It's December . . . and still piping hot!

Hola a todos y a todas,

In the last four weeks since I have blogged (I know you were all ever so eagerly awaiting my next update), classes in the school have officially ended, graduation and quinceañeros have passed, vacation courses have started, the university and high school students have returned to the Ranch from their schools in the city, and Honduras has turned a political corner (for better or for worse is yet to be seen).
My 147 students finished out the year well, with only 5 really truly failing English to merit staying an extra week with me and making up the grade. Last week I attended the Talleres employee Christmas party, which took place in a tiny, two bedroom casa (an outdoor bathroom was shared by four homes) stacked with a mega entertainment center, jamming speakers and a disco ball to ensure a night of awkward dancing and chatting with coworkers. I learned that my beloved jefe, Jorge, actually speaks English (would have been nice to know) and lived in the States for a while, and that another coworker of mine is 23 and has a 6 year old son. We all exchanged Secret Santa gifts and then, following Honduran custom, took turns making small speeches to express our appreciation of each other (and that the year had ended). In retrospect, the three months I spent teaching in Talleres were one of the most challenging learning experiences I have yet had, and that is not to say that the months were terrible. On the contrary, I have come to really enjoy my job in the Vocational School/junior high, although the vacation until the next school year starts is much needed.
Vacation courses began last week. I am teaching one English course for the first period and then assisting a profesor in ''dibujo y pintura,'' or drawing and painting, which realistically translates to babysitting upwards of ten rowdy 4 to 13 year olds as they wreak havoc on the storage room (our classroom) and on each other. Today I ripped the broom away from Jepherson as he swung it like a baseball bat at Paola's head for stealing his chair; I also saved Adonis from death by falling bookshelf. I said that I am ''assisting'' the profesor, but really, I am babysitting him, too. More stories on that to come, I am sure. Suffice to say that I mentioned to him yesterday that listening to music on his cell phone during class time was probably not helping settle the kids down to draw pictures of Santa and his reindeer.
It is hard to believe that nearly 5 months have passed since I arrived in July on Mel Zelaya's coattails. I feel myself more and more at home on the Ranch, and have come to truly love these children and Honduras's splendid idiosyncracies. I leave Friday for a short trip to Nicaragua, Copan and Tela before the Ranch goes into lockdown mode for Christmas and New Year's (two weeks where volunteers are not allowed to leave the Ranch, but instead work nearly non-stop in hogar).
I hope you all passed a delicious Thanksgiving, and that Christmas is taking its time coming to you. I am slowly finding out how Christmas is celebrated at an orphanage in a country where snow is something that exists in books and movies. I hope this story I prepared will help you see a little bit about how we entertain ourselves on the Ranch during the Advent season.

Christmas is Coming
Last night I was led into the hogar with 3 pairs of sweaty, grimy hands covering my eyes and another 4 pairs clutching my hands and pulling me into the salon. The girls had been whispering and giggling about a surprise in the hogar all day long, and now they were beside themselves to show me. As I waited with my eyes closed inside the salon, I could hear the chicas running around the room, yelling and shrieking, ''Not yet! Don't open your eyes! Turn off the lights! No, don't turn them off yet! Ok now turn them on!'' Finally, they screamed at me to open my eyes, which I gingerly did to the cheers of 29 Christmas-enthused girls.

First I saw the Christmas tree, its twinkling colored lights complemented by nativity decorations and red and gold ornaments, many of which were missing rather large chunks out of their sides or were severly disfigured, no doubt the result of years of abuse in the chicas hogar. ''Daniela! Daniela! Look over here!'' was the next cry. My eyes traveled to the right where the real surprise stood. The girls had been squealing about it secretively all day. Next to the tree was an 8 foot tall blow-up snowman, the kind that you plug in to keep air pumping into it, the kind you see in Costo and K-Mart but could never imagine paying money for, instead choosing to snicker at all those Chevy Chase-worthy houses that actually put it up in their yard (apologies to whoever does have one in their yard right now--it is true that the kids love them!).

After a moment of confusion as to where I actually was, I, too, started cheering and clapping that we had a gigantic ''Frosty'' inside the hogar salon. Then all chaos broke loose in riotous Christmas revelry: Michael Jackson blasting from the boombox, chicas running up and bouncing off of Frosty's bulbous white belly, and other chicas screaming and dancing and doing gymnastics in front of the tree. Suddently, though, the festive squeals became cries of terror as Frosty's huge frame began to deflate, threatening to cover the littlest chica, Genesis, in a pond of white nylon. As Frosty melted away, several girls started to cry----what was happening to our beloved snowman, who seemed to willingly bounce to the smooth rhythms of Billie Jean and Thriller? The big belly quickly gave way to reveal Scolin sitting behind, the cable cord clutched in her fingers and her eyes locked in guilty surprise. The source of such a tragic death soon discovered, 28 angry chicas advanced on the lone Scolin, who held up the cable in dismay: one of the tongs had broken off into the outlet.

This was certainly a travesty, judging by the chicas' reactions. Tía Reina would be coming back tomorrow and she would be furious . . . the girls would all surely be ''castigada'' from doing any fun activies for days, instead charged with mopping the pasillos several times each and sweeping the yard (yes, they sweep their yards here). She might even take away movie priveleges---gasp! No sooner had the girls assessed their potential punishments than they kicked into Ranch Survival Mode, operation: Fix the Frosty.

Their first attempt was to try to fish the other tong from the plug out of the socket using their fingers. The threat of electric shock was apparently not scarier than Tía Reina's wrath. After my repeated pleas to remove all digits from the socket (Julissa received seveal unexpected jolts), someone fished out the tong with a pair of tweezers. When trying to tape the tong back to the plug didn't work, it became apparent that superior wisdom was needed. Hence, our trek in the dark to Casa Suyapa, the hogar for the youngest kids, to find Chele, the chicas' self-appointed god of all things electrical. Since Chele, a soon-to-be university student, works in the electricity taller, surely he could fix our beloved frosty. Entering the youngest hogar was like entering a monkey park---at feeding time. I instantly had a half dozen little mogrels (all kids in my art class) shrieking and climbing all over me, the remains of their tripe soup dinner dripping from their mouths down the front of my shirt.

Somehow we forded our way through mazes of hungry four-year-olds to Chele, seated with a group of even littler chicas. Josselyn explained our dire situation in one exasperated breath. The life of 29 girls --- and a mega Frosty --- where at stake. Chele agreed to come take a look. Back in our hogar, the chicas huddled around Chele as he worked, clutching hands and silent for the first time that night. Their mouths waited open in desperate suspense as Chele fit the makeshift plug into the outlet. The hope of Christmas and all things merry seemed to hinge on whether or not Chele could restore the Frosty to life.

Suddenly, air started blowing into the base and Frosty started filling from the bottom. It took a few moments to register that Frosy was, well, becoming Frosy again. Once it was apparent that their fates weren't to be decided by an angry tía Reina, it was as if there were ten piñatas in the room waiting to be slashed open: the screams of job coming from the chicas were overwhelming. ''Gracias, Chele!'' they chanted, dancing and clapping once again. Frosty's thick awkward arms flapped, applauding his miraculous revival; his goofy smile promising countless more nights of Christmas cheer to the smooth crooning of Michael Jackson, no doubt.

The rest of the night was one grand dance party, made all the more special by the presence of one oversized Frosty the Snowman, formerly dead and now risen to new life. I can only imagine what would have happened should the CD player have broken, leaving us cold and lonely without Smooth Criminal and Billie Jean. I suspect this Christmas will be unlike any I have ever before experienced, one where gifts mean more and family means something completely different than I am used to. I am positive, though, that any Christmas spent with kids who would shed sloppy wet tears, stick their fingers in electrical outlets, and boldly go searching in the lion's den for a prophet to fix their golden bull (or was it a cow?) will be that much more memorable.

Feliz Navidad!

Si, Estoy Viva!

