Summer Time!

Blog: From Jessica

It is summer here - all of the schools (except the private bilingual schools) are on summer break. The kinder is having their graduation this weekend and then sometime this week will be the graduation for the high school students. It feels strange that summer is just begining in Honduras and has just ended in the States. Since I am supposed to be working mostly with the schools I pretty much have nothing to do....except for Educatodos. WHICH is turning out to be A LOT of work. The thing that annoys me about it, it that we are really not even supposed to be teaching the classes. They are supposed to be taught or facilitated by Honduran volunteers. When I figure out exactly how Educatodos is supposed to work and the school system here in Honduras I will post about it.

Thanksgiving came and went - Brian and I made fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, and stuffing. Not bad for a Honduran Thanksgiving! Supposedly there is one family in our town that celebrates Thanksgiving, but we are not quite sure who they are. Apparently, they lived in the States for quite a few years and still have family there so they like to celebrate it. We also heard that a lot of people in El Salvador celebrate Thanksgiving for the same reasons. Our host family also told us that they heard sweet potatoes were nearly sold out because so many people made them on Thursday! I was a little sad that we were missing all the fun in the States, but it was nice to share the day with our host family. And they LOVED loved loved all the food. In fact, today is our little host grandson´s graduation from kinder and they are making the fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy.

I was really nervous about the upcoming holidays because this is my favorite time of year. I love all the decorations and holiday music. I had no idea what Hondurans do for Christmas and if they even really celebrate with decorations and such. Thank goodness for the good ol´ American influence because they LOVE decorations! They day BEFORE Thanksgiving all the pulperias (little stores) pulled out the decorations and holiday music! Our host family also got a HUGE turkey for Christmas dinner (it is still alive and in their backyard getting nice and fat for the big day!). I don´t know what exactly we will do for Christmas, but we bought some lights and a little tree decoration. I am hoping to have some of my volunteer friends come down and stay with us for a couple of days.

Not much new has been happening - we are just teaching classes three days week trying to get the kids done so they can have a little summer break, too. Christeen is leaving on December 2. We will definitly miss her, but we are not only ready to move into her house, but we are ready to make Colomoncagua our town! We are having a big despedida (going away party) for her and getting a giant (hopefully delicious) cake. Good cake is pretty rare here so I am hoping for the best. I would make one, but we don´t have an oven. My host family has a crazy giant oven thing, but it uses wood and I am so not about to experiment with that!

Chritmas Dinner: