"Team of Rivals," by Doris Kearns Goodwin

If you decide to read ANY book this year, make Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin.  It is a fascinating account of the life of Lincoln and the men of his Cabinet that provides incredible insight into the way that Lincoln navigated the many challenges that he faced as President.  "Team of Rivals" is filled with great stories and depictions of the great figures of the time from their own words and the accounts of those who interacted with them - from Lincoln's Secretary, John Hay, who remarked that he "would rather make a tour of a small-pox hospital" than be forced to ask Secretary of War Stanton a favor, to Navy Secretary Welles' account of Lincoln's joy at hearing about the fall of Vicksburg, to Lincoln's remarks about the local political demands of the time for geographical balance in the Cabinet - "I suppose if the twelve Apostles were to be chosen nowadays the shrieks of locality would have to be headed."  It took me a while to get through it, since it's 749 pages long, but don't let its length deter you.  Even dipping into it from time to time will be rewarding, as you are likely familiar with the broad arc of the narrative.  Yet I will point out that even so, the author somehow manages to make the account feel suspenseful.

I was really struck by how Lincoln at the start of his political career fretted that his generation would have no opportunity for greatness, in the way that the men and women of the revolution did.  We do not face the challenges he did then, and most of us will never hold power in the way that he did, but I think that reading of the way that Lincoln lived his life may provide inspiration for all today who seek to be a part of efforts to remake our country into an even greater place, more full of opportunity for people of all backgrounds.  He was practical, but held his ground on what he believed to be right; he was politically savvy, but time and time again forgave others, following his credo that "no man resolved to make the most of himself can spare time for personal contention." After reading this narrative, which allows me now to know in much greater detail all that Lincoln did, I hold him in even higher esteem than I did previously.

Venturing outside Honduras!

In the more-than-a-month since I updated my blog, a whole lot has happened. For starters, my ninth graders graduated! Next year, I'm happy to say, many of them will be going on to solid bilingual schools in San Pedro Sula, and with some of your support, we should be able to award a needy and very deserving student a partial scholarship to make it possible for him to continue his bilingual studies.

Right after the Saturday graduation--at 3 am on Sunday morning--some fellow teachers and I whisked the kids away on a trip to Roatan. The kids have been fundraising for it since the start of the new year, and their efforts, combined with some key donations and some really amazing support from a hotel on West Bay, made it possible. It was so wonderful to see kids who barely know how to swim starting to feel comfortable in the water, playing around in kayaks, and learning to snorkel. I loved the glass bottom boat, even though it made me seasick, because we got to see 2 sea turtles swimming around! It was a really special trip for me to be there with them and also to be experiencing that kind of natural beauty for the first time with them.

The other happening of note on that trip was that I got my hair cut: layered and (ever so slightly) highlighted--for the first time ever! I'm so happy.

The day after I got back from Roatan, my brother arrived in Honduras! We immediately embarked on a whirlwind 'highlights of Honduras' tour. On Friday we went on an awesome visit to the Pulhapanzak waterfall near Lago de Yajoa, during which we walked under the 45 m high falls. The only word for an experience like that is EXHILARATING. You can't see anything at all and it's hard to move forward because the water is pounding down so hard....and then you get to a part when you can look up and you're sort of behind the falls--not totally sheltered, but enough to at least grab a few quick glances up. When we got back from the waterfall (after eating the homemade cookies mom and dad sent down with the bro and rocking out a little in the parking lot), we went to the feria de san pedro to check out the wiiide variety of products available. I got a Golden Delicious Apple, which I have not had since Christmas, I think. It was great. We also, of course, went out to Klein and had a very chill evening.

Saturday was recouperation day....Sunday we went to Copan Ruinas and enjoyed checking out the Mayan ruins and eating a very good meal. My bro managed to polish off everybody's leftovers, which made quite an impression. His height is surprising enough in Honduras. Now that we're hanging out with the 'backpacker crowd,' though, I suppose it's not as novel. I packed up my stuff on Monday and on Tuesday at 5 am we embarked on the bus ride to Managua. Managua was terrible, like everybody says it is...I wish we had tried to go straight on to Granada. The best thing that can be said for it was that we got the chance to catch up on sleep.

