Life on the Ranch

Everything is good here in Honduras. I have been working in the Montessori school every day, mostly with first grade. It is almost like a special education classroom because so many of the kids have been held back or have never been to school before. That means there are kids anywhere from 6 to 11 years old. Mauricio, Jessica, and Cesar really like having me there to help them with their little independent activities. The teacher, Kenia, is really good. I talked to Momo (wife of Reinhart, former national director) who runs the Montessori school and she said it would be great if I could come every year and even better if I could take a sabbatical and stay for a year! :)

The kids are wonderful, with the exception of a few girls who have been a bit nasty to me. They don't like being disciplined in school. I got the best greeting hug from Axel when I saw him for the first time this trip. Now all the San Pablo boys (the same ones from San Francisco last year) are cool with my again. I've also had nice conversations with Bryan and Maynor who christened me "Geisha" last year. One sad thing is that Carlos Santos, one of my favorite kids, has left the Ranch. He's in Tegucigalpa doing Lord knows what. The director is in contact with him, so we're going to try to arrange a meeting with him so I can talk to him.

The food here isn't too bad. I didn't think I would be able to do it after the first day, but now that I have Cornflakes for breakfast it's not so bad. My favorite dinner is panqueques. I was so upset when they put mantequilla on it!! Mantequilla means butter in Spanish, but here it's this weird sour cream, mayonnaise stuff they put on everything. So gross! I've also discovered that I don't like this fruit called a nanse (sp?). The texture is just disgusting. I would rather eat the leaves the girls in El Salvador fed me when we went on our hike. They were actually pretty rico. I have to admit that I have a serious hankering for Thai food!