My Birthday!

Sorry, sorry, sorry!  I am sooooo behind on informing you of how awesome it is down here haha.  I was going to do it yesterday, but there's a sickness going around and I'm pretty sure it hit me yesterday.  I was burning up, but freezing at the same time.  I didn't think I'd make it through school today, but the more I moved around, I felt better.  My throat is pretty sore and I have a pretty bad cough, but I'm tough.  I think it's from the weather changing so drastically.  I was wearing shorts and a tanktop one day and the next I had to wear a coat to school.  So anywayyyyysss......This week was AWESOME!  It started with the spelling bee Monday.  We were supposed to have special activities and what not this week, with Friday off, but with our random week off cause of the road, that didn't happen.  So we had the spelling bee, which took up the morning, so that was nice.  It was pretty cool.  The kids were really into it.  Our 5th graders I would say were the most supportive of their classmates, yelling and cheering when they got the word right.  It was my first spelling bee to watch and it was fun.  After, they had native games and fun things that the students got to try out.  So it was like a fun day, but then the last hour or so the administration wanted us to go back to class and have classes.....yea, good one.  The students were so hyped up it was difficult, so we pretty much called it a wash of a day and watched a movie haha.  here's some pictures of what a spelling bee looks like down here, it was all outside just around the library:

 This was all the kids watching

Kids in the bee (2 from every class, 1st grade-12th grade, they all had their own words appropriate to their age, a 2nd grader won!)

Then the fun came Wednesday forrrrr My Birthdayyyy!  I knew the students were planning something, 1. because they had a donation box on my desk and 2. they kept telling me it was going to be better than the other 5th grade teachers birthday.  So they surprised me in the class when I got there, and gave me a sash and had food and cake all set up for the day.  The first grade class made me a crown and a cute card.  Then after lunch I came back for the real pie.  They got me good.  It was up my nose and all over.  Pretty much a dream come true though haha.  Here's some pictures:

So that's me with pie all over.  After I cleaned myself up, we had food they brought in, some more snacks, which were cookies haha, and they wanted to dance, so I let them.  Then after cleaning we had cake (yes, they had 2 cakes, one for the face & 1 for eating (which was delicious!)) and then we did the pinata.  It was a really awesome birthday, and my kids planned it all, they gathered the money and everyone brought stuff in.  Then for dinner I got to have delicious baleadas!  They are my favorite food here!  They're just large tortillas with beans and cream inside, but this one place puts eggs and avocado in them, so we ate there, and it was delicious!  It really was a great birthday, I felt lucky to have met such wonderful people down here.  On Friday we had a birthday party here for me.  I made sure no one dressed up because that's a nusance, so everyone came in their pjs!  It was such a fun night!  Especially when my land lady showed up with a mariachi band!  It was totally unexpected but so cool!  She's such a cute old lady, but she reminds me of my nona and popi and grandma that I miss from homeeeeeee.  Here's some pictures of the mariachi band....

So it was pretty awesome, and we had cake and awesome food that everyone brought, loveeeddd it!  Then Saturday it was another teachers birthday, so we went zip lining!  It was kinda like a shared birthday outing haha.  It was amazingggg!  I was a little scared, but it was waaayyy better than I expected it was going to be! We went over the mountains, the river, jungle, we saw the entire town, there were 14 lines.  Some of them were right after the other, so there wasn't even time to prepare, but those were the best, so thrilling!  Here's some pictures of that:

Sooooo then that takes us up to yesterday, where I didn't even get out of bed.  But today we're making homemade soup, well Mandy's making it, I'm just gonna eat it like usual.  Grades and year long plans are due in the next week or so, so it'll be busy, but I'll definately appreciate the weekend alot more!  Hope you all have a good week!  Miss you, less than 2 months til I'm home!

Full Week of School

Well, first here's some pictures of the birds from the bird park and a couple of Santa Rosa, the bigger town we went to last weekend.....

 It's a little nicer than Coapn Ruinas, better streets definately

 We were higher up in the mountains too, higher altitude, but you couldn't really tell the difference, it was a little chillier, and by little it was pry like lower 70s haha

