Feliz
Navidad and Greetings from Honduras
We have so much news to
share about our new lives in San Pedro Sula!
Dave
is teaching
computers
at the high school. He is also doing yearbook for the entire school.
He is in process of getting a totally new computer lab installed. There
are some inherent frustrations with this process, but we hope the benefits
of a functioning lab outweigh the temporary setbacks. He is Department
chair and enjoys his work.
Susan
is Preschool Coordinator and still wondering exactly what that entails.
Any one day might find her writing curriculum, evaluating teachers, solving
problems with maintenance, watering trees in the classroom gardens, acting
as translator for parents who don’t speak Spanish, helping teachers create
child assessment portfolios, dealing with crabby parents, subbing for sick
teachers, sitting in on useless senior admin meetings, directing traffic
during student parades and/or taking digital photos for our preschool
webpage. She’s also been offering parent in-services, creating guidelines
for student admission to the program, writing a new preschool handbook
and submitting proposals to the board about appropriate child services.
She squeezes into daycare one or two times a day to have lunch with the
kids, read stories to the daycare children and help organize the weekly
activities for the daycare providers.
Alea
is in her first year of school. She loves it! Her teacher’s name
is Mrs. Ceci. Ceci has had been at the school for about ten years. She
has a son of her own – also 3 ½ - who is in another classroom. Alea
loves he dramatic play area. Right now, her class has a ‘pulperia’ (like
a corner 'got it all' store) with pretend money, a cash register and boxes
and boxes of neat stuff to buy and sell. Her second favorite area is the
science table. She has brought shells, bugs, lizard skins and seeds to
share with the class. She especially likes the magnifying glass. She is
in the ‘listening’ part of learning a second language. She understands
a lot but produces very little.We know she will with time!
Breck
is also in school with us. He is in the daycare. It’s not quite the place
we thought it would be, but we are working hard to make it great. They
went to our new playground today and spent a lot of time building sand
castles. We had a deluge this morning, so the sand was nice and wet – just
right for building. They made green playdoh in the afternoon. Alea spends
the afternoons with Breck in daycare. We are glad they get to be together.
We
have been able to travel
quite a bit. We went to Omoa
Fortress a few weekends ago. What a neat place! The Spaniards built
it in the mid 1700’s to protect the coast from pirates. The kids ran around
the old cannons and dashed in and out of the old ‘cells’. Breck especially
liked the gunpowder containers.I think he was so fascinated because they
looked like balls (his favorite toy next to Blue’s Clues stuff).
We went to the beach after
visiting the fortress.The kids just can’t get enough of the ocean.They
love it! Alea walks out past her chest (much to my consternation) and Breck
goes in as far as mid-thigh. He’d go farther, but gets too distracted by
all the neat shells to throw around.
We’ve
also visited Tela Beach, Pulhapanzak
waterfalls, Santa
Barbara and La Lima and Copan
ruins. We pretty much stick to day trips out. We plan on doing a whole
bunch more when Grandma Wagner comes to visit on the day after Christmas!!
Although
things go well, we’re undecided about our future in Honduras. This will
be our second time teaching in Central America and are excited about seeing
more of the world. We are looking at all our options for next year and
will keep everyone informed as to our decisions!
We
hope this greeting finds you well and enjoying the holiday season. Although
we don’t have the time to write like we used to, we still think of you
all often and hope winter finds you well and warm.
And now that the holiday
is over, you can enjoy some pictures of the festivities!!
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