My last day of my first every job

My last day of school went a little like this,

THE LAST DAY

The pit in my stomach was evident from the moment our alarms went off…I got up and the horrific news dawned on me…for five minutes we both lay on Kate’s bed trying to convince ourselves that if we stayed there, time would stop and so it would never be our last day and we would never have to say goodbye to the children and friends that we love. This of course was not the case, oh time you are a cruel…mistress.

W'E'VE FINISHED

In school it didn’t feel like my last day until I saw first grade. The little monkeys that I have watched grow so much in the last year, going from large shy toddlers to small children in just 10 months. Their English and knowledge develop every single day, their enthusiasm never hindering which was wonderful, less wonderful was the fact that their energies only increased…but we got there!

A volunteering twelfth grader ran to my classroom and said ‘Miss Rachel you have to come, it’s first grade, they’re all, they’re all…crying!’ I ran upstairs to discover a classroom of sobbing faces. Some of the boys of course were not phased in the slightest “pfft emotion, what emotion? See you later Miss Rachel” and one girl who is 6 going on 23 came up to me and said “Miss, I can cry, but for my uncle, not you’” and tottered off…They laughed at the girls and the other boys for crying and I had to tell them to stop under a mountain of leaking dirty faces. I pulled up a chair and set up camp in the room, reminding each one that I live in Wales but I will also live in their hearts and so they mustn’t be sad, because if you miss me I’m just in here! It was hard to tell them not to cry when I started welling up a little, but we got through it, and when food arrived they seemed to remember what was really important in life.

First Grade with Mrs Soto

Saying goodbye to other classes was easier, as they are all used to the formality of losing teachers, but it was far from fun.

Ana Merlo

The last lesson, in which I had a test for Nivelacion (they are continuing with school until August I promise I wasn’t being a supreme *****!) At the end of class Kate returned from saying goodbye to her second graders and we gave out the cards we had made for each of them. Tears started to flow from all directions, even from Kate!  This week we had spent a lot of time with all of them, be it, in our house playing games, watching films or even a surprise party that they threw for us…they are all wonderful children, and as Jake said the night before ‘our presence in La Union made it possible for these 16 children to have a better education, to have a chance at learning English, and to have a step up in the world’ and the heartwarming thing is that they know that, and appreciate our efforts so much. The running of Nivelacion is always a bit touch and go, but Jake was able to run it this year because of us and that’s a humbling thought.

Me with our little people

JD and Fernando

In Cafe Zazzo making a mischief

We had a teacher meal last night which involved Karaoke. It was so terrible that it was amazing, from ‘I will always love you’, Beatles songs, and funky town all the way to Beauty and the Beast. It was lovely to spend some time with our coworkers and friends for one last memorable night in La Union. 

Our surprise party in our hall

On the way home I got a call from Kate (who had gone home before me) to say that a little boy was at the house waiting to see me… I had no idea who it could have been. I walked into the house to see Luis Eduardo and his family. Luis Eduardo, the little boy who makes first grade a challenge, tearing up in my kitchen, ran to me and wrapped his arms around my neck. I picked him up and held him for a long time. I don’t think I’ve ever held a child like that before, so tight and so desperate to make the thing that was making him cry, stop. It was then that I realized, I was the reason he was crying…He was the last child I had expected to see in my house, the last one that I expected to miss me. He did cry in school, one of the only boys to do so, but I had no idea that I would have this effect on him. I was touched. My heart melted a little at the realization that he had been so sad, his family had taken the time to bring him to see me one last time. I started crying and trying to stop him at the same time, it was difficult. 

Luis

This year had altered me in ways I will never be able to comprehend or iterate, but one obvious thing that it has altered is my ambitions for the future. Becoming a teacher was never something in my vocabulary, my family are all teachers, I was going to be the one to break from this tradition…but apparently I am not meant to do this. I want to do an ESL Teaching course when I get home; satisfy my travel bug and my enjoyment of teaching. Luis Eduardo’s little self in my kitchen was the sign that told me; I needed to teach and that myself and La Unión were only saying goodbye for now.

Looking out over our beautiful La Unión for the last time

Write About Your Dream Profession, by Fifth Grade

My dream profession is to be a doctor or a lawyer becase to be a doctor I will be like my aunt Yolani, she is a doctor in the general clinic but she is not a dentist. I want be a lawyer because my daddy, because I can defend the people and I can send people to the jail, sometimes. I forgot to say this is the doctor place, I can help people and said what medicine to drink. I would like to be one of the two of them because in both I can help people. If I were a doctor I can look their throat and their sickness.

Liliana

My dream job to be is soccer player, teacher and mechanic.

I really like to fix things and I want to do that.

I love to play soccer and teach things.

When I am an adult I will buy a car and ninja motorcycle and Ferrari car. I will build a beautiful house. I will have two children and get married with a beautiful woman. This is my dream or profession.
I want to go live in the United States and make lots of friends to take my parents live there, they had told me that that is their big dream. I will pay for everything for them and make then feel that they have a great son and I will asked God to promise me that I can do that.

Please God help me that when I feel bad and weak that is when I am stronger.

Edwin

My dream job is doctor because I can save people that are with illnesses and help people to walk and to move her arms. I will say good things to the people that will die. I will buy medicine for the poor people and they will pay a little money. I will be very responsible with all sick people

Ana

My dream profession is to be a cowboy, because I could ride on horses and run after cows. I would milk the cows and eat eggs. I would have a big farm to live with my family. I could have a lot of cows and bulls. I would ride on bulls and made contests for the best cowboy to get a prize. I could live in a very pretty place where the sunset could be watch. I could eat meat and drink milk with cookies. I could have a cool costume and a big ranch. My wife would be a pretty woman with black hair. She would be a cowgirl like her daughter.  Would play with my children. We could play hide and seek.

