The Things I Miss

Its been 7 weeks since I left home. I've been in Santa Rosa for a month now. Yesterday and today I talked on the phone with a lot of people in the States and it got me thinking about the little luxuries at home that I am only now beginning to appreciate. Here are some of my thoughts from today:

I really miss...

1. Good beer. Like a good chilled Hefeweizen in a thick glass cup with a lemon slice...and that little water ring it leaves on the hard, dark wooden table at the bar. Or not-so-slowly savoring a Red Tail Ale out of the bottle; that bubbly feeling between my throat and my chest as it goes down. A Mirror Pond in that great big glass they serve it in at the Red Room would be great right now.
   
2. Good beer in good company. I miss hanging out with the people I love and drinking beers together, talking, laughing, feeling comfortable in my surroundings and in my own skin. Between the language barrier, culture barrier, and the relatively short amount of time I will be here, I know it will be hard to make good friends here. For now, the only person I really truly like and get along with is Sarah, my housemate. John is just too different from me, and I am currently annoyed with our Honduran friend Cid. This isn't to say that there aren't any fun people here. There definitely are, and I met some really awesome people last night at a party. But the language barrier definitely makes things difficult. I'm workin on it though...
3. Walking around Chicago. I really miss walking around the city, going to restaurants and bars that are familiar, looking at the pretty buildings, feeling the lake wind on my face, passing under the el tracks when a train is going by overhead. I miss the familiarness of the city. I even miss seeing all those preppy midwestern boys, with their old baseball hats, striped polo shirts, khaki shorts, and adidas shoes. I miss BEING in a big city where there is always something to do and new people to meet. Its pretty small here. I miss the skyline and the tall buildings, the greeness of the Chicago River, the solemn grayness of the lake, seeing the Sears tower every day...
   
4. Boys. Though its probably a good thing for me to get a little break from boys and dating and what have you, I so dearly miss being able to go to a bar and find a cute guy to flirt with. Its definitely not a new realization, to me or anyone else, that this is quite an enjoyable past time of mine. And I can't do it here and I miss it. A lot. Because of the cultural difference, I am really not attracted to guys my age here anyway. There is too much machismo and I find it really unattractive. The higher classes have a little less of it, but still, it's there. Also, most people here are short. I still keep to my 6 foot tall rule :)
5. All those little convenient things. Clothes dryers, manicures, organized driving and roads, things happening mostly on time, clean streets, air conditioning, always having running water, always having hot water, always having electricity, safety (in cars, on the street, in the house, in what we eat...), grocery stores with EVERYTHING you could possibly want, the fact that we have billboards for advertisements and not trucks that drive all around town with a loud speaker blaring out advertisements, the efficiency of most everything in the States, smoking weed and easily being able to buy it!, sinks with hot water, being able to drink the water out of the tap, use it to cook with, use it to brush my teeth with, being able to throw toilet paper in the toilet!, aveeno facewash, car horns being used rarely (funny, right as I typed that, a car started honking right outside my window, this is always happening), Comcast On Demand, having a shower head, being able to use a credit card everywhere, knowing instinctively what is culturally acceptable and just being familiar with my culture in general...the list goes on.
6. Starbuck's. Yes. I really truly, madly, deeply miss my tall soy vanilla latte from Starbucks in the morning. Even though I have AMAZING Honduran coffee, probably some of the best coffee in the world, I still want my Starbucks.
7. My friends and my family.
   

Now, I'm not complaining about my life here. For every thing that I miss from home, there is something about Santa Rosa and Honduras that I love and that we don't have in the U.S. And also, we live lavishly here. Most Hondurans, and the American volunteers here as well, don't have electricity ever (and thus no refrigeration), a lot of the time don't have running water, never have hot water, only have one grocery store in town, etc. Thats the real third world, and I don't live in it. I'm pretty fortunate in my situation here and the on and off electricity and hot water, the noise, the little inconveniences I wasn't used to, I'm accustomed to all of it now, and it doesn't bother me most of the time. Its just part of life here. But, it has definitely made me appreciate my life in the U.S. that was free of all these little inconveniences.

