A busy 6 weeks!

First it was the to-do list that was longer than my arm and now it's this blog post! A couple of days ago Innes and I realised that we'd flown out to Honduras exactly 4 months ago! 4 MONTHS! The time is going crazy fast and I'm struggling to accept that Christmas is just around the corner! 

Our work at Miqueas continues to go well and rehearsals for the Christmas Nativity play are well under way! The parts have been cast and the songs have vastly improved since we started! It's bizarre but really quite cool to hear Honduran children singing the songs I sang in Primary school - 'It was on a starry night', 'Little Donkey', 'No Room in the Inn' etc. Even those who claim to hate song practise can be heard singing later in the day when they don't realise we're around! The next couple of weeks are going to be jam-packed with line-learning, rehearsing and scouting out costumes and props. 

On top of this, most of the children have just started a 2.5 month holiday over the Christmas period meaning we're running 9 classes and activities a day to keep them busy, entertained and learning! For me this involves teaching Honduran geography, writing and football! This is proving interesting, yet challenging as we're working with small groups of children of mixed ages from 5 - 10. I'm still working with Pedro a 5yr old boy who is both blind and deaf, doing English classes and preparing some of my younger ones for starting school in February. There's certainly no time to be homesick! 

At the end of the school term we also had to set tests for the children at the public school. We were generally very pleased with the results although not everyone could be expected to pass as the attendance rates from some pupils is very low. The evening of the tests I went home with nearly 90 tests to mark and 2 of the boys from my class had to help me carry all the jotters home! The marking itself caused a little entertainment but mostly a lot of outright confusion. Everyone in Honduras has 2 first names and some had written one name on the test and a different one in the jotter, made worse by the fact that many of the boys have the same names (Juan, Jose, Junior), many of the children were absent the day of the test and don't even get me started on children not putting writing their names on their work..... Teacher life!

Playing 'who stole my pencil'

Practising our numbers at Miqueas - uh oh 9 is upside down!

One of our holiday activities - Cynthia's shark

And this is only some of the marking pile!

This Thursday Innes and I started a project additional to our work at Miqueas and the school in the form of running a 'English group/holiday club' once a week for local children. There's no organised extra-curricular or holiday clubs for the children in our village and we thought it would be a great way to provide something for the school children to do during the long break and to keep them learning English. As with anything new, we were quite nervous that no one would turn up and the whole thing would be a massive flop and so were pleased that for the first week 10 pupils attended. We did just over an hour of playground type games that had them running about but also practising the vocab they knew like numbers, days of the week, body parts etc and finished with a game of football! It's not been good timing that we've gone away for a week after the first week of setting it up but the children seemed to really enjoy it (as did we!) and hopefully word will spread and we'll be able to continue it! Another possibility is that if it remains a success we'll continue it as an after school club when the schools resume in February. 

Towards the end of November our weekends outside of work have also been pretty busy! One weekend myself, Innes and the other volunteers at our project went and stayed overnight at a little guesthouse in the mountains run by friends of Melody and Jacob. It was in a gorgeous setting on a farm, our hosts brought us an abundance fresh fruit they'd grown, we went for a walk in the rain and Gaby found a baby fresh-water turtle, we learned how to make bread, ate some fantastic meals provided by our hosts and we even went horse-trekking and swam in a river with howler monkeys watching us from the trees above! It was a really nice break from our little village and we even bought some chickens! They've laid their first few eggs for us but they're going to need to up their game a little if they don't want to end up in the pot! 

I also went to a Scout meeting with a troop in San Pedro Sula as I was very involved with my own scout troop in Scotland. I loved seeing the differences and similarities between the two countries and although Scotland and Honduras are two vastly different countries many of the principles remained the same. Being able to discuss badges, campfires, lashings, flags, jamborees and international scouting events so far from home was great and reminded me just how much of an international community Scouting is. The meeting was a little hard to follow at times as it was all in Spanish but the leader and all the scouts were incredibly friendly and helped me out immensely! After spending over 3 month teaching and taking responsibility for children it was very strange to move back down the hierarchy to being in the position of the 'child' under the leader who ran the meeting. It made me appreciate even more how much i've grown up over the last few months. For me this was particularly highlighted at the end of the meeting when the scouts were getting picked up by their parents and I realised I was 6,000 miles away from mine and had to take a taxi and a bus to the village 1.5 hours away to where I now call home. 

