My Adventure: S.A.G.

S.A.G.= Student Annual Gathering

This is where I was for an entire week. Last Tuesday (the 24^th) at 4:30 AM we packed up all of our 7^th-10^th graders on a big yellow bus and headed towards the capital, Tegucigalpa. Every single year, all the Abundant Life Schools (there are 6 of the schools, all in different cities) meet together to have competitions against one another. I was brought along as a chaperone for all the girls, and I also coach the volleyball girls.

4:30 is too early to get on a bus and drive through the mountains. By the time we had reached paved roads, three of the students had thrown up into plastic bags; I was swallowing hard forcing myself to not ask for a bag myself. Once we were on the paved roads it wasn’t so horrible. All the students except for the 7^th graders have been to S.A.G. before, so they weren’t too crazy!

I was really looking forward to seeing the dynamic of all the other students from the different schools. With most of our students coming from low-income households and being on scholarship to study, I was curious to see what the other schools were going to be like. Our school is unique, the other schools do not have as many, if any, students who are on scholarships.

Once we reached Tegucigalpa at 11:30, S.A.G. started right away at the Abundant Life School. The event on Tuesday afternoon was the girls and boys basketball tournament. Coming from Northwest Iowa, I know what good basketball looks like….and this was not it. A week before we left for S.A.G. I played basketball with our best girl player and a couple of the boys. I felt like the biggest champion in my life; they thought I had such skill in basketball. All the while I kept remembering I didn’t even make the freshman basketball team! This can give you just a little preview of what their games were like. But to their credit, basketball is not an important sport in Honduras, unlike futball. I thought our girls tried their best and I was proud of their hard work!

While watching the girls play basketball I watched all the other schools arrive at the Teguc school. It was so interesting. The first thing I noticed is that everyone was so HUGE! All the students were bigger built, and they had TALL students. Students were as tall or even TALLER than me! This is a rarity; I am taller than every single one of our secondary students. Jake explained to me that our students were all from Lenkin Indian descent, so that is why they are so small.

That evening we had the opening program for S.A.G. The first night was also the singing competition. Before the opening program started, I helped my two girls get dressed and ready to sing. I helped them put on their make-up. I thought I was putting on a normal amount of make-up, in a pretty normal way. They looked in the mirror and gasped, “Wow, Miss. How did you learn how to do this?! Wow, I look so beautiful!” People in La Union do not wear make-up, this was not a normal, everyday look for them. I was happy to make them feel all made-up for the occasion.

It was interesting to listen to the singing competition. Whenever a school had one of their contestants enter the stage ONLY that school was cheering them on. The school you were from never cheered for anyone else. Maybe if they were really talented they got a few claps from different schools, but that was about it. A little preview of how the entire week would be.

After the program was over we got back on our bus and headed towards the camp where we were staying for the week. But of course, nothing in Honduras goes according to plan. Our students were hungry and wanted to stop at McDonalds to eat, so we did. At this point it was 10:30 and we had been up since 4 in the morning. We didn’t arrive to our camp until after 11:00. All of our girls stayed in one huge room. It was a large cinder-block cell. There were metal bunk beds 3-high with one thin mattress. The girls went to bed fairly quickly, they were tired from our long day!

I slept well, considering it felt like I was sleeping on a block of wood. I couldn’t believe my ears when the first alarms started going off at 4:00 AM. I couldn’t figure out if this was for real…but it was. My girls started taking showers and getting ready!!! And of course each one had an initial scream when they stepped in the shower because it was so ice cold. At 5:30 one of my girls shook me and said, “Miss, you need to get up and start getting ready!!” I don’t know what was sadder: that they had to wake me up and tell me, the chaperon, to start getting ready, or that they started getting ready at 4 and we didn’t need to leave until 6:30. It is beyond me how it can take you over two hours to get ready!! I got up at 5:30 and was ready before 6. After the first day they realized I didn’t need to be woken up early haha.

Wednesday morning we spent at the school. We watched a physical competition; boys did push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, etc. Also there was a basketball shootout for boys and girls. The best event that morning was the academic competition. Each school had a team of 4 people. They all sat up on the stage around a table, and each table had a button with a light bulb. The judges asked questions and the team who hit their button first could answer the question. I know our students were so nervous, but they did really good! I was so proud of them. They ended up getting third place. The Teguc school of course got first place. This was also a reoccurring theme throughout the week.

Before lunch I was talking with one of the American Teguc teachers and he told me the secondary students haven’t had class for the last two weeks. Every day for the past two weeks they have been practicing for S.A.G……. hmmm well no wonder they were winning every single event!! How can you even compete against that?

After lunch all the schools drove to the Honduran Olympic track. It was amazing how horrible of shape the track was in, my elementary track was nicer than this. Nonetheless it was still a track, still able to run on it! And run my students did. They placed first in almost every single running event of that day! If they didn’t place first, they got second. La Union dominated every single event! I was such a proud teacher. Having small, fit students really helped us take the win!

