Yes, I'm still alive!

I’ve been getting a few complaints regarding the amount of time that’s passed since my previous posting. For this I apologize. The majority of my free time has been spent writing graduate school application essays lately, so sitting down to write up a blog is a little less-than-appealing at the moment. And then there’s the added difficulty of being able to post on the slow computers here; I went into San Pedro last Sunday, as per my weekly routine, only to find that the internet was down. Anyways, here’s an update on what’s been going on the last few weeks here in Honduras:

Life in Cofradίa is a daily battle. I pull myself out of bed at 6:00 am, stumble upstairs to see if by some miracle the water’s working today, throw on some clothes and one of the three pairs of mangled shoes that I’ve gone through since my arrival, and set off on the mile and half trek to the school. The first thing that crosses my mind as I step through the giant metal gates labeled ‘Cofradίa Bilingual School’ is “God, I hope the Spanish teachers are here today”(subbing for an unexpected absent instructor is probably one of my least favorite parts of this job). I cross the dusty, rock-littered soccer field to the faculty lounge, which consists of a one-room building containing four tables pushed together surrounded by orange, padded chairs – not the most luxurious accommodations, but the doors lock providing a fabulous escape from the screaming children. I sit down and prepare math worksheets for the first graders, gather them together, and cross the soccer field once again to the office where the barely-functional copier stands. Making copies is a time-consuming process as the copier can handle no more than 5 sheets of paper at a time. Once finished, I wander to the kitchen for a baleada or pastellito and back to the faculty lounge to prepare my chemistry lesson.

At 9:30 the bell rings for recess, and I make my way to the first grade classroom. As I step through the gate to the small children play area I brace myself as 5 or 6 screaming first graders come flying towards me with arms open wide: “Miss!” I drag my skirt of 6-year-olds across the playground and step into the classroom to set my stuff down. From here the day truly begins. Jeremy and I have finally established a fairly regular routine that’s only altered on Fridays and on the unfortunate days when the copier is not working. From 9:40 to 11:20 I teach math to my remedial class which consists of three main groups of children: those that are practically at the same level as the other class but lack the discipline to apply themselves in the larger classroom, those that are behind but are working hard to catch up, and those that still cannot show me how many fingers 6 is. The span of abilities makes it difficult to teach one lesson, so I’m trying to do three at once. Fortunately, with only 8 children, I’m managing to do so; though it’s a little hectic.

At 11:20 I walk over to the junior high classroom for Chemistry. That class has been going moderately well. We’ve managed to complete three labs, and we’ve covered the first two groups of the period table. Unfortunately, however, maintaining control of the class is significantly more challenging than teaching. Since children tend to begin working as early as 6^th grade in Honduras, these kids seem to think that they’re adults in 7^th-graders’ bodies, which makes forcing them to listen a real challenge. It’s really sad: none of the teachers enjoy teaching this class. In fact, there are a number of periods throughout the day that they go completely teacher-less drifting around the classroom listening to reggaeton, trying to break dance, or playing Uno. For me, it’s not that I dislike teaching junior highers; on the contrary, I love them. But these kids are such a challenge. They have attitudes as though you couldn’t possibly teach them anything new, and you really have nothing to threaten them with to force them to listen. The administrators don’t seem to be at all concerned that their education is going to waste, and poor grades mean nothing to the kids. Last week I finally lost it with some of the boys. I told them that if they didn’t want to listen that was fine; just don’t interrupt the rest of the class. I’m not being paid to be here, and I really have no obligation to force them to learn. The only thing at stake here is their future. I wasn’t saying it to force them to listen but, rather, because that’s how I truly felt. Regardless, it seemed to get their attention… for a day. In the end, the best I can do is the best I can do. What they choose to take in is up to them.

The lunch bell rings at 12:05. I gather my things and wander to the kitchen to find out what unknown substance lies on our lunch plates today. I grab some lunch and a bag of purified water and meet the rest of the teachers in the faculty lounge to escape the kids for 30 minutes. At 12:50 the bell rings once again and I rejoin my first graders for English until 2:10.

At the end of the day I collect Sofia and Roberto, two of the kids in the school who have been coming to the house for Math and English lessons every day. Their grandmother is, for lack of a better term, the janitor of Cofradίa Bilingual School. After she finishes her cleaning duties, she stops by the house and picks them up on her way home. I’m growing incredibly attached to this family. Sofia is the one pictured with me in the posting a few weeks back. Her brother, Roberto, is in second grade and equally adorable. Norma is a tiny Honduran woman with the sweetest disposition and a true interest in the well-being of the volunteers. We’ve been to her house more than once now: a tiny three-bedroom house that holds 11 people – her husband, her daughter, Sofia, Roberto, and their siblings and cousins. Her son lives up the road in a large house and has one of the most polite families I’ve met since my arrival. I truly adore that family.

