As of 5:24pm yesterday, I am officially done teaching the SJBS Preparatoria class of 2010-11. I spent my last day carting around 25, 5-yr olds around San Pedro Sula with the intention of celebrating our last day of school by taking them to eat Pizza and watch a movie.
Never will I ever do that again. Ever. My experience teaching this “vivacious” group of students has led to some interesting experiences and hilarious stories, and yesterday was no exception.
We began our journey at 11:30am at the school. A couple of the parents surprised the class with shirts that they had made with our class picture on the front and a class roster on the back. They then, very graciously, shoved them over our heads (teachers included) and forced us to wear our new prized possessions for the rest of the day. I myself was wearing a dress and still was not excluded from wearing the shirt. In fact, it just so happened to be the same dress in the picture, which confirmed several things:
1. For all those wondering, I was not in fact trying to be trendy by wearing a patterned skirt with a tshirt, I simply was wearing a shirt over a dress. The same dress, in fact, pictured in our class photo….which at the moment was displayed on my shirt…which was over my dress. The same dress.
2. While I am aware we all have a very limited amount of clothing here in the hondo and most all of the teachers have memorized each other’s wardrobe by now, this experience only reaffirmed my intense desire to get rid of my sun-faded, kindergarten-ruined clothes for something new and…intact.
3. Though I often find Honduran women to have questionable taste in their clothing, it is safe to say that some do in fact have good taste – “some” being one of my students’ mom who offered to stop at the apartment so that I could change into some shorts or pants so I wouldn’t look so silly. I turned the offer down.
Anyway, in true Honduran fashion we piled all 25 kids in the busito, managed to squeeze in three teachers and a parent and headed off to San Pedro. We decided to take them to City Mall to eat pizza hut in the food court and to watch a movie in the theater.
For many of these kids, this was the first time they had ever been to the mall. Just watching their little faces light up as we rode up the escalators and hearing their reactions of “it is so beautiful!” as they surveyed the new, unknown environment was such a humbling experience.
The mall. They think the mall is the most beautiful place they have ever seen. Man, we have it good in the states.
We set up camp at a little section in the food court and fed them enough pizza to fill their endless pits. One of the moms then brought out a game where a child picks a number from 1-100 and is then given a balloon designated for that particular spot, each spot containing a completely different type of balloon. The kids of course loved this and soon turned the food court into their own balloon-tossing and chasing domain.
Im surprised that the wealthy Honduran onlookers handled the disruption with such ease – but I guess it’s hard to get mad at kids who are really freaking cute and wearing the same outfit.
The real chaos of the day came in our attempt to find a movie for the kids. We had to find a movie that was suitable for the kids, dubbed not subtitled so they could better understand it, and showing within the hour so that we could make it back to the Cof in time. The only movie showing at the mall was THOR which wasn’t dubbed and not a kids movie so we decided to try out another movie theatre.
Another movie theater turned into three movie theaters, all of which were closed. And by closed, I mean completely shut down or not going to open anytime within the next four hours kind of closed. We went to our fourth and final theater and luckily the parents found a movie suitable for the occasion:
Big Momma’s House 3 – Subtitled. Already started at 2:30pm, the hour in which we were originally supposed to arrive back at school. Perfect.
So to better clarify, we spent an hour and half driving, unloading and reloading 25 kids to end up at a movie that has already started, is subtitled not dubbed, and possibly extremely inappropriate for a 5-yr old. This is Honduras.
Our large group took over half the theater and quickly became the most disruptive, inconsiderate movie-goers I have ever bare witness to. As an avid movie-watcher I really dislike it when people talk during movies so you can imagine how I have had to adjust to the fact that Hondurans answer their phones and have full conversations during a movie. However, yesterday we were the very people I hate to sit next to in theaters and so much more…
My kids could not sit still. I spent the entire movie half-way standing, going up and down the isles telling kids to sit down, stop running up and down the isles, and for god’s sake, STOP TALKING. When I looked over at one point and realized all the mothers were completely engaged in the movie and not bothered one bit by their kids actions, I realized it was a lost battle. I instead decided to take the last few minutes to sit in a chair and take in how happy my kids were.
Despite their disruptive behavior, which would never fly in the states, what really mattered is that they were enjoying themselves. These kids got to eat popcorn, drink soda and watch a movie in a real movie theater – something that many of them will never again be able to do unless they go with another gringo teacher.
As I sat in the busito with 25 kids drowning out my thoughts with an ABC song that now haunts my dreams, I realized that despite every unorganized, often chaotic experience I have had with them, it has all been worth it in the end. To see the kids gain pleasure from such simple things is enough to make my time here worthwhile and I know that these experiences are the ones I’ll never forget.
It was a very typical, yet, great way to end the year
