A Gringa No Brasil

I’ve been slacking again on updates. Sorry.

I’m officially out of work. I met with the high school principal and a couple of teachers yesterday afternoon, and we decided to cancel my Project Citizen (civic education) class. After the strikes and schedule changes, I tried to restart the program. Of course, after a two-month hiatus, the students had wiped any memory of Project Citizen from their brains, and were set on not cooperating at all to get the project back on track. Despite the fact that the teacher I was working with was counting the project as part of their grade, they still did little to no homework. Since the project involves a lot of research outside of the classroom, it was impossible to move forward with it. Also, after the schedule changes, the teacher that I had been working with was no longer able to co-teach the class with me. I am awful at classroom management and I don’t think the students take me seriously so teaching by myself just made matters worse. In addition to all of these problems, the school year in Honduras ends mid-November. At the rate we were going, there was no way to finish the project (and do it well) before the end of the year. I’m seriously relieved that it’s over. It made me want to pull out my hair.

During the meeting, we discussed the various problems that we had with the program and how to improve it for next year. Yes, despite the epic failure, I am open to giving it another shot during the next school year. We are going to start the project right off the bat instead of waiting until later in the year since, as one teacher said, “We usually go on strike in the middle of the year.” No big deal, happens all the time. They’re already preparing for strikes without knowing what they might possibly go on strike for. Only in Honduras. We’re also going to incorporate the project into the curriculum of another class so that it can be tied in more with the material the students would normally learn. Hopefully that way they’re more motivated to do the project well instead of brushing it off as some gringo initiative that doesn’t really matter. So at least the failed project this year gave us some insight for next year. I guess it wasn’t a complete loss.

The Cultural Festival went well although it wasn’t that different from the normal annual town festival that they hold every December. I helped with some of the planning ahead of time, but I wasn’t able to be there for the majority of it since I was attending a health workshop that week. The workshop covered family health with topics like nutrition, hygiene, pneumonia, etc. I went with two health volunteers from my town so I’m hoping to use that training to start some projects with them soon.

In other recent news, I went to Teguz for my annual medical checkup and got a clean bill of health. No parasites, stomach bacteria, cavities, or any other kind of malady. Hooray!

I’ll be heading to Copan Ruins in a little over a week for the Peace Corps Halloween celebration. Every year, the majority of PCVs from all over the country get together in Copan to celebrate Halloween. I’m still costumeless though, so if you have any good (and inexpensive) costume ideas, let me know!

P.S. Just a little over 2 months before I’m back in the States for Christmas and New Year’s!