 I was a little freaked when he started putting the birds on me

 This birds name's is Polly...it laughed at me haha

 Cute center of town in Santa Rosa

So those are some of the pictures from our random week off, I have the rest on facebook, it's not like I have all day to put them on both lol.  Soooooo we went back to school this week.  It was a loooonngggg week for sure!  The kids could tell the difference too.  However, I think (and hope) that maybe now that we won't be having all these 4 day weeks, that the kids will finally get into a routine and the 5 days will get easier.  They were chatty, like usual, and for some reason after they eat lunch they are so difficult.  We have 2 periods after we have lunch and when we come back in for reading & english, they are difficult to control, they just talk and mess around.  So I'm working on that.  The mornings have been fabulous though!  So the week was alright, some days better than others at school, but because of that hurricane in Mexico we've been getting storms and alotttt of rain.  It rained everyday, some days it rained at school.  On Tuesday, we had to walk the kids from almost where we live, up the mountain to school, and then walk them down to the buses.  I told my kids, since they love to goof around, that if I see anyone push someone else into the mud, I'll put their face in the mud.  They seemed to like that I said that, and no one went in the mud haha.  Monday is our school spelling bee too!  I'm pretty excited, it's all boys representing 5th grade, and their good kids, so we're pretty excited to have them up there.  My student said when he saw the trophy in like a quiet, determined voice..."That trophy is mineee".  He was in it last year but didn't get to the finals.  Mandy's student in it is the daughter of her classroom aide.  So her aide, Ffarah and student Megan, came over this morning to practice.  Mandy is a judge for it, so she was the judge and me & Megan were in the bee.  Ffarah cooked us lunch, which was pasta with some kinda butter sauce and onions, it was awesome!  I only got one word wrong in the spelling bee too!  Haha, I wanted to make Megan more comfortable with struggling with spelling the words so she isn't so nervous tomorrow.  I think she liked it.  The rest of the weekend was pretty awesome too.  There were alot of backpackers in town.  They were pretty cool.  Mandy talked to one who survived a shark attack!  There were also a couple guys from Austria, their accent is difficult to understand.  Then some from Canada, Quebec I think.  There were pry like 8 in town.  It's so interesting to talk to people from all over, I love going out on the weekends because of that.  It was also really rainy, shocking, and I was wearing my old navy flip flops, and of course the floors in some of the bars are like procelin, so I was on my butt like 5 times because I was slipping around so much.  One of the backpackers was telling us about when they ate at the pizza place.  Wellllll, before he told us, we decided we were going to take a couple weeks off from watching the Bears because we spend money to watch crappy games and then it just makes our evenings bad.  So he told us when they were eating there, he felt something nibbling on his toe, well there's stray cats & dogs ALL OVER, so he didn't really think anything of it, until he looked and it was a big rat!  I was extremely grossed out and I don't know if I'll be able to eat there again.  We'll see.  I've also noticed I've become more at home because when we're out I catch myself staring at tourists.  Not to mention we talk about tourists, like "O did you see that gringo/tourist?"  The Hondurans are always starring, and I know I've starting doing the same.  I just stare, and don't realize it haha.  O well, when in Honduras...... Well that seems to be about it for the week.  Today is the 2 month mark til we're home for 3 weeks!  Also, a special day is Wednesday, my birthday!! Woo woooooo.  We'll see what the children have up their sleeves and next weekend we're gonna have people over, for the first time yessss and zip lining Saturday for another teacher's birthday.  So it should be a good week, I'm excited!  Ok, have a great week, GO BEARS!

My Week Off

Sooooo the roads didn't get fixed, so we had a week off from school.  No big deal haha.  We get snow days in the states and mud days I guess down here.  So this week kinda flew by.  We didn't even do much, but sit around.  Well, we did go to a pool Tuesday?  I'm pretty sure that was the day, they all kinda blurred together haha.  So at the pool I got a text saying no school the rest of the week so that was exciting.  However, we were getting bored so we did manage to finally make it to the bird park.  It's free for the teachers so why not go?  And they gave us special prices for food there, for a cheeseburger or bbq chicken.  The cheeseburger was amazing!  It was by far the best piece of meat I've had since I've been down here.  The park has just cages of animals and then there's a part that has an open area where they put birds on you.  Weelllll I wasn't going to let those things near me, I don't know why, it's pretty cool, but the thought of birds sitting on me grossed/freaked me out for some reason.  However, I gave into peer pressure and did it.  It was definately a nice day we had there.  So some teachers decided to travel to El Salvador for the weekend.  Since some of our longer weekends are taken later in the year, they went now.  I wanted to save money so I stayed, as well as some other teachers.  So 5 of us decided we should do something to get out, so we went to Santa Rosa.  It's a bigger town like 2 hours or so away.  It was nice.  There was more people and cars, and just in general bigger than here.  The 5 of us had a nice time, walking the town, to literally every pulperia to find one of the teachers a pack of cigarettes.  There used to be a rule there, no smoking on the streets, but they abolished that, but alot of the pulperias haven't caught on because we were all over trying to get her her niccotine fix, for all our sanity haha.  So after that, we did some shopping and just had a nice time. We only went for the night, so it was inexpensive, but we still got outta Copan Ruinas.  So the week off is now coming to an end, and we're all a bit nervous to go back to school since the kids were finally getting into a routine, and now we just had a week off.  It'll be brutal I think, and with no long weekends until thanksgiving, I'm definately going to cherrish the weekends more lol.  I also started tutoring a Honduran in English.  He's a friend of one of the teacher's boyfriends, and it is going well, but I've come to realize I'm not very good at explaining things in English.  He asks questions about when to use certain words, or he'll even ask about some metaphors he's read and I won't lie, I had to look a few up because I had no idea how to explain it to him.  Good thing my 5th graders don't ask me tough questions haha.  But it's good because we meet like 3 days a week, and eventually when he gets better at English, he'll help me with my conversation part of Spanish.  So hopefullyyyyy I will be able to hold conversations.  So that's about it for my week off.  Nothing too exciting but the birds on me and getting away for a night.  O!  And the water is finally back!  It's clearer too!  They musta put a new pipe in because it doesn't come in so brown anymore.  No drinking it still, but we feel better when doing the dishes at least.  So have a good week!  And Go Bears! (on Monday night of course, they NEED to win!)

Surprise News!

Hi!  So we had our first "strike" today because the roads are so bad, and the people of the town aren't putting enough money into them to help fix them.  So our school, Mayatan, had to pay and the roads are ruining the buses and it's so hard for kids to get to school and for teachers to walk.  So we met with the mayor today, and they are going to try and get it good by Thursday, so another day off tomorrow! Woo Woooo! However, we had to get rid of one of our 3 day weekends this month and a day off our 4 day weekend in March.  I woulda preferred just get rid of the 2 3-day weekends this month, but whatever.  We have another day off.  Ok, so after my first strike ever.....that took part in Honduras, kindaaaa cool, we talked about christmas break.  The thing with that is, it's cheaper to fly back the week after the new year.  So we were supposed to start back at school the 4th, but I guess alot of teachers said they wouldn't come back til the next week because it's cheaper.  So they would have to get us subs, for almost all the American teachers.  Now, instead, there's only like 6 of us flying out the 16th, so we're having school that whole week in December (we were supposed to be done that Wednesday) but Mandy & I come home the 16th, so we have Dec. 16th-Jan 7th of vacation!  I'll be home for 3 weeks! I'm super excited!  The school is pretty awesome and understands all our money situations, it's going to save us like $100 bucks in airfare and some teachers it's saving them like $300.  So we all win!  Yea!  Ok, that's all, the strike went ok, we'll see how the roads are in a couple days.  Hopefully it won't be too long, I'll get so boreddddd.  Good thing I start English tutoring today.  O, and we don't have water, the whole town doesn't have water.  A pipe broke, sooooooo we're kinda put on hold for a while without water, no showers, dishes, laundry, we have to old fashioned flush the toilet with a bucket of water.  O well, no school tomorrow, have a good rest of the week! :)

Surprise 4 day weekend!

So first off, we don't have snow days here, for obvious reasons, but we do get surprise days off because the roads are too bad to get to school!  Sooooo, the 3 day weekend just turned into a 4 day one!  Except, we have to still go into town to the town hall meeting at 7:30 tomorrow, but we get to sleep an hour later! Woo Woooo!  And we'll be done with half the day to do whatever.  Cleaned the house, it's pretty much immaculant now......for a couple hours, and then dirt I'm sure will find it's way back to the floors.  Sooooo this week was a long one.  5 days of school, it was rough.  It was the first real week of school I would say, no interruptions from marching or anything.  By Friday I was ready for the weekend and the kids definately were.  They told me they can't wait for my birthday so I can finally be happy with them haha.  They don't really know the words to use for when I am stern with them.  They always say Miss is angry with us, when in reality I'm just using a stern voice, telling them what needs to get done.  They have started a collection jar too for my birthday party at school.  I kept telling them to save their money and spend it on themselves, that's what I want for my birthday, but there's no talking them out of it.  My class is trying to "beat" the other 5th grade classes party for their teacher.  Everythings a competition lol.  Whatever, as long as there's cake, I'll be happy haha.  So there were 3 teacher birthdays this week that we celebrated on Friday.  I think they all enjoyed it, the cakes, yes plural, it was amazing, they were delicious!  We also made sangria which was delicious I might say so myself. (It tasted better Saturday though after it sat for a day).  Also, we got some letters and packages Friday, which definately made our weekend super, put us in a better mood going into the weekend.  Other than that, the weekend was relaxing.  We made banana bread yesterday.  We had no measuring cups or spoons, so we used a blender and just "eyed" the teaspoons.  But it turned out well!  It's edible, not as sugary or moist as in the states, but really nothing here is, I've heard it's because of the altitude.  O! I tried octopus Saturday night!  Mandy and I were joined by our teacher friend who lives in our area, Emily, out to dinner, where she knew a great cook.  (It was kinda  a nice weekend cause some of the teachers took a trip for the long weekend, and half stayed, so we only had little groups, it is a little less overwhelming when it's not everyone all the time.  So the 3 of us went to a place called Barcito.  First we went to another bar for a drink where she knows people, so it was nice to get to know some of the locals.  So at dinner, it was like all fancy foods.  Mandy got some sausage things, which the sauce was a little weird, but I liked it.  The bread was fresh, and Emily and I split Tilapia and Octopus.  The tilapia was great!  It came with like onions and some other seasonings, and it was kinds chilled, but not cold, and it was awesome!  The octopusssss, wellllll, the tentacles still had the suction cup things on them, but we ate it.  First time eating octopus for the both of us, and we survived.  It tastes like squid (calamari) in that it's chewy, like a rubbery taste.  I can cross that off my list of things to do though.  So it was a nice, calm week.  If only I did my laundry today, I would feel more accomplished, but I'm planned for next week and the one after and the house is spotless, so it's all good.  Time to go to a teacher's daughters birthday party, so more pizza and cake, but I'm not complaining.  I hope all is well!