Tortillas. Tortillas. Tortillas.

I mentioned last post that this week is La Semana de Los Estudiantes (the week of the students). All of the kiddos are just chillin' at home, watching cartoons and playing soccer. This week we planned to teach English at the school from 9-11 for Bictelia (the school director),Delmi and Deyni (her daughters) and any other students that wanted to come. After the first lesson on Monday, Karin and I went to Delmi and Deyni's house to hang out. We spent the entire day in Honduran community and I couldn't ask for more. For lunch we had rice, shrimp, a block of weird queso and fried plantains (which were heavenly). We also made some mango juice with unripe mangos and TONS of sugar. Hondurans LOVE sugar. The Tang (koolaid) packets here are jam packed with sugar. Unlike Karin, I didn't really help in the lunch preparation department. I chose, instead, to play with Delmi and Deyni's little cousins, Daniel and Marcos. These little boys are hilarious and so eager to learn English. We just went over flashcards and picture books the entire time. Daniel is probably about 5 or 6 years old and you'd think his attention span would be very short. However we spent probably four straight hours learning English. This little boy is incredible.

After lunch that day, I played with the kids some more and then Deyni insisted that we start on making tortillas. We walked around the village in search of pulperías that were open. Apparently everyone shuts down around 2-3 for naps so after a few failed attempts to find flour, we finally got our ingredients. Ok. Tortilla making is one of those things that looks easy but in reality, if you lack the slightest bit of coordination, ten tortillas are going to end up on the ground before you succeed. Fortunately, I think I got the hang of it. Which, lucky for me, I got to test my skills the following day. The other interns arrived in the middle of the night on Tuesday so there are now five of us. Tuesday, we headed out to our friend, Lindy's house in Balfate. She started learning English with Karin and I last week and has progressed incredibly quick. We went to Balfate to teach her more English and to make more tortillas. While we were there, we got to try some fruit off the neighborhood trees. I've become one of those people that will eat anything. I ate fruit last week in the mountains off the ground. I've also taken a strong liking to 'topohios' which are the Honduran equivalent of popsicles. They're basically like chocolate milk or strawberry frozen goodness in plastic bags. As you can probably gather, I'm not really losing any weight or hurting for food here. Hopefully, climbing all of these mountains and running after the kids is counteracting the carbo-overload I'm experiencing.But enough about food.

Today, we returned to the school to teach some more English. There were enough of us gringos there to be paired up with the kids/anyone who was there to learn. I was with, Doris, a girl from the oldest class at the bilingual school. She is so intelligent and her English is phenomenal for a Honduran 5th grader. During our lesson, she asked if her brother could come in and learn and I said, of course. So her older brother, Cristian came inside for his first lesson of English. I told Doris that she was going to be the maestra and teach her brother. We were in the middle of reading a story in English, so I had Doris read a few lines and had her brother repeat. I have to confess I got a little teary-eyed at the sight of Doris and Cristian. It was just a really sweet image of a little girl desiring to teach her brother so much and him just soaking up every constructive criticism she had for him. I am going to miss these kids so much when I leave. Ahhh I can't even think about it! Tomorrow, we head up to Las Niguas, a village in the mountains. This trip, we'll be taking the students from the bilingual school with us. I'm excited to witness to the interactions between these two groups of kids. I think that's all I have for now. I'll be sure to update after the trip tomorrow. XoXo.