Jicxon

My dream profession is psychologist in medicine because when I was little I dream to be a doctor and I like to play with medicine. When my mother was little she want to be a psychologist but my grandma want my mother to be a teacher so I want my mother to be impressed of me.

Fabiola

My dream profession is being a doctor because I can help the children. I want to be a specialist paediatrician, because I want to help the children that don’t have any money to go to the doctor because children are so small to die.

Nessly

Little People

Funnily enough this year has been somewhat surrounded, overcome, overtaken if you will, by children, and I realised on this day, the eve of May (it’s not May it’s not May it can’t be May!!)  that I am yet to write a blog post about them.

Dia de Niños

Okay so first observation, they are ridiculously adorable, all of them…some always, others until they open their mouths, but still. Hondurans are a beautiful race and the children with their big beautiful eyes, varied coffee colour skin, and big hearts prove this perfectly. I mean just look,

Juan, the eyes.

Secondly, granted, first graders were always going to be small but Catrachos (Hondurans) are generally a short race which makes me the token giant along with Mr Jake who stands at about 6ft4, as if our pasty complexion and light hair didn’t make us stand out enough as it is!

Rossy, the lovely lovely Rossy,
 of twelfth grade, One of the only
 twelfth graders who is actually younger than me.

Darwin and Edan, twelfth graders who are both older than me.

Their amusement in the simplest things is incredible. How many children at home do you know who would sit and play with rocks outside our house for a good two hours? Would put down their iphones, ipods, ipads and nintendos for a plastic truck with no lights or lasers, to go and play in the rocks and mud? Would stand in our house flicking a lightstwitch, saying ‘tis on’ ‘tis off’ until they had to be physically removed from the wall, simply because they didn’t have electricity in their own house?

Outside our house on our first days

A turtle out of stones

Picture making using rocks

The little little people working on the benches

This kid loves flags

While I have been teaching first grade about flags and different countries we have been looking at pictures on my laptop, some things that they have only seen in cartoons; the pyramids, animals in Kenya, the London eye, and even a field full of sheep in Wales. They come up to my laptop in groups of three and gawk at the beauty of things outside their imagination and it fills my heart with happiness and joy at their excitement. We have also watched Planet Earth, which granted makes people at home go ‘Wooooow’ but these kids, the little monkeys who find it physically impossible to sit still for longer than 4.58 seconds, sat in wonder and watched the dvd for the full 40 minutes. One of my most memorable days! For days after they ran up to me to tell me about the big tree fall down, and little tree and flower grow up. 

the best flag

Frog scinece project

The look of concentration

Stickers! Who knew that such a simple thing would work as a bribe for good behaviour for the entire year? Luckily Project Trust did, and I have benefitted from this wise knowledge every day! In first grade if their behaviour card is in green by my class, then they are in the running for a sticker! Children who used to be little devils sit obediently and quietly, put their hands up to ask questions and answer them, do not run in the classroom (a big deal) all simply because they could get a sticker. The end of my classes consist of tens of “Miss Rachel da sticker?” and a deathly silence as I get out the sticker sheet. Some have admitted that they don’t even breathe as I walk around trying to remember 1. Who has been good, and 2. Who didn’t get one yesterday. The power that stickers award you is priceless!

i-i-indian hats for Thanksgiving

Because they often haven’t seen us enough during the day, children flock to our house, either to ask for help with homework, to swing in the hammock or to play with us. There have been many fierce connect four and draughts wars been played on this floor.

Connect four

Playing football in our hall

Lastly, I would like to say how amazing their English is. Four Twelfth graders have such amazing English that they are going to study in the states. Two of whom have received the Walton scholarship, a full ride; food, accommodation, a living stipend and even flights home every year paid for, because their English is so incredible. Some might say that after 8 years of English education they should be fluent, but let me tell you this, these kids were never formally taught English as we were taught spanish or french in school. They are taught IN English and have to pick up the grammar and language as they go along, which makes their achievements all the more incredible.

Our Nivelacion Class on Saint Patricks Day

First grade, 6 and 7 year olds who, 8 months ago didn’t even know hello and goodbye, can now say full sentences. “Miss Rachel that dog has blue eyes” is one of my most memorable...just think of the grammatical fines that sentences took to form. This is one conversation that I have had over the course of the year,

“Miss Rachel, is God or Gad?”
“Well, when we’re talking both are okay Ana”

“Pero, is it g-g-goat o-o-ostrich or g-g-goat a-a-apple?”
“It’s g-g-goat o-o-ostrich Ana,”

“Pero Mrs Soto says Gad?” (American English)
“Well it’s G-O-D Ana, so you should say God”

“I say Gad”

“God”

“Fine, God”

she then proceeded to do a funny face and mock me as she walked off. A 6 year old!

Ana, said GOD student

Elephants Science Project

I can’t lie; there are days that I would like nothing less than to see a childs face, or hear the teeny tiny voice of one through our door saying ‘Miiiiiiiiss?’ but these days are becoming fewer and further between as our time here comes to an end. The majority of my days now are full of love and adoration for them. Any parent who reads this will feel like I am overacting and that, as an eighteen year old I can never understand the bond of love that exists between a parent and child, but I do, I feel it sometimes. I have seen these small people each and every single day, 9 hours a day for 8 months; I teach them, play with them, learn from them, eat with them, laugh with them, walk home with them, I have even been known to cry with them (when I hurt my leg). Leaving them in the not to distant future is going to be horrendous, even the thought of it is….well there are no words.

Where does Miss Rachel live?

WAAAAAAAAAAALES!

These kids are not just my students, they are sources of amusement, inspiration, amazement and even some days despair, but above all, they are my Honduran family, my little people.

 

With Leandro after the Christmas Play