naum naum naum i love my rawhide that grampa andy sent me!
the swimmin' hole...featured are alison, jessica, and lisbeth.
me in my hammock with my favorite little guys, noel, alison and douglas...if you look carefully you can see douglas is in the process of peeing on my leg.
my little neighbor guys, elvin and elmer and....i forget the middle kid's name.
with their older sisters, brenda and sulema.
walking back to our houses after swimmin in the river...there goes jessica and igor.
enner, glenda, douglas, neil, and nely...all neighbors. enner and neil are two excellent pitchers on my baseball team, too.
Eliqui, Chui, and Alison coloring on my floor...thanks for the art supplies, folks!
i love this little old lady. she gives me mangos and CLIMBS TREES. and she's like a hundred years old.
me and my baby, out by the river.
more coloring, featuring the tongue of Andri...
Chui and his little brother Cristian, my next door neighbors.
Douglas, like me, prefers green. And no pants.
Igor (pre-weiner infection)
he's all like DANG MOMMA WHY CAN'T I COLOR TOO and im all like CAUSE YOU AINT GOT NO OPPOSABLE THUMBS DARLIN5 March 2009
Hey, chochachos! More specifically, hey Dad, happy dang ‘ol birthday. I can’t believe you’re finally 30! Don’t go crazy and go buy a riding lawn-mower or something else related to a manly mid-life crisis—that kind of purchase requires a lot of maintenance (like matching trucker hat, water-bottle holster, etc). Igor is also celebrating today—he turns four months old. He snuck into my safe last night (how did he get that code?!) and bought a crazy riding lawn-mower on E-bay, which I suppose is why I thought to warn you, Dad. We don’t even have a lawn, unless you count dirt and scrubby weeds, which I don’t. Anyway, Happy Birthday! If I could make this blog into an extravagant pop-up card, I would.
This month is getting’ CRAZY GO NUTS. I totally have items to do all the time, which is a nice change from my lounging-about-all-day-long-on-the-government’s-money period, AKA summer break. But now that the kiddies are in school, I can take advantage and do all kinds of stuff. I gathered all the teachers that pertain to Alubarén together the other day (about 40 or 50 of them) and told them about the project I’m starting soon, called TEAM (Teaching English and Methodology). Basically, this is a project through the Ministry of Education in partnership with Peace Corps Honduras, and I will be teaching weekly English classes, using American methodology, to all the teachers interested. They all get manuals and CDs and all the materials necessary. The idea is that as I teach the classes, the teachers then turn around and replicate the class to their students. If the teachers come to all the classes and get good grades, they get certificates from the Ministry of Education at the end of the year that states they are now certified to teach English. EVERYONE seemed interested, but I have another meeting today to discuss the schedule and we should begin meeting toward the end of the month, once the manuals come in. I wasn’t too crazy about the concept of teaching English, but it’s required by the state that the kids learn it, and the teachers can’t teach it if they don’t know it, so it’s a good fit.
I’m also going to start a program called Sonrisas Brillantes, or Bright Smiles, which is a project through Colgate toothpaste and Peace Corps. Colgate donated a ton of soaps, toothbrushes, and toothpastes, and manuals for how to teach oral hygiene. I was just going to do one school in an aldea, but I decided I might as well cover as many kids as possible, so I’m going to attempt to do it with ALL the first-grade teachers in the area, which would be about 13 teachers, reaching about 230 kids. (I know that doesn’t sound like much, but it means crazy work for me because I have to go out to each school to help the teacher do the workshops and supervise the tooth brushing, and some of these villages are like three hours walking up and down the mountains.) The kids keep the toothbrushes and toothpaste at the school, and all brush together after the school snack, and then after six months, they get another toothbrush to take home. The idea is that you drill it into their little, moldable six-year-old minds that they must brush every day, and hope the habit sticks. That would be great if it did, cause basically no one around here has all their teeth. Thank goodness mangos are so soft.
