November . . .

So, here I am again, writing way past the time I should have . . . but here's a brief update of what's been going on:

The school year here is a little different - it starts towards the end of January or the beginning of February, and ends in November - so November was full of end-of-the-year busyness. All of the girls had lots of testing (and for some, lots of re-testing=/ . . .). The girls in Segundo Bachillerato (essentially, the Juniors) presented the small business that they have been developing for their “practicum” to a panel of the teachers and sisters, and to some of the other classes. Their business is called “Delichips”, and will be selling organic potato and yucca chips. It's pretty impressive: they developed the idea, researched their market, researched the costs and the most efficient means of production, etc. Next year, they will actually form their business, and produce, package, and sell their product throughout Santa Rosa.

The presentation of Delichips

One of the hardest experiences I have had to face here so far happened during the last week of the school year . . . The dad of one of the boarding girls was shot by a stranger who mistook him for a former Honduran politician. He was placed in the hospital here in Santa Rosa, so we were able to offer the girl and some of her family a place to sleep and eat. It was pretty difficult for everyone, and it broke my heart to see how tough it was on this teenage girl, and to imagine how such a traumatic experience would affect the rest of her life. But I was very glad that we could be there for her and her family, and honestly very impressed with her bravery. For several days, we were almost sure that he was not going to make it, but thanks be to God, he has been slowly but surely improving (please keep him and his family in your prayers . . . they have a long road ahead of them still).

Of course, this month was also full of goodbyes . . . The boarding girls left in waves: some stayed for a week of intense cleaning (that was fun=P), a few others stayed for makeup tests, and the seniors obviously had their graduation. The goodbyes were a little hard, and made me realize how much I've come to love these girls. Pardon the cliché, but as it's been said, “parting is such sweet sorrow”.

On our 'outing' at the end of the week of chores

The graduation was beautiful, and I was so proud of all of the girls! (I was the photographer for the event, and my camera battery didn't have enough juice to last through the mass and ceremony; which meant that by the end, I was running back and forth to charge the battery during any of the less-important moments of the ceremony. It was quite a feat if I do say so=). The good news is that my camera lasted up to the end; the bad news is, that's all it lasted, and at this point it won't even turn on with a full battery=/ . . .). It was especially hard saying goodbye to the 14 boarding girls who graduated - I'm going to miss those seniors so much next year!

The graduation mass

Graduation

These last days have been a bit of a change of pace. With the girls gone, the school is pretty quiet. The sisters have been traveling for meetings and family visits, so we have even been missing several of them (we have had several visits from sisters from other parts of the province, which has been nice). I have had little jobs around the school to do for the sisters, but in general my time is not quite as occupied, so I was finally able to make a visit to the Sisters of Charity here in Santa Rosa. Essentially, the work they do here is with small children who are orphans or abandoned, and with children who come in to the hospital malnourished and simply need a place to spend a couple of weeks where they can get the sufficient care to become healthy again. Some of the stories the sisters told me of the kids were hard to hear, but they are doing beautiful work, and I hope I can visit them a few more times in this vacation period.

So, here's my thought for the month: God is amazing. We have a pretty messed up world, full of a lot of pain, suffering, violence, injustice . . . . But God enters this world. Through the incarnation, He – Love - came into contact with this same suffering, took it on, and transformed it. He didn't ignore the cross, or even wipe it out of existence, but made it into something beautiful. My time here in Honduras has put me into more contact than I think I have ever had in my life with the pain that people experience in this world. Yet love, expressed even in the simplest things – a hug for a girl going through a hard time, a smile of a Sister to an orphan toddler, a few words of gratitude and encouragement at a goodbye – has this amazing power to add a transforming dimension of beauty to the pain.

Happy first week of Advent!

A Couple Things from October . . .

So much for keeping this blog up to date=). Well, to be honest, I have had a few decent excuses that have kept me from writing this post, including lightening striking our school and killing our internet, and catching the nasty “gripa” (flu/cold) that is apparently hitting a good portion of Honduras right now. Still, I apologize for this post being so late.

