myyearinhonduras-blog

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Toothbrushing!

Hello! I know I’ve been a bit MIA for a while but hopefully this post will make up for it. So, as a part of the One Award that I’ll hopefully be receiving at the end of the year, we have to mark an international day. Because I’m going into the health industry after this year, way back at the beginning of the year, I chose World Health Day. Originally I was going to do nutritional health but it quickly became apparent that there was a much more pressing issue than food. And that was oral health. I’ve had more than a few lessons interrupted by children complaining about toothaches and some of them have little brown spots on their teeth that have just grown through. I started thinking about getting them all toothbrushes in October but kind of put it in the back of my mind because I thought it was too big an undertaking. Then, in February on the last day before we came back from traveling, we met a dentist who talked to us about how the programs they help set up work. Suddenly it became a lot more feasible. So, I sent emails to about 15 charities from the U.K. and abroad and a day later, Dentaid had replied with a yes! After we sorted the budget the money was sent to me, easy as that. We picked up te toothbrushes and toothpaste in Gracias on the way back from Utila (I think we cleared the store out) and they sat in my room for about a month and a half. I wanted to find a week with no interruptions and trust me when I say that’s easier said than done. However, last week was almost perfect. I wanted the week to be about more than just “brush your teeth” I wanted to get them thinking about all the sugar that they put in their mouths. All of them seemed to know that sugar was bad for their teeth, despite eating lollipops EVERY day at recess. So, I set up a visual aid: two eggs in coke and one in water. Egg shell is very similar to the enamel on our teeth and over the next few weeks we’re going to see how the coke destroys the eggshell. We already had a look at the eggs with my younger classes and they were horrified to see that it had been dyed brown… so hopefully I’ll scare them a little. We also talked about how we should brush our teeth - in circles and for two minutes. At the end of the lesson, I handed out toothbrushes and toothpaste and had them put them in hanging pockets so that they don’t get lost ;). Every day after their lunch they’ll now be brushing their teeth! All in all I think the weeks was a success and I’m really happy with how all of the teachers have adapted to the new program. None of this would have been possible, however, without the help of Dentaid. If you have the time please checkout www.dentaid.org to see their work and if you have the money, please donate so they can keep funding projects like this. I'll be back up to Gracias to get my next batch of toothbrushes soon! Thanks for reading, I promise to get some more stuff up before we go!

Only 6 weeks to go!

Ps look below for more adorable photos of children

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Hopkins, Belize was also beautiful and we spent three blissful days on the beach here.

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We've also recently had to take a visa run, we went over to Hopkins, Belize but made a stop in Livingston, Guatemala first. Here, we enjoyed a river tour (to the place where some of Jurassic Park was filmed), cave swimming and looking at the the beautiful murals.

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We also celebrated world water day in Candelaria. Here, we lucky in that we have a water treatment plant right in the village, but before the 90's, no one here had running water to their homes. You still can't drink the water but, one step at a time. We celebrated the day with a parade, traditional dancing, music and a speech from the charity that donates money for our water plant, "Water First."

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After a lovely weekend in Gracias a few weeks ago we were unable to get a bus back to Candelaria so Grace and Hannah offered to have us stay over for the night in Yamaraguilla. We stayed the night in their big, beautiful, new house and went into their school in the morning. Though the school is about a million miles from our school in Candelaria, the kids were still adorable (though not as adorable as ours) and THEY SPOKE ENGLISH. The school Grace and Hannah teach in is called Vida Abundante (abundant life) Christian school and it's a bilingual school. We were helping out in the nivelación class which is basically an English crash-course to get the kids up to the standard that they need to be to join their grade level in the normal classes. We had a lot of laughs with the kids it it was really hard not to speak Spanish to them! Although most of the kids had very little spoken English, they actually understood pretty much everything that the teacher was saying to them. We want to increase the amount of English that we speak in class with our kids and after seeing this kind of "end result" I'm a lot more confident about it.

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Playing games with 2nd grade to help them learn their classroom objects.

