the last day of my first week of classes

It´s Friday. I´ve been in Honduras for exactly one week now.

I´m still staying in the Hotel. I still don´t speak or understand Spanish well. I´m still afraid to go out at night. But now I have about 80 high school friends, I know where the Mall is, I´ve swam in the Carribbean Sea, and I´ve hiked through overgrown jungles to the base of a beautiful waterfall.

Classes

I am the English teacher for the high school´s juniors and seniors. Basically I´m the one who is responsible for making sure these kids improve their spoken, written and comprehended English. Scary. I´m also teaching Sociology to Juniors.

The school is so disorganized compared to high schools in America. I didn´t even know what I was teaching until the first day of classes. The kids don´t change classrooms, the teachers do. So far the kids really like me. Probably because I´m young, white and don´t give them very much homework. They are really sweet and helpful. All week they´ve been brining me information about apartments for rent in the area, and the last two days I was offered a ride home by students. Maybe it´s inappropriate to have the kids helps me and give me rides home but it sure beats trying to figure out this new city all on my own.

The hardest part about classes is actually preparing for them. All I have are a few textbooks. The second hardest thing is keeping the kids from talking the whole class. They do not listen very well, but as of now they say they can´t imagine me becoming mean. We´ll see if they feel they same way at the end of the year.

The leadership of the school can be frustrating. Today I got in trouble for letting my students walk around and draw on the white board during their reading hour. I told my boss that I was never told to prepare anything for those reading hours. He doesn´t like it when people disagree with him so he didn´t take it very well and told me not to let it happen again. The kids felt sorry for me and promised to behave better.

This is already too long, but I am liking it here. Although teaching is difficult it will probably be one of the best experiences of my time in Honduras. The kids are great and I´m excited to get to know them better and see them grow as learners.

Until next time,

emily