Learning and Teaching

I have officially spend a little over two weeks in Honduras. If we have a normal day of school tomorrow, it will be the end of our first full week. The last week or so was crazy busy!

 Last Wednesday, there was a "desfile" (parade) in town that all the private schools participated in. I had never really experienced a parade before. I come from a variety of small towns - what chance or reason did I ever have to go to a parade? None. It was very interesting. Each school has it's own theme, dance, marching formations, or music that they were performing . There were definitely good and bad things about each school. Desfiles are important to many schools, so I was glad for the experience that helped me understand the culture a little bit more.

The least helpful map of all time

      On Thursday, Friday and Saturday the family I'm working with (the Hosier's) had company. Three adults (all teachers from Tegucigalpa) and two children (about the ages of the children I nanny/teach). 12 people in one house! It was insane! We went hiking in Panacom (nearby forest reserve/ resort). We barely made it to our goal, which was an elusive waterfall "45 minutos" away- (see picture of sign). Minutes? Really?? No distances or levels of difficulty were listed. I was skeptical, to say the least. We soon discovered that this hike was NOT going to be easy. The path was treacherous in most places and I found myself saving a 10-year-old girl's life more than once.

Great view. This is about half of Honduras :D 

 We also encountered a broken water main that was spewing out massive amounts of water, creating a waterfall so intense you could not avoid it if you wanted to continue the hike. Bring it on Honduran jungle!! Still not sure how my camera (or my 10-year-old friend) survived the hike. On one particularly steep switchback, I declared, "The next moving water we come to is our waterfall!!! I don't care what it is!!" Luckily for my companions, the next water we came to was, in fact, the waterfall. It was about 60feet high and Emma, Morgan and I greatly enjoyed standing under it and taking a powerful beating. That water felt fantastic after all the pain we'd been through. On the hike back that same 10-year-old girl said several times that this was "the worst day ever and the waterfall was definitely NOT worth the hike"....Uh...how do you respond to that? I told her she'd feel differently the next day. She did - fear not - hikes with Christine are always fun :D.


The rest of the weekend was spent doing restful things: visiting the city some, lots of cooking, buying a cheap CELL PHONE. I tried to avoid it, but as a caretaker of children - it is much safer if I have a cell, especially since there is no land line in their home. We also visited a local children's home and school for extremely poor children. Great experience - one of the teachers has a dream of opening a children's home and school similar to the one we visited and I told her, in all seriousness, if she got it started in the next couple years I would be willing to come back down and teach at it.

Sunday was church! I really like this church. I've been WAY more outgoing with strangers here than I ever have been en los Estados. I want friends! And I am slowly making friends with a variety of people. I love being greeted at church with hugs and kisses :D. (Greeting people and spending time to get to know fellow Christians so we can share one another's burdens was the topic of the sermon.)
This week of school has proved to me that I have A LOT to learn about teaching. Every time I encounter some thing in a 5th grade textbook that I don't have a clue about, I am humbled. 'I passed 5th grade with flying colors,' I grumble to myself and then I get serious about learning it so I can teach it back to my student. My 3rd grade level boy struggles with doing work with out guidance and I am learning how to help someone believe in their own abilities and work independently. Hard lessons to learn and teach. Algebra is my current nemesis with my 8th grade level girl. Can I admit something? I'm not good at teaching math. I understand it fine, but I open my mouth to explain things and sounds like

"Uhhhh....hmmm....grrrr" come out. Helpful? NO. We're working through it together though. My biggest learning/ teaching obstacles are Spanish and Honduran Sign Language. I haven't even really jumped in with them yet because I am so intimidated (and was really sick Tuesday and recovering Wednesday). I've learned a lot of sign this week though, and I've been assessing the children's knowledge of Spanish so I'm going to dive in head first tomorrow afternoon!

Splatter painting fun :D 

I am amazed at how quickly this family has accepted me into their own. I know things won't be perfect, but I am praying that God continues to bless both of our ministries and gives us unity as we work for Him. I'd also like to ask prayer for creativity. I only have so many cool ideas stored up from camp and student teaching. And that I continue to serve God and those around me humbly, without expecting anything in return.

OK thanks for reading a LONG post. I've had more time to process life down here and had a lot to say!! Love and miss you all :D