October 30, 2009

After several short but thoroughly busy weeks, finally I’ve found a few moments to write. Contrary to what you might have been fearing, I haven’t been kidnapped and ransomed by the anti-“golpistas” (the coup-haters), nor fatally bitten by venomous cobra snakes (which we do have slithering around on the Ranch, by the way). In fact, I have been buried under mountains of teacher-ish kinds of work, the direct descendent of a politically-imposed premature end to the school year. Thank you, Mel Zelaya.

I’ve a patchwork of thoughts and stories, so your reading may feel a little unorganized, but all the better to feel yourself here in Honduras experiencing life on the Ranch with me.

Part One: The Eye of the Callus

A few nights ago in hogar I had one of the stranger and more hilarious experiences I’ve had with my girls (ages 8-10; remember I changed to the chicas). I was sitting on the floormat taking a breather after dancing to “Billy Jean” for the third time already that night when Paola (pictured above right, with her eyelids turned inside out) came over and sat down next to me. She studied my feet in my worn-down flip flops and asked me why I don’t get rid of the calluses on my two big toes. I explained that since I run nearly every day, it wouldn’t make sense to try to get rid of them, because they’d just come back; also, my pumice stone somehow didn’t make the cut on my list of what to bring to Honduras for a year. “But Daniela,” she lectured me, “you have to take care of your feet. If you don’t get rid of your calluses, they’ll grow so big that you’re feet will get disfigured and you won’t be able to walk.” Paola jumped up and ran into the other room. When she came back, she had a shiny, sharp, small metal file. “I know just what you need. I’ll cut off your calluses for you.” ¿¡Cómo!? Excuse me? Cut off my calluses for me? Not only do I find the concept of other people’s feet disgusting and so expect the same reaction from them, but there was NO WAY I was about to let a 10 year old with a sharp metal file anyway near my feet.

Paola, of course, insisted, grabbing my foot and securing it in her small lap. It won’t hurt, she promised me. Somehow I mentally pushed my “I’m in Honduras, just go with it” button and agreed to let her try. Two other girls, Emy and Belkis, came over to watch. Paola expertly wielded the file, scraping off the dead skin layer by layer as Emy and Belkis peered over. “You have to get rid of calluses and blisters,” explained Paola. “I heard about a woman who didn’t cut them off and her feet got all twisted and she couldn’t walk and she died.” Emy’s eyes grew wide as she gaped at my big toe between Paola’s fingers. “Really, she died?” I asked, eyebrows raised. “Yes,” said Paola solemnly. Trying not to laugh, I volunteered the story of my great aunt Marjorie, who for years squeezed her feet into fashionable heels a few sizes too small for her until one day in her old age (as my own 10 year old memory remembers), she had to sacrifice a couple toes to perpetually pestering bunions. Paola accepted my story as more evidence to her argument.

After a few minutes of filing, we reached the white part of the callus. “There it is!” exclaimed Paola excitedly as she dug deeper. “This is the eye of the callus,” she explained to the girls. Belkis looked mortified. “There’s an eye in there?!” she squeaked. It was all I could do to keep from bursting out laughing; the fact that the immediate fate of my big toe was literally in the hands of a 10 year old with a sharpened file was overshadowed by the hilarious reality I found myself in. Paola, with the file in one hand and her other pointing to her eye, tried to explain that it wasn’t a real eye in there (duh Belkis), but the source of the “badness.” She ushered a few other girls over to inspect the situation, and soon I had a small crowd of fascinated chicas gathered around my poor surrendered foot in Paola’s lap to examine the eye of the callus.

When I bent down to say goodnight to Paola in her bunk before leaving hogar that night, she was keen to lecture me to not go running for a week and to soak my feet in warm water at night to make sure that the callus wouldn’t come back. “Sí, claro, Paola.” And she turned over in her bunk, satisfied with her night’s work.

Part Two: Family Matters

Volunteering at an orphanage obviously raises many questions and discussions about family and what life was like for the kids before coming to live at the Ranch. Some kids here still have both parents living, whether it be separated or married, who are financially unable to take care of their children. In some cases, state programs identify these children and contact the Ranch; in other cases, there may be a parent who works on our farm while his son attends school and gets three meals a day. The majority of the children, though, have lost their mother (many to HIV/AIDS), and their father fled the scene at the beginning (among the poorer population in Honduras, men often start families, but then leave it up to the women to figure out how to sustain a family.)

While the parents in most cases are out of the picture, family still exists: aunts and uncles, cousins, older siblings working in the city, and even grandparents are welcome to come to the Ranch three times a year for the much-anticipated Visitor’s Day. The evening before Visitor’s Day, the children lay out their special outfit for the next day, wash their hair (and get de-liced in the case of my girls), and go to bed early in Christmas-like expectancy, dreaming of what goodies their family members will bring for them. On the other side of the Ranch, all of the volunteers go to bed early, too, knowing they will need every ounce of energy for the full day of work ahead.

On Sunday—my first Visitor’s Day experience—volunteers dispersed at 7 am to all of the dorms to collect the children whose families would not be coming to visit; the rest of the children went down to the school to wait for aunts and siblings to arrive. Volunteers plan and lead an entire day of games, food, and prizes to overly satisfy any family-lacking child, and indeed the kids who would be spending the day with us had plenty of excited energy bright and early on Sunday morning.

The scavenger hunt, games and face-painting, movie, hot-dog feed, lunch, piñatas, cake and candy bags all went well enough, one of the only causalities being myself (I got whacked in the head by a kid swinging the piñata stick trying to get the older kids away from the toddler’s piñata). What was especially interesting to me was the half an hour I spent at the school among all the picnicking families. Halfway through the day, we were radioed that the family of two of the kids we had in our group had arrived. I volunteered to walk Juan and his sister Maria down to the school to meet their family. 11 year old Juan was so excited that he made me sprint with him until we were both out of breath and until we realized Maria, 15, was way behind us. We waited for her to catch up.

“Maria, hurry up! Our family is here! Maybe our brother came, too!” Juan tried to pull Maria down the path to the school, but she sullenly continued dragging her feet. “Aren’t you excited to see our family, Maria?” Juan looked at her expectantly. It had been two years since their family had last been able to come to a Visitor’s Day. Maria just shrugged her shoulders. “They’re probably not really here,” she said. Juan was crushed, and we continued walking in silence until we reached the school. Multitudes of families were sprawled out on blankets on the grass sharing fried chicken, special rice, Pepsi, and cake. I spied several girls from my hogar all dressed up in pink frilly dresses and sitting in the laps of their much older sisters and aunts. They looked so happy, and I couldn’t help but think how unfair it was that these kids had family who either cared enough to come for the day or who could afford to come to the Ranch to see them, when there were lots of children up with the volunteers who had no one.

It took us a while to find Juan and Maria’s family. When we did, Juan rushed up to hug his two aunts, but Maria hung back next to me. “Is that your family?” I asked her. “Yeah.” She stood and watched them, a hard look on her face. Her aunts motioned over to us and finally she trudged over to them, unsure and restrained, then hugged one of her aunts. I could see Maria’s coldness melt in her aunt’s arms, and they both started crying. I watched them for a minute, goose bumps filling my arms and spine, and thought about how odd and probably difficult it must be to have no contact with your family for two years and then to see them—suddenly—for six hours. I also couldn’t help but play over in my mind Maria’s reticence; perhaps for some of the children, seeing their families could bring back pre-Ranch emotions and fears that were carefully folded up and put away in the closets of their minds.

That evening I went to hogar to get my girls in bed and say goodnight before the week. They were all chattering about the food they shared with their families and excitedly displaying their special treasures: new socks and underwear (big hits), cheap plastic sandals, neon hair bands, chips and candy, and for a couple girls, a few Lempiras. Paola was the winner, with a Honduras soccer jersey and two new pairs of earrings. As soon as they got into their bunks, the girls quickly fell asleep clutching their new goodies to their chests, exhausted from the day. I walked home nursing the giant goose-egg on my head, but thankful for a loving, stable family that is just a phone call or an email away.

Part Three: The Saddest Thing I’ve Ever Heard

I’m sorry to end my novella with a downer, but there are some tragic stories that I have to share—if only because they attest to God’s amazing grace and love that creates such resiliency in children and gives some of them another chance in life after unbelievable circumstances.

This week Stephanie, another volunteer, and I had “proyeceto” with a Maria, Juan, and Oscar, their cousin. In “proyecto” (project), a family comes to the volunteer house to cook dinner and play games with one or two volunteers. It’s a chance for siblings to connect and spend time outside of their hogars and get special treatment for a night. I already knew Maria and Juan, but it was my first experience with Oscar, and I question how I ever was able to babysit more than two children at a time by myself after the night with these kids. Maria was fine, engrossed in a cheesy teen magazine for most of the time; and Juan wasn’t too bad to keep track of; Oscar, though, rivaled any monster child you’ve ever babysat.

Oscar is adorable: hardly over three feet tall with big, dark eyes, he is extremely skinny and his un-proportionally large head looks as if it’s about to tip his whole body over. You would be shocked to learn that he is actually 10 or 11 years old; he doesn’t really speak except little indistinguishable shouts and is close to being deaf. He has the energy of about three six-year olds put together; just as soon as he picked out the Legos to play with, he saw a basketball and decided to play with that; but then, oh, how shiny Daniela’s laptop is, and—oh, wait—the microwave is low enough to reach! After about an hour chasing Oscar all over the volunteer house and trying to explain through gestures that putting metal cups in the microwave is a VERY bad idea, I asked Stephanie if she had heard anything about Oscar’s background.

She had heard, as it turns out. Oscar was found in a garbage landfill at a little over one year old, severely malnourished, with rats chewing his hands. The scars on his forehead and the general misshapenness of his head were caused by vultures picking at him until someone found him and somehow contacted the Ranch. They suppose that his near deafness and inability to talk has something to do with being so malnourished, though they are still trying to find treatments for him. It was hard to imagine that this energetic little child sitting at my table with pizza sauce all over his face, obsessed with microwaves and shiny objects, had survived something so awful, so unimaginably horrible. Almost harder to imagine was the person who could ever abandon a child like that.

What is sad, too, is that this is not the only completely terrible story I have heard since being here about some of the backgrounds these children come from. Learning the history of a Ranch child never fails to blow me away, to see the child behaving more or less normally and functioning as well as he or she does. And then to see some of the students I have in Talleres learning a trade and preparing for high school—what some of them must have come from, I wonder; and now they are learning English, math and science, and soon will be graduating. That is not to say that there are not still massive, unresolved problems with these children—because believe me, there are many—but the hope that there is for Oscar one day is reflected in 7^th grader Luis Miguel’s pride after he scored a 49 out of 50 on his English exam and in the tight, sure stitches of the leather boots that Suyapa makes in the shoe shop.

So, I let Oscar put his pizza in the microwave for the fifth time (and his cake; he insisted), and after they all left I finished up the last dishes. I put away the legos and retrieved the basketball from the hammock, all the while thinking of Oscar and the miracle that he is. And maybe it is not the saddest thing I have ever heard—because Oscar is here, and he is running around and playing with toys and eating pizza and cake. And that is something to be happy about.

Lunes, Lunes (Monday, Monday)

Monday, October 05, 2009

I am tired today. There are four weeks until the school year ends, and if I am tired, I am positive that the kids must be tired. They didn’t really have the energy to fight me in class today, until the end anyways, when they were sure to make sure I knew that I was giving them way too much work to do when they have SOOO much work in other classes, too. They are mad with me because they have a final test AND a project to do in my class. “Ay Daniela, no, eres mala. Es mucho.” Whine whine whine, they are in 9^th grade and about to graduate, I told them; they are just going to have to buck up and deal (as my Michiganite roommate Anna likes to say). Several of the 9^th graders used the “vos” form with me in class today, which is a very rude, very informal form in Latin America to address someone unless you are close friends. It would be comparable to saying, “hey you” to your boss or college professor, although even that translation loses a bit of the bite. But I know how far I’ve come from starting this job, because as soon as they tried “vos” on me, I gave them one look and they corrected themselves. And although their whining and complaining about all the work they have to do is obnoxious, I know they’ll do it because they know I’m serious.

As my experience with my 9^th graders illustrates, today has definitely been a Monday: Talleres lived up to its reputation for me to make sure of that. At 9:00 I went to the 9^th grade classroom to teach there, as I have been doing for the last couple months, but today—as has been happening lately for some reason—the teacher told me that I couldn’t use her classroom because she needed it, and that I’d have to find the person with the keys to the extra classroom. Dragging a line of kids with me waiting to get into a classroom, I went from room to room in search of the professor who usually has the keys. After somewhat of a wild rabbit chase, someone told me that that professor didn’t come to school today. OF course. So back the first professor to ask her if I could please use the other other extra classroom. She rolled her eyes and reluctantly tossed me the keys, adding that I need to make sure that no one touches anything. Sí, sí; I know. A few of the kids who had thought they’d be really smart by sneaking away from me in my classroom hunt looked disappointed when I went back out to find them and tell them that I had a classroom and that we’d be having class in two minutes. FINALLY we were able to start class. And commenced the whining, but you know how that ended.

Monday settled into my class with some of the younger kids, too, and made itself quite comfortable. I opened a bilingual book, Puss in Boots, to read out loud . . . and strained to make myself heard over the pounding and yelling going on in the classroom next door, for all 20 pages or so. A quiet classroom is simply too much to ask, I suppose. When the classrooms have no windows, it’s easy to hear everything going on in every classroom. I was glad when I gave the kids their notebook activity for the rest of the class period and they settled into making their own book. But Monday found me again when I accidentally ran into one of the metal desks and pounded my funny bone into it. The three girls at the back burst out laughing and thus ended my few moments of quiet. And my elbow still hurts.

But none of that is as Monday as what happened to Ernesto, the other English teacher here. His Monday is pretty much as bad as it gets. Ernesto is the best teacher in Talleres, in my opinion. He has only been working here since February, but he has more energy than any other teacher and works harder than any others. He is also one of the few teachers I’ve witnessed in Talleres who is not apathetic towards his work; he honestly loves the kids he teaches. And, he has been unfailingly helpful to me in my transition here, whether it be speaking English with me, practicing some French, loaning me movies, or telling me about the teachers’ meetings when we have them. Ernesto called me over today during recess to tell me that he had been fired this morning for not coming to teach classes two days last week and failing to call and notify the office that he wouldn’t be coming. His grandmother was very sick, and he traveled to La Ceiba to care for her. I understand why he had been fired—you cannot just not come to work without calling—but I am furious all the same. I can point to more than several teachers in Talleres who play hooky all the time, who do more sitting and gossiping than teaching, and whose attitudes are about ten years stale. As Ernesto mentioned to me today, there is a hierarchy at the Vocational Center (Talleres): if the teachers who have been there for years don’t like you, you’re out. I guess it’s a good thing that they can’t really fire volunteers. I already work for beans.

Finally, Monday attacked again when I had to cancel my last class of the day in the afternoon when I found out about two minutes before it started that we were having a teachers’ meeting. And it was definitely, definitely a Monday meeting: what are the goals for next school year, what are the founding principles of Padre Wasson (the man who started NPH), what are we expected to show, yadda yadda yadda. My only solace in the drone of the meeting was a little chat beforehand with one of the nicer professors about how my classes are going. She told me that she has never seen the kids so well behaved, doing their work and paying attention for any other volunteer who has had my position. She said that her class is sometimes better behaved for me than they are for her, and that they respect me and like my teaching. For all the pain a Monday brings, that’s all I needed to hear to be able to get up again tomorrow morning.

