Karaoke in Honduras? THANK GOD!

Friday night I experienced my real first night out in Honduras. We have named Cid our official nightlife guide of Santa Rosa. He started off by taking us to this bar inside Hotel Elvir, probably the nicest hotel in Santa Rosa. It was situated on the roof of the hotel hosting a great view of the city. Somewhere between beers number one and two Cid taught me how to dance like the Hondurans do. Little did he know that yo bailo como es mi trabajo. So, needless to say we had fun. BTW, I have no idea if that is a real saying in Spanish…if not, just wait, it’ll catch on. We then went to this bar called “Suds” where there was a band playing, songs in both Spanish and English. One thing I have noticed is that it’s not uncommon to hear American songs on the radio here. In fact, when I got to Honduras and was waiting in line at customs the first song I heard was “Anything Goes.” How’s that for a musical theatre nerd in Honduras?

"Learning" how to dance at Hotel Elvir

Suds was pretty cool, not too different than a sit down bar in the U.S. I’d say. As the night wore on we found ourselves at- wait for it- A KARAOKE BAR. For any of you who know me (which is all of you) you know what a big deal this is. I live for Wednesday night karaoke at the Heidelberg in Ann Arbor and there are probably at least 100 photos on facebook that could verify this fact if you are doubting exactly how much I love karaoke. My first night out in Santa Rosa and I sing karaoke. Meant to be if you ask me. At this bar we met some Peace Corps kids as well as one of the former teachers at HEM school, Chris from England. Like obnoxious Americans, we sang in English, and not just English, but “A Whole New World” from Aladdin. I felt less obnoxious however when the Peace Corps crew starting singing “Can You Feel the Love Tonight.” But, the show stopping number was “Gangster’s Paradise” by the one and only Coolio. Oh yeah, it happened. One of the Peace Corps guys picked it, but the best part was that Abby just spit out those lyrics like nobody’s business. We later learned that in 5th grade she bought her first CD- you guessed it- Coolio. Suffice it to say I did not lie earlier when I said she was way cool…io.

Karaoke, bringing the world together, one song at a time.

On Saturday Abby, John and I went back to that Ten Nepal café. Last time I really enjoyed the fact that it was half indoor, half outdoor. This time however, I forgot to drench myself in insect repellent, which is my usual tradition before leaving, after showering, at bed time, before meals, after meals, after writing my blog, after getting dressed…ya know, whenever. The mosquitoes there definitely loved my blood. But don’t worry; I haven’t missed a malaria pill yet! More than I can say for my typhoid fever pills…oops. (Don’t worry, Grandma- I just missed one that I took soon after.) But the hot chocolate fue tan bueno so that made it almost worth giving up some of my blood and itching all over.

Today was a surprisingly eventful day. I wasn’t even planning on doing anything until John told me about an end-of-the-fair-tight-rope-walking event. As we were walking over to the fair grounds we ran into Cid who came with and clued us in to what was actually going on. It wasn’t tight rope walking at all rather it was “la carerra de cinto.” John misunderstood a bit. Picture this- a cord/rope strung in between two phone pole type columns. On the cord are little key chain ring type things attached to Velcro-ed pieces hanging down. The object is to ride super fast on your horse and stick a pen into one of the rings. It’s pretty impressive if you can do it.

Setting up the rope and the rings...

Los vaqueros waiting around, mentally preparing for their big moment.

Check out this video I took of the race:



This provided about 2 + hours of entertainment because, of course, being in Latin America they started at least an hour after they were scheduled to. But it was okay because we had the best seats in the house. John left early but was replaced by Cid’s friend, Cristina, from Spain who has been here for 3 months working for an NGO. She was so nice to me and really made an effort to talk slowly so I could understand. I really appreciated it. I was planning on going home but then they invited me to lunch and as we know I’m not one to turn down food. I ended up spending the whole day with them, trying to soak up as much Spanish as possible. Cid usually speaks English to us, so it was good for me to just listen to them talk. It’s so hard though. I think I probably understand about 1/4 of what people are saying. And trying to speak is even harder. I just get really flustered. Sin embargo, cuando tomo cerveza es más fácil…hehe. But, I hung out with them for probably 4 hours and attempted to converse as much as possible and was proud of myself for doing so. :-)

Tomorrow we are being picked up by at taxi at 6:40 por la mañana. Oye vey. Everyone please cross your fingers that I find out what I am teaching tomorrow. Call me crazy, but I would REALLY like to know before the first day of school.