Scouts are family

It was whilst I was waiting for this bus that I met 2 Australian travellers and had an epiphany about how much I've learnt about Honduras over my time here. They declared to me they didn't even know which city they were in nor which currency they were using. Not only could I inform them of this, how long their bus journey would take and a couple of other things about SPS but I realised just how little travellers in general must learn about this country in stopping  by for such a short period of time. Learning about the culture as well as the horrors of political corruption, deforestation, palm oil, gangs, drug trafficking, immigration to the US and poverty  (not to even go into the multiplier effects of these problems) has been not only eye opening but also hugely interesting. It isn't possible to learn these things on a week long visit, especially to the Bay islands, and that is what has been particularly beneficial about volunteering as part of a long term project. 

Jen, Gaby, Innes and I on a rain walk whilst away for the weekend

Gaby's turtle!

Thank you Gustavo-don't mind if I do!

Horse trek!

Another new experience for me was celebrating Thanksgiving for the first time!  Although it's not actually a Honduran tradition many of the Honduran Project Trust volunteers celebrate it with their American project hosts. At Miqueas us 4 volunteers celebrated with our hosts Melody and Jacob, some of their friends and some of the children. Everyone made their contribution of food, Innes and I made bread rolls! We had a huge meal which was absolutely delicious and whilst the food was one highlight of the evening, another was when we went around everyone and said 1 thing they were gratefull for in their life. The whole evening was very enjoyable and family-like and I really hope it's not the last thanksgiving I get to celebrate! 

Feasting!

The night of Thanksgiving Innes and I returned to our house to finish packing for a 9 day holiday in Guatemala. We decided after 4 months we deserved some time off! The week set off to an interesting start when we found that the direct bus to the city of Antigua in Guatemala didn't leave for another 12 hours. With no time to waste we had to go cross-country... Without going into too much detail the journey took 3 buses, 2 taxis and 10 hours more than planned but still ended up cheaper than the direct bus would have been. Some of the more interesting points included; going to the wrong hondy/guat border crossing; temporarily thinking we were completely lost in southern Honduras; befriending a Guatemalan family who were incredibly kind and put us back on track to

Antigua (I don't know what we would have done without them); sitting on a stationary bus in a traffic jam in Guatemala City for 2 hours and arriving at our hostel in Antigua at 12.30am without an address for our hostel 20 hours after leaving home. Many travel lessons were learnt but it was certaintly a crazy day and quite the adventure! 

From there the rest of the week went more smoothly. We spent a couple of days in Antigua (probably the biggest tourist hotspot in Guatemala) where we explored the traditional town, climbed to a view point, visited a couple of churches and took part in chocolate making workshop. The cacao bean grows prevalently in Central America and we learnt about the ways the Mayans originally made and used chocolate as well as making our own from scratch including roasting and crushing the beans. 

After a couple of days we headed to Lago de Atitlan - via

ChiChicastinango the biggest market in Central America - a lake dwarfed by 3 volcanoes and nothing short of one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. Although this is also a very popular location with tourists a lot of traditional Mayan culture remains which was really interesting to see! The majority of the local women wear a conservative outift of a colourful blouse and long patterned skirt held up by a thick belt and in one of the villages we also saw some of the men wearing bright coloured shorts and knee length skirt-like cloths. I was quite surprised to see these women riding motorbikes or with their smartphone tucked into the belt. Additional to Spanish, in Guatemala there is approximately 35 Mayan languages spoken which further split into over 200 dialects. 

On Lake Atitlan we visited several different towns on the water's edge - all startlingly different to the next. One was a really hippie settlers town and within minutes of arriving we'd caught snippets of conversation like "I'm going to the other lake because I have a better spiritual connection with the water there" and "we got on so well I think we must have met in another life". Another town was much more traditional and full of women's weaving co-operatives and here we dropped by at the local school and chatted with the headteacher. Other highlights of the week were renting kayaks and swimming in the lake, walking up a ridge to see the sun rise over the volcanoes, checking out the reggae nightlife and walking up Pacaya volcano! I even took the time to find out how the lake was created - dad you should be proud! 

Picture of the week and no we did not buy identical hoodies 

Antigua is beautiful and so colourful! 