And just in case some of you are wondering:

We haven’t seen much of a change in the political landscape here since last week, although the 10 day limit that Micheletti gave the Brazilian embassy to figure out something with Zelaya expires on Wednesday. Some of the volunteers who didn’t have to work this past weekend ventured into the city and returned to the Ranch bearing no extraordinary stories of adventure and terror. We are as of today no longer under a suspension of civil liberties (hooray?). The Ranch/NPH as an organization is laying low in all of this and being very careful not to align itself with one side or another. Apparently one of the casualties a couple weeks ago in the tear gas explosions was a woman who was demonstrating with her husband, and she had been a pequeña here at the Ranch years ago. The pro-Zelaya people are somewhat holding her up as an inspirational beacon, as someone who came from poverty and died speaking out against the “golpistas” (the coup-doers). Needless to say, we are all being very careful, but all the same, Rancho Santa Fe is as ever very secluded and cut off from a lot of what is happening in Tegus.

Happy October everyone and congratulations on getting through your Monday!

Caribbean Vacation, Extended Version: Thank You Mel Zelaya

Tournabé is the largest of the Garifuna villages outside of Tela on the north Honduran coast, and we had been there all morning walking among the thatched roof huts, letting ourselves slip into the lazy tranquility of this removed beach pueblo on the Caribbean coast. None of the indigenous Garifuna women, men or children were too surprised to see us, even as we stood wide-eyed watching numbers of half-clad kids and dark women balancing plastic tubs on their heads sidle up to the small fishing boat that brought the day’s fresh catch. Over an hour they spent weighing fish on the scale and bartering prices to take the fish back to their small beach-side “restaurants” and kitchens. Every once in a while, a skinny, dark-skinned child would mosey away from the boat with a string of 5 or 6 shiny ocean fish. I was sipping a delightful lemonade, munching on platano chips, and forking into a freshly-caught head of fish—just off the grill— when I got a text from my mother. “Zelaya returns to Honduras; takes refuge in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa.” We took our time finishing our lunch and took another dip in the warm teal water until sauntering off to catch the last bus back to Tela. We stepped off the bus to crowds of people frantically scurrying around to food stalls and gas stations. In all of the commotion a ragged-looking man on a bike shook his finger at us and said, “Toque de queda a las quatro! Todos en casa!” I looked at my watch. It was 3:30, and this man was saying that there was a curfew beginning at 4 pm. Promptly so began our extended vacation/house-arrest in a Caribbean beach town.

I am sure you can well imagine the pros and cons to being stuck on the Caribbean coast indefinitely as the host country wrestles with really important political problems like cowboy ex-presidents stubbornly planting themselves in other countries’ embassies and calling for all troops on deck—and all the while, the majority of the country has to sit in their casas and twiddle their thumbs, watching censored news updates and waiting until they can return to work to make enough money to feed themselves. I had been in Tela with 5 other volunteers for three days already, and we had been snorkeling, hiking through a national park to see howler monkeys, hermit crabs and brown boobies, and of course we had spent plenty of time sunning on white sand beaches and swimming in water that was a hundred times warmer than the showers I take on the Ranch. As you can imagine, I wasn’t too upset that we would have to spend at least one more day in Tela until it was safe to travel back to the Ranch.

The irony was, of course, that I had to remain at the hotel we were staying in without any indication of when the curfew would be lifted. Instead of spending my time swimming and tanning while Tegus worked through its issues, I sat on the deck and stared at the waves breaking on the beach a mere three blocks away. The tortuous hours were only lightened for me by the small book of crosswords I brought and the hope that maybe tomorrow I’d still be stuck here and the curfew would be lifted. As you can see by some of the pictures, we also passed the time by making mature messages out of Scrabble blocks to the country's leaders. Luckily, this cruel irony only lasted Tuesday afternoon. Wednesday and Thursday, I took full advantage of our “misfortune” of being caught in the middle of political upheaval in a foreign country.

Now I am safely back on the Ranch taking cold showers and practicing patience with the children, and it almost feels like I was never sipping $1 beers on the Caribbean coast. Thank goodness I took a lot of pictures. The only indication we have on the Ranch that anything is happening 40 km away in Tegus is news that the curfew still is in place. School resumed on Friday as normal. It appeared that most of the city was also going about their normal business when I drove through yesterday on the way to catch the bus to the Ranch. It was a little thrilling, if not a bit scary, to have our papers checked several times on the bus ride back by men in camouflage uniforms with rather large firearms.

While Honduras experiences major changes in government, I am going through a major change in my volunteer role. This weekend I officially switch hogars from Hermanas de Jesús to Hijas de Maria. I will now be working every night and every other weekend with girls ages 8 to 10. After discussion with the volunteer coordinator here and the arrival of another volunteer to the Ranch, I’ve made the decision to move hogars to ensure that I do not get burned out by having the same kids every day, all day (I teach a majority of the girls in my hogar and see them all day at school before coming to hogar at night), and to have clear separation between my job as a teacher and my job in hogar—more perhaps for the good of the girls I am teaching. The line between being a teacher for my girls during the day and their volunteer at night is easily, and often, blurred—to the point that it interferes with the quality of hogar time and sometimes straining my relationships with a few of the girls. The new volunteer who just arrived will be taking over Hermanas de Jesús, while I’ll be just steps away in a different hogar with the “chicas.” The switch comes at a perfect time: after a week of my absence, no classes, and the arrival of the new volunteer. Although I regret not being able to be with several of the girls in Hermanas with whom I’m especially close—Ana included, though nothing could change our close relationship—I will still see them all in school every day and teach many of them, and I’ll see them every night, too, as I head to the chicas hogar.

Already the differences in my new hogar are obvious. Instead of Shakira and Honduran pop music, we listen to Barney songs translated into Spanish (Michael Jackson, of course, spans all ages). Instead of mowing the lawn with a machete this morning, I swept the cement paths with a broom and picked up trash. The girls themselves are worlds away from the teenager attitude. They definitely have their moody and snooty moments, but for the most part, they are sweet and trusting—and really, really cute. One thing that does come with the young girls’ hogar that I am not too excited about: lice. LOTS and lots of lice. I am incredibly grossed out by it, and though I know I’ll probably get it at some point this year, I still hate the thought of live things crawling around and laying eggs in my hair. The older girls all have lice, too, but not to the extent that these chicas have them. For my first day of work today, I spent an hour and a half threading through Jocelyn’s thick, wiry hair, plucking out 2, 3, sometimes 4 lice eggs on a single strand. I soon learned that Jocelyn is known for having the worst lice in Hijas de Maria. Of course I am the one to de-louse her for my first combing experience. Needless to say, I am getting right back into life here at the Ranch after a week off in Tela.

Safe on the Caribbean Beach

Hola from Tela . . . just a quick note to let you all know that I am safely stranded in the lovely beach town of Tela, Honduras. We have been here on vacation all weekend and were planning on returning to Tegus yesterday when Zelaya slipped in and nestled down in the Brazilian embassy. Curfew restrictions have been pretty constant, although because this is such a laid back beach town, we are able to get out and buy food . . . and even slip over to the beach for a swim. Not a bad place to be under house arrest!

I am not sure what the next couple days will bring, but we are watching the news (sometimes censored) and keeping in contact with the Ranch. Just another day in Honduras, I guess.

Adios y hasta tarde,
Daniela

Happy September 15th! (Independence Day)

Yesterday was Independence Day in Honduras. The kids woke up at 3:30--4 am to get all primped for the big parade in Talanga, a neighboring pueblo (village). There were 12 schools there in total, and this was the first year that NPH participated in the parade. Usually the Ranch just closes a section of dead highway and the kids parade in front of the pine trees, potholes and wild dogs. So this year was definitely special. Besides the couple kids who passed out from the scorching sun and humidity, everyone did a great job marching. The baton twirlers were on their game, even if the kids I was marching with had a hard time figuring out their left feet from their right.

Here are a few photos. Happy Independence Day!

Why I’m Here (in case you are wondering)

Just had to share this with you all.