Love and miss you all! Oh two more things:
#1) Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper & Trig…not gonna lie, I definitely laughed out loud.
#2) 25 to 23? So depressing.

XOXO!
Smiller

Org. Studies Doesn't Exist in Honduras

I still don’t know what I am teaching. It is kind of becoming a joke between the other English teachers and me that we probably won’t find out until our first day of school. (Ben, remember when I told you I wouldn’t put that past them…?) They have Friday and Monday left to tell us, so we shall see. It is just difficult for me to understand what the heck they were doing all summer. I mean, I know there is a lot of work involved in running a school, but you would think that scheduling might be a top priority? Maybe? Just a little bit? Come on now.

For the past few days we have been picked up at 8:00am, which really means 8:30am or 9:00am, by Triny and she has taken us to school. The first day we went over some rules and regulations for the teachers. Latin America is strange…I guess not strange, because I suppose we are strange to them, but different in that they tend to be, what I like to call “formally inefficient” whereas we are “informally efficient.” For example, we are very concerned with getting things completed on time, having effective schedules of events that are executed like clock work. Here they don’t really understand this concept. To illustrate, today and yesterday we sat in the teachers lounge for literally four or five hours and maybe did a half hour of work, which was copying classroom rules and famous quotes onto big pieces of paper. The rest of the time we hung out and talked. In the States we would never have people sitting idly by doing nothing and getting paid for it! I must say, as an Organizational Studies major this can be quite a hard bandwagon to jump on. The U.S. stresses quality content over quality exterior. We want to be smooth running but don’t care as much about our messy handwriting, whereas a student here will spend hours making his or her homework look immaculate while the answers are all incorrect. The inefficiency could drive a person crazy, but I suppose to them they are being efficient…much more so than most of the schools in the country. Just something I will have to get used to I guess. At least I don’t have to worry about being super on time for things…

The main part of the school. Each grade has its own classroom and the teachers, not the students move around for each period. (Count 'em: NINE periods, 40 minutes each)

Sitting around in the teacher's lounge doing nothing :) On the table you can see my beautifully decorated 'quotes signs' including gems from Einstein, Mother Theresa, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ghandi. Yeah...you know how we do.

One good thing about not having anything to do at school is that we have befriended two English teachers, Sid and Hamlet (yes, like Shakespeare!), brothers from Santa Rosa. They speak perfect English (and Spanish, obvi) and I am so glad we have become friends with them. They help us with our Spanish for one thing, and yesterday Hamlet took us around Santa Rosa helping us shop for cell phones and a wireless router, you know, the essentials of living in a 3rd world country. We also went to this little café where Abby and John had some legit Honduran coffee and I had limonada con soda, which is basically like a frozen lemonade slushy…if that even exists? The café was really cute, half indoor, half outdoor, free wifi! and we saw, count ‘em FOUR GRINGOS there! Once the fourth one came we knew we had to leave because the ratio was getting far too much in our favor. But I really want to go back, and I am definitely going to take any of you who visit me there, so get excited.

John and Abby (house/teachermates) at the Ten Nepal Cafe. See the beautiful courtyard in the background.

Later that night, Hamlet took us to “la feria” or “the fair.” I guess August is their “fair month” so every night there are fireworks and music all around town. We even had a marching band come down our street last night carrying an altar of Santa Rosa de Lima, the original namesake of the city. (I think…I could be remembering this all incorrectly, but just go with it.) The fair was so cool though! A bunch of booths with really really good, greasy food (pulpusas, tacos, empanadas, etc), candies, toys, and other decorations- maracas and piñatas included! Behind the main set up of the fair Hamlet led us to un partido de futbolito that was going on. Basically anywhere there is a mass gathering of people there is a futbol game happening somewhere. I wish I could play, but goodness knows those guys would run circles around me. But! I am a gringa girl, so maybe they’d let me play anyway :). As we were walking home we stumbled upon this stage set up in el centro (downtown) where people were competing for prizes by dancing or singing or whatever. We seemed to have missed most of it, but right as we got there they brought these two little boys on stage who danced impromptu to some sweet Latin beats and OMG was it hilarious. These boys, no older than five or six were dancing these sexy moves and it was so funny slash borderline inappropriate. Fortunately for the little boys they both won the applause vote because I have a feeling if a tie did not occur they would have had redo dance offs all night long.

