First impressions

It's been a few days now and we've had the chance to explore and get some questions answered (although there are still quite a few more!). There are so many things that I want to update you all on, so I guess I'll do it in categories.

Luggage: We're still waiting on Aren's luggage, but we got an email that it is in San Pedro Sula at the airport, so at least we know where it is. Some more teachers came in today, so we are hoping that they will be bringing his suitcase with them to Gracias tonight. Aren's excited to change his pants finally! **Edit: We got the suitcase! Yay!

Housing: We know for sure where we are going to be living this year now. The bad news is that it's not quite finished being built yet (they've said it will take about 5 days to finish, so we're hoping for under 2 weeks). There's a lot of good news, though. Our house will be brand new with all new furniture (we think), it's right next to the school so we can sleep in a little later in the morning, it has a beautiful yard with coffee and banana tress, and just down the road there is an incredible mountain river. Here are some pictures of the house and the surrounding areas (you can click on pictures to make them a little bigger):














Our front porch
















Our yard







Aren doing what he does best














The river


School: On Thursday and Friday, we had orientation. We found out that Aren will be teaching 5th grade plus 6-8th grade science, and I will be teaching 2nd grade plus 6-8th grade Bible and 6th grade language arts. It sounds like we'll be pretty busy! The school year starts on Sept. 3, and it sounds like we'll have a day of orientation with the parents the day before that, so we have a little over a week to prepare.

For those of you who don't know, the school changed hands recently and is now being run by a church in Tegucigalpa. A lot of changes are being made, and for the most part, they are all very good: they are fixing up the school yard and buildings, providing better housing for the teachers (the house Aren and I were originally set to live in had a pigsty for a back yard!), and generally organizing everything much better. Here's a picture of the school from the street:










Gracias: We've been having a lot of fun doing some exploring in the city and up the mountain near the school. Of all of the places I've been in Honduras, this is one of the most beautiful, natural, clean and temperate places I have been, so we are really excited about living here. There are tons of bugs, some beautiful (we saw around 20 different kinds of butterflies on a walk to the school today) and some not-so-pretty:




























Strange and creepy moldy moth bug thing

Etc: Two other things that don't really fit anywhere else...First, when we got to the school, there was another American teacher there for orientation who will be teaching in La Union, and it just so happened that it was Jake Compaan, who we graduated from high school with. How crazy is that? Holland Christian is taking over the world, apparently.

Also, today Aren got a genuine Honduran haircut for a grand total of 30 lempiras (around $1.50). It turned out pretty well, especially considering the price, and he even got the experience of being trimmed with a straight razor:





















Well, that's about all for now. We miss you all, and we'll update again as soon as we have more to talk about!