Now we're here in Granada at a cool hostel with free internet...(yay!) This afternoon we swam in the Laguna de Apoyo, a lake formed in a volcano crater. The water was gorgeous, and the green mountains around it were perfectly picturesque. Tomorrow I think we'll head to a volcano and then we're thinking we'll try to get out to Isla de Ometepe, which is the island in the middle of Lago de Nicaragua. It's funny just to be traveling and chilling after so much time in Honduras teaching. Living the life of leisure is cool, but also kind of stressful in its own way. I'm trying my best just to relax and enjoy the ride. I'm really missing my boring, dirty little hometown in Honduras right now, actually, and the friends I made there and in SPS. But we're going to mantener al tanto, so no worries!

All good things....

Two weeks of class left of the school year, and it’s pretty hard to believe how far I’ve come. Of course, that somehow makes these last weeks seem reeaally slow.

Some events of note recently:

Birthday celebration. Had a fun little dessert and drinks party on the back porch with my fellow teachers on the eve of my birthday before heading out to San Pedro to Kline Bar. There I heard two great local rock bands and had a fun time hanging out while enjoying numerous free drinks.

Surprise from the students. After Actos Civicos on Monday morning, one of my students approached me to ask me a question about the exam schedule. It was a ludicrous question and he couldn’t really keep a straight face. That’s when I realized there was more birthday celebration in the works. “Let me help you out,” I said, “Ask me about my weekend.” When we walked back to the classroom, everybody shouted surprise and presented the huge breakfast feast they had brought. But even better was that they brought a pinata! I learned that it’s pretty hard to hit the pinata when you’re legitimately blindfolded and turned around 24 times. All in all, it was a really nice way to celebrate.

Cusuco trip. On Thursday morning, my students announced that they wanted to go to Cusuco. On Friday. I told them that if they organized it all, we could go. To do my part, I walked home during recess to get the phone number of the guide. They called and arranged the tour, arranged transportation, wrote the permission slip, and got permission from the school administration. So we went. On Friday morning, they all showed up in their hiking clothes—or at least their non-school clothes—and we set off. We heard a small lecture about the park, which formerly was a logging site, but became a protected area in the 1950s, and then had a great “breakfast” provided by the students. Within the first five minutes of the hike they were all whining—“No aguanto más!” But eventually they settled down and got into the rhythm of hiking. We saw a quetzal in its tree nest, well, really just the blue and green tail feathers sticking out. Our guide just couldn’t convince the bird that it wanted to come out to spend time with 7th and 8th graders. A few times during steep downhill portions of the trail, the kids started slipping and sliding around, their Converse tennies lacking the tread to help them get their grip. Once one student fell down and that set off a domino effect, knocking down two other students and even the guide!

Birthday celebration 2 (3?). Since the two friends of mine who live in the city were away last weekend—are leaving this week!—they hosted a birthday/goodbye party/any other random occasion gathering in their apartment this past Saturday. Alas they had actually stayed out until 6 am the night before, so they weren’t in a wild and crazy party mood, but we had a fun time anyway. And we had a lot of time early in the evening to hear some funny stories via ‘Two truths and a lie’ and ‘Never have I ever.’

Other excellence. My awesome sister graduated magna cum laude this past weekend. In other words, she’s a huge rockstar. AND I received a package from my parents! So I ate Golden Grahams for breakfast this morning—albeit with boxed skim milk—while reading a New York Times magazine. And unlike yesterday, there actually was electricity when I woke up this morning. Now that is beautiful.

A whirlwind week

“Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.” (Rodin)

Lesser-known saying: Nothing like taking life advice from chai tea bags.

