The teaching has begun!

So, on Monday we started teaching. I had all of my things prepared for the seven kids I was expecting: materials, name places, crayons. Then 14 kids turned up. 14! As you can imagine chaos soon erupted as I ran round the classroom trying to get them to draw various things as I only had enough stuff for seven kids to do the planed activity, while trying to figure out the names of all of the kids and if they were actually meant to be in my class! I think its fair to say the first day was pretty much a disaster. However, things got better the second day and I can now keep most of the kids in their seats and on task. I also have a hang of who is meant to be in my class, so when random children come wandering in I can tell them again that this isn't their room and redirect them. Apart from one or two trouble makers, my kids are lovely and I'll try to get some pictures up soon as they are very cute.

Last weekend we went to the pool with Ione and Michaela which was very nice and we spent a day sunbathing (coated in factor 50 of course) and swimming which was nice apart from Ione managing to tear all the ligaments in her foot jumping in. She's okay now though and her and some other volunteers are off to see the Copan ruins this weekend. Unfortunately we couldn't go as we have to plan our lessons for the next three weeks and make numerous sets of flashcards.

Another exiting thing we have been introduced to is the Sunday market. A teacher at the school took us and it is amazing. There are so many fruits and vegetables which are so yummy and so cheap. For under £4 we got two salted oranges (which are green here), 6 guyabas, 10 sweet potatoes, a bag of 20 lychees, 5 passion fruit, a squash and a melon! We can't wait to go back tomorrow. The smells, the colors and the general busyness puts us in a great mood for the rest of the day.

Thats all for now, I'll let you know how the second week of teaching goes, and any other news from Hondieland!

This is our dog called Mi Nino

My classroom, which has a sesame street theme

The school

Erin in the playground

My class mascot, Smiley Tiger, on the swings

The road home from school

The pulperia or corner shop near school

Hi everyone,

So I've arrived! On Friday night we got in to San Pedro Sula. The hours of flying were not so bad, the hour waiting at Honduran passport control after being awake for 24 hours was a little more trying. However, after we got through we were greeted by a thunderstorm lighting up the whole sky. Pretty awesome.

The next day we got picked up by one of the teachers at our school and driven to our project. The drive was incredible, everything was so green and I can't describe how beautiful. We then stopped at the side of the road to buy some bananas, which the lady chopped off with a massive knife. They like their big knives here. We then got taken to our accommodation which wasn't an annex as we had been told but a room in a family's house. However, there was no one around who spoke any English to explain things to us, and when we found someone who did speak English they didn't really know what was going on. The next two days were so tough. We were tired, we were homesick, we didn't like the food, the dogs outside kept us up all night and we didn't have a clue why we were in a house and if this was where we were going to be staying for the year. We ventured out for a walk and everyone stared at us, whistled at us or hissed at us. It was pretty scary.

However, on Monday things improved when we went up to the school and got to meet Nidia and Cesar who are the people in charge of the school. Nidia explained everything to us, and we are staying in the house, to help us integrate more. I got told I am teaching the Kinder class who will be about 4 and Erin is teaching Preparatory class who are about 5 and Nidia herself will be teaching the 3 year olds. Together we are the pre-school team and we have been spending the past week preparing for when the kids start a week on Monday. It's really exciting.

I'm also getting used to things here. The fact we don't have a shower but a big bucket of water and a smaller bucket which you use to scoop up the freezing water and pour it over your head. I like walking down the street now, and I don't mind random people talking to me, and I say hi back. We often go on walks with the family and the other day we went to the town's cinema to see World War Z. Me and Erin spent most of the movie clinging on to each other with pure fear.

We are cooking for ourselves, and although we burnt the onions last night, it hasn't gone too disastrously. We cook outside on the fire, and there is a wonky hob inside if we need to cook two things. We also had a go at making tortillas which was loads of fun. You take the dough have to spin it into a kind of circle and then put it on top of the slate above the fire. Needless to say our tortillas were quite holy which the family found very entertaining.

More somber news and I woke up this morning with a cockroach in my bed. Yes in my bed. However, we should probably count ourselves lucky as most of the other volunteers have been sick.

It's Erin's birthday on Sunday so were meeting up with two other volunteers to have lunch in Del Corral, which is a supermarket but supposedly the best place to eat. Despite all of the mishaps and disasters so far, and missing home I am enjoying Honduras and I can't wait until we start to teach.