La Tigra

We’re still having a great time in our new house, though we still don’t have a house fone. In Honduras you’re lucky if you get one in two weeks after applying, or asking, for one. Our connector cables were oh so graciously flung over the balcony of the apt. next door by our neighbor. So as soon as we can get those hooked to something that works, we’ll be considered civilized again. Our landlords actually live in Virginia, we learned, but the mediator between us, she’s nice. Her brother was supposed to come last week but I guess he forgot. Maybe trying to get his fone hooked up too.
My class is eagerly learning Psalm 118:24, their verse of this month, “This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.” They seem to enjoy it, which for some students is a surprise. Thursday, January 26, the whole school went on a field trip to the national park, La Tigra, about a 90 minute drive from the city. As we sat in the minivan like clowns in a Volkswagen beetle, I thought, “Are we almost to Guatemala?!” I had heard it was far, but by the time we arrived, the city was no where in sight. I didn’t expect that. It was incredibly beautiful and the air was so crisp and clear. Like being in the mountains. Well, we were in mountains. The drive up in some parts reminded me of the drive to King’s Kamp. The kids were amazingly well-behaved for having to hike in a high-altitude cloud forest, wet and very cold. Not a complaining voice was heard over the course of the nearly 3 hour “walk.” My legs were weak and shaky by the end from having walked downhill so much the last half, and my ears were sore from hearing another teacher shouting, “Be careful! Don’t run! Don’t shout, you’ll scare the animals! Don’t…” whatever she could think of. I had a good conversation with her in Spanish to keep her from focusing so much on the kids for awhile.
We had this trip and then the next day, Friday, January 27, we didn’t have school because we finished the second quarter. We had conferences with parents and report cards two days before. Those went surprisingly smoothly. Of course, as usual, the parents that I really needed to talk to, those of the students I have the most problems with, didn’t show up. I decided to do a new thing also with my kids the same day as the field trip, just before we left. Each one got an award for a certain subject that they did really well in, and for a certain skill: organization, responsibility, perseverance, class work skills, most improved, and best effort. Thanks for your prayers. Things are going better there and I think I have less stress because I live in a better area closer to school.
Friday, my day off, I slept in after waking up at 7:30, 8:30, and then 9:30. My body, even though exhausted from hiking for about 3 miles, is so used to getting up early. Amber and I did some errands and took advantage of the “Executive” weekday lunch special at Tony Roma’s. Now, I’m not a huge fan of that place. Haven’t been there in years, and that was only once, but this was great. A drink, nonalcoholic, of course, an appetizer, a plate of lots of food, a premeal soup or salad, and dessert for only 317 lempira, or about $16 total. Wow!
When we came home I made a cake and we had a little birthday party for a little girl from church, just her mom and sister. They are our good friends and Amber’s known them for a long time.
Thanks for your time! !Que le vaya bien!

Christmas in Honduras...in January

Here we are celebrating Christmas in our new house with some boys that Amber works with. The first is "Cachete", or dimple, then all of us in front of the treeeee, and getting dinner, buffet style, which they're totally not used to. It was a great time had by all and Amber blessed me with a stocking and a coffee maker!!! yea!

Christmas in Honduras...in January

Here we are celebrating Christmas in our new house with some boys that Amber works with. The first is "Cachete", or dimple, then all of us in front of the treeeee, and getting dinner, buffet style, which they're totally not used to. It was a great time had by all and Amber blessed me with a stocking and a coffee maker!!! yea!

And finally...

Did I mention there are Taco Bell's in Guate? Well, there are 2 that I know of, and we went to one and let's just say that that's the day I started with my sickness. You can't say you're surprised! I don't have any great pictures of that, of our excursion to Taco Bell, that is, not that you'd want to see them.

The first pic is of pretty much the whole of Beto's family just before I left to return to Honduras. He has 7 brothers and sister, 3 of which are married with kids.

There's me enjoying ice cream after being sick and hardly eating anything fun for 5 days. And the funky looking church I like where Beto graduated from High School.