Market vibes

Sunset

Sunrise and freezing our butts off because we ignored everyone's advice and didn't bring enough warm clothes 

Kayaking - sorry parents it was 'banana-boating' 

Learning about natural dyes the local women use to make clothes and cloth

The volcano was like being on another planet 

And the views were fantastic

It was a brilliant week and we really enjoyed getting to know our fellow travellers. This said, I think I would now be able to recite my name, country of origin, travels, type of volunteer work and what I think of Honduras in my sleep and I'm looking forward to not having to explain this to anyone for a while! We returned to Miqueas to find the Christmas tree and decorations were up and all the children were beginning to get excited. We've decided to spend our Christmas here with the Miqueas family and then the plan is to meet with all the other volunteers on the island of Utila for New Year. I may be lying on my bed recovering from our travels right now but there's plenty of things to look forward to, with a high likelihood that we'll be starting new community and teaching projects in February! 

As always, sending my love to everyone at home, hope you enjoy the festive season and have a great Christmas! And if you have snow I am 110% jealous! 

How not to raise a goat, Mayan sacrifices, Salsa dancing and Sports Day

Before starting a new blog post I always read over the previous one and each time I am startled not only at how each event feels like it happened only yesterday and yet years ago at the the same time, but at how my perspectives have changed over time and what I know now that I didn't know before. For example, my brief mention of Honduran poverty in the last post. Over the last month I have gained a much deeper understanding of the complexity of the such evidently stark divisions in social class and how this poverty impacts the lives of many in this country through what I have witnessed, exchanging stories with other volunteers and from doing further reading. My mind has further been opened to the religion here, I've since learnt more about the school system and I'm pleased to report that at least some of my letters have made it home thus far!

October has seen the gaining of a new pet, WaZowsky the goat, an incredibly stupid animal who likes to excessively tangle himself and his rope in everything in his near vicinity, which he follows with loud bleating until we come to his rescue where 10/10 times he refuses to cooperate in freeing himself. The novelty has rather warn off but we do remain fond of him and by the end of this week we're hoping to have chickens for our garden too!

A few weekends ago Innes and I took a trip to the town of Copan to meet some other Project Trust volunteers - Maia, Alice, Charlotte and Esme. Copan is the top tourist hotspot on mainland Honduras and we could immediately see why. Situated about a 2 hour drive (a gorgeous bus journey, although we here we saw a lot more rural poverty than in the area where we live) into the mountains it offered fantastic views of the surrounding area and the town itself was made up of cobbled streets and quaint colourful buildings perched on almost vertical slopes. There wasn't much traffic besides tuc-tucs, nor an American fast food chain in sight! All of us agreed that it was very refreshing to be able to walk down a street without attracting an unnecessary amount of staring, whispering, hissing and kissing noises from the young male Honduran population! We spent a brilliant weekend relaxing, exploring the town and were lucky enough to visit a Macaw sanctuary. Macaws are essentially big parrots and the birds here are primarily rescued from people trying to keep them as pets and most will be re-released into the wild. They are magnificently coloured and we got the chance to balance several at a time on our arms. (A slightly daunting experience for someone who is not such a fan of winged creatures being any where near her face!).
Copan is also home to one of the biggest discovered areas of Mayan Ruins in Central America. We received an excellent tour from a local guide and were very impressed by the scale of each temple and the detail that had gone into each stone carving. Who knew that the Mayans believed that we lived on the shell of a giant turtle and that a Jaguar chased the sun away each evening and back each morning! They also had a large number of leaders with impossibly complicated names who insisted on making bizarre public sacrifices to Gods with even more complicated names, including cutting off parts of their bodies and holding Stingrays against their apparently not so private parts!
Seeing the other volunteers was great and we spent a significant amount of time discussing our experiences of the country and it's people, our fondness of our projects and the invaluable impact of volunteering when it's gone about it in the correct manner. On top of everything aforementioned we attended an open air concert, I tried my hands - or should I say feet - at Salsa Dancing (anyone who knows me well can picture how this turned out - please picture Miranda learning to Tango) and by complete chance we ran into other volunteers Hebe and Rosie when buying breakfast who were returning from their Belize visa run via Copan! After nearly missing the last bus because 'bus timetable? What bus timetable?' we made it home rather worn out but still in such high spirits from a brilliant weekend!

Last week we met our in-country rep 'Vegas' for the first time, who took us out for a bit of fine dining and to who we were pleased to report that we've faced very few issues in our project so far. The school term is drawing to a close and from the middle of November the majority of the children at Miqueas are going to be off school for a 3 month holiday! This means that we will be running a lot more extra curricular activities instead of classes for the children here, a prospect that we are really looking forward to! Creative writing, Honduran geography, map-reading and football are on my list so far, as well as the Nativity play that Gaby, Innes and I are hoping to organise with the older children!
We've also been making up end of year tests for the public school which is proving challenging as due to the Honduran love of frequent school holidays, we've taught a total of 7 or 8 mornings and by the nature of the school system every child (including the few who can hardly write) have to pass the test to move up a grade!
I have really enjoyed getting to know my co-workers at the school a bit better and the other day I showed them pictures of 'kilts' and 'caber tossing' - both concepts that were completely foreign to them but that they found highly amusing! I love my position in the school and it's so humbling to walk through La Colorada in the evenings and hearing the children running or cycling by saying 'Hello Miss Isla'. Excitingly we have been given the 'go-ahead' by the head teacher to start an 'English club' during the holidays, a project that is going to take a lot of planning and energy but that we're really hoping will be a success! This will involve more practical teaching through games and songs etc. so we're crossing our fingers that some of the children will want to attend!

This weekend, Innes, Gaby and I hosted a Sports Day/Mini Olympics for the children at Miqueas! The rain clouds rumbled around but quite miraculously the rain held off and the children enjoyed an afternoon of silly and competitive group and individual sports at the 'campo'. Our competing countries in the well renowned Olympic sports of; wheel barrow race, bucket throw, skipping, 3-legged race, ball between the knees jump and long jump were; Britain, United States, Canada, China, Spain and Honduras who came out on top as the resounding winners! It was great to see all the children (aged 4 -13) working so well together particularly the older ones encouraging the youngest and there were smiles and cheering all round! Of course the traditional sack, running races and relay proceeded after some much appreciated ice cream, not to forget the 'lime and spoon' race and best of all, the Tia race! A couple of personal highlights of mine were watching the children eagerly running between bases with their team flag and cracking up at some of the hilarious long jump attempts I saw as I held my clipboard and tried to keep a straight face. Innes, Gaby and I all agreed that it was a truly special afternoon in which we felt a real part of the Miqueas family. It was fully worth the extra effort and I would repeat it in a heartbeat!

We are so blessed to be living and working within such a great project in such an interesting, diverse and truly beautiful country! The people here are incredibly kind, only the other day a woman on the bus shared her lychee fruits with me and one of our neighbours is always helping us out from picking oranges to hanging our hammocks to untangling WaZowsky. It seems crazy that this country is the murder capital of the world, as apart from a few suspiciously gun-shot-sounding noises (which were likely to be fireworks) we've seen nothing that would suggest it at all! *Touches wood*. Despite it's negative reputation, this country has so much to offer and I'm so glad to be a part of it.

Belize y más

The weeks in Honduras have been flying by and I'm struggling to get my head around the fact that I've been here for 2 months already. 1/6 of my time here, gone, finito, terminado! Its crazy, but what an adventure it has been so far!  

Last week we travelled to Belize to renew Gaby's visa, which as a tourist visa needed renewing after 90 days of being in the country. Due to Central American trade restrictions these can only be renewed by travelling to Belize or Costa Rica and the latter is sadly too far away to do in the weekend!  

We set off from our little orange house at 5am, nursing only 4 hours of sleep due to last minute packing and our bags filled with too many clothes (standard), bananas and peanut butter sandwiches. We caught 3 buses from which we saw different parts of the country for the first time - both poorer areas than where we live and a surprising number of coastal holiday resorts - to the Guatemalan border. At one point Honduran police stopped our bus, body searched all the men and glared at our passports for an unnecessarily long time before letting us continue on our way- a slightly intimidating experience as they all carry huge guns. Following a fair amount of confusion after being dropped off in a mountain village seemingly in the middle of nowhere, we realised we were at the Guatemalan border and were finally able to get stamped out of the country. Feeling like we'd partaken in something highly illegal, we hopped on another bus - this time a tiny mini bus which must have been loaded with nearly double the number of people it should have been carrying! After being stamped into Guatemala (this involved the bus driver disappearing with our passports for 10 minutes - a sufficiently long enough time for us to convince ourselves he was definitely selling them on the black market) we whisked through the Guatemalan countryside to the port town of Puerto Barrios. From here we took a water taxi to Belize! 11 hours later we had made it! 

Border crossing antics and the police pulling us over!

