What I´ve been up to...

So, I’ve been in site for more than a month now, and in Honduras for almost 4 months.   Time flies! The school year is winding down, and I’m trying to start planning for the school vacation, which encompasses the entire months of December and January. 

In the colegio (7^th-12^th grade), I really wasn’t doing too much in the beginning.  I would go to the school on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and hang out and chat with the teachers.  Peace Corps has told us many times that this kind of work, hanging out and gaining “confianza” (trust) with our communities and counterparts is important also.  But, I was anxious to actually be doing something.  Luckily, Fernando, the P.E. teacher and baseball coach that I work with, noticed I wasn’t doing much and offered to let me lead some activities with his classes.  So, I’ve worked with a bunch of gym classes doing teambuilding activities.  It’s taken lots of creativity because, although I have some experience with these kind of things from working at camp, I have barely any resources to work with.  We’ve done the human knot, working as a team to fit a big group of people in a small space, and a game that involves communication where some of the team members can’t see and others can’t talk.  Normally, at camp, we would have a low ropes course and lots of materials to do these activities.  However, here I’ve improvised by using recyclables, circles of masking tape, and whatever else I can find.  We did an activity where they had to cross a “rio de fuego” (river of fire) using pieces of paper as stepping-stones, and another where they had to pass a flyswatter (once again, I’m using whatever materials I can find) around to everyone in the circle without using their hands.  In the beginning, it was really hard for them.  The culture and education system here doesn’t really allow students to think for themselves.  I’ve noticed that the concept of “wait time,” teachers giving students time to think and respond after you ask a question, definitely isn’t taught in education classes here in Honduras.  Teachers do not let students think on their own and come up with ideas.  Thus, when left to figure things out for themselves, students don’t have the skills to problem-solve and teachers end up giving the answers.  During the first day of activities, the students struggled a lot.  However, the second day they were more thoughtful and communicated better with one another.  My de-briefing skills need a little work though…everything’s so much harder when you have to say it in Spanish!

trying to communicate without using words, so that their teammates can tell the blindfolded person where to go/what to do

human knot...el nudo humano

How many people can you fit in a teeny tiny circle made of masking tape?  Fernando counting to see how many seconds they can stay like that.

The other thing that I am doing with the colegio is teaching English classes during the night shift.  Because the colegio has so many students, they have different shifts.  In the mornings, the students in 1^st-3^rd  ciclo ( 7^th-9^th grade) have class, and they get out at 12.  At noon, the Bachillerato students, (10^th-12^th grade) come in and have class until 4 or 5.  At 4:00, there is another shift of 1^st-3^rd ciclo.  These students, for various reasons, attend school at night.  Some of them work during the day, either in a pulperia (store), planting and harvesting crops, or whatever else.  There aren’t many students, each ciclo has less than 10 kids.  So, I’ve been working with my host dad to teach his English classes.  They didn’t have anyone to teach the classes, so Milton agreed to do it, even though he really doesn’t speak English at all.  He learned some things from the previous volunteer who taught an English class for teachers, but it’s really not much.  So, I’m supposed to be co-teaching, but really I’m teaching the classes almost completely on my own.  Each ciclo has 3 English classes per week, and each class is only 35 minutes.  This is the last week of classes, and exams start next week.  Last night, I ended up teaching both classes alone, and the students asked me if I could always teach them alone, without my host dad.  The class that said this usually doesn’t participate at all when Milton is there, but with me they all participated a lot.  I was flattered, but of course I couldn’t say yes.  I’m here to collaborate and equip the teachers to teach better, not to just teach on my own.  However, the students really like me, and, although working with high schoolers and middle schoolers isn’t my specialty, I’ve enjoyed the colegio English classes.

In the escuela (1-6), I’ve been teaching English to the classes of 5^th and 6^th graders one hour per week.  The classes are huge, some have as many as 40 kids!  This makes classroom management a struggle, especially because it’s hard to give instructions and take control of the classroom using only Spanish.  The kids love it though,  and are constantly yelling “Good Morning!” and “How are you?” to me when they’re at recess or when I’m walking down the street.  I’ve also been working a little bit with the kids who are struggling to learn how to read.  This has been tough because of lack of resources.  I do have experience doing small group reading interventions, but without books and other materials I’ve had to get creative once again.  During the break, I’m hoping to make some materials and come up with more ideas for the upcoming school year.  In addition, this week and next I am holding meetings with parents to set up the “Escuela de Madres y Padres” (school for parents) for next school year.  It is mandatory for schools in Honduras to have a parenting school, yet most don’t have one.  The hope is that we can plan in the next couple of weeks so that we can get started with the parenting school in February.  I’m a little nervous because it’s a lot harder for me to speak in Spanish in front of a big group of adults, but I’m hoping they’ll participate and we’ll get things planned.

there was one day when the bell didn´t ring until like 9:00, which gave the kids an hour and a half of free time, so we took a bunch of pictures

In addition to taking pictures, we played bingo with numbers in English, because the kids enjoyed it so much in their English classes last week.

Bring your machete to school day...and I´m not even kidding.  They didn´t have anyone to cut the grass, so all of the kids brought machetes to school to help out.

My last project is the baseball team.  This week, Fernando and I decided that we are going to have two different groups of kids that practice on 2 different days.  Because the kids differ so much in age and skill level, it’s really hard to hold a practice with all of them together.  So, we’re going to start practicing with a team of older kids with higher skill levels to teach the sport more and try to form a team to compete with.  The other kids will still get to come and play for fun on a different day.  This should solve some of our equipment issues for the time being.  My parents are working on collecting gloves to send down, so eventually we’ll have enough equipment for everyone.

Hey horses!  Get off our field!

Although it seems like I’m really busy, I actually have a ton of down time, which has been kind of difficult.  In a little over a month of being here in Sulaco, I’ve read 5 books, watched the first 6 seasons of “How I Met Your Mother,” the first season of “Arrested Development,” and a couple of movies.  The boredom was really bothering me, but I’ve realized that I just have to get used to it.  On weekends, I’ve started going for long walks, hanging out with some kids and going to the soccer field, and relaxing and listening to music.  I need to learn to accept that I’m in a culture that’s much slower-paced and that there’s nothing wrong with just hanging out.  Everyone here spends lots of time just doing nothing, so why can’t I?  I guess I just like to stay busy.

Encountering a herd of cows while out for a walk...this was right after I had to turn around because there was an angry goose that wouldn´t let me pass.

I’m going to start trying to plan some activities for the kids during vacation, since they’ll really have absolutely nothing to do.  I’m going to try to meet with the kids from the colegio to put together a group of youth to help me plan the activities.  I’m thinking of having a “day camp” Monday through Friday for a couple hours each day for all of vacation.  That way I can stay busy and keep the kids of Sulaco busy too!  

Sulaco