Sometimes Life is like a Batch of Brownies
Andddd I’m back! Hope you all are doing well as we reach the 1-year mark of life with COVID. I know that it continues to affect all of our lives in both big and small ways. For us at the Finca, life looks different than it did when I first arrived back in October. For example, quarantine for people coming back from traveling is only 10 days instead of 14 like it was for me and my class of missionaries. Also, since New Year’s, we get to go to mass in Trujillo instead of having communion service, which is what we had available to us for my first 3 months here. We also have more opportunities to go out into Mojaguay, the little village next to the Finca, with masks and protocols of course. Though things are definitely not back to “normal,” things are looking up for us, at least here at the Finca.
I know it’s been a LONG time since I last updated you all and I apologize for that. I underestimated how busy things were going to be once I started working with the kids in the school setting. It has been yet another big transition, but it’s been for the better. There’s obviously a lot that has happened in the past 2 months or so since I last updated you all, so I’m going to do my best to split it up nicely. Before I do so, however, I have story that I think sums up what the last 2 months at the Finca have been like. Enjoy! _______________________________________________________________________
Back in early February, we had a community meeting (as we do every other Tuesday) and dinner had been cooked on the fogón (outside stove). Because the fogón is usually lit for about 3-4 hours, depending on what is being cooked, there are usually lots of embers inside of it which is good for baking. After our community meeting, Megan asked Britney if she could bake some brownies inside of the fogón since we really wanted something sweet to end the night. Britney agreed and got to work with Megan on the mix and I started washing the dishes since I was on dinner that night. Soon, I saw Britney through our window and saw as she put the brownies inside the fogón.
When I finished the dishes, I went outside to chat with her while Megan stayed inside and finished tidying some stuff up. As I talked with Britney outside, she took the brownies out of the fogón and I saw all this liquid on top of the brownies which I was pretty sure was not supposed to be there. She agreed with me and said that it was not supposed to be there, so she went over to the dirt to throw out the excess liquid, which was just melted manteca (kind of like butter/oil). As she tipped the pan thing, the whole brownie fell on the dirt. Immediately, Britney yelled, “NOOOOOOO!!!! NONONONO!!” and I started hysterically laughing. Megan yelled from the window and simply said, “That does not sound good” to which I just started laughing even harder.
At this point, Britney was trying to salvage any good brownie pieces and I was sitting on the ground, trying to catch my breath. Megan came outside and ran over to us and said, “Did you drop it on the ground?” and she also started laughing. She sat on the floor with both Britney and me and we all looked at each other in agreement and started to eat the brownie that wasn’t touching the dirt. As we ate and laughed, Megan said, “I think this is my fault.” Britney and I were very confused and just stared at Megan. She looked at us and said, “I was a little generous with the manteca. I think I put like 8 spoonfuls in there.” We were laughing so hard but trying to keep quiet at the same time since all the other missionaries had gone to sleep already. Or at least we thought. We had been sitting on the ground eating the brownie for about 5 minutes when Georgi quietly came up behind us and said, “What are you guys doing?!” Again, we burst out laughing for we could only imagine what a sight we were to behold. Georgi immediately took out his phone and snapped a quick pic while Megan was eating a piece of brownie off a piece of charred wood. We laughed for so long at the whole situation, but honestly it is one of the funniest and best memories I have while being at the Finca.
In a nutshell, life has been full of unexpected events. Sometimes we really want certain things to go one way and they end up going another and so the only thing that we can do at that point is laugh and make the best of the situation. Even if it means doing something that you wouldn’t normally do. Jesus has certainly called me out of my comfort zone while here at the Finca, but I am so glad to be here and to have such an amazing community to rely on through it all. Deo Gratias!
