Can Santa even carry this much hair gel?

Christmas is coming up (all the writing tutors I've learned from would say not to start with such a generic opening...). Starting tomorrow, the tíos and tías go on vacation, and all the high school and college kids --and us volunteers-- take over watching the kids through the año nuevo.

Buying presents for the kids over the last few days turned out to be an interesting process. The questions that it raises are surprisingly tough: how do you find a balance between giving presents in a way that stimulates their excitement, but without being too over-the-top or making them think that you're just here to buy stuff. On other words, somewhere between making them feel excited (which is certainly a worthwhile thing to do), while also making the present part of some larger process of growth.

After brainstorming a variety of ideas, Leila and I laid out the best possibilities in a spectrum, from 'Most short-term/most obnoxious' to 'Most long-term/most emotionally meaningful'. In order, my options were:

-Candy
-Hair Gel (they love their spiky hair here)
-Boxers with cartoon characters/soccer logos on them
-Printing photos of the kids that I've taken
-Photo albums in which to put those, and future, photos

With Leila's help, I ended up with the photos and photo albums, and candy. We decided that the candy would last short term; then, even if many of them wouldn't be thrilled with a photo album, if it could be meaningful for a few kids, that would still be better than something that loses its meaning for everyone after a week.

I'm scared that it will be a less popular choice in the short term, but I guess learning to keep in mind and work towards that long-term growth is part of why I'm here...

But then Leila came up with how I could also get hair gel cheap, thereby cementing both the meaningless and deep sides of my Christmas gift. Which is how I ended up with this:
It's something like 10 pounds of hair gel (which I'll split into little containers for each of the 23 kids). It's so big, there's actually another normal size hair gel container suspended inside this one.


Well, ¡Feliz Navidad y Año Nuevo!

Every once in a while...

Every once in a while, I find myself in a situation that makes me feel 'This is really cool'.

The other night, sitting at our volunteer house picnic table, eating a homemade bagel with strawberry jam, drinking a beer, and reading good poetry, was one of those moments.

So I tried to take a picture:
And, to prove that it was good poetry (though I should be reading more poetry in Spanish- any good ideas?), here's one of the Langston Hughes poems I was reading:

Juke Box Love Song

I could take the Harlem night
and wrap around you,
Take the neon lights and make a crown,
Take the Lenox Avenue busses,
Taxis, subways,
And for your love song tone their rumble down.
Take Harlem's heartbeat,
Make a drumbeat,
Put it on a record, let it whirl,
And while we listen to it play,
Dance with you till day--
Dance with you, my sweet brown Harlem girl.

El Espiritú Aventurero...

...is the Spanish translation of "The Spirit of Adventure", a key phrase from the movie UP, which I just watched the other day. And I'm not sure if it's just my English degree that made me see this, but the movie's story and symbolism really addressed some of the issues and frustrations I've been having here lately.

When Señor Fredricksen (I watched the movie in Spanish) goes off on the adventure he and his wife had always wanted to have --by tying a bunch of balloons to his house to make it fly-- he's so intent on his goal of getting his house to Las cataratas del paraíso that he's not able to see the crazy adventure that's going on around him (involving talking dogs, exotic birds, crazy kids, etc). And it's not until he actually accomplishes his ostensible adventure that he realizes that, in the process of getting there, he actually missed out on the 'Spirit of Adventure' that was the whole reason for going off in the first place.

At which point he has to --both emotionally and literally-- throw out all the baggage that's keeping him weighed down, so that his house can fly again and he can go save his boyscout friend Russell (it took me a while to figure out the name they were saying in Spanish).

In the same way, I've recently been struggling with feeling like I'm not doing things right, like I'm not giving my whole self in my work here, like I should be taking more advantage of being here. But the movie helped remind me that all of these are expectations of how I'm 'supposed to be'. They're expectations which turn into frustrations and thereby actually make it harder to be open hearted, harder to remember the Spirit of this Adventure.

An adventure which is, as I like to put it, "learning to be open-hearted in the middle of Honduras with a bunch of crazy orphans" (actually, I just added the 'learning to' part after finding myself struggling with the kids almost immediately after finishing these thoughts).



