Monday 24 March 2008

Soccer

Much excitement in Honduras as they have just qualified for the Olympics in Beijing and they won the Concaf qualifying tournament beating US 1-0 in the final. Typically, I watched the match until the 10 minute of extra time in the bar and then retired, only to be greeted by shouts of Goaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll 30 seconds after I left!


Come on Honduras!


____________________________________________________________________

Sunday 23 March 2008

Cleaning the classroom


At the end of each day there is a rota for sweeping out the classroom. I do think it is a bit of a perpetual circle as we sweep it out for the kids to bring back in on the following day.








___________________________________________________________________________


Art at school

We decided it was time for another project, so we decided to make a tree and each child has to make a leaf. They can paint one side. Charlotte was very keen to boost the kids self esteem so the other side of the leaf, we put on a photo of them and they had to write positive words about themselves, happy kind pretty loyal caring sporting and so on. This is the kids working hard, Lucy then got the glitter out.............





___________________________________________________________________

Lack of text books

Since we do not have enough text books for the class, we have to improvise. We had to do a lesson on things with and without life. Lucy and I drew this for the class discussion. We were quite proud, (we are easily pleased!)

_________________________________________________________________

Morning mist

The great thing about being up in the mountains early in the morning is that you do get stunning views.

Classroom in the sun

I also like this shot of the empty classroom with the sun shining in through the window at break.




The view to School

I find this view very poignant. Every morning we come round the corner to find boys playing in the road outside the school, or we leave while they are still playing. As I am now thinking about leaving, I do feel a sadness.



_____________________________________________________________

Skipping

Of course the girls at school just love skipping even if they do not always have great finesse



.

Saturday 22 March 2008

I am looking forward to....

A bath, I know it is a cliche but it is has been three months without lying in hot water.


Real Beer, I do hope that the Tite still serves good beer.


Real Cheese, here there is only one type, a crumbly cheese that is quite good in small doses but seems to be part of every meal along the beans.


Proper Sausages, the ones here are an abomination of the name!

and since we are on a theme, good Crusty Bread.

I would normally say a cup of tea but I have managed to make a passable cup of tea in my room but the milk is UHT so a I want a long glass of cold milk.

I think I could go on but on the other hand there are many things here that I will miss also


_________________________________________________________________





A walk in the hills by San Rafael

As part of the deal with GVI here, I am allowed a free hike in the mountains with a guide. One Saturday morning, Kimberley and I met Alberto at the Spanish school. It was quite a chilly day for Copan which was ideal weather for walking. We walked up into the hills not far from the school in San Rafael and indeed the plan was to end up at the hacienda at the bottom of the road to San Rafael for a coke.

We stopped to admire the view and Kimberley spotted two children playing at the nearby house who go to our school. They were SO excited and took us into their house. This is typical of the houses in the mountains, made of mud etc. Alejandro greeting us!




We had coffee that was warming in their fire. I did not put any flash on the photos so you can see the gloom that they live in. The mother makes clothes for the community and so she has her sewing machine by the door for the light.


and the wildlife wanders in and out.

but the kids were all smiles. The simplest toys still make them happy.


We continued our walk, through large areas of coffee plants. Picking the coffee is the principle source of income for the communities in the mountain. Of course, the coffee is competing with the rest of the "jungle".


We came upon some birds that make wonderful nests hanging from the branches that swing in the wind.




We saw some cows in a pen and when we walked over to investigate we found one of my class with them. Joel has been in a lot of pain with his tooth so it was good to see him smile.



His father suggested that we go left out of the pen and from that point onwards our guide, aged 52, (lived in Copan all his life) was lost. Well not really lost as you know that Copan was at the bottom of the hill. In our journey, we came across this wonderful stile.



And we came across this lying in the path. We are told that it is good to eat but we declined.



Anyway, it became more of an adventure as we eventually had to go from community to community to get directions to the way down. There was one house we stopped at casa that had a wonderful sign to indicate who lived there.








All in all, the walk was meant to take four and a half hours, but it took six and a half hours. This is Honduras.

_________________________________________________________________







________________________________________________________________

Saturday 15 March 2008

Mosquito spraying

There has been a truck going around the town spraying insecticide from the street onto the houses. You needed to be inside or move away.

Streetproud in Copan

The ladies in Copan are always out sweeping the street in front of their houses or throwing water to dampen down the dust. Here is a view down to my house.

Antigua

Some shots of Antigua, although it was pretty I did feel much happier to be returning to my home in Copan, it was like spending a weekend in London, exciting but it is always great to get back to the country. Charlotte is now based in Antigua so she was my guide. The market there is vast and full of many tiny stalls selling everything.












Antigua is famous for its alhumbras in the build up to Easter which are drawings on the floor of churches or in the street made out of sawdust. It REALLY is made out of sawdust which is dyed and for the ones in the street, they make it again every day.

The volcanoes around Antigua dominate the skyline.
________________________________________________________________

Shoe shine man keeping up appearances

I went to Antigua in Guatemala, it was the old capital of Guatemala hence the name of the town but was damaged by earthquake in 1773 so the government moved the capital. It is also a beautiful town like Copan. GVI in Central America is based there and they run two schools for the communities in the mountains. These schools have over 300 pupils.
Like all these towns, the central park is a great place in the morning to people watch and to take in the flavour of the place. I liked watching the shoe shine man making his shoes were first class.

Tuesday 11 March 2008

Many volunteers

There are now 8 volunteers at the project, this is the most ever. To think that I spent the most of January as the only volunteer also. It is now a bit of a squeeze in the back of the pickup.

