October 15, 2012
Two travel weekends in a row leaves little time for updating
the blog, which means you have no idea what I have been doing. Well here it is a long-winded update of
my most recent adventures. We have
been lucky enough to have today and last Monday off so the teachers decided we
better take advantage of both the long weekends. We also realized that this is our last long weekend like the
ones we have been spoiled with so far.
From here we don’t have any breaks until Thanksgiving, when we will be
going to Tegucigalpa, and then Christmas.
Even after Christmas our only breaks are a 4-day weekend in February and
Holy Week (spring break) at the end of March, which I am very excited for
because my mom, sister and best friend will be visiting :)
Last weekend we had reached that point where we were burned
out and a bit stressed from the beginning of the school year so we decided we
needed a relaxing weekend. We
traveled to Tela, which is a Caribbean coastal city. Since it is the low season the nicest resort there was
offering a deal, buy 1 night get the 2nd free. We thought it sounded perfect! So for $35 a person we stayed for the
whole weekend at Telamar resort.
We even met up with many of the teachers from Gracias and got to here
about their experiences so far. We
left La Union at 5:30 am, although we had been awake since 4:07 when the
fireworks went off to remind people that there was a political rally going on
since one of the presidential candidates was coming into La Union. We spent 6 hours on 3 different buses
but we finally made it to Tela in the afternoon and all of us ran to our rooms,
ripped our swimsuits out of our bags and ran to jump in the pool. It felt amazing and what was even
better was the swim-up bar. We
spent the late afternoon and early evening basking in this glory. We met some new friends who offered to
buy us drinks…they were intrigued by our teaching in a rural mountain city. For dinner we visited the poolside
snack bar, which was okay but nothing fantastic. The next morning I woke up early (6 am) as always and
decided to go for a walk on the beach, when I got back the others in my room
were beginning to wake and we decided we needed some breakfast. We checked out the buffet restaurant
(we had heard it was a bit pricey) but the breakfast was priced reasonably and
looked amazing so we decided we could stretch it out into a brunch and justify
paying the American price. Let me
tell you, we spent 2 HOURS continually eating. I’m pretty sure we each had about 5 heaping plates! They had everything from typical
Honduran food to waffles, pancakes, eggs, sausage, ham, muffins and lots of
tropical fruit. We left the
restaurant quite full and went to get ourselves into our bikinis and headed for
the ocean. Of course, on the beach
they were some people offering rides on a banana boat tube so the girls decided
to try it…we had a blast! The
driver was hilarious and he spun us around and took us out pretty far to swim
and float in the ocean for a while.
There was one near death incident though where another boat was coming
full speed at our tube and missed us by only about 5 inches! After our ride we
spent some time swimming in the waves and then headed to the pool. I read in the shade and when I couldn’t
stand the heat I would dip into the pool for a bit. Since it was Sunday I also retreated into the room for a bit
to catch some football. In the
evening we went to the Oceanside restaurant and had some great seafood all
together. It was delicious and
time well spent. On our way back
to our rooms we caught a bit of the night show (mostly Honduran dancers) and
then headed off to bed. That
weekend was just what the doctor had ordered. We all returned to school with recharged batteries and a
renewed view.
I had a pretty good week at school, although it didn’t start
or end on the best note.
Before we had left for the weekend my students and I set up an
experiment where we put an egg in vinegar. The vinegar is supposed to dissolve the shell of the egg and
water should diffuse into the egg through the membrane. Of course when I arrived on Tuesday the
shell was still intact although it was rubber like and had a crack in it…my
experiment failed. Luckily I was
able to discuss with my students what could have happened and we deduced that
the eggs or the vinegar here are different then the states. We did some more exciting activities
during the week and are getting into more interesting topics, at least for me,
so the students are getting more intrigued by science. On Friday though one of my homeroom
students was absent. This isn’t
exactly abnormal as she has had several absences, but she is also the one who I
was told has one of the toughest homes of any of the students. After school Jake came and talked to me
to tell me that her family called and said she had disappeared the night
before. When her mom arrived home
from Thursday night church service the young girl was gone, but had packed all
of her stuff and taken it with her.
I haven’t heard anything yet and I am keeping her in my thoughts and
prayers, as I hope you will also do.
I was told the most likely thing is that she ran off with a boy, which
means she may not be back or she might, only time will tell. This experience was a reminder of why I
am here and how much these kids really do struggle with. We discussed as teachers the
differences of what the students here deal with compared to the states and I
was amazed at how many things I hadn’t thought about and to imagine that they
go through it all without a counselor or anything to talk to. If ever there were a school that needed
a counselor it would be here.
After the week we woke up on Saturday and caught the 5 am
bus out of town. We made our way
on four different buses to Copan Ruinas.
It is a very touristy town near the border of Guatemala that has one of
the largest sites of Mayan Ruins.
We had been looking forward to this all week because a “touristy town”
means really good food and it was not a letdown that’s for sure. We arrived in the mid-afternoon and
left our stuff at the hostel in order to find some lunch. We ate a place called Via Via and I had
a fantastic sandwich with real ham and cheese and loads of veggies. After this we wandered around and did a
bit of shopping, the other good part of a “touristy town.” I did some bartering and managed to get
quite a few Christmas gifts for my family. We then headed to Café San Rafael for a late afternoon
snack. This café is actually a
cheese and wine bar so we enjoyed some great cheese and even better red
wine. After a lot of conversation
we headed back for showers and got ready for a late, and light, dinner. We visited a place called Twisted Tanya’s
and had appetizers and desserts. I
had a 3-layer carrot cake that was moist and really well flavored with great
frosting. After dinner we all
crashed after such a long day!
