So we'll use one glove to unblock the toilet and the other for first aid..

Our toilet is fixed, this is a very good day! No more peeing in the shower. All that was needed was a plunger, one surgical glove and a reduced gagging reflex. And it's sorted. We now know that toilet paper DOES NOT go in the toilet.

Physical education is the kids favourite class. They all come to school in their blue trackie bottoms and gleaming white tee shirts. Playing sport in this heat is not fun. Because it was torrentially raining we were playing inside. And the power was off. No fans or air con. Soon me and Mali were sweating buckets and panting while the kids looked relaxed and hardly out of breath. Once the rain eased off we headed out to the football pitch. A barren rectangle of mud and grass with tree trunks unfortunately placed across the pitch. You think the ropework's bad, try playing football on this pitch! Girls against boys. The kids were delighted that me and Mali were joining in, we quickly demonstrated our football skills; Mali by loosing her shoes and me by falling almost on my bum within the first 2 minutes. The kids sussed that football wasn't our strongest sport. I'm looking forward to developing my football skills over this year, maybe there'll be a day where the kids don't laugh at me...

Our toilet saga continues. So what we thought was a success turned out not to be. Merely a day later and we were back at square one. Time to call in the big guns I think. Tomorrow we'll speak to our host as get the problem sorted. Hopefully.

We decided to explore Trinidad this weekend, and headed off up the hill after breakfast, armed with our cameras and vast quantities of water. After 5 minutes of walking uphill we were very, very hot. But decided to continue onwards and upwards to see the apparently fantastic view. And we were rewarded with just that. It was beautiful. So much greenery, little villages and houses scattered throughout the mountains surrounding Trinidad. We got many looks, as we usually do, but today people actually started saying 'hola' and 'buenos dias' and SMILING. This is an improvement on the constant stares and tongue clicking. And makes us feel much more comfortable.

Everyone here is football crazy. You either support Real Madrid or Barcelona. Lucky for me, I'm a Barca supporter and brought my barca top with me, this made me extremely popular with half the school at PE on Friday and not so popular with the other half. The allegiance to each team seems to change on a regular basis apart from a few hardcore Real or Barca fans.

Ps our toilet is fixed!

Everyone should eat avocado..

Our home!

Someone turned the water off...

So we have no running water at the moment. we discovered this when we got back from our first full day teaching, sweaty, tired, basically dead on our feat, longing for a cold, refreshing shower by none was to be had.
After our lesson prep the next day we headed home to discover the water was back on, we did our washing, Mali jumped in the shower and I followed after, 2 minutes in as i was putting shampoo all over my hair the water turns to a trickle, then nothing..
Having to use drinking water to wash is nt ideal but walking around with a hairstyle not unlike Edward scissor hands was worse. Out came the so far unused cooking pan and my hair was restored to normal.
My first full day teaching went by without too much bother. I stumbled only once when confused as to what an antecedent was in 6th grade grammar. Having done higher English I thought I was prepared to teach 11 year olds English as a their second language. Apparently not. They ended up teaching me more than I taught them. I can only improve on that lesson!
First grade is the hardest to teach imagine teaching a primary 1 class about ecosystems and animals, now imagine they speak no English. That's my challenge. They're a great group of kids, but this is definitely my most draining class.

In all my life I have never seen children eat so many sweets. before class, during, at lunch break and after, constantly eating sweets of all descriptions. Mali and I were offered an abundance on out first day and have decided, instead of eating them, we'll collect and see over a period of time how many we can amass. Our total, after one day, sits at 10 sweets, a chocolate bar and the last bite of a snickers.

Unfortunately, our toilet situation remains the same.

Having been warned that men in Honduras hiss at women to get their attention I was intrigued to see of they actually did. It's true. In San Pedro we were hissed at many times in our very, very short stay, sometimes followed by 'hola guapa'. Here, in Trinidad, it's more of a tongue click, followed by 'hola guapa', it's strange, and a little flattering, but mostly strange... As we're new to Trinidad everyone, and I mean everyone watches you. Waking down the street to school, all eyes are on you, cars slow down as they pass you and the mototaxi's cross over to your side of the road; just to see the gringas in town.

Breakfast today was.. Interesting. It was composed of frijoles (beans that accompany pretty much every meal here), mantequilla (almost like sour cream), queso (cheese, but almost like feta), a kind of ham that had been cooked like bacon and of course tortilla. It wasn't my favourite, but it was edible. The combinations were strange and I suppose it'll just take time to get used to the different ways of eating! But for now, cereal for breakfast will do me nicely.

