Sweetness!

Last Thursday Anah and I went to a fundraiser for the EIS pre-school. Normally such high-fluting event are not our scene, but it didn't cost that much and we were told there would be food and booze. Count us in.

Social butterflies we are.

The fundraiser was the second year the pre-school had held an auction to raise money for new playground equipment. Various parents put up goods for sale and teachers also auctioned off various services like swim lessons, cooking classes, overnight babysitting, and slumber parties at the school. A creative event.

Attendance was sparse. There are not a ton of kids in the pre-school so the community of support is relatively small, but that would play to our advantage. To my surprise there were a number of soccer-related prizes I quickly found out were up for grabs (besides the soccer camp for me and 10 friends, of course).

In the far corner of the hotel ballroom (big-time scene, people) was what was listed as the "Honduras #1 Fan" package. While I didn't think I'd even qualify to be in the top 1 million for Honduras fans I was none-the-less interested in acquiring this soccer souvenir. The fan pack consisted of a Honduras flag, ball, horn, hat, and the crem-de-la-crem... a national team jersey signed by the entire team. Danny wanty.

Going up against the moneyed elite of the school was going to be a daunting task. Luckily the first phase of the auction night was a "silent" auction, which was a bit ironic given that all of the bids were public and right in front of the items. Needless to say (I think I write that a lot and then proceed to say something... no?) I camped out by the prize pack.

With five minutes to go in the silent auction the low attendance was playing out in my favor. I had the top bid without breaking the bank when another Gringo scrawled his name on the bid sheet. I quick tagged my name another time only for the other gentleman to scribble another bid. I knew if I went higher I would certainly be outbid or, if I did win, would be in trouble for the amount I wrote.

I decided to channel my inner-Mitchell Wiersema, FedEx Global Sales Executive, and negotiate. A brief conversation convened where I was to learn the gent was not that big of a soccer fan, but his wife was pushing to buy loads of stuff (and they would throughout the night). With seconds left in the auction I convinced him to not bid anymore and in another moment of quick thinking offered him another, autograph-less jersey I was winning in exchange for withdrawing his top bid, saving me dozens of dollars in prize package costs. The night was mine!

Victory is mine!

I was now the proud owner of a bunch of Honduras junk, but one, precious autographed national team jersey. Without a doubt I wore that to school the next day and was the envy of many students.


- Dan

Caricature

This deserved a post of its own.

During Spanish Language Day one of the "Spanish Language honorees" was a local political cartoonist, Dario Banegas, who draws for the San Pedro Sula newspaper, La Prensa. According to my principal Mr. Banegas has been honored as the best cartoonist in Honduras several times.

He came to speak to the students as part of one of the class' presentations. When he was done speaking my homeroom kids convinced me that I would be the perfect subject for him to quick draw in front of the whole seventh grade. I've got a lot of good qualities that a caricaturist could capture. Great.

- Dan

More Students

Given that the school year is winding down and I'm feeling particularly bad about the fact that sooner rather than later I will have to tell my kids that I'm not coming back the blog has becoming my avenue for that guilt. Maybe I'll feel a bit better if I post a bunch of pictures from their activities....

Nope, not working.

Anyways, this past Friday the middle hosted Dia de Idioma Espanol or Spanish Language Day. The Spanish classes of each grade put together a day that would honor the heavy hitter of the Spanish language; authors, poets, political cartoonists, and other people and places of Latino importance. The middle school students have a habit of going over the top with display board visual and dressing up and Spanish Language Day was no different.

Pirates and Spanish forts in Omoa, Honduras

Honduran President Mel Zelaya

Honduran musician Guillermo Anderson

"Ugly Betty" star and Honduran, America Fererra

Jesus? I Don't really know.

- Dan

My Students

I just had to share this. Two of my students came in today during my prep period asking if they could use the room to take a few pictures for a school project. "No problem," I say. They proceed to take a number of pictures in a variety of poses for no apparent reason.

"Whatever," I say to myself indifferent to their madness and getting back to my grading.

Not too long ago, apparently pleased with their handiwork, I got this image in the e-mail:


Just in case you're not looking too closely, there are actually only two, unique students in the picture. Who knows what this is for, but still pretty hilarious!

