Teaching Excel!

Well I never thought I would see the day that I was an authority on computing, but that is exactly what happened last Friday when I taught a class of about 30 eleven year olds Excel!! I ran the whole class in (very) disjointed Spanish, no English at all! But it went down a treat and they all came up to thank me afterwards! What a great experience, I cannot wait for this Friday for my next class.

Don't have any photos, boo! Thought of taking a shot of my next lesson plan, but that's desperately boring. So here is a picture of view from our flat:

Selina's team live in orange roofed building on right, so not far away. This part of Honduras is very mountainous, great for the climate and coffee growing.

Oh what the heck, here is Next Friday's plan. It's basic excel! The crazy boringness of this will make Selina chuckle....

Day trip to Las Orquideas

Today my team, Pete and I went to a waterfall at Las Orquideas about a 20 minute drive away from Marcala. It was Pete's first day off since he arrived!

Lawrence and Pete!

We hiked from the top of the waterfall to the bottom and swam in the cold water and had a picnic. The rain held off all day, and we all had a really nice time. Back on the farm tomorrow!!

Marcala

We have been in Marcala in Honduras for nearly 2 weeks now. Its a small town about 2 hours drive from the capital Tegucigalpa. We stopped at a children's home on the way which was really eye opening, everything was so basic, but the children were all so happy. Pete was carrying one girl round on his shoulders and playing skipping with the other children which they thought was hilarious!

In Marcala, we have cleared a cabbage and broccoli farm and taught British games to primary school children. Pete is now working on collecting and analysing data from around the region, they keep feeding him, so generally his perfect job! I'm spending a lot of my week working hard farming the land in the heat! One of us seems to have come out of this better than the other!

Pete and the team on our way to clear cabbages!

Pete's office:

It feels safe where we are living, and we have an apartment which is very secure. They let a big dog out at 9pm, so we have to make sure we are home early every night! But Honduras is not a very safe country. Murder and gangs are rife and most of the country is armed, we have seen soooo many guns. We are not allowed out alone and are not supposed to be out after dark - about 6.30pm!

The biggest news in the press last weekend was that it was the first day in 10 years that a new murder had not been discovered.

Bienvenido a Honduras

We're both in Honduras now!

Selina has spent the last week training with her team in Honduras. She is leading a team of people from the UK, alongside local workers, on a variety of projects in a town near the capital Tegucigalpa. 

I took the opportunity to have a four day stopover in Chicago on the way over. Andy and Julie were great hosts showing me the sights, sounds and tastes of America. 

We did a river tour of the city's architecture, including a lot of skyscrapers, my favourites being [Donald] Trump Tower and the gothic style Tribune Tower, the base of which has stones embedded from around the world including Houses of Parliament, Taj Mahal, Pyramid of Giza, Notre Dame, Angkor Wat and the Great Wall of China. Ex-England manager, Fabio Capello was stood next to me enjoying the stones!

We also listened to some blues in a Smoke house serving great ribs with root beer and we took in a game of baseball, a long standing ambition of mine! I also found out I have a hidden talent for Cornhole, a game involving throwing bean bags into a hole! What a view across the baseball with the city in the background:

Arriving into Honduras is quite a change. I can't recall being somewhere with so many guns visible. I've seen plenty of armed guards around the world, but not outside bakeries and restaurants. The red roof of my B&B:

People are very polite and friendly, but I am looking forward to linking up with Selina tomorrow and heading to our apartment in Marcala. Then we both get to start the serious business of working on projects with locals. I have been lined up for teaching some English classes which perfectly match my skills, since my Spanish is still about as rusty as the roof of my B&B! Ablo solo un poco Ingles!