El Camino

Mayatan Snowboarding

This video was made by my friend and coworker Blair. He teaches 5th grade at Mayatan.

Ride to School

Our daily commute to school is usually done by foot, but occasionally we snag a ride with a parent or teacher. This day I happened to have the camera handy when our Home Ec teacher offered us a lift.

The shadow of the dog that bit me.

On the roof a house on the way into town lives this enormous pit-bull-looking dog. It’s locked up there and gets its kicks barking at passers-by. I took the picture above several months ago, when it was safely up a story and behind a fence.

This was not the case last week, when I was heading to Cafe Via Mil (a favorite hangout of Mayatan maestros due to it’s WiFi). There was a bunch of traffic on the street, trucks and tuk-tuks whizzing by in the randomness of Honduran traffic patterns. I finally saw the dog when it was about five feet in front of me. At that moment, I thought, “Is that that huge dog from the roof on the hill?” At that same moment the dog thought, “Is that that gringo I’ve been meaning to bite for months?” Then it bit me in the arm and I smacked it in the face. And that was it. It continued on it’s way up the hill, and I continued on my way down, taking a pitstop at a friend’s house to wash off my arm. Luckily the dog didn’t bite nearly as hard as it could’ve, barely breaking my skin. And of all the dogs of Copan this one, in a strange way, is a better one to have bite you. The street dogs are all so scraggled and sick that you consider an arm amputation a reasonable preventative measure.

Ants in Mexico

The much anticipated sequel to the original “Ants in Honduras” this roller coaster features an all new cast, an impressive tracking shot, and the catchy music you’ve come to expect from the Ants series. Shot in Oaxaca, Mexico over Christmas, 2007.

My students and I both have been trying to grapple with my poetry unit, with mixed success. Poetry is particularly challenging for English language learners, I think, because there is less context to hang on to. Last week, however, we worked on writing haikus which went quite well. I choose a few to share…

Person doing things
for all people of Japan,
Things to do all day

-Fabiola

Guatemala City
A moon with a horse in it
The night always there

-Alicia

In winter I’m asleep
And I drink coffee with bread
And I put on a sweater

-Luis

The snow is white and
we open presents and
we burn with the fire

-Eduardo

Oh my little El
Salvador I don’t live in
you El Salvador

-Hector

A good day to get
some honey in a country
with a lot of sweet

-Jorge L.

The fall is good to
see the birds sing in the tree
and to play soccer

-Jorge A.

Oaxacan Christmas Scene

This was the second time we bumped into this 3-boy street band. They were really good and adorable. I wanted to get a short video of their music but I pressed record seconds before they got surprised by another admirer in the crowd.

We’re working on letter writing in my fourth grade class. In that vein…

Dear Laptop,

 Thank you for your six years of faithful service. Thank you for being so gracefully putting up with years of late night paper writing, many unfortunate MP3 selections, constant digital photo sorting, and my on again off again addition to the game Civilization. You were an excellent laptop.

 I’m sorry I didn’t provide you with appropriate surge protection in Honduras. I bear the responsibility that your motherboard is fried. Sadly, you are beyond the repair of even the computer repair guy in Chiquimula, Guatemala. He can fix anything supposedly. Except you.

 Remember when I bought you a replacement battery and a new hard drive? Those were the days, full of whirring hard drive platters, blinking lights, and multitasking. I so wanted to fill you full up with pictures of Central America. I wanted to pen many eloquent blog entries on your well-worn keys. I wanted to cart you many times to Copan’s Cafe Welchez to attempt yet another phone call on a sketchy Skype connection. Sadly, it is not to be.

 So long dear friend.

 Sincerely,

Gabriel

October is the month of three-day weekends for Honduran teachers. And as a first-year teacher it hasn’t taken me long to figure out that the only thing better than a three-day weekend is a four-day one. The students seem to like them too…

This past weekend Koali and I, along with three other coworkers hit the road early Saturday morning taking a series of buses to Lado de Yoja. The lake is the largest in Honduras, and the only one to feature a brewery near its shores.

After five hours bussing it, we arrived in Pina Blanca amidst a torrential downpour. I swiftly purchased one of those umbrellas big enough for two. I’d been holding off buying one as I have this belief that one should never buy an umbrella from a street vender when it is raining, as they must be cheaper when the sun is out. I got this one for 50 lempiras (about $2.60), a price that is hard to argue with. Fellow teachers Rachel and Melissa promptly purchased umbrellas as well, Melissa’s with an elegant Chinese-looking flower pattern and Rachel’s looking like it was stitched together from a laser-light school photo backdrop.

During all these purchases, Koali had secured us a ride to the brewery. Gringos are easy to pick out in towns like Pina Blanca and Bob, the owner of the D & D Brewery where we were planning to spend the night, spotted Koali and offered us a ride in the back of his truck.

After a damp ride, we all shacked up in a cabin at the brewery and ate freshly made chicken soup. We went on a pleasant but mosquito-ridden walk to the lakeshore, returning to home base to sample Bob’s beer (a welcome change from Salva Vida and Imperial, the best of the Honduran brews). We talked shop with vacationing teachers from other bilingual schools (it being the slow season for tourism in Honduras, the Gringos we’ve run into on our trips so far seem to all be working in Honduras, either as teachers, volunteers, or doctors) comparing housing options, salary, hours, and beach access. For those considering teaching down hear, the schools in Tela seems to have good things going for them…

The next day we checked out the nearby waterfalls and ate a lot, but by far the highlight of the trip was a 4-hour bird tour of the lake by rowboat, given by an enthusiastic guide from Ipswich. We saw over 45 species of birds (the lake apparently is home to 400) and I for the first time began to understand why my parents used to listen to those bird call records when I was younger.

The elusive quetzal was sadly not on our list, apparently it prefers to hang in the nearby cloud forest. We’ll just have to go back.

Ants in Honduras

A 50-second documentary filmed during our trip to the botanical gardens in Tela.