Me, Hamlet, and Abby at la fería (I just learned how to do accents on a mac!)

Small child dancing bootyliciously.

Right now it is raining mighty hard and I am just chilling in the house. We can’t get our freakin wireless to work, but lucky me I have the cable hook up in my room so I can go on all I want…holllaaaaa. I have the hookup, LITERALLY. Bah, I’m so funny. I’m loving your guys’ comments…keep them coming. It’s nice to know that someone other than my mom is reading this. Not that my momma ain’t cool.

Missing you all, loving you lots. Muchos besos de Honduras!

I'm Here, Parte Dos

We have Internet! Amazing! Entonces, aqu estan mas palabras de mi.

I was offered this teaching position in March and ever since then I have imagined what it was going to be like living in Santa Rosa, especially in my first weeks. It is now day two and I have to say that it’s pretty similar to what I imagined. Going the entire summer not knowing what I would be teaching, grade or subject, I began to realize that this may not be the most organized operation in history. This sort of prepared me to not know a lot about what I was doing here- at least in the beginning. I still don’t know what I am teaching and while I am a little worried, I have begun to adopt a “going with the flow philosophy, because otherwise I’ll just worry myself sick. And as you all know, that is not the Smiller way.

As expected, everyone speaks muy rapido here and I usually cannot understand what they are saying, or can only understand bits and pieces. I trust that this will get better; I can only hope. So far people have been fairly patient with our broken Spanish. Today the school principal, Triny, took us around town a bit. We all opened bank accounts which was an experience for sure. Thankfully Triny was there to translate a bit, because otherwise it would have taken twice the time, probably more. The banks are so crowded with people here and waiting in line is just what you do. When we first walked in I was definitely taken a back. None of that air conditioned, clean feeling you feel when you walk into a bank in the states. It was just crowded with people not to mention men standing on gaurd with rifles. I have already begun to feel my guilt of being from the states and being able to buy whatever I want here. I just whipped out a mil lempira like it was my job. The exchange rate is about 18 to 1 so as you can imagine, a lot of things are quite cheap. Oh, and refried beans come in a bag, not a can. Who knew?! You boil the package in water for 10 minutes and then voila! Beans! Ca-razy.

My fellow teacher John said that its so weird to be the only blonde for miles. At least I’m brunette! Allows me to blend in a little. I think my Spanish might tip them off pretty quick though. :) I am definitely getting many double takes and stares when people see me especially from little kids, because they don’t know any better. They are so curious about us gringos! The kids here are too adorable for words which makes me excited to teach.

My housemates/teachermates are pretty cool. Abby is from Chicago and she graduated from UC Santa Cruz in 2007, so a fellow Midwesterner and NorCal girl in one! John is from D.C. originally but went to college in Texas. They are both better at Spanish than me, but I think more than anything it is a confidence level. I just need to have no fear and make mistakes and just go for it. I’m getting there, slowly but surely.

Yesterday we spent about two hours cleaning the house, mainly the kitchen, finding some new cockaroch friends as we went. Unfortunately for the roaches, they were killed soon after we said “mucho gusto.” Soon the kitchen smelled of bleach and all was well with the world. We then opened a few beers and sat up on our roof top overlooking the city. Does anyone remember in “An American Tale” when Fiviel and the girl mouse sing the duet “Somewhere Out There?” Well, I must say it is quite comforting that when I’m staring at the stars and the sky that it’s possible that you all are staring at that same sky…somewhere, out there. I’m so deep, I know.

My only beef so far with anyone or anything is my neighbor, the rooster. A few days before I left home my mom and I watched the movie “Babe.” Random, I know, but just go with it. As you know, they live on a farm and consequently are awoken every morning by a rooster. I remember distinctly thinking that “Aww…that’d be cool to be awoken every morning by a rooster.” I mean, I just thought that they walked up to the top of the roof at sunrise and crowed for about a minute and then went on their merry way. Well obviously I am a bit of a city girl because that is a complete wives tale. Roosters definitely crow when it is still dark and they definitely crow non stop. I was awoken by a rooster at about 3am I am guessing and the damn thing did not stop crowing the entire morning. Then roosters in the distance began to echo it and all the roosters in Santa Rosa were just having a grand ol time at my expense. Instead of being awoken by drunk college students playing flip cup, I am now awoken by roosters. If that doesn’t say it all then I don’t know what does.

