YEEEhaa!

Hey!
About time i wrote another one...
Well school is still really fun...though lessons have ended now. We’re in the middle of planning and rehearsing for the Christmas show, this coming Saturday! The kids are going to do some dances and sing English speaking songs...like Jingle Bells and We Wish You A Merry Christmas... and Barbie Girl – Aqua and The Way You Make Me Feel – Michael Jackson! Haha its funny, the girls are doing Barbie Girl, and they’re strutting their stuff so brilliantly, I’m so proud of them! The boys are doing the MJ song, and i’ve been trying to teach them how to moonwalk, though they’re not really getting it. And yes, i CAN actually moonwalk, and it’s not because they have a crap teacher, thank you very much. So we’ve been singing a bunch of Christmas songs, we’ve been teaching them the words in English and i swear... i have never heard a group of more TONE DEAF people in my LIFE! They are absolutely horrendous. As a nation, Honduras is pretty tuneless it has to be said... It’s soul destroying! I love music, and i love singing, and for all these kids to be so utterly CRAP at singing is painful to more than just my ears. It’s hilarious, i tried getting them to sing a scale, i started them all off on a starting note, and not one of them could hit any correct notes...it’s a lost cause, but it’ll be fun to watch on Saturday. I’m going to try and film what i can of it, but i don’t have any camera battery life left, i’ll see if i can use Emma’s to film it...
Into the bargain... i have been teaching them the Gay Gordons! I’ve got some Scottish music (thanks Stephen) and i’ve been teaching them how to dance, i am SO EXCITED and i have to film that...you should see them. They’re fantastic! In their little pairs (the girls are all bigger than their partners of course ahah...) and they got the hold correct, they know how to twirl their partners, and our major achievement of today was that they learned how to polka! Emma is my partner (she’s the man, i know technically i should be the guy cos i’m taller, but Emma didn’t know how to dance either part, so she picked up the man’s part pretty quickly haha) and i taught her how to polka all the way around the campo (a pitch near the school that we’ve been using to teach them how to dance). Eventually we got the kids to follow suit, twirling their partners beautifully like little twirling pairs, all over the field :)
We then sat down on the stands, and put one couple on the pitch and we watched them dance the full Gay Gordons with no help, and then i corrected their mistakes. The wee boys just loved dancing with Miss Jennifer because she knows what she’s doing haha! Okay i’m joking, they were bright red all the way through it, just like the boys in my year when they had to dance with the teacher :P
It’s going really well though, they picked it up really well, and some of those girls are naturals! Punta is the style of dancing specific to Honduras, and that involves a lot of hip waving and bum shaking, so the girls are all pretty good at that, as they’ve been showing off during the Barbie Girl rehearsal. I’m so proud of them!
We’ve been to Gracias every weekend since my last blog – it’s keeping us sane, and i managed to send off some letters, so you’ll get them soon (it cost me A LOT OF MONEY so my apologies if you didn’t get one, but please write to me and i will write back). We are supposed to be paid 1500 Lemps a month (equivalent to about £70) but we haven’t seen it yet, but when i get my allowance that’s going towards sending letters out to people :) but please write! The address is 2 blogs previous to this.
Gracias is so good, we stay with Holly, and every morning we have yoghurt and alpen and fresh fruit and it is just AMAZING. So refreshing and healthy. Yolanda still loves hanging out with us, she’s so sweet, but she can be SO annoying sometimes. She reminds me of me, making a racket and dropping things. I’ve had some kind of homemade ice lolly called paletta... those little white plastic cups are filled with fruit juice and bits of fruit, or they are filled with milk and cereal, or any flavour that takes the cook’s fancy!... my favourite paletta is milk with fruit loops haha..that multi-coloured cereal. Its pretty yummy!
We were sitting munching these ice lollies in Guancascos, the hotel in Gracias with the free internet ;) when 2 American travellers popped in and sat with us, chatting to Holly and Emma. The girls had gone up to a fort near the hotel previously, but i had to stay behind and do my washing so i didn’t go, but while they were there, they bumped into these 2 guys and had casual chit-chat about Central America and so on... so the guys sat with us (they were hilarious... camp as a royal tent!) and started telling us a story of what happened when they went back to Gracias. They decided to go to a barber shop in town, and ended up chatting away to some Honduran local for a good 20 minutes, when all of a sudden that guy just jumped on a passing bloke and started battering him with his pistol! Meanwhile the 2 guys bolted into the supermarket next door to take refuge. They heard gun shots, but apparently he was only shooting at the ground (no bloodshed thank goodness). Then the police came and took the weird bloke away. We’re warned ‘don’t go out in the big city late at night’ when really the safety advice should be more along the lines of ‘don’t go out in the day to the barber shop in a small town.’ Haha...
We returned from Gracias for another school week, before our rehearsals for this Saturday’s show. The bus we get back is literally a people carrier...and from time to time, they can get VERY FULL. It was packed, and everyone was literally sitting on one another. There were a good 25 people in the teeny wee van, it was no wonder my knees were under my chin!
We headed to the campo for football (Mercedes had gone to La Esperanza, a town nearby so we were all alone) and it was awesome. Jorge (sounds like Horhay) is amazing at football and was showing off his skills, meawhile the girls were heading off in pairs to sit on the stands, because they didn’t like playing (who could blame them, it’s a hooligans’ game!) There is a water pump at the corner of the field and the boys headed over and started having a water-fight which was definitely a challenge to calm down!
While we were there, there were 2 mini-caravanas...but the peope were all so SOLEMN looking, they didn’t have anything to celebrate...and Jordy turned to me and told me in French that 2 people had died, and this was the funeral. I was shocked! I asked Mercedes about Honduran funerals, and they are basically an excuse to drink and eat in excess apparently! Pretty much like home then eh? Kidding on, but the people do literally get completely out of their box here, the cafe was FULL of people who were so so drunk...as Mercedes said ‘if you want fed, go to a funeral!’
There is a a wee dog that lives at the hotel where we STILL live... and when i first moved in, he was proper terrified of humans, like he just bolted away as soon as i went near, but gradually he started coming closer until i could stroke him. He now bounds towards me every time i go into the hotel! The first time he did that, he had his gums pulled back over his teeth, and i was absolutely terrified, though no growl came out. I just ignored him, he could have taken my hand off! But every day he did this, and i stopped ignoring him and he just wagged his tail all around the place and i realised he was SMILING! He now just loves me to bits, and walks the 15 minute walk to the cafe with us, sits outside for 45 mins while we eat, and then walks all the way back with us in the night, protecting us all the way up the road :) he came to school with me a few times (cos i couldn’t stop him, he’s out the hotel faster than we are!) but Mercedes didn’t like it. i’ve named him Homey... like ‘ma homey’ as in a friend. I suppose somewhere inside i was thinking about ‘home’ when i named him, seeing as he is from the hotel, and that pretty much is our home. Come tomorrow, we’ll have been there for a month :|
We’re supposed to move into the house hopefully before the end of this week (we’re going travelling so we don’t want to leave our stuff in the hotel over Christmas and New Year). I am so looking forward to it, though i don’t have my hopes up, we were only meant to be in the hotel for a week or ten days, and we’ve been ‘moving into the new house’ for the past 3 weeks, according to Mercedes. I’ve learned the need to see something to believe it here...
We’re going to Roatan this Sunday, to spend Christmas there :) i think we’re going to the port – La Ceiba, on the mainland to spend new year, its seeming the party city. We’re going to stay with Ian, one of the volunteers from PT, he’s from Scotland, his partner is currently in England, and will be back on the 22nd. YES HIS PARTNER CAME HOME blooming heck! I don’t know if i’m jealous... i don’t want to come home just yet... this experience is too precious to leave right now, and i would have a hard time leaving the kids even now! Anyway, we’re going to Roatan to hang out with Ian for a few days cos CaseyAdam are away travelling to renew their visas... they wont be back til the 23rd, so we’re going to hang out with them then. All of the Honduran PT vols are going to Roatan for Christmas, so it will be nice to hang out with everyone during the holiday period! Better than spending it alone away from home anyway, 2 people isn’t really much of a party it has to be said haha.
On the bus to Gracias on the Friday there, i had a pretty fun journey, there was a wee boy sitting in the row infront of me, and he was adorable, he had big black curls in his hair, and huge brown eyes as per usual here, and he was so sweet. He was playing with my hairband, putting it in his hair and calling it a corona (crown) and giving me high fives and fist punches! It was so cute :)
That evening, we went out to Cafe Kandil, a wee bar type place, with such a cool atmosphere! It was mainly gringos there, but there were a few locals. They played loads of English music...KINGS OF LEON and TRAVIS were involved too! It was so much fun, and we played uno (the card game?) for ages, and Holly kept winning. I never won :(
One of the American teachers, Natalia was there (she’s kind of our Gracias friend...she’s dead nice. i bumped into some gringas on the bus one time and just got the balls to say hi...turns out she lived in Gracias and when we went to Kandil the first time she recognised me and we’re pretty much friends now!) and she told us about another bar type place called Bohilo where they were playing live meringue music. We decided to take a look...BAD MOVE. It was full of horrendous drunk Honduran men, and as soon as we walked in (it was literally a shack, no doors no nothing, more like a kinda outdoor tent thing) a man shoved so hard past me, and went straight to the bar and grabbed the barman by the collar of his clothes and started screaming in Spanish at him... it was bad. We retreated into a corner, and then basically RAN from the place as fast as we could. Natalia got a mouthful for that i can tell you! She forgot to mention the part where you go at around 7-8pm...not 1am...LEARNING CURVE MUCH!?
We were going to go to San Pedro on Saturday to see New Moon in the cinema, but Natalia has mentioned that you can buy it off the street in Gracias for L35... and i was TOTALLY up for that, instead of wasting a mass amount of money going to the city. So we bought that and it was a WRECK. A lot of people were going to the toilet, it was dubbed in Spanish, and there were NO subtitles hahaha... could it have gotten much worse?! Luckily i knew exactly what was going on (cos i’m obsessed of course) so i was telling Emma (who had also read the books...not quite as avidly as me) and Holly (who understood everything that was said because she speaks very good Spanish) exactly what was going on... i enjoyed it despite the quality drawbacks! SOMEONE SEND ME NEW MOON ON DVD AS SOON AS IT COMES OUT PLEASE. I still prefer Edward by the way, none of that crap about Jacob being the new fav...PUHLEASE.
But that was an enjoyable Sunday night...Saturday was spent sunbathing in the extreme heat on the driveway of Holly’s home... it was awesome heat (my back was burned but hey it’s gone brown now) and Holly and I helped wash the dog...with clothing soap :| we felt so bad about it so we conditioned him afterwards hahah! And we used the hose to soak each other cos it was proper boiling. Initially we were somewhat concerned this would be ‘socially insensitive’ but the family joined in and were having a great time too! So we didn’t feel so bad...