Straight away we could see and feel that Belize is a very different country to Honduras. In addition to it being English-speaking (a former British colony) the atmosphere was much more laid-back - think Jamaica and reggae stereotype - and the country is much more ethnically diverse, with people having settled there from all over the world. We spent 2 nights in Punta Gorda where we exhausted the town of everything there was to do in only a few hours, learnt to take the words of Belizeans with a pinch of salt (after being told about several events that didn't take place and followed a sign to an art gallery that didn't exist) and found a very nice restaurant where we saw some Belizean drumming! The next day we took a bus and another water taxi to the town of Placencia where we spent 1 night. Quite amazingly I watched a documentary about the peninsula where Placencia is located in S2 geography and had decided I really wanted to go - something I'd forgotten until we arrived! Here we saw mangrove swamps, visited the beach, watched a fishing competition, saw dolphins in the bay, visited the tourist shops, befriended the locals (shout-out to Brenda the lobster lady) drank cocktails and went to a foam party to celebrate Independence Day! The country was brilliantly decorated with blue and red flags for the 21st and everyone was in high spirits. I can hardly believe that Belize has only been independent of Britain for 34 years! We were however a little sad that the celebratory parade that was supposed to start at 10am in Placencia still hadn't arrived in the town by the time we had to leave for our water taxi at 5pm. A couple of times on our trip we had 'it's a small world' experiences, firstly when we met someone who had been away with Project Trust 12 years ago to the Dominican Republic and secondly on the bus back to Placencia in the dark when we met a Scottish lady who had grown up in Blairgowrie. 

By the time we'd made it back to our Honduran home the next day we were absolutely exhausted but pleased that our first Central American travelling experience had been such a success! 

mangrove trees - I am a fan

To my amusement I learnt that there is a species called the 'Wahoo' fish! You don't want to be thinking about these when swimming! 

On the evening of our return from Belize we went over to see the children at Miqueas and were surprised by the almost royal welcome back we received, so many hugs and so much excitement! However, we were a little miffed to learn that in the our absence from the home we had been replaced by new residents...2 pigs, Mami Rosie and baby Flash! 

Our work here continues as normal and between physiotherapy, English vocab and phonics classes, supply organisation, football training and homework help I think it's great that I've got a lot of variety in my schedule! It's a good feeling when my 5 year olds aren't in class and one will turn to me and point out the window 'it's cloudy' or 'look, bird!'. 

Teaching doesn't always go so smoothly -tantrums and sulks are frequent, yesterday one of the boys split his head open in class and will now have a matching eye scar to mine and today I looked away for 2 seconds and turned back to see two of the children had each severed off a big chunk of eachother's hair with scissors - but the little things and noticeable progress make it worthwhile! 

This week for the first time I also started giving English tutoring to one of the Tia's that I work with. This turned out to be good fun and it's a nice change as it's so different to working with young children. I am hoping it will also help me to further improve my Spanish which is slowly getting there...I can mostly iffily get across my point and converse roughly, although I find listening and understanding the response much harder. There's still a long way to go! 

Making shape faces! 

Squad trip to 'El campo'

Tackling phonics head on! 

2nd grade working hard! 

Thursday's mornings at the school continue to go well although progress is much slower here as we only see our classes once a week. This also makes getting to know the students and their abilities quite hard too. Last week half my second grade class were off sick and when I arrived there were 4 or 5 parents, 2 younger sisters and a dog sitting in the classroom along with the 9 pupils (no idea why, I don't understand Honduran schools). It was very bizarre and I only wish I'd taken a picture! I'm also currently making 'English word of the week' class displays for my classes at the school and at Miqueas. There's always something to do here! 

This weekend one of our friends from another project, Hugh, came to stay. It was nice to have him to visit and he even showed us how to make tortillas (an art Innes and I had not managed to master after a failed attempt with the wrong type of flour. We were the laughing stock of the Tia's). On Saturday after our morning classes we went to the local cinema at the 'mall' to see 'Everest' and we were all pleasantly surprised by how good it was. The 'mall' is just one example of the immense wealth disparities in Honduras - being a large americanised, high quality shopping centre it sits just across the road from a neighbourhood of small, shabby and poorly built houses. I've actually been surprised that there is such a significantly sized and growing middle class here living alongside profound poverty. 

