An Apple

My Prepa kids showing off their fall trees.

Last week one of my Prepa students brought me an apple. I truly do like apples, but this was different. Because in every picture-perfect story, kids bring apples to their teachers, right? Granted as a child I never brought apples to my teachers, but still. Jeremy, the student, nonchalantly handed me this red apple, and I almost fell over. I'm not sure he had any idea what that apple meant. It must be real now - I'm a teacher.

On Wednesday, however, I realized that when the second graders all give me hugs after lunch it's not because of how much they love me. It's so that they can wipe the sweat off their heads and onto my shirt. That was a lovely realization.

If I thought that the busito ride to Copan was rough, I was mistaken. On Tuesday afternoon I went to a student's house to begin tutoring. Most students get to school on busitos, and until Tuesday, I hadn't fully realized what this actually meant. The van was smaller than the busito we take to school every morning, and as they pushed me into the front seat with five other people, I realized that there were at least 25 kids in the van. Honduras has redefined a full vehicle for me.

On Wednesday, I tried to play Bingo with Prepa. I gave them each a Bingo sheet with squares, triangles, and circles, and told them to color the shapes red, yellow, blue, or green. The majority of the class used the right colors and those that also incorporated purples, pinks, and oranges likely realized pretty quickly what they had done wrong. I explained the rules of the game, both in English and Spanish, hoping that they'd catch on quickly. I was wrong. After every shape that I called out, someone in the room would yell "BINGO!" This even after I had only called one or two or three shapes, making a four-shape bingo impossible. After hearing "BINGO!" continuously for 25 minutes, giving prizes to the kids who had actually won, and observing all the kids who were simply too frustrated with the rules to play, I was ready for our next activity. The shapes game on the patio that I knew the kids would absolutely adore then fell through when we all got out to the patio to find it occupied by sixth graders. Learning to roll even more with whatever Honduras throws my way.

On Thursday I wanted to do a fun, hands-on activity with Prepa. I decided I'd teach them about the idea of fall, especially since we are learning about the pronunciation difference between "three" and "tree." Also, I just really miss fall. I printed up an outline of a leafless tree for each kid, explained what fall was and that leaves change color. I pulled out paint and had each kid finger paint leaves on with green, red, and yellow paint. But my aide and I had some different approaches to this project. I simply opened up the paints, showed the kids what to do, and let them loose. The kids at my tables were mixing all the colors, making big brown splotches everywhere, and wearing lots of paint. The kids at Isis' table were painting on one color at a time, cleaning their fingers between each new color, and following my picture exactly. Some sort of contrast between correct and fun became apparent.

I decided to hold a birthday party for Prepa. After being asked by a parent if she could bring in cake for her son's birthday this coming week, I remembered that birthdays are supposed to be celebrated. But because six kids had already had their birthdays in August and September, it was important that we give them the chance to celebrate, too, in class. So I planned a party for us. Thursday afternoon I went to the supermarket and spent an hour deciding what cheap snacks I could purchase for them - I settled on a variety pack of cookies, three bags of microwave popcorn, and candy for the birthday kids. The class knew about the party and had been looking forward to it all week. I had told them that if they wanted to, they, too, could bring in food to celebrate. After the supermarket, I headed home to make birthday packages for each birthday kid. These included stickers, erasers, candy, and a pencil, and took more time than I care to admit to prepare.

Friday morning at school a couple bottles of Coca-Cola arrived, as well as candy and more cookies. Miss Betty, the Spanish teacher and also one of the owners of the school, explained to me that in the future Prepa kids aren't allowed to bring Coke. Clearly I had missed this memo, especially since I'd seen the kids bring in liters and liters of Coke for Children's Day. She stated that today it was okay for us to drink the Coke that the kids had brought, but to not allow that in the future, and could she please steal a glass? By the time it was my turn to teach, an entire cake had arrived as well. After doing some class work, we had our party. We sang happy birthday not once, but to every single one of the six children we were celebrating, plus an extra practice round. That got long. We ate cake and drank Coke. Then we spent the rest of the morning singing and dancing to "10 Little Monsters," an extremely fast-paced and difficult to keep up-with song about monsters that I found on Pinterest that the kids loved, since we'd made Letter M Monsters on Monday and Tuesday.

The weekend was full of lesson-planning. Exam week begins next week, so writing exams and study guides for second grade constituted a large portion of my weekend. That and fasting. I broke my fast on Saturday with fresh bread and cream cheese, so almost a bagel. Chag sameach, y'all.