No...I'm not talking about Roberto Luongo. I'm talking about intruders in our house that were slightly larger than mice, but they decided not to stay, as the mice have happily decided. Basically, we woke up on Wednesday morning to find that in the night, some guys had hopped up on our balcony, come into my/nathan's room (right off the balcony), and stolen nathan's music/video player, and my grocery money and digital camera (with 200 photos on it....dang.) while we slept. The scary thing is that those items were a couple feet from where we slept...so I'm kinda glad we didn't wake up, cuz I dunno what kind of ruckus would've went down...I mean, I would've felt bad for making the thieves have to deal with two burly Canadian boys that late at night.
I find I have no patience when I'm teaching with a big headache. I've kinda been pretty drained in the last week or so, since I had that run in with a bit of illness, and it's really been teaching me all sorts of things about just taking it slow and having patience when I'm teaching. It's definitely hard to appreciate the kids that like to yell in class when you have a headache to begin with. Bah humbug.
But this week has been good, despite being tired. We've had a pretty good time working on a group science project, and writing a letter as a class to Mr. Sean (the awesome teacher that taught these guys last year in grade 2 - he's a teacher in the states now, and after getting in touch with him by email, he said our classes could do pen pals stuff to help the kids practice their writing skills!). So the week has been tiring one, but tomorrow is friday, and I'm realizing that after tomorrow, there's only two more weeks of class before christmas break...and then i leave! And I'm starting to feel like I'm even going to miss the headache-bringers of the class. It's definitely going to be tough to leave.
ALSO! We've started practicing "we wish you a Merry Christmas", because grade 3 is going to perform that song at the Christmas concert...and oh man, it has potential to be one hilarious performance.
Peace.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Typo?
I would just like to apolologize for the massive computer error that apprently deleted some of my last paragraph in the previous post...It's supposed to say this:
"...and friends of Mel and Tobi's who are teaching elsewhere in Honduras, gathered for (American) thanksgiving."
Ok. that was gonna keep me awake tonight if i didn't do something.
I hope everyone who reads this knows how cool they are for reading it. high five to you.
Peace.
"...and friends of Mel and Tobi's who are teaching elsewhere in Honduras, gathered for (American) thanksgiving."
Ok. that was gonna keep me awake tonight if i didn't do something.
I hope everyone who reads this knows how cool they are for reading it. high five to you.
Peace.
A Crazy skit!, parent/teacher interviews, and THREE turkeys.
Oh man. If you've ever been to Boys camp (OPC...whaddup), and seen the "crazy skit" at the campfire, keep reading! If not...keep reading!
Ok, so I've got this new strategy. On friday's during english (the last period of the day), grade 3 does a "crazy skit" to practice what we've gone over in english that week. This past friday was crazy skit #1. For those of you that don't know, basically, I write a skit involving as many members of the class as possible. In class, I read the "skit" aloud, and when a student hears their name enter the story, they have to run to the front and say/act whatever is written in the skit. The skit is ridiculous. The skit is hilarious. And the skit is (hopefully), a slightly educational review of english concepts from the week. This weeks skit featured Victor doing the moonwalk, and Juan continually mooing like a cow. It turned out to be a success, because we did a comprehension thing at the end, and the general plotline of the skit (although very ridiculous) was understood, and the english concepts seem to be sinking in! But holy cow was it funny....The kids were laughing, and I could barely read from the script because of how hard I was laughing.
I was dreading Saturday morning. We were meeting with the parents of our class to hand out reports and struggle in broken spanish and communicate how their kids were doing. Parent/teacher interviews...DUN DUN DUUUUUHHH!!!!!! ("Jaws" theme music starts playing). You see, the thing with grade 3, is there's 30 of them. And despite my efforts, some of them failed the first exams...and some of those kids, still failed the make-up exams...So i was preparing to face an angry horde of parents of the 4-5 kids that failed certain courses. As it turned out, in classic Honduran style, most of the parents didn't show up. Grade 3 had the biggest showing of parents of any grade, at 18...and it went really well! I was blown away by how thankfull the parents were about the work I'm doing, and how supportive and encouraging they were in trying to see how they could help me. It was really cool. I mean, yes there are a couple of parents who are pretty intense and kind of interrogated me about the work their son was doing...or lack of work...and I basically had to be brutally honest with certain parents: Umm... Su Hijo, es no eschucha, y no trabajo en class. Sus Attenta en class, es Muy abaho! (something like that would come out of my mouth...in horrible grammar...and the parents would be forced to consider telling their son to put some effort into Mr. Tim's classes). I could rant for days about how supportive and cool Victors parents were though...they took me aside, and his dad (who is self-taught in english and absolutely brilliant), explained in english how thankful he and his wife were for me. I was so encouraged.
Saturday night was sweet! Every volunteer in Cofradia (all the San Jeronimo School teachers, and Cofradia Bilingual School teachers, as well as friends of Mel and Tobi (American) thanksgiving potluck feast! It was very cool to have such a huge meal...there were over 30 people there, 3 turkeys, and PILES of mashed potatoes and stuffing...quite a non-Honduran meal, but very fun all the same.
Hello to everyone on the global outreach page at crescent!...apparently this is being posted there now!
Peace.
Ok, so I've got this new strategy. On friday's during english (the last period of the day), grade 3 does a "crazy skit" to practice what we've gone over in english that week. This past friday was crazy skit #1. For those of you that don't know, basically, I write a skit involving as many members of the class as possible. In class, I read the "skit" aloud, and when a student hears their name enter the story, they have to run to the front and say/act whatever is written in the skit. The skit is ridiculous. The skit is hilarious. And the skit is (hopefully), a slightly educational review of english concepts from the week. This weeks skit featured Victor doing the moonwalk, and Juan continually mooing like a cow. It turned out to be a success, because we did a comprehension thing at the end, and the general plotline of the skit (although very ridiculous) was understood, and the english concepts seem to be sinking in! But holy cow was it funny....The kids were laughing, and I could barely read from the script because of how hard I was laughing.
I was dreading Saturday morning. We were meeting with the parents of our class to hand out reports and struggle in broken spanish and communicate how their kids were doing. Parent/teacher interviews...DUN DUN DUUUUUHHH!!!!!! ("Jaws" theme music starts playing). You see, the thing with grade 3, is there's 30 of them. And despite my efforts, some of them failed the first exams...and some of those kids, still failed the make-up exams...So i was preparing to face an angry horde of parents of the 4-5 kids that failed certain courses. As it turned out, in classic Honduran style, most of the parents didn't show up. Grade 3 had the biggest showing of parents of any grade, at 18...and it went really well! I was blown away by how thankfull the parents were about the work I'm doing, and how supportive and encouraging they were in trying to see how they could help me. It was really cool. I mean, yes there are a couple of parents who are pretty intense and kind of interrogated me about the work their son was doing...or lack of work...and I basically had to be brutally honest with certain parents: Umm... Su Hijo, es no eschucha, y no trabajo en class. Sus Attenta en class, es Muy abaho! (something like that would come out of my mouth...in horrible grammar...and the parents would be forced to consider telling their son to put some effort into Mr. Tim's classes). I could rant for days about how supportive and cool Victors parents were though...they took me aside, and his dad (who is self-taught in english and absolutely brilliant), explained in english how thankful he and his wife were for me. I was so encouraged.
Saturday night was sweet! Every volunteer in Cofradia (all the San Jeronimo School teachers, and Cofradia Bilingual School teachers, as well as friends of Mel and Tobi (American) thanksgiving potluck feast! It was very cool to have such a huge meal...there were over 30 people there, 3 turkeys, and PILES of mashed potatoes and stuffing...quite a non-Honduran meal, but very fun all the same.
Hello to everyone on the global outreach page at crescent!...apparently this is being posted there now!
Peace.
Monday, November 19, 2007
A water heater and men with machete's!
Approximately 50% of Honduran men carry a machete.
Approximately 100% of Hondurans try to impress you/hit on you/ strike up a conversation with you with their single word, or phrase of english. The Humour comes in when it is not just your classic "hello" or "goodbye" that they know, but something a bit more interesting. The hilarity ensues when it is a man with a machete. I think I did the world's biggest double take when a toothless old, machete weilding Honduran walked past me and gave me the nod and "sup." I was like: "sup dawg....what!?...umm.....ola amigo?"
Also, We made a discovery in our house! (Hence the momentous blog entry!). We found out that Alex's shower (which doesn't work) has a water heater atteched to it. So, as I write this, Nathan (an engineering graduate) is rewiring the heater for Harardo's shower (the only shower...cough....hose in the wall that works)...so we might have warm showers soon! This is epic. This might mean that I might shower more! and then I won't smell bad! and then I'll make friends!...Just kidding, I don't smell that bad...well...people talk to me.