Well, thank you all for your support and prayers. I am doing much better since I went to Baxter's free clinic and got some meds. I still havn't been brave enough to have coffee, my favorite drink, but I see that special day of my first sip again on the horizon. yippee!!!

Tomorrow completes the first week back to school and it went really well, and fast. I feel less stress because of the better living situation and only having to walk 5 minutes to school. Everyday we pray in class, and starting Monday I'm going to introduce memorizing a Bible verse each month. Pray that the kids will "hide God's word in their hearts" and let it grow them spiritually throughout their lifetimes.

Please pray for guidance as I search for another avenue of ministry come Summer. I am excited about the possibilities.

Much love and prayers to you all! and Happy New Year!

Christmas Eve 2005

This is one of the only pictures I have of Christmas Eve...Beto helping the neighboors wash the sidewalks. They do it every year, only to totally trash the streets worse than before a few house later with fireworks lasting all day and into the wee morning hours. We ate our "Christmas dinner" at midnight. They celebrate Christmas the 24th instead of the 25th. Very different. Let's just say it was the loudest Christmas Eve I've ever had.
The building is of the National Palace in the city center which I don't think is home to anyone now, except some art merchants during the day. And the beautiful fountain across the street.

Gotta go, Gotta go!

I love this, an outdoor urinal. Sorry, ladies. A far view and extreme closeup. Don't worry, no "pee-ers" were embarassed in the taking of the foto. The inscription, which I've never known there to be one on a urinal, reads..."Pee happy, pee content, but please, pee inside!"

Gotta go, Gotta go!

I love this, an outdoor urinal. Sorry, ladies. I mean, why do men need this anyways? They can go whenever, wherever. Maybe the laws are different from Honduras and they're not allowed to pee anywhere, I don't know.
A far view and extreme closeup. Don't worry, no "pee-ers" were embarassed in the taking of the foto. The inscription, which I've never known there to be one on a urinal, reads..."Pee happy, pee content, but please, pee inside!"

Guatemala

After about 12 hours over 2 days, we finally made it to Guatemala, or Guate, and waited about an hour and a half for Beto's brother to come pick us up. Luckily, we had yummy snacks sent to me from the States.

The next day we happened along Herbie. I havn't seen the new version but love the old one. Boy is he cute!

Beto loves his family. These are 4 of his 7 nieces and nephews, with another on the way! Cristalita, Kenneth, and Alessandro(the baby).



Another day, we visited Beto's sister who works at McDonalds and enjoyed lunch on her, well, we didnt actually eat on her like a table, well, you know. But the McDonalds there are so much nicer, and the workers friendlier. When I asked for more ketchup, two guys almost tripped and fell over each other to help me, and the ladies were like that too. They also have a "McCafe" on another wing complete with couches, like Starbucks. I don't know why the states hasn't plugged into that scene yet! It was a nice change, even if it was McDonalds.



And the Christmas tree in Guatemala City is HUGE! of course, it is sponsored by the national beer company of the country.

This is not my beautiful house! What have I done?!

