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!