spanish word of the day

funny story.

So around school you hear a lot Spanglish going on with the kids because sometimes they don't know the filler words so they just fill the sentences with both English and Spanish words (kind of like how my Spanish tends to go). So I'm outside at recess eating my snack, sweating.. you know the usual.. And 4 of my girls come running up to me at full speed with panicked looks on their faces saying "Mees Mees!! (miss miss)" So I go ahead and prepare myself for something crazy which I've gotten used to around here. And they all start saying all at once " Enrique is molesting us!' "He's molesting us Mees Lori!" "Tell him to stop!" So obviously I'm like "woah woah woah slow down, he is what?!" And again they repeat themselves and proceed to tell me how he is molesting them in the classroom and how they need me to get him out of the classroom because they are trying to play connect four. At this point I'm just staring blankly at them thinking "uh I don't know what to do right now.. there has to be some kind of lost in translation thing going on right now or else I don't know what to do". So I get up and go into to the classroom where I find Enrique sitting at a desk and some other girls sitting on the floor with the game yelling at him.. so then these girls say "Tell Enrique to leave us alone Mees!" So of course I have to ask "so... Enrique is doing what now?" to try and get to the bottom of this situation... and again one girl says "He is molesting us!" and finally one student who speaks english well notices my horrified look and says "No Mees Lori... he is bothering us" BOTHERING! What?! So I learned the spanish word for 'to bother'... molestar. They just decide to add the english 'ing' to the word making it a horrifying word... a great attempt at using gerunds... but not quite.

Enrique is the one on top... molesting the other 3 boys trying to take a picture.

ready, set, barf.

Six of us teachers went on a little weekend excursion. We traveled to a nearby town called Santa Rosa. It's a town very similar to Gracias but a lot bigger… it's one of the safer big cities in Honduras. Most people say to avoid the big cities because there is a lot of crime but Santa Rosa is the exception. Little did I know that a one night stay would be such an adventure. So 4 teachers left earlier Saturday to go shopping for a new computer and the other 3 of us (Annie, Lauren and I) left a little later. There are 2 ways to travel to Santa Rosa.. by bus or hitchhiking. When I say hitchhiking, I mean sitting in the bed of a truck gettting sunburnt.. which is a common thing around here. So we weighed our options and after thinking a little too hard about hitchhiking horrors, we decided on the bus...So us 3 girls walk up the hill from our house to the bus stop at 4:30pm. There is supposed to be a bus coming at 5… well 5:10 rolls around and no buses come by. (Just a perfect example of how Honduran time works.. when someone says they will be at your house at 4, they usually show up three hours later. Time means nothing to these people.) There are about 30 people waiting for the buses. We watch some here and there hop in the back of trucks. So we start looking for the least sketchy trucks that drive by. We have several creepers offer us rides and turned them all down… trying not to get desperate. Everyone wants to give the gringas a ride around here. Then out of no where, this little red truck pulls up with this sweet little man driving. So Annie takes the lead and goes up to his window. Annie turns around and says "okay lets go with him, he's sweet!" . Lauren and I are heading for the back of the truck bed when Annie opens the back cab of the truck… Lauren and I are like "uh Annie…." And Annie says "no he wants us to get in" So in my mind I'm thinking there is no way am I getting in this truck… but my body some how follows the other girls into the back of the truck. I'm repeating out loud "I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared" as I get in the truck. Another Honduran family gets in the bed of the truck which makes me feel a little better. As soon as we start driving, dude starts talking in English! Then I'm like oh crap, I know he heard me repeating I'm scared. hahaha. We find out his name is Solomon and he went to a university in Louisiana and thats how he learned English. Sweetest man ever. He lives in Santa Rosa and makes that drive a lot during the week for his job. He said he likes to pick up foreigners to show them Honduran hospitality. Precious.

So Solomon drops us off at our hotel where the other teachers are waiting for us. We walk into our hotel room and it straight up looks like we just arrived at summer camp. Picture this: a long room with 4 queen size beds all in a row all made out of wood, separated by wooden bed side tables. Funniest thing ever. Only in Honduras would there be a room like that at a normal hotel. These people LOVE to cram as many people as they can into small spaces.