I´m here!

Hola todos!

I don´t have a ton of time, so this is going to be kind of quick. I promise more soon!

Oh boy do I miss you all. Soo... I am in Honduras now. So weird. I am discovering that I suck at spanish. No one speaks English here, not even a single word.I am hoping upon hope that this will improve. I can read it fine, and understand my housemates fine, and get around, ask directions, etc, fine, but its really hard when pèople are talking to me, which who´d have thunk, happens a lot. My housemates are cool, there are only 3 of us in a pretty big house. Once again, I got the big room in the room draw. haha nice! But we all have our own bathroom, so I mean, pretty nice digs considering i´m in a third world country. Its all pretty disorganized and I still dont know what i am teaching but I am learning that this is to be expected i suppose. Just trying to go with the flow. We went and visited the school today which was good. We are going back tomorrow so maybe i will get more info then. When I got to the airport I couldnt find my people and I was almost freaking out, almost going to cry. But I pulled myself together and asked a nice man if i could use his cell phone. Actually I think mine would have worked, but the ring sounds weird here, haha, so i wasnt sure it was working. The people were there they just werent allowed to stand where they thought they could or something. I am feeling okay about everything, I know it will all improve. The city is really cool looking...cobblestone streets and pastel colored buildings, and three feet high sidewalks! I am just thankful to have the company of my english teachers...even though I know its not good to speak engish with them, because i wont improve mine any, its just nice to have that security right now. We are supposed to get internet tomorrow at our house. That was an interesting process...trying to negotiate that in Spanish. I really miss everyone but it is only when i think about it, otherwise, I´m busy exploring and adventuring trying to figure out what the heck is going on most of the time. I love you all and miss you lots. Hopefully we can skype soon because I´d love to hear your guys´ voices and see your lovely faces and be able to say totes and obvi and whatev and have you understand me...hehe.

Love and miss,

Sarah

P.S. I have one enemy in honduras already. A rooster. I have one as a neighbor and it crowed and crowed and crowed ALL NIGHT AND MORNING.

Smiller in the Byline!

Just a quick note: My orientation co-worker, Dana, is one of the editors of The Michigan Independent and she asked me to write a monthly piece about my experience in Honduras for the next school year! The Independent is a progressive newspaper on U of M's campus. It is non partisan and "exists to engage the community in constructive debate and to inspire activism for social change." Super cool opportunity, I'm really excited! Check out their website: www.michiganindependent.com.

The Scoop

Here's the scoop...in about a week and a half I will be leaving the good 'ol U.S. of A. for the Central American country of Honduras. I will be teaching at a bilingual school in Santa Rosa de Copan, Honduras. This little city is in the western mountains of Honduras, near the Guatemalan border. It isn't the Peace Corps or Teach for America (you'd be surprised how often I get asked if this is a TFA thing), rather this school recruits independently, hiring 3-6 native English teachers every year to teach and practice the native English accent with their students. I will be teaching entirely in English, and not ESL. These kids have had English class from a very young age.

The school's name is Hector Emilio Medina (HEM) School and is a private school for grades K-11. Because it is a private school, the students are not the underprivileged third world country kids you're probably picturing in your head. These students are actually from fairly wealthy families in the area. However, I'm sure it will still be very different and I am also told there are plenty of opportunities to volunteer in the community with NGOs, orphanages, and even teach dance and theatre classes at their local Casa de Cultura! For more info and pictures check out the school's website: www.hemschool.org.

I'm very excited to move but at the same time have absolutely no idea what to expect. I'll be living in a house provided by the school with other English speaking teachers in the center of town. I really hope I like the people I'm living with, because I will be spending A LOT of time with them. It's basically like the Real World Honduras- 4 strangers, picked to live in a house together, work together, and have their lives taped. All but the last part.

Throughout my time in Honduras I plan to track all my adventures with this blog. Come visit it frequently! I guarantee witty posts and amusing pictures. They'll be so life like it'll almost be like I'm right there reading along with you!

I am going to miss you all so much. Leaving Ann Arbor was hard enough, I don't know what it's going to be like to leave the entire country for a whole year. Thank you for all your encouragement so far. I feel extremely blessed to be able to fulfill this dream of mine and I could not have done it without the support and guidance from all of you.

hugs and kisses,
Sarah