It´s the small things in life

So I found out that I did save some of this post at some point before the power went out, so here it is.

It is hard to deal with all the frustrations sometimes without falling into the trap of becoming apathetic and cynical. One of the small events that helped me out was hearing the excitement in my fellow volunteer´s voice when I called to say my dad was sending my old trumpets (2) to his US address so he could bring them to Honduras when he visits for vacation. I had not used them since around 5th grade so I figured they could serve a better purpose than sit in storage when the volunteer told me he was giving trumpet lessons to a youth group he is working with. Such a small thing but it helps me feel like I´ve accomplished something worthwhile.



The letter exchange between the school in Pennsylvania and the school in my community has fallen behind as well, in part due to the fact that there was a transfer of profesoras. I am having trouble getting across the point that it is kind of urgent that I get response letters (which I will now have to type and email) so that I can get them sent before the school year ends in the US. I did stop by the school the other day to take some pictures so I could at least send those. I thought I could just duck in at the end of the day and snap some quick photos of the classrooms and students but I should have known better. The students went a little crazy. Everyone wanted their picture taken "yo solo" (only me) or in front of this object, or with this group of friends, etc. I decided to indulge since I had space on my camera but it was annoying dealing with all the grabbing at my camera to see the viewscreen after each picture. My frustration with the delay is tempered with respect for the profesora who is teaching despite the strike (the government is witholding pay for some teachers and there is some discrepancy with pensions for others as I understand) and told me that she is willing to accept the castigo (punishment) because the only ones that the strike hurts is the children. From what I have seen this is a somewhat rare viewpoint for honduran teachers.