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!