I’m also beginning a project, another Peace Corps Honduras one, called Joven a Joven, or Youth to Youth. It involves a week-long training in Valle de Angeles, to which I must bring a teacher from my town, and then we come back and implement the workshop, which is like 2 hours a week for 15 weeks. It’s an awesome program, which trains the high schoolers in leadership, team work, how to identify, apply for, and be successful in jobs, sexual health, self-esteem, the whole deal—though I do believe the focus is on how to enter the work force after graduation. So I went to the District office the other day and ran the idea by them, and they loved it, so then I went and spoke to the principal, and SHE loved it, and told me she’d pick a good teacher for me. I was delighted when she chose Rubenia (fake name), because she’s very involved with the kids, does a lot of extra curricular stuff, and really seems to genuinely care for the kids welfare (though she DOES scream a lot). But she also teaches first grade in the mornings at the elementary school, so we went to go ask the principal of the school (aka my counterpart and old host granny) if she could excuse Rubenia for a week (since the principal doesn’t teach any classes, it’s her job to fill in and substitute when a teacher can’t make it). I imagined she’d be delighted at the opportunity for the high schoolers to participate in such a great workshop, and since she’d taught first grade before, wouldn’t mind subbing the class for five days. I was very mega wrong. If I hadn’t seen her temper tantrum with my own eyes, I never would have believed that a 60-something year old woman would be capable of acting quite so childish. She went off on this crazy, disjointed, screaming rant about how first graders are very delicate little kids, and that it’s the most important grade because it’s when they learn to read, and that it’s VERY irresponsible for Rubenia to ask for a week off, and that there is NO WAY she will sub for Rubenia because her first graders are a bunch of cry-babies, and it’s EASY to sub for older grades because you can just give them busy work and then sit back at your desk, but with first graders you have to make them repeat stuff like parrots the whole time or they don’t learn (yes, she actually said all that. And she’s the PRINCIPAL.) Then she repeated herself several times that you mustn’t ever yell at the kids or hit them, and then if they cry you must give them water. Then she repeated again how irresponsible it is to ask for a week off, and that doesn’t Rubenia even want her kids to learn to read? It was basically a disaster, and I was trying very hard not to let my face should how I felt inside—incredulous that the principal of the school was pitching an actual FIT because subbing for first grade would require more involvement than sitting back at her desk while the kids copy words over and over. Once the other teachers left, she started ranting to me about how it’s not FAIR that they always pick Rubenia for trainings, and she’s such a TERRIBLE teacher, always yelling and beating the kids, and that she’s SICK of Rubenia always getting picked for stuff, and it’s not fair. So basically it sounds like she’s got a personal vendetta against Rubenia, and I don’t even know what to do. But I want to do this training, and I have to bring a teacher…dang man. It’s like professionalism doesn’t exist here.
Baseball is going awesome. The kids and I made this cool thing with tires the other day—basically two huge tires stacked on the ground, and then one balanced on top vertically, wedged into place with rocks and sand and cow shit. Then I marked off 46 feet and BAM! we got a hella sweet target-practice doohickey for my pitchers (Kevin, Neil, Junior, Ever and Enner). Genius. We finally have a fixed date for our tournaments, too—April 18th for the regional one, and June 11th for the Nationals (which we only go to if we’re Regional Champions). Aww yeah VIVA LAS PANTERAS.
