Coming Back

All I have to say is I know this is long, long overdue. My apologies. This blog should have been written weeks ago, but as usual life got in the way!

My vacation at home was more than the most amazing time I could have asked for. It felt so perfect to be with my entire family. My two new nieces, Brynn and Poppy, always seemed to find their way in my arms. :) I think my mom was almost happy to see me go so she could have a turn holding them…almost. I also was able to catch up with so many close friends, which was much needed and exciting! Before I knew it, my two weeks were up and I was trying to stuff 3 suitcases, a carry-on, and a backpack full of books and school supplies.

When I was home, I was overwhelmed with the amount of support and love I felt from everyone surrounding me. My friends, family, and church family could not have been more wonderful; they made me feel so cared for! Also, I received TONS of school supplies from my grandma, aunts, and cousins. A HUGE thank-you to you ladies-my students were so excited about their OWN colored pencil packets, the first day they literally didn’t take them out of their hands. They couldn’t believe they all got their own! When I was home I visited my former 3^rd grade teacher who gave me tons of books and worksheets which has made my life a thousand times easier since I’ve been back. THANK-YOU Tanya, you are seriously a life-saver!! Also, Payton and Jocelyn Oostenink (girls I babysit every summer) had their 1^st and 5^th grade class collect so many books and supplies to donate to my classroom. My students have been overjoyed with the abundance of books! 

I could not thank-you all enough for the amount of support you have shown me! I hope you know all the donations are being completely USED up. The other day I gave a choice for my students to color in their worksheet or go read a book. All of my students quickly put their papers away and ran to the bookshelf.  I heard one little girl murmur “Oh reading is much better.” It melts my heart when they get so excited to read simple picture books—a luxury we can forget to take advantage of.

They day after I flew back to Honduras, 5 of us teachers went on a mini-vacation to Belize. It was nothing less of perfect. Belize is one of the friendliest countries I have ever been to. It doesn’t hurt that they also speak in English. We spent hours laying on the beach, soaking in the sun, and reading books. It was so relaxing and exactly what we all needed before heading back into teaching.

It was so great to be back in the classroom with all of my students. We missed each other a lot over break! The first day back I had students coming up to me giving me hugs all throughout the day, telling me they missed me. I didn’t mind that so much. :) But I did forget how much work it is to teach these students. I forgot how much energy it can take out of me. By the end of the first week I was sick! I spent Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday in bed sick with a fever and sore throat. Thankfully I am back in school feeling completely healthy!

The main thing that has been occupying my mind is whatever in the world I am going to do next year. I go so back and forth every single day on my decision. There are moments I am SURE I will stay for a second year, and then there are moments I am SURE I am going to live back in the United States. Having that decision run through my mind every minute of the day can be stressful.

Two days before I left for Honduras I was sitting at a restaurant with my family. My niece Jaida was talking about her birthday party and mentioned that I wasn’t at the party. She asked me where I had been. I told her that I was still in Honduras. She responded to me saying, “Oh yeah..I remember now. You were gone for a looooong time.  I really miss-ed you when you were gone. I miss-ed you a lot, I was really sad.” But then it was like a light went on and she said, “BUT! Now your back for good! Right??!! You’re back for a really long time right??!” Tears filled my eyes as I had to tell this little girl I was about to leave her in just two days. I would leave her for another 5 months. Another night while I was home I babysat my nephew Connor. We had a blast playing together and learning new words (he finally started saying my name). My brother told me the next morning he woke up asking for me. Moments like these make it more than difficult to be away from home.

Then there are moments that make it feel my need to stay here for more than just this year. My students were packing up for the day when my student Carlos came up and wrapped his arms around my waist. His big chocolate eyes looked up at me and asked if I would come over to his house today. I got invited to play at my student’s house! I told him I would stop by since every day I walk past his house. That day on my walk home I saw the door cracked open ever so slightly and saw his eyes peeking out at the street, watching and waiting for me. I walked up to his door and he swung it open with the biggest smile on his face. He was of course still wearing his school uniform, since he has only a handful of clothes. He told me he was studying for his reading test the next day. As he opened up the door a little bit further I got a closer look into his house. The floor was made of mud. It wasn’t evenly laid down, it was bumpy and rocky. The room was smaller than my closet at home…and that is the main room that they live in. Carlos talked to me for the next 20 minutes. I was filled with pride that this boy knew how to have a conversation in English with me while he stood in a mud hut. This boy WILL make a difference for his family. Where am I ever going to find another job where I have this much influence in changing children’s lives?? It most likely won’t beat this.