I'm finding that I'm getting more attached to teaching these grade 3's. This has good and bad results. Good: I really enjoy teaching, and I love the kids. Bad: If the slower kids are struggling with a concept, I get more and more stressed/tired out when they continue to be totally apathetic about putting some sort of effort in. Gosh, I feel sorry for some of my math teachers from back in the day...the other bad part is that I'm realizing how much I'm going to miss them all when I have to leave. I only have 4 weeks of teaching left! But exams are done, make up exams are done, and this weekend was the busiest weekend yet! REPORTS!! Luckily I got nice and sick so i couldn't go out anyways, but the brainless drudgery of compiling reports is time consuming and BORING. Exams/Make up exams went pretty well...except for Darwin, who despite 2 weeks of constant review, and 1 week of make up review, managed to fail every exam. DANG. And there were a couple others that decided not to put any effort into certain subjects. I mean, I've gotta be honest, i agree with Darwin: studying is boring, hanging out with friends is fun...but the thing is I WENT OVER EVERYTHING THAT WAS GOING TO BE ON THE EXAM FOR TWO WEEKS STAIGHT! ALL HE HAD TO DO WAS LISTEN AND WRITE IT DOWN ONCE!!!!...gosh golly gee. so there are a couple of parents who aren't going to be too pleased when they read the reports, to say the least. I've already had to deal with a lifetime worth of angry Honduran parents.
Have I actually never mentioned "Mr. Sean" on this blog? Remind me to do that next post.
So I'm definitely learning about patience, people, love, teaching, and a lot of spanish! Thankyou (to whoever is reading this) for your support, comments (I read them all), prayers and thoughts! It's all very encouraging.
Peace.
PS - for those Boys Camp representin' peeps: I'm planning on implementing a weekly "crazy skit" (Ben Stevenson style) in my class. This friday is the trial run. Also, Cofradia Ultimate hopefully starts tomorrow.
Approximately 100% of Hondurans try to impress you/hit on you/ strike up a conversation with you with their single word, or phrase of english. The Humour comes in when it is not just your classic "hello" or "goodbye" that they know, but something a bit more interesting. The hilarity ensues when it is a man with a machete. I think I did the world's biggest double take when a toothless old, machete weilding Honduran walked past me and gave me the nod and "sup." I was like: "sup dawg....what!?...umm.....ola amigo?"
Also, We made a discovery in our house! (Hence the momentous blog entry!). We found out that Alex's shower (which doesn't work) has a water heater atteched to it. So, as I write this, Nathan (an engineering graduate) is rewiring the heater for Harardo's shower (the only shower...cough....hose in the wall that works)...so we might have warm showers soon! This is epic. This might mean that I might shower more! and then I won't smell bad! and then I'll make friends!...Just kidding, I don't smell that bad...well...people talk to me.
I'm finding that I'm getting more attached to teaching these grade 3's. This has good and bad results. Good: I really enjoy teaching, and I love the kids. Bad: If the slower kids are struggling with a concept, I get more and more stressed/tired out when they continue to be totally apathetic about putting some sort of effort in. Gosh, I feel sorry for some of my math teachers from back in the day...the other bad part is that I'm realizing how much I'm going to miss them all when I have to leave. I only have 4 weeks of teaching left! But exams are done, make up exams are done, and this weekend was the busiest weekend yet! REPORTS!! Luckily I got nice and sick so i couldn't go out anyways, but the brainless drudgery of compiling reports is time consuming and BORING. Exams/Make up exams went pretty well...except for Darwin, who despite 2 weeks of constant review, and 1 week of make up review, managed to fail every exam. DANG. And there were a couple others that decided not to put any effort into certain subjects. I mean, I've gotta be honest, i agree with Darwin: studying is boring, hanging out with friends is fun...but the thing is I WENT OVER EVERYTHING THAT WAS GOING TO BE ON THE EXAM FOR TWO WEEKS STAIGHT! ALL HE HAD TO DO WAS LISTEN AND WRITE IT DOWN ONCE!!!!...gosh golly gee. so there are a couple of parents who aren't going to be too pleased when they read the reports, to say the least. I've already had to deal with a lifetime worth of angry Honduran parents.
