Friday was a field trip to Copan. If you can even picture how crazy 100 spanish kids would be at school, try to picture loading them onto 2 school buses and bringing them to another private school 3 hours away, and then bringing them on a tour of a bird sanctuary and mayan ruins. Those of you back home that know the size of those tours (anyone from the Crescent trips), know that that amount of children is insane. However, it was really fun to just hang out with a bunch of the kids outside of a school environment and Copan is a cool place. Plus their parents accompanied them, so us teachers left the discipline of crazy students to their mother or father while on the trip.
There were a few lowlights to the trip.
#1: waiting in lines.
#2: The fact that only about half the students from the school could afford to come on the field trip. The mind-blowing thing was that it cost about 8$ to come. For many parents that I talked to beforehand, that was simply a luxery they could not pay for.
#3: Even for the kids that were "rich" enough to come, the visit to the other private school was anything but educational. They would probably have described it as embarrassing. The other school was actually a VERY wealthy school, and seeing their green acres of fields and well supplied classrooms, basically just made our students feel humiliated. 60%-70% or our students can't afford school, so they are on scholarship, and the people that pay full price, pay about 150 limpira (about 7-8 dollars) a month to come. The private school we went to charges about $150 per month to go. But I was proud of our kids. I'm convinced our kids are funnier, cooler, and...more rad. But maybe I'm just biased.
Myself, Cat, Caroline, and Alex all stayed in Copan after the field trip and hung about the town friday night and saturday morning. It's a cool town, so it made for a fun weekend of shopping, eating at cool restaurants, and meeting bearded Central American backpackers that were passing through.
The last bit of this update will just be to tell you all that I have recently been given a whole lot of new music. Katherine(one of my students)'s father and I found out that we are both really into music, and he has proceeded to burn me a whole wack of sweet mp3 cds. Just thought I'd let ya'll know that piece of news. He's a really cool guy too, and I basically go to their house, help tutor Katherine, then talk to him about music and listen to his favourite Neil Young albums (he LOVES Niel Young). Good times.
Peace.
1 comment:
Tim; It has been a while since I visited, and just wanted to say one more time what an unbelievable thing it is that you are doing - not only that but that you are really enjoying yourself and getting so much out of the trip.
Great story about the field trip (and great pictures I hadn't seen before). I can imagine the bus trip with all those kids - good to have some parents along with you. Now you know how frustrating and also how rewarding a trip like that can be. I'm glad you got a chance to stay in Copin for a couple of days. Great place and good food!!!
I remember Cofradia very fondly. I was there two years in a row, and my lasting memory is of the people, their friendship, their kindness, and their willingness to share anything and everything they have. Please say hello to anyone I might still know down there, including Ben and Myrna and family.
Anyway, just wanted to say "Hey". I have met "Cat" a couple of times, and am sure she is doing an amazing job of helping in the Gr. 3 class. Please pass on my best to Cat too.
You'll be home soon and getting ready for the second part of the journey. Have a great last week or so, and enjoy your time back home with you family.
Paul
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