Thursday, October 15, 2009

Just one more reason why I believe in God...


The perfect star inside my papaya.

"Be glad; rejoice forever in my creation!" Isaiah 65:18

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Soccer. Is. Awesome. Here.

Tonight Honduras qualified for the World Cup for the first time since 1982!

What the streets looked like after the game.

Tonight's soccer game was incredible. Honduras played El Salvador tonight, and at the same time the U.S. was playing against Costa Rica. I still don't fully understand the point system for qualifying for the World Cup, but basically the U.S. had already qualified. Costa Rica needed to loose their game, and Honduras needed to win their game in order to earn the points needed to send them to the World Cup. Incredibly, that is what happened!!!
Honduras was winning 1-0 against El Salvador, so we flipped back to watch the U.S. game, because that is what was really going to determine if Honduras qualified. It was amazing! Costa Rica was winning 2-1 and in the LAST 20 SECONDS of the overtime, the U.S. scored a goal that made them tie!!! It was AmAzInG!!!! The whole city flooded Boulevard Morazan and went crazy!! We were with some friends who kept us nice and safe, and we even got filmed by some news crew when someone handed us a big American flag that we waved around!
To make it even better, when we got back in the car to head back to school (because it is a school night after all), I got a call from my principal informing us that the president (that is, the interim president) declared tomorrow to be a national holiday!!! NO SCHOOL TOMORROW!!! :)
I love this country.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Teaching and Soccer

Last week was only our second full-length, five-day week since we began school in August. With some weeks having half-days, and others being canceled altogether, we are just now experiencing some normalcy. This week it was kind of hard to be a good teacher and get lots of material taught--I felt out of practice. But it was pretty easy to be a good teacher and love on my students. I had one of those weeks where I just ended each day looking forward to seeing them again in the morning.

In other news, poor Honduras lost the big soccer game last night against the U.S.A. It was quite a game; super exciting and it kept you on your toes, but in the end the U.S. won 3-2. Four of us teachers met up with a couple friends in a Chili's restaurant to watch the game. I had no idea that Chilis would be such an important place to watch soccer. When the 4 of us arrived, we approached the two ladies standing outside with lists and discovered that you needed a reservation to get in. Maybe because we're gringas and maybe because we were gringas wearing Honduras shirts, they found room for us and let us in! I'm glad they did because it turned into quite an event. One of the presidential candidates for this November's election was there with his wife, greeting everyone. Some other candidate for something else (I forget) was there as well. If Honduras had won it would have been the best.
It's kind of sad... in the U.S. there are so few people who even know about games like this or who care one iota about the World Cup. Here, however, the whole country was wearing their team's jersey and watching the game. Winning would mean more to the Hondurans.