We get ready in our awesome hotel and head to dinner. We went to a restaurant that looked very similar to an Applebees. It was very Americanized which was weird to see around here. I ordered a club sandwich that was recommended by the others who had eaten there before. So we all eat dinner and are having a good ol time until sickness takes over my bod. I all of a sudden feel nauseous and dizzy. I get up really fast and run to the bathroom… I think I might pass out at this point so I sit down on this nasty toilet with my cute dress on… and you know I must really be feeling sick if I'm going to sit down on a toilet… I put my head in-between my legs like my mother taught me (shoutout Jill!) and sat like this for a few minutes. Then I thought I might be better so I sit up.. then the barf came. I threw up my club sandwich in the trash can. As soon as I finished barfing, I immediately felt better… as if nothing had happened. One of the girls came in the bathroom to check on me. We laughed about what just happened and went back to the table. Then I proceeded to learn all about the normal Honduran sicknesses that the American teachers get. Apparently Lauren barfed all the time the first 3 months she was here. I guess our stomachs just aren't used to the Honduran bacteria and they still get sick even after being here for 7 months. So I now know if I just randomly get sick, that it is normal. Great. Then I payed for my meal that was now sitting in the bathroom trash can. Awesome.

After dinner, we went to a dance restaurant kind of place. Hondurans love to dance. Everyone in this crowded place was staring at the gringos and gringos dancing. And of course, out of the 5 of us girls dancing I had to be chosen by the creeper who walked up and grabbed my hands to dance with him. This always seems to happen to me for some strange reason. So I dance as I'm laughing/panicking/being super awkward to some Latin American song. It would have been fine but then he decides to intertwine our fingers.. which at this point I am not okay with and get really creeped out. So one of the other girls tries to casually come save me and grabs one of my hands to dance with me, but the dude wont let her take me away and says he will pay her to let him dance with me for one song. woah. Anyway the song finally ends (the longest song I've ever heard) and he lets me go after kissing my cheek. At this point, I'm so over dancing.

The next day, Lauren, Annie and I left earlier than everyone else who stayed for breakfast. We went to a huge super market across from the bus station and stocked up on groceries that they don't sell here in Gracias like spinach leaves for salads, green beans, V8 juice and odd items like that. Then I was introduced to my first public transpiration in Honduras.. the bus. All I have to say is holy moly. Again, they love to stuff as many people in one place as possible. This bus was packed to the rim. And we found out from Solomon that you don't have to take a driving test to get your drivers license in Honduras… which is very evident while riding the bus. At one point I had to shut my eyes to avoid getting stressed out about losing my life. My arms and legs got a work out from bracing myself so I wouldn't fall out of my seat while the bus was going 70 mph around the curviest road ever.

Needless to say, we survived. It was nice to get away from Gracias for a night even if there was barfing and near death experiences involved.

it's picture time...

The awesome view of the mountains behind our neighborhood on my walk home from school.

Home sweet home. Casa armarillo. My room is the white door, top floor, far right in the corner.

Just a boney cow chillin in the road.

The fire station right next to our neighborhood with a hummer.

This stone painting is at the front of the school.

The front of the school.

My classroom is the 3rd one down where the Muchacha (the cleaning lady) is standing.

The playground where the kids like to play soccer and stir up the dust that loves to get in my eyes.

The breeze way where we sit during our breaks because our teachers lounge is a closet the size of my pinky toe.

no hablo espanol..

