A "needed" break

Despite the continuing violence here in Honduras and the threat of attacks on Syria, this blog is personal and “chatty.”

Saturday I decided to visit three of the sites for Maestro en Casa classes. Maestro en Casa is a distance learning program that helps students study high school and junior high by listening to the radio, doing work in their homes, and coming to a few hours of classes on the weekends.

In the parish of Dulce Nombre there are seven centers, with several hundred students. St. Thomas Aquinas church in Ames, Dulce Nombre’s sister parish, is providing partial scholarships for 105 students this year.

I visited the most remote centers – in El Zapote de Santa Rosa, Quebraditas, y Bañaderos, just to see what is happening, to take a few photos, and to talk to the directors about future scholarships. It was great to see the students. Although the level of teaching may not be the best, they are at the very least getting a chance to go to middle school and high school, which is otherwise difficult and expensive. In the whole parish of Dulce Nombre there is only one high school and only four middle schools.

I spoke to the students in several classes, mostly trying to motivate them to continue their studies.

Here are a few photos:

Ninth grade English class in El Zapote

Seventh Grade English Class in Quebraditas

Seventh grade Spanish class in Bañaderos

The furthest village, Bañaderos, is only about 10 minutes from the highway to Copán Ruinas.

So I had decided to take a break and go to the town of Copán Ruinas. I contacted two Canadian volunteers whose blogs I read and scheduled a time to meet together for dinner.

All went well. I got to Copán Ruinas early in the afternoon and went to a new archeological site – Rastrofán – just outside of town. It’s in a beautiful site, and there is one fantastic sculpture.

Yet except for that sculpture and a few semi-intact buildings, it’s just piles of stones. (Sorry to insult any of my archeology or anthropology friends.

A pile of stones

I had a great talk at dinner. I got to Mass in the morning and headed back.

I took the back road and got to Santa Rosa in about two hours.

A good change of pace.

I must have needed it because I took a two hour siesta soon after getting to the house.

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The blogs of the Canadians I met are Jody Paterson's here and Paul Willcocks here.