Rock-bottom. On Wednesday, I experienced the lowest of low times with my seventh/eighth grade class. They were just really, truly uncooperative and disrespectful. I was so at a loss that I let them go a few minutes early to recess—which I never do, so as not to give in to their frequent pleas to go just ten minutes, just five minutes, just two minutes early. I ended up sending all of them to the office at lunchtime so they could get a talking-to from the school’s director. I’m happy to say that Thursday was much, much better and on Friday I even got a few apologies. I hope that last week was a turning point and that they can spend the last four weeks before the exam and retest weeks peacefully doing the best they can to improve their English. Teaching has been difficult for me and I don’t expect any miracles, but I would like to end the year on a positive note.

Rodeo! On Sunday afternoon, I experienced several special events. I witnessed grown men (some straight from the disreputable billardes hall nearby) showing off for video cameras their sweet....jump rope skills. Yes, jump rope. It was evidently part of the town feria that’s going on this week. It seemed to be a special kind of jump rope situation, with two ropes at right angles to each other, which was a seemingly impossible configuration. Each time, several men would try to jump in and would make it only a few jumps before tripping. After checking that out, I headed to a field near the boulevard with some friends to the RO-DAY-OH! When we arrived, we paid the 50 lemp entrance fee and maneuvered past the cases of beer to the rough bleachers that had been set up about 10 feet from the “ring”—a U.S.-suburban-living-room-sized enclosure made of wooden posts (still in very tree-like form) and metal gates. We soon realized that most of the announcer’s time would be devoted to admonishing people who had entered earlier (without paying, evidently) in trucks and were standing in the truck beds to see into the rodeo. Despite continuous pleas to people to “sean educados” and colaborar con nosotros,” the nonpayers continued to observe and actually tore down some of the black netting that surrounded the ring so they could get a better view.

Pacifist bulls? The rodeo itself was a bit pathetic. Most of the bulls were pretty small and seemed to have no interest in entering the ring at all. Maybe they’re pacificists. At any rate, none of them seemed too interested in getting riled up. Many of them lay down once they got right outside the entrance and the vaqueros were at some pains to get them out in the ring. Even when they could finally drag them into the ring, most bucked around for a couple minutes and then, having thrown the rider or not, trotted docilely over to the exit. One of my friends who has been to rodeos in Panama says the bulls there were bulls, not tame like these ones. I suppose there just isn’t too much in the way of cattle around here, plus it was probably a budget operation. The funniest moment was when the only white bull entered the ring, in a playful mood. He bucked his rider off in about five seconds and then ran around the entire ring near the fences, butting in the direction of the men and boys who had draped themselves over the top of the corral. Most scrambled to pull their legs out of the ring but weren’t too disturbed. The only ones who got a real scare were too younger boys, maybe about 10 and 12, who had taken a friend’s camera to get some close-up shots. They were leaning through the fence with the camera when the bull started charging around. One ran back towards the bleachers but the other, caught between the netting and the fence actually dove through a whole in the netting. It was hysterical, particularly when the bull then trotted back to the exit, calm once again. If only I had been close enough to get a photo of a bull smiling...

Going OUT. That whole experience was very small-town and Honduran, and was really accentuated by my Friday night. I met up with a friend in San Pedro and we grabbed some dinner at Applebee’s in near proximity to several groups of pre-teens. I had the “zesti” (as our waiter wrote it down) chicken sandwich, which was great. Then we hung around my friend’s apartment, waiting to get picked up by a guy who went to our college and his friend. We would have dressed a lot nicer (okay, only a little nicer, since I don’t really have super-nice clothes here with me—but definitely I would have worn good shoes) if we had realized we were being taken out on a serious night out. At one point I do believe we begged to be taken back to my friend’s apartment to change shoes. That must have been before I hit the point where I was disparaging various possible U.S. presidential candidates in a far too loud voice.

