when I say that we actually need to learn. I think they were probably like the 5th graders, five years ago. Something about multiples of five.

This was my second week teaching the 11th graders. They are going to be difficult to keep interested certainly. They are lovable, but I just wish I could talk to them all period and not teach them. I basically want to crack up every second, but refrain from doing so. Usually I laugh pretty hard at least one time during each class.

My first day of teaching these young hooligans, I talked to them about Mr. John leaving, told them about the rules of my classroom, and a couple of topics we would be covering throughout the year. I have to preface this next statement with saying something about my former housemate, John. He f-ing LOVES poetry. He is a poet himself and pretty much would talk about poetry all day if you let him. Naturally, when he found out he would be teaching English and Literature classes, what did he decide to cover? Poetry. POETRY. POETRY. POETRY. Now, poetry is nice and all, but I think it is safe to say that it is not everyone’s favorite topic and maybe it’s not the best genre to use to start off the year? Just my opinion. Anyway, back to my first day with the 11th graders. I said,

“Now, I know with Mr. John you guys did a lot of poetry…”

Cue their groans and faces of despair.

“And I just want to say…”

Cue their looks of anticipation, hope, and excitement.

“...I don’t really like poetry.”

Cue the BIGGEST eruption of applause, noise, laughter, cheering, hugs, high fives, thanking God, standing up, and genuinely pure joy. Equal to what might happen if Honduras won the World Cup. Seriously, ya’ll. Well…maybe not THAT huge. But it was close. Abby later told me that she heard this huge cacophony in her classroom next door. It was hilarious. Especially because we knew these kids didn’t like poetry and John was so in his own poetry world he was blind to the fact that his kids were suffering. Ahh too funny.

As I predicted, the boys in this class are quite entertaining. More than anything it is when they are asking me questions. First, they usually say “HUUHHH?” Not just “Huh?” But a very enthusiastic and vocal “HUUUHH??” Then they’ll be asking me how to say something. For example, the other day we were outside, writing and describing an observation of the rainy day…

Francisco & Franklin: (be sure to do a Honduran accent) “Em Miiiss…how do you call da word, like da water…right here, in da ground…”
Me: “The water…like on the floor here…spilled? Like, you spill water? (as I make hand gestures.)
Francisco & Franklin: “Yeahhhh…yeahhhh….” (as they nod their head and smile)
Me: “Or…there are the little pools of water—“
Francisco & Franklin: “YEAAAHHHH YEAHHHH!! That’s ITT! THAT’S IT!”

Cue my laughter…which ignites their laughter, making it hard for me to spit out P-U-D-D-L-E.

Francisco, Jossue, and Franklin...lovable trouble makers. Don't they just look like they are up to no good??

I suppose it is difficult to express through writing. You really need to see these kids in person. The first day of class, I told them that I have one main rule- Respect. I expect you to respect your fellow classmates, respect me, and I will respect you as well. Expect Respect. (Yeah Michigan!) So, now whenever the class is talking and I say, “Okay, quiet down…excuse me…please be quiet…” there is one kid, Ricardo, who, every time, speaks up and says, “Hey! Respect.” He gets the kids attention and says- “HEY. Respect.” “Respect,” “Respect, Miss, Respect.” It cracks me up. EVERY SINGLE TIME. “Hey. Respect.” It’s so great. I told him to keep it going throughout the whole year. “Respect.”

They definitely have personality, that’s for sure. Not lacking in this area AT ALL. I wish I could just video tape an entire class. Bill Cosby was not lying when he said that kids say the darndest things. They really do, especially when they are Honduran bilingual 5th, 9th, 10th, and 11th graders talking to their gringa teacher.

“Respect.”

Ven a America!

Another ad for your viewing pleasure.

COME TO AMERICA AND STAY FOREVER

WE ARE WAITING FOR YOU!

