School Time

We have already had the first three days of school! So far the year is starting out strong; however my class is pretty interesting. I have 35 six year olds who have never gone to full day school before. Also, they have VERY limited English, meaning pretty much they do not understand or speak any English besides "Good Morning!" haha. I am trying to enforce our procedures and routines first in Spanish, so they fully understand what is expected of them and how they are supposed to act in 1st grade. Then, I will be moving more and more into only speaking English.

It's a very long day though (7.5 hours in school)- with two 40 minute breaks for the kids. They first bring a lunch box and eat that at 10:10 and then have recess. Then two hours later, all of their parents personally come to the school to bring them lunch and eat with them! Food is very important aspect of culture here and so is family which is why parents love to bring the lunches to children in upper grades as well!

Anyways - this week I'm going to focus on comands in english, things such as put away your notebook, stand up, sit down, raise your hand.... all of those I say so many times during the day which is why I am going to be saying them in English to get more understanding in English. Also showing pictures and singing songs seems like it will be a great way to improve English skills also. I'm really excited to see how far my students will come in one year!

Anyways here are a few photos of my classroom and my assistant Lidia, who is a great help!!

My behavior stoplight -- already I had a boy who moved his color to green (he was supposed to be on yellow) Then when I saw it, he quickly moved it back to yellow! He was in big trouble and

moved straight to red after that!!

Morning Meeting time!

Profa Lidia - she's great! :)

Me - before meeting the parents!

My classroom from the front -- LOTS of desks and fans.... but it's working out so far! :)

One Week Done....

It's official... I've been in Juticalpa for just over a week! Wow... to be honest it feels much longer than that. There is just so much to get used to when living abroad, that I think my brain is working overtime! haha. I get sleep very easily and I think a lot of it is that I am just always thinking so much.

Anyways, this weekend has been really nice and relaxing overall. Friday night I went with some of my friends to a gringo party and there were a lot of Day Star teachers there and some other people from peace corps or from the other bilingual school in town. It's nice that I have been able to meet all of these people and still have a strong American connection... it's relaxing.

Yesterday a group of us went to the next town over, Catacamas. (About a 45 min bus ride) It was nice to see another town to compare it to Juticalpa. Overall, it was similar except that Catacamas was a lot cleaner, calmer, and it is smaller. The streets and sidewalks were wider and the cars stopped for pedestrians! haha We climbed up this mountain to a big cross that looks out of the city. While climbing about 300-400 steps, the view was definitely worth it. It's just simply gorgeous here, and I know I keep saying it but the mountains are truly fabulous. We waited around at the top for awhile just enjoying the view and trying to cool off a little bit, we made our way to a hotel that has a pool and swam. I felt so clean and cool it was amazing! I never feel that way here because you are always sweating and hot... but not in the pool! haha

Speaking of pools, my roommate and I went to look at the pool by our house that is for people who live in this complex. It is so nice with lots of chairs and a barbecue area! The only problem is there is no water in it and a tube is apparently broken.... so I really hope they fix it sometime soon because I can't wait to jump in!!

Observations

I think everyday here in Juticalpa will be pretty interesting. At least so far this has been true, and I'm sure once my students actually arrive I will have even more stories. I feel like I'm beginning to adjust more to life in Juticalpa and I am understanding more about how to walk on the street without being hit by a car, where to go to get certain items, and how to greet people on the street.

I just spent about 1.5 hours walking around and trying to find different things... so here are some observations! (From today and from the past few days)

Not getting hit by a car sounds a lot easier than it actually is... you just have to always be aware of the cars because they have the right away and people do not. At the same time, a car will always honk when it's coming close to you, it doesn't slow down but it does honk, so at least it gives a warning. Sometimes there are sidewalks and sometimes there are not. Sometimes the sidewalks are big and sometimes they are so small it would be hard to walk on it without hitting the sides of buildings.

