Merry Christmas!

Wow, I can't believe it's been over a month since I've written anything. Sorry. But, Merry Christmas to everyone. We had a wonderful trip through Copan, Honduras and Antigua, Guatemala. Pictures to come later. Here are a few photos from Christmas Eve and Christmas morning:

Reading our traditional "Night Before Christmas" book to Natalie. Soon after we finished she announced she wanted to sleep on the couch and see Santa.

 The sunrise from our balcony. David was up early, as always on Christmas morning.

 The Christmas morning scene before everyone got up.

 Natalie opening up her stocking.

 Natalie being Santa's helper and bringing Daddy his stocking.

 Santa left "Pampa" a beer. He was excited.

 Giving her big smile to Gigi and Pops for her new towel.

 Hanging her Dora ornament from Auntie Jules on the tree.

 Wearing the bow off her present as a headband.

 David's "big smile" while he shows off his new shirt from his dad.

 Natalie "muggin' it" with her new shirt from Pampa.

Playing with all her toys. She loved everything.

Our Students

Some of you may have heard me talking or writing about how our students speak and write. Generally, it is seen as poor taste to poke fun at English Language Learners and how they speak English, but our students have been learning it since at least kindergarten. One of our co-workers wrote the email below as his weekly reminder about our Ultimate Frisbee game. It is pretty amazing how accurate it is compared to my student's speech. 


Frisbee is a sport that been played for million years about and you should like it. For example, Ultimate Frisbee was new and was invented in california US until the 1960s.  You need frisbee and many friends on order that to play. There are some arguments why should you play frisbee? Frisbee gives the excercise because you have to run fastly and are always out of breathes when they throw the frisbee far but you didn't got it. Frisbee encourages teamwork because you are in a team and teams are important to play together. Frisbee teaches discipline and skill since these are great things so you are not mediocre. Is that this is why my thesis;  Ultimate Frisbee is the sport you need to be playing in Tuesday on 4pm.

ps mr put me a 90.


My favorite is the last line. I hear that all the time. They say put instead of give when talking about grades. They also always ask about what homework I left them (instead of gave them). The thing is, they usually know how to say it correctly if you tell them that's not how we say it in English. Teaching the kids the proper way to say things in English has become my favorite thing about working here. Usually it's grammar, but I also have given mini-lessons on "molest" (to bother in Spanish) and "pedophile" which they thought just meant liked children. 


Sometimes I really have no idea what they are trying to say and sometimes I just want to push them to think about the correct way to say something. I have become quite fond of saying "that's not an English sentence" and "that doesn't make sense in English." 

Halloween

We aren't big on Halloween and we thought about skipping it this year. But, Natalie's school had the kids dress up and have parties, so we went along with it. We were going to dress her up like Dora (the show she's obsessed with) but the shorts were the same price as complete other costumes. Natalie picked out a pink fairy costume (surprise, surprise).

She loved it! She kept asking "tan I put on my alloween tostume?" For trick or treating we gave all our neighbors a handfull of candy and asked them to give her a few pieces when we came by. Here are a few photos:

Mark and Kelsy let her pick which ones she wanted.



 When Ashely answered the door Natalie said "I want candy." The three of us cracked up.

Jenny put on her vampire teeth for Natalie when we came by.

Someday I hope Natalie will learn that she doesn't really like candy. She was excited and wanted to have it, but each time she tried something new she kept giving it back to me and saying "I non't lite it."

Things are going well here. David is excited because since Thanksgiving isn't a thing here everyone is gearing up for Christmas. There are decorations everywhere. He's planned some Christmas movie nights to have the foreign hires over to hang out. Should be fun.

Other than that it's mostly work and hanging out. I found out pretty much all my students are a couple grade levels behind in math (according to these personalized tests that try to find thier level). A handful scored as low as the middle of second grade! It's made for a challenging year but I'm excited that my classes are small enough to be able to differentiate and try to catch some of the kids up while learning new material.

I had what I think was a great observation by my principal last week (I haven't talked to her yet about it, but I thought it went really well). All of my kids seemed to "get" what I wanted them to and they were well behaved. It helped me remember why I go to school everyday even though some days aren't exactly fun.

We're heading to La Ceiba for Thanksgiving weekend. Luke and Cary (friends from David's Concordia program) are teaching at a school there and invited us for the weekend. David's mom will be here too, which is an added bonus. We are greatly looking forward to both. There is also an early Thanksgiving planned at our complex next weekend. We're going to play football (my idea) and then have dinner. Should be good food and good people.



Cold? Really?

So I can't make fun of the locals anymore; I woke up and was cold this morning. We might have to buy a blanket. In my defense I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. I guess I've at least somewhat adjusted to the heat.

