A new era of "Miss Emily"

August 31st, 2010
Yesterday morning started out early. Earlier than any of my mornings since arriving in Comayagua. Waking up at 5:05am before the sun was out, getting out of bed was a struggle. Thankfully, I succeeded though I did move very slowly for a while. As we were gathering our things, Dawnelle said that we should pray together before we left. It was then that I discovered we were going to be meeting the children that day. Somehow, I hadn't a clue about what was planned for the day. I think it has something to do with being gifted in certain academic areas and completely lacking in some areas of common sense. lol. But nevertheless, I discovered it before arriving at the school so I'm grateful for that. We were not supposed to have normal classes, but we did need to introduce ourselves. I only met with Prepa B and did not have to do much talking, because Miss Melissa introduced me. Then we went to an assembly, and after that it was time to go to kindergarten. Kindergarten pretty much just stared at me as I tried to sing with them. It was a little awkward, because I didn't have anything planned to do with them. Luckily it was lunch time while I was there, so I just got to sit and talk with them a little. They were so precious--sharing their cookies and chips with me! Even as the day was going on I was not directly informed as to what I was supposed to be doing, so I stayed in each room for a full class period and then spent the rest of the morning helping out in pre-kindergarten. Twenty-five 3-4 year olds. Can you imagine? Chaos was pretty much a constant factor. Some kids were playing on the floor, some kids were randomly eating parts of their lunch, some kids were picking candy up off the floor, some kids were crying, some kids were hanging on our legs, some were listening. One little girl offered me a piece of candy from her mouth. Sweet, but I gently declined. We were allowed to leave at noon which was a huge blessing, because I had a lot of lesson planning to do. When we got home we all immediately took off our teacher shirts and realized we were all wearing black tank tops. We though it was humorous, hence the picture. My roommates went "ugly teacher shoe shopping" while I stayed home and worked. They ended up going to the market and doing other shopping as well, but the sleep I got (even though it wasn't enough) made up for missing out on the experience. There will be many other opportunities for shopping :). We had a parent teacher meeting at the school tonight from 6-8pm ish. It was good to let the parents know my name, but Oh my--So many names and faces to learn! I have over 120 different kids that I teach Bible class for. We hadn't had supper and our house was out of water, obviously a really bad combination. Despite how tired I was, walking into the preschool area was like instant happiness to me. However, by the end of the night we were all feeling a little faint and very dehydrated. Thank goodness our friend Melissa took us to a little corner store to buy bag water, bag milk, and some sugar (just because). A very silly, sometimes crabby, completely exhausted, and rather random mood settled over our house last night as we worked on lesson planning.

We all survived our first real day of school today! The pre-kindergarten teacher, Miss Jessica, was feeling very ill and had to go to the doctor in the morning (just after 9). I was told to stay for the rest of the day to help her assistant, Rosita. Aside from maybe three kids, the pre-kinder class does not understand or speak any English. For many of them it is their first time away from home. The whole "No Spanish" rule pretty much goes out the window with these guys, especially at the beginning. I do not know very much Spanish, but I sure got some practice with the little I do know today. Normal lesson plans didn't work, because they didn't all have their workbooks yet. Rosita and I improvised which is impressive considering she doesn't speak English. With God's help we were able to make it through the day somewhat smoothly. I had a 45 or so minute lunch break and got to see Kadian, Melissa, and other friends. It was great, because preschool is kind of its own little world, so I don't normally see any of the other missionaries. After that I helped with pre-k pm kids that were arriving. A much smaller class, only 11 today, the room was much less lively. Almost half the kids came in crying or cried for a while during the afternoon. One sad little boy just kept sobbing saying, "Yo quiero mi mami," over and over and over again. He finally fell asleep, woke up an hour later, and started crying all over again. We tried everything we could think of but to no avail. I'm hoping tomorrow is less tragic for him, poor kid. A girl named Rosemary came in to help us in the afternoon, so I was able to leave at 2:30 still instead of 3:30 when pre-k pm gets out of class. Leave actually meant going to a teacher meeting, and then we went to Michy (our wonderful office lady extraordinaire) to get copies made. Pastor Trundle told me to not worry about my prepa or kinder classes until Miss Jessica returns. I'm going to be in pre-k doing my best to help these adorable little kids adjust to life at school. They are just so cute! Absolutely precious. Exhaustion hit me at the end of the day, but seeing those kids smile makes it all so worth it.
Well I missed my bed time 30 minutes ago, so that's all for now!