Have I actually never mentioned "Mr. Sean" on this blog? Remind me to do that next post.
So I'm definitely learning about patience, people, love, teaching, and a lot of spanish! Thankyou (to whoever is reading this) for your support, comments (I read them all), prayers and thoughts! It's all very encouraging.
Peace.
PS - for those Boys Camp representin' peeps: I'm planning on implementing a weekly "crazy skit" (Ben Stevenson style) in my class. This friday is the trial run. Also, Cofradia Ultimate hopefully starts tomorrow.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Exams/The beach!
I think it's weird that I'm down in the Carribean and I just had my first weekend at the beach...but there it was, in all its beauty, the North coast of Honduras. (A beach covered with garbage, slowly being raked away by the wind, and the men with rakes...they worked hard so you could see some of the sand). So it was no five star resort...but I am exxagerating, we did find some nicer parts where we hung out, tossed the frisbee, and read books. It was a very relaxing weekend. We also got to stay at this really nice place for 200 limperas each (basically nothing) which was about half price, because the lady was really nice to us poor travelling wannabe teachers.
The exam marks are in! well....except english....and 11 out of 31 failed the math exam...but, only 3 failed science! that was great news...sort of. This week is basically "make up exam week" at Cofradia Bilingual school, so hopefully the kids get their act together for this round.
Spanish lessons are definitely underway here, and Gaby, my wonderful teacher is helping me a lot! I can actually understand the kids when they complain in class, and i can get by (sort of) on the street! Every monday and thursday i walk up to Gaby's shop in the village and she teaches me spanish and I help her with her english pronunciation, its good times! I met her through Melanie (Aussie teacher), and she is very cool, and a very patient teacher.
Ok, so just a quick one. Hopefully I'll get into a fight with some animal for next time...gotta keep the crowds on the edge of their seats! (Just kidding Mom!).
Peace.
The exam marks are in! well....except english....and 11 out of 31 failed the math exam...but, only 3 failed science! that was great news...sort of. This week is basically "make up exam week" at Cofradia Bilingual school, so hopefully the kids get their act together for this round.
Spanish lessons are definitely underway here, and Gaby, my wonderful teacher is helping me a lot! I can actually understand the kids when they complain in class, and i can get by (sort of) on the street! Every monday and thursday i walk up to Gaby's shop in the village and she teaches me spanish and I help her with her english pronunciation, its good times! I met her through Melanie (Aussie teacher), and she is very cool, and a very patient teacher.
Ok, so just a quick one. Hopefully I'll get into a fight with some animal for next time...gotta keep the crowds on the edge of their seats! (Just kidding Mom!).
Peace.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
The Mouse Hunt
Ok. I couldn't leave the computer without telling this story.
We had a mouse in our house last week. And I, being the only "manly Canadian" in the house, decided I would take care of business. I made a trap that involved an egg carton, duct tape, a cardboard tube and a bucket of water (don't ask), which didn't seem to work. I actually documented the whole experiment/procedure in my trip journal, you can read my reasoning there if you want.
Basically, the day we went to can the trap and start looking for mice poison, I picked up the duct tape and the cardboard tubing, and as i walked to the garbage, something began stinging, and moving in my hand with the duct tape...and unless duct tape has a mind of its own, I soon realized this was no ordinary duct tape...this was duct tape, with a mouse stuck to it! AND THE MOUSE WAS BITING ME!!! AHHHH!!!!!! (oh horror, the audience shields their eyes)....but I, as the "brave, manly Canadian boy", jumped about 5 feet, shook the mouse to the ground (where it lay stunned), and looked at Harardo and Alex (who were in the room at the time) in shock.
Alex quickly put a plastic cup over it, and after some hesitation, Harardo dropped a cinder block on the cup....long story short: no more mouse.
So anyways, this led to a whole scare about Canadian doctors telling me i could get rabies, Honduran doctors telling me the rabies shot was government controlled, and they would only give me a tetanus needle (at the honduras public hospital - an interesting place)...but it turned out that (upon further research from Ms. Jennifer Martin) mice don't carry rabies, and I wasn't gonna turn into some frothy mouthed monster.
Just thought I'd share that story with you. good times.
We had a mouse in our house last week. And I, being the only "manly Canadian" in the house, decided I would take care of business. I made a trap that involved an egg carton, duct tape, a cardboard tube and a bucket of water (don't ask), which didn't seem to work. I actually documented the whole experiment/procedure in my trip journal, you can read my reasoning there if you want.
