So I've discovered a way of controlling most of my third graders, for most of the time!! I call it the smiley face technique…I put a smiley face in the top corner on one side of the bored and a really really sad face in the top corner on the other side of the bored, they are all really eager to have their name under the happy face, and if there name gets put under the sad face they can be quite and hardworking for well over 10 minutes to try and have their name moved. I love it!! Sometimes if they are especially good they get a sticker at the end of the day.

Today at school we began marching practice…yes marching practice, which will continue for an hour last thing every afternoon until the 13th September. You may be wondering why we are doing all this marching practice (I am wondering exactly the same thing), it is because we have 2 marches coming up in the next 3 weeks!! Apparently small children need a lot of marching practice in order to get it right. The first is on the 1st September, when we shall be marching in celebration of the 'Dia de la Bandera' (the 'day of the flag' to those of you not in the know), personally I can't think of a better way of celebrating than marching all the way into town, which takes 20 minutes on a bike, in the beautiful Caribbean heat. The second march is on the 13th September, another civic holiday but this time I have no idea why we are doing it, on the brightside after marching in the morning we get the rest of Friday off and also the following Monday so are planning our first trip outside of Tela which will be exciting.

We have also been told that we are going to be moving again!! There are now 2 other volunteers on their way, which means there won't be room for us in the volunteer house anymore and so we are going to be moving in with Graciella and Raul (Vanessa, our host's, parents). They are really lovely, and we are especially looking forward to being able to practice our Spanish more often and have the occasional home cooked Honduran meal. :D Although they live a bit further away from the school, we will have to bike in the mornings rather than walk, another major advantage is that we will be very very very close to the sea!! A daily stroll along the beach to watch the sun set…don't mind if I do! :P The current plan is for us to move on the 8th or 9th of September so I will keep you updated.

I also have 2 updates for you, which will only be of relevance if you have read previous posts:

BREAD UPDATE: At the weekend Anna and I discovered a new bread, I say bread but its more cakey really, and its definitely the best yet!!! It consist of two layers of yum that tastes a bit like the spongy bit in bakewell tarts (but more solid) and in the middle is a layer of an orange coloured jam that has not yet been identified. We now look out for them every time we go into our local 'mini super'.

OVEN UPDATE: Undeterred by the oven exploding in my face not 2 weeks ago I decided it was time for another go, you see we were cooking pancakes and I couldn't just let the already cooked pancakes go cold while we cooked the rest of them, so I lit the oven again. And guess what...it works perfectly!!! Turns out it just needed a small explosion to get itself back into action, it's a shame we are leaving in a couple of weeks and won't be able to use it to cook that cake we were planning. :P

Lots of Love

28th August