Its not the heat but the humidity

I find it ironic that we had to come to hurricane country to escape a hurricane. Therefore I will not complain about our weather. The sun rises about 5:15 and sets around 6:30p.m. Someone always seems to fire off a few fireworks around 5:30a.m. They love fireworks here. They make them locally and people fire them off all the time. We live on a mission compound which hosts groups almost every weekend and when each group arrives they are greeted with a fireworks display. By 10:00a.m. its quite hot and steamy and being from New England it seems to sap my energy quickly. Most people siesta a little from 12:00 to 1:30ish and the public schools let out at noon but ours is going from 7-2. By late afternoon/early evening a little breeze picks up and its very pleasant until the Thunder storms pop up, almost every night. Last night was one of the stronger ones we've had. The electricity is always going out but we have been very fortunate and it usually has come back on within 20 minutes. The compound has a generator and they fired it up last night because a group was here so we never were without power long and were able to keep track of the hurricane. We don't have the weather channel so Fox news (one of the few news channels in English) is our source of info. We have a satellite TV service which provides 3 Latin american sports channels, 2 ESPN channels and 2 Fox sports channels along with NFL, Speed and Golf channels. Last night I had a choice of 5 different soccer games. There is usually at least one Baseball game on each night and each channel shows them differently but only one broadcasts in English. You can hear the English very faintly in the background but its broadcast in Spanish. They call Home runs like a soccer goal, long loud and drawn out and strike outs are Ponches.
The last two weeks we have been very busy at the school getting our classrooms ready, getting to know the other teachers and support staff and some of the policies and procedures of the school. Seven years ago Darla Ely and a local lady began the school with a Kindergarten class  Darla continued the school and added a new grade each year. 6 grades are all that's required so the 7th grade (which I'm teaching) starts a whole new level here. Darla and her husband Wayne have been here for 35 years in differing capacities and are in the process of retiring and returning to the states. Which puts the school in more of a transition mode than usual. Darla is training a local girl to become the school director with associate directors of Kinder (our own Jen O'Brien) Maintenance and Buisness. They also have the opportunity to buy a huge warehouse on the edge of town which they plan to convert into a school if they can get the financing.So things are very interesting.
My classroom was originally going to be a mobile classroom but that changed and we are converting a shop-like room into a classroom so a lot of my time has been spent helping Wayne with all the work of putting up sheet rock walls, Hanging bulletin boards, fixing and hanging white boards in each classroom, and making new desks for my class. We've been working til about 4:30 each day. School starts Sept. 1 so only three more days to get a lot of work finished. I'm teaching 5 daily classes - Math (pre-algebra), English grammar, Life Science, World History and Reading along with one Bible class and two Art classes a week. A different teacher does PE and Computer for the whole school and a third teacher does 7th grade Spanish and Social Studies which has to be taught in Spanish per Honduran law.He speaks no English and I speak no Spanish so we make a good team.
With everything else thats going on I'm trying to put together lesson plans for all my classes. Day one will be getting to know the students and day two Darla set up a field trip for my class to see a native dance competition. Now that could be an adventure. Friday night is meet the teachers night. Now the best part. When I got my books for the classes I discovered that what had been ordered were interactive handbooks but no text books or teachers manuals for Math, Grammar and Science. Pat is somewhat in the same situation with no teachers manual for some of her classes in 1st grade. She has been busy on line trying to find them so that we can either download them or order them and try to get them to a doctor who's coming down the 13th. Ah - life in Honduras. We did get our first pay check. Pat's first pay check in 4 years and mine in two months. We get paid every two weeks 5,000 Lempira's each.One U.S. dollar is approximately 20 Lempiras so you do the math. Ha! I think Pat in her devious mind knew if we ever got down here we'd never be able to afford to get back. When I left the States July 8th I tipped the scales at close to 260 pounds. Last Thursday August 25th on the clinic scales I weighed 237 lbs. Its not the heat its the humidity. Stayed tuned, more adventures coming.