earthquake!

sorry for the lack of posts, the electricity keeps going out in the evening b/c of storms (its rainy season here).  

But, just wanted to let you all know there was an earthquake here last night.  It hit off the north coast and we are in the middle of the country so we are fine.  We did feel it at 2am though.  It didn't feel any stronger than the one that hit Indiana but up north it was a 7.1 magnitude!  One person died.  There was a tsunami watch but they called it off.  Everything is fine here though!!

no electricity!!!

Sorry for the lack of a post yesterday.  The electricity went out for a few hours last night.  It was somewhat uneventful.  A bunch of us did gather in the upstairs lobby though and tell stories and just hang out.  It was a lot of fun.  I think all of us students bonded a lot because of it!

Yesterday I spent the day at ABSS again.  I spent most of the day doing interviews for my research project.  I interviewed the Director of the School, her husband whom is the academic director, and a teacher who has been here for 4 years and is married to a Honduran.  Oh, and we went to the coffee shop for the interview and I had the best iced mocha that I have ever had!  Which is somewhat bad news considering I am trying to cut my caffiene, but they are pretty small so that is good I gues.  But anyway, I talked to the staff about the social justice mission of the school and about collaborations the school has with outside organization.  It was very interesting information.  

I also got to spend some time observing some of the undergrads while they were in their classroom.  The children there are so adorable!  I got sucked (so unwillingly, haha) into reading some Sesame Street books to the preschoolers.  They were so cute.  They are all still learning English so they switch back and forth sometimes.  It's pretty cute.  

Today Suzanne and I went with the other group of students to Del Campo.  This school was way different than ABSS.  They are both private schools, but I am not sure how many scholarships Del Campo gives, especially compared to ABSS.  I felt like I was at Cathedral High School or something.  They even have the best soccer field in all of Central America!  (pics are in the next blog)

Below are some of the pics I have taken the last few days at the schools.  Enjoy!

some pics! (if i can figure it out?!)

Here are some pics that I promised!  It is beautiful here.  Pretty darn hot, but beautiful.  The place we are staying, the Kellogg Center, along with ABSS are all located on the campus of Zamorano (http://www.zamorano.edu/) which is a huge agricultural school.  People come from all over Central and South America to come here.  They also have a long standing relationship with Purdue and some students will be here from the Ag school the last week we are here.  Since it is an ag school, the scenery on campus is gorgeous.  They also grow/make a lot of their own food here.  Today I bought some gala apples and some pineapple juice but they also have their own milk, jams, breads, eggs, and meats.  So I'm pretty excited to try some more of them.  

I will try and post some more of the school and students tomorrow.

I'm here

We arrived safely in Honduras after the fun landing in Tegucigalpa.  The landing wasn't as bad as everyone made it out to be, but I was in the aisle not by the window though.  In case you didn't know the Tegus airport is one of the most dangerous international airports to fly into.  As you are coming in it looks as though you are going to hit a mountain then all of a sudden you see the runway.  However, the runway is very short and sandy so that adds to the fun.  It wasn't too bad though.  

Our first day here, we just settled in and unpacked.  And took naps of course considering we had to be at the airport at 4:45am!  My roomie, Suzanne, is another grad student who is working on her PhD.  She is a professor in the nursing school at PU Calumet.  We have had tons of fun so far.  We have pretty much the same sense of humor so that works out very well!!

The second day we finally got to go to the schools.  I spend most of my time at the Alison Bixby Stone School (ABSS) (http://www.zamorano.edu/abss/) but I will get to go to the other school Del Campo on Fridays.  ABSS has a strong social justice mission so I am going to be doing some research into what all they are doing via interviews and observations.  So far I have just observed but I hope to get interviewing soon. 

The schedule for the two of us grad students is a bit more flexible so this morning we got up and read by the pool!  Such a hard life huh?!  However, it was scorching hot at only 8am so we didn't last too long.  Then we had class/discussion of our reading for 2 hours.  Which went pretty fast since we were all sharing stories and the such.  Then we went to the school again today.  I got to observe a literature class in which they tied in social justice.  They actually did a lesson plan I have done before at the YMCA in our drug prevention curriculum so that was pretty interesting. However, both Suzanne and I found it odd that they tied it to Blacks in America and how they are still "suffering" when there is suffering her in Honduras that they easily could have tied the lesson to.  It was just intriguing.  

Well, it is almost time for dinner so I will try and post pics later tonight!