Well, here are a couple of the things that have happened since my last post:

I sort of kind of taught my first English class – actually, technically my first real class in an academic institution. I had been helping Sr. Dorita sell snacks during the recreation period as usual, when, with only ten minutes or less left, Sr. Roselba came up and asked for my help. Now, my Spanish is getting better, but it still is really pretty elementary, so I tend to catch on to things pretty slowly. My train of thought went something like this: she needs help knowing how to pronounce something correctly for her English students; oh, the other English teacher is gone, so maybe she needs help teaching her class; oh, she is describing the exercises to me so that I can teach the class by myself, and it's two periods long, and it starts in about three minutes . . . It was a little hectic, but I enjoyed it, and I think a few of the girls now understand comparative and superlative adjectives a little better. Here in Honduras, the majority of schools (including Maria Auxiliadora) begin their academic year towards the end of January or the beginning of February, and end in something like early November. The plan is for me to work on my Spanish for now, and start teaching English officially with the beginning of their new school year.

The girls in the “Tercero Curso” (I think that would be the equivalent of ninth grade in the States) put on portions of several plays. I was amused to find out that one of them was “El sueño de una noche de verano” - ie, a Spanish version of Shakespeare's “A Midsummer Night's Dream”. To be honest, I can't tell you how well the play translates into Spanish because I really didn't understand much. At first I was a little discouraged that my Spanish was still so poor; but I was comforted a little because the 12-year-old girls who were sitting with me said that they didn't understand anything either. Apparently the translator was able to capture at least something of Shakespeare=).

Honduras is pretty excited to be in the World Cup. Unfortunately, I was sick in my bed when Honduras played their game against Jamaica, so I couldn't see it; but I got to half-share in the excitement since the fireworks, gun shots, and girls screaming down the hall were perfectly audible in my room=).

The youngest three grades put on a science fair this Friday. There were all sorts of fascinating experiments which I only half understood. Some of the poor girls had obviously planned out exactly what to say when asked to explain their experiment, and rattled off a long explanation in Spanish for me. The combination of my very limited Spanish vocabulary and my very non-scientific-oriented brain left me 'smiling and nodding' quite a bit; but over all, I was very impressed. 

I did have a fun chess match with one of the girls – she completely creamed me.  I thought it was appropriate that she happened to be sitting in front of this sign . . .

My Spanish is slowly coming along; it's helping me get lots of practice in the virtues of humility and patience=). I've heard that it takes about three months to learn a language decently well via immersion. Monday marked the first day of my third month here in Honduras, so I'm hoping that's true.

Pictures!

I finally have some pictures to put up, so this post will just be a taste of what I have been up to in these last five or so weeks . . .

Some of the beautiful scenery along the road from San Pedro to Santa Rosa.

At the school with Roxana (one of the young women who works at the school), and Fatima – my 'guardian angel' for my first few days in Honduras, and a beautiful future Salesian Sister.

A group of the sisters and I visited the family of one of our boarding girls during the week of vacation for the feast of St. Rose of Lima. This picture was taken looking out from their farm, and gives you an idea of the type of scenery around Santa Rosa.

I don't yet have a picture with all of the sisters, but here is one with S. Eduviges (left) and S. Consuelo, and one of the teachers from the school. (Side note: you would not believe how many people can fit in that truck.)

This is not the best picture of me, but I had to include it because I thought it was really cute how a)S. Dorita thought it was necessary to stop this little boy and have me take a picture with his donkey (probably something like the equivalent of taking a picture with someone who is out walking their dog in the US), and b)the little boy was obviously extremely bashful about having his picture taken=)

“Campo Maín” - the girls from the weekend camp/retreat I went to outside of Tegucigalpa.

September is a month of patriotic celebrations in Honduras. This photo is of a flag ceremony at the school.

As I mentioned in the last post, many of the girls prepared and performed traditional folk dances at several points throughout this month for celebrations of Honduran culture. Here is a picture with one of the dance teams. Since Maria Auxiliadora is an all-girls school, we saw a lot of creative marker-facial hair=).