So you can see, I’m struggling with my decision. I have a few more weeks to decide where God wants me to be, so please, as always, keep me in your prayers! If anyone has advice, I’m all ears. Thank-you as always, I’m more than appreciate your support!! 

Christmas Festivities

The day after Thanksgiving I woke up in a strange hotel in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. It was 6 AM and I was awake for the day. The first thought that came into my head that morning was ‘I can listen to Christmas MUSIC!!!’ I immediately unlocked my iTouch and put on my Christmas playlist. As Michael Buble, She & Him, and Jim Brickman flooded the room my Christmas spirit was switched on…and it’s been on ever since.

If you don’t know me that well..I’m obsessed with Christmas. Last year my roommates wanted to kill me when I turned on the Christmas music during the first snow fall (which happened to be in October). And just because I live in a different country this year during the Christmas season does not mean I will celebrate it any less!! Thankfully I live with Gayle, who is also equally obsessed with Christmas and all that goes with it. We have had some fun and eventful times celebrating this special holiday.

The celebrations of Christmas have been going strong at our school. The Monday we got back from Thanksgiving break I started teaching my students Christmas Carols..they didn’t know ANY! I was quite horrified to find this out. We have been spending ½ a period or even a whole period on practicing their carols. Surprisingly, my students caught on quite quickly. Sometimes new songs can overwhelm them since A-they don’t know the language, B- they don’t know the tune, and C- we don’t have a piano or CD for them to sing along with..all a cappella! But I drilled the songs into them… I wondered if I was being a little too intense. I had students come up to me after class saying, “Miss Van Dyke, this hurts a lot,” while they were pointed to their throat. Nonetheless we have so far learned about 12 songs! In chapel last Wednesday we performed 7 of them; one of them being the 12 Days of Christmas…my personal favorite song. I think afterwards they were proud they knew so many good Christmas songs! It is also fun to hear them singing the songs outside at lunch and recess, or even when they are working at their desks.

Also at school, we have been spending the last month practicing for the Christmas program. My students joined 4^th grade in doing a dance for the program….which I of course had to teach. Every single day for a month I worked for an entire class period teaching 40 children the dance. For the dance, there were two separate groups: the blue group and the red group. When I first made the two groups, I separated the students not realizing who the good dancers were and who the bad dancers were. Well, I had managed to put all of my talented dancers in the blue group, and all the students who can’t dance for the life of them in the red group. And of course the red dance routine was 3x more complicated than the blue dance. At times I felt like the whole school could hear me yelling “1-2-3 DOWN! 1-2-3- DOWN! BIG ARMS!! BIG ARMS!!” We rehearsed for the program on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I don’t think I have ever experienced a more disorganized mess in my entire life. I felt very tense, and my poor students received the affects of it! Friday night we preformed our program. All the hard work was worth it!! My students did such a good job, I couldn’t be more proud of them! My red group wasn’t perfectly together, but they still looked pretty darn cute. :)

Gayle and I have also wanted to bring the Christmas spirit into our humble abode! We don’t have enough money to decorate our house for Christmas…even though every time we walk past a house with lights or Christmas trees we stare while ooo-ing and awwww-ing. Instead we have filled our house with Christmas music 24/7…and I mean 24/7. From the moment we wake up until the moment we go to bed. The same 70 some songs we have on repeat.

This past Saturday, Gayle and I invited everyone over to our house for a fun Christmas party. We spent all day Saturday in the kitchen; we made Christmas cookies, gingerbread cookies, pumpkin muffins, green been and potato dish, and TWO whole chickens. Oooh how the fun began with the chickens.