What I wrote down in my notebook after finishing the movie reminded also me of Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, which I recently finished. (And, to be honest, I also just like the idea of comparing Toni Morrison and Up). Learning to fly is also very important at the end of that book: flying as a way of reaching your dreams, and also of breaking free from the emotional/historical/literal chains that bind us.

One of the cool things is that, in the book, the purpose of flying isn't so that you can fly away from the world (which the main character, Milkman, is trying to do the whole book). Rather, learning to fly is a way of being more fully part of the world. And our ability to fly is based on our dreams, and on the emotional connections build with one another-- connections that make us feel respected and loved, and dreams that give us motivation and excitement.

Which, I think (I hadn't planned out this part), brings me back to why, for me, maintaining my 'Spirit of Adventure' is so important: that through that spirit, I can try to help the kids feel the same way, help them to find those connections and dreams which will allow them to fly. I like that idea- though of course writing it is much easier than enacting it.


*The English major in me also makes me feel like I need to note that this is a pretty rough interpretation of Song of Solomon, which --without the balloons and talking dogs-- is a little more morally ambiguous than Up...

Bagels!

This weekend I finally had some time to just sit around, and I made bagels. I was inspired after one of the other volunteers made a recipe that involved boiling bread dough, and I realized that if I was already making bread it shouldn't be that much harder.

The taste definitely reminds me of home! (Even though they're not quite up to 'New York Bagel' standards yet). Plus, I figure if I can't get a job when I get back, maybe I can sell bagels on the street (I actually really like that idea...)

I also had a difficult time trying to explain them to Patricia, the Spanish girl here: ...Son una comida tipica de los judios en nueva york...O sea, no es que todos los judios comen bagels todos los días...tal vez son más una comida tipica newyorqueña...pero también lo comen en muchas partes de los Estados...umm, no sé.

Any better ideas for describing bagels to foreigners?

Quiero presentarte a mi madre

Earlier today, during a special mass for quinceañeros (the traditional party for kids turning 15), that's what one of my kids, Yunior, said to me. His mother had come for the event because Yunior's brother was one of the quinceañeros*.

But what made me feel really, really good wasn't that he wanted to introduce me to her, but the proud smile on his face when he brought me to meet her (for her part, she just seemed confused about this extranjero that her son was introducing to her). It makes me feel really good to have something to do with him looking so proud and excited to show off to his mother.

A foto of Yunior and I fighting before graduation the other day. He's both in my hogar (where I east dinner and spend 6-8 on weekday nights), and I also have him in one of my classes at school.

Their family is also just generally really cute- Yunior's younger brother Yeison (yeah, they spell a lot of names with Y's here) is in the reading club I help run once a week with one of the other volunteers. One day he and I were drawing with crayons, and afterwards he said I should keep the drawing. "¡Pero hay que poner to nombre!", I told him ('You have to put your name'). Then, as everyone was leaving, he handed me the drawing. He had written "Yeison y Max son amigos". (Yeison and Max are friends).


*A number of the kids here on the ranch still have a living parent, but that they're here means that that parent could no longer take care of them sufficiently.

I finally decorated my classroom!

These pictures make my English-teaching career look a lot more under control than I feel like they actually are. Though I definitely am proud of how the room looks (maybe because decorations are something small -and fun- that I feel like I can control...).

Parades, bachatas, dinosaurs, etc.

Por fin, something that's actually "about my time in Honduras"!

Wednesday, el 15 de septiembre, was Honduras' independence day. After practicing marching on Monday and Tuesday (which meant that, although I technically had class in the mornings, no one was in any place to do anything; and after a terrible class Monday morning, I learned my lesson and just played soccer with them on Tuesday morning), on Wednesday we went to Talanga, the nearby town, and participated in a parade with a bunch of other area schools.




These two are two of the boys from my hogar.

When we came back, everyone was totally exhausted. While waiting to eat lunch with my hogar, everyone fell asleep, including me and the tíos as well. I had a child asleep on me, there were kids on the tables, on the floors, all over. It was super cute, and also felt very, well, familial. They also put on bachata music, which I discovered is super relaxing. Today I picked up a CD by the group we were listening to, Aventura.

Then we had Thursday and Friday totally off, and a bunch of us travelled up to Lago de Yajoa, a gorgeous lake about 5 hours (and a number of bus trips) from Tegus. It was much more tropical in that region, and often what I'd stereotypically imagined Central America too look like.



