Feliz Dia de las Mujeres

Today in Honduras is a day dedicated to the female population. Such a beautiful day to celebrate with a wonderful surprise of cake presented by the men of our capacity program area. This week has been busy, hence lack of my blogging. (Sorry readers). Yet it has been really productive! I met a woman who works in the English dept of Bayan's SAT program; her name is June and she is from Savannah Georgia. June and the capacity program coordinator, Ruhollah, took me out to a colony named Peru where a majority of the SAT tutors are trained to teach to their students. Last Thursday and Friday was dedicated to English and this Mon-Wed had a focus with Math (Algebra). Fortunately my love for math was to my advantage because Ruhollah "trained" me so I was capable of leading the class myself, which is what I did today. I was terrified standing in front of these 20 tutors who would question my answers and take my teaching tricks to their students who will eventually apply for college and if they didn't pass their entrance exams it would be my fault!!! Well, I don't think I have to worry about that, these students had a good enough grasp of algebra that I didn't feel like I was confusing them or making things difficult. I found teaching to be a lot of fun!
During the lunch period, the program coordinators, Ruhollah and another man named Melvin recruited all the women into the classroom to announce that a horrible incident had occurred in the girls dormitories. I was confused why I had to attend the meeting but I figured if there was going to be drama I wanted to have some stories to bring back to my friend Andrew Jopson. Melvin was explaining that "this kind of behavior" was unacceptable for SAT tutors, and at that moment the men walked in yelling "FELICIDADES" and carrying a giant cake with 3 liters of soda. Such a sweet surprise! As we enjoyed the cake, the 9 men in the classroom each gave a small speech of how important women are in the world and why they need to have an appreciation day for us. They even dressed up for the event!

I found a position to serve with Red Cross which is something I am really excited about. There are two programs that I will be involved in and they both are related to the youth in the more run-down parts of La Ceiba. The way the coordinators described the work made it seem very similar to my junior youth group. We would present ourselves as a mixture of a friend and a mentor but working in terms of preventative medicine. We would teach about STDs, AIDs, nutrition, and encourage exercise by playing a game of volleyball or soccer. I start Monday! The second group is working directly with people (youth in particular) with AID prevention and management. There is lots I need to learn and understand but I think it will be a joyful experience because I am a strong believer that we adults can make a huge impact in the life of a child especially a junior youth.
I found a gym which has dance classes every night, Monday thru Friday! Today was Salsa and Samba! Watch out Marion n Lucho! Our dance-off is coming soon. Next week we will learn La Punta, which is a traditional dance here on the Ceiba Coast of Honduras. I also meet two girls my age that are excited that I will be joining their dance class, yay friends! I can't wait to teach them CrossFit because doing CrossFit on my own is never any fun.

Anyways, tomorrow I have to be up early to start one of the Ruhi book series, book 3 (I know Marion you must be thinking "FINALLY"). But I hope everyone is enjoying life and thank you so much for your support. It means a lot to know that my friends do miss me as much as I miss everyone there. PEACE!