Gayle and I have not bought a chicken so far all year for one reason and one reason only: WE ARE TERRIFIED. I’m not especially great handling meat; it pretty much grosses me out. I sometimes would struggling touching chicken breasts in the U.S. Buying meat in Honduras is a little bit different in the United States. There is no meat market where you walk up to and tell the person what meat you want, while they package it nicely for you. Instead there are freezers inside the pulparias, filled with parts of animals. Before we went to buy our chicken, we asked Jake what we were in for. He told us where we were going to buy our chicken we most likely wouldn’t have to take out the chickens intestines. The minute he said that, I knew we were in for quite the adventure.

We walked over to the pulparia and told them we were looking to buy two whole chickens. The girl led us over to the meat freezer. She started opening the freezer, and I could feel myself starting to feel sick. I did NOT want to see what animal parts were stored in there! I tried backing away and my backpack bumped into a shelf, knocking over bottles of pills. Thankfully that got me further away from the freezer. She pulled out two whole chickens for us and gave us instructions on how to cook it..she knew Gayle and I had no clue. Those crazy American girls… We purchased the chickens and vegetables to garnish it with. As we got back into our house we started the un-thawing process which only took a few hours (it takes a lot longer when you don’t have warm water). Once it was unthawed I started taking out the chicken out of the bag, forgetting how grossed out I am about raw meat. I suddenly remembered when I was holding the chicken in the sink by its two legs. I started screaming to Gayle, “I’M HOLDING A WHOLE CHICKEN..GAYLE..I’M HOLDING A WHOLE CHICKEN!!! GET ME A PLATE!! GET ME A PLATE!!” The chicken flopped down into the pan. I took a few seconds to recompose myself.

Now what?? Now what do we do with this whole chicken? We had obviously never done this before so we were a little lost. The girl at the pulparia told us we needed to cut something off of the chicken..but we weren’t quite sure WHAT to cut off. Gayle started cutting at one end of the chicken…and it started bleeding. This caused both of us to start gagging. Gayle looked at it and said.. “I think this is the butt….it’s butt is BLEEDING Erin!!” I called my dad to make sure we weren’t ruining our chicken. When it doubt, call your parents, right?? My dad informed Gayle and I that we needed to break off the chickens neck……ummmmm what?? I told him he better be joking…because there was going to be no breaking of bones in our house!! He continued to tell me that I needed to try and rough it for a week with him.. “back when I was young, I always had to kill chickens on the farm and gut them myself.” I apologized he had such a wimp of a daughter! Thankfully he said we could leave the chicken as is…so we did.

At this point I was crying I was laughing so hard. We were both so out of our element and trying so hard!! Next we were told to cut the chicken down the middle. Gayle bravely took the knife and started cutting. As she pressed down on the chicken (which was near its lungs) the chicken moved. Gayle jumped back and screamed, “IT’S BREATHING!! I THINK IT JUST BREATHED!!!!” We swore the chicken came back to life. After a few more freak-outs and meltdowns, we had cut the chicken down the middle. We stuffed it with tomatoes, onions, and green peppers…yum!

The second chicken was a little bit easier to do….we had a few less freak outs than the first chicken. Even though the entire time we kept telling each other, “I can’t believe we are doing this right now.” Finally the chickens were ready to be cooked! Too bad our oven wasn’t ready for them to be cooked. For some reason, our chicken was not cooking in our oven. Our guests arrived at 7…our chicken wasn’t ready to eat until 9:30. Apparently we had put too many juices with the chicken so it would not cook for us. But I have to admit, it was pretty delicious; even if we had to wait 3 ½ hours for it to cook! Thankfully our guests thought so too. Our Christmas party was still a great time—we played some games, we ate delicious food, and talked about all the fun things we are going to do on our upcoming vacations.

Our party made me that much more excited for the United States!! I can’t wait for two weeks where I don’t have to wash all my dishes by hand, where I don’t have to spend 3 hours cooking every evening, where the electricity and water continually works, where I don’t need to worry about cockroaches crawling in my bed while I sleep, where I can drive my car places, and where I can SEE all the people that I love!!! This past Friday, I had another new niece born; Brynn Alivia Van Dyke!!! I am SO EAGER to get home to see both of my new baby nieces!!