I survived my first week at school! The first week went by super fast and I've now got my routine down pat. I know all my students names, especially the naughty boys, and can now pronounce their names correctly (almost). Apparently Jonathan and Katherine cannot be pronounced regularly like I'm used to… Katherine is pronounced "Kat-er-reen" and I gave up on trying to say Jonathan the Honduran way but he is okay with it… but Jonathan's dad is our doctor so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I don't get a parasite because apparently you have to poop in a dixie cup to be tested for one… and that could just get awkward with my students dad. Luckily I have yet to get sick.. knock on wood.
We (the gringos and gringas) had our first fiesta of the semester Saturday night. Someone invited some other American teachers from the other private bilingual school in the area over so I now have all kinds of American amigos here. We also play staff soccer every Sunday and this Sunday we played with the other school too so hopefully we will be seeing a lot of them around. So I should come home super sporty and in shape.. fingers crossed.
I can now navigate to mostly everywhere in town and have found out all the best places to eat and shop for certain things. I was introduced to my new favorite place that sells homemade popsicles (paletas). Oh.my.gosh.so.good.
We order pizza every Thursday and we watch a lot of movies in our down time because thats pretty much all there is to do. Some girls in the house are hardcore about working out, but I usually pass on that. It's WAY too hot to be running and working out for me… and I figure all the uphill walking I do will do the job. We all pitched in and bought a blender.. HUGE DEAL around here. So I'm very excited about smoothies and homemade salsa. I find myself getting WAY excited about the small things in life now because they are luxuries here.. it's weird and humbling.
Saturday was my first Honduran laundry experience… woah. We luckily have a "washing machine" if that is what you want to call it.. Here is how you do laundry here:
1. You put your laundry detergent in. And when I say laundry detergent, I mean some funky flower smelling grainy stuff.
2. Put your clothes in
3. Plug the machine in and turn it on
4. Start filling it up with the hose water, yes hose water.
5. Wait for it to start shaking
6. Turn the hose off and shut the lid
7. When its done shaking you take your clothes out and turn them inside out to dry because the sun will fade them
8. Hang your clothes piece by piece on the clothes lines strung around our house. Hang your underwear so everyone in town can see them.
9. Every 20 min, go and check to see if your clothes have blown off or not.
Talk about taking the washer and dryer for granted back home. BE THANKFUL. So basically washing your clothes here means swishing your clothes around in dirty water to make them smell a little better than your usual sweaty musk. awesome.
Along the same lines of being clean… every time I shower I feel like I might die of electrocution. and I'm not being a drama queen. You have to turn the water on, let it run for 30 seconds, then turn a switch on that is attached to the shower head thing (google image search "hot water ducha" for a picture)… this makes your water hot. And every time you switch it on, a green spark comes out of it. AH. Then when you finish, you have to switch it off and let the water run cold again and then you can turn the water off.. talk about full wear out trying to get clean around here.
Oh and Esperanza is back! She escaped her new home and ran back here with her chain around her neck… so she literally broke free. hahaha. So I think we are going to let her stay since she won't stay anywhere else. Poor thing. It is just going to be sad to leave her here when we all go home in 6 months. If it wasn't so expensive to take her back I'm sure someone would but its around a couple hundred buckaroos… we would have to get her all her shots, get her spayed, and then pay to fly her back… so I don't think anyone is wanting to do that. So we'll see how that goes…
I now have a notebook dedicated just to my Espanol studies… I WILL learn Spanish before I leave this place. I've already improved a lot just being here around it daily. And my students like to help me. We had a big discussion about potatoes (papa) and your father (Papa)… after about 5 minutes of them laughing at me trying to put the emphasis in the right spot, I got it down. So we shall see how this speaking Spanish goes….

it's tough being a gringa

So I've now been here for 9 days. It's slowly getting better and better each day... started out pretty rough but I'm starting to get into the groove.

The other girls who live in this big house with me finally arrived on Saturday. They couldn't believe I had been here all week alone... you're telling me! But they are all very nice and helpful with everything. There are 2 girls who live downstairs (which is a whole other living quarters...their own kitchen and bathrooms and living room)... and 2 new guys just moved in down there today as well. There are 4 of us girls upstairs... so there are plenty of people to hang out with and walk to town with.

School started yesterday (Monday) which was pretty much just a get to know you/have fun kind of day. So today was my first real teaching day. The kids are SUPER cute and are such a good class. While we are having lessons they are attentive it's kinda scary. The only frustrating thing is that I have high and low students. So the high students are all about learning and love participating in lessons because they speak english well, while the lower students look bored out of their minds and I know they have no clue what I'm saying most of the time. It's just going to be hard to balance out my time between the two groups, but hopefully they will improve before I leave. But needless to say, they are all really sweet and they LOVE Justin Bieber so I think we'll get along just fine.

We no longer have Esperanza. Good thing we had our photo shoot when we did. Apparently the girls who left Honduras for good were the ones who took the dog in. So when they left, the other girls gave her away but she ran away from the new owner and came back to her "home". So when I arrived she was here and I had figured the girls had just left her here while the neighbors fed her. So since the girls have been back, they gave her to a young guy who owns a chicken store. They have 2 other dogs so hopefully she is having fun. I'm sure we'll see her around.

I'm getting used to:

-cleaning my feet with baby wipes before I get in bed, even if I've just showered, they are always dirty no matter what

-walking uphill for 15 minutes to school with blisters on my feet

-the power going out almost every night

-not knowing what is going on half the time because I don't speak spanish

-the smell of rotting animals around town

-getting bitten by bugs while wearing bug spray

-brushing my teeth using bottled water

-sweating ALL day

-being called a "gringa" (an American woman). people will literally announce it to the people in their homes as we walk by that the grangas are passing

-a sweet farmers tan in the making

-waking up to roosters at 2am EVERY night

-soaking my vegetables in clorox water before eating them

-always watching my back, ready to pull out my ninja moves at any moment while walking down the road alone

And good news, the sweetheart angel neighbor who let me use his internet and email the first night.. ending up looking in his "sent" email box of the email I sent to my mom and sister, finding my sister Ashley's name, then facebooking her, then finding my name on facebook thru her so facebooking me (a little creepy, but so thankful for creepiness)... long story short, we are facebook friends and he gave me his netflix account so I can now watch TV! WOO HOO. my account wouldn't work here so now I have it! What a sweet dude. I'm going to have to make him microwave cookies because nothing says thanks like microwaved honduran cookies!