After the cinema we headed back to our village to watch the local church parade for 'national day of the Bible'. It was nice to see the Miqueas kids walking with the children we know from school and a lot of adults in the community we recognised or knew from the church. It was a colourful event and most people marched with signs with bible quotes, there was dancing and a Honduran marching band (they love their drum bands as much as we love our Pipebands in Scotland)! Although I'm not religious, and I think it is unlikely that I ever will be, living in such a Christian community and country has been one of the biggest differences from home and so far I have found it very interesting to learn about!

Honduras certainly feels like home now although the country is ever full of surprises. Only the other week we caught a bus home where a man was running up and down the aisle dressed and painted as a clown and telling jokes to earn some money and on Friday I put a handful of precious postcards and letters into the trust of a lady at the post office who had never heard of Scotland, so if these make it home I will be amazed! 

I also received my first piece of post! 

Lots of love to everyone at home, I have no idea who or how many people are actually reading these posts so feel free to leave a comment and say hi! Here's to 10 more months in Hondy!

Discipline, drought, dancing and diving (kinda)

Although it's barely been two weeks since I last posted, we've been very busy here and I feel I should blog about it before I blink and something else happens. 

I have settled in well and am really enjoying my work at both Miqueas and the school where I have the freedom with both to choose my own curriculum and topics to teach. Although I think anyone who works with children would be able to agree that daily there are frustrations, it's also very rewarding and when a well planned lesson goes to plan it's a great feeling! At Miqueas I teach small groups of children English through games and activities which I really enjoy planning and I've covered a range of topics already including months of the year, weather, colours, shapes and animals. I have also been in touch with a teacher at my old primary school and both myself and my bilingual homework group of 7-11 year olds are excited to start exchanging letters with some of these pupils! (Thanks Chris!) Letter writing starts on Monday! 

This week at Miqueas I also became the teacher with the sore throat who has to plead with the class - 'I need you to behave today because i can't raise my voice' - which we all know goes straight in a pupil's ear and straight out the other. Saying this, becoming the adult in the room has been an interesting transition and everyday I find myself echoing my teachers, parents and even my football coach. 

At the school I have moved onto teaching the subject of 'in my free time' this week after completing 'body parts'. As we only teach at the school once a week, we have been lucky enough to have the full-time teachers present in the classroom for all our lessons, which I hadn't fully appreciated, until my 3rd grade teacher wasn't there last week. This almost immediately led to an outburst of bad behaviour from 4 boys, to which I realised I would need to crack down on discipline. With their names on the board, they got sent to face the wall at the back of the room. however trying to teach whilst they continued to distract the rest of the class, at one point they started rolling balls and a car tyre (why this was in a class room I have no idea) towards me, was very tricky. At the end of the lesson, their names were written down and handed to the headteacher with lines to write, will they have learnt their lesson? We shall see.

This Thursday morning I returned to the school, hoping all the teachers would be there but knowing a challenging morning may lie ahead. However, as soon as we walked into school we were told that there were classes that day had been cancelled because it was 'día del niño' - Day of the children! Did anyone else ask their parents on Mother's or Father's Day, why there wasn't a children's day and get the response "every day is children's day"? I did, but excitingly in Honduras they do celebrate it! At the school this meant a big birthday party-like celebration with decorations, lots of cake, sweets, multiple piñatas, games, presents and it was a really interesting and enjoyable morning to experience. It included: playing some football; organsing skipping games, being taken under the wing of some girls from the high school who had come to organise activities for the children (who told me in Spanish they learnt English at school but the only word they appeared to know was 'selfie'); playing a bizarre game with a balloon tied to my ankle and properly managing to converse in my somewhat iffy 'Spanglish' with some of the teachers and parents. It was only later that I learnt from my host Jacob that the day is held to promote the 10 basic rights of the child - something that hadn't been mentioned at all that morning in the midst of the excitement and I'm guessing has to some extent been lost in the (over?)-commercialisation of the event. At one point in the morning a machete was brought out in the classroom to cut a piece of string and I couldn't help but think what would happen to the teacher if it had been a Scottish classroom! 

September is a big month in the Honduran calendar and many celebrations are held throughout the month (including dia del niños) as on the 15th the country celebrates it's Independence day. This Tuesday will mark 194 years of independence from Spain and we are hoping attend a parade in our nearby town of Progreso. 

