La Vida Dura

An American teacher just found out today that the waitresses at the coffee shop we always frequent only get paid 100 Lempiras a day. That's about $5 for an 8-hour shift. It's minimum wage here, apparently. That means, that if they worked every day of the year, they would earn 36,500 Lempiras a year. The first-year teachers at IST earn 90,000 Lempiras (about $5000) a year. Basically, the baristas at the coffee shop would earn roughly $2000 a year. The IST teachers' housing, electricity, and insurance is paid for by the school.

Apparently beans and common staple foods in Honduras have been increasing in price, because the Honduran food company that produces many of these staples can sell them for cheaper to the neighboring countries (El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala). So, Hondurans have to pay an import tax on the beans, which were made in their own country. For this reason, beans which used to cost 50 Lempiras now cost 80 Lemps. Asi es la vida, I guess.

This is what I like talking about instead of lesson planning. :-)