Saturday 19 November 2011

100 days!

Hey guys, just thought I would write a post explaining what happened on our 100th day in Paradise ... I mean Punta Gorda.
Well, it was a Friday, Friday the 18th November and Ally and I decided we would make the walk up to Marble Hill Farms to see if we could go diving and finish our PADI Open Water diver course! We woke early and set off on the half an hour walk to the resort. We headed down to the dock and met our instructor Pol, who took us through what we would be doing that day, last two confined dives and our final open water dive. We did the confined dives first, doing skills such as swimming for 15 metres without a mask on (quite weird, I couldn’t focus on breathing and panicked! woops!) and the hover technique and also removing the scuba unit underwater. Both Ally and I completed these with minimal difficulty and so we got out of the water, had a cup of tea and some cookies while Pol briefed us on the upcoming open water dive.
We soon headed out on the boat and geared up and back rolled in, I will never get used to that first moment when you hit the water and look down and just see this whole new world beneath you! We started to head down in the water, but as I had had a cold the past few days, and my ears are quite sensitive to pressure anyway, it took me quite a while to reach the bottom, but I did get to have a good look around, seeing massive schools of fish and a couple of big jellyfish floating around. When you make your way down in the water, you have to equalize your ears to the pressure, otherwise they feel like they are going to explode! But because mine have been a bit blocked lately, this a long time, well until they eventually popped quite hard and it hurt a fair amount (however, now a day later and one of them is still a little blocked, going to get some decongestants later today - advice from our instructor!) but anyway, the pain soon disappeared and I got to enjoy the dive, seeing some huge groupers and swimming through a small canyon in the coral (feeling like I was swimming in a cave), as always, diving is just great and it was even better knowing that after this one, we would be able to dive anywhere in the world, without having to do any skills or anything, and just enjoying the swim. 
When we surfaced, Pol said those great words ‘Congratulations guys, welcome to PADI’, Ally and I both turned to each other with the biggest smiles we have ever had, after returning to shore, we headed up to the office to sort out some final paper work and get our temporary PADI cards (enabling us to dive anywhere, while our real cards are sent home). After sorting out everything and saying thanks (and getting told that we get two free dives with Marble Hill Farms ... :D   ) we headed to get something to eat at the restaurant called ‘The Crows Nest’ where we ate nachos, philly cheese steaks and angus burgers (philly cheese steaks are the best things ever! haha) after this we sat and admired the view before we began the walk home. When we got home we both just crashed as we were so tired (after getting up quite early) and both went for a late ciesta (at about 5 ish) thinking we would wake up before having to go to Mary Lou’s for dinner at 7, however, I was woken with Ally flicking on my light and saying, it is 8:15 .... WHAT!! bloody hell!! haha
We got dressed and headed down to Mary Lou’s to see if she was still able to give us something to eat ... well we were in luck! haha Apparently, it wasn’t the first time that to volunteers have fallen asleep and missed dinner! haha We enjoyed a nice meal of rice, fried plantains, and sausage before we came back and chilled out with a good film and some music! (obv not at the same time!) 
Anyway, we both agreed that this was a great 100th day and both of us cannot believe how quickly these days have gone, 100 already!! :O   Almost a third, unbelievable! But they have been the absolute best 100 day of my entire life! Cannot wait for the next 258 days! lol (we are flying back a week before the date we arrived!) 
Hope you guys have had just as good a time as I have, well probs not, but anyway, hope you are all good and happy!
Till next time,
Ciao! 

Saturday 12 November 2011

The Many sides to teaching!

Hey again, I know I am becoming a bit lazy with these lately and I do promise to try and blog more often, but the truth of it is, that after a long day, I just want to crash down with a movie, and not have to sit there and write! However, I am going to try really hard from now on.
So here goes ...
This week is coming up to the end of the 4th Parcial (term) and of course everyone needs to do exams, so I look at my mark sheet for every class that I teach and ... “Shit, I have hardly done any tests!” I say to a calm as ever Ally as he is mulling over his mark sheets. I therefore whack out my teachers planner and plan nearly two weeks worth of lessons to see if I can cram in revision sessions and tests into one week. Turns out I could, but only being seriously cruel to some of my kids, like 2 tests in a week and a homework sheet, haha. Glad I didn’t have me as a teacher! But as ever, the weather decided to put a dampener on things and rained off two days worth of these plans, so I had to scrap the revision session and just pop in during one of their other lessons and tell them there was going to be a test, and have an unscheduled class on one other day (the classes here have like no timetable to them, so we can pretty much turn up when we want and give a class!).
So here I was planning like mad, and making up so many draft tests in this little note book I found, about 3 different spelling tests and 4 different exams, luckily there were some worksheet books in the house from past volunteers, so some of the work load was lifted a bit for the younger years with the help of ‘Activity Packs for Young Learners - Pupil’s Pack - Delta Publishers’ (cheers guys, I can always rely on you!). Luckily none of my students complained too much, it is just hard to get them all where you want them at one time, there is quite often a couple of students missing, so I then have to schedule a re-sit test for those that missed it during break, but of course, not all of them turn up, so have to do it again until I get far to frustrated and just say no! 
This is all great, because I don’t actually have to teach and just walk around the class while they are racking their brains on how to translate and spell the word ‘Baloncesto’ (answer at bottom of page) and look over their shoulder at how they are doing, oh and also laugh to myself at the cunning of some of my students and to what lengths some will go to “hide” the fact that they are cheating, like one guy saying he needs a book to lean on, and me turning round to see that he is in-fact opening this book instead of leaning on it, or another having their english book open inside of their bag on their chair, and the pretend to be tired to lean on their arm and have a cheeky look inside, or as Ally describes one of his kids leaning over and very un-subtly pulling a folded up piece of paper out of his top packet and passing it in-front of his face and very noisily putting it back into his pocket, only to repeat the process for the next question!
But as always, with a mountain of exams, comes a mountain of marking. Me and Ally had to sit there for a good 2 - 3 hours, while we ticked and crossed every single paper we had. The next day, we were accosted by our students asking for their marks and papers back, and whether or not they would have to come back into school on the weekend to do ‘recuperación’ (basically where they sit one other exam and if they pass that, they pass the year, hardly fair I know, but still, these kids do have a few screws loose!)
Anyway, I may sound as if am moaning quite a bit, but I do love it all, and it hit me the other day how much of a teacher I have become when I stood at the front of the class and waited there with my arms crossed for silence! haha
Till next time,
Ciao!
P.s - one thing that does scare me is angry parents! Especially when one of them is the deputy head!

