La escuela. Some Pictures Finally.

Llegamos a la escuela hoy y consiguió nuestro tour. La escuela es preescolar hasta octavo grado. Aprendí que yo enseñando a todos los temas, no sólo en inglés. Rogad por mí, por favor.

I am working very hard on my Spanish so may be practicing while using a online translator. The above says. We arrived at the school and received a tour. The school is preschool through 8th grade. I learned that I am going to be teaching all subjects, not just English. Pray for me, please! More details on this below.

After living here only three short days, I have quickly learned that there will me many things that are, "You know you live in Central America when?"

For example:

• It is raining and all of sudden it is as well raining in your house. (true story)

• You go to the bank. and 8 men with machine guns are on all corners of the block as you approach. You then must show your ID, get your bagged searched to go inside. Where then they lock the door behind you and a man stands inside with a gun as well.

• ATM; Inside where the ATM is located in one of the few places in the country where it is air conditioned.

• A dead cat, is flattened like a pancake on the side of the road, everything all laid out.. and you know if only happened moments ago before you walked by (RIP kitty in Pena Blanca today)

• Oranges grow above your porch and that is breakfast.

• Trash is well everywhere and there is no concept of picking it up.

• You sweat in the morning, in the day and at night but grow goosebumps in the shower because its as though someone imported water from the Arctic Ocean and brought it here.

• Beer is very expensive but spirits (My fabulous British roommates call liquor spirits, love that) is very cheap.

There will be many many more of this I am certain but for now that is all I can think of. In other news I now know that I am teaching 2nd Grade. This will be my home room class. I get to start decorating and hopefully will get the textbooks with the curriculum tomorrow to start laying out my plans. I will teach Phonics, Reading, Spelling, Math, Science, and not sure if I forgot something... The kids as well go to PE, Bible, Music, Art, Agriculture, and Spanish as elective courses. While my 2nd grade is in Electives I am also teaching 8th Grade English! YIKES!

Myself along with the others were very shocked to know that we are teaching ALL subjects. Not sure where we either misread or misinterpreted but we thought we were only teaching English courses but we have quickly learned this is not true.

Our school has 2- 1st grade classes, 2 2nd grade classes, 2 3rd grade classes, 2 4th grade glasses, 2 5th grade classes, 1 6th, 1 7th and 1 8th. The only other teacher besides the 4 girls here now and the four boys is a lady that is from England but married a Honduran 30 years ago and teaches at the school. Crazy I know. She was wonderful and providied very helpful information about the school, the area, traveling in the country, going to the beach. Lots of things to look forward too.

All in all though I am so excited to meet the kids, their beautiful faces, love on them well and hopefully give them a great school year. I must say though it is all a little bit overwhelming.. So much to share and so very little time... I must get some sleep.

With lots of love and joy.... blessings to you from Honduras.Newest 2nd grade teacher and 8th ;)

Entrance to our house. You are probably thinking this is very nice and let me tell you it is.. All of the windows used to be stores and this was the hallway to the inside mall. They converted this to our apartment.

My bedroom. This is a work in progress. No shelves or wardrobe (Another word my British roommates use often) but hopefully soon!

Our outside wash basin on our porch.

Our kitchen, only one fridge works :)

The view from our porch outside.

Lake Yojoa, the largest lake in the country. We live 2 minutes from this. Incredible.

Overlooking the bridge in the middle of town.

This channel of water goes to the lake. Most locals bathe and wash their clothes in this because they otherwise do not have running water.