Teaching

So I thought I should talk a little about teaching and the school because that is the main chunk of my time during the day. I have been officially teaching for 5 class. The school is run by Proyecto MAMA which is an origination based here in Honduras that is focused on helping young mothers. They provide a lot help in the form of education because private schools are better but expensive and public school aren’t known for quality, plus the teachers sometimes strike because of political stuff that I don’t know well enough to try to explain. But I’ve heard stories of kids having teachers at school only a couple times a month. In short education is a good strategy for Proyecto MAMA to provide aid. They have scholarship programs that sponsors kids to go to private school as well as offers tutoring classes, library facilities, and other classes at low cost (English, Computers). The computer classes I teach are about $4.50 total, $1.50 to sign up and about $1.00 per month for each of the 3 month course (1 trimester).

My first week here I was told was to prep for classes that start next week. That’s all they told me. I lucked out because I actually have an intern, give it a sec to let the irony soak in. She is going to graduate (the equivalent of) high school and she needs to do an internship type thing. She was a lot of help pointing me in right direction to start because she has been involved with the facility in other ways before. I had to come up with a schedule for the classes I was going to teach, so I whipped up an Excel spreadsheet to rough out a weekly schedule. I felt like I was throwing darts at a wall. After putting classes on Thursdays, I was told that Thursdays were reserved for kids who come for tutoring. My classes are open to the public but the kids who come for tutoring get to come in and play educational games on Thursdays. So after a few more stumbles through the process I finally had a schedule and so far I had only 6 students all signed up for beginning classes. I’m supposed to offer a variety of levels of difficulty. That didn’t seem so bad; I was looking at 2 classes of the same level one in the morning one in the afternoon.  That meant 1 set of one hour lesson plans, in Spanish, to give twice on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Well since then I (as of today) now have 17 students, 3 classes of beginners one class is two 8 year old girls, 2 intermediate classes and an advanced class. Which, equates to 4 sets of lesson plans and being tired at the end of the day. I have a wide range of ages of students, from about 8 years to about 50 years.

I think I’m getting past the initial shock of the amount of work that this will actually be and starting to get some semblance of a rhythm. Teaching in Spanish is definitely getting easier as the classes go by, probably a little because of my improving Spanish but probably mostly them getting better at understanding broken Spanish. Sometimes when I teach I feel like 100% of my Spanish grammar is incorrect. But even so it’s still pretty neat to people’s eyes light up a bit, and you can tell without asking that they just comprehended the concept.

I feel like I have some big shoes to fill. The last teacher was a YAMEN volunteer from Columbia, so he was fluent in Spanish. The person before him was a guy from the States who came with a similar language barrier issue as mine but was here for 3 years. So he is remembered as being well versed in Spanish. Despite this, people are very patient with me and are understanding when I ask them to please slow down their lightning fast speech.

Also some random facts about my time here that you may or may not know:
I’ve already gone through one cell phone, broke it playing Ninja. (If you don’t know what Ninja is talk to your local junior high or high school student)
I’ve been to the doctor once already, some kind of stomach bug that I had for a week-ish, think I’m about done with it.
And
I haven’t shaved in about 3 weeks, it might be time.

Thanks for reading.
If you have questions shoot me an email.

Pictures

The house I'll be living in for a while.

I really hate how pictures clutter a blog post. That being said here's a whole post full of them. Also I tend to post more pictures on facebook if you're interested.

My room

My Honduran family, my sister Bessy (left), my father Jesus (center), and my mother Consuelo (right)

The street that runs in front of the house. The 2 story building is my church.

The same street but looking away from the church.

This is where I do my teaching.

Another view of the computer lab.

More information coming soon but so far lesson planning is keeping me pretty busy. Thanks for reading.