My 2nd grade class are great! Today I was teaching them grammar, the difference between 'is' and 'are'. For example 'The ants are playing basketball.' I drew some ants playing basketball on the board, the rest of the lesson was spent drawing ants in various guises, it was fun and the kids finally know the difference between are and is!!

Our water's back on thankfully. It's seems to be a bit temperamental. Going off at odd times and coming back in after an inconsistent period of time, not quite what we're used to in Scotland but its running water!

Arriving!

After 23 hours of travelling, customs, ridiculous American security and plane food we have arrived in the beautiful country of Honduras!
I have to say, even though I've only been in the country for 2 days, I love it! It's vibrant, cheerful and welcoming. Not at all what I expected from the murder capital of the world..
Arriving at night was a blessing as the heat is intense and sticky. The 16 of us headed to various places, 10 to a b&b and the others onwards to their projects. We all promised to meet up once we've settled and got some free time, there is so much diversity in Honduras and we all want to experience as much as we can.
From the b&b the next morning we were picked up by Tato, a teacher at the school and taken to meet the principle and her husband (conchita and dr alan) where we ate lunch at pizza hut of all places! Something tells me this was our last western style meal for a while..
We then made out way to Trinidad, along the roads full of potholes that would fit a person or two, drivers who overtake anywhere and casual driving in the middle of the road, we survived!
Trinidad was not what I expected, although I'm not sure what I expected. It's a small town of 6thousand nestled in the mountains, surrounded by coffee and banana plantations. Colourful houses fill the cobbled streets and little mototaxi (motorbike taxis) drive madly around the town.
We were surprised and confused to learn that we were no longer staying with a family but fending for ourselves in a small apartment, this suits us better as we have our own space! Pero es muy,muy pequeño..

Our first meal was frijoles ( beans but not as we know them), plantanos (a large fried banana with sugar to go with the beans), tortilla, papa ( a kind of hash brown) and of course huevos (egg - a single fried egg; my worst nightmare! Although I soldiered on and ate said egg, hating every mouthful..). It was an interesting mix but enjoyable.

Our apartment now looks homely, with a Scotland flag table cloth and each of us with a picture wall of family and friends. Much better, although our wardrobe is in the kitchen.. But it's home!

We visited the school, and were welcomed to a chorus of 'welcome to Honduras, we hope you enjoy our country'. It was amazing, everyone was so happy that we were there to teach them and learn about their culture, it was almost breathtaking and very surreal. We introduced ourselves to the children, Mali having a pronounceable name was well loved, I on the other hand was known as 'other miss' until the name 'miss Kate' was adopted. I am now as loved as Mali.

Avocado is awesome!! So far the best fruit I've had in my 2 days in Honduras. So fresh, creamy and just damn yummy. Mali and I have so far purchased and pretty much devoured a bag..

From Avocado to toilets; not something you do everyday. Our toilet, well, does not function as one should. It has in fact decided to stop working all together. So we have come to the conclusion that peeing in the shower and pooing at school is the best way forward until said problem is fixed. Toilets are overrated anyway.

We will keep you updated on the progression of our toilet problem!

Thrown in at the deep end..

What we thought was our training day turned out to be something entirely different. We were actually teaching, meeting the classes and pretty much on our own. Now this was scary. Mali was lucky and had a teacher to shadow but me, not so lucky. The teacher whose classes I was taking left yesterday, so when I walked into the first class with nothing but my timetable I had no clue what I was supposed to be doing. The class, 6th grade grammar. Okay I thought, this shouldn't be too hard, I have a B at higher English. How wrong I was.. Opening the textbook I was confronted with subjective and objective pronouns. Oh dear. I can honestly say I had no idea what these were. I had a very long moment of panic where I thought 'what the hell am I going to teach?!' an this must have been apparent to the children as they asked if I knew what to do. at that moment I had a brainwave, it's only my first day, these children don't know me, I don't know them, we'll do an introduction class. Telling the class of 4 to put their textbooks away immediately perked them up, of they weren't already excited to have a 'muchcha nieve' or snow girl as I have been nicknamed on account of my skin being so white ( I thought I was tanned at home!).
The lesson went well, I talked to them about me, my home, the country, my family and they taught me their names, about their family and of course local swear words and hand signals. Who knew a hand signal could mean so much?!
I moved on to the 5th grade class, then 4th and finally 2nd. Introducing myself and getting them to make name tags and according to their various levels of English, teach me about their lives in Trinidad.
The overwhelming feeling was of happiness and excitement from the children. They want me and Mali to be here, teaching and learning with them, they want us to be in their school, they want to be friends with us and learn about our home and culture but most of all they want to learn English! And that's what i see is different to in the uk, every single child in the school wants to learn all the time, it may sound stereotypical to say this, but from my experience it's true!