Am I Tan Yet? - 8/3/06

Here are some things I'm sur-prised to find in Central Amer-ica:

• Coyotes
• Lighting Bugs
• Brahma Bulls (We decided they look like short-hair yaks)
• Rice Paddies
• A Mennonite Church that uses drums and guitars during worship

We were also told that, "Jaguars eat cows and sleep in cats." Many farmers use the caterpillar brand equipment and they have to check the cab and backhoe because for some reason jaguars find this to be the perfect place to nap.

Kids are still kids wherever you are on the planet. Here, the girls get really excited when they pierce their ears, the boys hate school and just want to play outside, they wear funny tee shirts, and they all own dirt bikes or four wheelers or both. They start driving around eleven years old, and often go into the bush to go alligator hunting.

I saw my classroom for the first time yesterday. It is SO COOL! I haven't seen an actual blackboard in years! All of the student desks are mahogany, as is mine, and I have three walls of windows. No AC, but two ceiling fans and very breezy - we're on top of a hill. While we were in there however, I had the windows open and a prehistoric-sized dragonfly flew in, buzzed around the room a bit, and flew out the other side. I thought to myself, "I don't think anyone I went to school with in the teaching program at WSU will have to worry about tropical insects or lizards entering their classroom in the middle of a lesson."

Still, it's going to be an amazing, unique experience that cannot compare to anything I've ever done or ever will do. We will begin each day of class with a Bible lesson, and then move into the rest of the subjects. I need to go through all the materials today to decide which two subjects I want to give up in order to teach high school Spanish. I found out that all students in the high school will be taking level one, and I'm the only Spanish teacher. That's awesome! That means I'm going to get to know every high school and junior high student in Blue Creek. I'm going to ask them all to take Melissa and me alligator hunting and bring us a mango or extra oranges and limes. They do that kind of stuff here, we already have more limes and eggs than we can consume on our own, but the French Toast this morning was mm mm good!

For now, we need to finish getting ready. We're going to cross the river into Mexico today and get some tortillas and hopefully something to hang on these walls. The only decoration on these bare white surfaces at this point is gecko poo. Darn you, Dobby! Darn you!

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