We headed up to the carnival part way up the mountain that evening. There were LOADS of stalls, people selling perfume/beauty products, toys, authentic bracelets and bags, flip flops, sweets, food, jewellery...all sorts. I bought a pair of really attractive elastic flip-flops which i love, but that was all. I’m becoming VERY money conscious i should let you all know. I will return to Glasgow stingier than i left!
There was a ferris wheel, a magic carpet, and some kids rides. I wouldn’t have minded going on the wheel, but this is Honduras...it would very probably have fallen apart the time I went on it... so i avoided that at all costs. There was supposed to be a dance type thing, but we heard that they locked the doors once you were inside, and didn’t let people out til 5am! We had a look and it was bogging, so we ran back out before they could lock us in!
Sunday, we spent at a rodeo! It was a tiny circular stand made of wooden planks which were a HORRENDOUS health and safety hazard. I could have fallen straight through the gaps and that is NO exaggeration. My camera has run out of battery cos i have no charger, so Emma is the photographer – she got a lot of awesome pictures (check facebook over the next few weeks). No one was mauled, unfortunately, and they all rode bulls, not horses, but a few horses were being shown off by old experienced riders., the horses were hopping, dancing, side stepping, walking backwards, bowing, and LYING DOWN one man actually stood on the horse’s side as it was lying down in celebration of ‘man over beast’. I was just waiting for the horse to get annoyed..i would have been on the horses side! It was really fun though a great experience, as i can’t remember the one we went to in Dakota all that well...
We headed to the Chinese again (as per) and it was good, but there were 3 drunk guys...one of which was MINGING and hung over my left shoulder talking to us, asking for our numbers on repeat for 5 minutes, not accepting no for an answer. Holly put a fake mobile number in his phone and as he turned to walk away he planted a kiss right on my shoulder. I just focussed on not vomiting into my plate, Emma and Holly thought i should have slapped him but that was worth too much hassle. He left eventually, and i washed my shoulder repeatedly with antiseptic. I didn’t catch anything thank goodness hahaha...
So that was our experience! That evening was spent with the terrible version of New Moon, and we headed back to San Juan this morning, with the whole family. Andrea, Ernesto, and Scarleth have returned from San Pedro, and came back with us this morning to San Juan, so it’s nice to have more people around again...might spur Mercedes to move us all into the new house?!
WISHFUL THINKING.
Will keep you informed as things progress...hope all’s well!
Love, Jen xxx

2nd new post in December

Hey there everyone :D
Okay so now to talk about all the things that have happened lately! We had a parents evening in the school to discuss whether the parents would register their kids with Mercedes’ school for the new school year, starting in February and they all said yes...so it looks like we’re stuck in San Juan til the bitter end...
Mercedes is a fountain of gossip, it has to be said. She’s pretty ruthless with it...
We have 2 pupils, Daniella and David, and their mother tragically had a miscarriage quite recently. The children have said that their mother is constantly crying, and the sadness of this situation is that it is having a very negative effect on the kids. They are constantly upset, to a greater degree than your typical 5 and 8 year olds. It is true that suffering is present all over the world, and it affects everyone the same way. A family in New York could be going through exactly the same thing, as could a family in Zimbabwe. It’s shocking, yet incredible to see the degree of sadness that goes on around the world on a daily basis, and just how strongly that implicates on the people around that sadness. Daniella and David are going to have a difficult time getting over this experience, i can tell it’s going to stay with them for a long time, they are too young to appreciate the depth of emotion in a situation like this, they are just aware of their mother’s constant grieving. I wish there was something i could do, but there is not, and i have to accept that. It’s just so sad that these kids have far less support around them than i would if i was them, back home. It’s tougher on them, there’s no Samaritans here, there’s no guidance councillor, there is no mentor...they have nothing but their ill equipped family in this situation, as none of them are educated in mental or emotional support... and the same goes for their mother, she will be struggling through this with far less support than someone at home has the option of. I guess this has opened my eyes to worldwide suffering... it’s awful.
Just to add to this cheery subject (it is rather funny, now that some time has passed), one of the older pupils, a girl called Irma, came to the school for just a day or 2. We were sitting at lunch in the cafe, and Emma and i had had a pretty tough day, the kids were misbehaving, we were tired, and just needed to lay low for a bit...when Mercedes (has to be congratulated on her timing, EVERY TIME) just throws into the conversation ‘Oh, Emma, one of the girls has accused you of hitting her with a ruler. Hmm.’ Indeed, Emma was like so shocked and insulted...there is not a ruler to be found in Honduras, never mind the school! We discussed the subject for a while, as there was NO WAY Emma would ever do something like that, and the girl was lying because she didn’t want to come to school anymore, cos she was ashamed of being crap at English. The other pupils in the class were asked about it, and they all stood up for Emma saying ‘there was never a ruler in sight, never mind the fact that Miss Emma would never hit one of us anyway!’ It was just shockingly bad, and i was so upset on Emma’s behalf, not to mention Mercedes admirable discretion, throwing that into the conversation in a crowed little town cafe, full of local eavesdroppers who took it upon themselves to chip in! The bottom line is, the girl is a little liar, Mercedes has no subtlety, and Emma would never hit anyone with a ruler!
Aside from all this, i’m learning a fair amount of personal insight since arriving here and teaching... there are a few pupils who have SO MUCH potential, and it kills me that they will probably not fulfil that potential, because they haven’t got the resources at all. And a couple of the kids are putting less and less effort into their classwork which is so devastating, because they have so much to offer, the ability to learn so much! I feel so strongly about it...and yes, it’s opened my eyes to how everyone around me felt when i gave up on school, when i threw my potential down the pan. It’s spurred me on to make the most of what i have, and pursue my dream of becoming a doctor. I’ve written a letter to the uni to seek as much advice as i can...we’ll see how it goes down! It’s just amazing that almost 6 weeks into this, i have already seen so much, and learned so much about the world, and about myself. It’s fantastic!
Okay, what’s pissing me off MAJORLY at the moment is Mercedes constantly asking us for money to cover her expenses. “Oh...there are no board markers, you’ll have to buy some EMMA AND JEN. Oh sorry i’ve got no money to buy bread for breakfast, you’ll have to buy it yourself EMMA AND JEN, and why don’t you get some for us while you’re at it? And no, don’t be silly, you’re not supposed to get paid from me at all, no money for you!” Oh contraire, Mercedes, we’re owed 1500Lemps from you pal, each, as pocket money...i look forward to taking that smugly from her. Bad Jen, don’t relish in other people’s failed attempts at being dogmatic.
So last Friday, Holly called us from Gracias to say that she wasn’t teaching, and she was going to pop round to San Juan to see us! She came over and we talked a fair bit, bitched about our projects, and talked about the good things...it was fun, and we watched 3 movies in a row! She stayed with us in our hotel room, and the following day we decided to go to Gracias with her.
We heard that the bus was at 1.30pm so we headed out for it, but we’d just missed it, we saw it driving up the road away from us, so that was a bit crap. We stood there, not really knowing what we were going to do, when a car appeared with a flatbed full of people, with bars on it. It was headed to Gracias, so we jumped on! There were up to 16 people on the flatbed at some points, and it was just amazing, standing in the sun, flying through the countryside and the hills and the little towns...just awesome :) not to mention how it cost us 5 Lemps less than the bus did, each haha ;)
We arrived in Gracias and went through some of the shops, bought some fruit and yoghurt and alpen to have for breakfast, and i bought CiniMinis...little square cinnamon cereal... my second favourite in the world, only to apple and cinnamon Cheerios ahah! We sat in Holly’s room drinking some mad antiseptic tea which was soooo yummy and Emma was obsessed with it, and if we left it to brew too long, our tongues went numb haha! My cup said JAMMIN MON! On it which was sooooo funny i thought haha.
The following day was the Honduran elections...There was a lot of concern over what was going to happen in the towns and cities here, as there were a good few problems during the last elections... So we decided to lay low in Holly’s home on Sunday. We were invited up the mountain to hang out with some American teachers from Holly’s school, but we couldn’t be bothered going in the end haha. Stupidly, other PT volunteers went to Tegucigalpa, of all places, during the elections! Tegucigalpa is the capital of Honduras, and it is particularly dangerous in general, or so we’ve been informed, so for the 2 girls to go there was just so stupid i think. I haven’t heard of any PT deaths yet this year though, so i think they’re fine haha.
Anyway, we spent Sunday hanging around Holly’s place like we said, and the weather was beautiful! I’d brought a few things to Gracias to wash using Holly’s pila (or something like that). That was the first time i had handwashed anything since i arrived here, and it was...an experience shall i say.
Basically it’s a big massive bathtub type thing, full of water, and one half of it has a concrete slab over it, with a ridged metal board stuck to it. The soaps are cylindrical shapes, and place your item of clothing over the metal board (pila, i think), and rub the soap up and down over the garment. Then you rub the clothes up and down over the pila and it scrubs one side of them, creating a soapy lather. Then you turn the garment over and do the same on that side! Once you feel you have scrubbed it sufficiently, you get the mini bucket, scoop up some more water from the bathtub thing and pour it over your clothes, rinsing them, til they are not soapy any more. Rinse and repeat ;) ...over and over again until all of your clothes are clean! It was good fun i have to tell you, and it’s mindless, like ironing, so you just think and think and think about everything that’s happened to you that day, or what you’re planning to do the following day. It was a cool experience, and i won’t mind doing it in future, just have to save my dirty washing for a sunny day and away i go!
We also spent Sunday baking a cake (fail) for someone’s birthday the following day, with marshmallows and chocolate icing and flakes and coconut sprinkles! Haha it wasn’t too bad, but the cake collapsed in the middle, so we ended up filling the centre with marshmallows and stuff, and called it a bunt. They were fooled mwahaha...
Emma and i have come to the agreement that we’re going to lose a fair amount of weight when we go home, because our bodies are working on overdrive here to keep us from getting fat on all this grease and salt and fat and sugar. When we go home it’ll be like a MAJOR detox. I could be so wrong about this theory, but it’s keeping me going through this... i was just imagining walking through the gate at the airport to hear a mutual inhale from everyone present at the amount of weight i might have gained by then...just made me think of the story of my mum coming back from Australia to be greeted by her sister saying WOW YOU GOT FAT. I don’t want that to be me, thank you very much.
So that evening we headed to a CHINESE RESTAURANT in Gracias, and little did we know that the dishes are big enough for 3 people to eat from...so we had a LOT of food. We decided to agree to eat ALL of it, finish everything that was put infront of us. It was a major challenge, and we had to take a couple of food breaks, it was hilarious (and yes, i am aware of what the previous paragraph said, and how hypocritical this one is in comparison. Bog off).
We came home and used Holly’s ipod dock and pranced about like complete idiots. It was HILARIOUS, and just reminded me of how much i miss going out dancing :( i took a video of it on my laptop, but it’s far too humiliating of some people for me to dare put on facebook haha... perhaps youtube, who knows ;) ive got a couple of videos to put on youtube, like the morning i woke up to the hotel blasting a whole load of Honduran crap music at top volume (something to do with elections). I made some videos of my complete rage at the situation, but in hindsight they’re rather boring haha. I’ll chuck them on youtube (if the internet is up to it) and you can judge that for yourself hahaha. How embarrassing.