Last Saturday morning after football training with the Miqueas kids, we headed into the town to watch one of the boys perform in a dance related with these month-long celebrations. Not quite knowing what to expect, we watched both teenagers and young children perform traditional Honduran folk dancing in very colourful outfits (boys at home i would like to see you try) at what appeared to be an event promoting social justice, immigration and human rights within the country. We felt like proud parents as we watched Christian perform - he did a great job and it was also rather amusing as his partner was significantly taller than him and he couldn't reach to spin her. We were invited to write 'Paz' (peace) on our arms and write messages of hope on a mural, and there was also a memorial for people who had died in relation to gangs, drug trafficking or human rights abuses. It was a very interesting morning, both culturally and socially, and it was good to see people addressing some of the biggest problems which face the country today. 

On this trip to Progreso, Innes also tried to persuade us to buy a dog...which admittedly was cute, but Gaby and I had to drag her away before she could make the business deal...

Sunday dawned bright and far too early with a 5am start, to make it to Tela for a boat trip we had booked with 6 other volunteers. Myself, Gaby and Innes met with the Project Trust Tela girls, 2 other teachers at their school and the 2 Project Trust boys from San Juan who we hadn't seen since arriving. The boat tour set off in high spirits across the bay towards the national park of 'Punta Sal'. Here our guide Ricardo led us on a short jungle walk where we ate edible termites, competed to climb jungle vines, saw a toucan (such gorgeous birds), howler monkeys and learnt about Garifuna culture. This was followed by another trip on the boat, swimming through the 'tunnel of love' and snorkelling with blue, yellow and orange fishes. A particular highlight of the day was when Ricardo revealed to us on the trek that we were looking at a beach filmed in Pirates of the Carribean! We had fried fish for lunch with tajadas (chips made from green banana) cooked by garifuna people (a Honduran tribe of sorts) who live in a collection of huts on the beach. After sunbathing and some more swimming we returned to Tela, very content with our adventurous day out!  

Hugh shows us how it's done! 

This weekend we also moved out of our host's house and into our own house, which is really nice. Although we've been told several times since arrival that it's supposed to rain here every afternoon because it's 'rainy season', it's hardly rained this year, leading to a drought across the country. Melody and Jacob have a seperate water tank to the rest of the village so until a couple of days before moving out we had reliable running water there. However in these last few days, the water was off there too and we took our first 'bucket showers'. Most of the Honduran houses in our village have a 'pila' (basically a concrete bath in the garden) which fills up when the water is turned on at night. In our new house we have one of these and use the water for cooking, clothes washing, flushing the toilet and showering as the running water is only on (sometimes) at night and even then is sketchy at best. At home I'd always taken running water out of the tap for granted and even with our different situation here I realise all over the world people have it far worse!  

Determined to get to know more people in our local community, Innes, Gaby and I attended our local church for the first time last week. The service was made up of an hour and a half of lively Christian Spanish songs, followed by a 45 minute speech from the pastor. The songs started off slow but people were soon on their feet, clapping, swaying, jumping, making rings and dancing in the middle and even making conga chains. A little perplexed by what was going on, Innes and I shrugged our shoulders and joined in the dancing! We were having a brilliant time and our initial confusion had just faded only to be replaced by shock a few minutes later when some of the people around us started to collapse on the floor unable to get up, a few stumbled about seemingly out of control whilst a friend or parent tried to keep them from falling, some were crouched down banging their hands and head off the floor and others crying or wailing whilst bent over the church stage. Innes and I had never seen anything like it, my explanation can't do the scene justice as the people appeared to be completely overcome by emotion! As soon as the songs finished, the people got up and returned to their seats as if nothing had happened, it was truly bizarre. The pastor gave a really nice speech and introduced us although we struggled to follow much of the following sermon in Spanish. We were somewhat disappointed when we returned to the church this week and there was only 3 songs and the rest of the service was speech, so we're hoping for more singing and dancing next week! 

The past 5 weeks have been brilliant so far and I feel like I have learnt so much already - from housework (mum and dad you would be proud) to organisational skills to increased independence and the importance of lesson planning and keeping kids busy! Tia Ruby has even shown me how to cook beans like the locals! I'm not letting myself take this opportunity for granted, I am really so thankful for everyone's support in enabling me to spend a year in this fantastic country! We are currently planning our next adventure - a 3 day trip to Belize to renew Gaby's visa. This is proving a little tricky as we want to make the most of the short time we will have in the country without spending all our time travelling. I will let you know how we get on!