Here are 2 pictures of my fancy room...

And here are my precious students being super precious...

Esperanza!

Esperanza had a photo shoot today... nothin but a model.

can we talk about culture shock?!

I knew Honduras was going to be completely different than home, but woah. I'm finally getting the hang of things around here like walking uphill to town, where they sell the best fruits and vegetables, and how to live off tortillas, beans, cheese, and eggs. I bought a cellphone which looks like a nokia from back in the day. But its really cheap here to text and doesn't cost me anything if people text me. So I'll be able to text the other teachers here and text people back home. And it has a flashlight which comes in handy! I've also figured out how to borrow the neighbors internet since I still don't have our internet password until the girls return. The first night when I had my freak out, the nice guy with the computer handed me his internet password so when I finally found his network on my computer a day later I figured he wouldn't mind if I used it since he gave me the password, right? So it has been nice to get online and talk to people back home.

So here are some interesting things I've discovered about Honduras in the first few days..

1. Driving… on the 6 hour long drive from the airport to Gracias I learned a lot about driving in Honduras. I'm pretty sure there is no speed limit because we were driving about 70mph on a super winding road that looked similar to the road going to Eureka Springs. If you come up to a car that is going too slow, oh no big deal, just pass them real quick even if there is oncoming traffic in the other lane… saw my life flash before my eyes more than once.
2. Mud shacks next to mansions… this seems to be very normal. the drive into Gracias was awesome with tons of mountains and trees but there were so many mud houses on the hills and then out of no where you'd come across a huge, colorful house.
3. Texting while driving… Americans aren't the only irresponsible people in the world. Hondurans LOVE their phones. Apparently its a newer luxury for people in this country so they are obsessed. And they sure aren't afraid to text and drive. Oprah would not be happy.
4. Animals=everywhere! holy moly. cows, horses, goats, cats, dogs, chickens.. everywhere. The first night I woke up at 5am to a rooster cock-a-doodle doing. shoot me in the face. Then I go outside and there is a HUGE cow standing in the street just chillin. Speaking of animals, Esperanza, our dog, is pretty awesome but very dirty. She rolls around in the street all day and plays with all her amigos in the dirt. I wish she was clean so i could cuddle with her. She kind of does whatever she wants and will follow you anywhere you go in town. But overall, she is pretty awesome. But I don't think I'll be kidnapping her at the end of the school year and bringing her home because she is definitely a Honduras street dog.
5. People traffic… so many people walk everywhere. on the drive here, we would be in the middle of no where and there would be so many people walking holding a huge bundle of limbs.. no telling how far they would be walking… oh and cars do not get over a little like in the states while passing a walker.. I'm pretty sure I could have touched them as we passed. In town here we walk everywhere, mostly everything is up a hill so I'm going to be in good shape when I get back. But there are still a lot of cars, taxis and motor bikes in town and they will run your butt over if you are in street. the streets are so dang small too and the sidewalks are made for one person which are very high off the ground and not easy to jump on to. There is no such thing as pedestrians have the right away here!
6. Cobblestone streets… when I hear the word "cobblestone" I think of pretty streets made with big stones placed nicely in the pavement… oh no. cobblestone here means huge rocks in the road that are not flush at all with the cement. When its rainy, they are huge slippery rocks which are not easy to walk on. I know now why there are so many car maintenance shops here because I'm sure it destroys cars.
7. High heels… females love their heels here. we are talking 13 year olds wearing huge stilettos walking on the crappy uneven streets. kudos to them.
8. Loud noises… there are people yelling outside the house at all hours of the day and very late at night. I'm pretty sure my walls are thin as paper because I can hear every conversation on the streets. And dogs barking all night long is something I will have to get used to.
9. English speaking men… the only english words men know here are "hey baby how are you" and "bye bye"… you can be walking by a man and he'll just say "bye bye" who knows if they even know what they are saying. silly.
10. Toilet paper… you don't flush toilet paper which just grosses me out.
11. Electricity… apparently the power goes out all the time. It has happened 3 times since I've been here and its always been at night when its pitch black outside, go figure. Our water also went out yesterday morning and came back on this morning… but they said that only happens every now and then.

That is all I can think of for meow.
Toots

HOLA!