Late that afternoon all the schools drove to the camp in the mountains and the girls from Tegucigalpa moved into our room. Our girls warned me about the attitude the girls had from Teguc, but nothing could have prepared me for how they acted. One of the Tegus girls looked at me with disbelief and said, “Ella es la maestra?!” Which means, “She’s the teacher?!” My girls quickly advised me to ignore everything they said. Well, if you know me at all, you know I have problems keeping quiet when someone is offending me. But I bit my tongue.

We stayed at the camp from Wednesday afternoon until Saturday afternoon. During those few days there were multiple competitions. There was a Sudoku challenge, current events cross word, origami contest, timed rubik’s cube race, futbalito (futball on a basketball court with a smaller ball), comedy night, battle of the bands, spelling bee, Bible verse trivia, speeches, I could go on and on. There were so many different and unique events! What amazed me more is that there were students who excelled in each of these categories! I was blown away by all the talent I saw this past week.

On Thursday afternoon we had our volleyball tournament. It didn’t go as well as I planned. I had a great rotation set up that we practiced over and over, with one of my players being a libero. Just as our first game was about to start I told the judge which number my libero was. As the whistle was blowing for the game to begin she informed me, “She doesn’t have a different uniform, she can’t play libero.” What?? Excuse me?? I totally forgot the libero has to wear a different shirt, and since this is Honduras, I didn’t realize they would be so strict about the rules. So my libero had to play all the way around. Once my girls realized the libero couldn’t rotate out they got really nervous and didn’t know what to do. I felt so bad for them, I really felt like I let the team down. I was disappointed in myself as a coach. We lost the first game 15-5 and lost the second game 15-11. After that we were out; a little bit of a bummer. I really do think these girls can do well in volleyball. Our school also only has up to the 10^th grade since it’s newer, so the other schools have older girls who have been playing for longer. I know my girls will continue to improve, and next year I know they will do even better!

My favorite event to watch of the week was boys and girls futball. It is absolutely amazing to see what they can do with a futball; I was speechless while watching them. This is definitely a sport that they all naturally excel at. It is funny, because to me basketball or volleyball comes natural but if you give me a futball I’ll embarrass myself. That is not the case with my students!! The boys sadly lost their first game, but our girls made it to the championship against Teguc. The game ended with a tie 3-3, so there was a shootout. Almost 20 girls participated in the shootout until someone messed up, which happened to be our girls. They were pretty bummed to lose, but they still got second. Once again, they are a young team and they can only go up from here!

The biggest drama over the entire week was the breakfast, lunch, and dinner line. Students would budge in front of other students, which caused some people to stand in line for an unnecessary long period of time. The other American teachers and I decided to do something about this “budging issue”. We monitored the line; any student who budged was sent to the waaaaaaaaaay back. You would not even believe the kind of attitude I received from students!!! Some students laughed at me directly in my face. Some students told me “No, I’m not going to move, sorry.” Some students rolled their eyes, turned their backs and kept standing there. Other’s who I knew spoke fluent English only would respond to me in Spanish. I was in such disbelief at how much disrespect all of the students carried with them. You can about imagine how much attitude I let them give me until I laid it into them. At some points I literally had to dig my nails in some boys’ arms to get them to move out of the line. No joke, 2 minutes later they would be budging again. By the end of the week I was sick of patrolling the lunch line, sick of disrespectful students, and sick of being looked at as the strict teacher.

But I have to say, my La Union students had such an amazing attitude the entire week. Every teacher from other schools commented on how respectful and nice all of our students were. I was so proud of how well behaved all of them were! As I chaperoned the girls throughout the week, I was blown away by all of their maturity. I kept remembering when I was that age, and I wouldn’t have come even close to how mature all of our girls are. Each of them were so responsible, so caring, and so aware of the big picture of S.A.G. The reason for their awesome behavior is because of their amazing relationship they have with Jesus Christ. I was taken aback at how strong their faith was! It was refreshing to see such young girls so certain about their faith, and to have a personal relationship with Him. I felt honored to be their chaperone for the week!

And once again, I could not be more thankful as to where I am this year. Out of this whole world, La Union is the only place I would want to be. God has given me this amazing, life-changing experience. I have a deep love for all of my 3^rd graders, and after this week I have bonded with secondary students. I know when I go back to the United States I will meet special people, and I will have love for all of my future students. But I also know all of these students here in La Union will forever have a special place in my heart.

That is why, it seems impossible for me to say goodbye to everyone in just 40 days. I can’t imagine my life without them. They have made such an impact on how I live, and I hope this stays with me as I go back to the United States. As most of you know, I am not coming back here next year. After a LOT of prayer, I felt as though God has other plans for me! It turns out he did. I accepted a Specialist position with Hanford Christian in California. This is bittersweet, I’m obviously more than excited to move there and start my new job, but I’m also going to have a difficult time leaving this special place. I am trying to give my students as much love and knowledge as possible with the time that I have left. My students keep asking, “When are you coming back??” and I truly hope it will be soon. I promised myself I need to see these children’s faces again, there too special not to! Just see for yourself..