Last weekend was a blast…I took a bus down south to Choluteca and then to another town called Monjaras, which is on the coast of the Pacific, in Honduras’s little Golfo de Fonseca. I chilled there for the weekend with fellow volunteers Matt, Joel, Emilie, and Erik, and while it was no El Salvador, it was nice to be in the ocean, dirty as it was (I collected like 10 plastic bags and stuff while I was swimming). Because it was a gulf, the waves weren’t anything to speak of either, but it was nice and warm. We had fried fish and cold beers and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. I finally made it home late Sunday afternoon, despite several unpleasant travel glitches….Leaving Monjaras, I grabbed a jalon in the back of the pick-up with a nice old lady and her kid, though due to some kind of communication error they did NOT take me where I thought they were going to (Choluteca), which I realized after an hour and a half of bumping along a random dirt road instead of the freeway. My left kneecap got rather sunburned, but other than that, it was okay…eventually we ended up in another city, San Lorenzo, and I hopped out and grabbed a passing bus that was headed north toward Tegucigalpa. The bus was crammed, but the nice bus attendant gave me his over-turned bucket next to the driver. Except that meant I then had to sit there while the four dudes breathed on me and asked me the typical Honduran-male questions, which are “are you married? Do you want to be married while you’re here? Do you have a boyfriend? Would you like one? Do you have kids? Would you like some? Why are gringas so extremely beautiful? Don’t you think Honduran men are extremely sexy? Do you live alone? Can I have your number?” etc. It’s always uncomfortable and I just give terse little answers and try to look frumpy. I finally hopped off when they got to the entrance to my mountain, where I waited about 15 minutes until a bus turned up the road, headed toward Reitoca, the pueblo near mine. I gratefully sat down next to a farmer and his daughter (farmers tend not to bug me), which was awesome until the kid puked on my legs. But it was pretty watery puke, so I guess I can’t complain.
Thanks to those of you who have sent me children’s books in Spanish…I am still waiting on the library to open, but I’ve been reading them aloud to my various baby-friends in my hammock, and next week will be going to the preschool to read aloud to them, too. One of my little neighbor kids, Elqui, is particularly attached to me…he’s always waiting outside my gate for me, and the other night I gathered him into my hammock and read Buenas Noches, Luna (goodnight, moon; courtesy of Letha!), and he LOVED it. He was mainly concerned about why a baby rabbit was sleeping in a bed instead of outside, but once we got beyond that, he was pretty happy. He’s easy to please. The other day he informed me it was his birthday. I asked him how old he was turning (even though I already knew he was turning five), and he said “Uh…two.” WRONG. But I gave him a little plastic Hot Wheels car (thanks, Aunt Lisa!) and, on a whim, a cantaloupe. He was THRILLED and raced home screaming “I’M GONNA EAT THIS WATERMELON RIGHT NOW!!” I hope he wasn’t disappointed when he figured out it wasn’t a watermelon at all.
Mmm, delicious…it’s about 10:00am right now and Igor and I are enjoyed a snack of banana smoothies…I recently discovered the little guy goes nuts for banana smoothies, so he gets about one a week now. No wonder he’s such a fatty.
Time to go…pee!
Love,
Hayley
Hey, chochachos! More specifically, hey Dad, happy dang ‘ol birthday. I can’t believe you’re finally 30! Don’t go crazy and go buy a riding lawn-mower or something else related to a manly mid-life crisis—that kind of purchase requires a lot of maintenance (like matching trucker hat, water-bottle holster, etc). Igor is also celebrating today—he turns four months old. He snuck into my safe last night (how did he get that code?!) and bought a crazy riding lawn-mower on E-bay, which I suppose is why I thought to warn you, Dad. We don’t even have a lawn, unless you count dirt and scrubby weeds, which I don’t. Anyway, Happy Birthday! If I could make this blog into an extravagant pop-up card, I would.
This month is getting’ CRAZY GO NUTS. I totally have items to do all the time, which is a nice change from my lounging-about-all-day-long-on-the-government’s-money period, AKA summer break. But now that the kiddies are in school, I can take advantage and do all kinds of stuff. I gathered all the teachers that pertain to Alubarén together the other day (about 40 or 50 of them) and told them about the project I’m starting soon, called TEAM (Teaching English and Methodology). Basically, this is a project through the Ministry of Education in partnership with Peace Corps Honduras, and I will be teaching weekly English classes, using American methodology, to all the teachers interested. They all get manuals and CDs and all the materials necessary. The idea is that as I teach the classes, the teachers then turn around and replicate the class to their students. If the teachers come to all the classes and get good grades, they get certificates from the Ministry of Education at the end of the year that states they are now certified to teach English. EVERYONE seemed interested, but I have another meeting today to discuss the schedule and we should begin meeting toward the end of the month, once the manuals come in. I wasn’t too crazy about the concept of teaching English, but it’s required by the state that the kids learn it, and the teachers can’t teach it if they don’t know it, so it’s a good fit.