Last night I had 5 girls from my hogar over to make pizza. It’s an activity that each volunteer does once a month with kids from their hogar—a chance for a couple kids to get away and spend some more personal time with their volunteer. These specific 5 girls got to come make dinner with me because they are do not have siblings on the Ranch, and some of them have no siblings at all in addition to no real parents. 4 of the girls wanted to watch a video while the pizza was cooking, to which I obliged, but “Ana” wanted to talk with me instead.

If you read my blog, you know that Ana is that girl in my troublemakers class in Talleres who one day changed her attitude, wanting to read to me from her Spanish reader and asking me to teach her more English. She’s known around here as an extremely tough kid; though only 4’6” or so, looking more like a 12 year old than 15, most would say she could beat the crap out of any kid here, including scrawny volunteers. She steals, she lies, and she has no friends. She’s always doing extra chores in hogar, she’s always in trouble, she’s been kicked out of school once already since I’ve been here, and she is indescribably special to me for what she’s taught me already, though I’ve been here only 6 (?) weeks.

I wish I could accurately describe her to you, but all I can do is tell a story. Already, she has taken me aside multiple times to ask to read to me in Spanish since she is still learning. She asks me to teach her English outside of class, like last night when we pointed around the kitchen as I told her, “oven, sink, plate, stove.” Yesterday she was beside herself to tell me that she passed three classes—meaning she might be able to move up to the next grade level, finally. From someone who was kicked out of school for not working at all in class, I have come to know her as a different person. Tonight, Ana showed me more of her heart than I’ve yet seen. I asked her about her family. Ana pointed to the starry sky and said her mama was watching her from up there. Her mother passed away when she was too young to know her, and her dad couldn’t take care of her and her other 5 siblings, all less than a year apart. After growing up sometimes on the streets with her siblings, NPH family services brought her to the Ranch three years ago. She told me that last year she was able to visit a few of her siblings, whom she misses very much, but she hasn’t seen her dad in years. Knowing how much I miss my family, I asked her whether she would rather be here on the Ranch, or living with them on the north coast. “It’s almost the same to me,” she said, “but here, I get an education. If I lived with my family, I couldn’t go to school. It’s too expensive—notebooks, pencils, backpacks, uniforms. They cannot buy that for me. It is better to be learning, so it is better than I am here.”

Her words struck me profoundly. Here is a girl who teachers, other volunteers, and other students think is stupid. They think she hates school, that she sleeps in class because she doesn’t want to be there, that she hasn’t got a chance to get through Talleres with hopes of going to high school. They give her extra chores because she “behaves so badly” in school. But I know her differently: to me, Ana is the girl who desperately wanted a notebook so she could take notes in my class, and she asked me for weeks to get her one. To me, she is the girl who wants to sit and read with for hours because I am someone who will look at her and tell her that she is doing a great job, that she is smart, that “yes, Ana, you CAN read, stop saying you cannot.” Her smile after I give her any type of positive feedback is worth each cold shower, each dinner of rice and beans, every measly paycheck. To me, she is more driven than many of the kids I graduated with from the University of Portland. She knows that she is lucky to be at the Ranch, to be given the expensive materials to go to school, to be guaranteed a high school education, too, if she works hard. Her desire to achieve is evident by her excitement in telling me her passing grades four, five, six times in two days. Ana stretches the definition of “student” to a different level, defining it in its rawest sense: one who simply studies.

Ours is not simply a student - teacher relationship. Since Ana is also in my hogar, we see each other every evening and every other weekend, too, and we’ve shared many a hug and smile as she’s mopping the floor where the girls all live. Last night, while the other girls were watching a movie while the pizza cooked (and the electricity flashed off and on all night, making us wait for over an hour for the pizza to cook), Ana wanted to wash the dishes and sweep and mop the floor. She reminded me of all the women (myself included) who, though they are dinner guests simply cannot sit still, but feel the need to get up and clear the table, wash the dishes, or help cook. And here was this short 15 year old girl who already does all that work because she’s in trouble, wanting to clear our plates and wash them on her special night in the volunteer house. I managed to persuade her to sit down with me and be a guest in my house, and we started talking. Again her words touched my heart.

“Te quiero mucho, Daniela,” she said. I love you a lot, Daniela. Putting her hands to my cheeks and stroking my face, she continued: You will forever be in my heart, and I will forever be in yours, she said. Wherever I go, you will go with me. And when you leave the Ranch next year, I will go with you, in your heart. And when you go up to the sky like my mama, I will go with you, in your heart.

Though the dark evening was stiflingly muggy and I was still sweaty from the day’s slow heat, a thousand goosebumps charged up my spine. How did I deserve this little girl’s deep love already? Why am I the recipient of her complete trust, when so many others have failed her? Perhaps one of my next thoughts was a little bit crude in the glow of Ana’s honest smile, but at that moment, I couldn’t help but think that Ana would probably kill for me, or at least defend me if I was ever threatened by knife blades in a dark Honduras alley. I looked at her, struggling for the right words, and in my best Spanish I could muster, told her that she had una alma bonita—a beautiful soul. I told her that I could see God’s light shining in her eyes. I told her she is special, that she is a gift, that I love her, too, and that God loves her more, no matter what she does. Her hands reached up again to my cheeks, her tiny mouth cracked into a smile to reveal uneven teeth, and she hugged me tightly around my neck.

Then, as if thinking about my words, she paused. Daniela, she asked me, what happens if you get confirmed and then you lie or steal again? What happens to you? I remembered then that only 3 weeks ago, Ana was confirmed with about 50 other kids in Tegucigalpa. This was the 2nd time she has asked me this question, and still I find it odd to be in Honduras explaining this concept that was ingrained in me after 16+ years of Catholic school education. I tried to explain that no matter how many times you lie or steal, God will forgive you if you truly ask for his forgiveness, if you honestly want to be forgiven and are sorry for what you have done. She seemed mostly satisfied with this response the second time around, but I added to my explanation. “Ana, there are too many people in this world who are bad. They steal and they lie, and they cheat. Every time that happens, their souls get a little bit blacker and their light from God gets a little bit dimmer. We need more people in the world who are honest, who do good things for other people, whose souls are bright and strong. You can be one of these good people, Ana, even if you have lied before. I know you are already a good person, because I can see it in you.” The truth of the concept must have overcome my poor Spanish, because Ana took my hand in hers, kissed it lightly, and then looked up at the stars with a quiet, “Si, Daniela.”

Ana reminds me what I am doing here, what my mission is for the year. I get frustrated with these kids, oh yes I do. When they cough on their hands, yell “SWINE FLU!” and then wipe it on me laughing, I feel like I’ll never make it the whole year. The days are long, but my patience is starting to sprout deeper roots. Moments of pure grace, like those I often experience with Ana, are my soul food here. Inevitably there will be kids here who steal, who lie, and who hate school—indeed, I’ve already had some grapes swiped out of the fridge by two of the teens—but they still deserve someone telling them that they can be good and that they are needed. And I’m hoping I can be one of the good guys who can do that. If you get a moment this week, pray for Ana, and for the kids here on the Ranch who are the “bad kids.” Pray that they realize that they have the chance to be good, and pray that someone takes the time to tell them so.

Peace,
Daniela

The Top 10 . . .

. . . Moments of my week.

In not much of a particular order and including the very good, the ugly, the unbelievable but true, and the Oh SO Honduras:

10. Cashing my first pay-check: 2,176 Lempiras! I'm rich! (translation: Literally living on rice and beans . . . and the occasional Salva Vida, the cheap Honduran beer, but only when I really need it, I swear)

9. Sweating through an hour-long meeting with the Honduran school staff debating what we should wear for our Independence Day parade to Talanga. Really, do we want white polo shirts or white dress shirts? Do we want black dress shoes, or black tennis shoes, or is black just too much? Ay yi yi.

8. Waking up this morning to a cold shower and realizing the water was the color of a day-old latte

7. Letting myself scratch my mosquito bites for 3 minutes. Oh please, just one more minute . . . ok, just one more . . .

6. Being asked by one of my worst studetns to help her study for the test, and then having her full attention

5. Leading a spontaneous discussion with 12 year olds about racism, WWII, Hitler, and of course Michael Jackson

4. Squashing an enormous cockroach with my flip-flop before it could reach my bed

3. Luis Fernando's cross-eyed, crooked smile after I congratulated him on scoring a 45 out of 50 on his English test. He is a student in my specials class.

