Down South School Visists!

FIELD TRIP!

On Sunday we left for our field trip down south to visit schools at potential sites for us! My host family and us all slept in until 8:00! Two and a half hours later than I usually get up! My host mom was kind of freaking out and cut up fruit really fast and was getting us to eat it fast and then I found out she thought we had class that day! So we spent a lazy Sunday morning hanging around and ate fresh tortillas with mango/pineapple/papaya jam on them with some ginger tea left over from the night before. When we were all at our shady waiting spot by Amy's house we heard a commotion and turned to see a goose running for his life with a naked boy running at full sprint close behind. We start to crack up as two more naked boys come from behind the house and start to frantically chance the goose also. They run around in circles and back and forth on the dirt road and then Amy realizes one of those naked little boys is her host brother! We start to crack up even more at the ridiculous site, at which point her host brother realizes he has an audience and grabs a shirt, fleetingly tries to cover himself only to toss it to the ground to go back to chasing the goose. This is the same boy who falls frequently while walking because he doesn't pay attention to the uneven road. Amy said he came home crying one day and explained, “I dropped.”

Greg and Peter enjoying some foozball before we left.

The bus ride to Punta Gorda was not too bad. We sang 'I've got that joy joy joy joy down in my heart' in Ket'chi for about 20 minutes straight. The views were fantastic. We passed many a village where there were only thatch houses! Our driver was great too...he pulled over to let us take pictures of the 'sleeping old man' mountain and to go pee at the only gas station I have seen in Belize that is just like a regular one in the US! Punta Gorda is on the coast and we drove alongside the Caribbean Sea for about 15 minutes before we got to our awesome hotel. We have Internet, towels, luke warm water, and a mini fridge! There is also a coffee maker and cute little Tupperware of coffee, sugar and creamer!

We were starving and went as a group to eat at this magical restaurant that had home made veggie burgers, ice cream and fries! This covered two more of Greg's food homesick items! We had all these big plans of staying up all night playing apples to apples but we were just sooo tired (all the time) from our sun up to sun down training.

Our hotel key, and Grace climbing down from the roof.

It is good to be near a sea again!

Miss Carmellina and my sweet new hair thing!

We're not in Kansas any more Toto...

We had an interesting start to the day. After we woke up, the power to all of Punta Gorda went out. We also got word on the radio that all the bridges out of the Toledo district have been wiped out or are under water (one that we needed to take to see a school was 10 feet underwater)....extended vacation? So we set off anyway and ended up seeing 6 schools and the district education center. The difference among the schools was insane! The first school we went to was very large and had 14 teachers. The classrooms were amazing and were filled with resources both handmade and purchased.

Then we went to a small village school of 75 kids where there were only 4 teachers and they each taught combined classes with two grades. There was a stark contrast between these classrooms and the previous school. I asked two kids in Ket'chi their names...one answered one just stared at me. It was infant one so perhaps he was just scared of me. A fellow trainee, exclaimed, “ooh, where are your shoes!” The kid just stared at her and when she looked around the room I guess she saw that most of the kids had no shoes and she just said ooh I can see your toes. My LCF told me not to be surprised if most kids in these small ketchi villages don't wear shoes, because they just don't have them.

Each school we went to were were quite the disturbance. Students would stare at us as we walked past and the younger ones would start to eagerly wave or yell good morning. At one school a little boy came in and gave Grace, Amy and I a flower each!

I of course liked the small schools. Particularly the one that was in the community without electricity or running water:) If I got to pick my site I would want this one. It had a eager principal who was working with a US literacy group as a model school (there were boxes and boxes labeled 'hold for PCV'). Not only that but there is a clinic right across from the school!!!! So I could just cross the street to work on my secondary project in the medical field. But wait folks, that's not all! There is a desile engine greg could help with in the new corn and rice mill (we spoke ket'chi to the woman there who was very nice). And the real kicker....they were thatching a roof while we were visiting...my dream village...but I will try to not get my heart set on it because truly I will be happy at any of the Ket'chi sites we visited.

We also visited a Garifuna school that was very small. The students here learn four languages, Spanish, kriol, garifuna, and English. School was out when we got there and some kids were playing around a monument. Not 5 minutes after arriving greg was slammed into by a boy riding his bike in circles at mach speed around the monument to show us his sweet skids (later we heard a boy crying and when we ran over to help we found out that the same bike kid just PLOWED him over!) When I asked him why he did it he said, “he was in my way, I told him I was coming.” We also got to see the Garifuna museum which was super interesting and we watched a DVD about how they made/make cassava bread. Extremely labor intensive and the bark contains arsenic so you have to be careful in the preparation of it!

So after a quick visit to the sea and the district resource center we got word the last bridge we needed to pass was due to open at four. We arrived and traffic was at a standstill. 2 hours later we were able to cross at 7 at night. The driver said that it is not uncommon to wait for days while they rebuild the bridge. We made it home, gave our host family a big hug, ate a hurried dinner and went to bed exhausted.

Miss Alberta told us the next morning that poor little Bryan saw an American with 'shades on' and ran up to him yelling, “Greg! Greg!” I guess all Americans look the same.