An Alpaca Adventure

I have had a lot of fun in Peru so far, we went to Machu Picchu, saw some other Inca ruins, hung out in Cusco, and have spent the past day and a half in Lima. Not too many funny stories, but one that I would like to share.
On Tuesday, we (Leslie, Leslie, Matt and I), were eating lunch at some place in some town outside of Cusco. It was a place just like any other, with 2 alpacas sitting outside. If you dont know, an alpaca is kind of like a llama. Anyway, I really wanted to have my picture made with one of the alpacas. So, I picked up a big piece of grass from what i assumed was the food pile, and proceeded to try and feed the alpaca. All of a sudden, the alpaca looked at me, started gnarling its lips, and before i knew what was happening, he spit at me!! It was disgusting, and there were little pieces of grass all over me that had previously been in the alpacas mouth. From what Leslie tells me, I looked quite frightened, and truthfully, I was.
Needless to say, Ive been steering clear of the alpacas.

It's been a while since I've written...it just kind of occurred to me that I haven't posted anything since I've been home from Honduras. The past two months have been absolutely insane. I have never been so busy in my life as I am right now. School is brutal, there's no other way to say it. I need help! There's a certain other teacher at my school who pulled an awesome prank last year and hid my candy bucket and sent me on a crazy hunt to find it. I'm trying to think of a way to get back at him, but it has to be good. If you have any ideas, PLEASE share.

I wish that I had a good story to share, but these fun pictures will just have to do.

If you want to read more about what the interns are doing this summer, check out these blogs that Jarrod is making us do:
Clinic: http://lazarusclinic.blogspot..com/
Schools: http://missionlazarusschools.blogspot.com/
Ranch: http://missionlazarusranch.blogspot.com/

Wednesday morning as several of us were enjoying a nice cake for breakfast, Jake relayed the exciting news that some of us were going to be able to help him try to harvest honey from his bees. When I heard this, I was as happy as a fat kid in a candy store. I love adventures, especially once in a lifetime type ones, an I just knew that this was going to be one to remember. So, Shanna, Natosha, and I piled in Jake’s truck and make the long trek up to the coffee plantation. It was a bumpy ride, but, as always, full of beautiful scenery. Fortunately, I was sitting in the back, so I didn’t have to open any gates J When we made it to the top, we were kind of waiting a few minutes for Jake to get everything ready, and I was standing on this thin concrete curb type thing, and almost fell off the mountain. Bit of exaggeration, but I did almost fall. I was also excited because I was wearing my cool boots, and that’s probably why I tripped, because I’m not used to wearing things with heels. So, it was finally time to don the bee suits. There were only 2, so we had to take turns. Jake got to wear one, of course, and I was lucky enough to be the first of us girls to put on the suit and play with the bees. I had to put on a full body suit, gloves with sleeves that went all the way up my arms, and the head net. I felt quite protected, which is a powerful feeling. I was in charge of the smoker, which was a high responsibility. As Jake opened the first hive, we discovered that there was no honey!! Apparently there aren’t really any flowers in bloom, so the bees have been eating the honey themselves. Anyhow, we continued to venture into the depths of the hive, and what did we find?!? Well, we found a fat ole lizard at the bottom of the hive. Jake picked it up by the tail, and then it tried to bite him, so Jake flicked his tail and the lizard’s body flew off, with the tail jiggling in Jake’s hand. Meanwhile, Shanna and Natosha were waiting patiently to put on the bee suit, so as I went to go let one of them have a turn, disaster struck!! Jake had a hole in his suit and bees had gotten into his head net!! I ran back to try and grab the smoker, but it was too late…Jake was being stung over and over again. We could hear his wails of pain echo through the woods. I eventually caught up to Jake, shot him a little smoke, then started taking off my suit to give it to Shanna. As soon as I had removed my gloves and head net, bees started swarming Natosha’s head. They were all stuck in her hair, so we had to use the gloves to remove the bees. As soon as those bees had cleared, I noticed Jake’s hole and went to help him fix it, then the bees started attacking me. I could feel them fly by my face, and I could hear nothing but the buzzing, so I did the only thing that I could, and I started running. As I ran, I could feel the bitter stings of these killer honeybees. Natosha was running with me, and we didn’t know where to go, we were surrounded!! All of a sudden, Don Perfecto seemingly popped out of nowhere to save us. We ran to the house at the coffee plantation, but the door was locked. We were getting desperate and time was running out. Finally we got the door open and were able to make our way inside. Finally we were safe.

