Girls Basketball

Well the turn out to Girls basketball was overwhelming. 16 girls came! Thats of course too many so I'm hoping that with a schedule change and time it will weed a few out. I think a lot of them think its just play half-court basketball time when of course thats not really it. Then again its going to be a challenge to motivate them to practice drills and stuff if there's not another actual team to play against so we'll see how that goes. On Tuesday I'm going to have to be tougher to try and figure out whose really interested and whose not, but I'm excited that so many showed up.

As for classes they're going ok, although my 7th graders are still little bastards. I'm going to try writing home to the bad kids and asking their parents to come sit in class with them and see if any parents will come, but I have to do something. I do know that out of my 31 7th graders I'm probably going to fail about 13 so that'll be exciting. My 8th and 9th graders are pretty good though and my 10th graders are great.

I just got back from a trip to Copan with the 10th graders where we saw ancient Mayan ruins (pics soon to come). That was pretty cool to see the ruins and its just so beautiful. We also rode horses which was lots of fun with the students and overall just had a good time. Although now being the teacher and not the student sucks a little. There are definate advantages such as being able to kick kids out of your seat on the bus and stuff but having to say things like "you can't leave the hotel and go to a club tonight" just make you feel like a killjoy.

When we rode horses we rode them up the mountain and to the man's home and it was amazing. These people lived in a 2 bedroom crumbling adobe house with dirt floors. There was of course no running water and no electricity. There were kids running around everywhere and the poverty was very shocking. In very bad spanish I asked this one little boy how old he was and I thought he couldn't have been much older than 5 or 6 and he was 11! Their nutrition is just so lacking that the children are very small.

When we were ridding up there this one little boy was helping the horses along and I asked him how old he was and he told me 7 and when I asked if he went to school he explained that he didn't because he helped with the horses. There's just not a lot of hope for these people. They live in backbreaking poverty and then their children are raised without a chance for education or anything and the cycle repeats itself. Poverty in the US is so much different. Being poor in the US means you might not have air conditioning or you might have to ride the bus to work and maybe you can't buy name brand food, but you dont have dirt floors and no electricity or running water or indoor plumbing and your children can go to school.

What was even more shocking to me was that most of my students who are native Hondurans hadn't seen this kind of poverty before. These are private school students so their families are better off, but still they are so close to it here in Honduras I'm suprised that they haven't been exposed to it before now. Then again its something hard to see and I think many turn a blind eye and maybe parents want to protect their children from that.

Its something to think about when you're upset because you can't afford some nice new toy or when you worry about money. It was definately a reminder to me that even if I think I have nothing in the States and probably no matter what happens I have had, have, and will have more than most of these people will ever have. It makes me both thankful for what I have and somewhat ashamed at the largeness of American life.

Anyways I'll write more on my trip to Copan later and post pics. I have grading and lesson planning to do. Adios.