As far as buying things. there is a specific store for every item you would need. For example meat you obviously buy at the meat store, jewelry at the jewelry store, chicken at the chicken store, fruit and vegetables at the produce store... things like that. But somethings are hard for me to categorize because we would just go to target or walmart! Instead I have to ask everyone where to go... so today I went to the book store to get velcro, stickers and a hole punch. Of course when you go in someone walked around with me the whole time showing me and getting me the things I needed. It's hard to just go in and browse or something! So I'm glad my spanish is decent so that I dont have problems with that sort of thing.

To greet people it's the same as Costa Rica to say "Adios" when you see them, but I only greet women or if there are little kids around because they are cute. haha

It's so dusty and dirty here it's insane. Literally i walk 30 minutes to school and my legs are just black and actually dirty.... but as long as there is running water it's ok!

At the same time, it's also absolutely gorgeous here because every time I walk out of the school or look up or out of my window all I see are these fantastic green, lush mountains. They are really amazing and the sun sets on them each night which is really nice too.

Another side note is that all of the guide books said that everyone owns a gun. They were not joking. Literally I see guys walking around with these guns slung around their shoulder, walking in the town, playing soccer with their kids, everywhere!!! I mean it's just interesting to see that because you never see guns in the states out in the open.

School-wise everything is going really well. My aide came yesterday and she is really nice. She is only 19 and graduated high school last year. She doesn't speak any English, so I've had a lot of fun being able to speak Spanish the last two days. We pretty much have everything set up, plans done for next week and I turned in my papers to be copied. School still doesn't start til Wed. so I have plenty of time to do some last minute things.

Classroom

Today was the first day of orientation and it was good to get to understand a little more of the expectations and policies for teachers. I think I will have around 35 students (!) but I am lucky because 1st grade is the only grade with a full time aide. I haven't met her yet, but she speaks spanish and is allowed to speak with the children in spanish. This is really helpful because I can then take the role of pretty much only speaking english - without having ALL of the students lost and not understanding.

The best part was going into my classroom and looking through all of my materials. There are a lot more materials left for me than I had originally thought. Everything is a little outdated, but just because it is older doesn't mean that I can't use it well. My room is very dark though and it will be very hot with 2 adults and 35 students! There is an open house on August 16th and I am very excited to meet the parents, and I'm very glad that I speak Spanish! haha.

Another good part is that even though we must turn in our plan books each week - we don't really have to write lesson plans! Instead we just can fill in the plan book and basically put the objective and what you're working on for each period. (Like 2 sentences!) This is SO much easier than my student teaching, practicums, or UNO. So it will be nice that I can actually focus on the teaching part.

In other Honduran news my roommates and I finally figured out how to turn on the gas for the stove, so we can cook now! Also, we bought the big blue jugs of water and someone even delivers it to your house. There was a giant slug on the inside of our front door and we came back and it was still there. The power sometimes just goes out, they said it happens a lot more when it rains so last night the power just went out which means no air conditioning or fans. Yesterday we went on a hike and saw a pet monkey (it had a leash on it's neck :( Overall the hiking was really intense though and it was way too hot for me!

Productive Day!

So I wrote that in the middle of the night and now it's 5:30 p.m. and I did have a very productive day. I got a phone chip for my cell phone to work here, internet in my apartment (!), and went to some stores to get groceries and that kinda stuff. Also, I had someone try to steal my phone right out of my hand. I guess I learned my lesson that I need to not talk on my phone on the street like an American... lol.

Everyone besides the lame teenager who tried to steal my phone seem really nice and helpful. It's exhausting having to figure out how another culture works though. Little things like knowing where to go to an ATM or figure out how to order, whether you tip... it's so confusing! At least I have Costa Rica to compare some things too and that has been helpful. Also, I was really excited when I went to the store today because I saw almost all of the same brands that I had IN Costa Rica! Things like salsa lizano, all the fruits, and Dos Pinos ice cream and milk. :) LOL. So even though everything is new in this country, I have some things I recognize from before. :)

And my house is amazing! I will post pictures as soon as I take them and unpack. Right now my room is too messy and I haven't had time to take pics. Anyways miss you lots and call me on skype or my honduras number is: (504) - 95-20-06-30

Comment if you're reading this too!

Roller-coaster of Emotions!