To everyone who thinks that baby cows are not to be feared, you are quite mistaken. We went to feed the baby cows their bottles the other day, a quite innocent activity, until we were ravagely attacked by the older, more mature baby cows. At first, I thought that I was going to be eaten alive by a cow. As I was holding a bottle, a cow came and clamped down on my arm….I screamed, and feared for my life, I didn’t know what was happening. I tried beating the cow off with my arm and the bottle, but nothing worked. (That's Natosha above beating a baby cow over the head with the milk bottle to keep it from attacking me.) He came back and got my arm again, but this time I noticed that he was biting, but merely sucking. I was being mistaken for an udder. Eventually we were able to fight the cows off and give the babies their milk. We were terrified at first, but eventually we couldn’t stop laughing at the cows and their desire to suck on us.

Valerie is coming to Honduras today. And I am way excited!! I´m patiently awaiting her arrival. I am at a mall in Tegucigalpa sitting in an internet cafe to pass the time. I came to town on a bus that left town at 6am. It was a fairly cheap bus ride, only like $2.50 in dollar terms. The ride took about 4 1\2 hours, which isn´t too bad, I suppose. Although, it was hot and unairconditioned, and I was sitting by a man who was carrying a large paint bucket in his lap. We had a nice talk, mostly me just nodding and wanting to take a nap, but being polite and staying awake to nod. I´m tired now, and am greatly wishing that I had just fallen asleep while Nestor talked. Oh well...bedtime will come in about 8 hours, hopefully.

Drip Irrigation Seminar

In cooperation with Healing Hands, this week Mission Lazarus hosted a drip irrigation seminar for some men in the area. The guy teaching works for Healing Hands and has travelled to over 85 different countries. He was pretty interesting, and knows a lot about irrigation. Anyway, this guy is from Tennessee and doesn't speak Spanish, so I had the privelege of translating for him a few days this week. I learned more than the average person would probably ever want to know about composting, digging raised beds, and drip irrigation.
For example: To build a compost heap, there are several principle things that you need, such as organic materials, water, bacteria, heat, and pressure. To start, you build your base, about 2 meters by 2 meters, and build your first layer with coarse materials, such as small sticks or bamboo or something like that. Then, you cover with a layer of palm leaves, or some such thing. Pour on a layer of water, then continue to cover this with some type of large leaf, like a banana leaf. Continue with some mud, perhaps with a little manure mixed in, throw on some food scraps, maybe a little more water, some light material like green grass, or sawdust, add water, and continue to add layers...alternating between heavy layers like mud and manure, and light layers like grass and sawdust. It's important to remember that green grass is better than yellow because it's still alive and still produces certain bacterias that help the heap to decompose.

And that's leaving out the details.....

Trip to Copan Ruinas

Last weekend, the other interns and I decided to travel up to the northern part of Honduras and go see the infamous Copan Ruinas. The trip was quite an adventure from the get-go.
We started out with 12 of us trying to ride, along with Jarrod, in his truck. We quickly discovered that wasn't going to work, so we split up and some of us crowded into some vans with the group. We we got to Tegus, where we were stopping over for the night, we only had two hotel rooms reserved for 12 people. 5 boys in one room, 7 girls in the other. We waited for over an hour at the Marriott to see if they had any rooms, they didn't, then we went to another hotel, and they didn't have any rooms either, so we smooshed. Sure, we could've found some other place to stay, but we wanted to do it the difficult way. We woke up bright and early Friday morning, to catch a 5:45 bus...but it was already full by the time we got there. So we went and ate donuts, and came back for the 10:00 bus, but it was delayed due to a school riot in Tegus, and the bus couldn't get through to come get us!! Finally, about 11:30 we were off. At the next stop, San Pedro Sula, we missed our connecting bus, so we went downtown and ate at McDonalds, then caught the 6:00 bus to Copan. We finally reached our destination about 9:30. Oh, and on the bus they played 3 Bruce Lee movies in a row...with full audio....the "hi-ya"s overpowered all of our ipods.
The rest of the trip was a little less eventful, but fun nonetheless. We saw the ruins and reinacted some human sacrificing and mayan ball playing. It was pretty fun. Sunday morning we woke up really early, caught a 5:15 bus out of Copan, made it to Tegus about 12:30 to find out that the next bus for San Marcos didn't leave until 4:30. So, we went to the mall and ate at Fridays, then went back to the bus station to find that there was an accident in Choluteca that was delaying our bus indefinitely. So, we waited, in the smelly bus station with no water in the bathroom (yuck!) and finally we pulled out about 6:30.
Needless to say, it was a long day......but don't you just love Central American timeschedules??