Monday, our day off school because of the elections, we spent in Gracias again. This was a pretty fun day, lots of stuff happened... I ate the last of my CiniMinis (yes, i finished an entire box of cereal in 3 days) and then i had some yoghurt, raisins, grapes, melon and alpen! It was a refreshingly healthy breakfast! We hopped in a mototaxi and headed a tiny part of the way up Mount Selaki (the biggest mountain in Honduras) to go to a friend of Holly’s for lunch. The ride up the mountain took about 20 minutes in the wee rickety mototaxi, and the ground was basically big boulders and rubble, so we were fearing for our lives a little. I was wedged between Emma and Holly though, so if either of them fell out the taxi, i was still fine haha...yeah, there are no doors on the thing.
We passed Holly’s school, it looked amazing. It had basketball courts, a beautiful outdoor dining area with roof, and a really nice play area, nothing like ‘New Land Bilingual School, San Juan’ that’s for sure... The family we went to see were called the Laureles family. They were both teachers in Holly’s school, and they had a beautiful son who was running about, looking very happy and cute! A few more friends of Holly’s arrived, another teacher called Mrs Lopez, she was cool. She had a strong American accent, and her English was almost perfect...i thought she was American...but no. She was Honduran! It was a shock because she was so convincing with her American accent! Her kids were there, and it was her daughter’s 8th birthday that the cake was for (no one died from the ‘bunt’ cake, i assure you. it actually tasted pretty good with rum and raisin ice-cream haha). Before the cake, Mrs Laureles had cooked some amazing stuffed fish (full fish, eyes, scales, bones, tail and fins included...), rice, and a pork dish. They are a Filipino family so the food was incredible, there was ginger all through the pork dish, with a rich soy sauce marinade and loads of vegetables.
It was no shock to me when they said Grace before the meal, as soon as i had walked into their home, the biblical references on the walls had informed me they were Christians. I was completely open to the bible study group which followed the meal, but no matter how hard i try to understand and question and inform myself, i just found myself frustrated again. Mrs Laureles was clearly concerned for me, and called me into her room...she gave me a bible, a King James one...full of difficult old language. I asked Emma about different parts of the bible, as she’s a Christian, and i read over some bits in it, but i still found myself feeling so frustrated and wanting to put it down. I spent the whole of last night having a MAJOR discussion with Emma about religion and Christianity. My thoughts on the subject remain the same. I am so open to hearing about it and trying to learn, i just feel it’s not for me (i hope this doesn’t put off any readers of my blog who are religious...i’m just sharing my experiences and this one was pretty poignant).
So the visit to the Laureles family’s home was really lovely! I had such a nice time and they were very welcoming, and of course it raised a lot of question in my mind over religion...but no questions i’ve never asked before. We decided to walk down the mountain, rather than take a mototaxi back down, and it was about a 50 minute walk, during which we discussed life a lot obviously haha... we arrived back at Holly’s home (which is joined to a pulperia – a little shop) to another cup of antiseptic tea, to hear A LOT of cars honking their horns and people driving around the streets standing on the flatbeds of cars cheering...we soon realised that the elections had finished and Pepe had won (i should really have researched who Pepe is, but i think he’s the national party or something...i’ll look into it later). The people of Gracias were having a caravana... its where loads of people hop into their cars and trucks, drive around the streets in a line shouting and celebrating!
So the owner of the pulperia, Suli, her husband hopped in his car and we jumped on the flatbed. So me, Holly, Emma, Suli, Yolanda (another woman who works at the shop...she’s can’t read or write, and she can barely speak Spanish, such a shame, but she’s a funny happy little woman!), another shop worker, some really old wrinkly woman who worked in the kitchen, and some random old man who was just walking down the street, ALL jumped onto the flatbed of the husband’s car, and away we went! Yolanda and I stood up, leaning on the roof of the car as it drove through the streets and out of Gracias...there was a major traffic jam heading into Gracias as we were leaving...or so i thought. Turns out, that was the queue for the caravana hahaha! The whole way down to the end of the queue, we were shouting and honking the horn and celebrating and shouting “PE-PE, PE-PE cambio ya!” which means ‘Pepe, change is coming’ or something along those lines. So we were all celebrating and shouting, and music was blaring and horns were honking, and we waited in the queue for about 20 minutes til it started moving... and then we were away. Holly, Emma, Suli and the other kitchen worker hopped up and they all held onto my jeans waistband to stop themselves from falling over when the car started moving each time. We flew through the streets, which were PACKED full of people, full of cars...at one point, we were at a crossroads, waiting. Coming over the other side of the crossroads were about 60 motorbikes and quadbikes, all flying Pepe flags and honking their horns! It was a sight to behold! And we just whizzed through the streets, smiling at the pedestrians and waving...so nice when they waved back at me :) that was a really amazing experience, but the sad part was that we had just run out the house last minute to hop into the car, and no one grabbed a phone or camera to film or take photos :( still, the memories are in my brain so that’s good!
It was SO communal and patriotic, and i was just imagining if something incredible happened in Scotland how we’d go about celebrating...i reckon the Scots would all just get really drunk and sway merrily, chanting ‘Oh Flower of Scotland’ in a very drunken manner ahaha...bless. I’ve decided that if Scotland ever wins a world cup or something, i’ll call everyone i know and start a Glasgow caravana! Haha...
That evening, there was a street party, and they had set up an open air disco with massive speakers, and multicoloured lights. Holly, Emma, Me and Yolanda went, and loads of people asked for dances from us. I didn’t really want to dance like an idiot with some sweaty guy so i refused everytime, but Holly found a cutie to dance with, and Yolanda and Emma found... guys of sorts haha. Funny thing was, the men asked me first and when i said no they moved onto the others HAHA...okay, kidding.
I was standing dancing to myself with Emma and Holly, when someone tapped my shoulder and i turned round, ready to say no thanks for the dance...and i honestly couldn’t believe my eyes. It was the HORRIBLE CREEPY PERVERT FROM THE BUS. Remember that creep who wouldn’t stop blowing kisses at me and stroking my shoulder? Yeah, that horrible *insert swear word* was standing grinning drunken and toothy at me and i didn’t realise how rude i could sound, even in another language. I had obviously been smiling and stuff from being with Emma and Holly and dancing, but as soon as i turned and saw what was looking at me, this horrendous glare appeared on my face, i could feel it, and i just said ‘no, ADIOS’ with so much conviction, i couldn’t tell whether he was thoroughly offended or just had his pride hurt. But it was like i lost my mind for a moment, i just remembered what it was like on the bus, what he had done and my disgust for him was so apparent, i don’t even know if he recognised me as ‘that gringa’. I could have been any gringa. Ufft. So that put a downer on the dancing for a moment, and when i spotted him staring at me from the other side of the road i was just so annoyed, but luckily he disappeared after a bit.
So i was still partnerless, when suddenly a little woman came along and started dancing beside me! I thought she was tiny, like properly tiny, up to my chest pretty much... and then i realised NAW JEN, ITS A CHILD. So i realised the tiny woman was actually a little girl who had come to dance with me, she was so funny and she taught me some Honduran dancing, bless her. And there was this tiny wee boy who was with her too, but i think he was a little scared of the giant gringa so he left. This wee girl was so funny, and at least she stopped the other men asking me to dance. That cheered me up, she was having so much fun :) then Yolanda came over and we had to go home, so we all headed back up the road towards Holly’s.
We were walking along the road, and a wee dog crawled under someones garage door, and was trotting along beside us, and Yolanda did something to upset it, and the dog came RUNNING AT US barking. I mean, it was so small if it started attacking one of us we could have kicked it away like a football (i’m not into animal cruelty, don’t get me wrong, but the possibility of an animal, rabid or not, chewing on my ankle is not pleasant thanks). So we ran from this dog, it calmed down, and when we looked back to see where it was, it got all pissed at us and came running after us again. Eventually we got rid of it and arrived home...exhausted, and Emma and i had to get the early bus back to San Juan the following morning!
Anyway, i’ll write more soon... this is a really long blog again, i do apologise. I think they’re getting longer and longer...
Thanks for reading, talk soon!
Love, Jen xxx

new new NEW

Okay so the last time i updated this, we had just visited the little house with the 2 rooms in it, the Canadian woman, and Mercedes’ soon to be house. We after all of that, we decided to opt for the 2 rooms, but OH NO that didn’t actually happen. The next day, we moved into a ‘hotel’ about 10 mins from the school... a little room with a double bed, a single bed, and a toilet. I got the double cos emma wanted the wardrobe thing for her clothes...yes mine are all over the floor again. JOKING they’re in my suitcase. It’s supposed to be temporary accommodation because we were meant to move into Mercedes’ new house in ten days... i can’t see that happening. I refuse to empty my rucksack and pack a dirty rickety metal bar ‘wardrobe’ for just 10 days (though i should really know better by now...we’ll probably be located in the hotel for a lot longer than ten days, now that we are fully aware of ‘Honduran time’. So we were a bit disappointed at moving into the hotel we hadn’t even seen, when we explicitly got back to Mercedes within her time limit saying we wanted the 2 rooms... that failed. We’re cramped in a hotel room now, oh joy, for goodness knows how long. We were meant to have a TV, Mercedes claims to be paying for one, but one has not arrived in our room yet. Our shower was broken for the first 3 days because the tap just spun round, it was not attached to anything... and so the man came to fix it one night at like 9pm...claimed he would be back tomorrow with a new tap for it, and the woman said she’d come back the next day with our TV. So far none of these things have happened paha. I hate this disorganisation, how do people survive?!
Anyway... the last blog i posted was over a week ago i think, when we dropped into the internet cafe here in San Juan for the first time... it broke down prematurely so the photos are still not on facebook unfortunately. I’ve got loads though so keep watching! I’ll try and put some of the better ones on this too :)
Wednesday evening, we came back to the hotel, and i tried to get to sleep with no luck. A fever developed from nowhere, i was shivering and sweating, my head felt like it was going to explode and i was vomiting from both ends... :( i didn’t get any sleep that night and so i couldn’t teach the next day, i kept hyperventilating too which wasn’t so good... we thought i might have malaria, but the following day i took a good few paracetamol and my temperature dropped. I didn’t eat anything so the bodily expulsions stopped too, but all the other symptoms persisted. Its Saturday now, and i had a bit of a pot noodle last night, which was a bad move, and then i had an apple this morning cos i was soooooo hungry. Haven’t eaten anything else and its 3pm but my tummy keeps growling at me... i feel exhausted all the time too. Meanwhile, Mercedes has bogged off to Gracias for the day so i can’t get a hold of her to check me out, she just keeps telling me to rest. I need someone to blooming diagnose me alright its day 3 right now and i’m not feeling significantly better! My only consolation is that i’m getting slimmer at an alarming rate considering i’ve not eaten for 4 days. Joy, cos its all going through me too. Any thoughts? I’m really tired all the time too cos i’ve got no food for energy, cos it just comes right back out one way or another (i apologise for the amount of information, but this is all part of the fun of my Honduran experience, just wanna share it all with the masses...).
