I cannot make this stuff up.

So, this next-to-last week of school turned out not at all as expected. Not in a bad way. In a where-did-that-come-from way.

It was Tuesday, I think, when we (my roommates - the Kinder/Prepa/1st English teachers - and I) got word of our passports. (Mine actually travels more in Honduras than I do, for which I am quite jealous.) It was not a good word.

How travel permissions work here is that one has 90 days in Honduras once entering the country; past that point, it is necessary to either head for home, or go at least two countries over (try Belize), spend a little time, get a nice passport stamp, and come back. 

Sometimes, I'm not precisely sure how, the government grants visa extensions, which are good for 30 days. Having arrived the 15th of August, we applied (that is, we gave our ministry our passports and a fistful of cash and they went to a lawyer) for an extension to get us from November 15th to December 15th and got it. We were to do this again to cover the 4 days separating that extension limit from our actual departure date of December 19th, the Saturday after the last day of school.  

But it was not granted; we were told no one is getting them.

This news sat heavily upon me, despite reassurances that we could pay a fine (estimated at $80) and leave a little late, no problem. I felt uncomfortable willfully ignoring the law. On Thursday morning we were informed by our pastor's wife that the current fee was more like $140, or L2750). 

I forget in whose brain it was that the wheels first began turning toward leaving. But, we theorized, if the fee to change a plane ticket is only $10 more than the fine, AND we could stay legal in the process of leaving early (a good track record will only help should we enter other foreign countries in the future)... why not? 

We checked: there were flights still. A ride to a hotel close to the airport smoothly materialized. Our passports (which, nerve-wracklingly, were still in Teguc - 2 hours away - on Friday) were speedily returned to us.

And so we're leaving. Despite the arrangement ease, it's been a hard process. Though there is little real teaching happening at the school next week because of holiday festivities, we leave the school in a short-staffed position, as was made abundantly clear to us (in both Spanish and English). Overall though, the staff has been kindly supportive of our desire to avoid the illegal status. They are ever a pleasure to work with. 

So here's the way we gonna play.

This guy has stood me up three times now.

The first time I brushed it off. "He didn't come because he was sick," I told myself. The next time, when he scooted out right before our appointment? "He forgot," I rationalized. Today, when he straight-up did not show again, I faced this fact:

David Emmanuel Oliva Osorio just doesn't want to be tutored in English. 

Having ascertained that, I can strike back by ignoring standard protocol.

At the Destino school, a child who requires tutoring is sent home on Friday afternoon with a blue slip which expresses to their mother/aunt/older sister/whomever that on Monday they will stay after school for about an hour and should be collected at their normal bus stop about 4:20 p.m.

For the obstinate sorts, like our friend David, that little paper tells them exactly which Mondays not to come to school.

So, we out-maneuver them. For special cases, we have what might should be called a Grab-and-Go Policy. Having NOT sent a slip home Friday, we wait for their unsuspecting selves to come to school on Monday, grab them before they get on the bus to leave, and make them go to tutoring.

Hold onto your hat, Oliva. And here's the ironic part. When Destino sent out sponsorship photos this year, each kid held a board listing their full name, grade, and something they liked. Get a load of David's:

Mods

Maybe a month or so back, I hauled 2 3rd grade girls into the office for unsmoothly executed cheating behavior during a spelling test. I blame the incident in part on the fact that I had no assistant (on Friday I only have one for about the last 25 minutes of class, and who wants a spelling test hanging over their head that long?), because having two pairs of roving teacher eyes tends to put down said asinine behavior. The principal, to my annoyance at the time, said perhaps I should move the test to Thursdays, when I am better supported.

I dug in my heels, for they pay an English advisor a fair chunk of money to design a decent curriculum, and by gosh, I was trying to follow it: new spelling list every Monday, two days of practice/reinforcement with the words, a practice test on Thursday, and a test of Friday. (Though Mallori and I at the get-go had to eliminate all the photocopied worksheets that had been included. The school often simply doesn't have that much paper/toner, and it was suggested we could do much of the work on the board. I like the kids to have something in their hands, especially the ones with NO attention span, but it worked out all right.)

So, I carried on with Friday spelling tests, sometimes borrowing an assistant from another class, like one of the 1st grade English teachers. Obviously this is not ideal. Also not ideal is that on Mondays, when the kids get their spelling tests back and have to write missed words several times each, I also have no steady assistant. Mallori's in for maybe 20-25 minutes and then Diana Maria at the end. Nothing sustained. I'm thinking - finally - of switching to Thursday spelling  tests, and then introducing the new list on Fridays. That would eliminate the problem of needing a second pair of eyes on Friday, but would not help the situation of needing back-up on the days (under this plan, Fridays) when only some kids are writing missed words. UNLESS I could convince Mallori to do my grading in the Thursday class, and have the kids write their words at the end. There's an idea. Immediate feedback. I wonder if it would confuse my brain entirely to have 2nd and 3rd on different schedules.

(Nicol, Susan, and Axel - 3 of 3rd grade's best spellers.)

Human Days

I stayed home from Bible study tonight; it's always a fight to make that decision, because I know the fellowship is important. The group really holds up my heart at times.

(A bunch of the crew on my birthday.)

But I'm learning to seek silent time. It's so hard to be still. To listen. To even plan as I should. Not because there isn't time (though sometimes there's precious little), but because it's hard to stop moving. Tonight, when I did, it was a stop of collapse. 

Wednesdays are long. We board the bus at 7 a.m., and often don't leave the school till about 5 p.m, depending on the staff meeting (at worse, we've arrived at our doorstep about 5:50 p.m. after a workday). The meetings vary by week, always starting and ending at different times, and they are not bound by an agenda. I play translator as best I can, bridging the gap between the Honduran and English staffs. I enjoy the challenge of translating, though sometimes afterwards my brain feels it's been left out in the sun too long.

(I'm listening to one of the Gospels online. My favorite description of Joseph of Arimathea comes from Mark: "Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the Council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.")

As a school update, here's this: I brought cookies today, for my birthday, so I'm the best teacher ever! For a day at least. They've also begun learning a truncated version of "Deck the Halls," to be performed at the parent lunch on the 18th. It seems to be a hit. I think it's all the Fa-la-la-ing. Friday, I'm planning to give a mid-parcial quiz on useful classroom phrases and current vocabulary. 2nd grade is speaking better than ever! You may get on your knees this night and beg God to teach me how to unlock such radical English in 3rd grade. Oy vey.

(With three of my precocious 2nd graders: Erick, Ibraham, and Maycol. Not sure where my head got off to.)