Copan Ruinas

This past weekend we had a three-day weekend, with Friday off for Teacher’s Day. (yay!) I went to the Copan Ruins, Honduras’ only major Mayan civilization ruins. I went with Rae and Matt, Julie, and NJ, all other teachers at Minerva. (Rae and Matt are married.) NJ’s friends, Sam and Jess, who were visiting her this week, also came.

We left super early Friday morning, catching the 6am bus to the town of Copan Ruinas. We changed buses in Santa Rosa, which is about an hour from us, and is the big town we go to when we want to buy stuff not available in Gracias. From there we took a nice charter-type bus to the town of La Entrada. I sat next to a Mormon missionary who was eager to have someone to talk to in English. We swapped stories of life in Honduras. When we got to La Entrada, about 45 minutes later, we switched buses again, for the final leg to Copan Ruinas. This trip was a couple of hours.

When we got to Copan Ruinas, we found our hotel (NJ, Sam, and Jess were staying in a different hostel). It was only 11, so we got lunch at our hotel, then set out to sight-see. Rae, Matt, and Julie decided to go to Macaw Mountain, a bird sanctuary just on the outskirts of town. I met up with NJ and Jess and wandered around town for awhile. The town is really cute, but very much done up for tourists. There are lots of little cafes and restaurants, and lots of craft shops. We looked at some stuff, then I headed to Casa K’inich museum, and the girls went back to their hostel.

Casa K’inich is a very fine children’s museum at the top of an enormous hill. As you know, I’m a big fan of children’s museums, so even though I’m technically an adult, and was the only person there, I paid the very reasonable entrance fee ($1) and went around the museum. It is small, but all the exhibits are hands-on and work, which is impressive enough. Every exhibit was also written in Spanish, English, and Chorti, the local Maya dialect. And the English was perfect, not just awkwardly translated Spanish. I learned a lot about the Maya at that little museum. I recommend it if you ever go to Copan Ruins!

When the group got back from Macaw Mountain, we did some more shopping, and went to dinner at a cool place called Vamos A Ver. I had some delicious chicken nachos, it was only a bit strange because we were the only people in the restaurant the entire time. After dinner we all hung out at our hotel awhile, which has a bar and a ‘nightlife’ schedule, but we went to bed before the nightlife really began.

Saturday morning we got up early again, and got breakfast at our hotel, then walked to the ruins to be there by 8, when they opened. It’s really quite a pleasant walk, only about 15 minutes.

The ruins were great! At the ticket window we met these 2 older American guys, and they went in on a tour guide with us. Our guide, Julio, grew up in Copan, and when he was younger, assisted archaeologists on excavating and repairing the ruins. Now he had learned English and had become a tour guide. He was great, and had lots of information to share.

The ruins were really pretty, with lots of green grass, trees, and plants everywhere. The sun stayed behind the clouds all morning, and a breeze blew in off the river, so it was really pleasant and not too hot. The only other ruins I’ve been to were in Chichen Itza, and there were hot, hot, hot. Also at Chichen Itza, there were people everywhere trying to sell trinkets, and lots of tourists. At Copan, there were times when we didn’t even see any other tourists, and there was no one selling anything inside the ruins. It was a great time of day, and year, to go.

Copan had it’s heyday in about 600 A.D. Up to 20,000 people lived in the Copan valley, and these ruins were where the royalty lived, and ceremonies were held. We saw temples and statues, and the ball court where Mayan ball games were played. The Mayan people destroyed the environment and succumbed to overpopulation (a cautionary tale?) and abandoned the area by 850 A.D. There are still descendents of these Maya in the area, but all of the cultural history has been lost. The first Westerners to start excavating Copan came in the mid 1800s, and nobody living nearby knew anything about what the ruins were or why they were there.

After the tour, we went back into town, and had an amazing lunch at a little place called picame. I had a hot bacon, cheese, avocado, and tomato sandwich. Yum!! Of course everything we ate and did and bought in Copan cost about 3 times more than in Gracias, which should be expected, but was still hard to swallow. It’s different when you’re on vacation from a job in the States, because then 15 dollars to get into an ancient ruin might seem like a good deal, but for us it is a lot of money.

