According to my original travel plans, by now I should be standing on the sidelines of a high school football game in New Jersey. But the cool thing about traveling by yourself is that you can go where fate takes you. I first came to Honduras in August planning to volunteer for a month and a half with a youth program. But after being here for a bit, I realized I wanted to stay longer and I found a job as a teacher at a bilingual school here in El Progreso. So at least for the time being I have made the switch from TV sports reporter to sociology, psychology, physics and P.E. teacher.
The school is called ¨Best American School,¨ a private bilingual school with about 200 students. I teach all of my classes in English--psych, physics and sociology to the 10th grade and P.E. to the entire school including kindergarten. This could turn out to be one of the toughest things I¨ve done. The hours are long and early: I wake up at 5:30am every day to be at school by 7:00. Classes end at 1:00 and then I work with the OYE radio program from 2:00-5:00. And the job is demanding: i'm teaching subjects I haven¨t studied for a long time, plus trying to get 22 1st graders to pay attention to you in P.E. class in a second lesson is a challenge to say the least.
But Im happy I made the decision to stay longer. Not everyone gets the chance to just put everything back home on hold and although I miss everyone back in the states, I know I made the right choice.
