A Kafkaesque Christmas Story and lots of English

• You know that scene in A Christmas Story when the mom is trying to get the little brother to eat mashed potatoes so she has him pretend to be a pig and shove his face in them? And he is making all those weird and obnoxious noises and it is really gross and you kind of want to either fast forward or turn the movie off altogether…that is what every meal is like at my house. I think my host brother’s goal in life is to figure out a way to eat refried beans and scrambled eggs with his elbows (if this is not his dream then I question why he practices everyday). Today he opted not to use his fork to eat his rice and beans, but, not wanting a good fork to go to waste, he instead attempted to use it to scoop his Tang out of his glass and into his mouth (yes, you might of thought Tang no longer existed but I assure you it is alive and well here in Honduras). Combine him with my host sister standing in front of the fridge sucking mantequilla (sour cream-mayo combo stuff) out of a plastic bag then popping the top off of the communal water bucket and taking a big swig and you have a guaranteed appetite/thirst suppressant. I have not yet found a way to fast forward through meals with the kids, nor do I think their parents would appreciate me turning them off for good, so I suppose I will just have to deal…or join them.

• There is a roach that lives in my room. Obviously I am not a fan of said roach; unfortunately he has thus far evaded me. I have plotted his murder hundreds of times at this point but he is very tricky. I think one of the problems is that I am just as afraid of the squish as I am of him, so a little part of me holds back every time I take a swing. I think he senses my apprehension because the little bastard literally does casual laps around my room, taunting me. I have a feeling Kafka was in a similar situation when he wrote The Metamorphosis, let’s just hope I don’t pull a Gregor and come home with antennae.

• I have been doing p90x, a workout series that uses resistance bands, etc and doesn’t take up a whole lot of space (check out the infomercial, I’m sure it is priceless). I hooked one of my resistance bands around the cast iron curtain rod in my room, and things were working well. I don’t have as much space as I need so it gets a little awkward, but I made it work. Then, naturally, things literally fell apart. I had been using my rigged up resistance bands for about 2 weeks and one day I thought to myself, you know, this is not smart…I bet this is going to fall on me. Two seconds later my hypothesis was confirmed when a cast iron rod smacked me in the head (peace corps will now probably administratively separate me for living without wearing a helmet). I have since modified my “gym” and I now string up the bands in the shower. That’s right. I workout in my shower. I am that dedicated to physical fitness. Or I am just that dedicated to having something to do for 90 minutes every day. Probably the latter.

• This past weekend I ventured to La Esperanza again for a little welcome party with a bunch of other volunteers in Intibuca. I sat wedged in between a man and his sack of who knows what and Jesus. Granted it wasn’t ACTUALLY Jesus, but it was a larger than life picture of his head (crown of thorns and blood included) painted on the window. While I appreciate the sentiment, I have to say it was a little unnerving to turn to look out the window and come face to face with a very bloody son of god. Anyway, that trip lasted a little over 4 hours (I left the house at 4:50 am and got to La esp at like 9:30). When I got there I decided to walk around a bit to familiarize myself with the town. This would have been a much more pleasant experience if a) it wasn’t raining; b) the streets were paved (or at least not made solely of mud); or c) I wasn’t exhausted from getting up at 4. Anyway, I poked around, ate some breakfast, and then met up with the other volunteers. We hung out and walked around all day and then we ate a delicious dinner (pizza) made by our regional coordinator. The next day we had pancakes and then squished (mud) our way to the “supermarket” and the bus station to head home. It was a rather grueling ride considering the fact that I barely slept the whole weekend but all in all the trip was worth it because I got to speak gringo, eat good food, and now I know some more people in my area.