Meet with friends, break the law and have a few drinks to celebrate!

Well the first three months have been and gone by, flew by so quickly (cannot believe I am already a quarter of the way through my time here, and only 1 month away from being a 1/3rd of the way through!!), and due to it being 3 months already, this meant our Visa was running out, so we needed to do some traveling to get it renewed so we could live in honduras (legally) for another 3 months.
Previously, we had heard so many different rumours about what we had to do, ranging from you have to travel outside of the ‘Central-4’ (guatemala, el salvador, honduras, nicaragua) for at least 3 nights to you can travel into guatemala for just 2 hours and then head back in. We didn’t really know what to do, so we decided we would prepare for the worst. All we knew about this before heading off, was that we had to at least leave the country, and it was going to cost (previous volunteers have had to spend up to about £200)  but it is something we have to do, so we weren’t to worried about that, also we were getting to meet up with one of the other volunteers that we hadn’t seen before, Sarah who lives in a town near to La Ceiba, called Tela.
We got up quite early on the friday morning to catch the ferry, and got on a bus pretty much straight away to meet Sarah in San Pedro Sula, the transport capital of Honduras. We arrived just after 1, after nearly a 4 hour journey looking at all of the mountains passing my window, and also managing to buy a Milkyway Caramel at the stop station (like my 2nd bit of chocolate here, was SO GOOD!!). When we arrived we sat down in the bus station and had a coffee at our favourite place, Espresso Americano (could be better than starbucks ... no I am not joking!) and waited for Sarah to arrive.
When she did, we quickly got on the bus to a town called Puerto Cortes, where we would then change to another bus to a town called Omoa, where we would be spending the night. This journey was great, catching up with each other about how we were all getting on, and how much we are loving life out here!
The night in Omoa was really nice, found a really nice little restaurant which served some great food, even Sarah’s ‘Chicken Fingers’ (only nuggets) were pretty good (or so she says), we then went and sat in one of the many beach bars and had a couple of drinks and chilled out for a while, before a very early start the next morning and lots more travelling!
We caught a very early bus from Omoa to a place called Frontera (the guatemalan border) where we had to walk into the immigration office and explain what we wanted to find out, and explain that we had to get back as quickly as possible as we had exams to do e.t.c, and as being the best spanish speaker among us (well probably not the best, but the most willing to try and make a fool of myself) the task fell to me to interpret what this man was saying. 
Turns out the government over here is pretty underhand!!
Only had to pay this man $50 each to be allowed into guatemala and then back out again within an hour .... or so we thought!
We walked over the border line and saw a run down duty free shop (gutted it wasn’t open, was looking forward to a giant toblerone) and hopped on the bus to the guatemalan immigration office. Here we were met by a man who said we also had to pay him 200 quetzals (about $35) to be allowed back into honduras this same day! I even asked whether this was a flat rate which the law dictates we can pay to which he replied ‘No, just me. The law doesn’t know!)
WHAT .... Yeah, I am now officially an illegal immigrant people! (where is my grande party ... oh wait ... I am supposed to be lying low ... sorry! .. ssh!)
Well we all decided to pay it anyway, as we needed to get back and it would have been cheaper than paying for 3 nights stay and food and drink, however, something good did come of this, we were told there is an immigration on our island, so we don’t need to go all of the way to guatemala next time, however there is still a little doubt because surely 10 years of past volunteers would have found this out already! 
So we decided to have breakfast in Guatemala and spend the rest of our Quetzals and then head back to Sarah’s town to relax and explore Tela.
Tela was great, but we were all absolutely shattered after such a long day of traveling so much and spending hours on rickety buses crowded with people, however we still managed to find the energy to go out with some of Sarah’s american friends and have a good night of fun in a new city! Living the life of the traveller eh??
Well the next morning, I think we found a new meaning to the word tired and exhausted, especially after we had to cycle into town on 3 old bikes, all with flat tyres and one a lot worse than the others! Anyway, we explored Tela a bit with Sarah and had a look around the Sunday Market (didn’t buy anything, all a tad expensive!) and then Ally and I decided to head back to catch the afternoon ferry back to Roatan, and continue our exams with our students after a nights sleep of 12 hours, however Ally woke up and was very ill so didn’t manage to get much teaching done, so all the other teachers, including me (if I had time during my classes) helped out as much as we could. It also turns out that word spread quickly hear in punta gorda, becuase every single teacher we met was asking how he was and offering us soup or some other kind of medication or health advice, even though we had told just our head teacher!
But, all is well that ends well, Ally is feeling great now, all our exams have been finished and there is only ‘recuperación’ left to do.
So, till next time,
Ciao!

A slice of Home!

Well, well, well, the rainy season has truly begun! My word, when they say it rains, it bloody rains here! haha
To be honest Ally and I had been a little bit disappointed with a so called rainy season here, after we had enjoyed some of the hottest days yet, and even managed to top up our tan (not that we needed it, just that y’know when it starts to get cold, tanning potential takes a serious hit, we need all that we can get before that happens, so that we don’t turn back into ‘white tourists’ (or gringo’s as they are known here)), so come one wednesday morning, we wake up to find the school playground flooded and the roads turned into pretty much a river, we were satisfied with the ‘rainy season’ at last. It was mental how much rain there was, it went on for hours without even a hint of it stopping, we couldn’t even walk down the steps into school with out getting soaked. The playground was just a sea of brown, muddy water (think of the chocolate river from Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, and no ... I did not take a sip and get sucked up the giant big tube, my name is not Augustus Gloop!). I had to resort to teaching in my crocs (which I inherited from the previous volunteer, and boy are they a life saver) which wasn’t actually all that weird, because everyone wears them out here (Megs!!) so I don’t look that weird, and it was super comfy, but because of the rain, only about half the class was here so I just played a few games and found out that Honduran kids are rather good at cheating, and that english volunteer teachers are rather bad at stopping it!
Any-who, Ally and I thought this was it for the rain for a couple of weeks, but our hopes were dashed when we say Jami and Ed (two canadians who live in the next village over, and who help the school so much) said that another tropical storm was on its way and would hit on the weekend, great!!
Anyway, to combat the rainy days, we had bought one of those cake mixes that you just add water and eggs to to and bake for the perfect ‘America’s favourite recipe’ cake! So we popped over to see Karen (who had arrived back about a week ago) to see if we could use  her oven (as we seem to lack one) and do some baking (for ourselves this time, each cake we have baked previously, we have given away, we kind of want to try one! haha, gotta love a bit’o cake!). She agreed and let us wreak havoc on her kitchen! When we returned home, the jumble sale at the school (which we had helped organise the day before, pricing up items and things) had got underway, so we decided to take a look, and we managed to get a 1000 piece puzzle to complete for about a pound. This was such a good buy as it brought back many memories of my mum getting so into a puzzle at home that she would sometimes forget to cook for us or even run us to school (this was a joke, but she used to get really into them, well we all did really, never knew why, we aren’t even the brightest of families!) and I could just see myself working on this puzzle night in, night out, and forgetting to get up and go teach! haha
All of these things, the rain, the cake, the puzzle brought back some good memories of home, ones that I will cherish, but what brought back the biggest memory of them all was that, for the first time I have been out here, the temperature dropped below 25 degrees and I had to wear a jumper. It was cold!!!! 
And on that bombshell ...
Till next time,
Ciao! 

Saturday 15 October 2011

Marley and Me

This has been one of the BEST days of my life ... so far! Today, Ally and I started our Open Water PADI diving course, now to anyone who hasn’t been certified, do it! It is incredible, one of the best things I have ever done, and I can never see myself getting bored with it! 
We had a walk up to Marble Hill Farms, only about 40 minutes, in the morning after I had a (very) small class of 4 students, who decided to take up the opportunity to come to the saturday class, anyway, when we arrived, we were greeted by 3 pretty big dogs, all barking at us as we came up to road ... oh shit!! They were quite scary, until I remembered that I have dogs, and (hopefully) know how to behave around them, calm and collected .... well this sort of worked, we managed to arrive at the dive centre with only about 4 fingers missing off each hand ...... ok only one finger .... ok none, the dogs were really friendly and happy (brought back so many memories of my dogs, Dino and Olli) but I thought I would try and impress you peeps with a fight section in my soon to be novel (now just this silly old blog, to be honest I doubt anyone actually reads, so I think I am just talking to my computer screen!) Anyway, we were met at the door by a spanish man called, Pol, (I know weird name, does he like taking part in polls or what?) who had long sun bleached hair and a big moustache and beard, and about 32 years old. We said we were teachers in Punta Gorda and that we were looking to start our PADI course, we had emailed him before, so he knew what we were on about e.t.c. So we were only expecting to sign up today and do a little bit of theory, and paper work and start up a schedule that we could work to on when we could come back and dive and all the other cool stuff, so after we went into his office, he turned to us and said ‘So do you guys want to dive today?’ ... Urrr ... YEAH! Me and Ally just looked at each other with the best excited expression anyone could muster in the world, (we think we will partake in the Olympics with our faces) so he got out the PADI dive packs, which have the manuals and other bits of paperwork that we needed to fill out so that he could register us online.
So before actually diving, we had to watch a video which explained our first confined dive and the equipment that we would use, obviously with our heads being full of excitement, none of this went in, but we walked down to the dock and checked out all of the other equipment for real and got ‘suited up’ as he explained the exercises we would be doing and the skills me needed to master before going on any further, these included clearing your mask of water whilst underwater, taking out your regulator (breathing mouthpiece thingy) and then putting it back in underwater, sharing someone’s secondary regulator incase you run out of air and all of the various signals that go with these activities. This in itself was insane, and mind blowingly cool, so we were literally vibrating with excitement ....  urrr .... or was it the coldness of underwater ... I dunno. Pol (and his girlfriend, Ingrid, who had come diving with us) then told us that we would go and explore the bay a bit underwater, we were already darting off before he finished his sentence! This next 35 minutes of getting used to the equipment and seeing wild Lion Fish, Arrow Crabs, Jellyfish, Huge Starfish and countless other species of underwater life was the best thing I and Ally have done to date, and knowing that there are even better places to go and dive just off our shores made our eagerness just grow and grow. We then got out of the water after completing our first confined dive (which they do in the bay and not a pool as it is near enough exactly the same conditions and so much more fun) and went back inside to talk about the rest of the course and have some lunch that they had cooked (Ceviche of lion fish, which is basically when it is cut up very thinly and cooked in lemon juice, then added to peppers, onions, garlic and tomato and a whole host of other spices, then served on toast. This was also great, and tasted phenomenal!) and also organise when we would next be back. Pol, then gave us the DVD that we had to watch so we could do it at home and hopefully get completed much quicker, we said our goodbyes and headed back up the road. 
At the top of the road, there was a restaurant, which was closed when we arrived, but now open and glowing in the sunshine at the top of a great big hill, with the best view ever, and the dogs (one of which was called Marley) were happily playing here with the people that run it, so we decided to get a drink and a plate of Nachos to share and sit here enjoying the sun, breeze and view after one of the greatest days ever, accompanied by the very playful dogs, which we were stroking and playing with as (well I certainly) missed our own pets and wanted some of that canine company. 
This day was just perfect and ever since we have just been thinking about doing our ‘homework’ and finishing/diving as much as we can so we can explore so much more of the island. I really do urge anyone to get there certification, even if it just on holiday, you have so much fun and only a little bit of theory is required (normally the whole course lasts about 3 - 4 days, depending on how quickly you work) and you have the best time, plus the PADI certificate is recognized all over the world.
I hope you enjoy the pictures below and till next time,
Flowers surrounding Marble Hill Farms

Ally and the hounds

Marley!!

The Mother of Marley!

The amazing view from the restaurant.

Truly relaxed!
Ciao!

A Familiar Face

This week, we had a visit from our lovely Desk Officer, Jen. This was so nice to see someone from Project Trust and also (as she was visiting our project last) to hear about how all of the others were getting on, which we have been reassured are all doing great and loving their year as much as we are.
This visit, was also a chance to air any problems we had with out project/each other/ or just in general, not that there were any, but nice to have the chance. Anyway, it was Jen’s birthday the thursday that she was here, and so as a surprise, Ally and I had baked a cake to take to Mary Lou’s (for it was her husband Rolando’s birthday the monday before) to have a bit of a celebration and to welcome her to Punta Gorda.
The next day, she came and visited our school and watched us teach some lessons (unfortunately, I had to teach my second grade year, which are just terrors, to the point which their actual teachers (after being on the phone in my class for 15 minutes turned to Jen and said they were the worst class in the school ... fantastic!), and we also had to speak to Profa Elena, and sort out some shit that had been going down between her and Mary Lou. This was the day of her birthday, so whenever we introduced her to one of the other teachers at the school, she received great big hugs and kisses, to which she was very grateful! One time, we even received a cup of rice pudding (that wasn’t someone that just doesn’t know the niceties of a greeting, Profa Joyce was working in the kitchen at the time). Anyway, Jen seemed to have a great day and I really hope she did, as she brought us so many nice things, that we just can’t/haven’t got out here, like cookies, croissants, proper orange juice (although to be fair she bought them out here, I guess we just haven’t seen them) and also a couple of bars of Cadbury’s Chocolate, and my faves as well, caramel and milk. SOOO good, can’t thank her enough. She also gave us some of our post that she had picked up for us (I guess she was kind of like a Mrs Claus, coming for a visit for one night and bringing lots of gifts.) of which I received a package from my family containing a couple of packets of Haribo and some games I had requested, however, I was a bit distraught not to get a letter of some kind ... nice to know I am loved! haha
Just kidding, although would be nice to know you cared!  ..... haha
Any who, we later had a long journey to West End once again to go out for dinner with Jen for her birthday, which we both really hoped she enjoyed, as we certainly did, and we would just like to say a big thanks for your visit as it really lifted our spirits, not that they were not high anyway!
So a big thanks and shout out to Jen this week, and well all of the Project Trust staff as we also got our first monthly circular from the office with various bits of news and things on, which we really enjoyed reading! THANKS GUYS!!
Till next time,
Ciao!

A trip to to the West End ... of the island, not to catch a show!

Well this weekend, as me and Ally found out last week that we have no classes on monday, we decided to head to the west end to see if it was all it was cracked up to be, as it has quite the reputation of being a part town, and full off ‘gringos’ or foreigners to the rest of you. Now this prospect was a weird one to Ally and me, because as of late, we have come to staring at any other white people that seem to make their way to Punta Gorda, thinking that we ourselves are Garifuna and blend into the community, when in actual fact, the other foreigners are probably thinking that we are just out to check out the best Garifuna village on the island as well. 
Any way, I will tell you what we actually planned on doing first, when we were in La Ceiba, we had seen an advert for a place called Roatan Backpackers, located in Sandy Bay (about 10 mins from West End) so we were looking to stay there as it sounded great and was quite cheap, so got into a taxi and said Sandy Bay, so off we went, and when we arrived and said drop us off at Roatan Backpackers, the taxi driver just looked utterly confused and said that he had never heard of that place .... Uh Oh!!
We decided to be dropped off at a local resort in Sandy Bay (one that had dolphin shows) and ask around there to see if this place still existed or not, so we headed into the Gift Shop and politely asked the worker if she had any idea of this place we had planned to spend our weekend (in spanish, a’thankyou!, to which she replied, ‘I speak fluent English’, great, so let me just wobble on for 4 minutes embarrassing myself, loving her already!) but sadly this came to no avail and so we were forced to catch another cab down the road to west end and see if we could find a place to stay. We stumbled upon this old looking place called Valeries, which was, I have to say, one of the grimiest places, but very cheap (about £8 a night for the two of us, not bad) so we thought we would brave it and make the most of it. So after we settled in, we headed out for something to drink and to hit the many souvenir shops they had on the street, this is when the heavens then opened and pretty much a monsoon started raining down upon us, this lasted all night and so all through dinner and a (fairly good) night out we were getting very wet every time we had to make a trip to the next bar. But this wasn’t a bad thing as we ended up in one bar and pulled the old ‘we’re volunteer teachers in Punta Gorda’ line, which managed to get us a few free drinks, not complaining about the rain now! Anyway, the rain continued all though the night and was still pouring the next morning, however, we really wanted to head back to Sandy Bay to see if we could catch one of the Dolphin Shows at Anthony’s Key Resort, after another cab ride, we arrived in more rain and were told that the show was cancelled ... CANCELLED .... WHY?? it’s not as if the dolphins are scared of getting wet! They already live in water! Anyway, we carried on our culture tour regardless and went to their museum of the Bay Islands for a dollar, which was interesting, but a very quick visit (true Wright family style!) After this however, the rain somehow got even stronger and refused to budge, so we were stuck in a small diving shop for about half an hour while we gathered up the courage to brave it out in the oncoming flood ...
We walked in the rain for no less than a minute before we were soaked to the skin, however we still had about another 3 minutes before we reached the road, and then who knows how long before we managed to catch a cab back. Luckily though, not long after we arrived on the main road, a passing truck stopped and let us clamber in and said he would give us a lift to west end, still not complaining (laughing mainly, was quite hilarious at the time).
We eventually returned back to Valeries and chilled out there for a couple of hours, before the power went out, meaning no Wi-Fi. Therefore we decided to go out and grab a cup of coffee at this place called Earth Muma’s, whose owner we met the night before, and we were talking to her for a bit and asking about how she came to be on Roatan e.t.c, also eating her AMAZING homemade cookies (first cookie since being here) for quite a while before the power came back on and we decided to check out what else there was to do on a rainy afternoon.
Despite the rain, the weekend was great. We managed to meet some great people (one guy, whose son lives on the island, after hearing our ‘volunteer teacher’ line once again paid for our food bill and then gave us each 100 dollars to go and have some fun with (which we both decided to put towards our diving fund)), have some great food and generally have fun exploring what the rest of the Island has to offer. It is so weird how one place on a small island can be worlds apart from another on the same island, have to say love them all the more for it though! Ally and I also used it to scope some places for the family, and friends and also other Volunteers on the mainland to come and stay and drink if any do make it out here.
Till next time,
Ciao!

Saturday 1 October 2011

One crazy family ...... even crazier than mine!

I know I haven’t been writing much, but it is hard, because we are doing so many different things, that by the time we get back to the house, I can’t find the time to write. For example, since my last post about Los Cayos Cochinos (see below), we have been to Coxen hole, been and watched a load more marching in Oak Ridge, been to a resort called Fantasy Island for a Teachers Lunch, been baking (YES!! I have even been continuing my baking skills out here, make a vanilla sponge for the head teacher, Profa Elena, as she is leaving and she is an all around top women, she even said that it was delicious! but just between you and me ... and Ally ... and the caretaker who showed us how to use the oven ... it was one of the packet cake mixes as we couldn’t find all the right ingredients I needed), and also been helping out with this project that one of the locals was working on with the previous volunteer, this is where the crazy family comes in!
One evening at Mary Lou’s, her niece, a very nice young women called Yandra came in with her niece (who’s name we didn’t catch) but everyone calls her Boo Boo (an affectionate name for a child) so we did to! Anyway, she came in and explained that she started this project with Charles about A Garifuna History of Punta Gorda, written in 3 languages, english, spanish and garifuna. It entailed many things about traditional garifuna baking (which we have tried and all things are lush, coconut bread, janni cakes and banana fritters, traditional dresses and medicines and even how to build a clay oven (all uni goers listen up! ... haha) anyway, she came to show us what she had and to say that she just needed a little bit more work, so she opened her laptop and as things always go with laptops, she had lost some to most of the work on the project, so she asked if we could help her out, and said that it would so helpful, and fun as well, so we naturally said yes and got to work immediately.
The next night she invited us back to work at her house (about 3 doors down) and also to meet the rest of her family. Well ... my word! The mother, Mary Lou’s sister, is a great women, so smily and funny and always cooking as well, she is also a bit of a mover, (I though I had competition!) whenever we had some (english) music on, we would look over and see her hips bobbing up and down to the rhythm. Yandra herself is so confident, funny and loud. Constantly telling us that we need to learn spanish, so that is all we are allowed to speak and that she needs to learn english, so she speaks english and we reply in spanish, can get very confusing at times, and she is also helping us learn some garifuna, which is cool, but so hard! Little ‘BooBoo’ is crazy, always running around and yelping, climbing on you and as cute as can be, and ever so affectionate to her ‘Tia” or aunty for the non spanish speakers among you. Yandra’s little sister, also called Yandra, but everyone calls her Yandrita meaning ‘little Yandra’ is a student of Ally’s so he knows her a little, and she is so funny. Always smiling and her laugh is hysterical (worse than your’s Gina! :O   Not even joking) and she always takes pictures on Ally’s camera and sings at the top of her voice to the songs blaring out of the computer. So we have been there a couple of times and actually got some work done, but last night we went over and started laughing and joking, then Yandra said that she wanted to do some baking and use up the bananas she had so she told us how to make banana fritters and we watched/helped her make these while also learning how to dance ‘Punta’ at various intervals while Yandrita took pictures and BooBoo got in the way. These fritters are amazing, so good, we had them with hot chocolate and it was the perfect snack, gonna make these a lot in England when I return. Anyway, the whole night me and Ally were just smiling, laughing and playing with BooBoo, learning Punta dancing (and extreme version of the beyonce booty shake) and generally having fun. We really feel that we have made some good friends and Yandra says that she will take us to the west end (not to see a play) but to meet some more of her friends and go and have night out some time ... can’t really say no to that now can we! 
We are both just loving life out here so much, and are so excited for the next couple of weeks, we are planning our big travel over the christmas holidays and have researched some amazing places (in guatemala especially), Jen (our desk officer from PT) is coming out next week for a visit and we are also having a weekend away again (on the island this time) and just the two of us so should be great. So many good things to look forward to.
Just a quick hello to all my friends at Uni at the moment, hope you are all settling in and getting on with your flatmates e.t.c, email me how you are getting on, love to read everyone’s stories, so keep me informed!
Till next time,
Ally and Yandra got attacked by the flour.

My new best friend!

Yandra and Yandrita showing us how to dance punta!

Bit of a poser!
Ciao! 

Saturday 24 September 2011

Paradise Lost

Okay, so I said that the Cayos Cochinos (if you don’t know what these are, refer back to my earlier blog posts and type it into google images) deserved their own blog post, and boy could this not be more right. 
We travelled in a boat (about 6 foot long, with 4 benches squeezed in, just enough room for 14 passengers and two crew members), after about a 45 minute journey we passed a small group of islands. These were literally incredible, tiny little islands with one small house on, built out of palm trees, and about 20 feet in diameter. They were the perfect honeymoon location, without a doubt, (if the house was well stocked!) There was a group of about 12 of these islands surrounding a bigger island with a little bit more life. We arrived on the bigger island and were greeted with a tour guide talking to his group of chinese travelers about the destruction of the turtle industry and how many people are selling their eggs as an aphrodisiac because, apparently (his words) ‘the turtles make love for 3 days and 3 nights, like we do in La Ceiba, hahaha, just kidding .... not really!’ This made everyone laugh, and then we were whisked away back onto our boat to head to one of these smaller islands. 
We hit ground and immediately went to the sea, crystal clear and warm as a bath. Coral and fish surrounding your feet, great big fish (if you went snorkeling) and clear blue skies. THE perfect detox after our heavy night out. We were all just so awe struck at how beautiful this place was. We had about and hour on each of the islands, and then headed to a slightly bigger (inhabited) island (you could still walk round the whole thing) and got something to eat. On the journey to this final island, as our boat was speeding along, we all heard the captain shout ‘Dolphin, Dolphin!’ to which we all whipped our heads around and saw a dolphin break the surface about 4 feet away from us! :O  So amazing to see them completely wild, I was so happy at that point, literally the biggest smile I have ever had. We then all looked back to see about 5 bobbing up and down behind the boat in the waves that it was making. To see them generally playing, was so amazing, and not just there hunting or looking for food, but generally just having fun was the best thing!
So we had some typical garifuna food on the island (to which me and Ally had become slightly accustomed, but the for the other volunteers, this was their first time trying this new cuisine) which was great, and then we went for our final walk/swim on the beach/sea. We also got some nice pictures of the whole group and were all saying how much of a great day we had had. 
So there we were on the boat back, and we could see great big black clouds in front of us, and crowding the shoreline of Honduras. The clouds came out quite far as well, and just as we were going under the edge of them, the captain’s voice rang out once more, but this time to the cry of ‘Tornado, look look!’ We all followed to where he was pointing and (quite a way away - I am safe everyone) we saw great big spikes of cloud coming down from the sky and stretching down to the sea, where they were met with (from what we could see) was a swirling circle of water. These formed some pretty amazing sights to see, and I could have watched them for hours, but the soon fizzled out into nothing as they were only small, but still it was amazing to see them.
So as we went further into the storm, we were close to the shore, and the waves started to get quite choppy and the boat ride began to get quite rough, this is when the boats, engine decides to cut out. There we were ... in a boat ... in the rain ... stranded in a choppy sea.
There were some words shared between the captain and the other man of the boat, and we then saw him jump into the water and swim for the shore with a rope in his hand. When he got there, we had drifted in quite a bit to where the waves were actually breaking against the side of the boat and rocking it quite a bit. The other man of the boat quickly pulled us in and we all huddled out onto a filthy beach, in the rain while we waited for another boat to come and pick us all up. The new boat arrived very shortly and we all hopped in and continued on our journey. We arrived at the port shortly after and got in the car for our lift back to our hostel.
So all around, in one day, visited paradise, saw dolphins, saw tornadoes, got marooned, had some great laughs, met some fantastic people and had the best day of my life ... so far!
Till next time,
Ciao!

A Reem weekend!!

Well this weekend just gone Ally and I travelled to La Ceiba to meet with the other Hondies and have a general weekend off, chilling out, nights out and laughs with friends. We got to La Ceiba pretty early after catching the 7.00 am ferry. Therefore we got to our hostel, The Banana Repuclica, at around 9, half 9 ish. Soon after we hit the town (only to find a bank, don’t worry, we were not hitting the tequila shots that early!) We found a supermarket, but unfortunately my card refused to work as it is not a visa one, however later on I did manage to transfer some money to his account online.
After his success at the supermarket, we were walking round the main square and found this small coffee shop, which we had seen on Roatan, and decided to check it out. Boy was I glad for a sip of the BEST iced coffee ever, seriously better than starbucks! Was just bliss in the hot weather. We then took a further walk around the store and soon headed back to the hostel. Shortly we got a call from two of the other vols, Anna R and Amy, who live in Siguatipeque, and they were nearly at the hostel so we told them to get a cab and that we would see them soon.
When they arrived we had a short catch up and went to go and get something to eat in this place called Comida Royale. This was very much like a buffet but you choose you food, and then they work out the cost. I had some pretty nice food, kind of thai-ish and chinese-ish and it cost about £4 which is a bonus. Here we swapped so many stories about each others projects and what we have been getting up to, which was when we got a call from the other two volunteers who were on their way, Elanor and Anna D, who were at the hostel already, the final two volunteers, Sarah and Cat went to Utila for the weekend so that they could get their diving licenses. So we headed back to the hostel to greet the others and meet their American friends who work at the same school as them and had come traveling with them. After this came more story swapping and general merriment at seeing one another again after a little while. We then decided to chill for a little bit and then head out for something to eat, and then hit the honduran bars and clubs! The very elaborate clubs I might say, first one we went to was completely white, white floor, white sofas, white bar, white pillars, white barmen ... oh no wait ... maybe not everything was white :S . After much dancing and drinks in this place called ‘Manhattan’  we went down the road to this club called ‘Hibou’ which was so Latino I was gobsmacked, reggaeton blasting through the speakers, and señoritas everywhere (This is when Ally’s (drunk) eyes glazed over). Here we all had many tequila shots and did a lot of dancing on the multicoloured dancefloor, however soon some of us were pretty knackered so decided to head home for the night as we had an early start the next morning. The whole night proved to be great, although a tad expensive, considering how much we all drank! haha But the music was great, company was fantastic, and all round had a great night!
The next morning was an early start, about half 6, as we had booked to go to the Cayos Cuchinos, a small group of islands near the coast. However, this trip was so incredible that it deserves a whole blog post of its own. So that will come later on.
Anyway, pretty tired now so gonna wrap it up by saying that I hope all of my friends are having a great time at freshers week and that they are settling in to their Universities well and that they are not living with any weirdo’s! Oh and if you don’t think you are, then it is probably you! haha
Till next time,
Ciao!

Sunday 18 September 2011

A Strike, a Barracuda, a Party and an annoying american women!

Well, first and foremost, and apology is in order. I do realize that I haven’t written much recently (even to the point that we took our laptops to the internet cafe on saturday and had nothing to post! ) but this has been quite a weird week again. Well more than a week actually, on the 1st of september, we found that a lot of the classes had been cancelled and we couldn’t work out why! However, we still went down on the friday to find that the school had been turned into a ghost town! (not literally with the sheriffs and the 1, 2, 3 draw!, just that no-one was around) So we had a nice chilled morning on the beach, and then went to lunch with Mary Lou, and returned to see that a few of the teachers had arrived to do some odd jobs around the school. We managed to get hold of Prof Elena (the head mistress and our host) and asked her what was occurin’ with the classes, and she said that they hadn’t been paid, so therefore school was cancelled. Well we didn’t complain to much, and so that weekend was just very lazy, lots of time spent on the beach and we also got some great underwater photos using Ally’s camera. So much fun, taking pictures of some amazing shoals of fish and some amazing colourful ones. Anyway, this strike lasted a long time, so days went by when we would go down in the morning (hope upon our faces) and se no-one around, it got to the point that we just didn’t even bother setting our alarm because we just knew there would be no classes! 
Anyway, later on in the week, we were due to be paid for the month, but 6 days into september, we had still heard nothing from Vegas about when the money would be coming, so we decided to give him a call, but with no credit on our phones we had to ask one of the american missionaries if we could borrow her phone. She thankfully agreed that we needed money and let Ally call Vegas. Meanwhile, I was speaking to her about the fact there was no classes and she informed me that the whole of Honduras was on strike because so shit had gone down between the Teacher’s Union and the Government. Apparently someone slept with someone’s girlfriend, and some bad words were said. This my friends is a joke, now laugh please ..... oh go on ...... i did try! 
Moving on .... swiftly, while the school was on strike, me and Ally spent a lot of time in the sea, playing with some of the local kids and lending them our masks and other such things, trying to teach them some kind of water rugby! But one of these days, Ally got shown these coral beds about 200 metres from the main beach. We decided to explore, and my golly gosh, this was incredible, huge big coral globes about my height and about 4 metres wide. Countless fish swimming around and all different shapes and sizes of coral. We were exploring these for quite sometime and I was taking some pictures using the camera, turned my head to see where Ally was and was graced with the sight of a bloody huge barracuda staring at me. Holy crap! This thing was scary, like make your heart go scary. I bolted to Ally to tell him, and as I was swimming over, he looked at me and saw this thing lurking behind me, we both just looked at each other and ran for it. However, I would like you to know that we did try to reclaim some of masculinity by going back another day to look for Jaws (my nickname for this thing), however to no avail.
Well that was on wednesday or thursday, and on friday, we were told school was back on but that friday was something called ‘Dia de los Niños’, now for those spanish speakers among you, you will already know that this means ‘Day of the Children’. This was incredible, literally just a party for the kids in school, music blaring out from the speakers, cake, fizzy drinks, food, games, piñatas e.t.c. Me and Ally even got to take part in some of the games with the teachers which was just great, so much fun, and we even saw some ‘Punta Dancing’ a very famous style of dance in these parts. Pretty much just the Beyonce booty shake, not gonna lie, but still impressive.
So after this incredible day, Ally and I decided to go to Coxen Hole again and try a few of the shops and get some lunch and use some free wi-fi. This was great, went to a few very traditional trinket shops, and had a great lunch, even skyped with the family again and got to see my mum’s new car. However, as we were enjoying the last drops of the BEST iced tea you will ever taste, and about to order a few beers. An American couple and their translator walked in, and my god this women was literally two thirds plastic. She had one of those really annoying accents, not american, I can deal with that, but just worse. And she complained about everything, she even ordered her food in English, from a spanish menu!! These people don’t know english, and had even written the menu in spanish, yet she still decided to order in english. She then claimed that all America had to do to sort it’s problems was just to shoot Obama! :O   WHAT!! I couldn’t believe it, but y’know each to their own opinion, I just sat there and only said the occasional word, and listened to her speak to her rat, sorry pet dog, about how much it must hurt him to lie on stones rather than grass. 
Sorry for the last bit, a bit of a rant, but anyway, hope you liked my rather long update and I promise to write more frequently in the future.
Till next time, 
Ciao!

Saturday 3 September 2011

A long one .... cheeky! :P


Hi guys, this blog post is going to be a little bit longer today as I haven’t written for quite a while, and believe me, there is good reason! 
Earlier this week, it must have been sunday or monday, I started to feel quite bad, y’know just the normal, couch, and cold symptoms and feeling a little bit weak overall. I started to take some ibuprofen and things started to look a little better, but when I was woken up at 4 in the morning and couldn’t get back to sleep until just before 6 in time for a 7 o’clock wake up call, I started to feel a bit worse again, and didn’t help having to teach a lesson to a rowdy group of year 6’s after they had got their tests back. Anyway, I took it easy for the next few days, stayed inside for as much as I could and just chilled out and started to make my way through the first Lord of The Rings book (actually bang tidy read if you wanna give it a try, we have the others here so I am looking forward to the whole series). 
Anyway, over this time, Ally and I went to see the local Pastor again to buy some minutes for our internet modem. This was great a chance to catch up with friends and most importantly family (oh and also upload some more blog entries, making you guys jealous ... I mean letting you know what I am getting up to, especially the GREATEST beach in the world!). However, as much as this was great, in my slightly ill state feelings were awoken in me and I began to miss my family loads, missing even the small things like the dogs welcoming you in the morning when you wake up (rather than a cockroach) and the confused look on my dad’s face as me and mum are wetting ourselves over and advert ... yeah!! an advert ... and not even an overly funny one! (well it is obviously a corker if I found it hilarious, just to let you all know it is the one where the women is telling the camera how much she likes mayonnaise and then says that she thinks she could be pregnant, her look of confuzzledness after that is just priceless! you guys should check it out, dunno if it is even on telly anymore!) anyway, I started to think about all of my family and how much I love them and how proud they are of me for doing something so amazing as this! This all occurred (oh .... whats occurrin’?) on monday and so I just plonked down (not the best description, I was content with my book, just had other things on my mind) to have a sleep for a couple of hours before we had to teach in the afternoon. Ally and I then had a nice evening in, with a film and some iced tea ... LUSH!
On tuesday we got up and Ally and I had a normal morning, went to lunch with Mary Lou (although I couldn’t eat much because I was still feeling ill) and came back to teach some more, today I was giving a revision session to my year 8B class as they have exams all this week and an english exam on saturday (we were not aware of this when we set the test, honestly, not just being cruel) and not actual formal lessons so we got told to come in shortly after lunch and just help out when and where we could. Prof Elena came up to us and told us we were then fired for no reason what so ever ... LOL JOKES!! haha ( :S .. not sure why)  anyway she told us that we were doing well as she observed get control over a class and Ally do the same, and so after my lesson, she came and showed me an updated timetable and she has penciled me in to teach the 4th grade and the 2nd grade three times a week each ... YES!! I am over the moon, I actually have a lesson with the 4th grade in 40 minutes she tells me, so I sit at the back of Ally’s class and start to plan like I have never planned before. The time shortly arrives and I am so excited that I have the biggest smile on my face, despite my cough and cold. The lesson was great, the kids are so eager and they are just brilliant. Their eyes are so bright and they love learning, shouting out every answer and rushing up to me to show me what they have done when they have finished, and on top of that, they all scream and raise their hand when they see I am going to wipe the board, asking whether they can do it. I love it, come out of there with the biggest grin on my face as they have all just shouted ‘Goodbye teacher’ to me. I get to teach them again the next day (wednesday) and get to begin the second grade on thursday, they have to be even better than the 4th grade don’t they??
Later that night, before dinner, I get out our travel health book to see if there is actually anything seriously wrong as I wanted to double check because I could hear the concern in my mums voice (well facebook chat message) about looking after myself, so I flick through and look at heat/sun related illnesses and there is a little box describing heat exhaustion, everything in this box fits and it is probably the most likely due to us spending nearly 6-7 hours in pure sunlight on saturday on the GREATEST beach in the world. I feel instantly better knowing what it is that is wrong and want to give my mum a call straight away to tell her I am fine, but sadly our minutes have run out and I have to wait a couple of days, so so sorry mum if you were worrying, but you know me mum, tough as a nut .... maybe? lol. It is going to take more than a little cold to get me out of paradise.  
I wake up on wednesday morning feeling completely better, had a full nights sleep and feel great, feel really up for teaching today as I get to start a new topic and I get to teach the ‘young ones’ (as I call them) as well. 
I just wish that everyone at home is ok, and that they are not to worried about me, because I am absolutely fine (as you can probably see from some of the awful jokes/anecdotes I have told in this post). I feel absolutely great, I am eating well, drinking lots, am loving the work and people and wish you here to experience every single minute with me. I love you all so much, I mean it, even everyone who is reading this, yeah ... you to! yep and you (see another bad joke right there ...still fine, not going crazy .... I swear!) I cannot wait to skype with my family again. Cant wait till I get to do some writing again, because next time, Ally and I will have gone to the diving centre near us to look into getting our PADI licenses. Trust me, there will be lots about that, I promise!!
Love you so much (Megs, Mum, Dad, Josh, Digs, Dino and Olly) <3
Till next time,
Ciao!

