Mi primero dia de escuela!

Wow. That’s all I have to say about the 4th grade class I’m in. My teacher, Profe Carlos introduced me to the class, and I said a few words which probably didn’t make any sense, but after that the morning was filled mostly with chaos. We learned a song, as far as I know it was about a flag, but we sang it probably 6 times. The eyes of all 46 of my classmates were on me, making sure I was singing too. The last round was a contest between boys and girls, with me being the one to judge who was best. Probably not the best way to make friends on my first day, but I just picked the girls since there were more of them and fewer boys to be upset at me, haha. Everyone wanted to know my favorite fútbol (soccer) team, and thank goodness I knew the correct answer was “Olympia” so I don’t think I lost too many potential friends there. After much screaming and cheering by the class, it was time for recess or lunch, I’m not really sure what was going on, but all the students ran free. I got to try arroz con leche, rice with milk, and that was pretty good. Profe bought me a typical drink in a bag that they have here, which was pretty good and again, some sort of rice/milk/sugar drink thing? And a classmate offered me a small yellow “nance” which I accepted because it’s rude to turn down anything someone offers you here. If I were you, I would never eat anything by that name. It’s very deceiving, appearing to be a yellow tomato but actually being a fruit with a seed inside, but tasting like neither of those. It was just interesting, but not in a good way. Anyway, during free time I sat in my chair while 10 or more of my classmates at a time stood around drilling me with questions I rarely understood. I was quizzed on the names of the characters in High School Musical (and failed) and then asked to sing our National Anthem (me singing is never good). When they weren’t asking questions, many were petting my head (I guess they liked my curly hair) or simply staring at me. Overall, it was a great morning though. The kids in my class are hilarious, and I think they’ll teach me a lot of Spanish in the upcoming weeks, which would definitely be good. I wish I could carry on a real conversation with them, but so far that’s impossible. The few words and phrases I do know in Spanish, sound so different in a Honduran accent anyway, so most times everything is lost. Having 46 new young acquaintances has only compounded my name remembering problem though. It’s kind of strange to walk around outside and have so many kids yell your name from down the street. Most times I don’t recognize them at all, but I guess I stick out a bit more as one of only two gringas (white girls) in town. Other than that, I have met my new host family… my new Honduran mom and dad, 2 brothers and 2 sisters. Trying to hold a conversation with everyone is rough to say the least, but I know that visiting their family and hanging around their house will benefit me greatly in the long run. We’ve already started with some of our projects, Lauren and I led a Domestic Violence support group on Monday and the guys helped coach a local baseball team. We’ve been cleaning and organizing the house and trying to make it our home by decorating the walls. Our lives here so far have been pretty busy, but everything is great. We keep busy with random meetings, church things, school and our host families, so by the time we get home at night, we´re beat. We get up pretty early in the morning, but I´ve found that a cold bucket shower really wakes me up in the morning- much better than anything at home.