Anyway, hopefully things will get better in the next few days. I was gutted i couldn’t teach on Thursday or Friday, i had a great lesson planned as well! And another positive thing that has changed while we’re here, Mercedes’ daughter Andrea is at the school with us now too, so she’s taking one of the year groups... we’ve got more students now so Mercedes has split the students into 3 year groups, and we teach each one for an hour each day :) its good that way, and my favourite are still the eldest ones. There are 2 boys, Jordy and Kevin (AAHAHA what names, never expected them here, but the names are pretty funny...there is a Jennifer, an Emma, a Jerry...) who speak French fluently so they’re pretty good to chat with midway through the class, especially if someone doesn’t understand something. You can just say it to them in French, and they will translate it into Spanish for the class... saves me and Emma embarrassing ourselves with poor Spanish accents taking words straight out the dictionary haha :) the thing that pisses me off now, is that Mercedes has decided that because Jordy is only 11, he has had to be put down into the middle grade, with the wee kids. That really annoys me, because he is the most intelligent student in the school, he was top of the eldest class (which you have to be 12 for, according to Mercedes...) and i regularly have to run through to the next class to ask him something! He’s a brilliant kid :)
What do i do in the afternoon here? Well we teach until around 12ish, then we casually take a stroll down to the cafe (well, i did before i got sick...) have our lunch, and wander back either to the hotel or the school. If the weather sucks we go to the hotel and watch a movie on my laptop or something, but if it’s nice then we come to the school and sit at the back and tan while listening to music or whatever. We then plan our lessons for the following day, and wait patiently for dinner time. Then we stroll down to the cafe, get our dinner, and depending on whether Andrea/Ernesto/Mercedes/Sergio is energetic enough they’ll come with us too, if not, we bring back all their food as a takeaway haha. Oh well that’s just how it is. The evenings...we go to bed so early (which i was initially gutted about because i just never went to bed before like 2am back home, so here, going to bed at around half 9 seems SO early, but then again we’re up before 7 here for school... so it makes sense, and i feel pretty good for the amount of sleep. Emma sleeps SO much as well haha...) and we might watch a movie or something (our supply is dwindling rapidly. Bittorrent in Honduras is not fast enough to provide us with enough new movies either...what on earth will we do in this boring place when we run out of movies?!).
This does sound particularly boring...the day goes reasonably fast i guess, but it’s definitely boring, nothing like the Bay islands. The boys can just go for a swim WHENEVER they want, they can play beach football if they want, they can walk Bingo the stray dog, or hitch a ride to the pool bar...but here we have pretty much nothing to do :( I’ll have to ask Mercedes about what ‘attractions’ there are here. i’ve spotted a kind of games arcade... about 8 tvs with some form of games consol attached (haven’t checked what yet, probably SegaMegaDrive...) but like either of us will go there... its kinda frustrating. We’re contemplating what we can do at the weekends... i think we’re supposed to be going to Lepaera next weekend for ‘graduation’ ahhaa... yes, it’s a bit of a farce, it’s like moving from p2 – p3 deserves some massive celebration. So that’s what we’re doing next weekend i think. The following weekend i think we’re going to head down to Gracias to meet up with Holly for a bit, might stay over at Fronny’s hotel again which will be nice :) We’re going to plan our Christmas and New Year holidays... think we’re all going to try and get down to Roatan again and just chill there for Christmas, then maybe go back to La Ceiba (the port on the mainland) to celebrate New Year. We’ve heard that La Ceiba is the party city, so hopefully that will be good fun! And there will be a big group of us too so that’s good :)
Our days off are just Saturday and Sunday. School is weekdays from 8-12, so that’s quite tiring, and its nice to relax at the weekend, would be nice if we could find more to be doing though. I’ve decided i’m going to try and paint a mural on one of the school walls because its sooooooooo boring looking. Just grey walls inside, they need some colour! That will be a nice secondary thing to do, i might even paint more than one mural. And my goodness my artistic skills have improved significantly since arriving here, you’ve got to draw millions of little objects for the pupils so that they can associate it with the Spanish word. I can now draw cheese more expertly than i ever thought possible.
As for Spanish, its going alright i guess, i’ve kinda hit a brick wall because we don’t have enough resources. I’m going to write to some people still at school and get them to forward me some of their Spanish stuff cos i need the equivalent of what we did in French, but in Spanish, for me to learn more. WORKSHEETS please :)
And on Roatan, yeah, the water goes deep from the dock, and progressively gets shallower til it reaches the reef, then obviously gets deep again. We didn’t have a snorkel or goggles at the time unfortunately so we didn’t see anything, and i didn’t go too close to the coral because i could have sustained a major injury, i already got a few cuts and stings from the sea which was annoying but hey.
[Point to add... i’m sitting on one of the beds in the school, the back door is open, and i can see through the curtain of this room out into the garden, i’m the only person in the school, and all of a sudden a MASSIVE golden thing comes into my eye-line through the curtain... i sneak out to the backdoor to look at it... A BLOOMING BOY COW HAS BROKEN INTO OUR GARDEN TO EAT OUR GRASS. I was contemplating closing the back door in case it wanted to come into the house, but i got near the door and it saw me and gave me such an evil eye. I was freaking out because i retreated into the casa again and realised there are no doors at all so if it does come into the house i’m screwed. Remember those wee primary tables you get, the ones that are lower than your knees to the ground? They are my only weapon against ‘man cow’. Luckily Emma has just returned and the cow is down the bottom end of the garden now. I feel safer now haha... shall keep you informed of the cow state of play as the story progresses...]
Stephen obviously doesn’t read the blog well enough. The local men wear cowboy hats and dirty jeans and suit shirts that are also dirty. The women just wear like t-shirts and long swishy skirts, and they do actually carry baskets on their heads, it’s quite a skill! I’ve been trying to find an opportunity to take a photograph of a wee wrinkly Honduran lady with a basket on her head as some authentic image, but they’re always surrounded by people who have the strength to rob me haha. Guess i’ll just have to wait for the right opportunity!
As for gadgets and stuff... if you are a white person walking around, you are already conspicuous (unless you’re on the bay islands in which case there are millions of gringos...) but on the mainland, white people are few and far between, ESPECIALLY up in the wee mountains where some people have never even seen a white person. So if you walk around waving a mobile phone, even if it’s the most old fashioned brick in existence that any Honduran would be ashamed to be seen with, it still makes you even more conspicuous, and a higher target for robbery. They don’t really have iPods... a lot of them have sony ericsson’s so they put their songs on that and plug earphones in, but only on the long safe bus rides (without stops...direct buses). Everyone has mobiles, i’ve only ever seen 2 phones with any resemblance to blackberry’s or iPhones, because the majority of the mobiles are old bricks without colour screens, mono ringtones, and the original snake... we just have to be more cautious because theft and muggings are common enough as it is, without giving anyone an excuse to rob you!
[point to add: another cow has joined him and they are both eating our grass. I’ve chosen to ignore them.]
A luxury item in Honduras... probably a bath tub. Hot running water is definitely a plus, and a washing machine is like WOOOOOOOAH. TVs are completely staple, everyone survives on TV up here in the mountains, which is partly why Emma and i are so rage, because our hotel hasn’t provided us with ours yet, and we’re bored out our boxes. I suppose jewellery would be luxury, but i have not really seen anyone with any one, apart from Mrs Araselli (the woman who owned our house back in Lepaera, the rich one). We walked in on a pampering session in her lounge, she was having her hair re-dyed, her nails painted, the full shebang. We didn’t know where to look, but it was good cos we got our nails painted too :) oh how i miss that house :( alcohol is most certainly not a luxury here. not really heard ANYTHING of wine, in all honesty, never seen anyone drinking it. Up here in the little towns, its pretty much unheard of, a woman buying alcohol. In the bigger towns and the big cities its not a big deal, though the alcohol is just hideous. You can get Bacardi but you’re gonna pay a lot for that. Plata is the name of the cheap, minging rum that pretty much makes you hallucinate! So alcohol is really not a luxury. I’d say freco is a luxury (coca cola). A house that doesn’t leak is unheard of too, i think. I haven’t really witnessed any luxury other than our wonderful home in Lepaera. We’re going back next weekend (getting clothes washed much?) so that will be nice hahaha ;)
Why is one exclamation mark never enough... i don’t have a clue why the Spanish insist on putting and upside down question/exclamation mark at the start of the sentence as well as the regular one at the end... maybe its because they don’t really have questions, they say statements and add a raised inflection at the end to imply it is a question..so i reckon when its written down you can’t read it’s a question, so they introduce it as a question at the start with an upside down symbol, and then incase it’s a really long statement they remind you again that it’s a question by adding another symbol. That is probably completely false but it’s my theory.
I have not seen any Indian/Korean/Japanese food here (but at the same time, i’m stuck up a mountain so its a lot harder to reach anything universal from here...) but we did get FRIED RICE for dinner one night. it had prawns and chicken and beef in it, and it was definitely from a Chinese takeaway. We got it in Lepaera, our family just whipped it onto the table and we sat mesmerised for a good minute trying to figure out if we were hallucinating or not...but nah there is not really any takeaway food. We did go to a Chinese restaurant the other day, in Gracias which was AMAZING. The food was served in portions enough for at least 3 people... we were so full and i could barely move. Because we decided to see if we could eat ALL the food on the table... we managed but it was sheer gluttony! There is a pizza hut in San Pedro Sula bus station which has our custom every time we’re at the station. YUM.
[and now the cows have left, clearly satisfied. What a relief! I didn’t want my cause of death to read ‘massacred by hungry cow’...]
Sport? Are you kidding? Ahaha... yeah i suppose soccer is a big one, Honduras is in the world cup so they’re all celebrating after each friendly match. I couldn’t sleep one night in Honduras for the amount of music blaring. Laura was here the night Honduras made it into the world cup, and she said everyone just jumped into their cars and sped around the town calling out and stuff! Would have been a sight to see! More to add on that later ;) At least we’ll be around for the world cup. Funny thing is, Honduras were knocked out by Northern Ireland one year, so Emma is keeping her head down at the moment haha... oh we shall see. What a miracle it would be if Honduras made it to the final PAHAHHAHAHA.
There is seemingly a cinema in Santa Rosa de Copan. I don’t know if that’s a city or a town, but it’s big. It’s got one, and i presume the cities all have cinemas, but NO CHANCE would i find a cinema in San Juan or Lepaera. The nearest thing i’d get to a cinema is some wee woman with her front door open and her tv playing a movie with uk subs, charging a lemp on entry (which doesn’t happen incase you were wondering).
As for entertainment, i made that pretty clear earlier on, NADA. Nothing.
Am i getting a tan ;) well yeah it’ll be good by the time i come home. I’m going a nice bronze colour which makes a nice change from being pale. It reminds me of my childhood, brown face, red cheeks. Attractive.
