I remember being shocked when my Russian professor told me that people in Russia don't like ketchup. The shock continued when I later discovered that (with some exceptions) ketchup is not a very popular condiment anywhere outside of the USA. It's America's favorite condiment! It is delicious and versatile! How is it possible that so few people outside of the States like ketchup?

This question has been percolating in the back of my mind for several years now. Every now and then it bubbles up and I ponder it for a while. But the question has always been so perplexing that I just stuff it back inside, bottling it up along with my emotions. Finally, after years of searching, I have stumbled upon the answer, and man it feels good. Like the cork shooting out of a bottle of champagne. The reason people outside of the US do not like ketchup is because ketchup outside of the US is straight up nasty.

Hunt's and Heinz 57 make pretty decent ketchup, but Whataburger has, in my opinion, the best ketchup in the world. Some subtle sweetness from the "tomatoes", a little saltiness, slight tang, robust texture and just the right amount of Red #40 to give an appetizing color. In contrast, Honduran ketchup is kind of watery with a grainy texture, exaggerated sweetness, slightly sour (as in rancid, not lemon-y) aftertaste, and is a very unnatural shade of orange-red. The taste is bearable, but it is by no means pleasant, and it certainly does not add to the integrity of whatever food you may be globbing it onto. If this is the norm for ketchup outside of the US, it is no small wonder that many people are repulsed by the mere idea of this condiment.

At this point, I should add that by "many people", I am not including Hondurans. In a bizarre deviation from the normal global anti-ketchup trend, Hondurans love this condiment (particularly local brands) and use it for and on just about everything. EVERY. THING. Take, for example, the spaghetti that is served in our school's cafeteria: noodles stirred in ketchup with quesillo sprinkled on top (the quesillo is added because the noodles-and-ketchup combination is not nasty enough on its own). Or the huevos rancheros I had on my way back from Teguz the other day: fried eggs drowned in ketchup (NOT the delicious salsa I had been anticipating). I recently served as a tasting judge for the 8th graders' activities class (kind of like home ec.) One group made "pizza" (a corn tortilla with ketchup and quesillo). The other group made grilled corn-on-the-cob (quick side note: the grilled corn down here is better than the grilled corn-on-the-cob you get at the state fair, which I didn't think was possible), which they decided was too boring. Not to be out done by the other group's cunning use of ketchup and quesillo, they dunked the cob into a bowl of ketchup and then rolled it in crumbled quesillo. There is not a lot of good things I can say about that dish in particular, but I will grant them that it was by no means "boring".

I do not know if this love of ketchup extends beyond the borders of Honduras. But if you ever travel this way, take caution in ordering anything that may have some form of tomato on it. The cook may very well substitute the tomato with ketchup.

This is Kelley Stephan, your foreign food correspondent, over and out. Next installment will be up soon (I have a decently working computer AND internet simultaneously now. It's pretty exciting.)

Just prior to my return to the States, I went on a horseback ride in Copan. The man who owned the horses accompanied Gabrielle and I on our ride. He was a sweet man, and we conversed as much as my limited Spanish would allow. Inevitably he asked if I was married, and inevitably, he became visibly uncomfortable when I said "no". In order to relieve him of his discomfort, I asked him if he was married. YES. So he began chattering about his family. He mentioned that his wife had already begun the preparations for all the tortillas and tamales for their family's Christmas celebration, even though Christmas was still a few weeks away. "I would love to learn how to make tortillas and tamales," I said.

As of today, I am the only white person I know who likes rosquillas. I have met one other who will eat them with coffee, but that is it. Rosquillas are really a very unassuming snack food. They aren't overly delicious, nor are they outright nasty. But for some reason, I find them incredibly addictive.

Although I am fairly certain I am not the only person who snacks randomly on these things, I believe the standard mode of consumption for these bad boys is dunking in coffee. They look kind of like skinny donuts, but they are very hard. They taste the way Cheez-Its would taste if they were made from cornmeal and were a little stale. If I am not mistaken, that is really all they are...cornmeal and cheese mixed with a little water and baked in a wood burning oven. I don't think that quesillo is used, because these don't taste like feet. How people are able to procure cheese that can be used to make something delicious when there is no decent cheese stocked in the dairy section of the supermarket is beyond me. But through some form of Central American magic, it happens.

