Earthquake Survival Guide

So this last Wednesday night/Thursday morning, ar 2:25am, an earthquake hit Honduras. It was off the coast of the island of Roatan on a fault line in the ocean. It woke us up in San Pedro Sula, approximately 175 miles away. A 7.3 magnitude quake that caused tsunami warnings on the island and damage to a few hotels in the city of San Pedro, and 6 casualties. I'm starting to think that I am a magnet of natural disasters (been in: two hurricanes, one typhoon, and one earthquake. Seen: three funnel clouds form). This is not a major faultline, but it did cause a quake back in the late 90's. It woke everybody up, since it was still about a 5.0 when it hit San Pedro. Our bed was shaking pretty bad! Jesse loved it, since he taught earthquakes this year, and it wasn't too bad of a shake. School was cancelled the next day, but we couldn't make the best use of our time since the pool was closed. I'll post some of the pictures of landslides and earthquake damage later.

Finca in the Mountains Part 2 (Please read Part 1 first!)

As stated in the previous post, we took an hour long journey up into the mountains yesterday to see the farm of a Honduran family. After the wonders of the farm our day went in an entirely different direction on the ride home. Arturo wanted to show us "where the rivers are born" and so we took a left at the end of the farm road instead of a right and headed further up the mountain. It started to rain along the way and Arturo asked if we still wanted to keep going as we were in the back of the truck, and feeling adventurous we said yes. By the time we got to this waterfall, the birthplace of one of the rivers, we were all soaked and a bit chilly.
We continued on to another waterfall just up the road where a second river was born. At this point Arturo asked if we would like to turn around and go back the same way or to a different way. Having already ridden in the back of a truck for 1.5 hours, we asked which way was shorter and when he said going back the same way that's what we chose. However, Arturo had other things in mind apparently and kept asking if we wanted to go the long way until he finally just made the decision himself and off we went. Now we assumed that the long way would be at most 2 hours or so but we were sadly mistaken. Although going up and down mountains on one lane dirt/rock/mud roads along cliffs several hundred feet above the valley floor in the back of a 1980-something pickup truck for 5 hours may sound fun to you, I assure you that it's not quite all you might dream it is. I can't complain too much because some of the views were breathtaking, but suffice it to say that all of us are a bit sore today and were slightly unhappy that it took so long. We stopped about 3 hours into the trip at this river. You might notice something that sort of resembles a road behind the truck to the right and ask yourself, "Well just where does that road go from there? I don't see a bridge over the river!" Those same questions went through our heads as we plunged into the river in the back of the truck, got stuck in the middle for a few harrowing seconds, but finally made it across the 3 foot deep, boulder strewn river floor and continued our journey home.
The kids did enjoy a good swim in the river before we forded it Oregon Trail style. Luckily none of our oxen died or we might not have made it back!
By the time we got back to San Pedro there were 11 people crammed into the back of the pickup truck as we had picked up some people looking for a ride into town and our bruising was complete. I even made up a song about the journey to the tune of This is the Song that Never Ends from the TV show Lamb Chop's Play-Along. Here are the lyrics (try not to let it get stuck in your head): This is the ride that doesn't end, It just goes on and on my friend, Arturo started driving and he took the long way, And he'll continue driving the rest of the day (and then repeat the whole thing just like Lamp Chop and friends did). All in all it was a great day, and though it was a bit rough at times and I'm being a little dramatic with my story, we really had a good time and would do it all again.

Finca in the Mountains Part 1

Yesterday Jenna and I along with 2 of our fellow teachers Katie and Kim went up into the mountains outside San Pedro with a bus driver from our school named Arturo and his wife Norma who is our maid. Arturo was born on the farm and was quite excited and proud to show it off to us eager gringos. We hopped into the back of Arturo's pickup truck and took the hour long journey up the mountain not quite sure what we were in for. Here's the farmhouse with the truck parked out in front.
From here Arturo took us around his family's land and showed us all the different plants that they cultivated. Most of the plants were entirely unknown to us including this one which I believe is called Lulo and apparently turns purple when ripe and tastes kind of like an orange.
The family's main crop is coffee and here you can see some coffee plants growing under a banana tree.
Arturo donated some of his land to build this school. It's a one room school house where kids who live in the surrounding mountains can come a few times a week for classes taught by the one and only teacher. You can tell a bit about this country's passion for soccer by the fact that even this tiny one room school house has a full sized soccer field in front of it!
Here is the inside of the school. Little Jonathan found a small educational electronic game and we helped him play it for a while. He was so proud of himself when he got questions right!
Right at the edge of the soccer field the mountain drops off quite rapidly as you can see and makes it quite possibly one of the best views from a soccer field in the country (when it's not cloudy). Understandably Arturo said it also makes for a few lost soccer balls!
If you've got to work the fields on a Saturday afternoon, this isn't a bad view to have while doing it! Later in the trip we saw that most of the veggies we buy at the supermarket in town are grown on incredibly steep hillsides just like this.
After the tour Norma made us some fresh and spectacular baleadas including hand making the tortillas.
Jonathan is Norma and Arturo's 2nd grade son and he really enjoys soccer. I'm fairly sure he can kick a ball harder than I can! After stuffing ourselves with baleadas we headed down to the soccer field to play and had a little Battle of the Sexes game. Here Jonathan and I are warming up before our glorious victory in the game
Our experience at the farm was great from the fantastic views and friendly family to the cool, fresh air. Just what we needed to refresh us for the last few weeks in Honduras!