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We watched my fourth grade class perform for the members of the school cooperativo. Their dresses are traditional Hondurans and the dance that their performing is called "Punta."

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So we’ve been back in Candelaria just over a week now and we’ve had four days of teaching so far. When we left the rainy season was just coming to a close so it was just starting to become dusty here but I don’t think it’s rained AT ALL since we left and the dust is everywhere, god forbid a bus goes past you. It’s also really really hot. Every day it’s at least mid thirties and totally dry which means we’re in the house from 12 until at least 3 every day. We’re trying (mainly me) to work off some of our travel weight. Almost always, the first thing that people say when I see them again is “wow you’ve been eating well!” I think the problem is that we were eating cheap, carby food and we wanted the most bang for our buck so they were always massive portions and we never, ever left any food. So we’ve been walking around Candelaria a bit more. (Still not quite up to long runs yet.) We saw one of the prettiest sunsets last night as we looked over the El Salvadorian Mountains. There have been a few changes to our schedule and our hours have been cut even more! Now we’re only working for 3.5 hours a day! Fortunately we have friends to spend the afternoons with now so we’re not just in the house, using the wifi all day. But, hopefully, we’ll start teaching at the high school in the afternoons soon, we have a meeting with the director on Friday!

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Back to reality

We had a lovely time in El Tunco, El Salvador and only really left the poolside to have a surfing lesson! It was so much fun and though it was my first lesson ever, I think I’m a bit hooked. We left the beach and Traveled all the way to Tela, Honduras to meet up with the boys and some more of the vols. We also visited Sophie and Eilidh’s school! It’s quite different to ours, a lot a stricter with more definite scheduling and they have their own classes. Tela is by the sea, and it’s a pretty big city so they have almost everything available to them including a few great Honduran bars. After really despising most Latino music in clubs because I didn’t know any of it, I’ve all come to love it and I’m really going to miss the reggetaetón beats when I’m home. After a good night out with everyone we went back to Eilidh and Soph’s house and I (classic) managed to break their tap which meant that there was water spraying everywhere and the house was flooding. We all ran around the house about 100 times and determined that there was in fact no way to turn the water off so for about an hour and a half we were just sweeping the water outside while Calum was trying to direct all of it into the sink. Eventually a neighbor came to help and plugged it up. The next morning we cleaned up the rest of the water, beached a little and got back on the road with only a brief passport disaster (shoutout to Tom Abel) (and thank you, I love you, Sophie). We stayed the night in San Pedro Sula then said goodbye to Jesse, Lucy and the new 8 month volunteers: Norome and Eva. After one final night in Gracias we were back in Candelaria at 4pm on the 31st. Candelaria was in the middle of a fair when we arrived and it’s been buzzing here for the last few days, we’ve had a pageant, dance parties and last night there was a singing competition. (One of the little girls from my 5th grade won!). We loved traveling and have all well and truly caught the traveling bug but it’s always good to come home and though we won’t really be home for another 6months, Candelaria is a pretty great home for now. Keep your fingers crossed for us, we start teaching again tomorrow!

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Last stop before we came back to Honduras was Playa El Tunco. Beautiful, lazy and a perfect way to round off our three months

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Next stop was beautiful Antigua

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The next day we headed out to the ruins of Tikal, these were by far my favorite ruins.

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We traveled for a day and then arrived in Flores, Guatemala. After taking some pictures of the pretty little place we headed to the rope swing for a relaxed afternoon.

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After how touristy both Cancun and Tulum were we wanted to see something more of the untouched side of Mexico so on the way back down to the boarder we stopped in Chetzumal to see lake Bakalar. Have you ever seen water so beautiful?

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Then we got on a two hour bus over to Cancun, we had two nights out and saw the ruins at Chichén Itzá! It was a bit like Disneyland; people everywhere and souvenirs pushed as you left, right and centre but the ruins were incredible, so different to Tulum.

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After two days of traveling, including our first night bus, we arrived in Tulum. It's very touristy and kind of exactly like an American City but the ruins next to the sea were absolutely awe inspiring.