the blessings of power outages

by Alanna

 

Life has been quite busy for us here in Catacamas. We started school last Wednesday, and received our teaching schedules that same day. It’s been hectic, catching the bus at 6:30 a.m. and getting home between 3 and 5 in the afternoon. After that we cook dinner, eat, wash dishes, and plan until generally around 10 p.m. Teaching has been quite a struggle. Someday I’ll muster up the courage to blog about my failings with children and the cacophony of 20 Spanish speaking 1^st-graders in one room. Tonight I want to write about the 12^th graders, our lack of electricity, and Texaco.

Today was a hard day for me. It was our first full day of actual teaching, and I had the first grade room all to myself from 10 a.m.-2:40 p.m. (Before that I do devotions with them for half an hour, and then teach 4^th grade language). The boys were wild; I felt like giving up; I had duties during recess and lunch which meant no time to simply breathe. 1^st grade is harder than it sounded, and patience is something I severely lack.

During lunch time I was keeping an eye on the kids near the soccer fields, and three high school girls joined me. We talked a little about their plans, and mine. They told me nice things that Mr. Hailu told his class about me, and I rolled my eyes and laughed. “No really- he is in love with you Miss”, they said. It was a little breath in my day, a small reminder to be thankful, when all I wanted to do was lay down and quit.

The bus left without us this afternoon because we had teacher devotions. As usual we were the last teachers to leave, catching a ride home with the director around 4:30. I felt so tired and hungry. Unfortunately we had hardly any food at our apartment, and no Lempiras. The bank had closed at 4 p.m. When I flipped the light switch at home, nothing happened. It gets quite dark here by 6:30 p.m., and so lesson planning would be a problem with no electricity. Our electric burners would of course not work to cook dinner. We laughed, Yonas hung up flash lights, and I got out the bread and jelly and cereal (we are out of peanut butter). My husband reminded me to be thankful for cereal. Then he suggested we go out to eat, something we haven’t yet done here in Catacamas. We walked together in the rain to Texaco, and had our first Honduran date there. We ate a whole pizza, drank coke from a glass bottle, sat across from each other and talked. It was a beautiful calm from the chaos. I think we both praised God for the lack of electricity. By the time we walked home, the lights were back on.

In this crazy schedule of our lives right now, it was so good to have a Texaco date night. I’m so exhausted and I still don’t really want to be a teacher in the morning, but tonight I’m thankful because we live here. I’m thankful for reminders from 12^th graders, for hugs from my first graders and the way they yell “Mrs. Hailu!” when they see me walking. I’m thankful for Texaco and their Visa card reader. I thank God for the ability to buy a pizza if we want to. I thank Him tonight that we didn't have electricity for a time. Such darkness brought unexpected blessings.