Sorry kids, hate to break it to you, but NO ONE is waiting for you. It's as if there is someone at the Miami airport waiting with a sign, "WELCOME TO AMERICA!" who immediately takes your luggage pops it into a limo, takes you to your cookie cutter suburban home, and off you go on your new life.

Oh the allure of the American Dream...

The Other Mother Teresa

The first time we went to La Madre Teresa we were taken there by our Honduran friend, Cid, and our English friend, Chris. I’m not sure if I have introduced Chris yet, so please allow me to do so. Chris is a former teacher at HEM school who has lived in Honduras for about 2 years. Originally from Britain, Chris is loads of fun and a great person to know as we are figuring out our place here in Santa Rosa. He often just stops by, entertains us for an hour or two, and then goes on his merry way. A fabulous partner in crime for the night scene of Santa Rosa, he’s always up for a good time.

Chris and Cid hijacking my camera.

When Cid and Chris first told us about La Madre, we were quite intrigued, especially when they told Abby and me that there was no way in hell that we should ever go there alone. Well, after being there, I’m sure we’d be okay. We’d be attacked by Honduran men, nothing new, and wouldn’t have anywhere to go to the bathroom…but other than that, La Madre Teresa would have our back. That said, I really would never go there by myself, just with Abby, or without a guy—or three. La Madre is this shady little out of the way bar that you can only get to by taxi and after passing old wear houses and factories, down this completely deserted dirt road. Come to think of it, I have only gone there at night so I really do not even know what surrounds this tiny little shack. I think that is probably a good thing.

Abby and me all smiles, out saying goodbye to John.

A one room bar with about 6 tables and a few bar stools, painted a vibrant green color with baby cockroaches being a common sight, crawling the floors and some of the tables. As much as I hate cockroaches (and I HATE cockroaches) these just add to the atmosphere that is nowhere but La Madre. Serving your typical beers to your typical drunks, this little Honduran bar is not much different than an out of the way dive bar in the States. It has its regular customers who gawk at the out of place Americans, it’s seen-better-days-but-still-has-a-sense-of-humor owner and bartendress (la madre), and of course, a signature drink. La preparada.

A mix of gurro (Honduran’s version of moon shine), something, something, something else, lemonade, and sugar. I’m never one to pay much attention…I just know if it’s good or not. This my friends, is GOOD. And STRONG. There is certainly no way I need more than one of these babies in one night.

This picture was taken to show the fabulous juxtaposition of Jesus and the borderline pornographic calendar girl.

A little shot of La Madre herself in her element.

In Santa Rosa, you have your Americanized Applebee’s type bar, your working-class karaoke bar, your higher class Hotel bar, and then you have La Madre. I wouldn’t go there every day, but an adventure to La Madre has, thus far, never left me disappointed. I’ll be sure to learn how to make a preparada before I leave Honduras and then, of course, teach you all in the ways of La Madre.

Here's to Disease and Colonialism!

Who doesn’t love to celebrate disease and pillaging native civilizations? The U.S. doesn’t celebrate Columbus Day as openly as they used to, I think it stopped being a school holiday for me in about 5th grade. Despite the U.S.’s failing to recognize the great achievements of Christopher Columbus and his men, the wondrous killing of native tribes, raping of women, bringing in white man diseases, and discovering that the world is not in fact flat, Honduras still commemorates it in full force. As Abby said, “If there is anyone who shouldn’t be celebrating it, it should be Central Americans. He pillaged and killed your people first!” Valid point my friend. However, we both agreed, “When in Rome…”

Dia de la Raza is a very big day on the campus of HEM School and its celebration was somewhat reminiscent of high school homecoming with the addition of lots and lots of really good food. Needless to say, completely up my alley. Each class competes in decorating either a “champa,” for the older students, or a little area outside their classrooms, for the primary grades. AKA Decorating a homecoming float. A champa is a little hut/food stand, which must be decorated using traditional materials.

The finished champas, unfortunately you can't really see 10th grade's in this picture. It's a beaut.