From left to right,
Carol / she is from Aberdeen and is here with her mum who is sitting in the front of the pickup. They are working in the Kindergarten and are enjoying it. They have also bought along many toys and have bought many useful items such as lockable storage cupboards from money they raised from donations from local companies such as Walkers shortbread and Whisky firms.

Adam is in front, he is 19 and from Montreal, a french canadian. He can be a bit crazy.

Caroline is hidden behind Adam and she has taken over from Charlotte. She came back because she has an Honduranian boyfriend.

Lucy is sitting on the floor.
Julie is sitting next to Lucy, she is 20 and has taken a break from her job in Watford in Sales Admin for company selling PC components, she says to get away from boyfriends. She is travelling onto Equador after she leaves this project.

Kimberley is 19 and from San Francisco. She behaves exactly as you imagine such a person would behave!

Adam at the back is from Devon and works for Otter Brewery during the summer in charge of events. He is pleased as he has just got the contract for doing the bar at Bestival 2 *a rock festival). He was working at another project in Guatemala before coming here.

Scabby Doo



I think it is probably typical of all Central American towns but there are many dogs roaming the streets here in Copan but they are not in packs. They are not really a problem as they are generall
y nervous of people. There is one dog which we have named Scabby Doo because much fur has fallen out, covered in goodness know what, spends all of its time licking itself. One person who saw her when I first arrived expressed the opinion that the dog would not last the week. Whenever, we go down to the central park we do keep an eye out for her and relieved to see her. She often follows one of us home also and sometimes runs with us when we go in the pickup track. As she can run with us for a mile of so, we reckon that there is a lot of life in the dog yet.

Here she is photographed from the pickup.

___________________________________________________________________

Saturday 8 March 2008

Teaching

We have been teaching Maths, Natural Science, Spanish and Social Studies now. I am quite happy with doing the Maths and enjoy it. I felt an imposter with the Spanish (EspaƱol) though. The course text we were following meant that we were teaching pronunciation rules about which syllable is stressed in a word. The kids who speak Spanish all day clearly had different ideas from the formal presentation and I as an English speaker was trying to tell them that they were wrong. I did mention this to Charlotte last weekend when I saw her, her advice was simple. You are the teacher so you are right, the are the pupils and if they disagree then they are wrong. I fully understand this but it still does not feel right.

After three weeks of following text books for the subjects, we have been told to follow a different text books which is also frustrating for me and it is doubly frustrating as we do not have enough text books for every child which means the kids have to share. Again, I can quickly adapt to the different text book for maths as it is essentially the same topics. However in Spanish, it is now more "creative", we did a story yesterday and the kids had to come up with a spell for some magic as the story was about a witch. They really did not have a clue, the text seems much more suited to kids who watch television etc which I guess is fair but in our community there is no electricity and so it is difficult to expand their imagination.

In Social Sciences, we were discussing family and neighbours and courtesy etc but now we have been trying to explain conciousness which I think I would find difficult to explain to year 2 in England so I really struggle with the Spanish on this subject. But hey, let´s look at this as a challenge.

Science also has a new text book but that is essentially the same text but dressed up better. We have been doing the parts of plants and the cycle of life, you should really see my drawings of chicken and egg on the whiteboard. The kids decided that they were ducks.

Anyway, teaching is still a challenge, I think I enjoy it but it certainly keeps me on my toes.

_________________________________________________________________

Tuesday 4 March 2008

Am I brown?

You decide. Diane was reckoning that I probably was....

Clean fingernails


Every morning before class, the children have to line up to have their hands inspected. I am glad that I am no included as I am not sure that I would always pass. When they enter class, Erica the teacher leads the class in a daily prayer, then the kids says the National oath and then they recite a national "poem/hymn".

Erica has been a great help to us and is always smiling. She certainly has more authority over the kids than us.

_______________________________________________________________

Number line

I thought it was important to have a number line for teaching arithmetic in the class. Here is my effort with a little inspiration from Mr. Chapman. The kids thought it was great fun to trace their feet and to cut it out afterwards!

My house

I did not really get around to describing my host family. This is the front of the house, it is a pupeleria which is a small shop that sells the basic basics.








From the shop there is a small corridor that leads to the kitchen. Cory and Oto, my host mother and father in the kitchen. Kevin is sitting on the steps from the corridor into the kitchen, he stays with us during the week as he has a job in Copan and returns to his family at the weekend.


They have been very nice to me and the food is great which is very important.

_____________________________________________________________________

Charlotte

A couple of weeks ago, Charlotte left to be the project coordinator in Antigua, Guatemala. The school there is run and staffed entirely by GVI unlike here in Honduras where GVI work with the state school, albeit adding extra facilities. The school in the community outside Antigua is much larger 150 pupils so it should be a "promotion" for Charlotte but she did not want to go. Honduras was her baby and she has worked very hard to establish the secondary school that GVI now run in the afternnoon. My spanish is not that good to teach to secondary pupils (phew). The secondary pupils range in age from 13 to 24 as there are some young adults who want to take the chance to improve their education. I am glad that there is somebody here to give them that opportunity. Anyway, back to Charlotte. I will miss her as she was a good friend as well as my "boss". I will always remember her mantra to me, "you will be fine" when talking about teaching and I guess she was right. Anyway, she always proved to be rather elusive when it came to photos so about the only decent shot I have is of her contemplating leaving or her split ends!