Several miles outside my comfort zone, lots of laughs, and other new

Top: David, Kathy, Paul, Gabby, Walter, Edward. Bottom: Nicole, Dawnelle, Darcia, Kadian, me
Most of these people were at the party, plus a few others :)

August 29th, 2010

The youth from the church was throwing us a welcome party at Kathy's house. They said 8 pm, so following Honduran time, our ride came around 9pm. Since I normally go to bed around 9:30pm, I was already pretty tired but girlishy excited for my first late night out! We had a blast playing Sin Palabras ("without words"). It is a charade type game where you can't make any sounds, only actions. Someone from a different team helped us SMs figure out what the words meant. All of mine were really easy to act out...until the game ended and we had to go through with the dare. The winning team (which Dawnelle & Darcia were on--lucky girls!) got to make up a dare for the two losing teams. They decided that we each had to try to break dance, individually, for ten seconds each. In the middle of the living room. While they took pictures and laughed. I don't know if any of you can sympathize, (forgive the stereotypes) but I am a very white Adventist girl with a type A personality and dancing is NOT something I do in front of people! lol. Mortified, all I could do was laugh uncontrollably. There was nothing we could do to get out of it. Finally after much hem hawing and failed attempts at starting, Kadian and I danced together for twenty seconds. When we were done relief slowing washed over me as I tried to calm my frazzled self. I just hope the pictures don't end up on facebook lol. Safely back in my comfort zone, I chowed down on some catrachitas (a yummy Honduran food, fried torilla, liquefied beans, and powdery cheese) and watched a funny movie. We had a really great time, and I think it helped me feel better about all I have to do today!

Today I have been working on decorations for my rooms and hand-washing clothes. We hope to get to the school soon, but we want to get as many of the decorations made and ready to go as possible. I needed a break from coloring so I decided to post a quick blog. I wish I would have brought more markers with me. We have all been using them and some of them weren't so great from the start. I think I'll pick some more up at the store soon. I am very thankful I brought some though. Dawnelle and Darcia stayed up until almost 5am this morning planning. I feel bad for the secondary teachers; I think they have a lot more work to do. Right now they are working on decorations. Paper trimmings and markers are all over their room, and they have stacks of beautiful decorations. Kadian and I are not so big on art, so we are struggling a bit more with the whole drawing thing. I think we will all breath a big sigh of relief when decorating is over today!

In other news, I found another worm in the shower today and destroyed it with cockroach spray. My flip flops are my best friend when I shower. We have a nice big lizard friend in our house today. I don't mind them so much though. Back to decorating!

Our first Sabbath all together :)

August 28th, 2010
All ready for church! (Emily, Darcia, Kadian, and Dawnelle)
We had some excitement this morning. The electricity and internet went out around 7:30am. I heard shouts and exclamations coming from the bathroom nearest me and soon discovered that the water was off as well. Luckily, this only lasted about twenty minutes so both of my soapy roommates were able to re shower before church.

This is Christian. He is Miss Myla's son and our "little brother". He escorted us to church today :). It is about sixteen blocks away from our house through the winding streets of Comayagua.

After church, none of us felt like cooking. Thankfully we were able to plead Dawnelle into making dumplings, and Kadian warmed up the beans. Darcia and I tried to help flavor them, and we finally ended up adding ketchup (after many, many additions).

Dawnelle and Darcia working on the dumplings.

Our dumplings :)

Dawnelle hard at work! I'm so excited to try the dumplings.

Que hora, internet, aqui. Atlast!

August 26th, 2010
After many ups & downs and a lot of awful broken Spanish on my part, today we smile. Our Intesa guys came only 45 minutes after they said they would which is practically early :). We were all SO excited to see them. I ran to grab my camera to take a picture through our lovely gates. Then someone else ran to stop them from going to the wrong house. Being the hospitable people that we are, we offered them some ice water and grapes. When they asked us for a name, Darcia started introducing all of us. Turns out they just wanted a name for our internet server! We couldn't settle on one, so they named it "Pretty girls" for us. Hm... lol. After they left I skyped Steven right away. It was so great to be able to see and talk to him for a little bit. He is leaving for the island of Jeh in a week, and then he won't have any phone or internet until he visits Majuro for Christmas.
Darcia and I cooked a delicious Italian supper tonight with our fresh produce from our Jumbo run tonight. Jumbo is the closest grocery store to our house. It's smaller and a little more expensive than the others, but we shop there when we run out of things since we still haven't fully figured out how to shop for our house yet. I can't believe tomorrow is already Friday! This week has flown by. I am excited for school to start, but I still have a lot of planning to finish. I will be teaching Bible classes to preschool, kindergarten, and preparatory classes. They each have two classes per grade so six classes in all. I'll be assisting another teacher during my free time. I am very excited to work with the little kids! It will be a challenge since a lot of them will not speak or understand much English. I am praying for wisdom, creativity, and a lot of patience.

