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….