More than anything, though, I was struck by the lake- it felt very old and natural (primordial would be the fancy word), and I wouldnt've been surprised to see a dinosaur wander by in the distance. I guess one thing about Honduras' relative lack of tourist infrastructure is that, taking a row boat out on the lake (which was an adventure in itself), besides a few fishermen, we were really the only people out there.
All the northwesterners (most of the volunteers are from Oregon and Washington) say they're used to this kind of scenery, but for me it was very beautiful. Click on the picture to see it full size.

Jane Jacobs is a Baller

I generally don't use that phrase but it seems appropriate here. Totally unrelated to Honduras, I recently started trying to make my way through The Death and Life of Great American Cities, and so far its pretty awesome:

There is a wistful myth that if only we had enough money to spend --the figure is usually put at a hundred billion dollars-- we could wipe out all our [urban problems]...

But look what we have built with the first several billions: Low-income projects that become worse centers of delinquency, vandalism and general social hopelessness than the slums they were supposed to replace. Middle-income housing projects which are truly marvels of dullness and regimentation, sealed against any buoyancy or vitality of city life. Luxury housing projects that mitigate their inanity, or try to, with a vapid vulgarity. Cultural centers that are unable to support a good bookstore. Civic centers that are avoided by everyone but bums, who have fewer choices of loitering place than others. Commercial centers that are lack-luster imitations of standardized suburban chain-store shopping. Promenades that go from no place to nowhere and have no promenaders. Expressways that eviscerate great cities. This is not the rebuilding of cities. This is the sacking of cities.

...There is nothing economically or socially inevitable about [this]...On the contrary, no other aspect of our economy and society has been more purposefully manipulated for a full quarter of a century to achieve precisely what we are getting.


What's really impressive is that this was written in 1961, but it seems like many of the problems she lays out we are still facing today (even, in many ways, in Tegucigalpa, Honduras). Its also just so well --and hard-corely-- written!

What if Calvin and Hobbes were written from the teacher's perspective?

I've been having some great emails with Theresa Tensuan recently, and this is one response I wrote that I thought was pretty interesting (though edited to make more sense and sound less obnoxiously intellectual...I felt like I could indulge myself since I was writing to a professor).

Theresa had written to me about "kids' creativity and resourcefulness in countering adult authority", noting: Here I'm realizing, a la Solnit, that often, as we think we're imparting one one kind of lesson the folks we're trying to reach are learning something else entirely.


The same evening I read the email, I found myself reading a Calvin and Hobbes book before bed, and was thinking about the fact that exactly what makes the comic strip so funny is that Calvin is on an entirely different plane of existence than the logic of the adults and general outside world.

Or, to use some language from English class, Calvin is always undermining the structures of our day-to-day adult logic-- and thereby, he often exposes that these structures really aren't quite as important, or logical, or infallible as they seem to be when we're saying them.

And whereas I general like to think of myself as siding with the 'underminers of social structures' in these kinds of situations, I suddenly find myself as the person who is trying --more or less-- to impose structures onto others. (Here you could make a pun about imposing 'grammatical structures' as well as social ones...).

So I was also thinking, if I were Calvin's teacher, what would I do? Or similarly, what if Calvin and Hobbes were written from the point of view of his parents, or of his teacher? It might still be entertaining, but probably would be a very different kind of comedy (...or, I like the idea of Calvin and Hobbes as more of a 'Freedom Writers' or 'Dangerous Minds' style drama, too).

- - -

Additionally, I had just finished reading Daniel Wallace's Big Fish, and as I finished the book I was really moved emotionally (I love the movie too, which really does a good job capturing the book's spirit).

In the end of the book, the narrator has to accept that is father IS the stories and jokes that he always tells. In other words, accept that his father can only be the 'myth' made up of the stories he's wrapped himself in, rather than idea of 'what a father is ' that the son has always wanted him to be.

And that acceptance is what I think is so moving for me. In the case of working with kids, I guess it means really being willing to accept who they are, rather than my idea of 'what they are supposed to be'. With both the humor and the frustration of their ability to be "learning something else entirely" from what we're trying to give them...and I guess use that acceptance as a starting point for figuring out how to teach/work with them?

(It seems like it would be more ideal if it there were more humor and less frustration, though...Why does frustration seem like an inevitable part of the process?)

