I'M A HOMEROOM TEACHER!!! :D

Which in England would be "form teachers", but it basically means that all the Grade 3's are mine and all the Grade 4's are Anna's. We are not only in charge of teaching English, Maths and Spanish, but we also have to set exams, monitor behaviour, write report cards, and correspond with parents if there is a problem (through another teacher who will translate for us to start with). We have already met a couple of our students: Vanessa's son, Anthony, who will be in my Grade and Vanessa's cousin, Paulita, who is exceptionally smart, she is only 9 but was happily reading Kensukes Kingdom (in English) on Anna's kindle.

Another important note is that we are now living in the volunteer house across the road from the school which we share with two other volunteer teachers. There was a bit of a problem with where we were living, but we are both very pleased and excited about the prospect of living and cooking by ourselves. We are planning on being domestic goddesses by the end of the month. :D

Last night (Friday) Vanessa's mother, Graciella, who founded and owns the school, held us a welcome party!! The best part of the evening was when Graciella taught us how to make baleadas, which are comprised of special baleada flour, salt, baking soda, butter and water, and then cooked on a flat metal plate on the hob! We then filled them with refried beans, sour cream, egg and cheese and they tasted so good that Raul, Vanessa's father, said he is going to come round so that we can make them for him again. The highest of compliments!!

Today we have had our first taste of a weekend in Tela, and top of our to do list was visit the beach!! :D However first we had to do some lesson planning and get the food shopping out of the way, I was so glad to finally go on our first proper shop as we were able to buy bleach (my new best friend, along with Anna of course) and I have spent this evening beaching the work tops and am moving onto the floor tomorrow. I get paranoid thinking about all the dust and dirt that's been building up for god knows how long. J Anyway, now for the exciting bit this afternoon, when the weather had cooled of a teeny tiny bit, we took our first bike ride into town (I managed to fix the clicking by changing the gear, which has to be done my had as there is no mechanism for it!!) and I STOOD IN THE CARIBBEAN SEA FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER. It was all very exciting!! We also had juice at our favourite juice place, YES we have only been here 6 days but we already have a favourite juice place. All their juice is freshly squeezed and tastes exactly like whatever fruit you order…but in liquid form.

Anna also noted on the way into town that's it's starting to look like I have chicken pox!!! Don't worry it's not chicken pox (or any other scary tropical disease) it's just those annoying mosquitoes that refuse to leave me alone. Today, however we acquired bug killer and tonight we become mosquito murders and will probably use half the can spraying our bedroom before we dare fall asleep!! Wish us luck. :D

I also bought some postcards today, there wasn't much choice, but I am planning on sending them sometime this week so, unless they get lost in transit which is highly likely, you will probably be receiving them in roughly 3 months time. No! That was not a typo, the post is only collected from Tela once a month, it then has to be taken to Tegucigalpa to be sorted and then shipped abroad, unsurprisingly no one in Honduras uses the postal system.

More lesson planning to be done tomorrow as the kids come back on Weds.

BREAD UPDATE: The pineapple bread is delicious, it's all crumbly with a blob of pineapple jam stuff in the middle YUM!!! We have also acquired some semita bread, Vanessa told us it was her favourite, which we are going to try tomorrow. J

Night night

P.s. the photo is of the pig...alive and well

11th August