Climbing Walls

It's been a while since I've written. The inspiration comes and goes.

The school starts slowly on Fridays. The buses arrive a little late, and kids trickle into first period with groggy eyes. I arrived at 6:50 this morning, which for a normal day is on the late side, but today only a handful of people stood outside. The main door was locked, which meant that none of the directors were there. Quite naturally, I set my bike against the outside wall, climbed up until I was standing on the top of the frame. It was an easy mantle move up over the wall, and then a drop into the empty courtyard. I opened the doors, and the day continued as always, with the struggles and small victories of teaching and learning.

I've seen this stunt before, at a soccer game. I was sitting on the the top bleacher, at the edge of a high cinderblock wall, and a head pops up from the other side. Looking down, I saw a lankey Honduran tiptoe-ing on his parked bicycle. He waited for a moment of distraction, and in one rush of movement he was sitting, relaxed, on the bleachers. He had clearly made a habit of watching soccer games for free.

Maybe I am becoming Honduran.

I can't figure these kids out. They are uncontrollable at times, and then all they want to do is hug their teachers. If they see my on my bike, I take on an image beyond school. I am not just their teacher, but the teacher with a bike. It's really encouraging to see my students pressing their noses to the car windows and waving urgently, yelling ''Mister!''. Maybe most flattering of all is a quiet kid, Edgar, who came to school with a haircut like mine. Hopefully, I am affecting them in some quiet part of their childhood.
The kids bring me fruit. They want to share with me. Today I got three licha, which are spiny, red casings with grape-like meat inside.

Children's books always end with some whimsical high-note. Like in the story with cats trying to cook, the messes are happy learning experiences. I think that part of the goodness of childhood is seeing the world as neat and orderly, authored with a happy ending in mind. We don't like to talk to kids about the terrible nature of the world, and for some good reasons.

My experience is at times bright and joyful, like a book for children, where all the appliances in the kitchen are labelled, and the explosions in the oven are invitations to laugh.

• The Mister climbs the wall, now everyone can go to school.

• The Mister rides his bike! Ride, Mister Brett, ride!
  

The opposite is, of course, true. My class has grown from a full 25 to 27. I remember guiding river trips on the Ocoee, and some days I would have a seventh person (from the usual six) in my raft. The weight, apparent in every turn, was exciting and above all stressful. The paddle would bow under the pull of the water: the strain of a small rudder directing the mass. Class is indeed stressful. In order to check on all the kids, I can spend 10 seconds with each one and then move on.

And yet, the fruit and waving kids are simple enough. The world can be good enough, if I stop thinking about the difficulties so much. Children's books are true in their own way, because they have faith in the simplest things: sun-lit kitchen windows and cups of tea.

See some pictures here:
http://appstate.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2115209&l=08892&id=29705820

Settling In, Part 2

Life, no matter how strange, becomes normal. The colors that at first were vivid cease to attract the eyes, and new routes between school and home don't grab the imagination. I've seen quite a bit, so how different could a new path be? Of course, we work ourselves out of normalcy and find new adventures. We try to keep life exciting and new. If life never settles out, though, how can it ever be exciting?

Siguatepeque feels so normal now. It isn't too odd to be the extranjero, to use new words for fruits at the market, to be a teacher.

Getting comfortable here is not necessarily blending in, but accepting how slow my adaptation will actually be. I knew that my Spanish wasn't especially great coming here, but now I understand that I didn't know the language at all- I could only translate English words into their nearest equivalent. Spanish and English are not the same language with different vocabularies. Phrases that feel so natural and obvious to people here make little sense back in the States, and (of course) the other way around.

My point: I'm beginning to learn Spanish as a language in its own right. It is a slow change from stiff and grammatical phrasing to something sorta colloquial.

I used to think that I could go anywhere in the world and call it my home. I could resolve any cultural differences and survive happily. I'm not so flexible. I have been shaped quite obviously by the world I lived in for 20+ years. Hondurans, and their country, present some interesting and frustrating differences. They have a sturdy simplicity about them. They grow up fast, much faster than I did. I've heard that where there is more technology, children mature at a slower rate, and that seems very accurate right now. Sometimes when I teach, I imagine I'm teaching middle-aged men and women in clumsy little bodies.

