snowy.

first things first, i didn't plan on being a teacher. things don't typically go very well when i am in charge. 

after failed attempts of leadership for a high school newspaper class, a college literary magazine club, and a sorority, i have realized that authority is not my calling. 

i thought my role here would lean more to the administrative side as the school prepares to close for the summer. i was not expecting to be leading a group of fourth graders through the rest of their classes. 

i was scared of them. they are all so small and they talk in spanish so fast. one would say 'ella' and the others would begin to laugh (yes, because ella means girl in spanish). i was told that the school used physical punishment when things got out of control (wall sits, running laps, push-ups). something about telling one of them to do wall sits seemed uncomfortable to me so i ended up letting them do their own thing. boy was that a horrible idea. 

i remembered how excited they were when another girl in the group took their picture and decided i could try to do the same. this is a story all about how instagram saved my life. the boomerang app absolutely blew their minds and they spent all afternoon asking me to record them doing tricks so they could watch the videos. i can't seem to link videos from my phone, but once i do i'll post them. 

after the madness died down and they returned to their workbooks, a girl named minely asked if i could help with her spelling. she asked what 'snowy' meant and we looked at some pictures from google. she whispered that she wished she could go to the states and see snow. it may have been the leftover homesickness but i began to tear up. not only may most of them never see snow or go to the states, there is an incredibly high chance that some of them never even make it out of their village. 

later that afternoon the class asked if i would go on a hike with them to see the lion in the mountains. they laughed when i told them no way and said that the lion was friendly. so this is a story about how i hiked a mountain with a bunch of ten year olds. 

let me make one thing clear: the honduran mountains are not anything like kennesaw mountain. there are no signs, maps, benches, or paved roads. there is nothing but bushes, palm fronds, and a steep, uphill climb waiting for you here. an hour in and we finally made it to the top. there were too many trees for the photos to do the view justice, but it was worth the climb. by then i had forgotten all about the lion until a child pointed out a graffiti'd rock with a painted lion on it. the kids could not stop laughing, they thought they had tricked me. 

we have now finished up for the week and i am excited about seeing 'pirates of the caribbean' tonight (movies come out a week earlier here).

listen to this song, a teacher shared it with me and now i'm obsessed.