This coming week I plan on doing a lot of fun Christmas activities with my students. We are also planning a Christmas dinner with all of the teachers, which the American teachers are cooking for. Gayle and I volunteered the boys to cook the chicken; we had our fill for awhile. Friday I will begin my journey back the United States. 5 more days and COUNTING until home sweet home..CANNOT wait!! 

Expanding My Horizons

Sorry.. I have wanted to write a blog for quite a few days now, but I haven’t been able to due to the power outage. We have had power mostly during the day, but every single night the power has been going off. The other day it was off for almost 24 hours. It just so happens that the power goes off every single night while Gayle and I have been cooking dinner or when I start writing my blog. It has been an interesting week to say the least.

But the “interesting-ness” of my week doesn’t even compare to my weekend. It is almost unbelievable that I can still have an adventurous weekend even though I am here in little La Union. This past weekend was definitely no exception.

The story begins with last Wednesday (the 30^th). A student from Gayle’s 5^th grade comes up to me and hands me a ticket. I asked her what it was for. She told me it was for a retreat called “3 Dias de Gloria”. She began to explain that Miss Gayle had told her the day before that both her and I would be attending this retreat. The purpose of the retreat is to honor God, and to give him glory for everything that he does for us. As Kirian (the student) hands me the ticket she tells me, “Don’t forget to bring a blanket and pillow!” I looked at her completely bug-eyed, wanting a further explanation. She said “Yes it is three days long. We stay overnight there and give glory to God for 3 whole days.” You can bet that I marched right into Gayle’s room and asked her what she signed us up for!! Apparently, Kirian forgot to mention the sleep-over part when Gayle agreed to go.

Friday came quicker than I wanted it to. Gayle and I sat down and came up with a game plan for the retreat. We decided that we would go to the retreat but only for the dinner; we would leave later on Friday night. Gayle wasn’t feeling well all day Friday, so if anything we could use that as an excuse to go home.

On the walk home that day from school we mentioned our evening plans to all the teachers. Jake (who has lived her for 4 years) told us that he had been to “3 Dias de Gloria” before. He said Gayle and I were in for a real treat. The church that puts on this retreat was a Pentecostal church. Jake said when he went a few years ago people were shaking/convulsing on the floor with the Holy Spirit inside of them, others were speaking in tongues, and there was oil miraculously falling from the ceiling onto the people.

I don’t know about your church retreats or services..but that is not how mine usually go. Hearing this made Gayle and I even more nervous to go! Gayle and I rehearsed our getaway plans on the hike up to the retreat. As we walked up to the building, I could feel every pair of eyes on us. It is not like we blend in very well…2 white girls in the midst of 150 Hondurans. We found Gayle’s student Kirian and stood in line with her. At the front of the line we were told to hand over our purses and our cell phones. They were collecting everyone’s belongings. Well I was not about to let them take my purse, thankfully they were ok with me keeping it. To our dismay Gayle was forced to hand over her cell phone. They wrapped it up and put it in a big black bag with everyone else’s phones. We quickly started scheming ways we could get the cell phone back without making a huge scene…. but bright ideas weren’t coming to mind.

Next we were herded into a bigger room with a stage and chairs set up. Gayle and I sat down, desperately trying to blend in. Everyone was staring at us, most likely thinking “those crazy gringas are here.” [sidenote: everyone already thinks we are crazy because we are always running for excersize..NO ONE does that here..we also sit in the park to soak up the sun while everyone else sits in the shade, the sun is BAD..we always see Hondurans laughing at us]  

We continued to sit in the white plastic chairs being stared at for 2 hours. While sitting there music blasted, people chatted, and dinner was served. Dinner was watery scrambled eggs, rock hard red beans, queso (cheese that tastes like dirty socks), and 3 tortillas. Buen Provecho!