Como Calle Trece?

A conversation while training one of the 9th grade boys for an 'Oratory and Poetry in English' performance that we had to do last week (as part of a week of 'talents' while some of the big funders of Talleres --the informal name for Centro Vocacional N.P.H.-- were here).

We tried to give him Shakespeare's 'To Be or Not To Be' from Hamlet, but quickly realized it was too complicated. So I tried to explain why we were giving up on it:

Me: Bueno, las obras de Shakespeare son muy complicadas para las personas que ya hablan inglés, porque él tiene sus propios ritmos, palabras, formas de rima, etc...

Bryan: Ohhh, sí. ¿Como Calle Trece?


(Me: Well, Shakespeare is really hard for people who speak English too, because he has his own rythyms, words, rhyme forms and so forth...

Bryan: Ohhhh, yeah. Like Calle 13?)


We did have another student -who's also really good at English- read the Gettysburg Address, though. And when she read "Es totalmente justo y propio que obremos de este modo", I was suddenly brought back to Mr. Miller's 11th grade History class, in which I seem to remember him often repeating the phrase 'It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this'.

Some Tegus Street Art

This last one is a picture from an art show we went to on Saturday afternoon. One of the pieces was a series of photos of the artist going around the city correcting the spelling and grammar mistakes of other graffiti. Apparently the political graffiti --which is everywhere in the city-- got a lot more common/intense after the golpe (coup) last year.

More on love, annoying kids, and El Principito

Thursday morning we had a big celebration for the Día de Padre Wasson, who was the Catholic priest who founded the first NPH home in Mexico. Anyway, one thought from that celebration that's been stuck in my head was a comment along the lines of:

"Everyone in the world is made in God's image, and thus all of us are perfect as we are."

I feel like, for me, this idea is just another way to help me to try to be open to things as they are, and work to make things better from a place of respect, empathy, and solidarity, rather than a place of frustration (where I've often been finding myself).

Because if we are all made in God's image (no me importa which God it is, though), then that means that the 'annoying 8th graders who don't want to pay any attention and learn this super easy grammatical construction' are God's image. So, God must be an annoying 8th grader sometimes, and God must also be the annoying younger kids who, after every single question on their tests, wanted me to tell them whether it was right or not. And, if that means I'm also made in God's image, then the crazy scheduling mistakes I made on friday are also, for some reason or another, a manifestation of that perfection.

I guess the idea is, no matter how annoying the kids here are, or how many mistakes I or anyone else make, this is just a reminder that they can be seen as perfect for being who they are. Not that this means we can't be better in a lot of ways-- just that no matter how bad someone might seem, they can still be respected and appreciated...

(Hope in the Dark, a book I recently finished (and which I think I talked to almost everyone I know about) which explores how social change happens in surprising and subtle ways, talks a lot about being being open to the change that happens through people or means that you wouldn't expect-- and seeking out alliances that accomplish that. I feel like this thought is in a similar vein...)

I've also just started reading The Little Prince (El Principito, in Spanish), and I think there's a connection to its discussion of how adults are too serious and miss the possibilities that the world holds in favor 'reasonable' things. That is, if you could see all things in the world as perfect as they are (or, as little kids do, without judgement), then I'd imagine everything would be infinitely more enchanting.

School...

Well, I'm about to start my third week teaching, and it feels like I'm too in the middle of processing everything to describe it without taking forever.

Suffice it to say that I've had some very nice moments --like bringing in a Langston Hughes poem for 9th grade and translating it with them-- as well as breaking down and crying after a rough class, and wanting to many more times than that (though this is seemingly obligatory for first-year teachers, wherever they are).

But, at least one interesting thought: After reflecting a lot on the classroom management difficulties I've been having (and getting lots of good advice from many people-- thanks mom!), I've sort of realized that I can't really blame the kids.

I mean, as kids it's their job to give me a hard time (and especially as kids that have gone through all sorts of terrible stuff). They're busy testing the world, and (ideally) learning from the results. I'd imagine adults do the testing-boundaries thing too, though maybe in different ways.

And its my job to be clear on the rules and boundaries to help give them a good response to their probing. So far, I wasn't as clear on the rules and discipline stuff as I should have been, and then when they pushed me I'd get stressed out --and consequently, angry-- because I had no idea what to do. But if I'm clear with myself on the rules, and then make them clear to them, ideally I shouldn't have any reason to get stressed.