The day before we began decorating, my 10th grade classroom had tons of banana leaves, sticks of bamboo, and palm leaves just chillin there, all collected from the students’ backyards. Banana trees in your backyard? No big. We began decorating on Thursday and as their guide teacher I was obligated to help the 10th graders. Wasn’t much of an obligation as I was continuing to decorate after all of them were pretty much done. Nerd alert. I must say, we made an absolutely STELLAR champa. David, one of my students said I should be an art teacher, it was that good. Flattery will get you everywhere.

Me posing with the 10th grade girls. They are great girls...so glad I get to be their guide teacher...even if they are too cool to smile in this picture.

Some further parallels to high school homecoming are the other events that happened throughout the day. First of all, the students dress up in ropa tradicional, traditional Honduran clothing. AKA Spirit dress up days. Now, it is not like “Pajama Day,” or “Red & Blue Day.” More like, the girls wear these pretty dresses and the boys wear cowboy jeans and plaid shirts, it’s quite precious. Not to mention, there is a prize for the best costume. In addition, a few of the primary grades have mini performances, AKA Skit! “Dad, I have skit today.” Ah the memories. Once again, however, instead of performing “funny” parodies of Charlie’s Angels, they present little skits, dances, and songs relating to Honduran culture…or so I think, I couldn’t really hear anything they were saying. Wah wah Miss Sarah.

The 1st graders performing a traditional dance. Adorable. Or as we say in Spanish, Adorable.

My favorites- the fifth graders. Oh the are just too wonderful for words. I think I am going to video record them one day in class. The crack me up everday and make me feel oh so loved.

Now, the best part about Dia de la Raza is what actually happens inside those champas that I described above. FOOD. Food, food, and more food. The 7th-11th grades all sell different, traditional Honduran foods in their champas, all day long to students, teachers, and parents. Such a delicious learning experience, I highly recommend it.

The 10th graders selling tamales, tojadas de carne, and Copan Dry in their champa

I tried most everything,…tajadas con carne, fried plantains, tamales, ticucos, yuka, horchata, copan dry, limonada in a bag, pastelitos, pupusas… but there was so much, I still left some dishes untouched. My favorites where pastelitos and pupusas. Pastelitos are what many of us would think of as “empandas,” little fried pockets of yummy goodness. Pupusas are these small fried tortillas made with meat. I can’t really describe them but they are basically to die for. The best part is that one of our fellow teachers, Geovany, owns a pupuseria literally half a block from our house. Will I be frequenting there often? To quote Sarah Palin, “you betcha.”

Pastelitos...unfortunately I didn't take pictures of the food. Why? I don't know...but google images does a fine job.

Another google image- Pupusas. My favorite! And I love that there are places that ONLY sell these, and nothing else.

We were really lucky with the weather. It was certainly a gorgeous day to just sit and eat, which is exactly what I did. Sat, ate, walked around, ate, talked to some students, ate, met some parents, ate, and ate and ate. Best day of school to date. (Hey that rhymed!) Oh, and in case you were wondering, 10th grade TOTALLY won the Champa competition. She’s still got it!

And Let's Just Raffle Off Citizenship While We're At It

We all know those annoying advertisements on website side bars. They tell you how to lose weight, convince you that you need to look up your former high school classmate (class of 1982, yeaaah!), insist that you click here! click here! click here!, and let's not forget those damn cartoon monkeys clapping their stupid symbols.

Now that I am out of the U.S., and my IP address es de Honduras, I am finding some different types of pop up and side bar scam ads. The other day, while browsing my good friend, the fbook, right next to my recently updated friends list, I noticed this little ad. Instead of promoting collegetees.com or encouraging me to become a secret shopper...click here! I am now being bombarded with ads offering me a chance to win a Green Card.

On the left here, you'll see what I'm talking about. Let me translate this for you...'cause I speak Spanish, and I can do that. (pssh...riiight.) It says: "Answer to get the chance to win a Green Card...Who is the president of the United States?" Apparently if you click on good 'ol George Dubyah there, you could win a U.S. Green Card! If I wasn't already a citizen, I'd be ALL over this. Holllerrrr!