- Dan

Changes

For those of you who take a peak at the Twitter feed to the right of our main posts you may have noticed a number of "tweats" related to Austin and Texas and general nervousness about a wide variety of things. Chances are a number of you already know, but...

if you don't, Anah and I have decided to leave Honduras at the end of the school year. The decision wasn't made lightly and frankly we're really sad to be going.

The thing is as much as we feel rewarded and challenged professionally at school, our personal safety is something we value above all. Recent events in San Pedro have burst the bubble that we erected around us. Without going into specifics, we've just decided that staying in SPS beyond this year would be a risk that we were not willing to take as a couple. With the economic depression going global, a serious escalation in violence in Honduras, and the potential for political instablity (elections are this fall...who knows what?) we didn't want to return and then have to leave in a hurry.

Either way after June 6th we are out of Honduras, we'll travel to Costa Rica and Nicaragua on our Central American Farewll Tour and then a new adventure begins...

Anah and I are going to be moving to Austin, Texas later in the summer. After taking with a lot of friends, doing a bunch of research, and throwing darts at a map we've decided that giving the South a shot would give us the sense of security we crave without sacrificing the sense of adventure we sought when we went abroad.

This past weekend, we travelled with Noah and Jenny to Austin for two teacher job fairs to get a feel for the market in Austin. We are cautiously optimistic that for next fall we'll both be teaching in the Austin-area.

Right now we have few answers and tons of questions about what's next, but the most certain thing we do know is that nothing is more important than each other and our safety (real or imagined) and nothing else trumps that committment to protect each other. Whether or not Austin is the best move remains to be seen...

Stay Tuned.

Earth Day

Last week the middle school had a bunch of activities set up for the kids to promote Earth Day. Students watched the Dr. Seuss movie, The Lorax, heard from Honduran about the importance of protecting the environment (it helped that he brought a snake!), and screen printed t-shirts.

Snakes make learning more fun!

Dumping out a day's worth of school trash to show the kids.

As you'll notice in the following pictures there is a funny little cartoon guy featured on the shirts. That is our Industrial Arts teacher, Mr. Kramer, who is a pretty big recycling, Earth guy. The kids get a kick out of him because he's a bit of an odd duck. Anyways... I went ahead and kinda turned him into a icon at the school by making the design for the t-shirt. He didn't mind and the kids thought it was pretty funny. The "WWMKD?" stands for "What Would Mr. Kramer Do?" and he's saying "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!"



- Dan

A Few More Pictures from Semana Santa in Roatan

Here's a couple of more pictures from Roatan that, although, post-worthy have no back stories. Read about our family time in Roatan with this post. Some are "action" shots and others are just me trying to be "artsy". Enjoy my playing with the fancy camera!















See the rest of our Semana Santa Roatan gallery HERE.

-Dan

Semana Santa With The Wiersemas

Our much anticipated "spring break" has come and gone and now it's the final sprint to the finish line of our first year in Honduras. Only about four or so weeks in the school year and then "recuperations" (students' last-chance-cafe to pass onto the next grade). Before we get into too much excitement over that its important to look back on the great break that we just had last week.

Semana Santa or "Holy Week" a big break for Catholic countries like Honduras. Unlike in the U.S. where schools have spring break and they often vary, pretty much everyone in Central and South America has all or part of the week before Easter off. In Honduras, it was practically official that everyone's work week ended on the Wednesday before Easter Sunday.

Anah and I couldn't get out of San Pedro Sula fast enough! We're into the hot stretch and hitting the beaches of Roatan (where we spent our belated honeymoon) is much preferable to the hot and dusty streets of Honduras' industrial capital, where daily temps hover between 90 and 100 this time of the year with the "feels like" temperature even higher.

We boarded our flight and in less that 45 minutes we were making our way off the runway in Roatan. We had arrived right behind Mom (Diane), Dad (Mitch), and my two sisters (Katie and Emily) and the moment we approached the gate there they were waiting in the customs line.

Being the part-Hondurans Anah and I are, we were able to skip the customs baloney and wait for the fam on the other side.

We all made our way to one of Roatan's finer establishments, the Mayan Princess. Only the best for my family!