Making the rounds. First we went to a very nice bar that evidently serves thai food and has a killer atmosphere...nice outdoor bar with comfy couches and a tree-filled, candlelit atmosphere. At first I thought we had valet service everywhere, until I realized that the white truck behind us contained the body guards. Kidnappings are just popular enough to make that kind of thing advisable, I suppose. Then we headed to, well, basically San Pedro Sula’s country club. There’s a full-sized Olympic swimming pool there, in addition to various tennis courts, a children’s play area, restaurant, and more. We went to the lounge and grabbed a few more drinks, and then headed to a classy club. (The ones we had been to before were part of what someone referred to as the “maybe get shot tour” of San Pedro.) It was indeed nice, albeit a bit smoky, and we heard all the reggaeton standbys, like “Acercate a mi” and some American favs as well. The whole experience was such a marked contrast to my usual life here. It was really fun—it felt like a real vacation, a real true night out. But it was also pretty surreal and strange to hang out with folks who live in a way that people where I live can hardly imagine existing. I know there’s a separation like that in the states, but I’m just so much more aware of it here.

The week begins again. It was back to school again today, but we started the week off right with a little party for my kids’ teacher from last year. It was great to see how excited they were about seeing their former teacher, catching up and showing off how much they’ve learned in the past year. Alas, this is my awkward segue into making a pitch for a new scholarship fund my co-middle school teacher and I have started for our ninth graders. The idea is to give at least one scholarship this year (and in years to come!) to make it possible for a deserving graduate of the school to continue his or her bilingual education at a reputable school in San Pedro Sula. If you’re at all interested in learning more, please send me an email and I’ll give you the inside scoop on what it’s all about and how you can help.

Swinging through the trees

After the teacher’s meeting on Friday, I rushed back home to pack my backpack to go to Copan Ruinas for the weekend. A friend was going with her mom and her host family, so some of the other teachers and I got a ride with them in the back of the pickup truck. It was a scenic, albeit slightly nauseating, ride up the windy mountain road that begins after passing through La Entrada. We stopped along the way to get really ripe pineapple from a family selling it on the side of the road. Later....

“I can’t find my other flip-flop!” said the kinder/prepa teacher.
“Oh, I think I saw a flip-flop like that on the ground when we stopped to get pineapple. But I didn’t know it was yours...” said JE, the driver of the pick-up, with a shrug, totally straight-faced.

Five minutes later, the teacher finds his flip-flop. Nice joke, JE!

On Friday night we settled into our hostel, the Iguana Azul, and then had a drink at Twisted Tanya’s in tables perched at the edge of a second-floor balcony overlooking the mountains. We ate excellent non-tipico food at Via Via and had an early night.

Saturday morning we had a nice pancake breakfast out and then I had some decisions to make. My friends were going to tour the ruins with an illustrious tour guide of some repute as a comic and a charmer. (“The British stole the jade....those...bastards!”) I had already visited the ruins twice, so I wanted to do something else, but I wasn’t sure what. After talking with a woman at a coffeshop about a tour of a coffee finca, I decided I’d rather do the canopy tour—more time flexibility, plus I had just really wanted to do it the last time I was in Copan. So I signed up for the tour, after a trip to the ATM and a stopover at the library to buy the second two books of the “His Darkest Materials” series. (I had bought the first one, The Golden Compass, from there in February and polished it off in two happy days.) I befriended the nineteen-year-old Honduran girl working at the tour place while I waited for my ride. She wants to study tourism at university in San Pedro after working for a year. When I started humming along to one of the songs she was playing, we started talking about all the music she likes. She played me her favorite Switchfoot song and was super-jealous when I said a friend of mine had seen them in concert.

The canopy tour was awesome. An Israeli guy, a six-year-old and I did the course of more than a dozen cables, led by two Honduran guys my age. The six-year-old, Christian, was the most experienced of the customers—he seemed to be related to someone running the business, had his own harness, and spoke confidently about which cables were fast and slow. We started with a cable that Christian disparaged as very, very slow—although that didn’t stop him from calling back to us as he slid across that he was flying! The harness is like the ones used for rock climbing and it gets attached to your individual pulley at each cable platform—you grab onto the cable with your gloved hands and the guides give you a knee boost up to hook you on. Then they let go and let you slide away. You control your speed by keeping your dominant hand trailing on the cable behind the pulley. If you grip the cable tightly while arching your body towards it, that slows you down. My Israeli buddy kept breaking too much so the guides continually had to go several meters out onto the cable at the other end to reel him in. I loved the speed, though, which surprised me a bit since I am kind of scared of rock climbing and heights. I suppose it’s that it feels very secure and it’s a whole lot of fun to zip along with the trees below you, checking out the valley and the houses on the hilltops and even the ruins in the distance. Pretty soon I got down a great technique where I mostly didn’t break until about three-fourths of the way in and was able to control my entrance to the platform nearly perfectly, if I do say so myself. One of the guides was impressed enough to compliment me on it and ask if I was married.