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A NEW SCHOOL YEAR (FINALLY)
One of the things that has changed for us here at the Finca in the past month (and something I have mentioned in my past 2 blog posts) is the start of a new school year! As I’ve mentioned before, life at the Finca is unpredictable and so even though I thought I would be teaching 3rd grade English in December and teaching 5th & 6th grade math and 1st & 2nd science in January, things have changed once again. The school year was supposed to start on February 1st, however there were some issues in getting started in person, therefore we did not start school at the beginning of the month. Halfway through the month, we still didn’t have a good idea as to what the school year would look like. At that point, Megan talked with the missionary teachers—Georgi, Emma, Britney, and me—to tell us the new plan. She told us that we would start working with the Finca kids even if school hadn’t started for everyone else. We accepted the task and we started to work on mini lesson plans for our kids.
Each of us missionary teachers were assigned about 3 or 4 kids that we would work with for an hour every day starting at 8:30am. I started to plan for my kids, who were the 8th and 9th graders. It was a nerve-wracking experience because I did not know what material to work on with them. I didn’t know what to do in any subject other than math…and even with math I didn’t know what they were learning at the end of the last school year. I ended up making a little lesson plan for the kids focusing mainly on math. When the first day of school came around, everyone in our house was up earlier than usual and getting little things ready for the day and we could hear that the kids were up early as well. At around 8:20am, the other teacher missionaries and I went to pick up our first students of the day and walked to the school. Along the way, Kelsey and Marisa greeted the kids as we walked by the clinic as did the Franciscan sisters and other Finca people. The kids would never admit it, but they were excited too.
The first day of school was a lot of fun for me (and for the kids too) because I did some “Get to Know You” activities even though I know the kids from my day-to-day interactions. It was a way to get to know them more personally and so that I would learn about the ways in which they learn best. I wanted to know what I could do to best support the kids academically. We played a little game and then we worked on some basic math review.
I quickly came to realize that the kids were struggling a lot with math. Though I had been told before that the kids needed a lot of support in that area, I was not able to assess the situation until I was actually in the classroom. Things like simple addition were a challenge and answering timetables was a very slow process. It’s not that the kids did not know what I was talking about, it was that the foundation for math was not there. I did not feel discouraged in this situation, but I did feel frustrated with the school system. How was it that my 8th and 9th graders could not answer 7+3 right away? How was it that their timetables were not memorized? How was it that they were supposed to understand how to work with negative numbers when the basics were not there? Why were the teachers not slowing down or giving the kids extra help when they obviously needed it? There were many unanswered questions, yet I still wanted to do my best to get the kids to where they needed to be and develop a better foundation in math, especially since that is what I studied at UCSB.
Over the next couple of weeks, I worked on basic math material until the school year officially started. The teachers sent out packets for the most essential subject like Spanish, Social Studies, Science, and Math. This was a little stressful for me at first because I was now in charge of making sure my kids finished all of their packets and that they actually learned in the process. It was a challenge to adjust, but soon I had a steady schedule in place and I had time to still do my own thing on Fridays. Each week brings its new challenge, whether we as missionaries have to take a day long trip to immigration, go on a retreat, the kids don’t want to work, or the teachers integrate new subject packets into a week’s worth of work and make the packets twice as long as usual. Either way, I am slowly learning how my kids learn best and what is challenging for them. It has been so good for me to get to know them on a more one-on-one basis, even if it is in a school setting. I have also made sure that the kids know that I am available to help them more if they need me to, so I often walk by their houses and ask them how their homework is going and still around if they need help. And I have also been able to see a lot of progress in their math skills which has been very encouraging for me.
One of my students working on a school packet (above). Me working on some math review with one of my students back when we first started tutoring (below)
HOLY WEEK AND EASTER
Getting to experience Holy Week and Easter in Honduras this year was something very exciting for me. School shut down for the week and we teachers were able to have a bit more of a free schedule. Even though our schedule wasn’t as rigid, we still had a lot to do from more spiritual events to working on making school packets for the kids. Though we still had to work, it was obvious that we were trying to make the week what it was supposed to be, as in holy. The kids didn’t listen to music all week (which is saying a lot) and they were helping the Franciscan sisters with decorating the church and practicing the readings for the special services at the end of the week. We got to go to Trujillo for daily mass (which is not something we do) and we got to go for the Stations of the Cross.
Because we did not get to go to Trujillo on Thursday, Friday, or Saturday, we only had communion services at the Finca instead of going to mass. Still, it was very special. One thing that was very different from the States was the communion service on Holy Thursday. Of course, there is the washing of the feet that day, which is something they did at the Finca too, but they also set up a table with bread and grape juice in the middle of the church. I am going to be honest; I was sketched out by this and not really into it because Megan had told me that last year the people who got their feet washed also got to sit at the table and eat the bread and received Jesus in the Eucharist 20 minutes later. I did not want to be a part of the reenactment, but they asked us missionaries to be 8 of the 12 apostles so we could not refuse. Right before the service started, I was not looking forward to eating the bread in the middle of it, and then the light went out. All of a sudden, I saw the table lit by candles and I had a better idea of what it meant to be in the Upper Room. Everything made more sense from what the atmosphere might have felt like to getting our feet washed (because let me tell you, your feet get DIRTY in Honduras). We ended up not eating the bread and drinking the juice until after the service was over, which I was very thankful for, but I was also thankful that I was able to experience Holy Thursday in a way that I would not have in the States. The rest of the week was also beautiful in different ways.
FAMILY DAYS
In the past two months, I have felt a lot more comfortable within my community. I was never uncomfortable, but I think that I have gotten into a better rhythm of what life is like at the Finca and, of course, developing relationships with my fellow missionaries has been a big part of that. Each month, we have a Family Day where we, as missionaries, leave the Finca for a day or a retreat of sorts and spend time together as a community and recharge in the process. It is not only a much-needed break most of the time, but also a way to spend more intentional time together since we all live together, but sometimes it is hard to just hang out when we have different responsibilities and schedules.
In mid-February we went to Trujillo for our “child-like” themed Family Day. We had breakfast together and played a card game called Up the River, Down the Valley, which gets very intense when you are playing with 8 people. We shopped in Trujillo and we shared childhood stories with one another. We also went to a pizza place called Pizza Muelle and shared childhood pictures that we had family members send us. It was a very fun morning for all of us and it brought us closer as a community.
In mid-March, our Family Day was actually a 4-day retreat in a city called Salome, which is about an hour and a half away from the Finca. During this retreat, we were able to focus more on our spiritual life and had a lot of reflection and individual time. We reflected a lot on the calling of the first disciples and what it meant for them to drop their nets. I was able to reflect a lot on what I could still give to Jesus in my day-to-day life and how I could say yes to Jesus in small ways. Now that we are back at the Finca, I feel like I have been able to apply a lot of what I prayed about into my life. In my opinion, those are signs of a good retreat. Of course, Jesus would have used my time at the retreat for good one way or another, but I am very glad that He has allowed me to see the fruits of it this time around. Of course, there was also a time for fun and games with our community. On our first night, we had a Trivia Night and my team won, obviously :p. But honestly, Georgi and Emma were on my team and we only ended up winning by a half point! Either way, it was a good time. We had our Community Movie Night and Community Cooking as we would normally do at the Finca, however, it felt freeing to do those things when we didn’t have other responsibilities taking our attention away from those right in front of us. We got to chat with one another in pair-share activities which also allowed us to get to know each other on a deeper level. Our retreat ended on with mass and breakfast on Sunday. Though we were very grateful for our break, we were also happy to head back to the Finca and be with our kids again.
Britney and I during our February Family Day in Trujillo
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That’s a bit of what the last 2 months or so has consisted of and that’s all I can say for now. I wish I could share so much more than what I do, but we would be here all day if I did that. Also, so that y’all know, there is a new Farm of the Child website up! It is much improved and there is a lot more information about what life at the Finca consists of, so please check it out if you have some time. Click here to go straight to the site. I hope you all are well. Please know that I am praying for you all.
Until next time!
Alicia