They know things, just as simple as that. I don't know if I know anything, and here I see people that know everything that they need to know or possibly will ever know by their high school graduation. It's not ignorance or stupidity; they know who they are, and will grow old on the same sturdy feet planted on the same sturdy soil. In the States, there is a cloud of anxiety that hangs over our heads... insecure side-stepping, constant grabbing for a new image or a new cool. But here people search through different means. They are inundated with the knowledge and identity of their country. It's amazing, school's go all out for the independence parades. Kids have to memorize anthems and dates and symbols and a national heroes.
They precede their knowledge, written or simply understood, with bullet points.

• Cana de Azucar



• Arroz y Frijol



• ...
  



• and that's all: sugarcane rice beans
  



• as if there is no need for further explanation.



• Honduras is



• what it is, unexplained and unexplainable.
  

An example: one of the teachers, Mr. Rodrigo, loves Honduran coffee. He pontificates on the health benefits, the rich flavor. But the coffee is stale and burnt to ash here. Mr. Rodrigo will always think the coffee, among many other things from Honduras, is "siempre rico," because it stirs more than the tastebuds. It stirs his patriotism.

• It's not bad, it's just different.

Check out a few more pictures at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2110028&l=eb769&id=29705820

Settling In

Del Sol Montessori just wrapped up its tenth week today. Life has settled in many ways, and the oddities of not-quite-third-world living feel normal. My job puts routine in my life like I've never known. Sometimes I go for night strolls (my neighborhood is really safe) and I'm surprised by how different the streets look. Streetlights with spiderwebbed powerlines dot the cobbled streets. I like sitting in the park and watching the town close down. The town drunk tucks his bottle in the waist of his dirty pants just in time to take his dreamy sidewalk dive.
I've been taking Spanish lessons at another school with a few other North Americans. If for nothing else, it gets me away from overlong days at school. I was helping my students make up sentences one day, and while writing "The boy rides his bicycle," I realized that I wanted to ride a bicycle. Two days ago, I found a cool old Magna 10 speed road bike, the kind with the foil logo on the head tube, and I just had to buy it. I feel like I'm flying to school in the mornings, weaving throught traffic with my right pant leg rolled up.
Riding is one of those little flings of freedom that keep life a little interesting. I miss all the flexiblility of college and climbing whenever I wanted, but structure is good too. Growing up is good.

Cow Cow Cow.

A story:
I worked at a Jewish summer camp a year ago. I remember the Challah chant, where someone would yell "Cha!" and little kids would finish with "lah!" Then it gets silly, like "Chaaaaa, cha, cha.....Laaaaaaah, lah, lah." Get it?
I decided, in an effort to kill a little time on Friday, that we would do the "vaca" chant, which means cow. Simple enough. I say va, you say ca. But when I say va-va, the response takes on a slightly different edge. An online translator defines it like this:
caca f familiar
1 (excremento) poo: el niño quiere hacer caca, the boy needs to have a poo.

I lead over 20 second graders in the chanting "crap! crap! craaap!" and boy did they like it.
I was totally unaware until i noticed a few wide-eyed kids with their hands over their mouths. I'm still waiting to see if angry parents call me about my "teaching methods."

I've been reading in a book on how to teach the second grade, and one idea really made sense to me. There are two different classrooms. One has a teacher that stands at the front and because of some sense of authority or control, he or she demands that the kids work. Copy this, be quiet, read your book. Or, the teacher and the students can work on the same level, because everyone agrees that they want to learn. This allows the teacher to be a helper, moving about the classroom. This is what I want to do, but it is difficult. My class is cramped, and the students want to break free from their desks. And I only confuse them if we try to do an activity that doesn't involve copying from the board. I've heard that much of education here is copying and more copying. If I write fill-in-the-blank sentences on the board, many of the students copy the blank line and think they completed the task.
I'm realizing that much of the chaos in the classroom happens because they just don't know english. It's very discouraging to have most of your classes in a foreign language, I'm sure. I have to admire their creativity, though. They have mastered the technique of destroying pencils so they won't have to write. One kid even pokes holes in the screen wire windows and pushes his pencils out into the street. If they could just apply their creativity in other ways...
In order to build up their english, we're backtracking. This past week we did a lot of work with the ABC's and basic sentences. I feel like I'm making ground, because they are losing their inhibitions towards reading out loud and writing. I've made many mistakes, but another teacher here said hiring underqualified teachers is the only way that bilingual school's can run.

ps- Somewhere between the United States and Siguatepeque, suspended in mid-air, is a copy of radiohead's new album. I can only hope it will land in my mailbox.