Finally after waiting for 2 hours, the retreat was started. There was a lot of standing and praying, a lot of sitting and listening to screaming sermons, and a lot of music being played. I think this is the one time I was thankful I don’t understand much Spanish; it gave me a good excuse not to be super “involved”. Gayle, on the other hand, was translating a pretty intense sermon. During the middle of the sermon, a girl came up to us and started speaking to us in English (she goes to the bilingual school in Gracias). She asked us to please come outside with her. So Gayle and I had to stand up in front of ALL of the people and were escorted outside. No matter how hard we try not to, we always always ALWAYS make a scene. When we get outside the girl explains that all of the pastors want to pray over us since we don’t understand Spanish. Gayle and I stepped towards the pastors and they said “No, no, no only one at a time.” Gayle and I quickly held hands and explained we were staying together!! I was not about to be separated from her!! They said that was ok and that they would pray for us later. The girl lead us back into the building.

We made sure to pick seats close to the back AND close to the door this time; that way hopefully not so many people would notice when we left for the night! We waited for 45 more minutes before we decided it was time to leave..only one problem: Gayle needed her cell phone, which was deep inside the big black cell phone bag. We flagged down the English-speaking girl and asked her where we could get it. She went searching for it and came back 10 minutes later, cell phone in hand. Good, now we could make our get-away!! We were about to walk out, when the English-speaking girl shoved a survey into our face and told us to fill it out. The survey asked about your 7 worst sins you commit constantly, about your relationship with Christ, what you want to change about your faith, etc. We quickly filled it out and then decided we HAD to leave, or we would be stuck staying overnight there!

 I decided to go for it and I leaped out the door. I made it out safely…Gayle didn’t. A man had stopped Gayle and said, “You cannot leave now!! You need to stay! You need to see the miracle that is going to happen. The Holy Spirit will come and it will burn and tear up your paper (survey)!!” The man saw me walking down the hill and literally yelled (in Spanish of course) “You need to STOP HER!” I looked back up the hill to see Gayle surrounded by 5 people telling her that she cannot leave yet. Gayle calmly smiles at all of them and tells them thank-you, and she runs to meet me. We need to get out of here FAST.

On our way down the hill we met two boys. They looked at us curiously, wondering why we weren’t in the auditorium listening to the sermons. One of them said to us “Are you looking for the bathrooms?” Gayle quickly said, “Yes we are!” She was hoping that would make them leave us alone…alone and able to make a getaway. They pointed us to the direction of the bathroom. We watched them walk up the hill towards the auditorium, making sure they couldn’t see us anymore.

We decided we were safe, so we literally started sprinting down the mountain towards the big silver gates. As we reached the gates we noticed big, heavy chains linked around them held together with one massive padlock. We were LOCKED in. We were so close to escaping..if only there was a way OVER the gates! There was no way we could stay overnight, we didn’t even bring a pillow or blanket. I looked over to the right and noticed another gate. This gate looked a little bit easier to climb. “Gayle I’m going to climb the gate.” I headed towards the gate more than ready to attempt the climb.

She stopped me, “Wait! There are a bunch of people at the top of the hill watching us!” I looked up, and sure enough at least 15 people were gathered at the top of the hill watching our escape. I decided it might look bad if I climbed over the gate. A few people started running down the hill. Gayle and I were worried they would make us go back to the retreat. As they came closer we noticed it was the two boys who we had told we were going to the bathroom…oops! They looked at us and said, “So you weren’t going to the bathroom, you were actually going home.” Even in the black of night, I swear I could see Gayle’s face burning red. “Umm…yes I need to go home, I am sick,” Gayle responds. Thankfully they were laughing and not upset. They started to help us look for the keys to the padlock. I was tired of waiting, so I started climbing the gate. The boys seriously thought I was a crazy person, but I didn’t care—I was desperate to leave! Climbing over a gate never felt so good. As my feet hit the ground on the other side I felt free! I helped Gayle climb over and we RAN back to our house, laughing at ourselves the entire way.

We were almost to our house when we heard screaming, yelling, and chanting coming from the place we had just escaped from. We were so thankful we had climbed the gate. We were safe and sound back in our casa.

Once again, I had an adventure. And once again, Gayle and I gave the people in the town reason to think we are absolutely crazy Americans. As long as I’m not the only crazy one, I guess I’m ok with that. :)

Good Days and Bad Days

Anywhere you live, whether it is in the United States or Honduras, you are bound to have bad weeks. Last week was one of those weeks for me. I started off the week being really homesick: the holidays are coming up, it was my sister’s birthday, and I had a new niece born (Poppy Jo..and she is the CUTEST little girl ever). It is always difficult to snap out of your homesick moods and for it to not affect your days.

