Soy Profesora

Lesson planning has gotten boring already.  I've only been working on it for about an hour this morning, but I'm ready for a break.

Having a lesson planned before you teach a class is quite helpful, though.

Going into my first day of teaching at W-Ragar, I really didn't have much of an idea of what I was going to do.  I had written out a list of vocabulary words and common verbs that I thought the kids should know and from there on out I just winged it.

I have eight students in 7th grade, six boys and two girls.  I'll try and get a class picture up for you guys.

These kids are so funny.  They all want to know how many siblings I have ("Seven?!" *jaw drop*), what my parents' names are, who my boyfriend is (when I tell them I don't have one, they start making up names..."Mike, then!"), how old I am (I've told them 70, 10, 28, and 100, so at this point it's all up in the air).

All of them speak English fairly well, except for two who really don't speak much at all.  I think of all things, the biggest struggle this year for me will be trying to keep the kids learning and moving ahead without losing anyone.  Especially one kid, Eduardo.  He speaks the least English, and I hate when I see his face drop because he has no clue what's going on.  Having to speak in English and then translate to Spanish helps me practice, at least.

From 7-9:00am and then from 11:40-12:40pm I'm with 7th grade.  Between those two class times, from 9:20-11:20, I teach English to the 5th and 6th graders.  This class is about 15 students and definitely more difficult than 7th grade.  Trying to split the time between 5th and 6th and keep everyone busy so they don't start fighting and playing around is tricky sometimes.  They are learning and mostly working hard, though, so hopefully I'll get better at handling the time and they'll get better at focusing.

Of course, there's the occasional interruption...  Last class, the kids were sitting at their tables doing book work when one of the 6th graders, Fernando, yelled and jumped up.  He started running towards the door and then pointing under the tables.  At first, none of the other kids knew what was happening, but some of the girls started screaming and the boys stood on their chairs.  Apparently, a bright green and blue lizard had crawled into the classroom to try and find some shade.  It ran over Mauricio's feet and under Eva's chair and by then everyone was trying to run from it or kill it.  The poor little guy lost his tail to someone's foot, but he made it back out of the door alive at least, though that was only because I told the boys not to smack it with the broom.

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The lessons are planned, it's 7:40pm, and I'm already ready for bed.  I've got to get up early in the morning to catch the school bus at 6:15.  Okay, so I know early is subjective, but it's temprano for me.  This whole 5:00am thing has turned me into an 80-year-old woman.  I start getting tired around 6pm these days.  Haha!

One thing I was thinking about this evening and would appreciate prayer for is my witness to the kids.  Thursday, I was chatting with my two girls and said "estupido" (stupid).  Apparently that's considered a bad word around here?  The girls both stopped talking and looked at me.  Then they wanted to know if I was a Christian.  When I said yes, they asked why I had said a bad word.  Still don't quite understand what sort of connotations "stupid" has, but I guess I'll stay away from that.  It just made me think about how much the kids are watching me and learning from me as a person who they look up to, not just as a language teacher.  The church here is very legalistic for the most part, and I don't want to convey that sort of "Christianity" to them, but at the same time, I want to become all things to all people.

Taking the bus home

Where You Lead, I Will Follow

THE BILINGUAL SCHOOL
I love the theme song for the TV show Gilmore Girls.  I don't understand exactly what it has to do with the show itself except for the fact that it's all warm and lovey, but I like the words: "Where you lead, I will follow, anywhere that you tell me to.  If you need, you need me to be with you, I will follow where you lead."

Next Monday, the 13th, the bilingual school starts its new year.  W-Ragar has added 7th grade now, and I am the English teacher.  Every now and then, I wonder what I have gotten myself into, and I would really appreciate your prayers.  Originally, another intern and I were co-teaching the class - she would teach three days, I would take two - and the director of the school told me that she would give me a textbook to use.

A week before school was supposed to start, I met up with the director to make sure I knew what she was expecting of me.  I found out.  Basically, it goes like this: I teach English, and the kids will hopefully learn something.  Besides wanting Reading and Language to be the two basic categories for my class, she didn't have any other specifications.  Not gonna lie, hearing this wracked my nerves a bit.  I'm pretty sure that I am not prepared to take on planning and teaching a class of 12 or so energetic and sometimes less-than-obedient 13-year-olds.  She did tell me about a great bookstore in La Ceiba where I could look for a textbook, though.

