...with a hurricane on the way

Well, it seems fairly possible that Tropical Storm Matthew will turn into Hurricane Matthew, and it's about as likely that whatever it is at the time will hit Tegus. It's pretty guaranteed that heavy rains are on the way, probably within the next few hours. If the destructive winds, the storm proper, hits, it will be on Saturday morning, according to weather.com . Some readers may know that Honduras was hit in 1998 by another M storm, Mitch, so many folks down here are reasonably concerned when any threat of hurricane comes up. There's possibility that school could be canceled after the weekend, or maybe nothing greater than a particularly bad thunderstorm hits us in the city. But of course, it's about more than just my safety and Tegus' safety. Matthew, at the time of this writing, is basically on the coast of northern Nicaragua and is sure to hit the coast and eastern part of Honduras. Prayers for those sure to be affected are imperative.

A lot has happened since my last update. I don't want to diminish this post by getting into other stuff, but I do want to share it. Hopefully over the weekend I'll be able to update further.

...asking for prayer

I'd like to ask for prayer for one of my students. She is going through a difficult medical process that causes her to have certain episodes. These episodes have been getting worse as the process (hopefully) seems to be nearing its end. She had a very bad one this afternoon in my class, fortunately at the end of class at the end of the day, and her mom happened to be here early to pick her up. Now that I know what's going on, I can respond much better, but I simply ask for prayers for M, as she continues this process.

...where chapels and assemblies are nuts

Yesterday we had an afternoon assembly schedule (for the record, none of the first 5 weeks of school promise to have a normal schedule - we have half days, assemblies, independence day long weekends, spiritual retreats, or any combination of those, each week. We'll see about the 6th week.) for an "acto civico," or civic actions - pledging allegiance, singing the national anthem, the like. Being Monday, we also had chapel.

During those two things at the end of the day, I did, in front of everyone, the following:

• tried for 60 seconds to throw a flash card into a halved watermelon, and
• ate sopa de mondongo, or tripe soup, blindfolded.

25 minutes of "chapel" was spent by various people attempting stunts inspired by the TV show Minute to Win It. I participated in the card-into-watermelon stunt. The remaining 5 minutes or so was spent on the message.

After settling everyone down at the assembly, lining everyone up, turning to face the flag, pledging, and singing, there was a good 40 minutes left in the hour long assembly. How to fill this time? By playing "traditional" Honduran games (we were focused on heritage, after all) like...Tug of War? Stilt walking? Sack race? Jumping rope? I was surprised they didn't break out the Honduran Greco-Roman wrestling. Then, to close everything off, they brought up 4 North American teachers to blindfolded taste test traditional Honduran cuisine. Starting of with the baleada was good, but when I found myself with cow intestine/stomach in my mouth, I was done. Blech.

...smiling

11th grade ESL moment of the day:

"I like to wash TV."

-J., 11A

...falling into old habits

I'm quickly finding myself procrastinating already this year. I have a stack of grading, and although I've made a promise to have everything graded within a week of receiving it, I haven't caught up with myself at the beginning of the year to meet that promise. I have a date with that stack tonight, which certainly won't be as fun as my date last night, but it's just as necessary for me to be able to be here. I'm struggling to get my feet under myself. I have a lot more good groundwork laid this year when it comes to policies and systems, but that leaves me less wiggle room. Once I get used to that system, it should be VERY good for me. Right now I'm on the precipice of last year, which should not happen. I can be so much happier down here if I can take pride in what I do.

My new good habits are helping though. I've been doing a good amount of working out, thanks to my roommates. I'm hoping that when people see me at Christmas, there will be a visible difference :) I'm picking up my Bible much more frequently. I'm currently downloading a good number of hymns and old-timey church songs, which somehow do much more for me spiritually than anything I can get down here. I am getting to know the new teachers, which is good.

I feel basically normal. And that's miles ahead of last year. I hope I can put even more of last year behind me. Speaking of which, I have a date to get to...

...after an eventful couple of days

One week and two class periods down. While I somewhat actually miss my students from last year (something I had trouble thinking possible), I am pretty ridiculously happy with this year's crop. Sure, there are always students who I know will give me trouble, but these kids are much more along the lines of what can be expected. Maybe it's because I know to expect something different from what I expected last year. They seem much savvier. I feel funnier. They can follow my ridiculousness much better than last year. They (knock on wood) don't talk as much. It all lends to a sense of increased optimism.

Yet school is not all there is to life in Honduras. I joined a gym for 263 lempiras a month. My roommates and I plan to go there twice a week. I'm in my bible more, although finding outlets for worship (at least ones where I can feel like I'm getting something out of it) down here appears as hard as ever. My moto has come back from the shop, although it's not seeming to be perfect. The new teachers seem very cool, particularly a few, and I have enjoyed getting to know them, although the married couples lend a distinctly new dynamic to the community. It rains every freaking day, which is good considering last rainy season's clear lack of rain caused problems with water supplies later in the year, but makes it very frustrating to try to ride the moto up to Kristin's house. We're taking bets (not literally) on the first day with no rain - I'm totally overshooting things with October 3, whereas the nearest guess to mine is September 7. Look who's going to be the most pleasantly proven wrong. I watched Predators (seriously?) at the theater with my roommates. Playing cards is back in full force. We bought a grill, and harbor vast fantasies of culinary adventures.

Motivation is still hard to come by. But life is in greater force two weeks in.

...which, it's important to note, is still Honduras for Hondurans, too

One thing I have to remind myself of frequently when down here is that, even though there are so many inconveniences to life in Honduras that make me wish I were just back home, I have a "back home." I have an address in the States I can send stuff to if I want to take advantage of a sale on Amazon or order a limited edition pressing of a record or t-shirt, knowing that I'll be able to pick it up when I go home in the next few months. I won't be here forever. Inconveniences down here are temporary.

Meanwhile, for my students, this life IS their life. This IS their "back home," inconveniences and all. Just because they deal with them every day doesn't make them less frustrating. Take today, for example. (By the way, it was the first day of school today.) Every year, the seniors make a grand entrance at the opening assembly. This year, the seniors had an elaborate plan of riding in on fire trucks and military vehicles. Yes, riding INTO the school grounds, with music blaring and yelling while hanging off the sides. Well, besides the fact that they only obtained one fire truck and had a short chain of random pick-ups behind, when the seniors had been planning this they didn't realize the school would randomly start building a large awning thing over the main entrance of the school, making the prospect of driving anything beyond the parking lot impossible. This meant all the students had to walk down to see them drive into the parking lot, siren blaring. However, because of the narrow nature of the walkway from the entrance up to the school buildings, only the few students in the front had a fair view, through the construction, of 70 seniors dancing and waving their arms. The whole "entrance" was hardly one, and I'm guessing many of the seniors are pretty disappointed that they were forced into a lackluster one.

So I may get frustrated, but at least I don't have to deal with the issues of Honduras as a simple fact of life beyond this year.