I’m also going to start a program called Sonrisas Brillantes, or Bright Smiles, which is a project through Colgate toothpaste and Peace Corps. Colgate donated a ton of soaps, toothbrushes, and toothpastes, and manuals for how to teach oral hygiene. I was just going to do one school in an aldea, but I decided I might as well cover as many kids as possible, so I’m going to attempt to do it with ALL the first-grade teachers in the area, which would be about 13 teachers, reaching about 230 kids. (I know that doesn’t sound like much, but it means crazy work for me because I have to go out to each school to help the teacher do the workshops and supervise the tooth brushing, and some of these villages are like three hours walking up and down the mountains.) The kids keep the toothbrushes and toothpaste at the school, and all brush together after the school snack, and then after six months, they get another toothbrush to take home. The idea is that you drill it into their little, moldable six-year-old minds that they must brush every day, and hope the habit sticks. That would be great if it did, cause basically no one around here has all their teeth. Thank goodness mangos are so soft.
I’m also beginning a project, another Peace Corps Honduras one, called Joven a Joven, or Youth to Youth. It involves a week-long training in Valle de Angeles, to which I must bring a teacher from my town, and then we come back and implement the workshop, which is like 2 hours a week for 15 weeks. It’s an awesome program, which trains the high schoolers in leadership, team work, how to identify, apply for, and be successful in jobs, sexual health, self-esteem, the whole deal—though I do believe the focus is on how to enter the work force after graduation. So I went to the District office the other day and ran the idea by them, and they loved it, so then I went and spoke to the principal, and SHE loved it, and told me she’d pick a good teacher for me. I was delighted when she chose Rubenia (fake name), because she’s very involved with the kids, does a lot of extra curricular stuff, and really seems to genuinely care for the kids welfare (though she DOES scream a lot). But she also teaches first grade in the mornings at the elementary school, so we went to go ask the principal of the school (aka my counterpart and old host granny) if she could excuse Rubenia for a week (since the principal doesn’t teach any classes, it’s her job to fill in and substitute when a teacher can’t make it). I imagined she’d be delighted at the opportunity for the high schoolers to participate in such a great workshop, and since she’d taught first grade before, wouldn’t mind subbing the class for five days. I was very mega wrong. If I hadn’t seen her temper tantrum with my own eyes, I never would have believed that a 60-something year old woman would be capable of acting quite so childish. She went off on this crazy, disjointed, screaming rant about how first graders are very delicate little kids, and that it’s the most important grade because it’s when they learn to read, and that it’s VERY irresponsible for Rubenia to ask for a week off, and that there is NO WAY she will sub for Rubenia because her first graders are a bunch of cry-babies, and it’s EASY to sub for older grades because you can just give them busy work and then sit back at your desk, but with first graders you have to make them repeat stuff like parrots the whole time or they don’t learn (yes, she actually said all that. And she’s the PRINCIPAL.) Then she repeated herself several times that you mustn’t ever yell at the kids or hit them, and then if they cry you must give them water. Then she repeated again how irresponsible it is to ask for a week off, and that doesn’t Rubenia even want her kids to learn to read? It was basically a disaster, and I was trying very hard not to let my face should how I felt inside—incredulous that the principal of the school was pitching an actual FIT because subbing for first grade would require more involvement than sitting back at her desk while the kids copy words over and over. Once the other teachers left, she started ranting to me about how it’s not FAIR that they always pick Rubenia for trainings, and she’s such a TERRIBLE teacher, always yelling and beating the kids, and that she’s SICK of Rubenia always getting picked for stuff, and it’s not fair. So basically it sounds like she’s got a personal vendetta against Rubenia, and I don’t even know what to do. But I want to do this training, and I have to bring a teacher…dang man. It’s like professionalism doesn’t exist here.