2. Realizing I was being followed by a hefty brown steer while running on the trail. I never knew I could be so agile.

1. Hearing one of my students trying to impress a younger senorita with the cool English phrases he learned in my class. With the right Honduran accent, "What's your favorite food?" suddenly becomes a killer pick-up line. Only on the Ranch.

Just a Little Yard Work this Weekend

Lawn mowers on the Ranch in Honduras.

A short haiku of my experience on Saturday working with my girls. I swear they gave me the blunted machete, because that darn grass would not cut.

You want me to what?

Bending over, swing it hard

Blisters on my hands.

A Snapshot of the Student in Talleres*

Wednesday August 26, 2009

*names have been changed to protect the identity of the little devils who tested my patience to the brink today

9^th Grade

You’d think that the class period before having a massive exam, most of the students would be attentive and ready to crack down on the last themes of the quarter, since clearly the teacher wants to review the most important concepts and give hints about the upcoming exam. Well you’d be wrong. The students seemed to be more interested in flipping through three-week old newspapers than writing down the necessary vocabulary about the Food Pyramid. After repeatedly asking Maria and Juan to quit talking and playing with the stereo in the corner and pay attention, I finally told them to leave the room. I stared Juan down, tried to look as serious as I could, and after asking me if I was kidding (clearly I was not), he got up and left. But not without first flashing me the finger as he slammed the iron door. I suppose some obscenities stretch across multiple countries.

I’m glad that I never yelled, though. If I so much as lose my cool for two seconds and look out of control, that would be the end—they’d know how to push my buttons every time, and there is only so many times I can threaten to lower their participation points. The thing is—and the students don’t know this—we have to pass them. No matter if they’ve skipped 75% of the classes and fail the test, in 99 out of 100 cases they will move on to the next grade, and English class is no different. No wonder apathy seems to have settled upon a number of the Honduran teachers in Talleres.

8^th grade

Why I teach this class for 2 hours and 10 minutes on Monday afternoons followed by an hour and a half Tuesday mornings, I don’t know. Someone was joking when they made this schedule for the volunteer English teacher. Again, Monday afternoon, the day before the exam, you’d expect attention and lots of questions. A third of the class decided to give up and put their heads down and sleep through my repeated pleas of “this is REALLY important for you to know—wink wink.” Another third was chatting among themselves and throwing me dirty looks every time I asked them to participate and answer the questions on the board. There were, however, a couple kids who frantically wrote down every word I said and page I referred to in the book, and it is nice to see that there are yet kids who desperately want to make a better life for themselves. I respect their efforts and their energy. But for those others who I drag through the 130 minutes of class on Monday afternoons, my patience comes from some yet unknown part of me. Maybe English is hard to learn, maybe a classroom is the last place they want to be, and maybe they are so stuck in serious personal issues so that paying attention to me during class feels like pulling their arm hairs off with duct tape. I get that, I have a special sympathy for these kids that I probably wouldn’t have if I were teaching in a nice neighborhood school in the States. But it is really hard sometimes to muster up the energy to keep pushing them, to use a level voice when they put their heads down again and again, to not yell when they show up 15 minutes late for class and tell me they didn’t bring their book. Small prayers, LOTS of soothing tea, and thoughts of swimming in the Represa or running a trail after school brings me enough peace and patience to exclaim, “Please put away your homework for your other classes, stop talking with so-and-so, and open your book to page 236.”

II Nivel (Remedial 5^th grade-ish)

Thank goodness it wasn’t while I was teaching this class, but Monday morning brought more than just tiredness and reluctance to the week. Jesus, an illiterate who is in Talleres both for bad behavior and no prior education, decided to place a giant metal bucket on top of the half-way opened door to the classroom so that when Herica, a classmate, walked through, the bucket would fall on her head. Except the heavy metal bucket fell on the professor’s head instead and knocked her to the ground. She is still in the hospital with a head injury—and she is pregnant. Needless to say, Jesus has been expelled at least for three weeks (what a great punishment, right? He’ll be SO upset, no school for three weeks! Darn.) and has extra aseos (chores) to do in hogar and around Talleres. You can begin to see a reason why my class roster changes all the time.

Today when I went to the II Nivel classroom to teach the lesson, I was armed with extra Daniela Dolares to entice them all into participating. But instead of going to a class, the room more resembled a post-battle wasteland after a devastating war. No professor (still in the hostpital, remember?) inside, desks turned upside down, random trash spewed on the floor, and 5 out of the usual 11 students. Let’s do the math: 3 expelled for participation in Monday’s prank; another 3 usual troublemakers placed in other classrooms for the time being to be watched; and 5 remaining, supposedly the better behaved of the class. Lucia was sleeping on the floor, Iva was looking at a book, and the other three were drawing posters of Michael Jackson. Go figure.

They were surprised to see me—“Tocamos inglés ahorrita?” they asked quizzically. “Yes, we do,” I said. Quickly changing the plan for the day into something that would accommodate only a few students of the class without getting too far ahead of the others, I drew the newer vocabulary on the board, passed out some small scraps of paper, and had them make cards to play Memory. My class period with II Nivel was more babysitting I suppose, since after drawing and writing the cards they promptly went back to coloring Michael Jackson’s hair. But I was able to work one on one with a quiet girl, Ana, who informed me last week that she had been expelled from school, but she still likes to come to my English class. With me, she has changed her attitude from sleeping in class and ignoring the teachers to wanting to participate. Known as one of the more difficult kids on the Ranch (ask other volunteers about her and they roll their eyes), Ana is very special to me. She has no friends and she is always doing extra chores in Hogar; in class, she puts her head on her desk to sleep as if there are just too many other people in there for her to deal with. But with just the smallest bit of positive reinforcement, she instantly changes, and her usually blank expression instead becomes a beautiful, rare smile. This is a lesson learned today that I will not forget the whole time I am here on the Ranch.

Ana has claimed since day one in my class that she has no English notebook, so could I please give her one? I declined each time she asked, since not only did I not have an extra notebook, but she was always sleeping anyways rather than participating; plus, I had heard stories about her as a little thief. But today, she proudly showed me a brand new notebook just for English. I admit I felt bad that indeed, she really needed a new notebook, and I had been too consumed by my own preconceived ideas to give her request a chance. Today, Ana wanted me to help her. “Show me,” she said.

After drawing all the food vocabulary into her brand new notebook and excitedly writing down the words in English, she wanted to show me that she could read. We read 5 stories in her Level 3 Spanish reader and she was so proud of herself for getting through stories of 2 or 3 pages. Ana came to the Ranch in 2006 not even knowing the alphabet, and now she can pronounce most of the harder words in her reader and even has comprehension. It was quite an experience to be helping someone learn to read in Spanish when my own Spanish is only so-so. I was a tutor and a student with her for an hour today, and when she triumphed over a big word like “orgulloso” (proud), it was my triumph, too.

I was glad when 1:00 rolled around and I could usher the kids out of the classroom for lunch, but I didn’t exit myself until looking above the door to make sure no heavy metal tins rested up there waiting to knock me out and send me to the hospital, too. The coast was clear, and I was free until another day.

*DISCLAIMER: the above snapshots are indeed NOT comprehensive; not every class I teach is a test. I have had a handful of angel classes this week where I handed out copious Daniela Dolares, smiled, laughed, and found myself truly happy to be in the classroom teaching these special kids. Soon I will write about some of my favorites, who do their homework every time and who always want to try to make me proud with their good work in their notebooks. One girl, a very special kid for me, even asked to come to my office and work on the vocab together after school. For these moments, I am truly grateful. Talleres, then, cannot be simply put as the remedial/vocation school for all the bad kids who aren’t smart. It also houses some of the nicest, most hardworking kids that I’ve met here. All of them though just need some extra attention and recognition that they CAN do this—and that makes all the difference.