So the new year has begun and school has started again. The first two days weren't bad, especially the first since not many kids showed up. it was actually quite relaxing and peaceful. But that won't last long, i'm afraid. I've learned I can't make my self feel that way no matter how hard i try, but that's just the thing, trying hard at it isn't the thing that needs to be done. But putting it in God's hands and realizing that He's in control, His timing is perfect,and He never makes a mistake.
Take my living situation for example. I'd been wanting to move out for quite sometime, but with all my searching didn't find a place that I felt was quite right for me, either because it was too small, too big, too expensive, or too far from school. But as I walked to school this morning, I thought again...and I always need lots of reminders, at how God's timing is always perfect, even when I feel like life is chaos. Here I have this new really nice 3-bed, 2bath house, not coutning the "servants quarters" outside, that is 5 minutes walking distance from school, in a quiet, safe neighborhood with "vigilancia", and since I'm sharing it with a great friend, it's a nice price. I'm so happy. We're so excited. Whenever we get home or sit on the couches I bought...Ijust have to add that because it makes me feel so independant, we get all giddy and say, "Hey, we have couches!" or i say "Hey, amber, we have a house!" and we laugh as if we're at a 4th grade slumber party.
But this morning as I walked to school, I thought, "It's not our house. We're renting. But then again, it is ours because of just that, because we're renting. We are the one's paying to stay there." Like, hey, this is my hotel room, not anyone else's, because I'm paying for it and it's in my name."
And at night, when I'm laying in bed looking up at the stars through my window, I just thank God for helping me to wait to rent a place, for placing a great friend with whom to share this house, and that everything has worked out really well, well, for us. I know that sounds selfish, but it says a lot more about God. that He really has even our little, material interests in mind, for our best. DUH!
So moving in was a lot of fun. We got furniture pretty quickly and I bought a beautiful, lovely, navy blue sofa/2 chair set at the cheapest place in town, supposedly. The cheapest at that store.
and we have cable. Now let me tell you. I'm not much of a TV watcher, or at least I thought I wasnt. But with over 100 channels, including ABC, CBS, Cinemax, HBO, and NBC, I just may have to become one! The most exciting channels are the States ones, ABC, NBC and CBS. Last night we enjoyed watching Vanna on The Wheel while we ate homemade lasagna...another story, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Even during the commercials we flipped to a channel that had "Everybody loves Raymond", and while we love that show, we opted for The Wheel. I know, go ahead and say it..."You're a nerd!" Or in spanish, nerd is nerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrd. Roll that "R"!!
So about that lasagna, I made it for the first time in my life and it wasnt half bad. Neither of us had seconds, but we did eat our rather large first portions.
To conclude, I will say that I'm very excited to have a Christmas party this Friday at "our house" with some boys from the church that Amber works with. She's going to cook a turkey and we'll have a tree. I'm excited because they don't celebrate in Guatemala at all like inthe States.
MOre to come with pictures.

Back home

Well, in Teguc., home. Got back safely, yet sick with something I picked up in Guate., after a 14 hour bus ride yesterday. At least we had some snacks and watched¨Undercover Brother¨. A true classic. More news later with lots of pictures. Happy New Year!

Feliz Navidad de Guatemala

Well, we arrived safely, Beto and I, with our Guatemalan friends who also study at Baxter.
After 2 days, or 12 hours total, in a bus, we finally made it and are staying with Beto´s family. I love it here, so simple and his family is so loving and fun. His mom reminds me of the mom in the movie, ¨My Big Fat Greek Wedding¨because if she asks you if you´re hungry and you say, ¨Not really,¨, she says, ¨Good, come eat!¨
Last night I serioulsy woke up with a stomach ache we´d eaten so much yesterday. I´m just going to have to learn to be honest and slip some food to the dogs.
So we´re here 3 weeks just kicken it and i won´t be doing much blogging, so Merry Christmas and Feliz Año Nuevo to todos! I´ll have a lot of fotos to post in January.
May God fill you with His Spirit and peace this year and may we all be more in love with Him!

Much love to all,
Laura

Feliz Cumpleanos!

All right, here are some fotos from Beto's birthday night out. We went to a really nice steak restaurant where we at like royalty. this queen even had leftover steak for 2 days, and she shared with the king! I could go on and on , but i won't bore you about food. But listen, it really wasnt that expensive, and we got salad! oh how i miss those! being from Cali, I was spoiled with the freshest of the fresh, knowudimsayin???
tambien, garlic bread! mami!
So afterwards, i surprised him by taking him to the marriott, where i heard there was live jazz with wine, cheese, and such on WEd. nights. But when we got there the door man said there was an art expo instead. I told him I called and the man on the phone told me Wed. night jazz, but Beto's an artist so he liked it better anyways. Then we had fun taking pictures in the lobby, drinking coffee, which we both LOVE! mmmmmmm....and by the beautiful Christmas tree. How pagan of us...it was a great night.
by the way, i didnt realize until a week later that we went to the hotel on TUESDAY night, so of course there wasn't the wed. night jazz concert. No wonder the man smiled at me funny. He thought i WAS "funny", but not funny "ha-ha".

