Back to School

Well, things are back in full swing here, but seem way busier than before. Mostly because I'm having to stay up late working on things after the girls go to bed, when last year, I was so exhausted that I went to bed at the same time they did.

All the girls are back, and the new ones have all arrived. The newest girls put on the St John Bosco skit and dance they learned for his Feast Day, as a welcome for the returning internas. My first week of classes went better than I thought they would, but will hopefully get smoother and easier as the weeks go on. Since the high school girls have block scheduling, they only get English classes the first twelve weeks of the year. Then, they don't have English again until next year, which means I finish my real classes in only twelve weeks! Of course, I still have my review classes with the younger girls in the afternoons, but I don't really have to do much planning or any grading with them.

I have also decided to extend my stay for a variety of reasons, my main one being to finish my English classes at the end of the grading period instead of in the middle, and a secondary reason because I'd like to procrastinate a bit on job searching in the States. Plus, I like it here! So, here's the tentative plan: I'll stay here in Honduras until June. Then, in June, I'm going back to Chalchuapa, where I was in El Salvador, and stay there until Christmas. I am trying to plan a short visit home sometime in there, but I still don't know when would be the best time. So I'll get back to you on that.

In other news, I have now had two near-death (not really) experiences with electrical appliances exploding on me within in the past week. The first one happened a week ago. The light bulb in my bathroom hasn't worked since November, so I've had to bring in my lamp from my bedroom every time I go in the bathroom. Last week, I had the lamp on the floor while I was brushing my teeth to go to bed, when all of a sudden, I heard a loud pop and the light bulb actually exploded and started smoking. About half a minute later, my real bathroom light miraculously came on, and I found splinters of broken glass all over my bathroom floor. It's a wonder I wasn't hit with a flying piece of glass, and I have no idea how the two lights could have been related since they're on two different electric lines.

Anyway, after that close call, I had my second experience yesterday morning. My heated shower head hasn't worked since last month, so I've been taking cold showers since the end of December. Occasionally, some hot water will drip out, but not enough to take a shower. I'd been telling the sisters almost every day that I STILL didn't have hot water, but they weren't taking me very seriously, until I showed them evidence of hair thinnage since I've been using the cold water (seriously, hair falling out like crazy!). That's when they let me into the private area to try one of the showers there that had a heater in the head too. When I got in to turn it on, it was like heaven! The pressure was strong, it was not too hot, not too cold, just right... for about a minute. Then it started sputtering and the fuse box on the wall (in the shower, that runs the heated shower head) started emitting sparks, there was another loud pop, and smoke started coming out of the fuse. And, of course, the water went down to a trickle and was frigid once more. After I shrieked and the sisters came running to find out what was the matter, they told me that the shower hadn't been used since at least the mid-90s. Go figure. Luckily, I escaped both of these events unscathed, but I'm back to where I was before. And will be until June!