I am safe and sound here in Gracias. After the longest day of my life of traveling and some bumps in the road (literally and figuratively) I am all settled in! My tiny room, with nasty pink walls, is all set up. None of the other girls who live in this house with me are back from their Christmas break yet… don't know when they will be back. But here is a run down of what went down my first day…

So i get to San Pedro airport at about 12pm, get my bags and everything. I find the family with my name on their sign that says "Miss Lory, Minerva school" so i figured that was me.. Its a man and his son Mauricio who will be in my class. The dad doesn't speak much english so Mauricio is my translator… its supposed to take 4 hours to drive here to Gracias…. it took us 6 hours. We stopped at a burger king and i said i wasn't hungry because i didn't know if it was safe to eat a hamburger from there… but apparently "no thanks" means "id love a burger!" because he bought me a burger so I ate it thinking the whole time "this is it, I'm going to be barfing all night". So then we take off for Gracias. People drive like maniacs here. I'm pretty sure there is no speed limit. At one point, we stopped at some parking lot/side of the road for the dad to take a nap. haha i asked Mauricio what we were doing and he said "he needs to sleep". unbelievable. luckily it was only a 15 minutes siesta then we started again. we finally made it here around 6pm. at this point a honduras girl named Anna Maria from the school staff meets us at the house (she looks about 12) and she gives me a very brief tour showing me the bathroom, the kitchen, and my room where they had put my bags. she doesn't speak any english and Mauricio is gone at this point. so I'm trying to ask this chick where the other girls are using my awesome spanish skills but its not working. she said something about "manana" which means "tomorrow" and pointing in the house so I was banking on the girls being back the next day, which did not happen. then she says "adios!" so I'm stranded at this big house with like 15 keys for every room. So i go lock myself in my room which isn't attached to the other rooms. you walk around the balcony to get to each room (ill take pictures later because its hard to explain) So I figured I better make my bed and start getting my bags unpacked. I get on my computer and we do have the internet but i don't have the password.. so at this point I'm thinking "jill and sonny are probably freaking out" and i wanted to let them know I had arrived. so i desperately turn my phone on even tho i knew it would cost an arm and a leg to call but of course i have zero service so it didn't matter anyway. then the power goes out a few minutes later so i just lay in my bed on the verge of tears feeling stranded. about 5 minutes later the power comes back on so i jump up and decide I'm going to find a phone or the internet. its already dark outside but there are lights around so i take my janitor keys, lock my door, then walk downstairs and there is a gate to get in the house so i stick the key in to unlock it and it gets stuck so I'm panicking and some teenager is walking by so i ask him to help. i said "auxilio" which i think means help, but i have no clue. so he comes over and finally gets it out. then i ask him for his internet and i don't think he understands me and said "no?" so he walked away laughing at me. so i go across the street to the neighbors house who runs a little convenient store out of their house and i see a little lady, she invites me in and she doesn't speak english so i try my spanish on her telling her i just moved in across the street and asked her if i could use her internet or phone. about 5 others come out of this house and are all trying to figure out what i need. Im showing them my numbers i was given of the school manager and they finally call her and she doesn't speak english so that was pointless. So I'm trying to ask them to use their internet to email my family and after about 15 minutes of our pointless conversation I start to cry and this little nice lady brings me a tissue and rubs my back. Then as I'm about to leave, a younger guy comes out of one of the 15 rooms and i swear I hear angels singing hallelujah and he's lit by a bright light behind him as he carries out his laptop over to me. at this point tears are streaming down my face like an idiot because I was the happiest girl in the whole world to see a computer. while I'm trying to get on gmail, which i couldn't do because it was asking me security questions since I'm in a foreign country and it wouldn't accept my answers. so i get this dude to log in his email for me to use and i email my mom. then he says "Skype?" and I say YES! so i try to login to Skype and it wouldn't let me for some odd reason. while I'm trying all this stuff on the computer, the lady says "blah blah blah american blah blah english" and is pointing at the door so i realize they found another american. so in walks this lady named Diane, my 2nd saving grace of the night. She is the other new teacher but she lives about 4 houses down from me and moved in 2 days earlier. and she speaks spanish so she is talking to the people in this house. so after i email my mom, i go down to Diane's apartment and hang for a little bit. so then i go home and go to bed.. wake up at 3 hearing all kinds of weird noises, think it was just the wind because it was rainy and windy but it still freaks me out. rooster woke me up at about 5am. so I organized my room and got everything set up. now i just need my housemates! oh and i never got sick from the burger king.

Welp thats it for meow.