Not Exactly "Little Orphan Annie"

Back packers are their own subculture and the bond between these types of travelers is so cool. The teachers before us mentioned that we should sign up for this website called couchsurfing.com. It is this awesome networking site that connects people from all over, traveling the world, and looking for places to stay and people to meet. This weekend we had our first official couch surfers…though the backpacking Brits were basically the same thing. Canadians, Ryan and Rebecca are a recently married couple traveling Central and South America for a year. We’ve shown them Santa Rosa a bit and they are just bunking up in one of our spare bedrooms. They’ve done a couple of cool things while in Santa Rosa, but I think today will definitely stick in their memories for a long time.

I have had several friends tell me what it was like to go to a third world country and work with children. They all said the same thing- the kids just want to hold your hand, give you hugs, play and cuddle with you. Today, I got my own taste of this. The Canadians, Abby, and I ventured to the local girls orphanage today to volunteer and play with the girls. The moment we walked in the girls flocked to us. As we were walking to the “head nun’s” office, I looked back and Ryan and Rebecca, both who don’t know any Spanish, had a train of girls all trying to hold their hands talking to them about who knows what. It was the sweetest image. Ah, my heart was about to break it was so precious.

While there, along with the little girls, we met Dani, a recent college grad from Kansas volunteering down here for a year. She lives at the orphanage and works for this organization that gets Americans to sponsor children all around the world…ala Sally Struthers commercials, where you get the picture of the child, etc etc, you know the drill. But this is an actual organization that actually does that! They aren’t scams! At least this one isn’t. She goes into these very rural areas to meet the children that have applied to be sponsored, take pictures of them, and make sure their situation is legitimate.

Side note: I really want to go on one of these trips with her to the rural areas. I am loving Santa Rosa, but as I wrote in my Michigan Independent article, I have everything I need here and a lot of what I see (especially at school) is the privileged class. I am so happy to live in a decent sized city, but it would be nice to see el campo and get an understanding for what the rest of Honduras is actually like.

Dani is really cool, and she was so excited to meet some other Americans. She has only been here 2 weeks and so far hasn’t gone out much. As she put it, “I can’t really ask the sisters if they want to go out for a beer.” I imagine so. She is also acting as somewhat of a psychologist for the girls. Apparently because she studied psychology, she’s a psychologist…or so say the Hondurans. But really she is someone that the girls can talk to about their problems, feelings, etc. Interestingly enough, a lot of these girls actually have families who either can’t take care of them or don’t want them. Some of their stories sound like they are pretty intense. But onto the girls…

They are amazing! Wow, I spent an afternoon with them and am already a bit attached. They just LOVE you. No matter what, they love you and everything you say, do, etc. They hug you, hold your hand and sit on your lap every chance they get. We sang, we danced, and most importantly- had some good ‘ol fun. There are about 40 girls who live there from ages 1-18 however most of the ones we were with were around 8, 9, or 10. The older girls have to warm up to you first, so they were a little standoffish. But the younger ones…wow…what bundles of joy. It is the perfect remedy to a bad day. I don’t think I stopped smiling the whole time. About half way through our visit we learned that the girls love High School Musical. Even the orphans love that stupid movie! (And by stupid I mean fabulous, clearly.) Of course, they know a dance to it, and of course they showed us. It was, in a word, adorable. They kept wanting me to sing with them (because, let’s be honest, I know all the words) and because all of the songs are in English, they know a lot of the lyrics but don’t necessarily understand the meanings. The cutest was this one little girl who kept singing “Is da star asompink neeew!” which means…“It’s the start, of something new” from the opening duet between wildcat basketball star, Troy, played by Zac Efron and new, cute, brainy girl, Gabriella played by Vanessa (Baby-V) Hudgens.

Don’t judge. Just love.

