El Primer Dia

So today we pretty much introduced ourselves to the classes we'll be teaching. Darcia teaches 9 classes from grade 7 through 11. She teaches social studies, literature and sociology. I teach 11 classes (am I not the lucky one) from grades 5 through 10. I teach Bible, literature and economics. It was kind of a rough day but surprisingly neither of us were really nervous teaching. Maybe we're cut out for this we'll see. We need to remember is not to speak Spanish with the kids since the goal is for them to perfect their English and learn the content of the course. It gets a little difficult when most, if not all the administrators speak Spanish only. :) So you can go from a class that speaks only English then into the teachers lounge and everyone's speaking Spanish. Gets quite interesting balancing the two.

Afro Amiga!

So....our new housemate is finally here. Another yardie, yay! Her name is Kadian, she is from Jamaica and lives in England. She is comedy relief for the house, she will make you laugh till you cry. So the house is now complete.

Kadian, Emily, Dawnelle

(Darcia was the photagrapher)

Gemela!Gemela!

We were invited to play futbol with the other teachers at a local sports club. We readily accepted on the condition that they understand that we do not have any skills in that department. They said no hay problema and off we went.  When we arrived everyone was warming up. The teachers from the school (some young..some not so young) didn’t look like they would be that much of a challenge. As you may have guessed we were wrong. Having not played futbol in roughly 10 years you can say that we were more than a bit rusty. These teachers, some of them who have already had children, put us to shame! There were two teams, one with mostly missionaries, the other with mostly seasoned teachers who were more like pro futbolers.  We decided that we should be on the same team as were are identical and didn’t want any confusion in the match. Instead of calling our individual names they shouted gemela (twin)! The competition was intense….One hour on the field and we were dying to end the game. So…what have we learned? Well for one..stretch before you play any sport. Another big lesson…don’t slack off on exercise. We now realize that we’ve got lots of work to do in that department.  Vamos a practicar el futbol. Queremos ser los campeones!

Que Linda!

We don’t know if it’s just us…but there are a lot of beautiful women here.We guess the locals take it for granted. Why give us cat calls when you’ve got so many Miss Universe’s walking around?  As for the men, we're not so sure but it’s early yet…

Most persons would be considered short to average height. The tall are few and far between so we fit right in. There is such a mix of cultural backgrounds here. Nobody looks the same…some look European, some Asian, some Mayan and some Black and some you just can’t place.

We have an easier time blending in than the other missionaries who are Caucasian. The only thing that might set us apart from the Black Hondurans is our natural hair. But even then, most assume we speak Spanish. Our next door neighbor is from ‘the islands’, which is the area of the coast of Honduras. The islanders have accents that sound Caribbean, closest to a Bahamian accent and they speak their own creole in addition to Spanish. Everyone we meet is fascinated that we’re from Jamaica and want to know everything about our island. Soon we’ll cook some Jamaican food and let them try :)

Baleadas y Mas

Our housemate Emily took us out for some Honduran cuisine. We went to a restaurant, La Princesita, a small place just a couple blocks from our house. They specialize in  baleadas, a meal made with a flour wrap and a variety of stuffings…your choice. The basic stuffings are mantequilla (butter but not the kind we’re used to), queso (cheese) and frijoles (beans) but you can add food like fried plaintains, eggs, avocado, chicken or any other toppings. We just have one thing to say about these…nos gustan mucha. We’ve tried three flavors so far and they are muy bien.

We also got to try some Salvadorian food called pupusas. Again made with a flour wrap and with mantequilla and queso. However, the cheese is stuffed inside the wrap and you get a side of steamed cabbage and carrot and fried onions that you combine with your wrap. Bueno, bueno!

In terms of drink, we’ve had banana flavored soda which tastes a little like cola champagne but better. We’ve also had natural juices horchata and tamarindo which we loved.

So dining in Comayagua is pretty good..but we’ve got more to explore.

Una Nueva Vida

Our house is beautiful. It’s a spacious three bedroom, two bathroom home. We share this biggest room with a private bathroom. The other two rooms are reserved for our housemates. The first is Emily Morris, a sweet, college student from Lincoln, Nebraska. One word that can be used to describe Emily is sunshine. With her freckles and ready smile she certainly will brighten any room. We have not met our remaining housemate but we hear she is a Jamaican British girl. Across the street live two Baptist missionaries who will also be teaching at the school, Emily Brewster and Ashley. They are two recent college grads. Emily B’s parents started an orphanage here in Comayagua and also do work with teenage mothers. We hope we can help at the orphanage too if we aren’t too busy with teaching. The school rents a number of houses in this area to provide homes for their teachers. They seem big on recruiting missionaries because of their Christian principles and knowledge of the English language.

Emily Morris (Lil Miss Sunshine)

Comayagua is about 2 hours drive from the airport in Tegucigalpa, the capital. Comayagua isn’t geared towards tourists so we were told to be careful -walk in groups, especially at night, don’t be flashy, leave cameras and expensive electronics at home. Therefore, until we assimilate more into the culture, we won’t be taking many pictures of the area. However, the Honduran Independence Day is in another couple of weeks and we shall be breaking out the camera then.

Our Room

No entiendo?!

It’s a bilingual school and you are not allowed to speak Spanish with your students. So that means you don’t need to know Spanish right? Heavens no! All the staff devotions, memos, instructions, etc. are given in Spanish so if you don’t know some you better start learning. About half of the staff only speaks Spanish. Plus, most Hondurans you’ll interact with everyday know only one language and of course it is Spanish. The good thing is the more you get to know the staff the more you learn and they are a friendly bunch. Plus, exploring Comayagua city is a great way to practice. Taxis here are only 20 lempiras ($1 US) and it gets you anywhere in the city. Yesterday, we hopped on a taxi and went to Pizza Hut. I know Pizza Hut…we’re in a Spanish country and we went to the all American Pizza Hut. However, ever since we got here everyone has been raving about their salad bar. I know you must be thinking it too…how good can salad be? Well, let me tell you, it can be absolutamente deliciosa! There salad bar is so big with a large variety of choices…fruit salad, vegetables, pasta salad, potato salad, coleslaw…you name it, its there. You can really just have that as your meal. Oh and the pizza ain’t too bad either.

Otra Vez

Our first trip to Panama City was in 2006…we stayed for less than a week and did the traditional tourist stuff- visit the historical sites, visited the Canal, and went shopping. This trip was just a stopover for our flight to Honduras. We booked a reasonable hotel online but we weren’t really looking forward to staying there. However, the Hotel Riande aka the airport hotel was much better than we thought. From the reviews we were expecting a roach motel or worse. It was quite the opposite. It was actually much nicer than the place we stayed the first time around. The staff was friendly, the rooms were clean and it also had a great pool (which unfortunately we did not have time to use). Our room included free breakfast which was delish. Aside from eggs and French toast, we got to taste cassava fries for the first time which went really well with pancake syrup.  The best thing about the hotel is that they offer free shuttle service to the airport. A representative will meet you at the airport when you arrive (such a relief after a flight) and when you are ready to leave there is a shuttle that comes every half hour for pick up. We wouldn’t really recommend this place for the vacationer (plenty of nicer ones further out in the city) but for the business traveler or those who have an early morning flight it is ideal. With its location literally five minutes from the airport, why not?