Ok so today has been quite the rollercoaster of emotions. I don’t really even know where to begin so I guess I’ll just start when I first arrived. My plane was late because I guess one of the engines wasn’t working and they didn’t realize it til we were literally on the runway starting to take off. The plane came to a stop instead of going up in the air and then the fire trucks came just in case I guess. LOL – so that was a little intense but everything was fine and we eventually switched planes and took off to Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

Once I got there things happened so quickly, I went straight through immigration, baggage claim and customs and soon I found myself standing in the middle of the airport, two huge red suitcases, a heavy backpack and surrounded by people I didn’t know.

First thought: Uhh…. What am I doing here?

Luckily, the owner of the school came and three other new teachers – they had been waiting upstairs since my plane was delayed. So, we went straight out of the airport and got in the van to ride to Juticalpa, which ended up being about a 3 hour ride through the beautiful country of Honduras. It is really scenic… everything is green, mountains, big sky, lots of cows, horses, chickens running around (on the highway, of course). Everyone said that I am going to be living in “cowboy country” and I did see an astonishing number of guys on horses with cowboy hats. LOL.

The downside of this very scenic drive is that it was also bumpy and curvy and I was exhausted from not having more than 2 hours sleep the night before. I just wanted to get to my new house to sleep and relax because I also had a huge headache.

However, we ended up getting shown around the school, which is nice and I will post pics of at some point and we met a lot of people at the school. Then we finally got to go to our house – and it is SO NICE!!! I can’t get over how cute this house is. I’ll post pics as soon as I can, but it’s like a nice, new complex that has it’s own pool and night watchmen. This area is supposed to always have water (not to drink) and it is supposed to be more safe. It’s also nice because me and the two other girls who are teachers are the only Americans living in the complex. I have my own room, bathroom (!) , a little balcony and an air conditioner in my room! (yes Efe I do have air :P ) Although, I was told that the air conditioner is the person who lived here before and he might come back to get them later. So we’ll see. Also the room is big.

Anyways, right now, at 3:30 a.m. I am in a good mood and looking positively on everything. However, I kinda had a tough time tonight for some reason. I felt for the first time, so instantly this feeling of homesickness. I just wanted to get right back on a plane and go back to what I know, Lisle, Naperville, Galesburg, Chicago, Kansas, Florida… any of those would have been perfect. I had never really felt like that before. I guess it’s just that adjustment period because logically I know this will be a great adventure and I am excited to actually teach (the part I am looking forward to the most). Still, it’s just hard to not think that I could just be with my friends and family. Tomorrow I am going to try and get internet and phone, which I think will make me significantly happier. I like to be connected. Also, I heard it’s only 10 cents a minute to call the U.S. from my cell phone, which is really exciting. That’s the same as Skype which means I will be able to call everyone a lot more than I was thinking!

Ok, well I ended up just going to sleep at like 9:00 because I was so sad and so tired. I think that helped me a lot because now I am feeling better. Still nervous, but better. I guess I just have never done this before. Costa Rica was so different because of the whole group aspect, and I wasn’t living on my own there.

36 Hours Till I Arrive!!

Wow - well this past month has definitely flown by... I leave for Honduras at 5:30 a.m. on this Friday, August 6th. I am expected to arrive in Tegucigalpa at 11:15 a.m. - so it's not very long travel time. I'm thankful that I do not have to spend almost 20 hours traveling like I did for Brazil!

This past month has been full of family, boyfriend, friends, and a little traveling (Chicago, Kansas, Naperville, Galesburg...) But now I'm looking ahead to my future 1st grade classroom in Juticalpa. I have SO many questions that I can't wait to find out the answers. Who will my roommates be? What will my students be like? How will my classroom look? What's the temperature/humidity/amount of rain? Is there plenty of drinking water? Will I always have water to shower with? Did I pack the right things? and the list goes on and on....

Of course I realize that a lot of those answers I will learn soon after I arrive and start to get settled in. I'm hoping that I can pay for a decent internet connection so I can keep this updated!

Anyways this is what I have been up to - in pictures!

And finally -- all of my luggage! I hope I'm ready :) Please comment and keep in contact with me.... I have skype (grace.crouch) and of course all the normal stuff, facebook, email...etc. :)