Random update

All right, four are from a friend's wedding we went to December 2. The bride, groom, and their wedding party. Here it's more traditional to have girls from the church in the wedding than for the bride's friends. Beto and I with some awesome boys from the youth group that Amber works with mostly everyday. Beto comforting a sad boy, and us outside the church. Amazing view, not so great in the foto. It was a fun time, but of course it started late so as we waited, we got bored and took some pictures to share with the world.
The picture of my students was taken one day during a short break between classes. If you've seen the movie, "Legally Blonde", you'll recognize the "bend and snap." Too hilarious!

Thanksgiving at school

Here are some pix from our thanksgiving celebration. Xavier was our excellent narrator. We had some help from some 5th and 6th graders for the act. They did well even though they were really nervous. yes, that boy doesnt have no shirt! he's in my class and i thought it was the best costume for an indian. at least he DID wear pants! yikes!
And my small cute class, minus one, eating a typical Thanksgiving feast! They pulled through and brought all the things I asked them too! it was a lot of fun!

Panqueqes y Elecciones...ole!

Aren't those the most beautiful pancakes you've ever seen? And I made them!( Well, with a little help from Aunt Jamima herself). they look just like the one's on the box, just what i've always wanted. I had time to fix them finally on a day off for Thanksgiving.
The other picture is from my balcony of the street during elections. A lot of people were lined up on the left all day to vote. The red party, Mel, won. He's who I would've voted for if I could've, but I don't know why. Red is my favorite color, though.

Soccer and Thanksgiving

We went to a real FUTBOL game in Tegucigalpa the day after Thanksgiving. The red lights are the flares held by the crazy people who had their own section. there were'nt any other crazy people in any other section.
Thanksgiving was wonderful this year with all the trimmings made by Jeanne on the far left. Her husband is president of Baxter and she made everything and invited americans living and visiting here, and a couple of girls who are married to students here (one on the far right).

Another bathroom

But this is from the hotel in San Salvador, El Salvador where we went for our little vacation. Read the blog below for more info. You can see the lock on the OUTSIDE of the door, and the shower pipe going up the wall, with the nice invisible separator between it and the toilet. nice.

The Bucket Brigade

A typical scene once one enters the bathroom. Pick a bucket, any bucket, to wash yourself!!! The possibilities of ugly buckets are nearly endless, unfortunately. but fortunately, at least one can be found now adays!

Feliz Cumpleanos

This is karen, the girl who used to be "Cinderella" of the house. She's so sweet. i don't think she'd ever had a pinata, maybe not a party even like this, with pizza and cake. it was real fun. We did have a "Hello Kitty" pinata and beat the crap out of it. That made for a real great afternooon.

Living it up!

