Last Day of School

After four long, hard, fantastic, challenging, frustrating, joyous, and certainly interesting months teaching at Best American School in El Progreso, Honduras, I now arrive at my last day of school! Tomorrow I will say goodbye to my students and fellow teachers and leave behind a community that I never imagined I would find here in Honduras.

Riding the x-ray bike at the San Pedro Sula Plantetarium with BAS

Since my first day of work in early September I had to overcome plenty of hurdles for example:

a lack of textbooks, no prior curriculum, no teacher guidebooks, zero experience teaching high school on my part, 200 energetic P.E. students from pre-kinder to 11th grade, communication problems within the school, and apathetic 10th-grade students doing their best to resist my efforts to communicate why sociology and psychology (and later physics and chemistry) are worth studying.

But the joys have outweighed the hardships:

wonderful teachers to help me along, $7,000 Lempiras/month to help pay my expenses and extend my stay here in Honduras, 200 energetic P.E. students from pre-kinder to 11th grade, slowly learning the name of each of my students and then greating each one when I see them throughout the day, running into teachers, students, and parents everywhere I go in downtown Progreso, my wonderful 11th graders,reliving high school (albeit it from the view of a teacher in a central american country), and experiencing all the things that make Honduran culture different, vibrant, and alive.

It has been an experience that I will never forget.

Stephanie and Dulce (in the background) on the bus to Zizima water park

Two of my 10th-graders, Ivis and Noam

OYE el Ritmo update

Every afternoon I arrive at the OYE office to help with homework, give English lessons, and just do whatever is needed. But Fridays are when the action really gets going with the weekly meetings of OYE el Ritmo, OYE´s youth radio program. I am the head of the project--teaching the art of radio to 15 scholarship students and helping them put together internet radio programs. So far we have a total of 5 pilot episodes and the students are starting to make visits to a local radio station to get aquainted with live radio and even join the DJ on the air.

Two weeks ago I planned an audio scavenger hunt for the class. The students split into two groups, each with an audio recorder and a list of 30 sounds to find, ranging from a dog barking, to a toilet flushing. On the OYE blog you can read (in Spanish) the students´ own accounts of the ¨busqueda de tesoros¨ plus see some of the pictures they took as well. In addition, on the right hand side of the blog, you can listen to streaming audio of our pilot episodes!

The OYE blog: oyehonduras.blogspot.com

Progress in Progreso

Some photos from recent happenings in Honduras.

The last day of school for one of my best friends in El Progreso, Alicia. She got me the job teaching at the Best American School and left for her hometown Chicago, and then Portugal. Her 10th graders now have me as their chemistry and physics teacher.

Because I am now teaching 10th grade science I am no longer the school´s P.E. teacher! I´m going to miss my kindergarten class but not so much the roudy 1st and 2nd graders...

Nima (in the black shirt) worked with OYE in 2007 and came back for a month this summer to help out with the transition process into 2009. Nima speaks 5 languages, is originally from Iran but his family lives in Sweden, and he was basically broke after traveling around Brazil for 4 months. So he decided to enter a baleada (Honduras´s official snack food) eating contest to vie for a prize of 500 Lempiras. He managed to eat 4 1/2 in 2 minutes but the big guy on the right ended up winning with a 3 round total of something like 23!

I was a bit politics obsessed (just ask my roommates) for the last months of this year´s election. Although we dont have cable in our house, my fellow volunteers andI used a projector and an internet connection to watch the live feeds of the presidential debates and of course the election night coverage!

Best American School

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.

First Pilot

Let´s see if this works

OYE la Radio

OYE Radio is on the air!

I arrived in El Progreso, Honduras on August 9th and last friday I helped the OYE radio program record their second pilot episode. The broadcast included an interview with famous Honduran singer Guillermo Anderson, commentary on the Honduran education system, local news, national and international sports, and the top 5 songs in Honduras.

We have about 20 kids in the program, including a handful learning the production and editing side of radio. I helped the sports department write their report, tought proper vocal delivery and a few warmup exercises to the news and commentary crew and gave my perspective on how to put together a radio broadcast. It's amazing to find a way to volunteer with something that I am so familiar with, but there are times when I wish I could express what I want to say in English!

The kids are all very dedicated and have lots of talent. We'll be recording an episode every two weeks and by mid September we should be ready to make our debut on Radio Progreso, the local radio station, and on the internet.

The OYE sports department

More from Guatemala

I spent 5 weeks in Quetzaltenango learning spanish with 4 amazing Spanish teachers. (from left to right, Mariela, Angel, Mariana, and Juan Ramon) On my last day they handed me a certificate of graduation from my school, El Nahual. It definitely doesn't mean i'm fluent--i'll be practicing even more during my month in Honduras--but it was a concrete sign of my progress. None of my teachers knew more than a few words in English which made my 4-hour, 1-on-1 classes challenging but all the more rewarding. Each had their own strengths, accents, teaching styles, and topics of conversation. Overall, I couldn't have asked for a better team to learn from!