An example: Yesterday, I left my house while eating a banana, and ran into three kids from the ranch outside. One of them asked me to give him the half a banana I had left ('regálamelo', or 'gift that to me', is a common phrase here), and of course I said 'No way, this is my breakfast'. 'Plus,' I added, 'you already had breakfast'. 'No,' one of them responded, 'we're not from the ranch, we're poor and from La Venta' (a nearby town). 'Oh, I know you live here. You're in Hogar San Fernando!'. 'No, that's not us, we live in Hogar El Puente, under this bridge' (we were passing a teeny little bridge). At that point they pretended to go down under the bridge, and I kept walking.

The thing is, I feel like that encounter was more funny then anything else (plus it shows that these kids can be creative when they want something). I knew that I wanted to eat my banana and that there was no reason I should give it to them, and because it didn't make me uncomfortable I was able to play around with them, and leave the experience smiling.

I know it will be a lot harder in school, but I'd like to --eventually, at least-- be able to feel that way with my students. This week is exam week, and then next Monday the 4th quarter starts, so I'm excited to start fresh (well, I feel that way right now, at least...I'll probably feel differently next Monday).

Unrelatedly, we hiked to a pretty waterfall today about a half hour up behind the ranch, and got to go swimming in it too.

Esa noche en la habitación de Max nació un bosque...

A few weeks ago I got to read 'Donde Viven Los Monstruos' with a few of the kids (it started because one of them mentioned to me 'I have a book with someone named Max').

This time around, I felt like I understood the book in a new -or at least, different- light, due to my time here at the ranch. I was never sure why Max, after having such a great time with his imagination and his monster friends, decided to get mad at them and tell them to stop playing.

"'¡Basta ya!' gritó Max y ordenó a los monstruos que se fueran a la cama sin cenar. Y Max el rey de los monstruos se sintió solo y deseó estar en un lugar donde hubiera alguien que lo quisiera más que a nadie."

("'Enough!', shouted Max, and he ordered the monsters to go to bed without dinner. And Max the king of the monsters felt alone and wished to be in a place where someone loved him more than anyone"...this is the direct translation back from the Spanish. It might be a little more blunt than the original, which also helps with interpretation...)

Anyways, in his imagination, Max reenacts the same scenario that had happened with his Mother, except this time he was in the position of power. But it doesn't make him happy to do it, and afterwards, he realizes that all he wants is be loved (or maybe its through the reenactment that he's able to realize?). That need to replay or reenact your experience on someone else is so interesting though-- I don't know why we do it...

What's good about the book is that Max does this in his imagination, and not (at least as far as we know) to anyone in real life.

Oye, Cuckold!

Yefri: (pronounced Jeffery; a really nice teen in my 9th grade class) ¿Cómo se dice cabrón en inglés?
Me: No sé. Creo que es una palabra mala. ¿Por que?
Yefri: Los mexicanos siempre dicen "Oye, cabrón" cuando hablan con otros.
Me: ¿Buscamos en el diccionario?
Yefri: (looking it up in a Spanish-English dictionary) Dice "cuckold".
Me: Oh, pero esa es una palabra muy vieja, no se usa todavia.
Yefri: Entonces, ¿No puedes decir a un gringo "Hey, cuckold!"?

Translation:
Yefri: How do you say cabrón in English?
Me: I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure it's a bad word. Why?
Yefri: Mexicans always say "Hey, cabrón!" to each other.
Me: Let's look it up in the dictionary.
Yefri (reading from the Spanish-English dictionary on my desk): It says "cuckold".
Me: Oh, that's an old word that no one uses anymore.
Yefri: So you can't say "Hey, Cuckold!" to a gringo?

Boundaries

This is one of the topics that comes up most frequently about working with the kids here, both as a volunteer hanging out with them, and as a teacher in the school. The question is, at least in my mind, about how to create a positive emotional environment for the kids that will help them grow up and get past the traumas --not to mention the general emotional difficulties of having no family-- that they come in with.

And interestingly, providing a positive emotional space often (if not all the time) means setting up boundaries with the kids that they understand. In fact (and I've already seen this in action), setting up boundaries with the kids often seems to make them like you more. Why is that?

