Top 10 Highlights of a Typical Week

I haven't had any particularly eventful adventures this week to share through pictures. So, I thought it would be fun to share my top 10 highlights of a typical week here in Honduras! (But they won't be in order of least favorite to most favorite, or vice versa. The best I can do is narrow down my highlights to just 10 because a "Top 100" list would just be ridiculous.)

Aaaand here comes the list:

(1) Hosting a TEA PARTY here at my castle home for some of the lideres jovenes and staff from UPH. As you may or may not know, I LOVE tea, LOVE dressing up on occasion and LOVE eating cookies. This all adds up to a tea party being just about my favorite thing ever. With the added bonus of playing some exciting rounds of musical chairs and sardines, it was a most lovely day. This is the only event that I have some photo documentation of, so here are some pictures to enjoy!

(2) Here is the scenario: I am sitting at a table with a bunch of the youngest children during cooking class. We are in the process of consuming the baleadas we have just learnt how to make and one little boy, Alex, is talking away with his mouth FULL of baleada. Food is flying out of his mouth as he speaks so I feel the need to remind him not to speak with his mouth full. The little girl sitting beside me decides to primly pipe in: "it is bad manners to speak with your mouth full." He promptly replies, "LIAR! It is GOOD manners to speak with your mouth full!!"

(3) Using the song "Someone Like You" by Adele to teach English to a group of teenagers who are wanting to improve their English. Turns out that Karaoke is a great motivator!

(4) Playing a new game, "Musical Twister," with my piano class. My slightly nerdier version of Twister involves playing on a giant musical staff taped to the ground and obeying directions like "put your left hand on Do central!" and "put your right foot on Sol in the Treble Clef!"

(5) While leading a special club during recess at camp, I gave the club members each a pulsera (bracelet) I had made to commemorate our time making friendship bracelets together. One of the little boys didn't want to put his on, which surprised me because he has been asking me for that particular bracelet for a couple of weeks! He told me he wanted to save it for later. Later that day I saw the same pulsera on the wrist of one of the leaders. And it wasn't the first bracelet he had given her; he also gave her every single pulsera he made during our club, adding up to a total of four bracelets! On the other hand, another little boy in the class left camp that day with three bracelets tied around his wrist. He didn't seem to grasp the concept about giving away friendship bracelets as a symbol of friendship...

(6) Walking to a giant Ceiba tree close to the Mayan Ruins with a friend. Probably one of the most peaceful places I know in Honduras.

(7) The kids at camp can choose to either read a book or write a composition after they finish their homework. Yesterday the topic was to write a story about a princess and a dragon. One boy wrote a full page in extensive detail about a prince and a princess and the evil king who owned the castle they lived in. He described the upcoming birthday party of the prince at great length, ending the page with the king saying to the prince, "I am going to kill you." On that suspenseful note, I turned the page to see the one sentence conclusion: "But he couldn't kill the prince because the prince believed in God." Although I am not sure about the literary value of this rather simplistic denouement, it is evidence indeed that he is paying attention in Bible class!

(8) Reading through a book of prayers from Iona that a friend lent me. Praying the through the lines "as the mist scatters from the crest of the hills may each ill haze clear from my soul O God" while looking out over the mist-covered hills of Copan is a truly beautiful and restoring way to start my morning!

(9) Making the mini-pizzas of patience with the youth leaders who work at the same camp as me! I call them the mini-pizzas of patience because we could only bake two at a time in the oven and there were some very hungry people waiting for them...

(10) I FINISHED reading War and Peace! It was a wonderful read; I would even consider re-reading it in a couple of years. However, my one concern was that it really felt like Tolstoy added a few too many essay-like sections about historical theory. Interesting stuff, but sometimes all I really want to know is what is going to happen next to Natasha and Prince Andrew - not ten pages about whether Napolean was truly responsible for the failure of his military campaign in Russia. The celebration at a nice restaurant with friends afterwards (celebrating other important events like acceptance to university and a completed dissertation) was also lovely!

I congratulate any of you who have actually succeeded in reading this blog post in its entirety! Hopefully this gives you a bit of a picture of the joys of my daily life in Honduras.