Well, another week has come and gone, only 6 more. It's hard to believe the way in which time passes here. Things here move pretty slowly, and it's amazing the speed at which hours can pass and you have no idea where they've gone.

This is Glenda. She is in 3rd grade, and is simply precious. Glenda has trouble recognizing her numbers, so I've been working with her one on one, and some days I actually feel like we're making some progress. Hopefully by the end of the summer, Glenda will know her numbers backwards and forwards....Don't you just love those big brown eyes??

This is going to be the first home at Refugio Mision Lazaro. Ten children, along with 2 tias will be living in this house. It's not all the way completed, but they're working on it, and if I understand correctly, there will be children living here hopefully by the end of the summer!!

Well, due to lack of transportation, I did my first bout of hitchiking yesterday. It was really exciting....I had never done that sort of thing before. Two other interns and I stood out in the street, waved a truck down, told him where we were going, and hopped in the back. Unfortunately, the tire that I chose to sit on was wet, so I had a wet bottom for most of the morning. We arrived in San Marcos safely, ready to "pedir jalon" again next week!!

Last Saturday morning, as I sat in a rocking chair on our front porch, I looked to my right, and what did I see? Well, I saw this horse, with a huge tree limb tied to its tail, being forced to ride around in circles, doing what I can only assume was plowing. As a non-animal lover, even I felt bad for this horse and his pulled tail.

So, today for lunch I had the most amazing tacos. Well, not really the most amazing, but the best tacos that I've ever had outside of Mexico. And there was this salsa verde, that was creamy, just like my all time favorite salsa in Mexico City.

If you haven't ever travelled to Honduras, you should try to make the trip sometime. It is simply a beautiful country. Especially now, during the rainy season, everything is so green!! I love it...it is very calming to be able to look around and see nothing but green grass and trees and mountains. The above picture is my front yard. Yes, it is quite big and beautiful, and our house is kind of out in the middle of nowhere, but it's great - especially if you love bugs and mice. We also have recently discovered that we have a fairly small water tank, which adds an extra element to the Honduran Adventure. Just the other day, after a torrential downpour, we all arrived home to discover that we had no water - that means no drinking, no showering, no flushing, nada. So, another intern and I set out on a search of the guy that turns on the pump (we found out later that we can turn on the pump ourselves, which makes things a bit easier). Anyway, everything was muddy and slushy and, of course, living on a ranch there was lots of horse and cow poop mixed in with the mud, so you don't know what you're stepping in. First, we squeezed through a narrow opening in the barbed wire fence around our house, then headed down alongside the chicken and turkey coop, which had a nice aroma, and then we slid down a muddy slope to the gravel road. We went about 20 feet, then had to wade through a river, up some more road, and we arrived at our destination. Needless to say, at that point we were smelly, wet, and muddy, but we had a great time!!