                                              The cutest girl around: Poppy Jo

                                              (Picture taken by Valerie Steffy)

Last week my students needed and abundance of help, attention, and love. There was never a time where they worked on their own for more than two minutes. All my students constantly had questions. I swear there were hands raised every minute of the day. I tempted to say “You can’t ask any more questions, just figure it out!” It’s difficult to have my students work on their own when they literally can’t comprehend the written directions. Written instructions don’t mean anything to my students; instead I have to physically act out every single step..four or five times. After this I usually have 5 students who still don’t understand. At least I have a break at recess and lunch right? Nope. Every break I have students surrounding me; they practice their English, tickle me, sit on my lap, play with my hair, or even just hold onto me. You can imagine after a few days of this, I feel emotionally and physically drained. Days like these I keep reminding myself my students NEED this love from me, they NEED to learn from me, they NEED my attention. And on the plus side, at least I know my students love, respect, and care for me. I could not be more grateful for that.

And that is why I have always wanted to teach 3^rd grade or below: they almost always love their teacher and disrespect doesn’t come easily. Once you reach grades 5-8 children start to get an attitude. Some teachers have a gift for dealing with students in this age group..bless their souls. I’m not one of those people, and last week proved so.

Every Wednesday we have a devotional with 1^st-6^th grade. The students have to sit on hard benches for an hour singing songs and listening to a Bible story. Last week Wednesday our 6^th grade class was being extremely disrespectful during devotional. They were clapping off-beat to screw up everyone’s rhythm, they were hitting each other, talking while the speaker was presenting, etc. When students behave this way, it makes my blood boil. I went over by them and told them to be quiet. All the girls looked at me as if I was ridiculous and started laughing at me. One boy was poking all of his fellow classmates and would not stop. I literally had to put my arm around him in order for him to quit. I stayed by them the rest of the devotional while they continued to look at me and laugh every time I told them to stop talking. I kept them behind after devotional to talk about what it is to be respectful. Finally after my 10 minute lecture I no longer had girls laughing in my face.

Two days later I was working on grading papers after school. I watched Gayle and Eleanor run out through the gate to our school. There were a bunch of boys standing by the gate, and as Gayle and Eleanor ran past, a few of them started barking and howling at them. (This is something that gross Honduran men will do to women in place of whistling at them) I was appalled boys were barking at them, but I figured they were students from the public school. Ten minutes later I started my walk home. As I neared our school gate, I noticed the boys standing by the gate were OUR 6^th and 7^th grade students; which means OUR students were the ones barking/howling at Gayle and Eleanor. I didn’t want to believe that our students would do something like that, so I thought to myself I must have heard them wrong. As I walked by I said goodbye to the boys. I was halfway down the hill when they started to bark and howl at me. I felt the anger inside of me leap 10 notches. I immediately turned around and RAN up the hill to those boys. No way were these boys getting away with BARKING at me, how rude! I reached the boys and started to hand it to them. I told them it was completely disrespectful to bark at a teacher and I NEVER wanted to hear them do that to me ever again. One of them looked at me and gave a snide reply, “I don’t know what it’s like in your country, but in this country it’s not disrespectful to bark at a teacher.” Umm…excuse me?? I was beyond furious at this point. Not only were they barking at me, they also were saying that wasn’t disrespectful! I was done arguing at this point. I could feel tears building up, so I just walked away.

I had never felt so disrespected before all in one week. I hate being the person who is always yelling at the students, correcting their behavior. It annoys me that I get upset about their behavior and that it turns me into an angry person. Who wants to be the crabby teacher all the kids talk about? Who wants to be the teacher that the students say, “Oh watch out, here comes Miss Van Dyke!” I feel like it is so difficult to earn their respect. Every time I try to be nice, I feel like it’s an excuse for them to misbehave. 