In the afternoon, we took naps, wandered around town some more, shopping and looking at stuff. We played cards in the hotel restaurant, and got information about buses back to Gracias in the morning. By the evening, the Central Park was hopping with locals, and I felt more like a tourist than ever, walking through a local party.

Saturday night we had another great dinner at a place called Twisted Tanya, which included homemade carrot cake! Then we went to a bar next to our hotel that was going to have a live band play. We waited more than an hour, then gave up and went to the hotel to go to bed. Or so we thought! Once in bed, the band showed up, and we could hear them well enough to know we weren’t missing much, but couldn’t avoid listening anyway.

Sunday morning, NJ and I took a direct shuttle-type bus from Copan to Santa Rosa, very early in the morning. That was a great little bus, it was worth getting up early. In Santa Rosa we did some grocery shopping then got on a chicken bus for Gracias. I have never seen a bus packed so full. Even the locals were getting irritated. NJ and I got a pretty prime seat, even though were close to being the last people on. We got to sit on the hump between the driver and the door, which was covered with a nice cushion and quite comfortable. Then about 12 more people squeezed in after us, with all their luggage. The bus emptied out as we went, but was still crowded, and we were glad to have somewhere to sit. I got home at lunchtime on Sunday, napped, unpacked, and got ready for school on Monday!

I'll post pictures when I have a better internet connection, or you can check them out at picasaweb.google.com/lauraeley

Dia de indpendencia!

Last Tuesday was Independence day here in Honduras (and I think, the rest of Central America. They used to be one united country, and I think September 15th is independence day for all.)

We didn't have school on Monday, instead we had a parade through town with our school. I guess in years past, all the schools in town march together, but this year it was just us. The parade was uninspiring. The kids dressed nicely and marched in neat rows, and when we got to Central Park, they sang the national anthem and the principal addressed the crowd.

After this, we were free for the rest of the day, and had Tuesday off as well! Viva Honduras!!

We have a picture here of Matt and NJ, two of the teachers, in their nice clothes and floppy hats.

There is also a picture of me with one of my students, Diego. He's a little troublemaker, but so darn cute.

Children's Day

Last week we had Children's Day, a nationwide day to celebrate children. At school, this meant the kids got to wear regular clothes (not uniforms) and we had the whole middle of the day for playing games instead of having class. It was pretty much chaos, but apparently it was better organized than last year...

There was a mission: impossible game with string strung up across a room and the kids had to weave over and under it without touching it. Here is Fernando Jose and Florian racing each other through it.

There were running games and ball games and we watched a movie and had lots of snacks. The last game our class played was passing the sponge, which was a perfect game for a hot day, and the kids had lots of fun and got totally wet. You can see them in these two pictures having a good time.

I also have some pictures of my kids just so you can see them. The girls in my class are all in this picture on the wall: Rosa Carolina, Florian, Estefanie, Nicole, Deisy, Yamileth, Diana, Samai. Stephanie had just gotten hit with a soccer ball a minute before I took the picture, but didn't want to move out of the picture, and didn't want to look up and try to smile, so she is crying.

Some of the boys (probably the ones responsible for hitting Stephanie in the head with the soccer ball) were excited about the mission impossible game. This is Jancy and Jakzzel. And yes, I spelled Stephanie's name two ways. Her real spelling is Estefanie, but she likes to use the American spelling in class, and I find it easier to type quickly. It's pronounced almost exactly the same when you have a Honduran accent.

After the Children's Day activities, we had one class left at the end of the day, art. The perfect class for a day like this. I gave all the kids mandalas to color and we wound down Children's Day.

This coming Thursday is Teacher's Day, which we will celebrate on Friday by not having school! Apparently almost all the professions have a day, someone told me about taxi-drivers day, how all the taxi drivers decorate their taxis and get together for a big taxi parade.

Camping!

Last weekend we went to a camp-out with students from school. It was an overnight event for any kids that wanted to participate, and it was intended to let the kids get to know and bond with each other. We thought it was so we could get to know our kids, but it didn't turn out that way. The people running the camp put all of us teachers in one group, and the kids were in there own groups, and each group did team-building activities and games. It was fun, and we had a good time, but it wasn't what we were expecting. We were the red team, and we put on red war paint in case anyone wasn't sure which team the adult foreigners were on.