I'm back helping at the school, and I'm having a great time. Having a great time, but glad everyday that I don't permanently work in an elementary school. The kids are really fun, and they love us gringos. The other day we left school to walk into town to make some copies, and when we came back the kids were at recess, and when they saw us coming, every single kid in the school ran to the gate...it's the closest thing I've ever experienced to being a famous person. Tuesday I teach my first lesson - I will be teaching kindergarten about water - where it comes from and how we use it. Also, on Tuesday we start English classes with the teachers.
Something really exciting happened this week. There's a little girl at the school named Andrea, who is about 4, and she has some sort of birth defect or something (sorry, I'm not very medical). Anyway, she doesn't have any ear canals, so she has a hard time hearing, and a doctor was here from Nashville and he brought her this headset thing that vibrates, converting sound waves into something, so that she can hear sound. It was so cool!! Right now they're working on fitting the headband so that it will fit her head. Above you can see Alli showing Andrea the headset for the first time.

Well, I just finished my first weekend and first day at school. So, the weekend was kinda boring. Friday night, Jake came over and made pizzas - they were yummy, it was just unfortunate that we didn´t get to eat until like 8 and we were all starving. Saturday we did absolutely nothing. The plan was to go swimming at Tres Pilas but it was cloudy and raining so that didn´t really work out. Saturday night we ate some really yummy, cheap Chinese food. Yes, it was yummy, even to me who doesn´t eat Chinese food.

Sunday was a bit more exciting. First of all, as part of my teaching Spanish to the interns, we are having Spanish Sunday every Sunday, which means that on Sundays absolutely no English is to be spoken, only Spanish. That made the day pretty fun, and everybody had a pretty good attitude, except for one, but I´m sure that things will be better by next week:) In addition to that, we started out the morning with horseback riding, which was pretty fun, it´s just a shame that I didn´t think to put any sunscreen on, as now my arms and face are now a nice shade of rouge. We went to church in the afternoon, and then to a place to eat some yummy hamburgers.

Today was a school day. I like school, I guess that´s why I´m a teacher. The kids are tons of fun to play with, and they love to tug and pull on us....sometimes it´s a bit much, but it´s cool that they are so excited for us to be there to help them. No real exciting stories there yet, but I´ll try to stage something tomorrow.

¡Hasta la vista!

Honduras

Well, I arrived in Honduras on Tuesday and it's exactly like I remember it yet completely different. This country is the most beautiful place that I have ever soon, it's so green and so beautiful, and the people just make it that much more special. I am so happy to be back here and I think it's gonna be a great summer!!
I did my first batch of Spanish lessons with the interns yesterday, and it went really well. I was very impressed with their knowledge, and I think we're gonna have a lot of fun, I just hope that I don't run out of things to teach them - some of them seem to know as much or more than I do!!
We are staying at a house on the ranch, literally out in the middle of nowhere, which is cool, until you start thinking about all of those scary movies out there about people staying out in the middle of nowhere. There are these giant toads that come up on our porch every night, and I'm talking huge, and they have really big poop. There's one intern who's gonna teach us how to "gig" the frogs - meaning kill, clean, cook, and eat them. I'm kind of excited.
Wednesday night I was reunited with my favorite beans - the red refried beans out of bag. I think maybe that's the real reason I came back :)
No real exciting stories so far, but I'll be back...

Recently at a Superintendent's Advisory Council meeting in my district, where representatives from each school have the opportunity to bring up important issues with the superintendents, this was addressed by one such representative:

"In a bilingual school, where there is English speaking as well as Spanish speaking teachers, why do some bilingual teachers speak Spanish in the lounge and in the halls? It makes me feel very uncomfortable that they speak Spanish when we are all English speakers in America. I feel that this should be done in the teaching environment with the teachers and students but not on casual time. I think this should be addressed."

I was appalled when a fellow teacher brought this to my attention. I still don't really know what to say about it, but really, how could anyone think that this was an intelligent comment??

p.s. i will post a picture of my prom dress someday...

I bought a prom dress on Saturday. Not a formal, poofy dress, but a nice cocktail dress that I will wear to chaperone prom this year. It was quite an ordeal to find something to fit my oddly shaped body.

I'm An Alien

So, today after school a student asked me if I was an alien. At first, I was kind of taken aback and didn't really know what to say, so she proceeded to explain to me her reasoning. Basically, she said that I am probably the strangest person that she has ever met, which, if I'm honest, is probably true. Then, she started explaining how she always feels like I'm looking at her, even when I'm not, and sometimes she can feel me try to read her thoughts and see what she's thinking about. Once she finished this explanation, I took a deep breath, and told her that I think that she's an alien trying to convince me that I'm an alien. As she walked out, I promised that my kind would bring her no harm.

