Retreat! Retreat!

Every year, each grade at IST gets maybe two or three "retreats." This is a time (either one day or an overnight schindig) when the students travel outside the city to hang out, play games, and hear a spiritual message.

Most of the time, we go to a camp called Converge. This is located outside of Tegus in the mountains. A baptist organization in the States owns and runs this camp, renting it out to groups who will use it to inspire kids and change lives. Last year, I helped lead a camp for blind children there. I never posted pictures, so here is a recap.

We first spent some time becoming blind ourselves. Elena is leading a blindfolded Laura around the camp. 



We hosted our own Olympic Games! This kid thought he was the MAN.

Our team won! Los grios gringos! (The white grasshoppers!)

On a side note, I forgot how thick the rain can get in Tegus. This is a pic from my apartment window last year. Yowza!

Anywhoo, back to Converge I went this past Tuesday, but with my new 9th-graders. Along the way, we marveled at Honduras' beautiful landscape.

Once we arrived,  the first thing to happen was the games. 

Water-balloon volleyball!

A bunch of my students just being cool:

Next, was the balloon relay. The student in the back of the line had to blow up a balloon, crawl under everyone's legs, and run to the designated area to sit on the balloon and pop it. 

Running with the balloon. 

I took a bunch of pictures of my students sitting on balloons, but to be honest, they looked too weird to post. One can't exactly tell what they are doing and I didn't want people guessing.

During the last game, each student from the two teams held a piece of paper with a number on it. Mr. G called out a long number (1, 543, 298, for example) and each team had to attempt to form the number as fast as possible.

We did have some free time to just chill. 

There are too many zany things happening in this picture (including Mr. Winkler counting (?) in the background).

Some of my lovely students.

A random, theatrical moment happened here. It can't be explained or quantified.

Had to make a little collage of these two. 

Adorable!

Hiding out.

The grounds.

The camp involuntarily hosts puppies from time to time when one of the strays gives birth. This puppy is absolutely precious and fiercely hungry.

His brother, too. We gave all of our leftovers to these little guys, but we had to lower the plates as close as we could to the ground and then we just dropped the plates. Otherwise, we might have lost some hands.

I love this picture: one of my students and the aforementioned hungry, hungry puppy.

This is the mama, I presume. She hung around her pups the whole time we were there, just staring at us like this. To me, she didn't seem angry, but desperate. As dramatic as it sounds, she seemed to say, "You can play with my babies all you want, just feed them too."

On the way home, I attempted to take pictures of the humongous wind turbines on the mountains. They seem to appear out of nowhere and they stand incredibly stark against the clear blue skies (and those happen quite a lot in Honduras). 

More of the countryside. 

Beautiful Honduras. 

Admittedly, this past week was a long one. That "new school year honeymoon" is over and we're realizing (and remembering, no doubt) how much work this sort of thing actually requires. 

This week, I'm anticipating another long, but enjoyable, couple of days. Tomorrow night, the Teacher Book Club is reuniting once more to eat delicious tacos and discuss the first half of 30 Pieces of Silver. Tuesday night, marks the North American community's first trivia night hosted by myself and Matt Winkler (the photo-bomber of Fiesta Catracha). We've come up with some quirky/crazy/hilarious questions this year and Estee and her team have been quizzing each other on random, useless facts for days. On Wednesday, my student book club, The Fellowship of the Book, meets to discuss the first couple chapters of Scott Westerfield's sci-fi dystopian thriller, Uglies. Then, this weekend, the North American community is heading to Lago de Yojoa (Remember in the last post when I mentioned the lake of Honduras? This is it. The one and only.) Apparently, while there, one can zipline (I made that a verb, see?), rent a horse, stay at a brewery, hike, stand under a waterfall, etc. Sounds like Honduras-fun and I'm game!

Despite all these amazing happenings, I must confess I'm somewhat sad to see all the fabulous art prize pictures, especially since Grand Rapids went all Tangled with the lanterns this year (I hope those were biodegradable, by the way). Plus, this is the first year that I will miss the entirety of autumn. The pumpkins, the sweaters, the boots, the apples, the pies, the sweet potato dishes, the Starbucks seasonal lattes, etc. I found this recipe for apple cider floats and nearly wept. This morning, I got all worked up about a great recipe for butternut squash soup until I remembered that I'm in a tropical country and cannot find such things. In fact, the translation for squash is calabaza: pumpkin. Not the same thing! Not at all! 

So, on my behalf, please enjoy all the wonderful things mentioned above, especially the apple cider floats. I will be posting again before you know it!