After Norma picks up Roberto and Sofia, the rest of the afternoon is whatever I make it. Usually it consists of a liquado, the internet café, and sleeping; although, Wednesdays and Fridays Jeremy and I have begun teaching an English course for a boy that lives down the street for a whopping 40 lempiras per hour (approximately $2). He’s a really polite kid with quite a bit of English already, so it’s a breeze to teach him. The goal is to better his conversational skills, so we just sit there and talk to him for an hour or so.

The search continues for a decent dance club in Honduras. I’ve now been dancing at two places in Cofradίa and one discoteca in San Pedro Sula… disappointment everywhere I look! I’m coming to the realization that just because Honduras is a Latin country does not automatically mean that it embraces its culture’s various dance styles as strongly as some of its neighboring countries. But fear not, I’ve not yet given up hope. If there are salsa bars in Boise, there has GOT to be something here. It’s simply a matter of finding it. Fortunately, I now have someone to join me in my search: a week and a half ago we received a new volunteer from Holland… and she’s female, so I now have a female roommate! She too is interested in tracking down some place that plays something besides reggaeton. Wish us luck!

The most significant event of the past few weeks – and perhaps the most exciting event that’s taken place since my arrival – happened a week and a half ago: Honduras versus Mexico World Cup elimination game! It was SO much fun!! It rained the entire game so that by the time we made it home we were soaked to the bone and freezing, but it was worth every raindrop. Some of you are aware of my minor infatuation with the sport of soccer; as such, this experience was sort of a dream come true for me. Honduras won the match 1-0 (yay!) off of an own-goal by Mexico (lame…). But, Honduras dominated the entire match, so they deserved the win in my opinion. It was so amazing to watch such talented players only yards a way from me. I so hope to have the opportunity to watch another game before I leave.

Thanksgiving was a little bit different this year than most, but it was still a really nice holiday. Naturally, I worked during the day (believe it or not, Honduras doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving). In the evening I enjoyed a delicious cena at Iguanas with three of my roommates, Miss Norma, Sofia, and Roberto. Cena is a traditional meal here that consists of refried beans, cheese, eggs, plantains, and tortillas. ¡Que delicioso! After dinner, Diede, Jeremy, and I went back to the house and watched Zoolander while enjoying some make-shift sangria that Diede and I had prepared the night before. It was a pretty exciting evening. My favorite part of the evening, however, was playing ‘Guess That Voice’ with my family back home – a game that consists of all of my family members getting on the telephone and me trying to differentiate who’s speaking. I must say, I was pretty proud of myself. The only ones that threw me for a loop were Derek (I hate it when your little cousins grow up!) and Cathie (which family member is this?) All in all, it was a good holiday, but I certainly missed everyone back home.

Plans are still a little uncertain for Christmas break, but it’s been determined that they will not include my brother. Tickets were just too expensive for him to come down, but it looks like my parents may be coming down in February. So, I’m hoping he’ll be able to join them then. As for me, I think I may make my way up to Guatemala with one of the other volunteers. Or, who knows, maybe I’ll just stay in Cofradίa. Norma has invited me to join them for Christmas, and it would certainly save money. But, we’ll see.

I also found out this week that one of my friends from Costa Rica is coming down January 13^th. I’m soooo excited!!! AND another of my best friends, Jesse, will be coming down to join me in some traveling my last week here (March 1 – 11). Between the upcoming Christmas vacation and visitors, I’m realizing the rest of my time here is going to FLY by! I can’t believe I’ve already been here a month and a half! I almost wish it would slow down a bit. I don’t want to leave yet!

Well, I suppose I’ve wasted enough of my precious wireless internet time writing a blog for one day. I really need to get back to work on my graduate school applications. I hope that all is well for everyone at home, and that you enjoyed your Thanksgivings! I love you all so very much, and miss you tons!

Heartbreaking disparity

Honduras is a country of such stark contrasts. Breathtaking hills of green vegetation serve as backdrop to absolute poverty and destruction. The children that play in the streets paint a deceptive picture of love and family while the majority of them don’t know their fathers and are barely offered an upbringing by their mothers or grandparents… after all, it’s difficult when they’re one of six, each with different fathers. The abstinence that is taught by the many Catholic and Christian churches that fill the streets with their music into the late hours of the evening is clearly disregarded early on as many of the girls here are pregnant by 18. Little is expected of the men, however, besides contributing to the high population of impoverished children and passing along the deadly virus that has marked San Pedro Sula as the AIDS capital of Central America. Most of them take absolutely no part in their children’s upbringing even when they live as nearby as across the street – many don’t even claim them as their own. The social gap that characterizes the majority of Latin America is more prevalent here than ever; there is absolutely no middle class, and I’ve seen very little of the upper class besides those wandering the mall in San Pedro Sula. At the school each day, rotted smiles grin at me from my 1^st-graders’ cherub faces as they spit lies and deceit. Never have I seen such dishonesty, theft, and violence starting from such a young age. Stealing from one another, stealing from us, lying about nearly everything, fighting with their classmates, chucking rocks at one another, mocking the pain of their so-called friends… it’s sad to see how quickly these kids have learned the behaviors that seem to characterize their country.

Despite the terrible behavior demonstrated by the 200 students at Cofradίa Bilingual School, I fear that leaving them is going to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I’m sure it’s every teacher’s lot to be plagued by the question of “what ever happened to…?” Not to belittle the experiences of the teachers at home, but the questions that overshadow my daily experiences go so much deeper. What will happen to these children in the years to come? How many will actually stay in school? How many will escape the poverty that plagues their country? How many of the girls will learn that there is more to life than raising children? Perhaps some will be lucky enough to leave Cofradίa and make it to San Pedro Sula? Maybe even one or two will make it out of Honduras? But, and this is what haunts me, how many won’t? How many won’t finish school? How many will never realize their potential? How many will never escape Cofradίa and the poverty that festers here? How many will become another murder or AIDS statistic? What will happen to them? And what’s worse: I will never know.

This teaching business is so much more work than I ever imagined it would be. I have gained a renewed respect for the teachers at home. I come home exhausted every afternoon from a full day of giving everything I have to help these children land on the positive side of my aforementioned question. As such, I repeat: leaving may be the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

A brief update of what I’ve been up to: As you know, I took the GRE Chemistry Subject test in Guatemala City last weekend. I won’t know for six weeks how I did, but now I can finish the rest of my applications. My goal is to finish them in the next month so that they will be done when I leave for my incredible Christmas vacation in Costa Rica with my brother!

Jeremy and I are splitting the first grade class nearly in half for two hours every morning. I am working with the remedial children on their Math and English, or, more appropriately, number and letter recognition. And my most exciting development: I’ve changed the colegio Reading class to a Chemistry course! The kids actually asked for it! Some of their siblings are learning Chemistry in high school, so it’s more appealing to them than a Reading course. By then end of the week we will have covered matter and its basic properties, and next week we will begin on the periodic table. Thanks to Mikey, I have a book of simple labs that use easily-attainable materials, so I’m able to do some labs with them. Thanks, Mikey! :)

This weekend I’ll be testing out the dance scene in San Pedro Sula. One of the temporary workers at the Rocks is leaving to work on a cruise ship in a matter of weeks, so she and I as well as a few others are going to go dancing Friday night. Fingers crossed that there are some good dancers in the city! Then Saturday night casa pequeña is hosting a farewell dinner in her honor. We found out yesterday that we need to submit report cards by Friday in preparation for parent-teacher conferences Saturday. So, all things considered, it’s working out to be a full weekend! I’m looking forward to meeting some of our kids’ parents. We’ve been trying to assign homework, and I’m hoping that I can convince some parents to work with their children on their assignments. After all, they can make so much more progress one-on-one than we can two-on-twenty-one.

Well, I suppose that’s about it for now. I hope that this posting finds you all well and much, much colder than me. Haha. ¡Besos y abrazos a todos! ¡Adiós!

P.S. To those that are still wanting to contribute: it’s looking like the best mode of contribution will be monetary. There’s a rather heavy tax on packages. So, if you give money, we can go into San Pedro Sula to purchase some of the many things that we so badly need. Jeremy and I really want to purchase workbooks for our kids — teaching from the board is completely futile when working with first graders. If there’s something in particular you’d like to get for the school, just let me know how you’d like us to use the contribution. Feel free to email me at briana.flaherty@gmail.com if you’re interested.