Friendship

I hate that how sometimes the best things in life are also the hardest, most painful things in life. But, I guess that's the way that it has to be so that you appreciate it when it's good. Being a true friend is hard. Way harder than I ever thought that it could be...and just when I think that I've been a friend to someone at rock bottom, it seems that God always takes it one step further. I love my friends, and I would do anything for them, and I think that I am a very, caring, selfless person - I am good at being a friend, when I want to be. But it's hard. It's hard being there when you'd rather be anywhere else in the world. I think that it's hard because I know that I am voluntarily putting myself in a sad, depressing, painful situation. It hurts to watch someone that you love feel pain and sadness - in a lot of ways I think that it's worse than feeling the pain and sadness yourself. There are days when it would be easier to say "Screw it, I don't need friends"...but then what happens when I need someone?? You have to be a friend to have a friend...When it gets hard, I just try to think about how awesome it is to be going through something painful and to have someone else to share the burden with - it makes a world of difference just to know that someone cares. I like being cared about, and I also like caring about other people. I've had a hard day, but it was a good day. I spend a good day with a friend going through a hard time. And I thank God that I have a good enough friend to have had such a hard day.

France

Well, I just came back from spring break in France...well, actually I came back Sunday, but who's counting?? I had a great time travelling with 4 other teachers from my school. It was quite an experience, as there is about a 40 year age difference between me and the oldest lady that went with us. In the picture you can see my travelling companions having lunch at the beach in Nice. I definitely learned a lot about growing old, and learned to appreciate my ever fleeting youth. French people were interesting, I still haven't really decided what I think about them, but I found the old people intriguing. The old men walking around hunched over with a cane carrying a baguette always caught my eye, and I couldn't help but wonder what they were thinking and why on earth such an old person would want a baguette so badly as to face the crowds and uneven sidewalks and steps in a city like Paris, France. I bought a baguette one day, and it was the coolest feeling ever. At that moment, I feel like maybe I sorta started to understand those old men. The bread is just so good, and it's just a matter of enjoying the carbs and relaxing, and not paying attention to the busyness around you. You just get your bread, and live in the indulgence. Maybe that's not at all what it's about for the Frenchmen, but that's what it was for me. If I move to France someday in the future, I will be an old lady hunched over with a cane carrying a baguette. And maybe some naive American will wonder about me.

My Mom

I love my mom, she's great, and often says funny things. For example:

As we are leaving a restaurant, "Does anybody want a napkin to take with them?"

Valerie is wearing green shoes, and I say, "Nice shoes." My mom says, "You should get some. Maybe they come in green."

I can't think of any other examples right now, but I'm sure that there are tons.

CrimeStarters

Last week was quite a busy week - the new CrimeStarters club at our school had me, the CrimeStoppers sponsor, running crazy trying to follow clues and find my stolen candy bucket. Luckily I'm a good detective and I found the missing goods. Here is the trail that I had to follow....

The candy jar has been liberated by the CSC (CrimeStarters Club for all you CrimeStoppers floozies). You want it back? You better do the leg work to track it down. Follow the clues and you may get it back before we eat it all...



The first clue lies with the teacher who was born the 9th day of the 12th month.

Call me Ishmael. 111

Go to Hamlin's computer lab, your next clue lies under a computer.

Your next clue lies in China. Be nice, though. Their culture requires respect for elders. Maybe you should bring a peace offering like an apple.

Next clue was written in Chinese, unfortunately I don't have a keyboard capable of tying that one.

.hturt eht rof gid ot evah ll'uoy denrawerof eB ."knits teef ym" ,yas dna rialB .rD ot og ot is ksat txen ruoY .uoy rof dooG .tuo ti derugif uoY

I was then given a pie.

(found this inside the pie) You dug down to find the truth. We are all cheering for you! Hope you find the next clue!

You found this one, good for you. Now you have to figure the next one out: Start Home.

It ended up being my friend, Matt Shomer. When I got my bucket back several jolly ranchers were missing.