I have to keep reminding myself, I was once in grade school. I know for a fact I was not always nice to my teachers. I know I gave people attitude when I was that same age. I remember what it is like being a young teenager and trying to act “cool” in front of my friends. I need to remind myself I still have to love them no matter how they act towards me. I still need to keep trying to be a nice, loving, fun teacher—no matter what students I’m around. Even though it is so difficult, I can’t take their actions personally. It is just that much more necessary for me to rise above and be a better role model for these students to look up to. Pray for me that I will have the patience and strength to do this!

This week has been a lot better. It is only a THREE-DAY week which is so awesome. We are leaving on Thursday for Tegucigalpa to celebrate Thanksgiving. It will be fun change to be in a city around restaurants, a mall, and stay in a nice hotel! I have been teaching my students Christmas songs, which we both have been enjoying a lot. :) It is never too early to start celebrating Christmas! ;)

Of course in school you always need to come up with one thing that you are thankful for. Here’s mine for this year:

I am so extremely thankful for all the people that keep me in their prayers! 

Eye Opening Experience

In January my school is starting a new program called Nivalacion. This program is going to be for 8-10 year olds. Nivalacion will have 10-15 students in it; the objective is to give the students a crash course in English. This particular class will last until the end of July, so that by August the Nivalacion students will be enrolled in regular classes/grades. The purpose of this program is so that we can give more children a chance for a great education. One of the really cool things is that I have a lot of friends and family supporting the students who will be enrolling in this program! It is going to be a neat experience seeing the children at the school and knowing who is helping pay for their education.

One of the things our school needs to do is FIND the children to be placed in this program. Jake has been planning on picking students from our community, La Union, but he also wanted to choose a few children from the surrounding aldeas. (Aldeas are extremely small and poor mountain communities which usually do not have any electricity or running water) One of the aldeas he wanted to find children in was called Chimisal. In order to pick the students to come to our school, they first need to be tested to see their level of knowledge. This past Saturday Jake, Gayle, and I planned to hike to Chimisal to test some of the children there.

We woke up to a not-so-beautiful Saturday. Being so far up in the mountains, our town is often inside of clouds. Saturday was one of those days: all you see are clouds surrounding you while the mist of the clouds soak everything around you. This includes the streets; they turn to absolute mud pits.

Despite the weather Gayle, Jake, and I began our walk up the mountain. After the first thirty minutes of walking I looked down at my cute pink tennis shoes to find they were no longer pink or cute. Instead they were caked in mud. We continued to climb…and climb..and climb..and climb some more. We climbed up the mountain for 2 hours. Usually I’m down for a good hike up a mountain but this one was particularly difficult. First of all, the incline of the road was crazy steep. Second of all, the road was complete mud. Every time I took a step I slid a half a step backwards. I tried to walk as fast as possible because if I stopped walking I would slide right back down the mountain. And third of all, we were walking so high up in the mountain that it was making it more difficult for me to catch my breath. Finally after a difficult climb we had made it to Chimisal. I was thankful I hadn’t face planted in the mud, not to say there weren’t a hundred close calls.

                                                          Our view on the way up

We had made it to Chimisal, but we were unsure of where the school was. Two little girls in school uniforms started walking with us, showing us where to go. As I looked down at the girls, my face turned pink. They weren’t wearing any shoes. Here I am complaining my shoes are no longer being bright pink and these little girls are too poor to own shoes.

The girls pointed to the school building. To our dismay they pointed to a little white building that looked difficult to get to. First we mud skied down a very steep mountain. This lead us to a side of a river which we needed to find a way to cross since there was no bridge. After hopping from rock to rock across the river, we had to climb a mountain of rocks and mud. It was a very narrow path, which was a bit scary since on one side there was a huge drop off from where the road fell away from erosion. Next we climbed up another huge mud mountain. By the time I got to the school I was very out of breath. I was also in absolute shock the children had to walk that every single day in order to get to school. I was mad when my mom made me ride my bike on nice paved roads instead of getting a ride in her van.

We were ushered into the school room where there sat 20 barefoot children. A couple of the children were wearing school uniforms, but most of them only had dirt covered rags on. We asked how old each of the students were. Most of them said between 8-12 years old. The oldest child was 12 since most of them drop out after they turn 12 so they can help their parents work in the coffee fields. For a lot of these students it could very likely be their last year attending school.