Baseball is going awesome. The kids and I made this cool thing with tires the other day—basically two huge tires stacked on the ground, and then one balanced on top vertically, wedged into place with rocks and sand and cow shit. Then I marked off 46 feet and BAM! we got a hella sweet target-practice doohickey for my pitchers (Kevin, Neil, Junior, Ever and Enner). Genius. We finally have a fixed date for our tournaments, too—April 18th for the regional one, and June 11th for the Nationals (which we only go to if we’re Regional Champions). Aww yeah VIVA LAS PANTERAS.
Last weekend was a blast…I took a bus down south to Choluteca and then to another town called Monjaras, which is on the coast of the Pacific, in Honduras’s little Golfo de Fonseca. I chilled there for the weekend with fellow volunteers Matt, Joel, Emilie, and Erik, and while it was no El Salvador, it was nice to be in the ocean, dirty as it was (I collected like 10 plastic bags and stuff while I was swimming). Because it was a gulf, the waves weren’t anything to speak of either, but it was nice and warm. We had fried fish and cold beers and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. I finally made it home late Sunday afternoon, despite several unpleasant travel glitches….Leaving Monjaras, I grabbed a jalon in the back of the pick-up with a nice old lady and her kid, though due to some kind of communication error they did NOT take me where I thought they were going to (Choluteca), which I realized after an hour and a half of bumping along a random dirt road instead of the freeway. My left kneecap got rather sunburned, but other than that, it was okay…eventually we ended up in another city, San Lorenzo, and I hopped out and grabbed a passing bus that was headed north toward Tegucigalpa. The bus was crammed, but the nice bus attendant gave me his over-turned bucket next to the driver. Except that meant I then had to sit there while the four dudes breathed on me and asked me the typical Honduran-male questions, which are “are you married? Do you want to be married while you’re here? Do you have a boyfriend? Would you like one? Do you have kids? Would you like some? Why are gringas so extremely beautiful? Don’t you think Honduran men are extremely sexy? Do you live alone? Can I have your number?” etc. It’s always uncomfortable and I just give terse little answers and try to look frumpy. I finally hopped off when they got to the entrance to my mountain, where I waited about 15 minutes until a bus turned up the road, headed toward Reitoca, the pueblo near mine. I gratefully sat down next to a farmer and his daughter (farmers tend not to bug me), which was awesome until the kid puked on my legs. But it was pretty watery puke, so I guess I can’t complain.
Thanks to those of you who have sent me children’s books in Spanish…I am still waiting on the library to open, but I’ve been reading them aloud to my various baby-friends in my hammock, and next week will be going to the preschool to read aloud to them, too. One of my little neighbor kids, Elqui, is particularly attached to me…he’s always waiting outside my gate for me, and the other night I gathered him into my hammock and read Buenas Noches, Luna (goodnight, moon; courtesy of Letha!), and he LOVED it. He was mainly concerned about why a baby rabbit was sleeping in a bed instead of outside, but once we got beyond that, he was pretty happy. He’s easy to please. The other day he informed me it was his birthday. I asked him how old he was turning (even though I already knew he was turning five), and he said “Uh…two.” WRONG. But I gave him a little plastic Hot Wheels car (thanks, Aunt Lisa!) and, on a whim, a cantaloupe. He was THRILLED and raced home screaming “I’M GONNA EAT THIS WATERMELON RIGHT NOW!!” I hope he wasn’t disappointed when he figured out it wasn’t a watermelon at all.
Mmm, delicious…it’s about 10:00am right now and Igor and I are enjoyed a snack of banana smoothies…I recently discovered the little guy goes nuts for banana smoothies, so he gets about one a week now. No wonder he’s such a fatty.
Time to go…pee!
Love,
Hayley
P.S. Shortly after I wrote this blog, I noticed that Igor seems to have the 4-month-old-puppy equivalent of an STD...in any case, he's got green goo oozing out of his little puppy pee-pee, so we're currently in Tegus and about to go see the vet. Poor little dude...is it too crude to call this "pene de pus"?
