Nearly a month already...WHAT!

Hola otra vez!

I really cannot believe that I'm writing this blog saying that I've been here in Punta Gorda for almost a month! Time here has really flown by and we're almost 1/12th of the way through the year already!

So, school's been going really well recently. Teaching the younger kids really is great fun, this morning when I went down to school about four of them ran at me screaming Hola Teacher and wanted me to pick them all up (at the same time...) They really are adorable kids, and most of them are really enthusiastic about learning, and getting to know us, which is great!

The older kids are still great fun, we always have a good laugh with them. Now that were getting to know them, some of them are almost like friends so the lessons are great fun! That said, in every class from 7th-9th grade, there are a few 'clowns' (as Lee calls them) who just try to disrupt the lesson and annoy everyone. We had a chat to Lee about this and he said we should just kick them out. If they don't want to learn, they can just leave so everyone else can, he said, which is good enough for me!

In each class there is a varying range of abilities, so some kids find the work really easy and some find it harder. This makes the lessons interesting though, because it allows me to spend time with the ones who find it hard. This is good because it means I have to speak in Spanish (which isn't always correct!), though through a mixture of my broken Spanish and their broken English we often get there!

Twice last week, Robbie and I went with some local dancers to some resorts on Roatán. They go to hotels to show traditional Garifuna dancing, and we were invited along with them. It's great to watch, though not so great when at the end the girls come around and get us up to dance (two of the girls are at school with us so always pick on us to dance!) Let's just say that by the end of the year my Punta dancing may be better than it is now!

Adult English classes are going rather well! We now do three families per week, one in Punta Gorda, one in Jonesville and one in Oakridge. All three families are lovely, and since we do it for free they often give us free food and coke, which is amazing!!! The family in Jonesville literally live in a $1 million dollar home, and they've said that we can use their pool whenever we want to and go and cook pizza with them - I think I might take you up on that at some point Luis! It's a great way to meet new people and see different parts of the island we wouldn't otherwise see.

Me, Robbie and our little mates

Mary Lou's cooking is still pretty nice. There's not as much rice and beans as I thought there'd be! She often cooks us chicken and her bread is the best thing since sliced bread - even though it's not sliced! She says one day she's going to teach us to cook like her, that'd be great. We've been to church with her every Sunday since we got here, it was her granddaughter's Christening the other day, which was lovely to watch. I've started to understand a bit more what's going on in church, and even learnt the words to some of the songs!

We started work at the Kindergarten on Wednesday, which is where the little ones go before they start school. What can I say, the kids are lovely though we were just put in a room with about 20 of them and told 'teach them English.' Thanks to Robbie's imagination and my ability to count, we held out for 40 minutes teaching them numbers, the alphabet and 'Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.' This will definitely involve more planning than any of our other lessons, a bit odd considering they're the youngest!

I really enjoy spending time with the school kids at 'recreo' (break) or after school before they head home. They're so interesting and a great laugh, and they also like to get to know us a bit more. Some of the 7th-9th graders really are like good friends now, it's so weird how I've come to a different country and made friends with so many people so quickly. However, I must remember to never let little girls play with my hair again...

Me and my amigas after messing with my hair! It was platted earlier..

Tomorrow, there's a dance competition in French Harbour (a bigger town nearby, about 1/2 hour bus ride), so we think we'll go to that with some of the kids. It's nice that we're getting asked to go to these things. On the 10th September, they celebrate 'Día de los Ninos' in Honduras, so we think we're going with one class to a place called Camp Bay. Apparently it's an amazing beach and they have a BBQ and play football there, something to look forward to for us!

Doris asked us to go with her to a 'Cay' (a little island with nothing on it, just an amazing beach) with her class, but we don't think we'll be able to go, yet it's great we're being invited to so many things by so many people. You see, in two weeks, we're going to go to Tela to celebrate Hannah's birthday (she's a Project Trust volunteer), and meet up for the first time with some of our amigos from England. I'm so excited for this, it's only been a month but I can't wait to see those guys again.

Some local's want to take us somewhere next weekend with them, I think to a beach or something like that, and just spend the day with them. It's a good chance to get to know them a bit more, and I think we may become pretty good mates with these guys.

What a sunset!

Right, I must let you go. It getting late here and I've got a class at 8:00 tomorrow morning.

Hasta luego, y un abrazo a todos,

Sam xx

Arrival and the first couple of weeks

Hola!

It's now almost 2 weeks since I arrived in Honduras, so there's definitely a lot to talk about.

We arrived at Heathrow on Monday morning and I said goodbye to the family, and then off we went; through security to start the adventure of a lifetime. It was at this point where everything started to become very real; and slightly nervy!

We took a 9 hour flight to Miami (with nice views of Canada and Washington out the window) and just chilled out most of the way. It was pretty boring though and I was glad when we landed in the USA. I wasn't happy, however, with the airport. Miami has a reputation for being pretty crazy and it sure was! We had to go through check after check and then security again, all the while with a slight worry of our bags being lost! We eventually boarded our flight to San Pedro Sula and set off once again.

We arrived in Honduras at about 7pm local time (2am UK time!!) and were all predictably pretty tired! We got our bags and then searched for the guy who was going to take us to our hostel for the night.

