Food and Frustrations

It's really crazy how quickly your sense of what is "normal" changes. I've been trying to think of more things to write about that have been curtural changes for me, but now that I've been here almost two months it's hard to remember what's "normal" and what's not. Case in point: A few days ago for dinner I had bean and banana soup (well, I guess it was beans, bananas, mystery meat, and yuka). Anyway, when my host mom served it to me I didn't even give it a second glance or think twice about it. It wasn't until I was skyping with Jordan later and he asked me about food (and I said out loud that I had eaten bean banana soup for dinner) that I realized it sounded crazy.

As far as other Honduran food goes, I've found that usually I don't love it or hate it. I just eat it. Although I do hate mantequilla (their thick butter/sour cream mixture that they put on eeeeverything) and quesillo (this super strong crumbly cheese stuff). Sick. Luckily, since I was here before I already knew I didn't like that stuff so I told my host mom I didn't like it the first day and so I haven't had to eat it! And a couple things I do love here are a chicken/rice mixture my mom made me once or twice for lunch, fried plantains, and especially homemade tortillas! A typical breakfast for me is beans, eggs, and avocado -- today I had toast with beans and avocado on top. Or sometimes I have pancakes (which would be delish except they only eat them with honey instead of syrup),a licuado (smoothie/milkshake thing with milk and cornflakes and banana), oatmeal, or corn flakes. I've told my host mom cereal is fine every day -- that I actually prefer cereal -- but I think she thinks I'm just saying that because I feel bad that she feels like she has to make me breakfast (which is also true, but mostly I just want cereal). Oh well. My host mom also packs my lunch every day. (I know, I'm spoiled right? I've told her I can do it but she insists.) I've had some normal stuff like pasta salad, ham and cheese sandwiches, a ground beef/carrot/potato mixture etc, but probably the weirdest lunch I had was today. It was cooked up meat (which I didn't eat) and potato (I think?) with cooked slices of warm bananas -- but the bananas had been like boiled or something and still had the peel on them. Interesting.  Dinner is usually what I had tonight -- eggs and beans in a tortilla (that's a baleada -- the typical Honduran dish). I practically eat an avocado a day too, or, in cases like today, two -- one for breakfast and one for dinner. My host brother likes to cook too though, and he loves pasta/italian, so he's made spaghetti and lasagna a few times. He even made homemade pizza the other night! So don't think all the food is crazy different (even though their version of pasta sauce is a little different).

As far as teaching lately goes...
So I assigned a paper to my 11th graders a week or so ago and was like, "Your rough draft is due Tuesday." I give them the entire class period on Friday to work and spend the hour yelling at them to start writing and that I'm going to grade the essays ridiculously hard because they aren't working. Tuesday rolls around. No one has a rough draft. Not. one. person. So I have this whole thing where I was going to have them fill out this peer conference sheet, edit each other's papers etc. and then there are no papers to edit. What the heck? What am I supposed to do for the whole class period? And what do I do with their grades? Fail them all? All of my teacher training tells me that if everyone in the class gets something wrong or if no one in the class does a homework assignment, it's probably a reflection on the teacher -- that he or she didn't explain it correctly or forgot to assign the homework. So I'm still trying to figure out where I went wrong, but I just can't because I reminded them about this paper every day, wrote it on the board, and gave them time in class to work.

Ok so then 12th grade vocabulary class rolls around. Last Friday I gave them their words and of course one kid is screwing around and not copying down the vocabulary words. So I say to him: "Alright fine don't copy the words but don't come crying to me on the day of the quiz because I will show you zero sympathy." He promised not to do that. Day of the quiz rolls around. I hand out the quizzes. He comes crying to me (shock, wow, did I not call that?). He takes one look at it: "Miiiiss but I don't know any of these words! Ahh but miiiisss just let me have five minutes to study. I'll take it tomorrow." (I had just given them like ten minutes to study and, shock, he did absolutely nothing.) I look at him and am like, "Are you serious? Because that sounds crazy." He gets a zero and walks out of the class.

So needless to say I'm starting (starting?) to get frustrated with my students, and I feel like I'm turning into an evil teacher. Let's just say three kids have cried in my classes in the last two days. (And I don't even feel bad.)
Exhibit A: 8th grade spelling class. I'm getting fed up with the cheating and talking that goes on during quizzes and tests so my new policy is if I hear you talk you have an automatic minus 5. I don't care who you're talking to or what you're talking about. (Which I think is probably too lenient, because I should just give them a zero.) Honestly, you should see these kids during tests and quizzes. I've never seen anything like it. I literally have to stand in front of the class the entire period and stare kids down. If I look down once the next time I look up kids are trying to cheat. (It's almost like a game for them and I'm starting to think that I should just instill in them some morals somehow but that's a whole seperate issue...one girl told me how she had cheated during a quiz the other day in another class: "I help my classmates during a quiz when they didn't study...so it was my turn to get the help.") Anyway, not the point. So like 5 of my seventh graders get minus 5; a few minus 10. Then, eighth grade. A girl blurts out in the middle of the quiz, "Miiiiss repeat number 6!" I tell her she has minus 5 and she flips out and starts bawling and hands me her quiz and says she won't even finish it then. I say fine. She fails.

Exhibit B: 8th grade language class. Another girl is trying to cheat -- I can hear her talking and see her talking too -- so I take 5 points away. She doesn't seem to care too much at this point, but when I grade her quiz and tell her she failed by 3 points, she starts bawling and trying to argue that she wasn't talking. My response: "I guess you won't be talking on the next quiz, then, will you?"

Exhibit C: 7th grade language class. I'm actually trying to play a game in 7th grade...can you believe it? Too ambitious it turns out. Two kids get in a fist fight in my class. Yep. So I leave the rest of the class to run amok and go wild while I escort these two monkeys down to the principal's office, with one kid crying and the other trying to look tough, etc. It was a whole thing.

So it wasn't one of my better weeks. I guess my point is that teaching here is really hard and different from the States. Honestly, I know I haven't actually taught in the States (besides student teaching), but the kids where I student taught actually seemed to care about school -- at least somewhat. The kids I was worried about were the ones who were sleeping during class and didn't turn in a homework or two. Here I would be overjoyed if people would just turn in even one homework and sleep and be quiet during my class.