Okay, as for the postal situation... i live way up in the mountains and we do not have a post office, nor do they deliver up here. The mail is delivered to the post office in Gracias, so i can send mail from there, and receive it. It takes about 4 weeks to arrive anywhere...(BAWZ). I have managed to get my hands on an address though so feel free to send a wee package out or a letter if you get the chance, it would be REALLY nice to get a letter...things are so bland around here sometimes.
Jennifer Hepburn
Rdo Magdalena Martinez
Casa 1
Barrio Marielena
Gracias
Lempira
Honduras
CA
What do i miss from home ... :(
I miss people A LOT. I miss mum for her nagging that actually gets stuff done. I actually have to do it myself here, and i’m still finding it difficult (especially with the current financial crises i have found myself in, where the bank has frozen my internet banking, and my card so i can’t get a hold of any money at all, and ive run out pretty much). I’ve been calling on her day and night (via internet) to help me try and sort this out seeing as i can’t afford to call home :(
I miss stephen’s cooking, and his witty banter (though i’m getting a decent sized dose in the emails i receive from him, which is...refreshing haha). I could murder a roast chicken dinner SO BADLY. Oahahahhdheiofkdd YUM.
I miss Tom’s cheeky hilarious banter, and i’m gutted i’m missing out on white russian’s with Matt!! :(
I miss Molly, my grandma’s kitten which a) wont remember me when i get back and b) wont be a kitten when i get back. I miss Grandma and going with her to Uncle Bill and Aunt Anne’s for the most amazing spag bol and salad ever.
I miss Jilly because she’s so fun and keeps me happy when sad things happen, and she’s really amazing to hang out with when i’m just wanting OUT and somewhere happy and safe and relaxing :) i don’t miss her empty fridge (teehee).
I miss kirsty and Katie who are miles away in Edinburgh. I miss Louisa, though her photo album is AWESOME and makes me very happy :) i miss Kirsten’s hilarious banter, though i’m getting a good amount through facebook which is a relief! I miss all the girls.
I miss Kev cos let’s be honest there’s no one like him ahha. We have the same ridiculous sense of humour which is so refreshing when you’re used to the same CRAP everyone comes up with. ‘Mate, why you going to the House of Commons? Cos you’re COMMON AS MUCK!’
I miss too many people to put in this. I shouldn’t have mentioned anyone cos you’re all gonna get your niknaks in a twist at not being mentioned, but i’ll get y’all on facey, HAVE SOME UNDERSTANDING FOR ME PLEASE. I miss everyone, but i’ll be with you soon enough :)
I really miss being able to download awesome music FAST. I miss not being able to see New Moon in the cinema. I miss not being able to make a tuna sandwich whenever i want, and i miss seafood pasta. Infact, i just miss seafood! I miss pasta pesto, sushi, and a massive pizza.
I miss a permanent residence. I’ve lived in someone elses house for 2 weeks, i lived in a school for a week, and i am now living in a hotel. I want my own room and my own bed. I want to look out of my window over Highburgh Road and people watch, and laugh when i see so many people i know passing my window in such a short space of time. I miss walking up to Ashton Lane. I miss going to Sauchiehall Street. I miss all the people i have fun joking with. I miss going to gigs. I miss live music that isn’t cheesy poppy crap that they play in Honduras with 4 chords for every song, played on the keyboard. I miss my guitar. I miss the view of the Cottiers church steeple from the skylight in my room.
I miss decent shopping, and i miss fashion. I miss being able to get dressed up at night and go out dancing and enjoy looking pretty. I miss looking at the memories and pictures stuck to my wall. I miss the twinkly lights at the end of my bed. I miss being able to pick up my mobile and text anyone i want, or call anyone i want and meet them just because i want to, because i’m bored, because i need to talk. I miss getting the 44 and hopping off the stop after the rock, to go to my house.
There are so many things i miss. But at the same time, i am not sad.
I might feel a bit gutted from time to time that i wont be getting any of the things for another 8 months or so... but my happiness at what i am gaining by being here, and experiencing everything i am completely outweighs my sadness at missing out on life at home. This is a dream which i have made come true. I wont ever detract from the experiences i’m having here, because even the bad ones are teaching me to be a better, bigger person! No matter what i face, it will always result in a positive learning curve after it has passed...
Anyway, i hoped this would be shorter as it’s only a couple of days since my last one, but hey. Sorry if this one is crap but i thought i’d answer some questions :)
Take care and we’ll talk again soon :D
Love, Jen xxx

aaaaaaaah

Hey guys :)
Firstly i have to let you know that the internet cafe in Lepaera is very temperamental and basically stops working for the majority of each day. I’m trying my best to update this as often as i can though!
What’s happened since my last entry... Well the family we are currently staying with are so wonderful! They’re lovely and friendly and fun and caring. The two kids, Helene and Jose Luis are wonderful too...last week we were sitting in our room, beside the big living room with the hifi and MASSIVE tv when i heard the two kids and the maid (also called Helene, though we refer to her as Helene Grande so that we can distinguish them haha...) listening to music on the hifi. It was the first time i’d heard it being used and that thing was incredible. I’m going to put some photos on the computer of their stuff cos its outta this world! So i threw some cheesy pop songs that i thought they would know (a bit of Enrique and Shakira, some Black Eyed Peas and a bit of Britney) onto my memory stick and plugged it into the USB port of the hifi and we started dancing around like loonies! It was so fun :) theyre such lovely people and we had so much fun :) Stephy might remember when we played that game where you lift someone with just your index fingers? I tried that on Helene Grande and managed to lift her, and the amazing part is that we had to explain how to do this without actually being able to understand each other! It was so fun and we made it work. The look of shock on the family’s face when it worked was priceless haha :) i felt so chuffed.
Thoroughly raging currently though... Mercedes (the woman who owns the little school in Lepaera where the kids are so lazy...) has told us that she is moving us out of Lepaera into another village about an hour and a half away called San Juan, where she has opened a new school. Emma and i are pretty upset about this. We love where we live, we love the town and we love the people. Everything was great. Emma is quite easily swayed by things, like she puts all her hope into something and when it doesn’t work out she gets pretty upset...and for that reason we made a pretty solid grounding at our home in Lepaera. We tried to make it seem as stable as possible so that Emma’s transition to our new surroundings was as smooth and comfortable as possible, and that worked out pretty well for me too! The annoying thing about all this is that we are now moving out TOMORROW.
(Updated on Monday 16th Nov)
Last Sunday we travelled to San Juan on the back of a truck again (increeeeeeedible). It had an upside down single bed + mattress and a picnic table at the bottom of it, tied on with ropes. Emma and i were sitting on the bed, looking at the road behind us, for an hour and a half at about half 10 at night.i lay on the bed looking up at the stars in the mountains, and they were truly incredible. The thought that at night, you can look out your window wherever you are, and depending on clouds, see the exact same stars i’m seeing... i find that awesome :) they looked beautiful and i think i wasted a good twenty minutes just staring at them!
It did rain a little so that was a bit annoying but i was all prepared and wrapped up in my grandma’s blue cagoule so i was safe. The bed, however, wasn’t so happy. When we arrived, a tad windswept, the single bed turned out to be mine and emma’s, between us + no pillow. Great.
We went into the school building (unfinished, no lights in the building, no doors on the rooms, no door on the TOILET!) and honestly i thought we’d just as well break down on the spot. The outlook seemed so bleak, which it was. A single bed between us was not good, especially when we didn’t actually get to sleep until around 1am (along with a horrendously broken night’s sleep, no pillow and a tiny blanket between us) to then get up at about 7am. We felt awful, and started snapping at each other, and everyone around us. A lot of things went a bit wrong in the school in San Juan. There was no kitchen so our first dinner was bread + butter and coke. Basically we lived off takeout food and sandwitches for 3 days. No fruit, no veg, no water (because they couldn’t be bothered buying any...) and just EVERYTHING LOOKS BLEAK RIGHT NOW. I am not looking forward to tomorrow.
So, Monday morning could have been better in that respect...the one thing that is going to get me through this is the children. They are absolutely wonderful and so much better than the kids in Lepaera! These kids actually wanted to learn, they were eager and funny and just such a pleasure to teach. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes they misbehaved and were a real nightmare, but they were just such a pleasure to carry me through a bad day. I find it more difficult to teach the really young ones, as they obviously have a much shorter attention span than the older group...and the really annoying thing is that Mercedes makes us do an hour and a half lesson from 8 – 9.30am, give the kids a half hour break for their breakfast, and then back to teaching from 10 – 12noon...no other breaks. That is a horrendous thing for 5 & 6 year olds to have to deal with, and for Emma and i to reap their lack of motivation after half an hour! So i intersperse the lessons with a few sing-song things, maybe a game... its helps so much, though i don’t know what Mercedes thinks of it. I think she just wants us to plough on, learning or no learning. That’s what she wanted in Lepaera and honestly that was the crappest idea she ever had (i hope she’s not reading this, but we have a few problems right now and she’s really being insensitive and demanding, not at all understanding....though i should be a bigger person than to bitch about it. OH WELL).
Anyway, we returned on the Tuesday, took the bus to Gracias with Sergio and Ernesto (Mercedes husband and son), where they dropped us off to back to San Juan, for me and Emma to take our first bus ride alone. It could have gone a little better... some strange man came on and sat infront of us, to the side a tad, so he could see directly up and down the bus. He then asked me where i was going and i was just like ‘nooooo’ and he was like ‘you going to Guatemala?’ and i’m like ‘no entiendo’ (which means i don’t understand) and his response was ‘Ingles’ (English). Suddenly 2 youngish guys came on the bus, one sat directly behind us, and one opposite, and the first man thought it would be funny to shout and laugh in Spanish over our heads to these other 2 guys, making Emma and me very uncomfortable. We were going to move towards the front of the bus more, but there was no space unless it was infront of the first guy, and honestly i would rather not have had all of them behind me! I sat there shaking literally, all these thoughts were running through my head about what they could potentially do to us... the 2 men who came on laterally moved and sat beside the first man, and kept turning and looking at us, and there was so little space between us. I felt horrendously uncomfortable. Eventually our stop approached and we literally RAN off the bus, our knees shaking. It was not nice. We’d been warned about the situation of the buses, and i am always cautious but some things are unavoidable...like another experience i had which i will talk about later.
ANYWAY, once we arrived back in Lepaera, we went to get ourselves organised to travel to Roatan the following day! We were so excited, but the taxi which was supposed to take us first thing in the morning the next day wouldn’t be around, so we had to travel back to Gracias (to get the early morning bus to San Pedro Sula, where we would get our connecting bus to La Ceiba, the port) the just a couple of hours after we arrived back in Lepaera. We got a lift from Mercedes fellow Jahova friends (Mercedes’ whole family are Jahovas...) who drove us to Gracias, me and Laura on the back of a flatbed again, this time facing the front (mouthful of flies..ew). We slept over at this friend’s house, the family were so hospitable, cooked us tortilla con queso from scratch (basically a cheese tortilla sandwich, fried) and gave us freco (fizzy juice...LOVED by everyone here) and we went to sleep, up at 4.30 the next morning for the early bus. The journey to San Juan passed so fast because we all fell asleep haha! Though at one point, the bus was stopped by the traffic police, all the men were taken off, searched, and the bus was searched too. Strange experience...We slept on the journey to La Ceiba too...though that bus was rather different, with more gringos than Hondurans (a gringo is an American man, gringa is an American woman, though it has now been adapted to cover any white person). All the gringos were SO TANNED from living on the islands, and Emma and i felt rather gutted about our lack of colour.
