Hi everyone!
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| Us at the pool with fellow volunteers Ione, Michaela and Katie |
Like many countries
Honduras has an Independence day, but Honduras being Honduras the celebrations
go on for an entire month, the month of September. Flags are draped everywhere – in school, in the supermarket, over the
phone wires in town – and everywhere you go you can´t escape the national anthem, and pictures
of the national flower, national tree and the county´s founders. At school we are preparing for the parades
this Friday, Saturday and Sunday, in which every school in Siguatepeque and the
surrounding area is taking part. Preparations are in full swing and everyday
there is band practice, baton twirling practice, flag carrying practice and
marching practice. They even got a guy from the army into the school to help
them with their marching technique. However my kids being four years old,
marching practice mainly consists of the older kids trying to make them stand
in one place, and running around the school after them when they don't. It’s nice to have someone else chase after
them for a change. Then after the weekend of parading we get our first holiday!
Unfortunately it´s
only two days so we won´t manage to make it to the beautiful bay islands like some of the
other volunteers, but we plan to go to the beach town of Tela. The only issue
is that the busses might not be running, we have asked loads of people but no
one seams to be very sure, but fingers crossed we´ll make it.
Tuesday was Children´s day
in Honduras, which pretty much means a day where there are no classes but
instead fun and games. We celebrated it on Friday, which was so much fun! We
had a bouncy castle (and yes, I did have a go myself), musical chairs, a pass
the parcel and best of all the Piñata. It was a little scary handing some of my
kids a big wooden stick, however there were only a few injuries and after about
20 minutes they managed to crack it open. They them proceeded to stampede and
all rush and grab as many sweets as they could. Quite a frightening sight. They
then got chicken nuggets, chips and cupcakes and it was hilarious watching them
all get the icing EVERYWHERE (some examples: in their hair, on their feet,
behind their ears). All in all it was a great day, most of all it was just nice
to have a chance to just play with my kids and be nice to them instead of
shouting at them or trying to get them to sit down all the time. I do feel that I have gotten to know my kids
by now and although they try my patience all the time, I do genuinely love each
of them. Day to day it is a real struggle and I can´t
wait until 3 o´clock when we can go home, but there are some great moments like
when I have the whole class giggling and singing wheels on the bus with me,
when one of my slower kids manages to do a whole piece of work right, when
someone learns to write their name or when my special needs kid learnt his
first word in: banana.  |
| The first time we got soaked |
As for the weekends
we have decided to try and do some more interesting things instead of just
lazing around in our house all day. Last
weekend we decided we would try and do some horse riding. We texted the head
teacher to ask if she had any recommendations and she text back two hours later
telling us she had everything arranged and we should go into the school at 10
tomorrow and someone would pick us up. But this being Honduras no one showed up
until 12, when some distant relative of someone at the school turned up to take
us. We went to his farm and while we
waited for them to get the horse ready we were handed a piece of wood with a
fishing line wound round it and a hook on the end and told we could fish for a
bit while we were waiting. I´ve never been fishing before but it was so much fun and I managed
to catch nine Tilapia fish! After about 2 hours of fishing the horse appeared
and we went off into the forest for our ride. It was so beautiful and misty but
after about 30 minutes it started raining. And in Honduras when it rains, it
rains. After about a minute in the tropical downpour we were soaked but the
thing is you get so unbelievably wet you just stop caring. The ride back was
amazing; we were drenched but riding a horse through the forest where all I
could see was trees mist and rain, is something I will never forget. We them
went home with the family we gutted and cooked the fish we had caught and
we all ate Tilapia for tea. It was great to have some fish because you can´t buy
it here. All in all a great day.
Then on Monday we came home to find there was
no power in the whole of Sigua. At first we were a bit annoyed because it meant
we couldn't cook and we had no light at all but we soon perked up when we
realised it also meant we couldn't possibly do any of our lesson planning. So we went for pizza with the family and then
came back and had an Adele sing a long (as it seams to be the only British
music they have heard of). By about 7 it was pitch black and we only had two
wind up torches. That's when the fun begun. We invited Nicole and David (the 12
and 15 year olds who live with us) to play a bit of hunt the torch which is
where you hide the only source of light and all fumble about in the dark
looking for it, which was hilarious (and miraculously we managed not to beak
anything). We then played a bit of hide
and seek which is also much more fun when you can see nothing at all and then
played a game where you have to sneak up and hit each other with pillows.
However, the best game of all we played at the end. We didn't really understand
at first when they were explaining it to us, but the aim was for me and Erin as
a team to try and scare David and Nicole more than they could scare us, and whoever
managed to scare the other the most would win. The first round they won as Erin
and I didn't really understand what was going on until they ran at us with Piñatas
over their heads. The second round turned out oddly as David and Nicole ran
around the room with sheets over their heads while me and Erin creepily sat in
the rocking chairs murmuring hubble, bubble, boil and trouble and the like. I
actually got quite into the role, but it ended in a stalemate. The final round
was the most dramatic with Nicole and David wearing zombie makeup however, they
could only stand there stunned as me and Erin came out in our sunglasses,
flashing our torches and singing Greece Lightning at the top of our voices. The
whole night ended with us all dancing about, and then, at 11.30 the lights came
back on. A fantastic, if a little crazy night but it made me so glad that I am
living with a host family, and one with kids that are so up for a laugh.
That's all for now, tomorrow and Sunday we
will be marching and hopefully I'll get some pictures of that (and of our
holiday in Tela too!) Meanwhile here are some pictures of my kids at our party
on Friday.
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| Erin's pic |
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| Erin's pic |
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