The pool view from our room. With a baby blue sea just beyond, what's the point of being pool-side?

For Anah and I, Roatan was mostly about family and relaxation. We weren't looking for too much excitement and either were the Wiersemas. Days at the beach went by and with the exception of a little too much sun here and there, we were all content to sit around and soak in the atmosphere.

Anah and my middle sister, Katie, were in Roatan for other reasons, too. Both had been taking scuba diving classes in their respective cities and now were ready to complete their certifications exploring one of the world's best coral reefs. The two of them were off many early mornings checking out all of the underwater sites around Roatan and by mid-week, joined the exclusive club of scuba-certified divers. I'll let her tell more about that in another post.

Days on the beach were mixed with nice dinners around the island. Roatan experiences a population boom during Semana Santa and the islands power grid sometimes has a hard time keeping up. One dinner we finished by candle light!

The second day on Roatan was filled with a nice day trip across the island. Anah's sister Erin also spent her honeymoon on the island of Roatan a few years back (before we knew we were headed here... small world) and dined at a unique place called "Hole in the Wall." We weren't able to hit it up the first time we visited, but figured it would be a nice time with the fam.

A taxi-van ride for about an hour brought us to the edge of a bay where two old motorboats ferried people across to this rickety building hanging over the water. Story goes a trio of American hippies' boat died here and they set up shop on Roatan. Now they serve great big Sunday lunches for all-comers. Lots of food and drink? Sounds like a place for the Wiersemas!

It's a "hole" all right.

Katie demonstrating some important point to Dad. Emily looks skeptical (so does Dad, actually).

The beach, drink, and eat pattern worked well for all of the Wiersemas (and us too!) who were breaking out of their long winter slump. Its kinda of amusing to think that the Celsius temperature in Roatan (40) was roughly the same the Fahrenheit temperature back in Wisconsin while they were down here!

Obviously the most important thing was the we got to spend important time with my parents and my two sisters. Its been a long run since winter break and even though we've done some fantastic things down in Honduras, the best things are being able to see, talk to, and hang out with a bit of home right here in Honduras.




- Dan

Honduran Specialty: Huevos Chimbos!

Huevo Warriors

It's probably not fair to let Honduras claim this as a "Specialty", given that they can be found around Easter throughout Central America but we'll overlook that.

Huevos chimbos, or "Silly Eggs", flooded my classroom on Friday last week for our Easter Celebration. At first, they looked just like decorated eggs and I was a bit confused as to why so many kids were bring them in by the dozens...you can only eat so many hard-boiled eggs! I quickly learned the "Silly" part: the eggs are emptied out, decorated, filled with confetti and then re-closed with a small amount of papier mache. The eggs are traditionally hidden and then after collecting them they are smashed over friends and family. Genius!

The war begins!

Land and Air assaults!

So, on Friday afternoon with the help of my assistant and Dan we had a massive "Huevos Chimbos" hunt, and subsequent egg war. Initially, the teacher in me was nervous about the prospect of the kids running after each other, smashing eggs on their friends' heads...this sounds like something to be avoided. As it turned out, it was pure unadulterated joy. The kids were fantastic, and we had a blast chasing one another and everyone was happily covered in confetti at the end of the day.

A truce was reached over Peeps!

Back in the Saddle

Anah and I are back in good ol' San Pedro Sula. We'll be unpacking the bags and all of our wonderful photos and stories from our trip with the Wiersema Family to Roatan.

Stay tuned!

Live from Roatan, Honduras

Gone for the week in Roatan, Honduras. Anah and Dan will be back this Saturday! Leave a message after the beep. Beep!

Big Wins For Honduras and the U.S.

I'll post some photos from the Honduras - Mexico game that I went to last night, but first I wanted to post the highlights of the game and also the U.S. game.

Both posted historic wins last night, U.S. more expected (still a nice rebound after the 2-2 shock draw with El Salvador, but showcased a hat trick (3 goals) from young superstar Jozy Altidore. Honduras, on the other hand, was phenomenal last night playing out of their minds against rivals Mexico, posting a 3-1 win.

Honduras - Mexico:



U.S. - Trinidad and Tobago: