As usual, it’s been a week since my last post. Update time.

So we did not have school this past Monday. Honduras was pounded with rain and the government closed all schools across the country because of flooding. That was a nice surprise. I found that out right before I went to bed on Sunday night. I ended up going to town on Monday and hung out at Guancascos and got my haircut too. It was a nice and relaxing day. I also had the opportunity to work on my TEFL class all day which I FINISHED! I just need to post two comments and I will be done.

School was usual Tuesday through Thursday. Things are wrapping up so it’s been pretty low key. I am giving my last set of tests to my history classes on either Monday or Tuesday (depending on grade) and final grades are due Wednesday with Friday being a half day and the end. It’s hard to believe I’ve been down here for almost 5 months. I feel like I just landed in San Pedro and Mr. Rodrigo and Mr. Bran were standing in the terminal with “Tad VandenBrink” written on a piece of paper. But here I am, 5 months later with a little more teaching experience and memories to last a lifetime.

So on Friday my kids decided to throw me and the other teacher (Mrs. Lopez) a birthday party. My birthday is today and Mrs. Lopez’s was on the first. My students blew me away. They not only decorated the classroom and wouldn’t let me or Mrs. Lopez in to see it until the party, but they brought food (pizza, chips and cake) and even brought in a piñata. It was incredible. Check out my new Picasa album for pictures from the party.

After the party on Friday Rachel, Laura Beth and I left school early to take a bus to La Union. We were going to visit the other school there and I was also going to hang out with my friends who are doing the microfinance company. We took the 12:30 bus to La Union and it was a bumpy and curvy ride through the mountains. It was some beautiful scenery though. We arrived in La Union a little before 4 and ran into Renske and Laura (the European teachers whom I have talked about before) walking home from school. We ended up hanging out with them for a bit and eventually connected with Jake (another teacher and guy who taken on a leadership role in my school and who actually hired me back in December) and my friends. We had dinner at a family that everyone in La Union has gotten to know pretty well. They own a small convenient store in town where most of my friends do their shopping. They grilled us pork and steak for and it was delicious and it was a lot of fun.

I really was looking forward to seeing my friends in action with their microfinance company. I had my opportunity early on Saturday morning. I got up at 7 with Pat and Mike and walked about 30 minutes outside of town to the La Union coffee growers cooperative. Here there is a giant warehouse where Mike and Pat were storing recently purchased fertilizer. The day before they had started to hand it out as loans to approved farmers (farmers had to go through an approval process which the guys have set up. Basically the cooperative is made up of farmers from about 15-20 towns around La Union. They guys have organized a local elected boards of directors for each town who look at the applications of each farmer and help Mike and Pat decide if the particular farmer is responsible enough to take the loan, use it well, and pay it back) who had requested “x” amount (usually only a bag or two of fertilizer). They continued this process on Saturday morning and I got to watch them interact with about a half-dozen farmers. I have talked some about what they are doing, but to actually go to La Union and see them do what they do was awesome. The guys are now starting to look into the possibility of buying some land and building a “model” farm that they could use as an example for the area farmers and also a place to hold meetings. They would also use it as an investment to grow and sell the coffee.

After some time things began to slow down so we decided to walk back into town to get lunch. We stopped at a comedor (restaurant) and had a nice tipico (beef, rice, beans and tortillas). After lunch I decided that I wanted to head back to town to try and connect with the girls. They had done some hiking while I went down with Mike and Pat and had plans to go to a pool. However that ended up not happening and I ended up playing volleyball with Jake, a couple of his students, and a couple of the local guys. We won 3 straight games, even though my volleyball skills are far from impressive. It was a lot of fun though. After volleyball all of us (including three current U of M students who are interning for my buddies this summer) went out to dinner. One of the intern’s birthdays was this past week as well so it was a birthday dinner for the two of us. After dinner we ended up going back to Renske and Laura’s place where they had made a birthday cake for me. It was delicious. Overall it was a pretty awesome night of hanging out. The only downfall was that my buddy Mike had gotten a nasty stomach bug during the afternoon and had actually come home throwing up and ended up not coming out to dinner or to the girls for cake with us.

We left La Union this morning, on the only bus to Gracias on Sunday, at 5 AM. We arrived in Gracias at 8 and grabbed some breakfast at Guancascos before heading up the mountain. I took about a two-hour nap when I got home and have just been hanging out since. A pretty relaxing birthday, and a birthday weekend I’ll never forget.

Anyway, the last week of school has arrived. I am actually going to be taking a vacation into Guatemala and out to Roatan after school, so I will be sure to write at least one more time before that starts Friday afternoon. But that may be my last post in Honduras—I could be writing my final posts talking about my vacation state side. June 25 is rapidly approaching but I still have some incredible adventures ahead of me.

I hope all is well in the State. Take care!