Actually, it’s good for my Spanish to go there because the girls are wonderful little teachers. We probably tried to leave 3 times and kept getting sucked back. Abby and I are going to try and go there every Sunday and volunteer. It’s going to be really heart breaking at times, but hopefully more than anything it’ll be really fun.

I am not sure if it is possible for me to go an entire post without mentioning High School Musical or Hannah Montana. For this, I apologize…sort of…not really. Not sure which is better, Hannah Montana or Celine Dion. Might have to get the Brent Movitz ruling on this one.

Muchos besos,
Sarah

Drama Fit for a Telenovela

This week has been a roller coaster of events and emotions, and I’m only a secondary character in the whole story; I can’t imagine how John must be feeling.

For any of you that I have talked to outside of my blog, you know that this past week John has been acting…to put it nicely, very standoffish. Not to mention the plate saga. I won’t go into details, but let’s just say Abby and I were pretty annoyed and frustrated with his attitude….aka venting to each other every hour or so.

Before I continue, let me introduce Mr. Bob. An American turned Honduran, he moved her 15 years ago, site unseen, with his wife and family. He’s in his late 40’s, early 50’s and is a missionary worker down here. Apparently things in the missionary world are a little slow so he took up a post at HEM school and is now in his second year. We collectively love Mr. Bob and I have decided that he is our Papa Bear.

I was talking to Papa Bear on Wednesday afternoon and somewhere in conversation he said something about “Oh, well John won’t be here then, huh?” talking about taking this mountain hike in March. Come again? “Oh, he didn’t tell you…?” Oh snap- tell me what?? Come to find out, John got a call a few days ago saying that his mom has 6 months to live. Oh. My. God. That sure as hell puts washing dishes into perspective. We knew his mom was sick, but I had no clue that this had happened. Bob said that he had already told the administration and that he was going to be leaving in December.

Emotion 1: I felt so horrible for him. I can’t even imagine, a. your mom dying, b. only have 6 months left, and c. being miles away from home throughout the whole thing. Honestly, I don’t know why he wanted to stay until December. I’d be on the first plane home.

Emotion 2: I ranted and raved about these stupid dishes and his rude attitude this past week to numerous friends and family. Now who feels like the jerk? I mean, there is no way I could have known, but still. I’m sure us being in his face about cleaning up was the last thing he needed or who knows if he was even processing any of it. His mind was understandably elsewhere.

Emotion 3: Curiosity…are we going to get a new teacher? Will it just be Abby and me in this big house? What about his classes? Maybe I won’t have to teach 4th grade second semester and will take on 11th….?!?!? Ha.

I don’t know if Mr. Bob said anything to John about telling us, but that afternoon he mentioned it to Abby and apologized for “acting weird” lately. Of course she told me and then I told him how sorry I was, etc, etc. What a blow, man. Though I think he was sort of mentally preparing for this a bit, not that it makes it any better.

Today, as I was finishing up my 5th grade spelling class, continuing a spelling bee that had gone over, past the bell, because the kids begged me to finish it as opposed to letting them go home. Um, hello?! Remember when I said they were the love of my life? I was not lying. Miss Julie, the administrator in charge of the North American teachers was standing outside and approached me as I left. She insisted that we sit down and talk for a moment. I was scared she was going to reprimand me for keeping the kids after for 5 minutes. And as we were taking our seats every class was racing through my head…what could I be in trouble for? She was so serious looking. Then as she spoke, it began to dawn on me what she was going to say.

She spoke about John’s situation and told me that as of 20 minutes ago, he was now going to leave HEM school ahorita, not in December as originally planned. In Julie’s words he was not doing it for them or for him, but “for the students.” Come to find out from John, they basically forced him to leave. It has been said before and I will say it again, the communication skills of Hondurans, or perhaps just the HEM School administration is not too great. You don’t have to be an organizational studies major to recognize this fact….though it does help. J Miss Julie continued to say “Now, we have asked Claudia, and now we are going to ask you, to leave behind your younger grades and move to teach the secondary grades.”