A quick note from el pueblo de Guatemala

Hey, all! I just wanted to drop a quick note to let you know that a) I am safe in Guatemala City and b) I've completed my exam.... I wish I could say incredibly successfully, but in all honesty I have no clue. I didn't do too well on my practice exams, but, as most of you know, I tend to be optimistic about these things. :) Besides, I figure that even if my scores aren't a shining demonstation of what an incredible chemist I am, at least the effort I went through to take the exam should be proof enough that I do, indeed, want to be in graduate school. Sometimes I think that's the only reason they make you take it anyways... to prove committment. Well, hopefully two eight-hour bus rides (here and back) and at least $450 in expenses (between the exam and traveling expenses) shows commitement, right?

Anyways, just wanted to let you know I'm safe. We had an amazing American-style meal after the exam, and I'm really enjoying Guatemala City. I think anything's better than San Pedro Sula... :p We head home tomorrow at 9:00. I'll try to post another blog next week. Love you guys!

A morning at the mall

Sundays are becoming my luxury days: I’m sitting in the mall in San Pedro Sula using their high speed wireless internet and drinking a latte, and I’m in heaven… or, at least, as close to heaven as you can be when sitting in a mall food court next to a play area full of screaming children. Oh, the things I’ll put up with for good coffee and fast internet!

The start of the morning was a little less luxurious: casa grande flooded again. It’s amazing that our house that rarely has running water has flooded twice since I’ve been here. On top of that, our sink fell off the wall last week. There has been progress in the kitchen, however: we moved the non-functioning fridge along with it's rotting contents outside where it’s now been sitting for nearly a week waiting to be picked up. Check out the attached pics for a glimpse at what was creating the god-awful smell in our kitchen.

It would seem that winter struck Honduras during the past week. Not that it’s necessarily cold, but it’s chilly enough that I am using a blanket at night and really have to pep talk myself into my nightly cold showers. In fact, I’ve been going days without showering often due to lack of water, but sometimes simply because I can not bring myself to step into the ice cold stream of water that flows (or trickles) from the PVC pipe in my bathroom. It doesn’t help that the water in our house only seems to function after 10:00 or so in the evening. An icy shower right before bed is just not appealing… though it certainly is refreshing once I get up the guts to brave it!

This week was the first “full” week of school since I’ve been here. Monday through Wednesday I had my typical schedule: first grade English in the morning followed by middle school Reading and more first grade after lunch. It went rather smoothly, although I’m starting to recognize areas where there is a lot of improvement to be made in the way classes are conducted. Due to our sporadic copier and broken printer, we are often forced to teach directly from the whiteboard… which is more or less impossible, especially with the first graders. The influence that teaching from the board has had on the kids was evident when I subbed for the 2^nd grade teacher a couple weeks back: copy copy copy. That’s all they know how to do. They copy exactly what you do from the board without absorbing any of it. If we’re going to make this work, we must find a way to give them worksheets to work on, so my roommate and I are going to try to get the school to give us some money to go to an internet café and prepare as many copies as possible from some of the books that we’ve found lying around campus. Hopefully that should help the kids actually learn how to spell and read rather than simply regurgitate.

During the latter part of the week we were short 5 teachers due to a “miscommunication” between the school and some of the other instructors. Mirna “miscommunicated” that this weekend was a 4-day-weekend, so they planned a trip to Antigua. Then, due to the many days of school that we missed last week, she changed her mind and claimed that there has never been a long weekend on the schedule. Ah, such wonderful management. So, we compromised and had half-days Thursday and Friday. Thursday I took over for the absent 4^th grader instructor… never have I seen such unruly kids! She left me things for them to work on, which many of them refused to do. Rather, I spent the entire morning screaming at them and struggling to maintain control. It was awful. On Friday I traded my roommate for 5^th grade… he’s been a teacher for a while and has a way of forcing control over the kids. The 5^th graders were a breeze! There are only 9 of them in the class… it was such a relief. Next week, I think, I should be starting my remedial class… hopefully. We shall see. As far as I can tell thus far, things rarely go “as planned” around here.

The majority of my time the past couple weeks has been spent lying on my bed studying for the Chemistry GRE Subject Test, which is now less than a week away. I leave Friday for Guatemala City where I will be taking the exam. I’ve been studying like crazy and still have 5 days and a loooong bus ride of study time left, but I’m starting to get nervous. So, keep me in your thoughts! I really want to ROCK this test!

I finally took some pictures of casa grande and of my first graders. Enjoy!

I hope you’re all doing well! ¡Les quiero y les extraño mucho! ¡Besos y abrazos a todos!

1. My bedroom. 2. The view from my bedroom of the pila... and Dave showering in it (it's the only fairly consistent water we have). 3. The view from our balcony. 4. The kitchen. 5. The source of the stench. :p

1. The first grade class. 2-5. Some of my students.