Darwin

A few highlights of the past week:

1. A kid peed his pants in class, I think on purpose.
2. Bravo was stolen, or miraculously escaped from his leash.
3. I discovered mangos.

If the list above is any indication, there is a sweet ending to my problems. School is relentlessly long, and I'm utterly tired at the end of the day. And yet there are little things that keep me going, like mangos: somewhere in between the shape and density of a swollen fist and an oblong softball, they are meaty and heavy. It's common to eat them with salt and chile sauce, which makes for a sweet, sour, salty, and spicy taste.
There are experiences, weighty and complicated in taste, that also compel me. One of my kids, Darwin, is reckless and pushes girls instead of working. But he also carries my books for me and shines with the slightest compliment. I had to put Darwin in the "Red Zone," which means he behaved badly. I told his mother after school, and her eyes got sharp, and Darwin began to weep right in front of me as she scolded him. "Discúlpame!" Tears were now streaking his face. His mom made him say it louder. "Discúlpame! Discúlpame!" I had to stand, shoulders straight and no emotion, watching Darwin in his shame.
Discúlpame loosely translates as un-fault me or un-guilt me. It seems that this is how we might approach God with our failings, soft and confused. Discúlpame for the religious sentiment. I won't indulge myself by concluding the mango metaphor, as sweet and salty and sour and spicy as it is. You can do that yourself.

Weekend Happenings

This past week involved long hours at school in order to prepare for the local and regional food day. On Saturday, we set up wooden stilts and covered the rooves with banana leaves and bright banners. The parents of each grade made food from different regions of Honduras. I was rather happy to be at school with little responsibility, other than walking around and eating.

School can get pretty stressful, especially when we put on big events. Afterwards, I really appreciate the chance to experience the peculiarities of another culture. And sticking around until late builds respect among the teachers.

Last weekend, I took a trek out of town and into the mountains. There's no good way to get there without a car, but walking is such a good way to see the world. About ten minutes out of town, the streets start to wind into mountains. I find the Siguatepeque untouched by modern amenities. There are tin rooves and muddy streets. Unknowingly, I've craved these sights. Sigua is trying so hard to grow up with cell phones and cars and reggaeton, and it has lost some of its uniqueness. I don't want to miss how people really live outside of the commercial section.

Thus, I've been struck with a bit of wanderlust, and am beginning to find these tucked away places.

See more pictures here:

http://appstate.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2105156&l=b6ec7&id=29705820

Dia de Independencia Patria

The month of September in Honduras is one big blur of parades, pageantry, gallentry, and formality. There are four days of parading just for the kids, several more for the military, workers, etc. At school, we practiced for two or more hours a day, which felt like pulling teeth. But the actual march was fun enough to make up for the agony.
The directors of my school come up last minute ideas for how the teachers should dress, and then I realize at the last minute that I don´t have the clothes or shoes or ties that I need. A bit of spontaneity exists in all we do. I learned this week that I don´t know how to tie a tie, and that dressing up all the time is simply frustrating. The tie thing is a bit silly since I´ve tied knots that I literally hang my life on. But people here take outward appearances quite seriously, and I´m adjusting without complaint. (But c´mon, black shoes!?)
I was in two marches; in the second, I was a leader of 20 some kids, yelling commands in Spanglish.
Speaking of yelling, in my second week of class, I strained my vocal chords pretty bad. I would leave class hoarse from trying to keep control. My voice turned really deep and gravely, like car speakers that rattle and hum because they´ve been blown out. One might say they warbled. This was discouraging, to say the least. I´m learning, always learning, that there are better ways of doing this job. I can´t stretch my vocal chords like rubber bands, and I can´t solve all of my problems in class by yelling. It´s hard to balance with 24 kids (and only six of them girls...do the math) between standing my ground, and being a control freak.