Church and Stuff

The Proyecto MAMA school where I work is connected to the local Mennonite church here in 6 de Mayo (the part of San Pedro Sula that I live). I live about 10 houses away, so it’s a short safe walk down the dirt road to work or church. The church is small-ish congregation but it’s hard to judge the actual size because there are multiple services per week and I don’t think everyone goes to all of them. I’m pretty sure there is something happening at the church about every night whether it is a bible study, youth group, or service. The age limit on  the youth group is a lot more flexible than the way I’ve perceived youth group back home. There are people in the group from high school aged through early thirties, including people with kids. It’s just interesting to think about the contrast with youth in my home church. This past summer I was a youth sponsor for the youth convention in Pittsburgh, meaning I was an adult in charge of the kids. Now I step into the youth group here and I’m not even close to being the oldest. 

The church building is a rectangular concrete structure. It’s two stories tall which is taller than most all the surrounding structures. The second story is new and functional but not finished with makeshift lighting and almost complete stairs (have to be careful going up there). The first story is the sanctuary of the church. The floor is a smooth concrete and the back half of the church is left open, free of chairs or benches. Staring about half way into the room there is a section of plastic lawn chairs in the middle with wooden benches across the aisle on either side. In the front there are steps that span the width of the room up to raised stage both are set with white tiles. On the stage there is a sound board where a tangle of cords goes out to speakers, mics, and a keyboard. Also there are a variety of percussion instruments including a full drum set, tambourines, and turtle shell. There are sheets that hang on the wall at the front of the sanctuary hiding a mural  behind them.

The other day the service started with my host parents and I walking into the room at the time when the service was to start and the only person there was the pastor kneeling on the stage steps praying. Many people kneel at the steps to pray either silently or aloud or in song. Gradually people started filtering in and either found a seat or went to pray at the front. Some people’s prayer turned into song but each was singing something different. Then one of the songs slowly became popular and people began singing in a cappella unison. The keyboardist arrived, finished his praying and setting up the keyboard, and now is working on figuring out what key people are singing in. Soon after the drummer sat down in his stool and laid down a rhythm. They sang a string of praise songs that were loud enough that I probably wouldn’t have been able to understand even if they were in English. This experience illustrates the difference in the perception of time between home and here. I’m finding that lots of “starting times” are often more like suggestions. It was something I was expecting to encounter but it still feels weird because of the difference of cultural norms. Last Monday evening was a surprise birthday party for the pastor. The invitation said 7:00 pm and we didn’t leave the house until 7:15… I can’t imagine casually arriving late to a surprise party in the States. It turned out to be fine and were some of the first to arrive. Plus the pastor didn’t arrive for another hour, but soon after they had him blindfolded and swinging at a piñata.

I also have been fighting some kind of stomach bug for the past few days and have not had much of an appetite. I think I’m starting to swing back but it’s been a tough one to shake. I’m Ready to be done with it though.

New Home

I just got back from Tegucigalpa where we had the MCC Honduras team meeting. There are 11 of us working here and we´re all from the US or Canada. So we all speak English and mostly spoke English while we were together. It was really nice to be able to get my point across easily and be able to converse on a higher level than I´m able to do in Spanish. We stayed at a retreat center that MCC has worked with located in the mountains above Tegucigalpa. It was nice to get some cooler weather and out of the heat and humidity that I´m going to be dealing with daily here in San Pedro Sula. While we were together we visited some local partners of MCC in Tegucigalpa, had team meetings, and also hiked in La Tirgra (a national forest). The team is a fun group of people and I´m looking forward to working with them.

            
Yesterday I moved into my new house for the year, visited the office I´ll be working at, plus met some of the church youth. It was a whirlwind of a day and I´m still adjusting. The house I´m living in is a simple house. I have my own room with a big bed, dresser/closet, and a window that has no screen to prevent mosquitoes or other bugs from coming in. The bathroom next to my room has a shorter door and I have to remember to duck when I pass. Also, I´ll be taking bucket showers this year. The family is great, very friendly and welcoming. I live with a mother, father, and sister. There are 2 more children that are my age or older but they do not live at home. They also have many pets: two dogs, a parrot, and a pregnant cat that will probably have kittens sometime very soon. The house is about a half block from the Proyecto M.A.M.A. office which is connected to the Mennonite church.