We asked the children what they were doing. They said they were taking their final exam for the year. (Public schools in Honduras have a different school year than us-they go from March to November) For their final exam they needed to copy what was written on the board. On the board was written the letters A, B, C, and D. I was in complete disbelief.

The teacher gave us her top 10 students to start testing. We took the children in a separate room. Gayle handed them a piece of paper and pencil so they could each write their name down. They all looked at Gayle with blank stares. We realized they didn’t know HOW to write their name. So then we asked, “How do you spell your name?” Surely they knew how to SPELL their name….nope. They couldn’t tell us how to spell their name either. My disbelief grew deeper.  

Next we handed out Spanish reading books. They all started looking at each other and giggling. Finally one child said, “We can’t read.” My disbelief grew even deeper.

Lastly we decided to try some math. We started with some simple addition problems. I discovered one girl in my group of three knew how to add simple numbers, but the other two couldn’t tell me what 7 + 2 was. To my dismay none of them knew how to subtract. In Gayle and Jake’s group, they had a few students who knew how to add and subtract, but they didn’t know how to write the numbers down. My disbelief was blown out of the water.

Our testing lasted a very short time, only a mere 10 minutes. I felt absolutely sick to my stomach. These children knew absolutely nothing! They didn’t know how to read, write, do math, or even write their alphabet!! The worst part was that some of these children had been in school for the past SIX YEARS of their life. What have they been doing in school for the past six years??? Coloring??

We returned the students back to their teacher. She looked at us hopeful and asked, “Who passed??” It was heartbreaking to tell her that her students knew absolutely nothing. As we slid down the mountain back to La Union the teacher explained the students’ problem:

For the past 6 years the students had a horrible teacher. She only came to school when she felt like it, which was at best 3 days a week. When she did come to school she didn’t really feel like teaching, so she literally taught them nothing. Instead she had them color pictures…for six years. Their current teacher started teaching at the school only a couple weeks before, and she was also in shock with how little the children knew.

I felt sick for all of these children. Here I am, complaining about how my students don’t understand all of my English, complaining that my students don’t know their multiplication facts at the snap of my finger, while these children don’t even know how to spell their own name!! What are they going to be able to do in their life if they literally don’t know anything!?

The extremely sad thing is that even if these students have the desire to learn, they won’t be able to. Their teacher had absolutely failed them. Because the teacher decided she didn’t “feel” like teaching them, they now have no opportunity to succeed in life. Now there is no way for them to rise out of poverty- how can they get a decent job when they don’t even know what 2 + 2 is, or even how to write their own name??

It was also sad to realize this public school isn’t an exception. A lot of public schools in Hondurans have this problem. Their teachers don’t feel like teaching, so they don’t. Students aren’t able to learn anything, so they drop out of school and continue to live in poverty. This is why my school is so special. My school takes in all of these poverty stricken children and they find people to support their education. Our school gives the children tools for rising out of the poverty. Once the students finish university they will be able to come back to La Union and continue helping people out of their poverty.

I just want to say THANK-YOU again for all of you supporting students here at my school. You are literally changing this child, AND their family’s life. You are giving them an opportunity to succeed in life. And you could not be more appreciated. It makes me so SO proud when my students who live in mud huts get A’s on all of their tests. I know they will go far in life. Because of YOUR help these children will be able to help others in La Union and surrounding communities.

If ANYONE else would like to help one of these students receive an education that will change their life, you can! It is $50 a month; this helps feed them, buy clothes for school, and pay for books they need. E-mail me at erin.vndyk@gmail.com to let me know if you are interested. Also, I know a lot of you are collecting books and other materials for our school for me to bring back after Christmas. This is ALSO so helpful and SO much appreciated. Since my school helps support so many students, they never have left over money to buy materials. If anyone else wants to buy materials for my classroom/school you can also e-mail me. After Christmas I will bring them back to my school.

Thank you all so much for your words of encouragement and prayers. I just want to ask that you also pray for all the children in the surrounding communities who are denied the privilege of education. We have it so good in the United States..which we always seem to forget. Pray that people who want to make a difference will be placed in each of these children’s lives. Remember, prayer is powerful. 

                                                      How can you say no to them?! :)