Olimpiadas 2009

Day One: Opening Ceremonies and Team Presentations

Judging by the glamourous show of the whole affair, you would have thought that the Pope himself was visiting the Ranch to determine the winner of Olimpiadas 2009. 18 teams, each stacked with the youngest chiquitos, school-aged kids, a volunteer, and ranch employes; each sporting elaborate, hand-crafted costumes, with carefully constructed wooden floats and oversized paper-mache mascots, with copious glitter and fire and balloons to wow the judges and win the presentation piece on opening night. My team, Costa Rica, spent the whole day leading up to the opening ceremonies making last-minute touches to our 6 foot paper-mache volcano (which would spurt fire during our presentation), crafting stilts and painting our flag, altering the costumes for the dance, and fashioing proper outfits for our specially-chosen Zelaya, Micheletti, and Oscar Arias (the president of Costa Rica and mediator of the political battle between Zelaya and Michelleti) who would be parading around the floor during our piece.

When the time came for our team to walk out on the cold concrete floor of the school auditorium for the opening ceremonies, I surprisingly had no regrets that I would be shaking my groove thing in front of 600+ kids, volunteers, employees, sponsors and judges. Although our team did not place in the top 3 in the presentation section, everyone remebered her dance steps, our volcano never malfunctioned, and we looked a whole lot better than some of the other teams. But Team America shone with two massive boxes painted to look like the Twin Towers that opened up at the end of their dance to spew hundreds of red, white and blue balloons into the air. The kids went nuts; the judges were sold. That was a much better show than Guatemala, who turned out all the flourescent lights for the beginning of their presentation in order to parade in with candles . . . and then it was 20 minutes until someone could figure out how to get the lights back on again. Again, the kids went nuts. Patience is most definitely a virtue here.

Day Two: The Games

I still have bruises on my knees and scrapes all over my arms and legs, and my sore back tells me I must be some kind of Olympian after some of these events.

The Luchador

Two teams of 20 people knee-deep in a deep, dark pit of mysteriously thick mud; stripped of all personal dignity as soon as the tug-of-war has reached its furthest point of tugging and the other team releases the rope, sending you flailing against unclaimed, sweaty torsos and backsides . . . I suppose I've heard that mudbaths are good for the skin.

Who's the King?

I was surprised to learn that the raised platform that stood 3 feet off the ground and was covered with mats was the battle court where 5 of us ladies from Team Costa Rica would be pitted against 5 other women from Team Argentina to grab, pull, tear, push, and rip until we forced the other team off the platform. I haven't played chicken fight since the monkey bars in 3rd grade, but it felt oddly good to triumph against the nearly 200 pound 7th grade teacher from Talleres. (Score one point for the English teacher.)

Cultural Section

Trivia at its best. Again against Team Argentina, we were required to name the date of Padre Wasson's death (the founder--luckily I had just memorized it) as well as the official language of the Dominican Republic (note: it's not English). I especially enjoyed the segment when our team drew the topic "English Language" and the question required an easy translation of 5 verbs in the gerund. As you can imagine, I was invaluable. (Another point for the English teacher.)

That's just a smattering of the events; in addition, we braved an obstacle course complete with a terrifying suspended ropes course and rows of miniature tires to slide through; the long jump; wet giant sponge relay; a hockey match (high-sticking encouraged, of course); and many other relay events. Team Costa Rica did not place in the top thee for the games, either, but we did our best and had fun. Winning something would have been nice, though, since first place gets to go into Tegus for pizza and a movie. No wonder those kids take this so seriously: when it's one of your only chances during the whole year to get off the Ranch for a few hours, you just might consider mud up your nose and in your ears a small price to pay.

My First Day of School

Writing this in retrospect of one day removed, I realize that my first day of school actually went pretty well. No one yelled in my face or told me they hated me, like the other volunteers told me they likely would do, and no one tried to throw rocks at me like they did at the old volunteer maestro once. In fact, only one of my students, Isaac, kind of fell asleep; the rest were awake and participating, even asking questions. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the two classes that I taught were the best part of my day in Talleres, not the worst part. Granted, I had quite the morning before classes even began. Once again, I learned a lot about how things are done in Honduras.

I arrived at school at 7:10, early enough to set some things up in my office before morning prayer at 7:25. I had been preparing for days in advance, creating each lesson plan and practicing what I was going to say. My first class was scheduled to begin at 9 am, and I was to have three 45 minute classes. The previous volunteer in my position had just changed the whole class schedule around in Talleres for each individual grade. (There are 6^th through 9^th graders here and they are broken up into levels a, b, c and sometimes d, but the ages in a grade vary depending on how much education a kid has when he gets to the Ranch.) This new schedule allows for more classes per week and less time in each class, so instead of me having to teach a 2 hour class twice a week (and the kids having to sit through it), I would teach three or four 45 minute classes per day. Shorter classes more often is MUCH better for language learning, and I was thankful that this would be the new schedule for me.

This new, elaborate schedule—which the old volunteer had cleared with Jorge—was to begin on my first day. The old volunteer purposefully did not give me the old schedule so that we could not return to it, no matter how much the teachers here would be opposed to changing anything. All of us teachers sat down with Jorge soon after prayer for a meeting about the new hours and my first day teaching. As soon as Jorge mentioned that the new hours were beginning, chaos erupted in the tiny classroom where we sat. Four angry voices rattled off their discontent in rapid Spanish, each of the female teachers building off the heated responses of the others. I didn’t stand a chance to get a word in—at least until Jorge asked me why the old volunteer wanted to change the hours. I tried my best to explain that the old schedule was too challenging for the volunteers in terms of planning and that the classes were too long for these young kids to pay attention the whole time. I pointed to the past three volunteers who left the position dissatisfied and frustrated.

The other women teachers would have none of it, and though I suggested that we try the new schedule starting the following week, they stubbornly resisted. After much more discussion about the behavior of the kids and what would be best, Jorge capped the meeting by deciding that we would go back to the old hours for the rest of this quarter, and then “discuss” starting the new ones in the next partial. My stomach dropped; I felt like someone had just stolen my homework that I had worked so hard on. Another battle lost.

On top of it all, I locked myself out of my classroom twice in under an hour (I was very flustered, as you can imagine) and had to search for the electrician teacher to open the door for me—who then asked me for my phone number so he could take me to sushi this weekend in Tegucigalpa. That’s all I need: a balding, middle-aged Honduran electrician teacher chasing me who can’t even say the word “sushi” and hides his premature aging with a sad looking comb-over. Welcome to Talleres!

After the meeting, I ran around the school grounds to each teacher to ask whether I was supposed to teach their kids, and when, and where, and how often. Of course, no one has a copy of the old hours here, so nobody really knows what my schedule should be. I quickly scribbled down a makeshift schedule from what I could gather, and it seemed that I had one class that day before lunch. Relieved to at least be able to have a minute to gather my thoughts, I returned to my office to plan. Ten minutes later, there was a knock at my door, and Angel, the youngest in level IIIb, told me I was supposed to be teaching their class right now. Oh. OK then. I grabbed my stuff, headed off to class, and winged it.

The kids in both of the classes I taught loved my power point presentation of my life with pictures of family (“your sister is so fresh and beautiful! Is she coming to visit?”), my pets, my friends, my house (“you LIVE there? you have a POOL?”), my favorite foods, and my favorite activities. They howled at the video of me faceplanting in the snow after attempting a ski jump in the Alps, and they listened entranced at the concept of fishing with a fake bug. After explaining my “Pelicula Puntos” system (points to earn a movie day), and how they can earn Daniela Dolares for our bodega (Danielle dollars for a class store), and the fact that we’d have a Song of the Day that could be Michael Jackson music, the kids were sold—I think. I also gave them an assignment: find out the meaning of the Word of the Day (‘help’) and bring the answer to class the next time to earn a Daniela Dolare. Three kids already came running up to me today to tell me they knew the word.