Us in our unusually large tv-less entertainment center. Still not sure how to decorate it...

Home sweet home.

My three beautiful roommates, Dawnelle, Darcia, and Kadian.

Darcia, me, and Kadian

I thought I saw a bug fly into Kadian's hair. lol :)

August 25, 2010

Today we awaited Intesa (the internet provider) in vain. We had paid for our internet yesterday, and they were supposed to come install it around 3pm today. Three passed. Four passed. Five passed. Six came, and I called one more time. Today I learned that sometimes Honduran time doesn't even have to be on the same day.

Our home is complete!

August 23, 2010

This afternoon Darcia, Dawnelle, and I waited around hoping that Kadian (pronounced sort of like “Katie-Ann”) would arrive. We all talked about napping but didn’t want to be a snoozing welcome party. Instead, Darcia and I talked about all sorts of foods which seems to be a favorite topic in our house. Dawnelle worked on twisting her hair and joined in our conversation every now and then. Eventually we got too hungry to wait any longer and started cooking our very first real meal at our house. Mac & cheese, apples, cucumber slices, tortillas, and chili beans that Miss Myla brought over for us (she is awesome, huh?). A rather odd combination of foods but oh so wonderful and exciting compared to the cereal and jelly covered toast we had been living off of. Just as the water was coming to a boil for the mac & cheese we heard a car stop outside. Kadian had finally arrived!!! We all rushed out to greet our new roommate. It doesn’t take more than a few moments to realize that Kadian is full of energy and laughs . Plus, she has an awesome English-Jamaican accent. She had a long trip here and had quite the trouble finding Miss Norma and her husband at the airport. After going to an internet café, changing money, and taking a taxi to the bus stop, they finally got ahold of her and told her to wait there; consequently, she is quite exhausted tonight (not to mention the time difference!). Tomorrow we will all hopefully find out what classes we are teaching, and we will most likely really hopefully have internet at our house!

Surviving the Visitors.

August 22, 2010
Crawling on my toothbrush
Ants inevitably and unavoidably seem to make themselves at home in our house. Though I have not had an infestation in my room, I have seen little wandering groups of teeny tiny ants crawling around, especially on my closet/shelving piece of furniture that holds pretty much everything I have. Last night when I went to brush my teeth, I had to do a double take to see a dozen mini ants swarming my toothbrush like it was a Valentino buffet. Gracias a Dios, I did notice them before I put the toothpaste on and stuck them in my mouth. Utterly appalled by the idea of using my once ant covered toothbrush, I skipped brushing my teeth last night. I think my dentist would understand. Today I bought a new toothbrush, but I have no idea how I am going to keep the ants off it! I can’t seal it up or it will mold. Ideas?
Another use for butter containers
Shortly after the toothbrush buffet, I was startled by a small movement by my feet. However, my nerves quickly calmed when I realized I just had a little dime-sized frog visitor. I wasn’t sure about picking it up with my hands, so I searched my room as fast as I could for something to capture it in. I happened to have three small former butter containers that were holding my hair things. I dumped my hair ties into my green organizer, grabbed a lid, and stealthfully moved towards my uninvited houseguest. I soon captured the little frog and triumphantly released it outside the door. We now have a Smart Balance butter container labeled “Frog Catcher” which is my designated job, because my roommates are scared of frogs.
Lizards are cute.
Today marked the dawn of a new much cleaner era in our house. After eating a light breakfast, Dawnelle, Darcia, and I began the lengthy task of cleaning our house. As I was getting to the bottom of our silverware drawer, I suddenly become aware of small little droppings all over the bottom of the silver ware holder. Very concerned and in somewhat of a shrieking voice, I asked the girls what on earth had left them there. Looks like lizards one of them informed me. Ew. That was just the beginning of my lizard poop discoveries. Lizards are cute…when they are outside.
The first and ONLY time I went in the shower without flip flops
From the kitchen I moved into the bathroom. I cleaned all the walls, the sink, and the toilet. It was time to clean the shower. I wasn’t really looking forward to scrubbing at the shower. Intuition must have been kicking in. When I got to the floor I stepped out to pick up the little plastic shower organizer to clean it. As soon as I lifted it I saw a little worm squirm around. I let out a small scream and loudly asked my roommates why a worm was in my shower. Together they explained that sometimes worms come up through the drains, and they have heard that the worms can attach themselves to you. That’s why it’s best to wear flip flops in the showers. Forget icky foot problems—I could get worms! All of these horrible mental images of Holocaust stories I’ve heard flashed through my mind. I know I may have been thinking a bit dramatically, but it was a very unwelcomed surprise. I waited around a few moments before it dawned on me that no one was coming to my rescue. I was going to have to smush the worm myself. I contemplated my options and grabbed my body wash container. My first whack copped the worm in half, but then both ends were squirming. So I hit it again, and then three ends were wiggling about! Very concerned about how I was going to kill it, I again consulted my roommates. We decided cockroach killer should do the trick. The worm pieces writhed about and finally died. I am never showering here without flip flops again.
Understanding the tape
I’ve noticed tape around the house in various places—sometimes around a window, sometimes around the floor. Now I know why. Our cleaning was almost complete. All three of us moved into the kitchen to finish up a couple places. By now I am a “seasoned” spider killer (so long as they aren’t too big) and used to spider webs and the like. But as I started cleaning behind our stove I jumped back in alarm. A whole party of bugs was running in a circle on the wall and more were below! Too scared to take immediate action, someone else had to inspect to see what kind of bugs they were. Turns out they were just ants. Ha. I have never been so happy to see ants before. I ended their party very suddenly with some cockroach killer and went on cleaning. We definitely tapped over where they were coming in at.