There is a little town on the road between San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa that is famous for their rosquillas. I don't know which little town it is, so I wasn't able to stop there on my trip to the capitol, but I have definitely mooched off of coworkers who have made the journey and stopped to get some rosquillas. Unfortunately, none of you will be able to mooch off of me, because they would be none too fresh by the time I deboarded. But if you ever head down this way, get you some!!

Pop quiz, hot shot! True or False: Honduras has an adult literacy rate of 80%.

And the answer is...(drum roll, please)...TRUE! That's pretty awesome, right? Yes...until you actually look at what that means. There is no international definition or standard of literacy. Yet literacy rates are used as a gauge to determine how well (or poorly) a country is doing compared to the rest of the world. How does that work? Some countries (fortunately Honduras is not one of these) define adult literacy as "anyone 15 years or old who has ever attended school". You went to kindergarten for a week? Congratulations, sir; in Hong Kong you are considered literate.

The CIA's website says that the Honduran literacy rate is determined by the percentage of people over the age of 15 who can read and write. The question of the hour: what is it they can read and write? The answer to the question: not much. If someone is able to read and write a short, simple statement related to their everyday life, they are considered literate. So there is a country full of people who can see Spot run, but they can't read the names of the political parties and nominees on a presidential ballot. There are, of course, many incredibly well-read people down here...I don't want to make it sound like someone is uneducated merely because they are Honduran. But I would like to move that touting a literacy rate of 80% is not giving an accurate reflection of the level of education that ye average Honduran receives.

If we only look at the resources a child has at their disposal at school, it quickly becomes evident that these students are at a disadvantage. Even in the nicer schools, such as the one where I am currently employed. Unless a teacher or student brings in a book from home, there are no books in the classroom at the elementary level. The library space is very nice, but it is painfully lacking in the book department. This is something the school is working on, but it is a very slow going process. Public schools are even worse. Many do not have a library at all, much less a poorly stocked one. The majority of schools are not even able to provide more than one textbook to a classroom, so the teacher is often the only one with a book.

Outside the classroom isn't much better. I don't have much personal experience inside children's homes here, so I can't say without a doubt that there is a lack of literature on their shelves. But the very limited number of bookstores containing an even more limited selection of books probably is a good indicator that there aren't too many books in the average home. There are public libraries in some areas, but they are frequently closed. Several of them do not allow the books to leave the premises as well, which doesn't do much to increase book availability.

For a long time I have been thinking of ways to make education more accessible to the average person down here. The incredible lack of literature down here has saddened me deeply, and so a lot of my thoughts have been concentrated on immediate ways to promote literacy. I have met two incredible women who are working on building schools in different parts of the country. For those of you who loved analogies in high school, they are to Honduras what Greg Mortenson is to Pakistan. One woman in particular is as concerned with providing supplies to the students as she is about providing the actual buildings themselves. She has started an organization called Project School Supplies, although she does so much more than that. Here is her website if you want to check out all the stuff this woman has going on. The work she has done down here is truly phenomenal.

A lot of things are in the air right now as far as my involvement in the future of these projects. BUT for right now, I am trying to get books. As many books as possible. Preferably children's books, and preferably in Spanish. If you would like to send some books back down here with me, please let me know!! If you aren't going to see me, you can send them to my mom's house, and I will get them from there. I would NOT recommend mailing anything down here...it has been five months and I have not received any mail yet. boo.

Today is the last day of class in one of my chemistry sections until next year. Not next year as in January 2010, but next year as in January 2011. (The kids down here take the first semester of chemistry in 10th grade, and the second semester in 11th grade.) So in memoriam of my first semester of teaching solo, here are some reflections.

Project: Periodic Table: Yes, the name is kind of lame and not very original. But it turned out really cool. My classroom is fairly huge (which is good, considering my smallest class has 27 students), and the back wall is completely blank...no windows, boards, nothing. The perfect spot to put a gigantic periodic table. Before classes began, I measured the space available to determine what the table's dimensions would need to be. Enter the students.