Some of the boarding girls hard at work. This was the beginning of the long vacation weekend, so eight or so of us formed a single line, and gave all of the corridors a thorough cleaning. I was one of the ones in front with the brooms; I learned that day that I apparently sweep very slowly.

Last week, S. Ena, the Provincial Director of the Salesian Sisters, visited us for several days. This photo is with her and all of the boarding school girls (hopefully I will get one with better quality at some point). They put on a little presentation for her, and a handful of the girls were brave enough to do a line dance I taught them=).

Last Sunday, this group of girls (six are boarding girls) made their First Communion at the Cathedral. It was so beautiful to be able to share that moment with them! 

One last note: if you could keep the boarding girls in your prayers still, I'd appreciate it. So many of them keep getting sick with bad fevers (probably Dengue), and we've had to send several of them home. Thanks!

Post 2

I have been holding off on my second post, hoping to get the camera situation worked out; but I think I had better not wait any longer.

Lots to catch you all up on . . .

The camp was a lot of fun . . . I traveled with Sr. Roselba and about ten girls by bus from Santa Rosa to San Pedro Sula, to Tegucigalpa, and finally to a cute little town up in the mountains called Ojohona – in total, it took about ten hours. The weekend was filled with a lot of singing, dancing, skits, games, talks by the sisters, and prayer . . . it brought back a lot of memories from the Challenge and MI camps/retreats I attended when I was younger. It was fun to see how, apart from the obvious cultural and language differences, these girls were so similar to ones I might meet at a Catholic camp in the US. You had all the same camper personalities/characters (the loud enthusiastic girls, the good girls, the 'cool girls', the quiet girls . . .), and even some of the songs were recognizable – different words, but definitely Spanish versions of “Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar?”, “Old McDonald”, “Father Abraham”/“The Button Factory”, etc.

I have now had two “normal weeks” at the school. I'm sort of, somewhat getting the hang of the routine, despite language issues. I've started helping Sr. Dorita sell snacks during the girls' recreation time between classes. Imagine that you're standing behind a counter; you have 30 or 40 school girls crowded around, many of them yelling to try to get your attention; the money is new to you; the snacks are new to you; the prices mostly aren't written anywhere (I fixed that this week); and it's all in a language you hardly understand. Yeah, it's slightly insane, but kind of amusing. Luckily, I don't have to do it on my own, and mostly the girls find it funny when I have to point to five different things before figuring out exactly what they want.

In celebration of Honduran Independence, many of the girls participated in a Honduran folk dance presentation/competition at the school this Friday.

My Spanish has been slowly, slowly getting better. Speaking is still very hard for me, but I can tell that I'm understanding a bit more than I did a couple weeks ago. As I told my family, the trouble is, now people seem to think I understand enough to take on responsibilities . . . and, well, that doesn't always work out so well. Several of the girls have been really sick, and I've spent quite a number of hours sitting in a clinic this week. One of the girls in particular has been very sick with what we are guessing is Dengue, and so her mom came to pick her up this week. Unfortunately, the American didn't realize that a)the girl wasn't supposed to go out due to her fever, and b)didn't know which sister was supposed to give permission to leave the school. So, the mom showed up at the school to pick up her sick daughter, and the daughter couldn't be found because she was at the clinic with me waiting for the results of her blood tests. Yeah, that was embarrassing. I'm very grateful that the mother was so sweet and understanding.

Speaking of not understanding things . . . The room where I am staying has now flood about a dozen times. It seems that it often floods when I use the shower. The maintenance man has looked at it three or four times, and attempted to explain something to me, but his accent is so thick that I have a really hard time understanding much of anything he says. The one thing I have understood is that if I run the bathroom faucet at the same time as the shower, it often doesn't flood. I really am not sure how that works . . .