Treat traditions and peeling palms

19 August, 2010
Having roommates makes life in Honduras 100% better. Our morning at the school was fairly uneventful—I mostly just worked on cutting and coloring my homemade numbers. We went out for lunch with Miss Myla and two girls from the school. While we waited for our freshly made pupusas to be ready, Dawnelle, Darcia, and I tried a banana Tropical soda. The refreshing sugary drink gave us the boost we needed to wait for lunch. When our meal was ready at last, we decided to head home to enjoy it. On the way Miss Myla bought cheese out of the back of a truck. We still needed cheese, so I bought some too. Though I do wonder about the general lack of refrigeration, it tastes wonderful!
After school we went to La Colonial grocery store. The prices were way lower than Jumbo. We’re excited to visit the market on Sunday, but I think La Colonial will have lots of business from us. We are so excited to get gas for our stove so we can start cooking (hopefully tomorrow!). After unloading the groceries onto the table, we went out for baleadas again. Baleadas have been my supper the last three nights in a row. The avocado one is my favorite! So yummy. This time we got two and split them three ways. We shared a Senorita pastry for dessert. The caramel goodness was too sweet to eat much of, but such a yummy treat! We decided to make Thursday night “Treat Night”. Our first tradition has begun.
The furious cleaning of yesterday took a toll on my hands. Peeling skin covers my palms and fingers. No bueno. I tried coating them in oil, lots of lotion, Vaseline. Tonight I sleep with Vaseline and sock covered hands. Don’t worry. Today we bought Palmolive. The local scrub is a bit hard on the hands apparently. There is still so much cleaning to do! Yesterday I finished half the kitchen and all the kitchen walls, but it just feels insignificant when I see what’s left. Not to say that the house is too dirty—just spider webs and such. However, I am a deep-cleansing kind of cleaner. We’re going to work on it a little tomorrow and more on Sunday.
Steven and I celebrate our nine month anniversary today! So far apart, but so close in heart. I can’t wait until our Skype date on Saturday!