Between my 8th and 10th grade courses, I have 4 classes...almost enough students for every known element. score. Each student picked their own element, and they were not allowed to choose one another student had already selected. When I introduced the project, I gave each student an 8.5"x8.5" piece of paper. Coincidentally, this is the size each element's square needed to be in order to reach the dimensions I measured over the summer, and I informed them of this. For further incentive to stay within the size constraints, five points of the final grade would be given based on whether or not your square was the appropriate size. Yes or no...five points or no points. Due day arrives, and I go to school, excited to receive the element squares and get some decoration up on the walls. Two things totally shocked me:

1- Several students in each class decided at some point in the project that they didn't like their element, so they switched. Double u...tee...eff... So now, I am missing much more than the projected four elements I was orginially going to be short, and I have multiple copies of certain elements. I ended up with four squares for thallium...who's even heard of thallium? Yet it apparently ranks higher on the "awesome element" scale than tin, lithium, and astatine. As I was setting up the actual table, I used the square of the person who was actually supposed to make it...and students got offended. Are you for real? You weren't supposed to do this one. Don't get angry with me because you don't know how to follow directions. It's still going up on the wall (those are the squares floating randomly around the actual table)...but in case you haven't seen a periodic table before, there's only room for one of each element.

2- Despite the fact that correct dimensions were worth points, and despite the fact that everyone received a square of the correct dimensions, a surprisingly large number of people went over the size restrictions. Way over. One girl turned in a poster. A 2'x3' poster. Because the 8.5"x8.5" square "wasn't big enough". (All the square needed to have was the: name, symbol, atomic number, atomic mass, and a visual representation.) This same girl was offended when I told her the only way I could put her square (technically hers was a rectangle anyways) in the periodic table would be if she cut her poster or made a new one. Seriously?

In the end, I was able to get squares of the correct dimensions from everyone. And I gave cookies to an 8th grader in exchange for making the missing 18 elements. It was totally worth it. I love my classes' periodic table.

Much of Monday has come and gone, and my AP schedule still has not made itself. In order to give it a little more time to work itself out, I decided to peruse my old blogs. While doing so, I discovered that I never did a post about Dia de los Niños. I know you guys have probably been freaking out, wondering when the heck I'm going to write about it. Well, fellow blog-readers, fear not. Here is the much anticipated post about Children's Day. AP schedule...good luck writing yourself; I'll see you in a little bit.

Many countries celebrate Children's Day. It is a day for appreciating the joy of childhood and for promoting early childhood literacy. Here in Honduras, we skip all the literacy crap, and get straight to celebrating what childhood is really about: parties at school, presents, and candy. Each country has their own day designated for Children's Day. In Honduras, that magical day is September 10th. As a high school teacher, I did not get to celebrate with my students, although I did manage to score some leftover cake after school. (yay for kids!!) The children at my school only got one day to celebrate. In the stellar Honduran public schools, kids only went to school one day that week, and that day was spent partying. Apparently the teachers didn't think the kids had missed enough school due to the teacher strikes, so they were trying to help them out.

The partying carried on into the weekend. The little church on my street had a celebration, and I was able to help out with it. We dressed up like clowns and did some dances to these really obnoxious songs. But the kids loved them, and that's what counts, I guess. Why is it that kids love really obnoxious things? alas. We had some games and a piñata, and then we watched a movie while we ate lunch. I had been asked to rent a church appropriate movie for the kids to watch, so I got Prince of Egypt and The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything because those were the only DVDs at the store that had a Spanish language option. However, the lady who brought the DVD player didn't bring the remote, so we weren't able to change the language. Instead of doing something else, they decided that the next best option was to watch the dubbed version of Paul Blart: Mall Cop on TV. Obnoxious as that movie is, it was apparently not obnoxious enough to hold these kids' attention, so it was (thankfully) turned off quickly.


I was a bad neighbor-friend and didn't buy presents for anyone, although the kids dropped subtle hints that led me to believe they were hoping I would. (Kelley...what are you getting me for Children's Day? I really like Barbies.) Instead, I got some storybooks and fruit, and was going to read to the kids one afternoon that week. That did NOT go over well. First of all, it was difficult to find a picture book in Spanish. And by difficult I mean after visiting five bookstores, I bought a fairytale book with a quarter-sized picture introducing each fairytale, and that was the most illustrated book I could find that wasn't in English. Nextly, as you may surmise from the general lack of literature, the kids were not used to being read to and had no interest in sitting through a story. Sad day...story time is the best!!!

Well, my AP schedule has still not written itself. Rather than lament the Honduran education system, I will go do my part to improve it. Wish me luck!