This last Thursday afternoon was exciting (and, in hindsight, pretty amusing). School had been out for an hour or so, and I was just helping the boarding girls get started on their chores. All of the sudden, one of the sisters, trailed by a group of men carrying some sort of equipment, walked up to us and told the girls that they needed to drop what they were doing and go to the patio. I was pretty confused for a few minutes, until I caught on that they were fumigating the buildings for bugs . . . right now. It was slightly chaotic. Girls were rushing around trying to grab homework, going “Listen! They're coming! They're coming!” By the time we got most of the people to leave the building for the part of campus across the street, smoke was billowing out of rooms. Luckily, someone had the foresight to grab the cat. If that wasn't exciting enough, we had to return to the main building after 45 minutes or so because they needed to fumigate the second building as well. I spent the afternoon trying not to freak out too much about girls breathing in toxic fumes. Honestly, most of them stayed in the patio where there was at least semi-fresh air, and everyone seems fine. I have seen more dead or dying cockroaches in these last couple of days than I think I have seen in my entire life up to this point (and I lived in Old Mill for two years, so that's saying something). Language/cultural immersion has definitely taught me the importance of being flexible in adapting to the random situations that arise in the present moment=)

First Days . . .

Hi all!

So, here I am . . . I have been in Honduras for over a week! I apologize for not starting this blog sooner; I've been a bit under the weather (my stomach is getting accustomed to Honduran food, as the sisters say). Since this is the first post, let me give a brief introduction:

Early this year, I decided that I would like to do a year of volunteer work. I searched around a little for the best fit, and chose VIDES. VIDES is an international program for young people who would like to spend some time volunteering with the Salesian sisters (the women's branch of St. John Bosco's order). The Salesian sisters primarily work with poor girls, and especially in areas of education. I requested to be sent to a location in Central or South America, and was asked to go to Honduras (it's in Central America, near El Salvador and Guatemala, a little south of Mexico . . . I had to look it up too). After a hectic summer of many blessings, here I am in lovely Santa Rosa de Copán, Honduras.

As some of my family and friends know, Honduras is not considered a particularly safe country by global standards, and apparently San Pedro Sula (the city I flew in to) is one of the least safe areas of the country. In all honesty, I was pretty nervous getting off the plane (I'm by myself, I'm obviously a foreigner, I don't speak Spanish very well, what if the sister's not waiting for me?, etc.) . . . but I recognized the Salesian white habit right away, and off we went with no problems whatsoever.

The Honduran countryside is absolutely gorgeous (if I had been clever enough to remember the chord to connect my camera to my computer, I would post several pictures at this point . . . working on that). Everything is so lush and green. Santa Rosa is a little city, fairly inland, and up in the mountains.

The first few days here were a bit of a whirlwind. My Spanish is really very poor, so I was pretty confused as to what was happening more than half the time. I was very grateful to have Fatima, a very sweet and patient volunteer from El Salvador, to follow around. Maria Auxiliadora – the school where I am staying – has another 250+ students in addition to the 50 or so boarding girls. I was definitely mobbed several times by school girls trying to ask me questions in Spanish, trying to speak the couple words of English they knew, and - the one I was not really expecting - trying to see my blue eyes, and then exclaiming “Que lindas sus ojos!”. At one point I followed Fatima into a classroom, as usual, not really understanding what was going on. Apparently we were subbing for a teacher, because we spent the next 45 minutes or so there. The class was one of the youngest age groups at the school (I think they were about 11 or 12 years old), and I'm pretty sure my presence made the class period a lot more hectic than it was supposed to be. One girl would come up to the front to ask me a question, and then another would come, and another, and another, until I was surrounded by basically all of the girls. They kept begging me to sing a song in English, and, although it was somewhat mortifying, I eventually had to give in.

I arrived on Tuesday. On Friday, the girls left for a week of vacation in honor of the feast of St. Rose of Lima – the patron of the city. On Sunday, Fatima returned home to El Salvidor, and the sisters went with her for a couple days of vacation. So I, a sister from another house who came to stay with us, and a couple of the boarding girls who could not go home, were all of the sudden left in a very quiet school. For me, it was probably for the best that the timing worked out that way, because I got sick soon afterwards.

There is so much I could talk about, but I need to get to bed . . . tomorrow, I wake up at 4:45 or so to head to some sort of camp (I'm still not exactly sure what it will be) with one of the sisters and some of the boarding girls.