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