We arrived at the port, in La Ceiba, and waited for our ferry, scared it would not depart due to torrential rain. It did, however...and that was hilarious. The weather was ATROCIOUS so the ferry was literally being thrown about by the waves! Emma claimed to be sea-sick, i knew i don’t get sea-sick, and Laura was like ‘nah i never get sick’ and about ten minutes into the hour-long journey Laura turned horrendously green and vanished to the toilet, not to return until the end of the trip! Emma held up fine, and personally, I enjoyed it haha! It was like a rollercoaster. We arrived on Roatan, and got a taxi to the other boys’ house on the island. Ian and Sean are 2 volunteers who live on Roatan, though they were away travelling when we arrived, so we went to Sandy Bay to hang out with Adam and Casey (nicknamed CaseyAdam). When we met them off the main road, due to the bad weather, Roatan was in blackout, so we walked along the path in the pitch black which was exciting, as the next day it looked COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. They live ON THE BEACH in a little wooden house with 2 rooms and a toilet. They have a hammock hanging out on the porch, and a stray dog that they have adopted as their own, called Bingo :) he’s a beauty, and so friendly and caring! He took to us immediately as well. The first night we all sat in their lounge/kitchen/dining room, and talked about all the things they had encountered in their last 3 months of being here. They had some SERIOUS school scandals hahaha, the life on Roatan is pretty dangerous and risky, yet incredibly fun (something San Juan and Lepaera lack...fun). I was incredibly jealous of the experiences they’d had, but when we talked about some of ours they seemed to think they were pretty cool too...maybe our lives here aren’t soooo bad haha...!
I feel i should tell all of what happened the following day... CaseyAdam’s toilet had been pre-blocked by some of the other volunteers who went to visit them... and basically it was a tad temperamental. So Emma and i went to the bathroom...and the bog wouldn’t flush. It just refused to drain after flushing! So we were like WTH do we do!? We tried to flush it again which was a big mistake as it just rose....so Emma took a cup, a bucket, and literally scooped the ‘water’ out of the toilet, into the bucket, and then down the shower (shower’s aren’t anything like they are at home. It’s literally a hole in the floor that lets the water run out to the ground below the house). So this happened, and we managed to empty MOST of the contents of the toilet... we left it about an hour (the boys were teaching you see) and so Emma and Laura decided to flush the toilet...bad move. It filled up again, with MURKY HORRIBLE DIRTY POOEY WATER again. Emma emptied it again... and we decided it was time to go and enjoy the nice sunny day! So we left the house and went to the little baleada hut to get our lunch... a teeny wee hut on the beach about a 30 second walk from CaseyAdam’s house. It was YUM. 15 Lempiras (lemps) for a baleada?! Brilliant! I’ll explain food and stuff later though, Stephen asked about stuff like that so i’ll let you know at da ennnnd. So we ate some food, and sat on one of the little piers and sunbathed for a while, Bingo sat with us which was nice. I went back to the house to get some lemps for a freco, and i went in and checked on the toilet...which was gradually filling up NOT COOL. I emptied it, and watched the water trickling from the cistern into the bog and filling up. So we had to take a half hour rotation to empty the bog or it would have flooded the floor :( the boys returned and we explained it (they blamed us obviously) so they called their landlord who came out later on. Meanwhile we all went back to a different pier and we went diving off and swam in the beautiful sea! It was absolutely amazing :) so happy about that...great fun. We returned and the landlord explained that the toilet was NOTHING to do with us, he had a septic tank which had been there for 14 years...and was basically full! He turned off the water to the house so it stopped filling up and we just enjoyed our evening.
Friday, the boys were teaching again but only for a half day. I felt really unwell, sick and with a terrible cough (which i still have, and as i write this, Andrea, Mercede’s daughter, brought me in a cup of bitter tea to help with my bark! The whole family is ill...) so i slept the morning away, but i felt much better for it! The boys finished teaching, and we walked up to meet them from school...
Previously, CaseyAdam had told us about a little boy called Ozney who is just SUCH A CHARACTER :) He came up with the name CaseyAdam....he thinks they’re both called that! He’s a wee thing who just clambered all over Casey, on his shoulders, round to his side. Casey was literally a climbing frame haha! Ozney has a thing about chickens...so when he sees one he just stops whatever he is doing and in a unrealistically deep voice for something like a 5 year old...he says CHAAAKAAAANNNN and runs at them! It was something you just had to see, but he was so sweet. The devastating part of this is that Ozney has HIV, and both of his parents have died from it. It’s so sad...yet i felt so happy to have met him, and as the boys said, he is literally the most fun thing in their day. They love him to bits and he brings the sun out for them every day.
We dropped Ozney off at home, and we hitched a ride up to a pool bar nearby. It was SO AMERICAN i felt i was betraying myself by being there! But it was a really nice trip. The swimming pool was fun, as the weather wasn’t too good it started raining but we could have a drink while we were in the pool which was just brill :) really nice! We met a friend of CaseyAdam’s who told us some very sad information about her husband’s recent murder on the island. It was traumatic...
That evening we came back to CaseyAdam’s house, not our hotel, and sat in their hammock. For some reason, Casey was reading The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe on the hammock...which we then took turns to read aloud to the rest of our group! It was funny because everyone had their own reading habit haha... it was fun!
The following day the boys had their final SCUBA exam, and we had to get the ferry at 7am back to the mainland so that Laura could get her flight the following day. When we got to San Pedro we had to say bye to her, and travel home to Lepaera on our own, nothing went wrong thankfully. We spent the night packing and hanging out with our lovely family for the last time, as we travelled to San Juan the following day (Sunday), by ourselves again. We’re not too bad at dealing with this Honduran transport...though it went a bit wrong for me...i was so unhappy. We arrived at the crossroads near Lepaera to get the bus to Gracias, then onto San Juan. When we arrived at the crossroads, carrying ALL OUR BELONGINGS, we could barely carry them. We tried to clamber on the bus and a Honduran guy gave me a hand with the really heavy bag (thought nothing of this, as they did that for me every single journey i took, the first time it took me by surprise but they are all very helpful to everyone which i was pleased to witness)...so he sat on the single seat beside my bag which i was initially unhappy with as i wanted to sit with it myself OBVIOUSLY, usually they just leave it for you on a spare seat and you sit down with it...but not this creep. He sat next to it, and i had to sit in the single seat infront of him with my laptop bag and a plastic bag full of shoes and clothes that i couldn’t fit in my suitcase... and then he started tapping my shoulder. I thought fine, turn round to see what he wanted and he was giving it all ‘i love you will you marry me?’ and blowing kisses at me, and I’m like CRAP we’d been taught about them doing this (a police car had already pulled up to me in Lepaera once to propose to me....not the car, the man in it obviously haha). I said ‘no adios’ meaning ‘naw goodbye YA CREEP’ and he continued to stroke my shoulder. I felt incredibly uncomfortable and tried to stand up but the thing about Honduran drivers is that they are MANIACS so the bus was flying in all angles and i would not have been able to stand and get to Emma, carrying my bags without falling (Emma had sat about 6 rows back because there was no space...) and so eventually as the man kept touching me and expressing his love AFTER ASKING ME TO PAY HIS BUS FARE i just stood up with this mad adrenaline rush, threw my stuff in the seat infront of Emma, marched back down and luckily the man had moved forwards a row and left my bag unattended so i struggled with that to the seat with Emma. My knees were shaking, my hands were shaking, and i felt so disgusting...i’ve never even been treated that way at home, and it was horrible, so many people were staring at him disgustedly and i think he got the point. He was an ugly creep into the bargain. Old and toothless and disgusting. EWWWWWWWWW. But he got off the bus, and i got off in Gracias, and onto the people carrier to San Juan. I felt so much better once he’d got off. Bah, horrible experience. But it’s over now, so nothing to worry about. I will just be extra cautious next time someone helps me with my bag. I still feel that was a one off, but it was just unfortunate, it could have just as easily been Emma if he’d picked up her bag instead of mine, as they were both lying together. But it’s cool, I’m over it.
So then we arrived in San Juan and hung out at the school. A lot of stuff has been sorted out, for example, we have our meals down at a little cafe that one of the pupil’s mum’s owns. So that’s cool...everything is on a tab to be paid by Mercedes haha! Also, we were gifted an inflatable double bed...still no pillow and no cover this time, but i slept in my silk sleeping bag liner ;) after dinner last night we walked to this wee house where a woman had 2 spare rooms Mercedes was maybe going to rent for us, and we walked to a Californian woman’s house, a missionary worker, who lives with her wee cat (so happy about her cat, she was) and looked at her rooms, with the intention of residing there, and the woman, Molly (HAHA GRANDMA ...Molly...your wee kitten. I only just got that) was going to move out. Mercedes was thinking of keeping the house for the next volunteers to come... so we thought it would be cool, but the woman was basically a weirdo and we didn’t wanna live with her for a month til she moved out. So we’ve decided to go with the 2 rooms in the first house for the month to come, and then we might move in with Mercedes (she’s looking at a 5 bedroom house with a BATH TUB omg. It has a bath tub in it...you have no idea how big that is. Serious luxury). We also went to look at the little Bernan shepherd puppies up the road from our possible house, because Sergio would really like one. And i’ve got to admit i would too. I’m thinking of getting one and bringing it back HAHAHA okay mum i’m kidding, it couldn’t live in halls with me. Anyone want a beautiful dog? I wanna call it Muchacha. That’s what we’re called out here...it’s like teenage girls...a flattering term, and i want to call the beautiful puppy that took to me last night Muchacha :) but don’t worry i won’t go through with it...it’s just nice to dream :(
But it’ll be cool when Sergio gets one... i’ll get to hang out with it :) Our neighbour at the school here is due to have twins as well, how sweet.
Now for the questions Stephen has asked me... (if anyone wants to ask anything about the culture i’m in, don’t hesitate!)
What do i eat on a daily basis... well back at our home in Lepaera i would have a cup of lovely local coffee (that’s how Lepaera got its money...and yes Stephen, i will be making good use of your coffee machine when i return, now that i can appreciate the wonders of the stuff!) filled with sugar...that’s what they do to it. Some mornings we might have a little sweet sponge cake type thing. Sometimes we have a baleada (flour tortilla, refried beans and hard cheese... a bolibaleada is one which has egg and sometimes a meat in it too...). we sometimes get the equivalent to hot cross buns with raisins in them :) i feel like i’m missing out on something...i mean we had toast at one point but that’s not so special, maybe i’ll think of it another time :) OH on our first morning, we had cornflakes with HOT MILK. I honestly felt i was going to vomit...it’s not nice so we didn’t ever have it again ahha...