The best cable trip was the one that is a meter long and goes over a river. Christian had to go paired with a guide on that one (usually one guide goes first and one goes last) because it gets really windy on the long cable, so if you don’t weigh too much and really control your speed you can end up just flipping around in circles. It was so exhilarating to race across the valley like that! The second-best run was a “slower” one where they showed me how to turn myself upside down, gripping the strap connecting me to the cable with my legs to sustain the position and letting my arms hang down. It was so awesome to look at all the trees from upside down! The stop at the end was a bit abrupt, though, since the guide basically has to catch you to stop you. They’re able to right themselves while moving if they do that, but they don’t try to make us beginners attempt that.

We took one brief walking interlude during our trip to see some rock formations carved by the Mayans called Los Sapos. I saw a very faded depiction of a woman giving birth, checked out the special stone configuration where Mayan women sat to give birth, and looked at a large frog carving. One of the guides told me that they say if you sit on the frog, you’ll have lots of kids, since the frog is the Mayan symbol of fertility. He figures he’s going to have a whole bunch since he sits on it all of the time! (I didn’t try it out.)

After my canopy tour, I was dropped off back in town, where I took a brief trip through the children’s museum, ate an excellent sandwich—a baguette with cream cheese, bacon and avocado—and went to my favorite Copan coffeshop, Cafe San Rafael, where I drank a wonderful moccachino. The place is picturesque beyond belief...you walk in there and feel an instant sense of calm. The smell of coffee roasting settles over you as you slide into a wooden chair, deliberating if you should buy a piece of the rolled pastry cake in the glass case. The two tables and long countertop on the right side overlook the owners’ enclosed front yard, full of green bushes and flowers. A great place for a descanso.

I met back up with my friends in the late afternoon for drinks before dinner, which proved much too much for me to handle on an empty stomach. I alternated between dizziness and extreme tiredness during dinner due to my happy hour overzealousness, but I managed to rally for the beer pong tournament we attended at a bar in Copan owned by a 23-year-old Californian guy. I was the goofball who spent the rest of the night sipping water from my nalgene—I very much enjoyed my role of professional beer pong spectator. It was all quite bewildering at first—there were debates about bouncing and blowing the ball out of the cup, leaning over the table, when the beers must be drunk, when re-racking takes place, etc. I never knew that there were such intricate—and evidently, partially regional—rules for the game! I did understand, though, that the random Honduran man who started sipping from the water cup used for rinsing the balls was definitely violating universal beer pong etiquette.

We ended up going to Papa Chango’s when the bar closed at 12, meeting a few other nice people over there, including a Yale medical resident who spent a good deal of time helping a friend understand the differing symptoms of dengue and malaria and alerting her to signs that someone is really, really ill. He advised us that the traditional Honduran medical treatment of a shot of antibiotics may not be great for future public health, but is actually pretty darn good at knocking out most bugs that might afflict you down here. I got to dance along in my chair to some favorite American and Honduran hits, such as my fav Estas de Miedo. Around 3 we headed back to the bar for a smaller-scale beer pong, round 2. As a result, we barely had time to grab some breakfast this morning before our ride back at 11 am. But it was a really fun night and well worth it—even if that curvy trip back down the mountains of Copan was relatively miserable in the midday heat after sleeping only a few hours and some solid hangovers on the part of my friends.

Unfortunately my welcome back home was a huge pile of laundry to be done so that I’d have clothes to wear to school on Monday. But all my stuff is currently drying and now I just have to pull together some stuff for school tomorrow. I might wake up at 5 to do it. I’m a bit exhausted, but I’m in a good mood. Here comes Bimester 5—the last one!