From Mundial to Vacas

Hello Friends!

Sorry it’s been so long since my last e-mail. This is a busy time
around here. Here are some recaps on recent events:

• VAMOS AL MUNDIAL!!! Honduras qualified for the World Cup last week.
It was a very exciting series of events. The United States beat
Honduras on Saturday, October 10th. That was a fun game to watch. I
wore my red, white and blue and went all out for the good ol’ USA. It
was me against 50 girls. Every time the US did something good, I made
sure to yell really loud. And the girls shouted even louder when
Honduras did something good. Common expressions during the game were
“cheater!” “foul!” “you’re team is bad” “almost” and of course
“GOOOOOOAL!” Some of the younger girls couldn’t understand why I was
cheering for the US. I guess they really do think I am Honduran The
US won 2-1. It was a very exciting game and went to the last second-
Honduras even had a penalty kick in extra time that they missed.
Needless to say, Americans were not very well-liked after that game.
But that all changed on Wednesday. Wednesday Honduras played El
Salvador and the US played Costa Rica. The games were at the same
time. In order for Honduras to qualify, they had to win and the US had
to either win or tie against Costa Rica. Honduras did their part. They
won. Costa Rica was beating the US with just minutes left, so we
pretty much thought it was over. Especially since the US had already
qualified and didn’t need to win. But, by a miracle of Our Lady of
Suyapa (the patron saint of Honduras), the US scored with seconds left
leading Honduras to qualify for the World Cup. We all watched it
happen and it was probably one of the most exciting things I have ever
seen. It was almost an unreal moment. Girls were crying and screaming
and dancing. The president declared the next day a national holiday.
There are now commercials thanking God and the country of Honduras for
helping the team to qualify.

• School is quickly coming to an end here. This is the last week of
classes. Next week is final exams. I will be giving exams in English
and computers. Don’t worry…I won’t make them too hard. Most of the
kids take these exams very seriously. I think that they study more and
get more nervous than many high school and college students taking
finals. And they are only in elementary school. The sixth graders just
had a big test that they had to past with an 80% to graduate. It was
the equivalent of the eighth grade Constitution test that we have, but
it was on the national anthem. The test had written, oral, and singing
parts. I was honestly impressed by how well the students knew the
material. It was a booklet with 100 questions and answers that they
had to memorize. I don’t know if I could do it if I tried.

• I am in the Christmas spirit already. I have spent the last two
weeks creating Christmas cards for the kids to send to their sponsors
in the US. The next step will be to translate over 1000 letters. It is
a huge job, but I think I will be able to get it done without too much
trouble. Once school is over, I won’t have much else to do during the
week, so I will just put in some movies and write every day until my
hand falls off.

• Our house is become a popular place in the area. We have Honduran
groups for every weekend except one in November and December. Luckily,
none of them are 90 people and many of them don’t even want us to
cook. It is a much better setup. But, this will still be a busy place
in the next couple months.

• I have had some interesting animal encounters lately. There are
random cows that cross the street and come and eat our grass. I don’t
know where they come from. But, recently they have discovered the pila
at the back of our house. The pila is where I wash my clothes and it
is usually filled with water. The cows think they can drink the water,
which is disgusting. I am not washing my clothes in water cows drink
out of. One day I came back from teaching and a cow was standing in
front of the door. How do you move a cow that is standing in front of
the door to your house? You don’t. You walk to another door. And today
they must have stepped on a pipe because water was spraying everywhere
when I got back from teaching. Dang cows. I also had a rat in my room
the other night. I thought I heard something and then sure enough
there was rat staring right at me. I ran and got a kid to get rid of
it. I haven’t had any more since then.

Well, I think that it all that is new with me. I hope that things are
going well wherever you are. I am sure fall is in full swing. It is
kind of hard to imagine fall weather, although we did have one day
this week that almost felt like fall. But the next day it went right
back to being hot. I think it is going to break soon though. I feel it
coming.

Peace and Blessings,
Megan