Upstairs, that is. As I have mentioned other happenings in the house before, I decided to write again, at the encouragement of others. I have been a little skeptical about whether i should or not. I don´t want to make it sound worse than it is, but I ain´t gunna sugar coat nothin neither!
I did promise some pictures in a recent blog but the feature wasn´t working and as I can´t do it now, pictures will have to wait, but i do have some good ones saved up!
I´ve been living with a pastor and his family since late August. It was pretty good at first, and I still am thankful that there is water, although it´s sporadic, that I have a bed, though a little uncomfy for my bad back, a room, though i have no lock or door, and therefore no real privacy, electricity, food, and cable, which means shows, although out of date and with subtitles, in english!
Recently, however, i´ve taken more than i can bare. There were 4 women family members staying awhile, one of whom is 27 and mentally retarded. She was also treated like Cinderella by the rest of the clan, literally, screaming and all. The five year old ruled the TV, nearly all day long, and I couldn´t exactly sit down with her. She wasn´t a huge fan of Friends or Gilmore Girls.
The mother, eh, ¨wicked stepmother¨, rather, was hardly ever home and left her five year old and fifteen year old girls in the charge of the mentally slow woman. No names will be mentioned to protect the innocent. When she was home, she yelled at others to do things for her from her room where she moped. Clothes of mine, jewelry, and food was taken by one of them. They have sinced moved out...across the street, but we don´t see much of them anymore.
Now I have more mice, cockroaches, and gnats to keep me company, all of which are just about as welcome as the former family. My food still gets taken but they, the pastor and his family, have my permission since they are letting me live there free, although i´d rather not them drink my only 2 pepsi´s left in the fridge, or ALL my macaroni that i had planned on eating when i got home.
As I said, sometimes there is water, but usually not. I have to get it out of the huge sink outside but it´s dirty after sitting there for over a week. I´ve begun to heat up my water though lately which has been nice since it´s been cold here lately, like in the low 70´s. But colder at night and early morning when it´s bath time.
I am hoping to move out in January, where I can sit in my living room without getting 20 bites on my leg in 15 minutes. I only have three weeks left where i am at, then i go to guatemala for 3 weeks. When i get back i hope to move. I am praying for a place just big enough for me with a kitchen I can cook and clean my dishes in. I´d rather not leave my dirty dishes with food int he kitchen to invite all the critter´s that want to join me. No gracias!

You don't see this everyday

Yesterday as I walked to school as usual, I saw something, or someone, quite unusual...a naked lady. and of course, once again i didn't have my camera! seriously, yes, I didn't know what to think. This had never happened to me before, which is weird being from southern california. i couldn't believe my eyes, was i dreaming? what do i do? help her? give her a sweater? she did have underwear on, but not even shoes. She didn't try to cover herself or walk fast or hide herself. I do hope that I don't ever see a naked man walking on the way to school!

San Salvador

The capital of El Salvador...Amber and I have to leave the country for our Visa's every three months, so we went together to just relax. We didn't know anything about it really or where we would stay, but knowing it's the capital we were sure we'd find something, and were willing to put out about $40 per night for hotel. We didnt' know what there was to see and didn't really want to wear ourselves out sightseeing, so we planned on staying in and reading or what not.
It started with a great, comfy bus trip complete with pancakes and juice, and Pepsi! On the way back it wasn't as satisfying as they served us a quesadilla and Twinkie for breakfast. The breakfast of Champions, eh mom and dad? The seats were way more comfortable than on an airplane, although the service wasn't quite as nice. One stewardess got a little upset with me for putting my water bottle in the overhead bin, which really isn't a bin since there's no door protecting things from falling out. Afterwards, I fell asleep only to be woken up by the two stewardesses talking about me putting my waterbottle up top. I went back to sleep and when i woke up again it was gon! oh the orror! someone stole my nalgene with an in n out sticker! but alas, it was on the back seat safe and sound.
When we arrived we asked a worker at the bus station for a hotel that wasn't ugly(literally the word in spanish) but isn't too expensive. He told us about a place around the corner that cost $15 dollars a night. We walked away thinking, ok probably not going to be as nice as we want, but let's see. Well, we ended up staying and only paid $8 a night!!!!! So much money left over for foood!!! We even had cable, from the states! ya hoo! we spent almost half our vacation watching TV!
We dropped our stuff off and then went the mall, yes, a mall, which is 3 times bigger than the mall in Teguc. It was huge! We walked around so much just looking for a map of the place, of which there was only one! Que feo! How ugly! We just browsed and then took "home" pizza hut for dinner while we watched our cable.
The next day we slept in and spent the whole day at the mall again, eating, trying on beautiful dresses that we couldn't afford, went to a movie, ate, etc.
Here's a picture of our bathroom. Everything all together without a barrier between them. and the funny thing that you can't see is that the lock is on the OUTSIDE of the door! huh?
Thanks for reading!

