1,2,3,4,5...does it pay to be a math teacher?

There is never a dull moment in Guate. Standing at the whiteboard all of a sudden the ringing of kids screaming, "get down, get down, get down," and rushing to the door while you feel yourself swaying back and forth with the building. Just when you think it should be over you still feel yourself swaying and think, "is the earthquake still going or is it because I am on the 3rd floor." Finally it stops and you get a little feeling of relief...the building didn't landslide off into the hole right outside of my classroom.

This was only the beginning of a long, or as the students might say a short, afternoon. My 4th period prep had just started when I saw students running by, then Teresa says, "we are all supposed to head down to the soccer court." Yep that is right another earthquake hit, this time it had a magnitude of 5.8. We sat outside as many of the teachers and students pulled out their blackberry's checking the news about the quakes. It was then that we found out that the epicenter of the quake was only about 45 mins away from us in Santa Rosa, Guatemala.

The chaos of the kids was finally calmed and students started heading back to their classrooms. I again started in on my preparations for the next class period when bam 10 minutes later there it was the 3rd earthquake. It wasn't quite as big nor did it last as long, but it was quite surprising to feel 3 quakes in one day even to the Guatemalans. This time when we had gone outside it was raining =(...standing in the rain waiting and waiting to see if it had finally stopped.

We all headed back up to the classrooms and before 4th period was over we felt the fourth quake. As little as this quake was it was still shocking enough that the owners of the school decided to send students home early.   I am not sure I have experienced a school cancelation due to anything other than snow or power loss. After all the students had left we teachers had a meeting with the principal to come up with some type of evacuation plan, it was then that we felt the 5th and hopefully final earthquake for the day. Speaking with some of the local Guatemalans, they said they haven't ever felt 5 earthquakes in one day.

Having lived in the Northwest most of my life I have little experiences with earthquakes and feel a bit frightened when they hit, especially that many in one day...yikes! Your prayers for our safety would be much appreciated, as well as calm nerves =). Thanks!

Heather

P.S. An update on our adventures for the past 4 day weekend is soon to come....

Belly dancing is definitely not for me...

Oh so much to say, where do I start?! The last couple weeks have been so busy at school, but through it all God has been revealing himself and teaching me a lot. It is amazing how cultural differences can completely transform your style of teaching. As many of you know Han Al school is 70% Korean students, but the majority of those students have lived most of their lives here in Guatemala, so in reality the school is 90% guatemalan students. One thing I have learned about Guatemalans is they love to talk...even if it is to themselves. There are both good things and bad things about that. The good is that the students personalities aren't hidden and they aren't afraid to share their thoughts and opinions. The bad is you have to fight harder to keep discipline and order in the classroom. Anyway we have had many obstacles to climb and get around so far, but none the less have found some joy and excitement in the relationships that we have built with our students.

Outside of school we have had the opportunity to see a few of our colleagues perform in various ways. The week before school had started we spent many hours lesson planning with our friend Luisa and found out that she did belly dancing. It was exciting for us to hear that she would be performing in a show the weekend before school had started and we were invited to go watch. It was such a blast to sit in the crowd with the locals and watch our friend. The show consisted of many belly dancing groups from around the city performing with snipits of a play in between performances. The great thing about communication is even though we didn't understand a lot of the language we could still gather that the play was about a prince who found this girl who he liked and was attempting to use a love potion to seduce her. Well it was really entertaining to see that the crowd got into it by yelling "no no don't drink it" while the prince's servant was grabbing to drink out of the container that had the potion in it. =) it was entertaining. After the show we found Luisa and she was sooo excited that we had come to watch her and convinced us to come try belly dancing with her. So I can now officially say that I have tried belly dancing and it is much harder than I thought it would be, but kinda fun =).

Then last night we got the opportunity to watch another colleague perform with his band at a cafe/bar/restaurant. His name is Manlio and he is the ELL/Psychology/Music appreciation teacher at Han Al. He played music ranging from Bruce Springstein to spanish songs that I have never heard before. Again the crowd was really into the show, they were waving the candles back and forth, dancing and singing along at the top of their lungs =)! I felt like that band's groupies because Teresa, Christy, Jenny and I got a table right up front and got a shout out from Manlio half way through his show. Below is a picture of Manlio with his electric guitar.

Tomorrow is elections so I am excited to see what the city will look like tomorrow, the Guatemalans have been talking about the elections for weeks now and I guess most of the businesses if not all are closed for a good portion of the day so that they can go vote.

Well I best get going before this post gets to be too long. We have a lot of fun activities at school this week and may try and get out of the city to lake Atitlan this coming weekend so I am sure that I will have lots to post about within the next week. As for now take care!

Heather