A new meaning to the word…life...

Many times I have said that the children of Belize are just like the children of America, but when I sit down and think about this, I am totally wrong. These children are amazing in what they do every day in their schools, communities, and at their homes. Yesterday afternoon we had an assembly for the Form 1 (freshman) students after school with Mr. Nunez—the author of the book all the Form 1 classes are reading. Mr. Nunez grew up on the island of San Pedro and he wrote a book of many different stories that took place in the evolution of what San Pedro Island is today. The stories range from folk tales to myths, from personal experiences to country wide facts. During the assembly I was sitting by a troubled student and I figured I would have to keep him quiet, but boy was I wrong. He kept leaning over to me repeating what Mr. Nunez was talking about and asking me questions. This young man was so engaged in the speech that he almost couldn’t control himself. He was laughing at the jokes and critically thinking about all the facts of his home town. I know this seems minor to most people, but as a teacher, when you see a child really focus in on something because it is meaningful to him, then all the bad behavior kind of goes out the window. My point of this story is to reflect on how much the children of San Pedro care for their community, their island, their home. I see kids in America everyday throw trash out the window of their car; treat their communities like a dump, steal, lie, cheat, and so much more. They do all these things with out a care in mind. It is almost like second nature to them. I’m not saying that students in San Pedro do not participate in these cruel acts, but these students of San Pedro are always the first ones to stand proud for their town, and they make this very clear. How often do you see children in America support their country for whom we are as a community? Of course people want to complain about the government, financial issues, and health care; but why do we not ever rejoice about the facts that we are free to love, free to laugh, and free to worship?
Every night here there are children on the streets working, yes working, for their families so that they can put food on the table. If you would go into any American home as ask a child to go walk the streets from after school until dark, selling necklaces so that they could help with their families income, how many do you think would drop everything—their social life, their grades, their TV/video games—to help their families? I would take a safe guess and say not very many. Agree? These children do, all of them. They know what has to be done for their families to barely make it by. And better yet, they still get their homework done, they still make it to school the next day, they still have friends, and best of all, they still smile every chance they get.
I know that when the time comes to leave San Pedro, there is no doubt in my mind I will walk away with a new meaning of life. We always say it’s not about the cars, the clothes, or the money…how hypocritical, because up until now, of course it’s been about all those materialistic things. We as Americans feel that we can change that part of our lives. Well to be honest, that’s not the part that I want to change anymore. The addition to my “meaning of life” starts with working harder, providing love and laughter to my family every chance I get, and smiling every minute of the day. These children have taught me how to care for my community, how to get out there and figure things out on my own, and to know that no matter what, there will always be someone that loves you!

THE BRITISH ARE COMING! THE BRITISH ARE COMING!

I'll start off this post explaining the title...

Tess and I get home from school Tuesday and we go get a Belikin as we do every afternoon to calm ourselves from the day...we are on the picnic table and as I begin writing my lesson I hear a crowd of people talking. I lift up my head to find 65 British soldiers walking to the front door of Pedro's Inn (our hostel)! UMM HELLOOOOO hot boys! All 16 of our jaws dropped to the core of the Earth. For 16 girls this is probably the best thing that could have happened to us on this trip. Ha Ha! Any who, we all went out to dinner and had a good time that night. (Heather: I still have #10 and even though it was tough to resist...he is still my main man ha ha. not sure what mom was saying about #11?!)

So Wednesday did turn out to be rough for most of the girls. Luckily after dinner on Tuesday I came back to Pedro's with Tess and we watched Toy Story 2 with our new friends.

School is great! All the students are very friendly (overly friendly at times)! I started implimenting my PE ideas yesterday afternoon (wed) and everyone was impressed! PLUS the kids had a great time! I started off with a group walk/jog and then had student lead stretching. After they were warm I had them break into three groups and do the "human knot" thing. I'm trying to incorporate some critical thinking :) Then we played Junk Food Tag. One of my favorite games. I of course had to modify it because of their way limited equipment, but it opened my eyes to seeing that I don't have to have all this different equipment to show kids how to have fun and be healthy! My life skills classes are also going well. I am covering for a teacher this whole week and so the students have really respected my head teacher role in their classrooms. They are all so curious about the States and the students that we teacher there. One more funny note on teaching: I was grading papers the other day for a Form 2 (sophomore) class, and on top of the papers of a few boys in the class was their phone number, ha ha! High school boys are the same where ever you go! (SOO immature!) We have an assembly after school today about the history of San Pedro which should be very interesting!

We went to a 2 year old birthday party last night--the child of the superintendent. What a HUGE party...loud music, great food, good memories! I will post some pictures today of all this stuff!

Sooo it is almost TGIF...whoop whoop! I cannot wait to sleep in this weekend and eat a good breakfast. With no kitchen, fridge, and cockroaches we are very limited with what food we can eat!

Saturday Tess, myself, and M.V. (our friends Munya and Viktor) are going kayaking and so I am really looking forward to that! And getting some sun of course!

KP- Yes I did bring that "stuff" and it is awesome...the bathrooms obviously just smell horrid so our little secret really helps! I cannot wait to see the sunset pictures... and don't you worry...I will NEVER EVER forget where home is. Miss you more and more every day!

Heather- I promise I am going to post pictures today! The internet is unbelievably slow here and we can only get facebook at the hostel...and I hate being on my computer when I can be out by the pool, walking around, etc! I am so glad you and Chad had a great trip! I cannot wait to see and hear about it! LOVE YOUUU!

I hope everyone else is AWESOME! Thanks so much for reading my blog! I so glad you guys get a good chuckle out of all this! (it really is like 20 times better when your hear!!) ;) love love love you all!

golf cart lessons...chopping veggies...bowel movement...finally.

((To start..this was a testing day for the primary students to get their placement in the high school...aka not a normal day...))

So I will keep this one a little bit shorter BUT man my first day of school was quite interesting! The morning started off with a free lesson on driving the school golf cart with Mr. Oncorio (sp?). This may sound simple considering my family owns a golf cart, but have you ever tried driving on dirt roads with pot holes the size of the grand canyon, no stop signs, with cars and people walking all over the place? Yeah see my dilemma? And did I mention that this was totally illegal? Which made it all the more fun!

When Mr. O and I got back to school, the cafeteria staff put Jeanne and I to work chopping onions and peppers for the beef lunch. And they fed us like we were starving children! It was AWESOME! and FREE! (food always tastes better when its free!?)

When we finished preparing and serving lunch to the testing primary students, Jeanne and I played some volleyball on the beach...and then it hit me...I needed to go to the bathroom, bad. Tess and I have had some troubles with this since we have been here, so bowel movements are big news for us, hence why I feel the need to post this. ha ha!

Cannot wait to see what the next few days bring!

Piz- if you see this will you post some sunset pictures from home...i miss being a bahama mama...tell matty i said hello!