The Great Escape: Vida en Hondurrrras!

It's only a month or three late but here is a bit of the basics regarding my newfound life here in beautiful Honduras! I could literally go on and on about my experience here but I will try to keep it short and sweet in the hopes that my brothers, Jordan and Ryan, may actually make it past the first paragraph and decide to make their way down here :)

The Reason: While I love all of my friends and family that I have in Champaign/Urbana and Rantoul, it became extremely apparent that I was not ready to "settle down" and swallow societal norms. After dropping out of nursing school and flipping it the bird on my way out, I was able to sublet my room in my amazing co-op in preparation for whatever came my way. I could not have been luckier to interview and accept the position of a First Grade teacher for the next six months at a bilingual school in Honduras and fly out a week or two later. Fortunately, everyone was extremely supportive (ish) of my decision and I finally feel like I have the life back in me which is a feeling I cannot even begin to describe.

Kids playing soccer in the schoolyard

The School: I am the continuously exhausted Primero B and Pre-Kinder maestra for Lake Yojoa Bilingual School in Pena Blanca, Honduras. I have 22 adorably energetic little first graders and 4 wide-eyed Pre-Kinder kids that make me laugh until I cry at least once a week. I teach all of the basic subjects including Math, Science, English, Phonics, "Eh-spelling" as they say it, PE, Music, Art, and Reading completely in English and then the students have a few classes each day with Spanish speaking teachers. The school is a private school so a lot of the students that come to the school are a bit better off which adds a much different dynamic to the school. It's much different than what I was accustomed to in the Republic of Georgia. But the atmosphere is amazing all the same! The school continues to grow each and every year which is awesome and all of the teachers here are absolutely phenomenal.

The Town: Pena Blanca is the perfect home away from home and such a nice balance of my village in Priveli Obcha and good ol' Urbana in the US. It has all the markets of fresh, all natural produce and re-sale clothing stores, but also has a little coffee shop and an actual grocery store to go to if need be. We are nestled in the mountains, which is so amazing to wake up to everyday with the nearby river and Lake Yojoa right at our fingertips. There are so many amazing hikes, waterfalls, row-boating opportunities, and places to explore that it never seizes to amaze me. There is a local hostel and brewery here that also lets all of us teachers go on excursions with their guides for free whenever we want which is such a great resource and we get to meet so many interesting people travelling from all over!

Our lovely street

The Living Situation: All of us female teachers share two lovely houses right next door to eachother about ten minutes from school and the guys' house is only a few blocks away. I loved living with my host family in Georgia and it really helped me to experience the culture full force, but I also love having a community of amazing people to come home to everyday. I've been "nesting" of sorts and it's so great just to sweep the back porch in the sunshine, sit in the hammock and read, or work on the new garden that Brett and I are creating.
We have amazing neighbors that come in and out, kids that play soccer for hours on the unpaved streets, baleada stands left and right, and coconut or citrus trees lining the barbed wire fences. The living is easy and oh so sweet. There's just something so civil about washing all the dirt off of your vegetables. You can guarantee that pretty much everything you buy here either came straight out of the ground that day or was picked from the tree the day before. I love putting the intention back into my food and hand picking through all of my beans to pull out the bugs, sticks, and whatever else may have made it's way into the bag.

We have hot showers that require the bimonthly event of emptying the showerhead of the minerals (rocks) that accumulate from the water here being so "hard". We have a washer, although I prefer just to hand wash my clothes in the backyard seeing as the washer drains straight into our backyard leaving the soapy water to seep into the ground water. There's a clothesline strung across under our gigantic lime tree and a hammock on the back porch. Yes, our house is surrounded by a barbed wire fence and padlocked gate with bars on all of our windows, but that is just the normalcy here. Everyone has it but it most certainly doesn't feel necessary. Which leads me to the next topic..

That Whole "Safety" Thing: Prior to coming to Honduras, I received several comments of concern and a bazillion talks of not being smart and trying being safe this time around. Honestly, I feel a heck of a lot safer here than at home. Mostly because I would never pull the same dumb shit that I do at home here. I don't walk alone at dark (very much), I most certainly don't attempt my favorite 2am runs down the vacant streets, I don't really talk to many strangers seeing as most of them are either whistling or making cat calls, and I don't make any unnecessary trips to San Pedro Sula (the murder capital of the world). There are police checkpoints every now that are checking to make sure there's nothing suspicious on board or to ask for the casual "donation". The only issue we've had so far with the cops is when we only had the copies of our

Ancient Mayan ruins in Copan!

passports and not the physical passport. According to the locals here, all you have to do is pay them off.
Crime is not an issue in my town as a result of the wealthy population supposedly "taking care of" any trouble-causers or mafia members in order to keep their kids safe (once again..according to the locals).
Moral of the story: I don't fear for my life walking down the street here and I blissfully walk through the market lined streets with ease all by my lonesome to go buy my daily veggies. The only issues we have would be the little neighbors bombarding us with hugs whenever we walk down the street :)

On that note... All in all, life is pretty good. I just stand in awe sometimes surrounded by the 22 smiling faces of my students and laugh at the twists and turns that life can take. I definitely didn't come here to "change the world or the lives of children" as I have been wrongfully accredited. I made the decision to come here in order to do what I love and to continue to explore this amazing
world that surrounds us.