Highs & Lows

18 August, 2010
Yesterday night during my first baleada feast, my friend Emily B. explained something she likes to do each day. Entitled “Highs & Lows”, each person tells the highest and lowest part of their day. Emily went on to say that she wished it could start with the low and end with the high, but it just doesn’t sound as good. I think optimism is a good note to end on so I’ll start with the low and just switch it around.
Low point of the day: well Becky, and all other concerned people reading this, I’m sorry ahead of time. The day started out with my first meal at home—conflakes, Silk, and a glass of water (which is purified here, so I’m still a water princess). At school I looked through the first grade books that I might be using. Then I wrote out big numbers, 1-10, on construction paper. After that I tried napping on the desk for a while and thought of high school. Pastor Trundle told me I could leave after lunch so around noon I check with Miss Myla and headed off towards home. Unfortunately, after only being her a day and a half, my sense of direction was not so great. I turned a couple blocks too early into an unfamiliar neighborhood. Fear not. I got back out to the main road safely and went back to school after a ten or so minute walk. I wasn’t exactly lost, I just didn’t know how to get home. I quickly got directions from a concerned Miss Myla gave me directions as I assured her I could find it. I did J. So really, my low point ended on a good note. Later today a pigeon pooped on my arm. That might be a better low point, but it seemed like less of a big deal.
High point of the day: As I was busily scrubbing the kitchen and further ruining my short nails, the sound I had been anxiously awaiting finally came. A vehicle stopped outside my house. I hear Pastor Trundle and other voices and rushed out. My first two roommates had arrived from Jamaica with cheerful smiles that were such sunshine on my day! Darcia and Dawnelle are twins. They have graduated from college, and both wanted to do something very different from their business type jobs for a year. We went out for baleadas for supper J and chatted the whole time. I am so happy that I’m not alone in the house anymore. I think we’re going to get alone great. Our last roommate is coming from England (she is Jamaican too though) on Monday. We are going to have such a fun mix of cultures in our house. I can’t wait to learn how to cook Jamaican and Honduran foods! We are going to go grocery shopping and try to look into getting wi-fi for our house tomorrow. We also need to order gas so we can use our stove. It’s starting to feel a little bit more like home.

My address

Maranatha Adventist Bilingual School
Blvd. 4to. Centenario
Contiquo al. INST. Leon Alvarado
Comayagua, Honduras
(504) 772-2313/2316

Address are a little different here! My house doesn't actually have one, so my mail can be sent to the school.

NOTE: Actually, it's a lot easy to just write the P.O. Box.

Just send things to:
Emily Morris
c/o Maranatha Adventist Bilingual School
P.O. Box 322
Comayagua, Honduras

Brown rivers, new friends, and baleadas

Here I am safely in Comayagua. My journey started early Monday morning as I left my home a little after 3 am with a little less than three hours of sleep. The clouds looked like a pillow fight had taken over the sky. My first view on Honduras consisted of winding dirt roads and curving rivers that were just as brown as the roads. I arrived in Tegucigalpa by lunch time with a deer-in-the-headlights look on my face that slowly faded the sleepier I became. Keren Ortiz and her husband arrived and took me through the busy, bustling, bombarding streets of Tegucigalpa to a--you'll never guess--McDonald's. We continued our trip to Comayagua using an alternative and much longer route since the main road had been broken by flooding.

A few hours later we were at the Maranatha Bilingual School that I will be working at. Pastor Trundle talked to me for a few minutes, and then we were off to my new home for the year. Miss Myla (my next door neighbor and 2nd grade teacher at the school) greeted me with my keys and a much needed glass of water. Despite my exhaustion, I spent the remainder of the evening cleaning every inch of my room I could reach and unpacking. Miss Myla came to check on me and had me over for my very first Honduran meal. Yum!

Today was my first day at school. Norma (the primary principal) gave me a packet and lesson plan ideas to look over from last year. After looking over papers for a couple hours, Effie (a teacher from Guatemala) helped me go grocery shopping. We went to Jumbo and struggled to carry eight bags of groceries back to my house. After buying a lunch of plantains, we went back to the school. There wasn't much to do, because I'm not sure what grades I will be teaching. I might be teaching Math, Science, and Bible classes for first grade, or I might be teaching something else. I won't know for sure until the end of the week. Since I am the first Adventist student missionary to get here, they want to wait to make final decisions until the other girls arrive.

Two sisters from Jamaica are supposed to be arriving tomorrow afternoon, and the last girl is coming from England on Monday. I'm so excited to not be alone in the house anymore! Don't worry--there is a big locking gate and locked doors. And, I am surviving quite well spending time with Miss Myla and my new friends across the street, Ashley and Emily. They are also missionary teachers here from another church in the US. Emily's parents help run an orphanage called the Hogar just outside the city. Tonight we went to La Princesita, and I had my first famously delicious baleada. A baleada is a big tortilla type shell filled with beans, cheese, eggs, and a liquidy sour cream called mantequilla.

Lots more to say, but now you have a quick update! I still can't believe I'm here, but I'm sure the shock will wear off after a while. I am looking forward to the year and the start of school. God is good, and I know He will give me the courage I'm lacking.