Sunday we had breakfast at a place called Café Welchez, which is famous
for its coffee, which is grown locally in Copan. I had a ham and cheese croissant that was awesome and very
filling with fruit on the side.
After we were all satisfied we took moto taxis out to the Ruins. We spent most of the day here and had a
great guide, Neti; he was young and had excellent English and tons of
information on all the sites. You
don’t have to get a guide, but I am glad we did because I learned so much
more. Walking into the site, we
saw a bunch of macaws both in flight and perched in the trees, these bright
colored birds are well known here.
The first site we went to have just been opened in the past few months
and it was 1 of 2 residential areas they have uncovered recently. Other areas (about 4500 of them) are
waiting to be uncovered by archaeologists. The Mayans had some amazing rituals and typical of their
culture was for a man to live in an area with his 2 or 3 wives. Each wife has a hut for her and her
kids and the male has one of his own.
Most of these people were buried with their offerings right by their
homes and have been carefully uncovered.
We then moved onto the city center or center for
rituals. On one end was a number
of statues that had all been erected by king 18 rabbit. What is interesting is that they were
more than aesthetic and a telling of his egocentricity tendencies; they
actually are a form of astronomical calendar because they align in different
ways at different times of the year.
Of course one of my favorite parts was the ball court. The traditional Mayan game, which I
remember learning about and playing in middle school social studies (with Mr.
Herbert), was played as a ritual in order to sacrifice someone. It is believed (but not sure) that it
was the best player from the game, MVP that was ultimately sacrificed. His hear was taken from his body and
place on the sacrificial ball (the blood could then run down the grooves). The game though was played with an 8lb
rubber ball covered in leather, a little smaller than a volleyball. Teams would face off and try to hit the
macaw statues on the opposite side.
This sounds easy except you weren’t allowed to use your hands or feet;
instead you bounced it off of your hips, knees or elbows.
While sitting in front of the largest string of
hieroglyphics (64 stairs worth) we had a discussion with our guide about the
Mayan calendar and the end of the world.
He had a lot of good information about this event that is alleged to
take place on December 21st of this year. The Mayans have been criticized for saying that the end of
the world would be coming on this day, but in actuality that is not what they
believed. December 21st
marks the end of their calendar cycle, not the world. Since it is a cycle the calendar will start over again. You could compare this to the panic
that people had in 1999 about Y2K coming…it was blown way out of
proportion. They do predict
however that the cycle of everything will begin again and this includes natural
disasters. Their belief is that
these will occur in the same way and time as they had in the past cycle except
that they will be more treacherous and dangerous than before. I was happy to know that they didn’t
actually predict the end of the world on that day because it is the day I fly
home for Christmas break…phew! Our
guide did say that they are planning a huge celebration at the park that will
include a reenactment by Mayans of the ball game.
We spent more time wandering the numerous different temples
built by all the different kings, some of which were on top of others and we
had to go down into tunnels in order to see the older layers. One of which, Rosalita, has a life size
replica in the sculpture museum which Cassidy and I visited at the end. My favorite temple was the one to the
underworld. So many cultures focus
on the heavens and what is up there I found it interesting that the Mayans
thought that the underworld was of much importance, plus the skulls on it are
pretty cool. I was fascinated by a
culture that did so much with so little and who had so much detail and artistic
value in their lives.
After our tour we spent some time in the gift shop and then
headed back to town for lunch. We
ate a place that was known for their pupusas. These are corn tortillas that have been stuffed or filled
with your choice of toppings. I
had combinations of cheese and chicken and beans and chicken. They were very good, but I still like
the baleadas I get here in La Union better, but they were something new from
Honduran culture that we hadn’t gotten yet. After refueling we spent the rest of the afternoon shopping,
and I have to say I was able to get all of my Christmas shopping done, which is
a good thing because we have been told there is basically nowhere else to get
gifts, especially Honduran ones. I
also had an afternoon ice cream and spent some time relaxing in a café because
a few of us finished shopping before the others. After shopping we went back and changed for dinner. We went back to Twisted Tanya’s because
their menu had looked so good the night before but we weren’t hungry for main
dishes. I had prime rib and Brooke
ordered tequila shrimp with spicy pasta and we switched plates half way
through. It was delicious, the
prime rib had an amazing sauce on it and the shrimp were fresh and very
large. For dessert we decided to
try the brownie and ice cream which was a great choice as we scraped the plate
clean. We had a rough night of
sleep because for some reason there was a lot going on apparently. One of which was a birthday party that
started with a band at 4:30 this morning right next to our hostel. It wasn’t too bad though since we got
up early to get on a bus and begin our journey home.
I am content that I had a weekend full of cultural learning,
amazing food, and great company. I
am prepared to see what the week ahead holds for me. I have definitely enjoyed all of my travels and am always a
bit disappointed to come back to reality and the workweek, but I know that it
is grounding and is the reason that I am here. While everyday has its struggles, I have been enjoying my
students and have found many great things happening with them.
Also, tomorrow Honduras plays Canada in an attempt to keep
their hopes of a world cup trip alive which means that town will be
deserted. As a matter of fact the
holiday that was today (why we had school off) was changed to Tuesday so that
people would have it off to watch the game…apparently our school didn’t get the
memo though :(
I will add pictures tomorrow from the weekend...mostly of the Mayan ruins, but they're pretty cool!
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