Anyway, two stories and one really nice moral:

One tiny experience that keeps coming to mind is actually from Clark Park Soccer: while we were playing another team, one of the other team's players was pushing one of my really cute kids. So I pulled him aside. After telling him that we don't push people here, and that he could go back and play if he wasn't going to push anyone, he told me: "I don't like you anymore". "You don't have to like me, you just have to not push people", was my response. He just wandered around picking at the grass the rest of the morning, and I felt bad. But as he was leaving, he smiled at me and waved, and then continued to come say hi to me the rest of the season.

The other story is from earlier this week, in one of the more difficult classes. The kids in the class were watching a movie (they get points towards a movie when they act good), but one student who didn't like the movie choice got really angry. He had a fork and a spoon that he was throwing across the room, and then banging on a desk. Their usual teacher was out that day, so the (really awesome) special ed/guidance counselor teacher was watching them. After Angel was making all that noise, she calls him over to her and says, forcefully but calmly, "Look, I don't want to get you in trouble and tell your tio, actually I like you a lot, and I know you know what to do to be respectful of the other students now. I don't care if you watch the movie or not, just be respectful of the class. Now it's in your hands to decide whether to be responsible".

And, of course, after murmurring a little bit, he sat down to watch the movie, and ended up complaining when we had to stop because class was over.

So it seems like providing boundaries for the kids often makes them feel more comfortable or secure. Maybe there's a sense of security in the knowledge that even if you push the boundaries and receive a consequence, that person will still be there for you and will still care about you (and maybe that kind of confidence gets rid of some of the self-esteem issues that cause a lot of these kind of problems to begin with...). And in fact, maybe limits can even be reassuring sometimes...

Anyway, after that class I was feeling sort of overwhelmed, but when we were talking at the end, Profe Loli (the special-ed teacher from earlier) said something I'm going to try to remember: when working with these kids, who have had so many difficulties in their lives --though I'd think this philosophy could apply to our interactions with anyone-- you have to remember that everything you do with them is like planting seeds in them. Seeds of confidence and respect, both for them and for others. And we may not see those seeds grow, but we have to keep trying to plant them there in the hopes that someday they will.

A cute little kid from the ranch (not the one from the above story) wearing my hat.

Un fin de semana muy tranquilo (and some vague questions about international economics)

I just finished up a really wonderful weekend, which has (hopefully) left me feeling ready to spend the next week 'student teaching' before taking over on my own the following week. I'm pretty excited to get started...although we'll see if I'm still saying that tomorrow night.

This friday (which marked the end of our orientation), there was a bienvenidos party for all the new volunteers. They made us really tasty balleadas, which are a traditional Honduran food made up of a tortilla with refried beans, eggs, salsa, and a variety of other stuff inside. After dinner the party went from listening to reggeaton to moving down to the fire pit in the garden to listen to one of the volunteers play guitar (and singing along).

Then last night, after returning from spending the afternoon in the city (a topic which is going to need a blog post of it's own), the handful of us that were around had one of those great conversations that just went on for hours and moved its way through religion and spirituality (a lot of people here have really interesting perpsectives on being spiritual), international economics, sustainability and activism, cultural awareness and how that plays out in our roles on the ranch, etc. Definitely my kind of thing!

Speaking of economics, being here in Honduras and seeing how much everything, in various ways, is tied to the economic situation here has really has gotten me wanting to know more about how it all works. Everything from the huge wealth divide (we've talked a lot about how there seems to be virtually no middle/professional class), to the general poverty in the country (and which many of the kids I'll be working with come from), to why it is that Tegucigalpa is filled with American fast food restaurants (Pizza Hut, Wendy's, Dunkin Donuts, Dominos, KFC, even Church's Chicken- I don't even know what that is and I'm from the US!).

The stories about how all this has come about --and from there, maybe how to help with some of the sad parts-- must be really really interesting. If anyone has any good resources/thoughts about this kind of stuff, I'd love to hear them!

Anyway, I took a picture today to try and capture the laid back-ness of the weekend:
This is from inside the volunteer house- the room I've been staying in is on the far side of the garden. I spent most of the morning sitting in one of these chairs and reading (in this photo Pete, one of the other new volunteers, is doing the same).

