Cofradia the School

  Cofradia, Honduras
Friday, January 12, 2007

So... school....

Up every morning at 6am.... schooling commences at 7.15am. The school is 2kms from the house and the mode of transport there is either feet or clinging onto the back of a pickup truck (cool!). There are 300 kids in the school, actually you can read the schools website here. They all have to pay a fee, which is about €24 a month, to be able to go to the school, some parents are able to afford the money but foreigners sponsor most of them. For the fee the children get a uniform, get fed twice daily and get some pencils and copies. There is no such thing as a textbook for each child, and no such thing as a curriculum... tis teach them what you can.

02 Ms.Sarah makes her 'debut' performance!

On our first day we were just thrown into a class of 27 nine year olds and told... "Teach". The logic is that if all the volunteers constantly speak English then the kids are bound to remember some of it... in other words: fling enough shit at the wall and some HAS to stick. All the volunteers have their own class, be it 1st class right through to 6th class. For the first week we were just helping out in classes wherever we were needed and we found it really tough. Sarah was christened the schools Music teacher and had classes with 10yr olds on Day 1. The 9yr old class was a struggle 'cause they're all a bit wild. We were teaching them everything from 'Body Parts' to 'Space' to 'Pompeii' to English and Mathematics. Mike had particular fun in telling the kids that his mother has four eyes, two on the back of her head, and that she can see all around her... they actually believed me and were gob smacked!!!

You are constantly thinking on your feet, because you have to try and keep the kids attention for the entire class. The discipline here is a joke, the Honduran teachers leave the children run riot and then it's up to you to calm them down and teach them something in English. In the middle of our second week, Sarah got her own class... preparatory school... she is now a real Kindergarten Cop!!! The little critters can barely speak Spanish not to mind attempt English... tis fun listening to her singing the ABC song with the kids... and she's slowly getting them to write some letters (e.g. the letter D!!!)

11 "The Von Trap family have a day out"

At the end of the first week, Mike went into the city with the boss mans wife and bought 12 computers for the school... at a cost of US$70 each! The goal...set up a computer lab complete with Internet access for the school!

The children at the school are absolutely adorable and they are all full of love. When you walk in the school gate in the morning you are usually accosted by kids running up to you and hugging you... Good Morning Miss Sarah... Good Morning Mister Mike!!!! The boys in the school have christened Mike Walter Martines who is a famous Honduran soccer player that has a goatee... hence the nickname, but some of the smarter little shits like to call him Meeester Bin Laden!!!

The politics of the teachers in the school is frightening... it boils down to the fact that most of the Honduran teachers don't give a rat's ass! There was a big incident last week when one of the volunteer teachers, aged 73, and the schools karate teacher (yes, they teach karate to kids in primary school) who's aged 61 had a big shouting match in front of the kids and the whole thing nearly came to blows...the karate teacher is now leaving the school.

18 Meeester.Mike is the school favourite!

One of the other volunteers here has a rather novel way of teaching... he basically shouts at the kids if they give him any grief at all. Last week, one of the guys in his class was being cheeky and answered to the name of Michelle... so Frank, the volunteer, went on a 10 minute rant about whether or not the young boy wanted a sex change and that he'll be able to arrange it if the child's parents could afford it... the poor young fellow wasn't long shutting up!!!! Another funny little tale was when one of the kids in Eric's class put up his hand and asked, "May I hump your mother?"

There are other funny moments here alright.. but on the whole this is really, really, really tough stuff. Hopefully we'll have more stories coming up.

Also, the school here obviously needs donations of some kind. If anybody is interested in giving money to the school, drop us an email and we'll let ye know the story.