Basically, the day we went to can the trap and start looking for mice poison, I picked up the duct tape and the cardboard tubing, and as i walked to the garbage, something began stinging, and moving in my hand with the duct tape...and unless duct tape has a mind of its own, I soon realized this was no ordinary duct tape...this was duct tape, with a mouse stuck to it! AND THE MOUSE WAS BITING ME!!! AHHHH!!!!!! (oh horror, the audience shields their eyes)....but I, as the "brave, manly Canadian boy", jumped about 5 feet, shook the mouse to the ground (where it lay stunned), and looked at Harardo and Alex (who were in the room at the time) in shock.
Alex quickly put a plastic cup over it, and after some hesitation, Harardo dropped a cinder block on the cup....long story short: no more mouse.
So anyways, this led to a whole scare about Canadian doctors telling me i could get rabies, Honduran doctors telling me the rabies shot was government controlled, and they would only give me a tetanus needle (at the honduras public hospital - an interesting place)...but it turned out that (upon further research from Ms. Jennifer Martin) mice don't carry rabies, and I wasn't gonna turn into some frothy mouthed monster.
Just thought I'd share that story with you. good times.
Weekend Away/ Exams/ New Volunteers/ trying new things!
So it's been a while! My apologies for the delay, but life has suddenly become very busy down here! This week is exam week, so I've been scrounging to figure out how i can prepare the grade 3's for the exams, and what I should even put on a bunch of exams for kids that range from being basically bilingual, to some kids that make me doubt whether anything I've said in these three weeks has been understood....So I've had a lot of preparing, assigning homework, and marking to do to keep me busy, that's for sure.
We also have 11 new volunteers here! CRAZY! Nathan, our new housemate, arrived last week, and he's gonna be here until the end of the year, and on friday, 10 British volunteers walked through the front gate of the school during last period (which made it excessively hard to keep the attention of the kids - especially the boys, because 9 of those 10 were female). Henry got up on his chair and exclaimed (in a thick spanish accent) "MISS!! MISS, I LOVE YOU!"...to which I had to try desperately not to laugh, while explaining that he didn't actually love any of them...but long story short, we've got reinforcements!
As for trying new things, I've now been in a chicken bus (an expired school bus from the states that gets driven down to central america to be used to carry as many passengers as they can hold from village to village), a village taxi (a three wheeled contraption that stalls...a lot), and a highway taxi (a four wheeled contraption, with a driver that thinks he is James Bond). And I've been really enjoying going to the market on sundays, eating Baleyadas and Pastolidos...and today i went to one of the churches in the village with Melanie, which was quite interesting and cool.
This weekend we also went to El Cajon, which is a really cool part of Honduras where Harardo used to teach...we got to stay there for free and one of Harardo's friends took us on a tour of the Dam there (which supplies 30% of Honduras with its power - IT"S HUGE). It was a fun weekend!
There are pictures below, hope you enjoy!
peace.
-Tim
We also have 11 new volunteers here! CRAZY! Nathan, our new housemate, arrived last week, and he's gonna be here until the end of the year, and on friday, 10 British volunteers walked through the front gate of the school during last period (which made it excessively hard to keep the attention of the kids - especially the boys, because 9 of those 10 were female). Henry got up on his chair and exclaimed (in a thick spanish accent) "MISS!! MISS, I LOVE YOU!"...to which I had to try desperately not to laugh, while explaining that he didn't actually love any of them...but long story short, we've got reinforcements!
As for trying new things, I've now been in a chicken bus (an expired school bus from the states that gets driven down to central america to be used to carry as many passengers as they can hold from village to village), a village taxi (a three wheeled contraption that stalls...a lot), and a highway taxi (a four wheeled contraption, with a driver that thinks he is James Bond). And I've been really enjoying going to the market on sundays, eating Baleyadas and Pastolidos...and today i went to one of the churches in the village with Melanie, which was quite interesting and cool.
This weekend we also went to El Cajon, which is a really cool part of Honduras where Harardo used to teach...we got to stay there for free and one of Harardo's friends took us on a tour of the Dam there (which supplies 30% of Honduras with its power - IT"S HUGE). It was a fun weekend!
There are pictures below, hope you enjoy!
peace.
-Tim
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