Basketball Junkie

This is something that I have wanted to write about for awhile, just goes to show me how fast time can fly. This past year, Jesse participated in a basketball league with mostly locals. They had practice a few nights a week and games once or twice a week as well. I'm not exactly what you would call a basketball fan, but I went to a game to cheer him on.
Jesse is taking a free throw shot in the picture above. I enjoyed watching him play and it was interesting to see how, just because he is tall, he played almost the whole game! He quit playing a little while ago, however, maybe there will be a team he can play on in Paraguay.

Former Students

Today, there was a basketball game at school and it was my current students against my former students. I have randomly run into two of my former students earlier in the year, but today, I saw 6 of my former students. Even though they are the same age as my current students, it amazes me how much older they look compared to what I remember them being. They wanted to joke around, and they brought up some of the sillier moments of my first year teaching, and also reminded me of some of the mistakes that I made. Thankfully, students don't really realize those too much! I had a really good group of students last year, and they reminded me of the good times I had. They, of course, asked me which school I like better (since I switched from the tiny, sister campus to the main one), and told me that they missed my jokes. They have changed so much already, one commented on his lack of a girlfriend, then proceeded to ask me my age and phone number.

My former students have had a very challenging year. Last year, one of the students had cancer, and left halfway through the year to get treatment. This year, another student got kidnapped for 5 1/2 weeks, and then the principal of the school got shot. When I asked them how everything was going, they said it was good, and that everyone is okay. They all have a really good spirit around them and look towards the positive side.

As another year ends, I wonder how often my current students will look back and remember me. My students from last year, from talking to other teachers, talk about me often and generally with good will. I am looking forward to the move that Jesse and I will be taking in a few short months and returning to 5th grade, but I will remember my fifth grade class very fondly, and hope that someday, I'll have a class like them again. They were a really good group of students for a first year teacher to have.

The Canal

A trip to Panama would not be complete with visiting the Panama Canal. Its a quick 20 minute drive from the downtown area, and is really an amazing site. There is also a Canal Museum in Casco Viejo, which we also visited. I didn't know this, but the French were the first ones to start the construction of the canal. They were trying to build it just like the Suez Canal, which is basically just a large ditch. However, with the continental divide coming through Panama, that really wasn't an option. The French worked for 20 years trying to build the canal before they gave up. Then the Americans came in, at first doing the same thing as the French. However, Teddy Roosevelt hired a new engineer who developped the locks system.
The locks use gravity and water from Gatun Lake (which is fed from rivers in the mountains) to raise and lower boats 80 feet total to reach the necessary height to cross the higher elevation in the middle of the country.

As ships enter, the first lock is opened to allow the water level to become the same. Then the lock behind the ship is closed, and the lock in front of them is opened to allow the boat to be raised. Each ship going through the canal runs on their own power, trains along side the locks help the ships to stay straight. After going through the first two sets of locks, the boats must go through Gatun lake to reach the other locks on the other side.

It takes a boat about 8 hours to go through the canal. Each boat pays for its passage by its weight. When smaller sail boats go through, they sometimes put them with other smaller boats in the locks. The locks are 120 feet wide and 1,000 feet long. We didn't get to see a really really big boat go through, but the one above was still a decent size, at least for us.

It amazes me the number of people that died in order to create the canal. There are memorials to those who died by the Miraflores locks, and a special exhibit in the museum as well. Most of the people who perished, did so because of tropical illnesses and poor medical treatment. The canal has helped the country of Panama became a wealthier and more developped country than its central American neighbors, and the Panama government took complete control over in the canal from the U.S. in 2000. The Panama government also has started an expansion project for the canal to help the canal accomodate world shipping needs.