            
The place where I work is a cement room with 11 computers (10 on mobile desks for students to use). I have air conditioning which is nice because it gets pretty hot and humid during the day. I´ll be teaching up to 4 levels of difficulty to students, if more kids sign up. So far there are only 6 students enrolled in the beginner’s class, but the previous schedule has 20 students enrolled with people in each of the 4 levels. Classes don´t start until next Tuesday, and it´s a little nerve wracking that I´m supposed to teach in Spanish in a week. I feel like I need to do lots of study and prep work before then.

            
Last night my host sister brought me to the youth group here at the Mennonite church. There were about 15-ish youth there. It was a good atmosphere, they liked joking around with each other but you could tell it was all in fun. They took turns introducing themselves and one of the youth mustered up an English welcome and everyone was impressed when I said that I understood him. The group then tried to convince the pastor to try English also but he would not be persuaded. Then I introduced myself and I jokingly asked if they wanted English or Spanish, they laughed and not surprisingly they chose Spanish. They´re pretty forgiving about my poor Spanish and seem like an entertaining group to get to know and be around.

            
My Spanish is improving daily and time it takes for me to hear something and understand it is getting quicker and quicker. My Vocabulary is still very limited and slows me down. It looks like this year could keep me 
plenty busy, for sure until I can speak more naturally.


Now I need to figure out how to plan a lesson.

Done With School

I'm approaching three weeks of living out of a suitcase and my Spanish has improved. This last Friday was my last Spanish class at the school in Copan. The two weeks there went by fast and was a lot of fun. My host family in Copan was really nice and welcoming. The house is actually down the street from where my family stayed when we where here. The town was pretty much the same as how it was then which was convenient for finding my way around the town.

Some of the highlights of my time in Copan were hiking, seeing the ruins, horse back riding, visiting the bird park, and playing soccer. On the Saturday after a week of classes, Keila and I went on a hike up in the nearby mountains. The school set us up with a guide who took us for a three hour trek across all kinds of landscapes. We went across bridges, through agriculture, over/under many barb wire fences, cut through pastures, up slopes, and made a stop at an indigenous village. The following day we went to the ancient Mayan ruins within walking distance of the town. These ruins are famous for being the most informative of the Mayan culture. The park itself is just the ceremonial areas a lot of the surrounding area has piles of ruins waiting to be excavated. The Mayan story is fascinating they built some really cool structures. The school also organized a horseback riding trip up into a different part of the mountains. This was my second time ever ridding a horse with the first time also being in Honduras. So it looks like a tradition starting. the bird park was really cool as well. They have many exotic birds and some that will mimic you. But the best part was the area where they pulled them out of the cages and let you hold them. The guy who was getting the birds out gave me a Scarlet Macaw to hold and before I knew it I had one on each arm and one on my shoulder. It made for a good picture.

I also got to play soccer once while I was in Copan. Several people knew that I liked to play soccer and they all said that they were going to let me know when a game was going to happen. I didn't hear of anything and then I told Enrique (Runs the language school) that I like to play and he said he and his friends were going to play today and to meet him at the school at 5:30. I walked down to the school and as I stepped in the door at 5:30, it started to pour. Unfortunately that was enough to cancel the soccer game and Enrique told me he'd let me know the next time. There ended up not being a next time but on Thursday evening I decided to go check out the field anyway. I found some kids playing a game already and went down to watch. After a while I was asked if I wanted to join in and I jumped at the chance. It was a lot of fun and they asked me to come back the next night. Unfortunately I was leaving to come back to San Pedro Sula before then but it would have been fun to play again.

Since then I've come back and met the MCC Honduras reps, Andres and Amy Zorrilla. And then came out to the finca which is a farm/retreat center, about an hour outside of San Pedro, run by MAMA. Keila, Megan (connecting persons MCCer), and I are hanging out here for a few days. There are many ripe oranges and grapefruits that I've been devouring. And today we went to a nearby lake and went sailing and swimming all afternoon. On Tuesday we'll go to Tegucigalpa for MCC Honduras team meetings.