Flood Mission

Well, there has been a lot of flooding and we had the opportunity to help! Because of all of the flooding, they had to let the dam open and many houses were destroyed. Some of our students lost everything and a fellow teacher also has nothing left. Anyway, we spent 2 days helping some needy families that lost their homes. Here are some pictures of a house we cleaned out from the flood.The patio around the house was completely covered in mud, so got shovels, brooms, a hose and buckets and heaved loads of mud out of there. We sang Christmas songs while we worked. Ha ha. It feels good to help people, see the improvements of your help, and actually be appreciated for it. Teaching, on the other hand, is a process that takes a lot more time to see your influence on. After seeing so many people with nothing left, I could only be humbled more by it all.


Here is Greg hauling out wet dresser drawers. We threw out the bad stuff onto the street where there were piles of mud and trash everywhere.

Here is a house that had been abandoned, full of mud.

The patio full of mud.


Sweeping!


Heidi and Lindsey spraying it all out!

Jenny and I sweeping, sweeping, sweeping!

Kandice, with her broken broom!

Kandice was sweeping out the mud and found a turtle in the rubble!


The abandoned street.

Buckets and buckets!

This is the owner of the house. His daughter goes to our school! What are the chances! Only God :)
After! It looked amazing.

Our hard working group! After 3 hours, we cleaned out that place and it looked so sharp :) What a day!

The best part of my day....

A girl in my 3rd grade class, Daniela, persistently asks me the same question everyday.
"Miss! How old are you!"
She insists I tell her everyday. She once guessed my age to be 20, then a boy shouted 15. After that, everyone decided to play the guessing game. One boy shouted 50 and the students looked at him like he was crazy. "No! She doesn't have wrinkles!" Another said. So they all started examining my face with a puzzled look and decided I had no wrinkles. Few! Daniela still continued begging me for my age and after no success moved on.
"Do you have a boyfriend?"
I laughed and told her no.
"But Miss you are so beautiful...why don't you have a boyfriend?"
Ha ha! If only it were that true and easy.
"Miss, how many kids do you have?"
"Miss are you married?"
The questions never ended. Not long after, my students were suddenly standing on their desks screaming and pointing out the window. "Miss Miss! Look!" There was a HUGE iguana on a tree branch right outside the window. It was at least 5 feet long (not exaggerating). By far the biggest lizard I had ever seen. My kids were so excited and the girls could not stop screaming "Que feo!" We spent the last 15 min of math class watching the iguana eat and climb the tree. Later, I found out that iguanas are a delecasy here and that they taste like chicken....Yummy!

72 Hour Rainstorm

It has been raining for 24 hours straight now, without ceasing. It is forcasted to rain for another 2 days! For the first time last night I was cold. Ha ha. It was probably 70 degrees and I was freezing. I am wearing a sweater today at school. I think I have become accustomed to hot weather and now I can´t even handle the slightest of cold.

Despite all of the rain OUTSIDE, our house will not give a drop of water. We have been out of water for 2 days now. Kandice and Heidi and I take showers in the other house and they only have one shower that works. Ha ha, so that means the 7 of us are using 1 shower! Frankly, I find this quite ironic considering it´s flooding outside and not a drop will fall from the sink.

Last weekend was a blast. We had a sleep over in the living room and watched a chick flick. ( We have vowed to never watch them again because they are polluting our minds with unrealistic love stories.... ha ha.) Then we had a pillow fight and talked about girly things... we felt like we were 13 all over again.

We had plans to go to Tela this weekend, a little town on the Caribbean coast. We planned on staying in a hotel on the beach and spending the weekend on the sand but it´s RAINING!!! It has not stopped raining in 2 days. The rain is even worse on the coast. We have decided, instead of going to the beach, we are just going to pig out on junk food all weekend. We have another 3 day weekend relieved from classes :)
Life is good here right now. I don't want these days to end. I have finally learned to like Honduras :)

Lago Yajoa

About a week ago the 7 of us girls packed up and headed to D&D Bed and Breakfast at Lago Yojoa where we all crammed into one room (we are cheap ha ha) and wallowed in pure relaxation. We met a very earthy man named Malcom who was thoughrouly, (obssesively) enthralled with brids. He talked to us about his travels through India and France and pretty much every country you could think of. His waist long hair and beard, holey work out clothes, and awful smell, ha ha, clearly indicated his devotion to nature! The fellow was by far very interesting speaking Spanish in a British accent. Imagine that!
We rented a row boat complete with our own personal guide and hit the lake. We met 6 students from Calvin College and they tagged along with us. We were so thrilled to see Americans our age. I got to jump from 30 ft high white volcanic like rocks into the lake. Awesome! Weekends like that keep me motivated to face more challenging days here in Honduras!