"Winter"

Things around here have been pretty boring since my last post. Rainy season, or "winter," has begun. Last Tuesday it rained all night and continued through most of the morning. It was the first day that I wouldn't consider hot since we got here. I wore my short-sleeved knee length dress with sandals and my students wore jeans and sweatshirts. It was funny to me because I wasn't cold at all. I also was able to open the windows in my classroom and use the fans instead of the AC. The kids weren't thrilled with this idea and a few of them asked me to turn it on and looked at me funny when I said they should just take off their sweatshirts.

Rainy season brings all kinds of "fun" flooding issues to the area.  The streets flood badly which decreases the number of lanes and sometimes causes cars to not be able to pass through but most of the time they just slow down and drive through the several inches of water. It also causes a lot of mud slides in the area. The building, which is brand new, that Natalie's classroom is in flooded on Tuesday. We arrived to a couple inches of water covering the entire floor. The teachers just took the kids next door to the gym and waited for it to get cleaned up. They were back in the room by the time school ended.

We were supposed to take a trip to Copan with other people from school, but the school cancelled the trip because of the rain. (New foreign hires as a group are allowed 4 trips using the school's "bus" and driver.) They said the roads wouldn't be safe so we couldn't go. Some people went anyway, taking a public bus, but we decided to play it safe and stay in town.

Natalie's part of the school (the Early Childhood Center or ECC) had their traditional Honduran dance the Friday before last. The outdoor, but covered, gym was a bit flooded so to enter we had to walk around the outside through the grass/mud to a different entrance. Not normally a big deal, but all the kids were wearing white outfits (see photos below) and all the Honduran moms wear wedges or heels and had some trouble since the grass is on a slant. I was happy in my Tevas.

 Ready to head to the gym from my classroom.

 Waiting for the program to begin with one of her classmates. Part of the directions for the outfit were that the girls must wear their hair in braids. The other little girl has yarn woven in as extentions. The other part of the directions (which I completely ignored) were that the girls were to wear make up. After this photo the other girl got bright red lipstick. Natalie got chapstick.

The parents were told to go to the audience section. Natalie dealt with this by crying. Her teachers finally got her to stop by letting her lay down on her backpack.

I ended up missing her dance because I had to go give my bimesteral (quarter) exam that happened to be scheduled for the same time. Her teachers showed me a video that afternoon and it was pretty cute.

Other than that, we've pretty much been going to school and hanging out at our house. I'm enjoying the time with just the three of us. Here are some pictures of our lazy day activities.

 "Helping" daddy with dishes.

 Sleeping on the couch with her my little pony.

 Playing babies with Daddy.

 Sleeping with all her "guys."

 Playing Dora cards. She likes for the animals (Rusty and Popples) to help.

 I'm not sure how this started, but we all thought it was hilarious.

 Daddy has become Natalie's favorite seat.

 She still loves seeds. We haven't found them here though. My parents brought us a stash.

And of course, blocks are still a favorite. We build towers and castles and robots. I couldn't get her to stop eating pretzals for the picture.

Other activities have included eating, playing Rock Band, watching movies, answering Knowledge Bowl questions, Lisa playing Scrabble with a neighbor, David playing Christmas music, grading papers and of course just "playing toys."

I'm never quite sure how to end these things. Hopefully we'll do something entertaining to post about in the near future. 

Sick and tired of being sick

Since I've started this blog I've realized that keeping up with posting is much harder than I had anticipated. Benjamin has been keeping his blog for years and I used to give him a hard time about not posting. Now I realize how hard it is. Sorry, Benj.

Anyway, Natalie caught a bad cold at school and passed it on to me, and eventually David got it a little bit too. Natalie and I spent some days home from school this week, but we seem to be on the upswing.

Since I've been sick, I've missed two of my basketball games (Wed. and Sat.). The last I posted about basketball I had only played one game. It's been swings of highs and lows dealing with different things and the fact that I can only communicate with some of the other players because they speak little English and I speak little Spanish. Margaret, who told me about the league and got me on her team, warned me that there was a lot of drama within the league and I've experienced some of it so far.

A couple of weeks ago we went to a game and one girl in particular, Mildred, kept yelling at me and Margaret for things that we didn't think were our fault. We've realized that here it is normal for people to yell at and blame their teammates for things. The other girls just let it roll off, but we aren't used to it. I was also getting frusterated because I wasn't getting much playing time and I don't think the other women are much better than me.

