...for a long time

As of 2 hours ago, I have lived in Honduras for two weeks. This is very nearly the reasonable length limit of what I call the "vacation stage." While some vacations can last longer than two weeks, many are not much longer than a week or week and a half. It's my estimation that when moving to a new place, it's very easy within that "vacation stage" to convince yourself on some subconscious level that you are on nothing more than a vacation and that your return home is coming in a very timely manner. I have a feeling that within the next few days, the concrete, disillusioned realization that my return home is not coming until mid December, and then after that not until late June is going to devastate me somehow. The breathing room of the first weekend of teaching is a very viable possibility for this vacation-ending epiphany, as this morning I sat down to check e-mail and momentarily considered turning on the radio to listen to the NPR Saturday morning "cartoons" of Car Talk, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, and This American Life. Sure, I can subscribe to the podcasts of each of these shows and listen to them at my leisure, but my leisure shouldn't have anything to do with it. These shows are for Saturday mornings. Or at least in the States, when one can listen to real NPR at will, are they for Saturday mornings. When you are not on vacation, they are for Saturday mornings.

You may be thinking that this last paragraph is a hiccup in the trajectory you've seen in my most recent posts: a trajectory of new hope, of settling, of beginning to enjoy Honduras (or at least see positive things in it) and being here. Those certainly are true. But I'll still maintain that I'd rather be at home. I'd rather not have to try to make some place home. I'm certainly still frustrated by plenty in this country and culture, and I know from speaking with veterans (seasoned or otherwise) of being down here and teaching at IST that those frustrations always stick. I'm looking forward to the end of the year and have been since before the year even began. Some part of me does believe God has a plan for me to be down here and that this is where I'm supposed to be, but many other parts are still kicking and screaming as they get dragged along.

Sure, the people I work with are a lot of fun to hang around with after school and I have no hesitation in already naming many of the other North Americans among my friends. They are great people no matter what the context. And sure, I'd have met none of them if I hadn't come down here. It's fun to laugh at things that wouldn't happen were we not in a Spanish speaking culture, such as my friend Jenny ordering chicken-flavored soda with her meal yesterday. Sure, a trip to the mall in a group of white people in Honduras is hardly any different than in the States. Well, I take that back: I can't rightly say I ever went to the mall in a group (of white people or otherwise) back in the States. But you get what I'm saying. Life with the fellow teachers really is a lot of fun.

Sure, Honduran 11th graders within the context of the classroom behave hardly any differently from average high school classes in West Michigan. You've got your overachievers, your underachievers, your students you couldn't pay to read a book, your troublemakers, your wily teacher-distracters who get you off track. Some of the grammatical struggles are different from 11th graders back home, and I more frequently have to ask students to repeat themselves because fans are a necessity (I misspelled that word on one of my presentations this week and was corrected by a student) and because they speak quietly and with varying degrees of accent. But my classes are relateable, and I've deeloped a running joke that their comparative government teacher who graduated from Hope, Mr. Manting, and I have a bona-fide feud going on. Sure, I may feel entirely overwhelmed as I look at the coming year and planning for it; making curriculum that is effective, makes sense, and interests my students; and maintaining positive relationships with all my students, in the classroom and in the hallways, but I do know these are struggles that I'd face in Holland or Grand Rapids.

I have a great amount of homework to do. It's not grading, it's reading journals. A bunch of reading. I'm actually interested in it, but it's an overwhelming amount of work to face down. On top of that, I have to still do copious amounts of planning, including what exactly I'm going to do for an hour and a half come the time students walk into my room at 7:15 Monday. There's plenty I'd like to continue sharing here, but I suppose I ought to set priorities straight. Readers, rest assured: I'd still rather be in the U.S., but it's easier to do what I ought to be doing since I am here now than it was a week ago. Maybe because back then I was still on vacation.