Monday 29 August 2011

Best Beach in the World!


Today (saturday the 27th of August), Ally and I were invited to go along to Vegas Electric’s annual picnic on a beach, called Camp Bay. Vegas Electric is the company owned by a guy called Vegas who is our country Representative for Project Trust, all around legend among men! Anyway, so we were picked up from just down the road at about half 8 in the morning and we had to sit in the back of a pick up truck, which in itself was cool, only problem, the dust and bumps in the road! Hurt quite a bit, not gonna lie! We soon arrived at this beach called Camp Bay on the very northern point on the island, when we got out of the car, our mouths just dropped, the scenery was AMAZING!! Palm trees everywhere, crystal clear water that went out for ever, gorgeous white sand and blazing sunshine! Most of the stuff had already been set up when we got there, stuff like boxes of ice, hammocks and a BBQ (oh yeah, the Hondurans do picnics in style!) so we helped clear the ground a bit and shuffled things round a little, and then the relaxing began! Out came the towels and snorkels and into the water we went along with many of the other people there!
It was perfect, so warm, so clear and just deep enough that you could swim and stand very comfortably. We stayed in the water for a good hour and a half until we went back on to the beach to chill out for a while, the rest of the guys there played a game of football on the sand and Ally joined in a little but said it was too hard in the heat. Soon after this the food was ready and we ate a gorgeous meal of grilled pork and chicken, re-fried beans, potato salad and tomato salsa, LUSH!! We then the rest of the afternoon in the water, and snorkeling around the rocks, we saw some huge fish! Like the length of my arm big!! Massive, was so cool, we also saw some sea urchins, some really colourful ones as well, and also, a huge great big shoal swam right next to me really fast that I could hear the rush as they went past!
This was a great day, and then when we got home and chilled for a bit, we noticed wuite a few big Ants on our walls, and so I went to go and spray them (with poison) from outside and saw the whole floor, yes literally the whole floor, and most of the wall as well was covered in big black ants! We then put our ‘armour’ on, consisting of proper shoes and long trousers, as I had already been bitten on the toe, and went to confront the oncoming army  .... 
Us = sprayable insect poison, a broom and buckets of water!
Ants = Giant pincers that hurt to buggery when they bite you! 
The battle lasted a good half hour, of us spraying and washing them away and them just keep on coming back in force! However you will be pleased to know that we came out on top and lived to tell the tale of this epic confrontation!  All was well in the morning (after a night camped under our mosquito nets!) and we haven’t seen an ants since! haha
Till next time,
Ciao! 

A Very Strange Day!


Well this morning was a bit of an odd day, if I do say! (haha rhyming!) I woke up at 7 o’clock as I had my year 6 class at 8 in the morning, so after I had showered, dressed and eaten breakfast, I walked down to the school to see it all closed up and literally not a soul in sight! All of the doors were locked, the school gate was closed and there were no pupils ready to take Teacher Tom’s amazing english class! :O  So I walked back up to the house to go and tell Ally that we obviously didn’t have to teach this morning. Therefore we were sitting at home with not a lot to do, so decided to take the 4 minute walk to the beach and go snorkeling for an hour or so!
The snorkeling out here is incredible, there is this great little mangrove tree about 200 metres out and it is just swarming with life! Literally thousands of the very small fish that form giant shoals that swim as one big mass of fish! It is great fun just to sit there and watch them dart about, or even swim right through them. There are also this one fish that hangs about and old breeze block which I always go and see him and he (at least I think he is a he) comes quite close to investigate this intruder! 
For the last couple of times that Ally and I have been swimming we have always said that we would swim out to this little hut which we can see further out in the water, however whenever we have tried there has been a bank of reeds that touch the surface of the water, therefore we can’t get over them! However, today, we found a way around and swam out quite far but decided that we would go much further out to the hut when we had more energy and more time. This task was set aside for another day!
We then had lunch with Mary Lou and returned to come and teach some more, now that the afternoon students had come to school (as we found out in the morning that the staff had a meeting .... which we weren’t invited to .... Awkward!) One of Ally’s classes started at 4.10 so he went and taught them, and then we both had a class at 4.50. However, again, as I went down to go and teach, my classroom was locked again and none of my students were in sight! But I bumped into Ally and a few of his students coming out of their class, I then asked one of his students (in fluent spanish ... A Thankyou!!) where my class was and he said that as some of them have to practice for their independence day march the others just say they have practice, but actually bugger off home! I was a little worried that they were taking advantage of the new teachers, but no other teachers were in sight, so we assumed that they had done the same thing! We were also assured that tomorrows classes would be back to normality, good times!
Oh well, I suppose you always have to expect the unexpected!
Till next time, 
Ciao!