I went to La Ceiba and found the bookstore, BookMaster.  I actually enjoyed myself there.  Something about the first grade math charts and "#1 Teacher!" ribbons got me excited about teaching, and I started to think that maybe it wouldn't be so bad after all being completely in charge of my class.

I chose Learning Journeys as the textbook.  I think the title of the book is quite appropriate.

During a Bible study last week, one of my friends was talking about trusting the Lord.  She mentioned the quote about how we can be most at peace, no matter what is going on around us, when we are in the center of God's will.  I know this is such a fundamental idea and something I should know by now, but it just struck me in a new way.  If I am listening to the Lord and going where he's asking me to go, then I don't need to fear.   He wants me here, doing this "scary" thing, for a reason.  I don't know yet what exactly that might be, but I do know two things: God works for the good of those who love him and have been called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28), and he planned whatever this is for his glory (Isaiah 43:7).  WHY AM I NERVOUS?  He'll be with me (duh), he'll help me (duh), it'll be hard sometimes (duh), and it'll all turn out for the very best (duh).  So, this is my outlook on the new school year, at least when I remember to think this way.

Ha, a week ago when I had this little "epiphany," my first thought was, "Um, God, don't you think you could've waited for me to realize this until I was actually on the bus on the way to school or something?  By the time next week rolls around, I'm going to have forgotten this already."  I think maybe God is teaching me about trust... God, I'm ready to start on this new learning journey.  Where you lead, I will follow.

THE DUMP
On Tuesday, I went with Lisa, a wonderful missionary lady, to the Dump in La Ceiba (La Ceiba is the city an hour from the hospital where all the missionaries do their shopping).  I don't know if I've blogged about the Dump before, but just in case... Around the La Ceiba dump, hundreds of people have made their homes.  Many little shacks and a few sturdier cement houses line the dirt road that winds up from the main road to the trash heap.  Lisa has a ministry at the Dump of building friendships with families and the little children, helping when she can with small medical problems like infected scrapes and runny noses, taking the really sick to better-equipped people, teaching the children, loving however she can.  She visits every Tuesday and Saturday.

This Tuesday, we went to visit Milagro (Spanish for "miracle"), a one-month-old baby girl with hydrocephalus.  She and her family live on the side of a steep, muddy slope.  We walked up a ladder-like set of metal stairs that someone had laid against the hill, under a few clothes lines, and past a mangy dog or three.  Along the way, Lisa says hello to every little child that she sees.  We have to stop to rest a few times because Lisa was carrying Mateo, a cute little kid who is quite the chunker monker.

Milagro was so tiny; she looked premature.  Her little legs were so thin and weak.  But her head was big, huge, like an alien's from the bar scenes in Star Wars.  Her little veins were pressed so tightly against her skin because of the pressure from her skull, and her eyes were stretched, almost closed.  The mother said that the shunt the doctor had put into Milagro's head to reduce the pressure was working; her head was getting smaller, slowly.  They say it's hard to tell what causes hydrocephalus, and sometimes a shunt helps, sometimes it doesn't.

Only a couple weeks ago, Quebin (Kevin), a little boy about 7 years old who lived in the house right beside Milagro's, passed away because of hydrocephalus.  He had been admitted to the hospital and had a shunt put in his head, but it didn't work.  He was too old.

After visiting with Milagro's family, we took Quebin's mom to the cemetery where they buried Quebin.  Ten or so children and I rode in the back of Lisa's truck.  One of the older boys carried a little plastic bouquet of red roses.

A lot of the graves are raised, cement structures that they cover in colorful tiles.  Quebin's was a mound of red dirt surrounded by red rocks.  A few purple-leaved plants grew along the sides and a pot of dead flowers rested on top, right next to the little plastic toy palm tree that Quebin's younger brother had put there.  The boy with the roses stuck them in the red dirt, and I realized he was the older brother.  At the head of Quebin's grave was a small wooden cross, painted green and bearing his name across the wings in large, black letters.

I don't think I've ever seen anyone grieve so openly and unashamedly as his mother did.  She sat down on a cinder block next to his grave, grasped the rocks that lined it, and started crying out in Spanish, "My son, my beautiful boy!  I never thought that my boy was going to die..."  She spoke loudly but shakily because of her sobbing.  After we had helped clean the dead leaves and twigs off of the grave, we left.

I'm not sure why all of that stuck with me, but it did.

Ubiquitous Coca-Cola...this is on the side of a pulperia (like the Honduran version of 7-11) in the Dump.