Un foto, y an entertaining conversation

This is the view from right outside the volunteer house (which is to the right of this photo, but not in it).

Anna, to answer your question briefly- the living situation here is pretty nice (the cold showers are still rough, though). There's a great volunteer house that has a big garden in the middle, with a kitchen, hangout area, and meeting room on one side, and then rooms all around. The other volunteers are really nice, some of them have been here 6 months, some are new like me, and some are just finishing up their 13 months now, so there are lots of different experiences and everyone is really helpful!

Also, a fun story:

This morning I was working in the kitchen. We were making bread and the girls I was working with were laughing at me for not knowing how to make different kinds of bread. So, to defend myself, I asked them if Honduran men all know how to make bread. At that point, one of the women who works in the kitchen walked by and responded "The only thing Hondruan men know how to make is children".

Unconditional Love

The theme of love is one that´s been talked about pretty frequently during our orientation here (and which, as you can probably imagine, I think is super awesome).

It began with a talk with the director here my first day here. He spoke about how the mission of NPH (Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos, the overarching organization) is to provide love and guidance for the kids that come here, who either have no parents, or their parents (or extended family, in a lot of cases) are economically unable to take care of them. This means that many of them come from poor backgrounds, but also many of the other issues that come into the cycle of poverty: hunger, abuse (both sexual and emotional), parents with addictions or depression-- overall, an extreme lack of support and care for them. Thus, the job of the ranch is to help all of these kids not only by providing food and shelter, but also helping them to feel valuable and loved, and to provide support and guidance, so to help them be content human beings and become part of society. Whether that happens in all aspects of the ranch is a different story, for many different reasons, but I like that goal.

We also had a charla (chat) with the man in charge of the kids who do service years here at the ranch before going on to high school or university. He was the kind of guy who just clearly had his heart in the right place, and everything he said was about supporting and helping the kids. Among many amazing things, he said two things that I thought to write down: one is a cool phrasing about helping the kids to turn their mistakes into experiences (What do you have to do to turn a mistake into an experience? Process it and proceed forward?).

The other is a wonderful quote that I´ll leave you with: ¨Como seres humanos, nosotros todos tenemos el derecho de equivocarnos¨ (As human beings, we all have the right to make mistakes).

The Ranch

Hi everyone! I´ve been here at the Ranch -which is what they call the orphanage, because it´s on a big campus of sorts- for a little over a week now, and I´m beginning to adjust to the life here! My goal is to keep these blog posts short, so let´s see if I can describe life here in a few sentences. A ver...

The ranch is pretty rural, about 45 minutes from Tegus -the nickname for Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras and nearby big city- and most of the buildings are about a 15-20 minute walk from the road. It´s gorgeous, with tree-covered mountains surrounding everything, and lots and lots of trees and nature; and, of course, that nature also includes lots of humoungous grasshoppers and spiders, as well as your usual flies, mosquitos, ants, roaches, etc. There are a bunch of buildings: houses for the kids (there´s a big plaza for the girls, one for the boys, and one for the littlest kids), a big kitchen, soccer fields and basketball courts, the volunteer house, and a lot more. There´s a school for K-6, and then a separate colegio (middle school) for grades 7-9, which is where I´ll be teaching.

The orientation routine has consisted of getting up around 6:30, with the workday starting by 7:20 here- for orientation, we go to shadow people at different jobs, or just have various talks, tours, etc all day. There´s a break from 4-6, and then we go to hogares (homes) from 6-8. Hogares are where the pequeños all live, and every volunteer is assigned one to hang out with from 6-8 every day, to eat dinner with them, help them with the homework, play around (lots of that), etc. The kids all live with 2 or 3 tíos or tías as well (literally, uncles and aunts, but in this case caregivers) who are in charge of them- thus, we just go to hang out, but the tíos have the rough job of being parents to 25 kids.

I´ve had lots of interesting experiences in hogar already, everything from holding a kid upside down while he recited the 3rd stanza of the Honduran National Anthem, to trying to help a girl who didn´t want to do her math homework, to encouraging a group of young teens to chop grass using machetes.

Ok, that´s more than enough description for now! Sorry for letting it get so long. I´ll try to explain things in readable-length installments, but with feeling like I´m taking in more than I know what to do with every day here, it´s hard to keep my descriptions contained.

A todos te extaño mucho!