Much as I miss the fresh, sweet, juicy grapefruits of Honduras with my oatmeal this morning, and much as I "endured" at best putting on the multiple layers of clothing and outerwear required for this morning's dogwalking expedition, and much as the snow on the ground is in stark contrast to the warm sun from whence I have just come, I must say, it was awfully nice to walk up to the early morning on Lake Ontario this morning. 

It seems Dorothy was right when she clicked her red, ruby heels together and remarked, "there's no place like home"!

There is something about being away that solidifies one’s sense of nationalism.  Boarding the plane from Miami to Toronto, I could sense somehow that I was amongst fellow Canadians.  And much as filling out yet another customs form irked me, it was somehow okay because of the little red maple leaf at the top.

Even now as we make our final descent, and the boys are beginning to stir from their deep sleep, disturbed by ear pain, I feel like I am almost home, and it feels good.

To be sure, spending five days in Honduras, and learning just a tiny bit more about the big world we live in, has been a blessing.  But equally fulfilling is arriving in familiar airspace, seeing snow on the ground below, noticing the many lights and arteries of the busy city I call home, looking for Lake Ontario, and touching down on runway 33L in YYZ, just around midnight.

Morning at school, then home for quick snack and last minute packing -- Esther back to school, Dave drove 2 hours to airport... Stopped to look at some caves -- ferns growing deep inside, they find the lamps, and enjoy the moisture... bought some bananas and a cocunut... saw too many kids piled into the back of a truck,... now running to board the plane from San Pedro Sula to Miami... hope to write a more reflective blog enroute while boys are sleeping, and upload in Miami tonight between flights.

One of Dave's projects is bringing safe, efficient stoves into a local community he is doing some work in.  For about $55 US, he can replace dangerous, smoky stoves in peoples' homes with smaller more efficient units that are smoke-free (unless the wood is wet!!), cool to the touch on the outside (safer for families with small children), and hot enough on top to boil water or bake tortillas!

For more information, or to dontate a stove, please contact Dave and Esther at dave@ceehonduras.org

Press play (triangle arrow at the top of the photo) to begin the captioned slide show.

Spent some time this morning with a group of Spanish teachers who teach math to students in grades 1 -6.  It was the first time they had used pattern blocks (thanks to Trevor Brown for donating a class set plus enough individual baggies for each teacher at the session!!!)  You could see the lightbulbs going off as they explored the concepts of fractions and perimeter with math manipulatives for the first time!

The librarian, who had been kind enough to translate some of the problems and concepts into Spanish, was also there, and joined us later in a Grade 3 classroom as we went to try out our new tricks with real, live students!

A teacher came up to me in the schoolyard this morning with a follow-up to yesterday’s workshops:  “I was inspired to change my class seating arrangement around”, she exclaimed!  “Now the students can see each other more, and interact.  Also, we incorporated movement into the spelling lesson; I had some students act out the word, and the others had to guess what it was, and spell it!”

The boys spent the morning in a Grade 1/2 classroom while I worked with some of the math teachers through a Spanish interpreter.

While Mommy facilitated workshops for teachers on Monday, the boys got to hang out with Dave, one of our hosts -- they had great fun, as you can see from the photos below!  Click on the first one to begin a self-navigated tour with captions.

A big lesson for me today about considering the schema of your audience when preparing appropriate analogies to illustrate a point!