It has been occurring to me recently, as I’m sure it has occurred to many of you, that time never feels like it is passing in the amount that it actually is. That is to say, it feels like a month since I’ve written, when it has only been a couple of weeks. The first two weeks of school are over and I am sitting in my room soaking up the free time I have before I get down to planning the week that cometh. I’ve got 15 little kindergarteners for a little over 2 hours every day and then the rest of the time I am a resource teacher in the other BECA classrooms (grades 1-3). All of the BECA students are a mix of children from the hogar – the Amigos de Jesus children’s home – and children from the nearby communities. This makes for a very interesting classroom dynamic. Kindergarteners in general make for a very interesting classroom dynamic. We are still in the phase of laying down and understanding all of the classroom procedures in English. The children from the hogar understand some English because they went to a bilingual preschool, but the children from the communities understand very little, so this will take some time. All of the nuggets have, in turn, been teaching me some new lessons in patience and cross-cultural communication. Not to mention more daunting lessons about myself outside of my role as an educator, but more on that later…maybe.
A more amusing development is that I frequently forget to flip the switch once I leave school. This means I find myself making overly expressive physical gestures or refer to myself as Ms. Molly wandering dazed and sweaty around my house. An example: the water comes on at home so that we can fill up our bathroom tanks for bathing and such and I point at my mouth with both hands and wiggle my index fingers while grinning like a madman, saying “that makes Miss Molly soooooooo happy!!” “Oh no” gets a gesture (I say “oh no,” what has the world come to?!). When I pause to think during a conversation, I now stroke my imaginary beard and make a very perplexed face, possibly even murmuring “hmmmmm.” Hopefully they are pleasantly quirky and not totally embarrassing qualities. Although I sweat so much here, I find I’m pretty far past being embarrassed. Smelling like B.O 23.5 hours out of the day (the .5 is the time right after I shower) will do that for a person. So will being a kindergarten teacher to a bunch of children that do not speak or understand much English, thus requiring lots of strange body language to explain things. Oddly liberating. And who am I kidding? I was already a ham.
But my body odor aside I am fascinated and excited by my life here, for the most part. There are many things that are similar, such as wireless internet (Mom and Dad, I’ve got better internet here than ya’ll do in Leverett – take that, U.S.A!), drinking water out of the taps (not the norm for Honduras, so we are very lucky), trees and farm animals, and of course crab grass. And there are many things that are different: scorpions, tarantulas, the best beans in the history of ever, throwing toilet paper in the trash instead of down the toilet (it actually makes more sense), 80 degree weather year round, and living on the same land as most of my students. To name a few. It’s pretty cool how quickly all of us have adjusted to the way of our lives here. When the lights come back on after a power outage, a joyous shout of “Aaaayyyy!” can be heard resonating in our glorious casa. I shan’t lie: there are occasions when I am frustrated with washing all my clothes by hand or when the horses eat some of our laundry detergent. But more than anything, these occasions teach me about myself and, not to sound totally corny, about the life I have the privilege of leading in the States. One of my fellow maestras here used the word “humbling” and I’d say it’s the best way to describe all of this. The moments when the differences overtake the similarities, I feel lost or overwhelmed by the year I have ahead of me. And then I think to myself: “I seriously just complained about having to wash my clothes by hand.” Normally you might think this would be followed by the kind of thought that starts with “at least I…” like: “At least I have clothes to wash!” or “At least I have hands!” But actually it’s usually followed by thoughts like: “A clothes washer is nice (they do exist in Honduras, just so no one gets confused), but pretty unnecessary, and in 90 degree weather, who needs a dryer?” See the difference? I guess the point I’m trying to make is that it is humbling because I realize all of the things that really are luxuries that I was so dependent upon and outraged if I didn’t own in the States because everyone else seemed to have it. Not because of “at least…”’s. I’m not sure if that made it any more clear. Who cares? It’s Friday and I’m so tired that I definitely do not know which seat I should take.
I realize this is a scattered post. Until I adjust to my schedule and my job, I think that might be the pattern, so hang in there with me. I am still getting into the swing of planning successful and exciting lessons for my little nuggets (today was rough) and balancing my own sanity – I’m told it’s not normal to have “3 Chartreuse Buzzards” stuck in your head all day. In addition, I’m really actually just lazy. I actually sucked my teeth at a fellow teacher and grumbled when she told me everyone was meeting. Like…que? Half my thoughts are in Spanish too. I just wrote “jave” instead of “have.” Good thing I’m typing this thing and not inking it.
All joking aside, there is an important message I want anyone reading this to take away from my blogs: I am fine. I say this not only in the context of Honduras but in the context of the world. I would remind my friends and family who are skeptical of that statement of the goings on back home right now (see Southside, Chicago, NYC, New York, Springfield, MA, LA, CA or Ferguson, MO). BECA works very hard to train its volunteers and to provide the most relevant information to those of us working with them in the Hon. The knowledge and safety both BECA and Amigos de Jesus endeavor to give us is a luxury I continue to grow to appreciate. So, mis cariños, no tengan miedo! Ok, serious part over.
Unt now, my friends and family, I must rush off to my glamourous life of applying copious amounts of anti-itch lotion to my bug bites and researching new ways to kill off the cockroaches (anyone got the goods on that? On the real though…). I’m thinking of you all back home and wishing I could see your sunshiny faces. Hasta pronto, socios!
Love,
Ms. Molly