• So due to the incredible success of my first attempt to teach English to the 6th graders, the director of the colegio and I decided it would be best to hold a meeting with the kids and parents of 6th grade. Friday I was in the colegio and the director said “Why don’t you run over to the escuela and confirm a 9:00 Monday morning meeting with the teacher.” Sure, seeing as I am currently shuffling papers around on my desk…I think I could take a break from that. I walked towards the escuela and noticed a large crowd in front of the cultural center (cultural center=big empty building). Then I noticed that the crowd was wearing graduation robes and was, in fact, the 6th grade. I was sent to confirm a meeting in the middle of a graduation. I dutifully confirmed with the rather harried looking teacher and was subsequently invited to attend the graduation. Three hours, 2 prayers, 6 songs, and 2 introductions of each child and family later, I stumbled out of the cultural center and had a lovely lunch with a family in town (the lunch was lovely, I was not…I still have not mastered the art of delicately eating chicken etc with my fingers). Anyway, the meeting time was set and I arrived at the colegio at 9:00 Monday morning. There was not a 6th grader to be found. I quickly ran over to the escuela in case they thought the meeting was there. No one. I ran back to the colegio to see if anyone showed up while I was at the escuela. Again, no one. I sat around for a little while longer and then, at 9:45, a bunch of people showed up. Now, as someone who has a minor panic attack when I am 1 minute late (I blame my father, aka the man that “accidently” had us show up to church TWO hours early one Easter) tardiness is something I don’t do well. I am going to restrain from going on the clichéd “why are they always late” rant but…Despite the late start, the meeting went well and I set up the class, and people actually showed up for it this time!

• My English classes have been going well, and multiplying like rabbits. I now the one class with about 15 6th graders (depending on the wind/sun/day/rain/feelings/etc), one class with 30 kids of all ages, two mini tutoring session classes, and I start one with colegio kids and another with the elementary kids next week. It is nice because I have stuff to do and it is a good way to get to know the kids but I am a little leery about teaching English for like 5 or 6 hours a day considering I reaaaalllly need to learn Spanish (and because if I am going to teach ESL all day I should have just stayed in the US, since that is what I did before I left…). It also means I have to say the ABC’s for 5 or 6 hours, which I assure you can be slightly less than entertaining. The class with 30 kids of all ages is a little crazy, and I can’t guarantee you they are learning a whole lot. It makes it difficult when some kids already know a little English and others can barely write. It also makes it difficult when some kids (2 seven year old boys) act like wolves the whole class. I may or may not have kindly suggested that the two wolves take a couple of laps around the school to burn off some energy before they were allowed back in the classroom. I may have also kindly suggested that wolves can’t learn English so only little children were allowed back in the classroom Monday. We shall see what species arrives come Monday, hopefully if it has to be something other than human it is a sloth or a turtle or some other silent animal (I don’t actually know if sloths make a noise, they seem quiet).

• Today while I was writing the above, I received a call from one of my counterparts. She asked me where I was, I said at home. Then she said, “Okay, well come here right now because (fíjese que) we are having a meeting with UNICEF and we want you to come.” So, I sprint down to the office and arrive about halfway through the meeting. Since I was the only one to get a mid-meeting notification of said meeting, and the only one not fluent in Spanish, I was slightly lost. It turns out the UNICEF has donated a bunch of supplies to Colo but they want us to build a building/provide a special building to put it in. The building could potentially be a library. Guess who is now UNICEFs go to person, yup that’s right, me…the only one with barely a clue as to what exactly it is all the parties want. It is going to be interesting. Although I am sort of at a loss as to what exactly is expected of me, I am excited to have a project that could potentially involve a library and does not involve English.

• I think itunes has a personal grudge against me. It has some sort of virus (despite the fact that I have scanned it with a million different virus scanners and come up with nothing) and it is deleting all the things that I hold most dear. It deleted 3 seasons of it’s always sunny, a season of the wire, 2 seasons of the office, all my Corey Smith songs, Billy Joel, and some random other music that is important to me and may or may not be too embarrassing to publicly admit to. If anyone has any helpful suggestions as to how to get this monster to stop ruining my life and stealing my precious entertainment…let me know.