What I wouldn't give right now for a 6 pack of Red Tail Ale, and be chillin in Chicago with Jon, Alec, Maddie and Mikey. Or to be in California at Yosef and Rebecca's house with Shawna, Doron, Nick, Megan, Brigette, Raquel, Willa, Julien, Arie, and Faryn, sitting by the pool at night, looking at the stars and breathing in that fresh mountain air in silence...or maybe it would be mostly silent and Shawna would be laughing.

Honduras vs. Jamaica fútbol

Sarah, Manuel (our taxi driver), John, and me

Wow. How I wish I had a video camera here so I could have shown you all this night. Honduras played Jamaica in soccer.

We have a taxi driver, Manuel, who takes us to and from school everyday. On the 2nd day of school we randomly flagged him down in front of our house because we still didn't have transportation to school, so we had to find a taxi every morning. We asked him if he could pick us up every day and so, now he does. He doesn't speak a word of English, not even goodbye or good morning (though he's slowly learning because we are tutoring him). Its great for us because we have to practice our Spanish a lot with him and he is really patient. So he invited us to watch the game with him and his family at his house tonight.

Manuel picked us up at 7 from our house and we was extremely excited about the game. He was talking SO fast that we couldn't understand a word he was saying. We just nodded and smiled mostly. Per usual, he stopped somewhere without telling us why and told us to wait in the car. He came back a few minutes later with hamburgers to go.

His house is really big and very well decorated and furnished. They have a beautiful dining room with a wooden table and cabinet and a lot of other decorative stuff. His mother and father live in this first floor. Manuel, his wife, and his two little daughters live upstairs. We sat outside on the porch to watch the game. He gave us all hambugers, which were delicious, and we sat and talked (or tried to, anyway) until the game started. His older daughter who i think is 8 or 9, came and sat with us and told us the english words she knows: "what is your name, be quiet, dog, cat." Later she came out and gave me and Sarah bracelets as gifts. She was such a sweetheart. Manuel's mother, Ester, was incredibly nice, in that overbearing mother kind of way. She told us that we are always welcome at the house and they would like to have us over again. Manuel's father talked with us as well, he was really excited about the game.

So the game started and went on with a lot of yelling, jumping up, and laughing from Manuel and his dad, and us sometimes as well. My cheeks hurt from smiling and laughing so much during the game. Honduras won, 2-0. It was so exciting every time honduras scored a goal and Manuel's father would come out with his shirt unbuttoned and his huge belly showing and screaming in excitement. Every time Honduras scored a goal we could hear fire crackers going off all over the town (fire crackers for everything here, EVERYTHING).

After the game was over, we got into Manuel's taxi and he started to drive us home. On the way home we ended up behind a pick up truck with 15 people riding in the back who had a huge honduras flag and honduras soccer jerseys. They were yelling and celebrating and honking the horn, so Manuel decided to follow them and he honked the horn as well and we were yelling out the windows. Soon, we were in a line of about 10 cars all honking, with their flashers on, flashing the brights, with screaming, laughing, happy people. Manuel was screaming out the window for everyone to wake up, "Don't sleep! Wake up!" For 30 minutes we drove all around Santa Rosa in this caravan of celebration. Seriously, what an experience. My muscles in my face are sore from laughing.
Sarah took some videos and I will try to put them up on the internet so you guys can see a little bit of what I experienced tonight!

Now I am exhausted and need to plan for my lessons tomorrow. Manuel invited us to go back to his house for the next Honduras game which is in October. I seriously can't wait.

After my first week of school...

My 7th graders are amazing. They crack me up. The 8th graders are quiet. The 10th graders are really excited for their psychology and sociology classes! They are amazing as well, really smart, love to discuss things, great kids.

So I survived my first week of school. It was fun, Santa Rosa is still fun, but I miss Chicago and my friends and my family. Thats how i'm feeling right now anyway. I guess thats just how it goes. There would be something wrong if I didnt miss home.

What Im teaching

So, today, the day before the first day of school, I found out what Im teaching!

First, the classes I am SOOOO stoked about.
Psychology - grade 10
Sociology - grade 10
Science - grade 7

And the others:
Reading, Spelling, and English - grades 7 and 8.
(Those are all separate classes for each grade. So I teach two reading classes and two spelling classes and two english classes, one for 7th and one for 8th.)

Im really excited and nervous about the first day of school tomorrow and meeting all my students.