The Kuna Yale

For part of our Panama vacation, Jesse and I went to the San Blas Islands, on the Caribbean side of Panama. The islands are an autonomous region of the Kuna people, so they refer to the islands as the Kuna Yale. There are over 400 islands in the chain, all controlled by the Kuna. Nobody other than Kuna are allowed to own land on the Yale, so all the hotels are Kuna run, in Kuna villages. Jesse and I stayed for three days on the islands.
Each day, the hotel would take us to a different island in the chain. Most of the people live on less than 30 islands in the chain, so most of the islands (the ones we did the day trips to) are deserted, white sand beach islands. We traveled to these islands by way of a dug out 12 foot (approximately) canoe. Now, I tend to be prone to a little seasickness sometimes, and traveling on windy seas in a canoe did not help. I got seasick almost everyday. However, the beautiful scenery and the completely empty beaches did help me get over it quickly.

The Kuna women still dress traditionally and create molas. Molas are part of their traditional dress that get wrapped around the women's stomach. They are created with several layers of fabric sewn together to create beautiful patterns. Each island that we went to had several molas on display for purchase. We also found molas all around Panama City, since they have recently become the tourist purchase of the country.

We enjoyed our journey to the islands, but we do tend to get a little bit restless, and I was sick of being sick, so by the time our stay was ending, we were ready to head back.

Panama Viejo

One of the most interesting parts of Panama City for me, was Panama Viejo. Panama Viejo is the original site of the city, built in the late 1500's/early 1600's. In 1671, Henry Morgan sacked the city, by coming up the Chagris River. Below is the Church tower, which was the most intact of the ruins.
Jesse wanted to be all arty, so he tried to do an artistic shot of the church tower.

Panama was originally used as a trading spot. Gold and silver came up the Pacific Ocean from Peru, went to Panama city, crossed the isthmus, and then was sent to Europe. The city was very wealthy, and for that reason, Henry Morgan sacked it.

The ruins are surrounded by the modern aspect of the city; skyscrapers and highways. It added an interesting dynamic to the ruins.

The ruins also contained a convent, a huge water well (that could hold somewhere like 100,000 gallons of water), and houses. The Panamanians moved their city to Casco Viejo after Henry Morgan's attack to use nature for protection. Henry Morgan burned the city to the ground, and only the ruins were left. Then he returned to England and was made a knight. The British royalty didn't realize that he completely sacked a city. He then was given a post on Jamaica, where he died.

Casco Viejo

The start of our journey to Panama began actually in San Pedro Sula's airport. A flight delay. Our plane wasn't going to be arriving at the airport in time to take us to San Jose, Costa Rica to catch our connecting flight, so we were granted the wonderful opportunity to hang out in the airport for 6 more hours. We actually headed back into town, had a leisurely lunch, shopped, and then headed back out to the airport to catch our new flight, which was headed to San Salvador, El Salvador instead. I was a little bummed, since the San Jose airport has Papa John's pizza, but I would just have to deal with it. Once we landed in Panama City, we caught a cab and headed to our hotel.

Our hotel is a new hostel in the Casco Viejo region of the city. "Casco Viejo" means old quarter, and this was where the city was rebuilt after Henry Morgan sacked the old city in 1671. The area has seen some better years, with buildings becoming run down and such. However, it was granted a UNESCO World Heritage Site recognition a few years back, and now renovations have been going on to put the area back into its traditional glory. The area is surrounded on two sides by water, and comes to a point into the Pacific Ocean. After the original city was sacked, the townspeople decided to start using the natural protective barriers around them. The quarter is home to the gold altar,a church altar made completely of gold, which, story goes, a priest covered it in coal dust to turn it black, and told Henry Morgan that the original altar had already been pillaged.

Below is the Catedral of Panama. It is a beautiful old church, complete with a the Plaza de la Independencia outside of it.

The quarter also is home to the Plaza de la Francia, or the French Plaza, which tells the story of the France's role in buiding the canal. It shows some of the original wall that was around the city and the Puente de las Americas, or the Bridge of the Americas, which links the two continents. Casco Viejo is also the home to the Presidents Palace, which I think it really cool. The president lives in the historical part of the city instead of the flashy, modernized downtown.

The French Plaza

The President's Palace

Casco Viejo with the new, modernized downtown in the background.

Panama City, in itself, is incredibly rich in history and is moving towards the future. I enjoyed staying in the old quarter, where I felt the traditional feel of the city is still alive, in its cobblestone streets, and tall, stone buildings.

Semana Santa

For those of you uninformed of the ways of the Latin American world, they celebrate the week before Easter as Semana Santa, or Holy Week. Schools are off, many businesses are closed, and generally the entire region takes a vacation. Our school, following the culture, gives us this week off. Basically, its a spring break that follows Easter around. This year, following a killer deal on plane tickets, Jesse and I headed the furthest south either of us have gone: to Panama. Now, Jesse can claim that he's been to all the continental countries in North America, and I can claim to have been to every continental country starting at the U.S. and heading south. (In case you couldn't follow that, I haven't been to Canada.) The following posts will be telling the different aspects of the trip.