The Honduran Family in San Pedro Sula

So we got in the back of Luis' car and headed off to the hostel in the murder capital of the world - scary stuff! Luis and his wife were lovely people and we ordered a take-away pizza between us, probably the last pizza I'll eat for a year. Me and Robbie set off at 4.30am the next morning to get the bus to La Ceiba. Goodbyes the night before were hard because everyone is really close but we'll try to meet up often and keep in touch with each other.

Luis took me and Robbie to the bus station where a 3 1/2 hour journey cost us little over £3 per person! The journey was alright with some pretty nice views, though we were both pretty shattered when we got to La Ceiba. A taxi ride later and we were at the boat station where we jumped on the 'Vomit Comet' (aptly named) and thankfully we both fell asleep otherwise we would've been rather sick I imagine.

We we're met at the port and taken for a quick chat with Vegas (our country rep) before being driven to Punta Gorda. After what seemed like a lifetime of travelling we had finally arrived at our new home. We met some school staff before heading to Mary Lou's for lunch - she's our cook for the year! We also went for a quick swim because the sea is so close!

Home for the next year!

Our house is basic to say the least, a small building just a 30 second walk from school. There's a bedroom each, a small bathroom and a living room with a table, bookcase and a fridge. We have had no running water for over a week now and it's quite annoying, and although they seem to think it'll get sorted, me and Robbie doubt it.

On the Wednesday, we went to the beach for a bit before heading back to school to meet Profa Ligia, who is our host for the year. She'll look after us at the school and if we have any issues we can go to her (the problem is she's off ill for a while..). We then observed some lessons on Thursday and Friday, we decided to split the younger ones (1st - 6th grade) 50/50 and then after one lesson each of the older pupils (7th - 9th grade) we decided to do them all together because behaviour control is pretty tough with these guys! Lee (the 7th - 9th grade teacher) told us just to be really relaxed with them and joke around a bit - apparently if we're strict they will go mad and not work one bit!

The weekend came and went pretty quickly, we explored a bit on Saturday and then went to church with Mary Lou on Sunday - it was great fun actually and the music was great (they had the tune of 'When a Child is Born' for one of their songs!). The problem was it was all in Garifuna, the local language, so me and Robbie didn't get a word of it!

We then went back home to plan some lessons, though we've worked out we don't actually have to plan that much - with the little ones Profa Joyce is often there with us, and with the older ones we only have to do 3 plans per week between us and then just apply them slightly differently to each class.

We started teaching on Monday and so far it's going really well! Despite what we were told about the older classes being really tough, with the right approach the lessons can be great fun. Some of the kids want to do well and some just don't really want to be there. We always try to make the lessons fun and have a laugh with the kids, and they seem to like the idea of including a little game at the end, like hangman.

In one lesson this week I asked one girl if she wanted to take the lesson for me (as a joke) and of course, she took the whole lesson and taught the class a load of words and was a great teacher! It was a good laugh and she seemed to really enjoy it so that was a good lesson.

Every Tuesday and Thursday me and Robbie are teaching Profa Doris and a couple of other teachers English - which is a great opportunity to get more involved and get to know the teachers a bit better. Doris did forget her homework though..tut tut. On Tuesday as well we left our keys locked inside our house so we had to go on a tour of Punta Gorda in a moto-taxi to find a spare key. An experience I do not wish to repeat anytime soon!

Wednesday night/Thursday morning Honduran time was when A level results came out. Me and Robbie both stayed up and were constantly refreshing UCAS Track to see if we'd been accepted. I found out that I was in to Bath University!!! I didn't yet know my grades, so I waited for mum to phone - she'd been in to school to collect them for me.

Even though Robbie (Driscoll - in England) beat her to it and told me my results, I was over the moon to have got A*A*A, and an A in the Extended Project. I was slightly gutted to not get an A* in French, but then again I beat Robbie (Driscoll) so that's all that matters really isn't it?! Robbie got in to Bristol so we were pretty chuffed that night. It seems most people back home did well, so well done to all going to uni this year or next!

We've been approached by 2 people already from the town to give them English lessons, which is great as it shows the community want to get to know us a bit, and it gives us something else to do in the evenings. I think we'll probably start with this next week.

Robbie's been pretty sick over the last few days so I've been teaching on my own. He's on the up right now so he should be better by Monday. We had a massive thunderstorm yesterday and our electricity sometimes cuts out when it rains (and sometimes it randomly cuts out anyway). 

Yesterday at school there was an event called the Gimnasiada, which is where some of the kids from each grade took part in a dancing competition. Let's just say the kids were a bit too young for this type of dancing. It was a good afternoon/evening and me and Robbie got to know some of the kids pretty well, especially because they speak really good English!!

I think my Spanish will really improve while I'm here. When we're out and about we try to speak to people in Spanish, though every single person responds with 'Hola Teacher'. I think some people actually think our names are 'Teacher'! We also need to pick up on the slang that the kids use, because they speak 'Island English' to each other, which you cannot understand if you speak normal English.

There are more photos on Facebook but it takes ages to upload them to here, so sorry about the lack of pictures but just go on my page to see more.

Anyway, I think if you're still reading this you may be a bit bored so I'll let you go and do something more exciting..

Un abrazo,

Sam xx