For lunch, yesterday we had a delicious soup with large lumps of lamb in it, very oily though. There were potatoes and carrots and they put rice in the soups too...and i even found LEEK in it! Lunch and dinner is usually interchangeable, we could eat anything for both. Baleadas are so staple here, at least twice a week...and i have learned how to make them from scratch, make the tortilla itself...so yummy, and SO DIFFICULT! I can’t wait to come back and make them at home :) We could also have a pupusa ... its corn tortilla usually with cheese through it, and they could put spicy vegetables on it, tomato, cabbage, onions, jalapeños, and spicy carrot too, usually with refried beans too (known as fricolas). We could have something that looks like a full breakfast...with fricolas, scrambled eggs, a lump of hard cheese with chilli through it, some type of meat, and maybe some fried bananas... theyre very sweet, the bananas, i don’t like them. My favourite meal is fried chicken with TAHADAS! They are green bananas, fried and cut into little oval slices...they’re not sweet either. Oh man they are heavenly :) ...if i can think of anything else we have for dinner i shall let you know in due course. Desert doesn’t really exist here. It could be coffee and a sweet cake, but they don’t really do desert. Usually too bloated from the amount of carbs in each meal. I really think i’m getting fat! But Emma and i have it quite good...Mercedes is a little mean with her helpings so that puts me in a bad mood but at least i’m satisfied yet not pigging out! And for our lunch and dinner at this new little diner we go to, it’s a little walk away, and in the sun it’s pretty good exercise. Things are looking up for our weight!
What is totally different from Glasgow... well it rains a LOT heavier here...puts our constant showers to shame! There are literally no bath tubs, and showers are tiled rectangles that have an open hole to the world below (hence minging smell from sewers). The showers tend to be freezing, not everyone has an electric head on the shower either, so it’s just like a giant tap dropping freezing water on you. There are no public bins, and pretty much no bin collection so people set fire to their waste in the garden or street (smells horrendous). As i said, toilets can’t deal with toilet paper so that goes in a bin beside the loo (or a bag in our current case as they haven’t got round to buying a little bin yet...) there are no fancy cars, everything is practical, the majority of cars have a flatbed at the back for transporting stuff including up to 15 people. People hang out of vehicles while they are moving. Stephen, you would be so proud of the Hondurans...when someone wants out of a bus, it rarely ACTUALLY stops, they just sort of jump out of a moving vehicle, or get hauled on by the ticket man from the side of the road. The men here wear cowboy hats and always have dirty jeans with suit shirts on. Everyone is smaller than me, men included, that’s a BIG difference to Glasgow haha! There are hundreds of ‘newsagent’ equivalents, called pulperias on every corner. You cannot drink the tap water so you can buy bottles, or BAGS. Little rectangular bags teehee! There are hundreds of stray animals, mainly dogs, but loads of horses just hanging at the side of the road. Men gallop through the town whipping horses as they go. There are no pavements, we all walk on the road, and regardless of whether you are actually talking to the driver of the oncoming vehicle on the mobile at the time, they believe it is their duty to honk at pedestrians! Taxis pick up more than just your fare hah! I shall keep my eyes out for other little things which are different... as for the shopping bags people use? Just little mini black plastic things. Everything is hand-washed, though we had it SO LUCKY in our old house, they had a washing machine, and a tumble drier, not to mention the MAID who did it for us!!! Don’t worry, that lifestyle is gone now, raging :( oh, people say things like ‘hola, mucho gusta, adios’ or simply nothing! They tend to be quite rude...when you say gracias for something, they don’t normally respond, but if they do it tends to be ‘baya’ which literally means ‘go’. It’s a rare thing to hear someone say ‘de nada’ meaning, ‘it’s nothing’ as a form of ‘you’re welcome’. I still haven’t heard anyone say anything other than baya. People are a little rude, thinking it’s okay to just ask for something and expect to get it, regardless of whether the person actually has it... someone will want to go a trip somewhere and just invite someone with a car solely so they can get a lift! That’s the type of thing they do here haha...
As for the most disgusting thing i’ve eaten...probably the hot cornflakes. Though i was offered pigs fingers one time but refused (it was the NIGHT I ARRIVED okay!?) i also saw for breakfast one time, it was like kidney beans in milk, like a soup. Not cool. My favourite thing? I love tahadas... the savoury fried banana, with spicy sauce and cabbage :) i love tortilla con queso with cabbage and vegetables too :) honestly, the majority of the food here is delicious...probably because it is ALL fried haha!
So that’s all for the moment... i know that was a long blog, but it was to make up for 2 weeks! I apologise, i have not really been near a computer for ages.
Any questions? Let me know and i will tell y’all!
Missing you all, hope life’s good wherever you are :)
Love, Jen xxx

OHHH YEAH

Hello guys... Sorry it’s been so long since i last wrote...only just over a week though! So much has happened since i arrived here, i don’t know where to begin!
I arrived in San Pedro Sula airport, and the travelling day seemed to take ages... Like i said, i didn’t sleep on Friday night, so i ended up sleeping the majority of the flights which was a relief, they went by pretty fast! At least i know what i need to do for the return flight to make it go a bit faster haha :) We arrived in San Pedro Sula and we were collected by Donny and some of the family. We stayed with Javier and Damaris who were very caring! The poverty was particularly apparent in San Pedro, even within a relatively ‘well off’ family. Our room had a double bunk bed with a single above it, and a single bed beside it. In the family there were 6 members...Javier and Damaris, the parents...and Javier (16), Fernando (14), Damaris (12) and Debora (10) were the children. The two girls slept in the single bed beside ours, and the single bed above ours was unoccupied, covered in clothes etc. When we were heading to bed, i noticed in the parents’ room that the two elder boys were sleeping without covers, pillows or sheets, on the tile floor. I was so shocked and part of me felt so disgusted with myself that the family felt so respectful and responsible for me and Emma that they gave up any form of bedding, so that we could sleep comfortably... though one thing i’ve realised, and am beginning to accept, is that some things cannot be changed. Do not dwell on them, just get on with making the things that can be changed better.
The parents worked during the day for long hours, so we were being looked after by the 4 children. Javier, the eldest child cooked for us some pretty amazing meals! He looked after us really well :) another thing about Honduras is that there are so many tv channels with dubbed british and American movies to watch...and on our first day we were BLESSED with the opportunity of watching Love Actually... for those of you who have seen that movie i’m sure you can imagine that the airport scenes were not particularly what we wanted to see on our first day after leaving our loved ones for 10 months. Still, a good cry did us both well haha...
The 2 nights that we stayed with Javier’s family, we went to a little cafe a few blocks up from their home. It is run by Lourdes, another member of the family (not quite sure who though...we think she’s Damaris’s mother). The first thing i ate that was typically Honduran was a poposa. Thick tortilla with cheese in the centre, deeeeeeply fried. Everything is really really fattening here, and i’ve been informed that i will return a bit chubbier than i left which i am NOT okay with. The food is incredible, but so fattening and full of carbs. They really have barely any fruit around here which is another nightmare. Another local delicacy was pig’s trotters. I couldn’t dare touch them, especially not on my first night, they looked thoroughly unappetising haha... anyway, the little cafe i am referring to was literally a concrete reclangle with a tin roof. They had a mini hifi inside it though, and all the little friends that we had accumulated came in to dance with us to such classic hits as ‘Single Ladies’ by Beyonce, and ‘Boom Boom Pow’ by the Black Eyed Peas. After you have heard these songs on repeat for a week on end they really drive you nuts. Then some traditional Honduran music came on called Punta...the mother Damaris taught me how to dance the Honduran way... basically shake my hips and bum as much as possible and wave my hands around in the air. Seemed to go down pretty well if you know what i mean ;) kidding on i looked like a right idiot but hey, i’m here to learn a culture and if i have to look like a fool to integrate myself then so be it :)
We travelled from San Pedro Sula to Lepaera on the Monday with Lourdes, she came to help us on our journey (and thank GOODNESS she did...Honduran buses are nothing like ours...there are no bus stops, you literally get on and shout at the driver when you want to get off, so we would have had no idea what to do if it hadn’t been for Lourdes). It was a nightmare figuring out what to do, so we just followed Lourdes’ lead as much as possible which was the best thing we could have done. I still don’t understand how Holly (another volunteer staying in Gracias on her own) managed to get from Gracias to the Bay Islands using only public transport on her third week or something! Beyond me.
Anyway, we arrived in Lepaera and met Laura, a volunteer who came for 3 months to teach English at the school we are currently working at, outwith Project Trust. She is from Manchester so it was nice to hear some proper English (even if it’s not the accent i’m used to). We met Mercedes who is one of Damaris’ sisters who runs the bilingual school here that i work in. Mercedes is very good at speaking English so it’s a relief to have a decent translator. We are staying with one of the richest families in Lepaera...they own all kinds of stuff including a liquor store a minute away from the house...which proves to be a tad scary when one is coming home after dark (which happens around 6pm) due to all the drunks who are either passed out on the street, or swaying precariously and muttering foul Spanish words to themselves. However they are usually too drunk to either notice us, or make it over to us in one piece before we have locked ourselves in the house. So no need to panic haha... (i wrote this blog in the house there, came out and i am now checking over it in Mercedes’ house with Laura... the thing is, i left my house alone there to take the 5 minute walk down here, and as soon as i came out the green metal doors onto the street i looked to my left and literally a foot away from me was a drunk man sat down on the ground, swaying onto his knees, and round onto his back... i was so panicked trying to close the gate (which is a right biatch to close, never mind in a hurry) while this drunk Honduran bloke sways in my direction. Was not a pleasant sight experience but i made it down here without him even being aware that i was anywhere near him. Probably couldn’t have said his own name if he was asked to, never mind use any of his limbs).
Anyway, our house is one of the only 3 story homes in Lepaera, and the top floor is ours. We have a large room with a toilet in it, and 2 double beds. There is a huge lounge area with curving corner sofa, the biggest hifi i have ever seen and a huge widescreen tv. One of the things about Honduras is that people do not tend to prioritise very well... the walls are cracked and peeling and stained, the sockets hang off the walls, there is usually one toilet per household (which is not too bad but when there are about 8 people staying in one home it can be a little bit of a nightmare...especially when they run out of toilet paper. Another point to add is that the toilets cannot deal with toilet paper, so ... yeah, it has to go straight in a little bin beside the toilet when you’ve used it. Not to mention when the water runs out in the house and you can’t flush the toilet. Me and Emma have made a pact that we do NOT use our toilet for anything but a number one, should we need something else we go down and use the family’s toilet hahahaha. It’s working well so far for us :P ). Yet they feel it is their obligation to own the biggest car on the planet, the hugest hifi and tv and a new computer. It’s ridiculous.