Lo siento

so, there were parent teacher conferences last saturday where we gave the parents the report cards. another ¨rule¨from the minister of educ., to meet on saturdays´. not! since the director says so much the minister requires us to do, i aksed for a copy of hte rules so we could know what we need to do. i´ve yet to be shown them or see any posted anywhere in school like i suggested. hmm...
so some parents came who i didnt expect to come, and now wish they hadnt, but what happened was mostly my fault.
every friday we send home weekly report cards with grades. wel, up until the last 2 weeks, i thought they were only to report behavior and i didnt put much thought into them. so this one kid in 4th grade had mostly excellents every week. bbut his final grades, which were mostly avaraged from tests, were horrible. the parents were shocked, understandably, and i felt horrible. i kept telling them over and over the truth, and they kept asking the same questions over and over, then complained to the director, which i didn´t know about till yesterday. but she didnt seem to upset and my honest explanation was acceptable. so now i have to keep better in contact with these parents everyweek and include everything, not just behavior.
tomorrow we´ll be having a pizza and movie party for good behavior. i love my fourth graders!
please pray for them, some of them are really slow academically, but for the most part, sweetharts!

Como?!

Let me get this straight...you want us to...LIE...to the parents?
This was my question to our director at our meeting last friday. The high schoolers are failng most of their classes and so that the government won´t shut the school down, she wanted us to tell the parents a different grade and then change their grades so that they wouldn´t fail, or at least maybe they could fail with a 59 instead of a 18. no lie, there were grades that low. the kids are lazy, don´t study or do homework. teachers work hard, but i don´t think they should work harder than the students. at least it should be equal.
I said, ¨no i can´t do that. i´m not going to lie.¨i was in shock. What? come again?! i´m much more vocal and confident in our meetings now after my meeting with the director ...see previous blog...
another teacher spoke up and agreed that was wrong...duh, doesn´t take a Christian!...but maybe we could do a curve so that they kids with the highest grades could pass.
ÖRrrrrr...said the director, we could keep the real grades on the report card for the school to see and send other higher grades to the minister of education so that the school won´t shut down.
um, sorry, not doing that either. how about we tell the truth, because the kids earned these grades by doing nothing, and we can´t let them get away with it. call me an idealist but maybe that´s what the school needs, to start afresh with the kind of kids we want in here.
in the end i agreed to give the kids another opportunity by giving them extra work, and if they did it all they could raise their grades.we´ll see how many turn it in!

What a relief

Well, i don´t know how much i´ve expressed about my director over the blog but something happened last week that i want to share. in case i´ve not shared much, in brief, it´s a very stressful environment and many of the teachers i talk to are unhappy. last thursday a note came to my classroom via secretaria, another interruption i try to avoid by having a sign on my door that read ¨do not enter¨in spanish and english, because so many people were entering during lessons for stupid reasons that could wait. but alas, i guess somehow people got hired without being literate and continue to ignore the sign. So anywho, the secretary brings a note that says there will be an emergency meeting from 2.30 to 3.00 about grades, because report cards were about to come out. i am so tired of the director calling things at the last minute and i didnt want to sign it, which is why the secretary came in, so before signing i wrote a note showing my annoyance at this once again event. about 10 min. later another note came saying the meeting would be cancelled till the next day since some teachers had prior arrangements. i didnt really have prior arrangements and i didnt say i did in my note, but apparently other teachers complained too.
now, we usually meet afterschool thursdays to plan, discusss the week, etc. but i knew this ¨20minute¨meeting would set us back at least another 30 minutes, and i had no planning to do and didnt want to stay.
so the director comes to my room after school very buffed and it began what ended up being a 90 minute ¨talk¨about all the things i don´t like about her and working there. but i was able to say it calmly in a discussion format, to speak honest answers to her questions, and she took them in stride. she also said a lot of things i don´t need to go into boring details about, things i´m not sure i believe because she´s done so much stuff in the past that has led me to distrust and disbelieve almost anything she says, especially promises to do things by a certain time.
after ward, i felt so much better and was glad i´d stayed to talk, although part of me wondered if she kept me out of spite since in didnt want to stay for the 20 minute meeting. not much has changed and i still don´t particularly like her, but it´s a much more enjoyable and peaceful environment, at least for now.