Highlights of my week: Tests, tortillas & tipica

First, tests. One of my tenth graders got 100% on his spelling test! Afterward he comes up to me and goes, "This is the first time I have ever gotten 100% on a spelling test since we started taking them every week  in first grade." So I felt great about that.

Tortillas. I learned how to make them this week! So Mario Daniel's (my host brother's) girlfriend came over on Monday and showed me how. It's actually super easy...even though for some reason she kept having to "fix" mine before she put them on the pan. Whoopsie. I was just starting to get the hang of it when the power went out (shooock). Anyway, then yesterday another lady who comes over to our house sometimes to make tortillas was over and she started to make tortillas so I helped her. The power was "low" (shooock) so we made them and cooked them over a fire out back! Doesn't get much more legit than that. (When the power is "low" the TV or stove doesn't work, and the lights are just really dim.) My host dad insisted on taking some pictures so I'll have to post those at some point when he gives them to me off his camera. Anyway, it was really interesting getting to know this lady -- Lourdes -- who I was helping make tortillas with. She was telling me about her life -- how she quit school at 11 to start working, and about how she works now as a cleaning lady at a public school and is trying to raise two daughters as a single mother. I guess she had to send her daughters out to sell tortillas when they were little so she earn enough money to feed them. Anyway, she said she's going to come over again on Saturday to show me how to make flour tortillas (so far I just learned how to make corn ones).

Lastly, tipica. Well, the fiesta tipica, that is. We held it last Friday night at school, and all of the students and their parents came and dressed up. So it's really kind of ironic that it was called the "fiesta tipica" (typical party) because it was soooo typical Honduran party (except in ways I don't think they meant it or realized it to be):
1: It was supposed to start at 4, right? Well so the teachers were supposed to get there at 3:30 to finish  up some last-minute stuff (we already stayed till like 5:30 Wednesday and Thursday getting the decorations ready, and spent the entire day Friday in the kitchen cooking). So one of the other teachers is supposed to get me in a taxi "no later than 3:20." So 3:45 rolls around and of course I'm freaking out because I still have to finish cooking the elotes (corn on the cob, more or less) that I was in charge of. I need to learn to get on Honduran time still. Finally they pick me up at like 3:50, then we stop at the bank, and finally get there at like 4:00 sharp....and no one's there (not even the other teachers). Long story short, it started at like 5:15. Typical.
2: The power goes out at like 2, so we are wondering how we are going to do this without light (it gets to be pitch black here by 5:45). Typical. (Came back on at like 5 though...just in time.)
3: It was probably the most disorganized thing I have been a part of...we ran out of plates, napkins, corn after like 15 minutes, everyone was running around like chickens with their heads cut off, it was raining at the start so we moved all the chairs inside the cafeteria but then it cleared up so we moved them all back outside....once again, typical.

That being said though, it was really fun. Although selling the elotes was absolutely nuts. There was supposed to be 4 of us in charge of selling elotes and "gringas" (taco-type things), but of course it ends up being 2 of us for some reason or another (typical), and it reminded me of selling t-shirts at the state track meet, if you can appreciate that reference. We barely got to our food stand and people were lined up and pushing each other to get to the front. And I was trying to put the corn on a stick (this is corn on the cob, but not sweet corn -- more like the corn we feed animals), cover it with mantequilla and quesillo (probably the only two things that I can't stand here -- I would be in charge of that...), while crazy old ladies were trying to cut in front of people and give me their food tickets. Oh man it was crazy. And then we ran out so quickly (we had 50)! After we ran out I started selling hot dogs that were leftover from lunch. Haha...once again, sooo typical Honduras -- selling things that are so absolutely not typical Honduran food at a typical fiesta. Anyway, I discovered I love saying "hot dogs" like the Hondurans do with a accent. I also discovered I'm starting to talk like my students (I called the principal "meeester" like the kids do, and he was like, "Wait what did you just say?"). Haha. So a great time was had by all, even though I was so busy selling I really didn't get to see any of the kids' musical or drama acts. Oh well. So here are some pictures of the fiesta...

Here are the "champas" (food stands) we set up around the courtyard -- some of the teachers made them like the day before out of bamboo and palm leaves....pretty sweet. There were like 5 different stands each selling a different "traditional" (or, in the case of my hot dogs, the opposite of traditional) Honduran food. 

Some of my ninth graders.

And, finally, me with my hot dogs (notice the traditional Honduran garb I managed to scare up -- not quite as impressive as my students' dresses, but hey, I am a gringa, after all).