Annnnnnyway, our first day of teaching was on the Tuesday, the day after we arrived in Lepaera. It was horrible because i was shoved in with the preper (the tiny ones, aged 4 with basically no English, and no concentration either). That proved to be disastrous, though i managed to keep them under control, i don’t think they learned very much. Mercedes and Laura said it wasn’t so bad because they will have learned something, and the wee ones just tend to run away and do something else most of the time. Hondurans are incredibly lazy but in a way that is spurring me on to make them more proactive...so yes mum, i’m not quite as lazy as i was at home, honest... so that afternoon when lessons had finished i spent the whole time interrogating Laura as to what each year group knows now, what they need to know, and what they are like in terms of their ability and work ethic. So Wednesday’s lesson turned out to be miraculously AMAZING. I had prepared my lessons, some worksheets for the classes, a few things for the kids to do when they’d finished their work or they were refusing to concentrate... i was so happy at how it had panned out. I know that Tuesday was not supposed to be a good day...nobody had told us anything and we just had to turn up and teach! Emma didn’t teach the preper for a good few days, and as soon as those lessons ended she looked like she was about to explode, which made me feel better about myself seeing as i knew it wasn’t just me that found them to be a nightmare. Even Laura can’t put up with teaching them for any length of time and she teaches the equivalent to Primary One in Manchester!
So teaching is going pretty well at the moment, preparing each lesson at the end of the day works well for us, as we can all pick up from where we left off :) we take turns teaching the 3 age groups. Preper has 5 kids, Pre Kinder has 2 kids, and Kinder is supposed to have 4, though usually there are only 2 kids... the reason there are so few children at the moment is because the school year has finished, and this is just a type of English summer school that we are running just now. Mercedes is opening up another school on Wednesday in San Juan and she said there would probably be around 25 children in the year groups. She wants me and Emma to move there and teach them, though she is suggesting that one of us stays here and one moves there. Emma is horrified by this idea and i am not very comfortable with it either. Hopefully we won’t have to do that, we’re supposed to be going there tomorrow or Wednesday to figure out what the plan is, though we’re just going to tell her that we’re not separating.
On Friday we planned to go to the nearest big town, Gracias for the weekend. We stayed for free in Hotel Guancascos which is owned and run by Fronny, a Dutch woman who has lived in Honduras for 22 years and is involved in the PT web. There is an American Peace Corp volunteer staying here in Lepaera for 2 years called Darren. He’s a friend of Laura’s and he is fluent in Spanish, so he came with us to help us cope with the buses and locals! We arrived there and as we were walking down the street in Gracias we heard someone shouting Emma and Jen... it was Holly coming back from work and she just happened to see us which was really lucky! She’s complaining about having put on 10 pounds since she’s been here and i don’t blame her...i think ive put on a couple already too :( she came for dinner with us, and told us a bit about what life was like for her, and how her trip to Roatan went. It all sounds pretty amazing, and hopefully we’re going to go to the islands before Laura leaves in 2 weeks time (yeah, Laura’s stay is almost over which is a bit of a shame, hopefully she’ll be coming back in February we think). We ate dinner and sat in the hotel room chatting and listening to music for ages which was nice, then we took holly home. She only lives a 4 minute walk from the hotel!
The following day we went to the natural pools just outside Gracias, just the 4 of us though, Holly had things to do. The weather was kind of grey, which was good because we didn’t want to get burned, nor did we want the place to be too busy. It was lovely, all the naturally heated pools, and very few people in them! It was lovely and we had a great time. When we were done we went to the cafe and sat for a little while, when suddenly a horrendous TORRENTIAL TROPICAL DOWNPOUR started and we knew we were buggered. We were in the downpour for all of 30 seconds and we were soaked through, denims completely drenched back to front. We had to trek uphill from the pools for about 20 minutes in flip flops that didn’t fit, on an uneven dirt track. By the time we reached the top we were soaked through, contents of our bags included. It’s a miracle my electricals made it out alive! We got to the top to wait for a bus and thought it would be better to start walking in the direction of Gracias, torrential downpour still in full force. By this point the main road had turned into a river. We walked along, me, Laura, Emma and Darren, completely soaked and hoping for a hitch on the flatbed of someone’s truck. After walking for about 5 minutes, a car pulled up and we bolted through the downpour and clambered onto the flatbed, no questions asked. This truck’s flatbed did not have a back to it, it was open and we literally could have gone flying out the back as soon as he took off, but i slid a little and grabbed the side of the truck. After i sorted my placement out we were off. It was AWESOME, the driver must have been going about 70 mph and we arrived in Gracias in about 5-10 minutes...the downpour had drizzled out during the car journey and we trekked the 15 minutes from the hospital where he dropped us off, to the hotel.
So that was our experience at the springs, it was awesome!
Now i apologise for the length of this blog...theyre probably all going to be about this length, but this is all the gossip i’ve got for now (you’ll be glad to know). Will update probably in another week or so when more exciting things happen on my Honduran journey :) We’re going to head to Roatan in a couple of weeks so look forward to some great snorkelling chat and some goss from the guys on Roatan!
Speak soon, missing everyone terribly though it might not look like it from this... i’m trying to keep myself as preoccupied as possible to stop myself going mad :( i’m having an incredible time but its true that i’m missing people a lot. Another point to add is that these months will go by pretty fast... as Darren put it so eloquently when i asked him how he felt about being here for 2 years, he said ‘the days go slow, but the weeks go fast’ and that is the most accurate description i could ask for!
See you in some short weeks!
Love, Jen xxx

uh-huh

Hiya allllll,
Well that's it. i'm leaving the country tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn to get a flight down to Heathrow. i'm still not organised properly and it's 11.30pm ... i leave in 5 hours. I'm absolutely terrified to be perfectly honest. It feels as if my subconcious is stopping me from getting there, like it is willing me not to go. Unlucky for my subconcious but i'm pretty definite when i want to do something, so i WILL make it to that airport tomorrow morning in the best condition i can manage haha...
I really am getting very upset at leaving everyone behind. That is what scares and upsets me the most. There are so many people who have influenced my life up to this point in such a wonderful variety of ways that i am terrified to lose any of them. It was my friend Louisa's birthday party tonight and a lot of my old school friends had turned up...people that i used to see every single day, who i haven't seen for a few months. I felt like i was completely isolated, and i felt like i was going to snap. I was not annoyed at anyone, i just felt so tense that i thought i was going to do something ridiculous like turn into The Hulk or something. Seriously...
I honestly don't think i'm going to get any sleep tonight! Every farewell at the party stung and really hurt me so deeply. It's difficult to explain, but although every one of my friends is losing me for a year...they are not losing everyone. I am losing every person i've known in scotland, and that really does make the pain seem so much worse.
Though, i do know that i will be gaining so many more friends out in Honduras. I will gain lifelong friends, and i will meet some incredible people there too. I am going to learn a lot from this year, and that is what is keeping me just on the edge of sanity......
Again, i want to say thank you to every single person who has helped me get to this stage. People have helped in so many ways... The financial support that so many people have offered will never be forgotten, and i believe that by the end of this year i will be completely indebted to you for making this experience possible for me.
I want to thank everyone for their emotional support. My friends have shown a huge amount of respect and admiration for me doing this, and they are also incredibly proud of me. For these gifts to my brain, i will be forever grateful. Every word of support means more to me than anyone can appreciate, who has not been in this situation.
I also want to thank the people who have helped to remind me why i am doing this. The number of times i have wanted to stop and just break down, never to wake up again...The number of times i have wanted to call PT and tell them i'm pulling out....more than i can remember! But every time i get close to that, i remember why i wanted to do this in the first place, and i hear everyone telling me their take on what i'm doing this year, and my motivation, dedication and trust are reinstated :)

But now, i must finish getting everything sorted. Currently i would like to thank a few people for things:
Kirsty...you will always be my life jacket. no matter how many times i feel like i'm drowning, you always save me, and dry me off and give me a warm cup of tea too! Thank you for the present, i look forward to learning more, and i will cherish it forever because you gave me it :) I'm going to miss everything about you, but i will always love you, forever. My favourite budz in the whole wide world.
Michael...thank you for opening my eyes to the pain that can be seen from the other angle. you have helped me understand how i expect the people left behind to feel, and all of the thoughts and emotions you have shared with me have been put to good use, in trying to sustain relationships throught this year. Thank you for having trust in me to share how you felt, thank you for having such an open mind when it came to my feelings too. I look forward to speaking to you throughout the year. Keep listening to the good tunes, APHEX :)
Kevin...we will always have our difficulties apparently, but sometimes you gotta decided whether the good outweighs the bad. I believe it does. Thank you for coming to me tonight and saying your goodbyes. I don't think i could have walked onto that plane without feeling a bit of regret after everything we've been through. Thank you, and you will always have an impact on my life. Too late to forget you now kev :)
Grandma...thank you for knowing how disorganised i am at the last minute, and thank you for putting in so much effort to help me make it all happen tonight. It's true that without you i actually probably wouldn't have made it in time...and thank you for you pride, your love, your support and your care. It almost feels like anything good i have to offer, though i don't believe it exists, radiates from you, and for showing me and believing in me being someone special, thank you.
Jilly...you helped me out today too. Everyone gets grumpy from time to time and i know that's me just as much as it's you. But you were as helpful as grandma today and i appreciate that a lot...not to mention your undying faith in my ability to thrive on the experiences waiting for me. you're such a feel good person. THANK YOU.
Charlotte...thank you for being so cute with me :) for being so loving and giving amazing hugs and saying wonderful supportive things to me! I loved our chai tea, and i can't wait to give you that text to take us up to the flat again :) speak to you before you know it, and NO GOODBYES!
Zarella...You're a legend, there is no getting around that, but you've made me smile and laugh more times than many other people have and i will love you forever :) Can't wait to see you again my lovely :)
and to the last person for now...you know who you are. I will always be in your debt because noone has changed my life in the way you have. I look forward to hearing from you throughout the year, and it would be nice to see your face for the reactions you have to my stories of being abroad! I'll be safe, and i'll be coming back, and ten months will fly by. Honestly, i can't wait to see you, or any of my beautiful friends again. Thank you for loving me and caring so much. i feel the same way.
Mum...I'm so sad at the way things have panned out for us over the last few years of our lives, but this change will hopefully open your eyes to the fact that i can do wonderful things. All i want is to make you the proudest person of all. Without you believing in me, everything really does feel like a waste of time. I would have wanted to make Michael Fruhworth proud as well, but that ship has sailed. Stephen, your pride in me is as important as my mum's. You've influenced my life beyond anything i could have believed possible and for that, thank you....and thank you for charging my camera battery. means a lot haha :D
I love you all... and so many others. you're all going to get a shout...expect a few postcards and a letter if i've got your address.
Now, gotta go and finish getting all sorted!
Who knows when my next chance to update this will be, but i'll make it as soon as possible. I'm not gone. I'm just a little further away, but i'm exactly the same Jen i've always been. Please make it through this year with me.
ROLL ON THE NEXT TEN MONTHS OF OUR LIVES!
:)
Love, Jen xxx