You know in the movies when people are so excited that something has happened, but they have to act calm, collected, and at the same time seem a bit broken up about it all? This was one of those situations. Let’s recall the title I gave my fourth graders last blog post. “Bane of my existence” ring a bell anyone? I agreed to give up my fourth and sixth grade classes (aw, que triste) and move to the 11th graders. Inside I was thinking YES!!!!!!!!!!!!! Outside I said, “Yes, I will. Whatever is best for the students.” I did ask her however that if she could keep me in 5th grade Spelling I would be ever so grateful. She said she would try. I would almost rather stay with my 3 most difficult classes of 4th and 6th graders if that meant I got to stay with the 5th graders for one class. Honestly, they make me so happy. I will go into more detail later, though hopefully not as a final tribute when I find out I don’t get to teach them anymore.

So while I get this great news, John basically just got laid off, his mom is dying, and he’s leaving Honduras much sooner than expected. The taxi ride home we were all just animated with all kinds of emotions. John said that he was relieved yet at the same time felt like he had just gotten a slap in the face. For me, I was trying to figure out what had just happened. Something so exciting but because of something so horrible. I really don’t know how to feel, just a total mix of emotions right now.

Side note: The administration isn’t even letting him say goodbye. I asked Miss Julie if he had told his students and she said no because they had just now broke the news to him. To that I said, “Oh, so he’s going to come on Monday for a last day and say goodbye?” “No, no, I don’t think so.” Not like, oh I don’t know if he wants to do that, it was more matter of fact. So weird. John said they made it pretty clear that today was his last day. Period. Ah! WTF? They don't really get the idea of a teacher actually having compassion and a liking of their students. It's the culture I suppose, but I still don't totally get it. He said that he is going to write all of the 11th graders an individual note to say goodbye, which will be nice.

After we got home, John called good ol Spirit Air and was able to change his December flight to a week from tomorrow for only $75. So that’s that. He’s leaving, we’re staying. I almost feel like I am taking some easy way out, even though I don’t have a choice in the matter. Yeah, 4th grade was tough and pretty much all I did was vent about them. And if someone told me I could get out of teaching those classes, I’d have said sign me up! But, at the same time, it was a challenge and I was looking forward to feeling that much more accomplished after a year. It will definitely save me a lot of grief but I still feel weird about this “easy break” I’m getting. I’m sure the 11th graders won’t be all marshmallows and gumdrops but I can guarantee that they will be a hell of a lot more fun than the 4th graders.

The 11th grade boys though, they are going to be a hoot and a half.

Yesterday one of the 11th grade boys was talking to Claudia while I was close by talking to another student. She later told me that he asked her for my phone number.

“Why?”
“Just so I can call her up, ya know, see how she’s doing.”
“Haha…No!”

You see, I am used to the 10th grade boys who are lesser in number and while they are loveable they are definitely not as “charming” shall we say. As of yet, I have hardly had any interaction with the 11th graders but I just know being their teacher will be amusing to say the least…especially the boys. Do any of you Justin folk remember the history teacher, Miss. Wright? She was probably the youngest teacher in my high school and all of the boys flirted shamelessly with her. Nothing crossing any lines of student/teacher relationship or anything, but you know how high school boys can be. Case in point: One day I was walking into the 10th grade classroom but there were several students blocking the entrance. One of the 11th grade boys saw this and immediately told everyone in Spanish to get out of my way, physically shooed everyone away, and presented the entrance to me like Mr. Jeeves. I don’t even know this kid’s name. I just gave a “Why Thank you!” and walked on in. Needless to say, teaching them will be extremely comical and entertaining.

Geesh…what crazy week. With the multiple nights of 5 or less hours of sleep and with more drama than a Latino telenovela, I am, in a word, pooped. TGIF was most definitely invented for teachers.

Abrazos y besos,
Smills

P.S. Little shout to Momma on her birthday!!! Love you Mom!