The next week I went to a game for the first time without Margaret. I contemplated leaving at half time after not having played yet. When I finally went in at the end of the 3rd quarter we were losing to a team we shouldn't have been. I got a rebound (I'm a post, by the way, which I've never played in my life) and got trapped by 3 opposing players. I couldn't get a pass through, so I dribbled out of it and tried to pass it up to a teammate. A defender knocked it out of bounds. Our team called time out and Mildred told me I needed to pass it to the pointgaurd (who by the way shouldn't be playing pointguard because she's not good at it). I lost it and started yelling at her that that was bullshit because the pointguard didn't move to get open and I couldn't get a pass off anyway. It was kinda crazy and everyone was telling me to calm down. I thought I was going to quit.

After talking to Margaret about how I've never quit anything but that it wasn't worth my time if I wasn't enjoying it, I decided to give it another chance. Since the yelling incident, none of the other women have yelled at me. They told Margaret they don't want to because I get "nervous." I have had a lot more fun and enjoyed our three games since then.

The last game I went to we were playing a tough team and I hadn't played at the end of the 3rd quarter. Our team was down by about 5. Some of the girls told the captain I hadn't played yet and told her to put me in. It's hard to explain if you weren't there, but I played good defense on two giant posts after our team switch to man-to-man defense. I also made two baskets and our team ended up coming from behind (at the end of the 1st quarter we were down by 15+) and winning by about 4. It was awesome.

Enough about basketball... we are home this weekend with Monday off for a holiday. A lot of people have gone out of town, but we needed the time to rest. We've had a quiet Saturday and are contemplating inviting people over tomorrow to watch movies or something.

We hope everyone at home is doing well and have been thinking of all of you. We miss you. Oh, and I'm also missing the stormy fall weather at home. Rainy season has started here but it's still warm all the time, it just rains most of the day and night. I want to wear jeans and a sweatshirt and curl up in a blanket, but I would roast to death here.

Until next time... hopefully soon.

It's been awhile...

Someone messaged David and asked how long we've been at the lake, so I guess it's time for an update ;-)

September 15th was Honduras' Independence day, so we had a long weekend. First, at school all the students participated in a "parade." It was more like a march around campus. Here are some pictures of me and Natalie "marching" with her class.

 The lady in the white shirt by Natalie is her favorite teacher, Miss Yule. 

She's the bilingual one in Natalie's classroom.

Natalie did pretty well since I was there. It was quite an experience trying to get a group of 2 year olds to march, play a drum, wear a hat, and stay together. Most of them cried at some point.

After the half day of school, we went to the island of Roatan for a 4 day vacation. It was wonderful and relaxing. We spent most of our time playing on the beach, building sand castles and swimming in the warm, blue Caribbean water.

 Breakfast at our hotel with some of the people we went with.

 View from the restaurant at our hotel.

 Ready for the beach!

 Sunset on "our" beach.

 $12 lobster dinner at Foster's, where we were staying.

 Beach baby.

 "Our" beach. It was mostly just used by the people we knew. We spent some time jumping off the pier on the left side.

 Community pool by "the mansion" where some of the people we traveled with were staying. They hosted about 20 of us for a bar-b-que pool party.

 Natalie and David enjoying the pool.

 Natalie and her friend Latte, one of our coworker's dog.

 She falls asleep in taxis, buses, ferries, and apparently, water taxis (fishing boats).

 AMAZING Thai food lunch. 

 Tuna that David and some other people caught. The restaurant at the hotel cooked it up for us.

 Natalie enjoyed the hammock almost as much as David did.

Baby girl loves to swim with his daddy.

Since then, we've been working a lot as next week is the end of the first quarter. I've been playing on a basketball team twice a week, which has been fun, but different. Much more to be said about that, but it will have to wait until another post. 

For the past week my parents have been here visiting. It's nice to have them around, but I'm sure it's boring while we're at work during the day. There's not much to do in San Pedro. People don't come here to visit, it's just where the international airport is located. People land and leave.

Last weekend we took a trip to Tela, the closest beach for playing. Rainy season is beginning here, so we had to spend some time inside waiting for it to pass. Other than that, we enjoyed our time on the beach and playing in the pools at the neighboring resort.

 I have a picture just like this of me and my grandpa. I love it.

 Papa, Natalie, Nani

Building sand castles. Natalie kept saying her hands were dirty and she needed to wash them off.

Here are a few other pictures my mom took while she was here:

 Presents!!!

 For Natalie and Mommy!

 Natalie's school building. It holds the two classrooms for 2-year-olds.

 "Hollywood" playing on the balcony with Nani.

Showing Nani and Papa how she rides her bike. She can't actually reach the pedals yet, 

but she's practicing steering.

I promise it won't be a month before I write again. Thinking about all of you at home and missing the autumn weather in Portland. When you're tired of the blustery weather, remember it could still be 90 and humid.