The kids call me Mister. Or even worse, meeeeeeeeester. Actually, it´s like sir, so I´ve gotten used to it.
There´s one American teacher that´s been in Honduras for 30+ years as a missionary. She and her husband came here through the Baptist Missionary Board. At first, she scared me a bit. She´s got a little bit of the scary old lady teacher in her. Also, I have an idea that missionaries, especially those from earlier generations, are cut from a rather abrasive cloth. But this lady and her husband have proved me wrong at almost every turn. They are unaggressive, graceful, and care about much more than converting everyone to their church. It´s good to get your preconceived notions shot down.
I started roasting coffee this week. I borrowed a popcorn popper, and bought green beans on the street. If caffeine were an illegal drug, I´d be in possession of several pounds of contraband. My first roasts were okay, but a little too light. Also, I found about fifteen arabica bushes in my backyard, so in a month or so I´ll be picking, drying, roasting, and imbibing.
I met a retired American couple through a friend, and they are officially the grumpiest people in the country. They hate Honduras, and dislike Hondureños. For some reason, I keep going back to their house. My friend Megan describes visiting them as "a scab that you just can´t stop picking". Well said. They´re here because they get a sweeeeeet house for about $250 a month. So I visit, they let me pick huge grapefruit, tangerines, and oranges. And then I chat with them for a while, sometimes up to two hours. It´s really kind of fun. Grumpy people have sweet spots, you just have to look a bit harder.
Meeting people has been an experience for me. Americans are rare, and for the first week I didn´t think they existed. But over the past few days, I´ve encountered a few. It´s a bold move, making friends here. I have to approach people on the street and start a conversation, something like "Omigosh! Are you from America!?" Well, maybe less enthusiastic. But there are some really interesting people here, and I´m getting to know several of them. Many are teachers, there are a few peace corps volunteers, and grumpy retirees, of course.
One last exciting bit of news. It rains almost every night...sometimes it comes hard and fast. A week ago, I was on my front steps in the rain, but not getting too wet. There were bright flashes in the distance, which were quite impressive in the dark. I guess the storm moved quickly, because I saw a huge flash, and simultaneous boom. The sound was disorienting, and the lightning felt like an industrial firework had exploded next to me. In fact, I thought that´s what happened at first. I had this moment of sheer panic, where I was running to the house and gasping for air. And someone was whimpering...but we´ll just say it was Bravo.

Bathroom Tales

Luxuries begin in the bathroom. I can manage cooking in a cramped kitchen or sleeping on a hard bed. But when the bathroom is sub-standard, life is hard.
Let´s take my bathroom, for instance. My water is finicky, and sometimes just doesn´t work. Hot water hasn´t been invented here. The flushing mechanism in the toilet is broken, and so i have to use those yellow dishwashing gloves and fish around in the murky tank to manually flush the thing. Fun.
One night, I went to take a shower. There was no water, so I pulled out a reserve bucket that I keep around for emergencies. I shivered as I poured mug after mug of cold water on my head, and I thought, {this is really grand, spongebathing in another country} and just then all my power goes out, and I´m in a pitch black bathroom, with no noise but the dripping of water. And I laugh... feverish laughter that is a strange mix of stress and happiness. Part of being here is losing control of my circumstances. I don´t have the power and water that I´m so dependent on. And laughing was a release of my incapability here; realizing that there´s no way I´m going to always have a comfy ride.
So I don´t mean to complain. I love my bathroom, and I can´t wait until the power goes out again.

On another note, Hurricane Felix did very little to Siguatepeque. A night of rain, and not much more.
On another note, my kids are crazy.

farewell, monster (or) sentimental explosions

Things are happening pretty fast. I leave for Honduras this Tuesday, and realize this more acutely each day. There are no more trips or obligations until my flight, so I have to start packing and thinking seriously about the next few months. I've been moving around quite a bit over the past few weeks...Boone for two weeks, Phoenix last week, and now Cleveland.


I've had some excellent send-offs and good-byes in each place, so thanks for helping alleviate the anxiety of moving. My final goodbye in Boone was the most theatrical moment of my life. We (Harry, Stuart, and Devin) put my paper-mache monster in the fire pit with a healthy dose of camp fuel and a mouthful of black cats. A nice group of friends came for the funeral pyre. I made a little speech about family, tears were shed, hands were held. And then we blew monster up. Nothing left but a clothes-hanger skeleton. Explosions are touching, I guess.


Moments like that are almost tangible, and they certainly remind me that I'm not forgotten as I leave town. It's exciting to think that I might even know my friends better after a year. Change doesn't erase the past. It just makes it more interesting.