So I have now been teaching my lovely Grade 1's for 4 weeks and I absolutely love it. I have to be very careful about what I say, and the way I say things as they are all picking up English so quickly and copy my words and phrasing. Every afternoon when they leave they all have to come and say good-bye, so I know they haven't been kidnapped and what not, and on Fridays I started saying "Good-bye, see you on Monday", however Joseph doesn't seem to realise that this only really works on the last day of the week and so he now says "Good-bye Miss, see you on Monday" every single day!! I have stopped saying it in the hope that it won't stick. I have also been appointed art teacher for my grade, as the schools art teacher only works in the afternoon and I have all my classes in the morning. Despite being awful at art I am very excited about doing lots of drawing and making, first on the list we are going to make a birthday chain so we know when everyone's birthdays are, I will post a photo of the final product. :D I am also planning on making Chinese lanterns for Halloween.

In the last few weeks we have begun to realise that in Honduras it is impossible to plan anything!! 2 weeks ago we were very pleased to find out that we had 3 Mondays off in a row as public holidays (feriados), the 8th, 15th and 22nd. And with National Identity Day last Friday (blog to follow next week) we decided a 3 and ½ day weekend would be plenty time to go and renew our visa's, BUT it was not to be. With the hostel book, and just 2 days to go before we left it was announced that the holiday had been moved to the Tuesday, as Honduras are playing football that day and so "it makes more sense". It's crazy how much influence the Honduran football team have over everything in this country. Unfortunately we had to postpone our holiday, we are however planning on buying ourselves some fake Honduran football shirts from the market and becoming true Hondurans. Check back to find out how it goes.

Last weekend Anna and I went to Lancetilla Botanical Gardens, which I think is the largest botanical gardens in Honduras but don't hold me to that. We got a bus from town to the entrance (we are getting good at using the public transport) and bought our tickets. Now in most places the entrance is next to the place you are visiting, so we started walking down the road expecting to find the gardens, however an hour late we were still walking and were giving up hope of ever reaching the gardens when it finally appeared around the corner. YES it took us an hour to walk from the entrance to the start of the actual botanical gardens. Unfortunately the gardens were a bit of a disappointment and although there were some beautiful things we were pretty shattered from our walk in the Honduran heat and so spent a lot of time sitting on benches!! I'm glad we went, but we probably won't be going back anytime soon.

Anna and I are now very settled in Tela, we are actually getting used to the heat which is something I never thought would happen, and my tan is coming on very nicely (although weirdly my feet are the brownest part of my body from wearing trousers to school, it looks very funny when I put shorts on!). I got very excited yesterday when I got a card through from Mum, covered in stamps, with "open on 12/11/12" on the back…I think it may be a birthday card!!! I am starting to get very excited about my birthday which is in just 3 weeks (IM GOING TO BE 19!!!!!!), Anna and I are planning a trip to Punta Sal which is a local national park and is meant to be a must see, and the school are also holding me a party with my class and my very own MARSHMALLOW ICING CAKE. :D

Lots of Love

xx