The classroom system here is so different than in America, and I am sure that I will come to realize more just how much. When I asked the kids what kinds of things they would like to have in our classroom store (bodega), their answers surprised me and brought me back to the fact that these kids are living in a community setting with little privacy and few personal belongings. “Boxers!” they shouted. “Socks! Underwear! Hair gel!” I never would have wanted underwear in a class store growing up—that would be way too embarrassing, and I had plenty at home. I’d much rather of had cool pens and markers and candy, maybe a fake tattoo. They’d love to have those things, too, but there is a distinct difference here between want and need.

In the evening, I had my first Projecto with one of the girls from my hogar, Jocelin, and her older sister, both very timid young ladies who seemed to be rather awkward around each other at first. Projecto is an evening activity where brothers and sisters on the Ranch have a chance to connect with each other (when they are otherwise usually separated into Hogars) by spending the evening cooking a meal or dessert with a volunteer and playing a game. Candy, another volunteer, and I made brownies with Jocelin and her sister and then played the game ‘Sorry!’ while listening to Reggaetone, the most popular music here. The game became pretty heated when it was a race between Jocelin and her sister to get all their pieces back to the Home square. The two sisters were laughing hysterically and making jokes, challenging each other and just behaving like any two close sisters do playing a game and having a good time. They ate tons of brownies and we bought them each a Pepsi. They savored all 700mL of it.

By the end of the evening, the two sisters were hugging each other and telling us they had a wonderful time hanging out with us in the volunteer house. It was a true reward for me to see their joy and happiness to feel special for a night, to spend time with just family and some loving volunteers when family is quite a rare treasure here. At one point during the night, Jocelin’s sister asked me whether I missed my family. I wasn’t quite sure how I should answer the question without making her feel bad. “Yes,” I said. “Of course I do.” But at least I can talk to them when I want and know that I’ll see them soon enough, I thought to myself. Most of the kids here don’t know when, or if, they will see their parents again.

As I plan for the rest of the week—making sure to be flexible enough now to NOT have plans—it helps to remember that I can only offer my best. I am finding that the key to being a successful teacher is to relax, breathe, give it all you can that day, and of course, just smile when I don’t understand something.

-DJ

Mowing the Lawn: First Evening in Hogar

Monday, 3 August

My lighter days of being a more or less passive volunteer are quickly nearing their end. Wednesday morning I’ll begin my Clases de Inglés with the “Adultos Nivel II,” notorious for being the worst class in Talleres: worst meaning, in their minds, discipline is a mutual concept; and also, worst being these kids cannot read or write in Spanish, much less hope to recognize today’s date in English that I’ll write on the whiteboard. Despite my Honduran mosquito-sized nerves, I have to say I’m excited to get going with my actual job here.

This morning I learned a lot about how things are done here and how difficult it is to try to change anything, no matter how much a new plan seems to be more practical or make sense. After 45 minutes listening to Jorge, my boss in Talleres, explain why it is impossible for me to have my own classroom—his “no es possible” drowning out my stammering in Spanglish—I decided it would be best to just close my mouth and observe for a week or two to see how the system works (or doesn’t work). Apparently moths before now they had begun building an addition to Talleres with a classroom specifically meant for the volunteer English teacher. The whole annex was supposed to be finished this past June, and for some reason which Jorge hasn’t figured out yet, the builders stopped coming one day. So a heap of half-poured concrete and a few sheets of lumber sit smattering the patches of dirt and grass behind the auto shop, waiting to be transformed into a brand new classroom for a bright-eyed, energetic, recent college-grad eager to jump in and save the world with her notable $5 vocabulary words and impressive handling of meticulous grammar concepts. Well maybe that’s not quite so accurate, but I do enjoy a good game of Scrabble.

After spending all day planning for my first classes, I took a quick run with another volunteer to the Represa this afternoon, a secluded river/monstrous pond that spills over a small dam before being sucked into the maze of old pipes that deliver the delightful cold showers that I try my best to avoid. Even if the Represa wasn’t surrounded by indescribably beautiful walls of lush trees and colorful tropical flowers, I’d still call it my favorite place here. The calm, wide water winds far back past where I could see, and the humid afternoon sun shining on the cool surface invited me to test my courage. I took the ultimate leap of faith: diving into a jungle lake of brown water where numerous small surface bubbles surely indicated the presence of unseen water creatures should have caused me to assess the odds of attracting some rare parasite, or at least being pulled underwater by a phantom current; yet I’ve learned that sometimes, you just have to jump. My lack of hesitation was instantly rewarded with deep warm water and a happy desire to float on my back and thank God for such a gift. In my contentment, peace and present position, I couldn’t help but feel like Mowgli in Disney’s rendition of The Jungle Book (without the scarlet loincloth). Once my compatriot informed me that no, there are no alligators in the Represa, my delight at such a treasure quadrupled. There’s nothing like a nice swim in the beginning of the winter season.

I returned from the Represa with half an hour until my first night with my new hogar, Hermanas de Jesús. My lazy strolling back to the volunteer house was met with the sound of machetes ripping through the grass and my path home was marbled with chopped bits of greenage. The 25 teenage girls in my hogar were hard at work on afternoon chores. Watching them bend over and take several strikes at the same tufts of stubborn grass, which more resembled a cheap mullet haircut than freshly shaven sod, I silently thanked God for modern appliances like lawn mowers and leaf blowers. Among cutting grass with semi-blunt machetes, the kids also have to hand-wash their uniforms every night for school the next day. Suddenly one washing machine for 16 volunteers doesn’t seem so bad.

To really understand what my first night in hogar was like, imagine this: you are coated with honey and chicken feed and thrown into a locked cage of loosed hungry hens, clucking and clucking at you when you don’t speak chicken and laying their eggs all over your stuff. Yet somehow, you find you really kind of like the chickens, and you certainly don’t mind the constant attention, at least at first. It’s only when they start grabbing and jiggling your love handles and invading all the kinds of personal space that many Americans obsessively cling to that you realize you will never get all those feathers off your body. But all the excitement and energy, the constant clucking even, is enough to make you forget about the fact that you will probably smell like chicken for months to come. Instead, I relaxed; I let myself make mistakes; and I laughed at myself. So did all of the girls when I mistakenly asked where my face went instead of my dinner plate, but those are the kind of moments that will bring us closer in the days and weeks to come.

The group is huge: 25 fresh teenage girls, ages 13 to 15, high on hormones and High School Musical, Daddy Yankee and Shakira. They greeted me with huge smiles and loud cheers that I was placed in their hogar. “We asked for you, we all wanted you, Daniela!” they yelled at me. The highlight of our first evening in hogar together was a poorly planned and even more poorly executed Zumba class. Thankfully the girls didn’t realize that their aerobic dancing teacher (me) is as white as they come when it comes to dancing and, what’s more, has been to a Zumba class only once in her life. Still, my rich I-tunes library delighted them, and I kept them changing moves and positions before they could realize that I had no idea what I was doing.

We ended the evening together with story time, the only kind that teenage girls want to hear: Daniela’s personal life. Huddled in a circle around me as I showed them pictures of my travels in Europe and my more embarrassing moments at home playing dress-up with my sister at the age of 20, the girls listened attentively and patiently waited for me to struggle through the vocabulary for ‘4-Square court’ and ‘long distance phone call.’ 8 pm is bedtime in Talita Kumi (the girls’ dorm); not 8:01 and certainly not 8:02, so the tia (the house mom) of my hogar was being very kind when she let us take a group picture before the girls went to bed. As soon as the timer snapped the picture and the flash went off, the whole clucking lot fled to the table to see what the picture looked like. Countless hugs and “buenas noches” later, I was ushered out the door, left to process the chaos of my first two hours in the coupe.

Even though I did not win the classroom fight today, I think I was pretty successful in other areas of Ranch life. I will let you know how Wednesday goes as well as night #2 in hogar, and I will post the picture of my girls in a few hours. Thank you for reading!