The camp was really well run. It took place at this resort near school called Villa Ada, that has pools, a lake, food, open spaces, and is also a hotel. Plan Honduras, which is an NGO, ran the camp. They brought tents and sleeping mats and food was provided. Here is a picture of two of my 3rd graders, Ricky and Enrique, playing on an old swing set.

We played silly games with the whole group, and we had to make up a cheer for our team. Our cheer was in Spanish and was basically 'red team! red team! we are happy!' Maybe not the world's best cheer, but it was the best we could do. There was one game we played which turned out to be pretty hilarious. We had to cross a 'river', and we had only one pair of shoes we were allowed to use to cross it. Everyone had to get across, and each person could only use the shoes once. We tried a bunch of different tactics, and the one that finally worked out (sort of) was three people going across on the shoes. You can see in this picture, Tony has me on his shoulders and Liam is walking on the toes. We got across this way, then Liam went back in the shoes. This strategy would have worked, except everyone but me is too heavy to go on people's shoulders. So we didn't win, but we did give a good shot, and it was very funny.

We did see our kids sometimes. We all had meals together, and here is a picture of me with three of my third grade boys. We are waiting for the food people to come out and feed us. These boys are Julio, Jakzzel, and Fernando Jose. The kids had a great time, too. They got to play, and eat together, and run around. At night we had a bonfire and each team presented a cultural number. We had Nikki Jayne demonstrate her poi (a Maori thing...if you've seen Amarina do it at camp, you know how awesome it is) and Liam accompanied her on the guitar, while the rest of us watched. It was very cultural.

Julie and I shared a tent, and even got some sleep, although it sounded like the kids were up until at least 2am.

In the morning, the kids had calisthenics, which I joined for part of the time, then we had breakfast, played some more silly games and songs, and went home, where of course, I took a shower and slept for most of the day.

School!

Well- We're two days down in the school year! I was really nervous for the first day, but I over-planned my days, so I felt better once I got into the classroom. I have 19 third-graders, and their English skills are very limited. This makes it hard to teach math and science and things, just because you have to teach the vocabulary first, before you can teach the skills. Reading is also a difiicult class for me to teach, because we really don't have books or even a textbook for the class.

These are pictures of my classroom. I got it pretty well set up before school started. There is of course not as much 'stuff' available here as in the States, but there's a lot more stuff and better quality stuff available then in the Philippines. All the kids have their own textbooks (not for every class....but for any class we have books for, we have a brand-new book for each student).

There's a picture here of little Liam and Emma helping me decorate my room. They are the kids of Brian and Lindsey, who are teaching at Minerva too. The kids are in kindergarten and 1st grade, and they're very cute. They were a great help, of course. : )

I teach math, reading, phonics, writing, English, spelling, science, and art. It seems like it should all be more integrated, the reading and writing and English, but they are divided into seperate blocks. The kids also have social studies and spanish and a few other specials classes. The schedule changes everyday. Some days I have off periods in the middle of the day, but everyday I have the last period off, because that's when they have Spanish. It's a nice time to do planning.

My kids are kind of unruly, a lot more like the behavior of kids in the states, more than the quiet super-respect of kids in the philippines. Julie gave us all a classroom management system with green, red, and yellow dots, and each kids name on a clothespin. If they keep doing what they're not supposed to be doing, they move to yellow, etc. All the lower grades use this, and it seems to be working okay so far. It's hard to expect them to be quiet all day, because they are constantly having to work extra hard to understand English, and they naturally shut off sometimes. But overall, they're pretty good kids. Here is a picture of Santiago, who is the brother of our coordinator, Sandra; and Jonathan, who is my new host brother. Santiago is very smart and well behaved, and Jonathan is a pretty good kid too, though he doesn't understand as much English.

It's interesting living with one of my students, because every night I have instant feedback on how the classes were, what homework is too hard, and what he gets and doesn't get. Tonight he brought me his math book and said he didn't understand anything he was supposed to do. So I helped him with his whole homework assignment, but I don't expect any of the other kids will have any idea how to do it. It's a challenge.