Peace Corps with Greg and Kevina: Teacher Training

TFABB June Visit

Teachers for a Better Belize

North American Volunteers on This Trip:

Kathie, Kim, Marie, Anne (founder), and Mica (RPCV)

Boys in Amy's village button their shirts to the top. We found this leveled reader in a set of donated leveled readers.

Our two week TFABB visit started with a Saturday dinner with Mica. The first week was spent with Mica where Marie and Kathie modeled lessons and Marie modeled a workshop. I liked her idea of a 'Ritual Read Aloud' which is how she starts off all her workshops. I learned to do 'big, small, big' in workshops. Teach, break into groups to practice, share out, then wrap it up and review. It was really great hanging out in Santa Teresa all week! Laura (the newest Peace Corps to join us) and I stayed the night with Amy. In 24 hours I got hot wax spilled on me, a coke bottle was shattered, we swung from thatch beams at the corn mill, washed at Amy's river and I had to remove a glass sliver from Amy's foot. There's no electricity in Santa Teresa so for night time entertainment (after our corn tortillas and chef boy-r-dee) we moved our borrowed chairs outside to watch the lightning bugs and the lightning illuminate the mountains and clouds with pink and yellow flashes going off like a strobe light. I also heard howler monkeys for the first time in the wild. I found a copy of BED, BED, BED by They Might Be Giants and forced Amy and Laura to listen to me sing the whole book. Greg got this book for me and our future kids will be put to sleep by this story/song. Check it out.

Amy is the best host. When I got home late Friday night from my week in Santa Teresa Saturnina said she barely got any sleep because of Greg's crying...she loves to tease:)

All the mangos greg was given while I was gone...at least I know he won't starve.

Poor greg, all by himself all week :(

Wochoch li Amy (Amy's house)

Dinner by cokelight, and Amy's post bandage wound

Santa Teresa Observations:
~Boys button their shirts to the very top button
~The kids all shake your hand
~They have to wave a foot away from each person...moving their hand and then pushing it in the next persons face
~Music plays until 10PM (like my village) but is accompanied by the roar of the generator
~Amy switched from knitting scarves to pot-scrubbers out of mesh.

Amy's host sister caught sneaking a smooch.

Village lunch in Santa Teresa

Caldo and writing

Fermin showing Kathie his great lessons

'hanging' around with TFABB in Blue Creek Lodge

Just two clear ketchi.

Silver Creek

Our week in Silver Creek was set up the same as the previous week with a change of faces. Monday TFABB went to Baranco (the newest village on the TFABB team) and I got to observe with my principal two of the best lessons I've seen!!! Then in the afternoon Laura from way up north gave a homemade games workshop that my teachers ate up. I think they felt so special that she would travel a full day's bus ride just to give them a workshop! Tuesday TFABB descended upon my village and my villagers loved Amy and Laura. Brendon gave Laura her 'house name' of 'animals' Amy is still the vampire. He ran around telling his friends, "see the vampire!" On Wednesday, our village leaders lunch day we wore our ketchi uuks and po'ots (skirts and shirts). They loved it. Some of the Standard 6 girls said I should wear it every day and make one in uniform colors! Their excitement led to an impromptu dance lesson in mr. Cal's class. About 12 girls came back from lunch in their traditional clothing and at recess a boom box was brought in and we danced all recess much to the girls (and the growing crowd's) delight. Brendon gave 'his vampire' 20 mangos because Amy mentioned there were no mangos in Santa Teresa.

My staff...and Dora reading a book.

Our nearly finished library

Impromptu dance lesson with the standard 3 and 4 girls

Ms. Delphine and I observing Kim's great model lesson!

Checking out Tiffany's great work!

Hermin with his mango and nim sa' (big belly). Lynette did Seaford's hair!

Of course a TFABB trip wouldn't be complete without a dinner with the Ministry.

The last puppy...he's doing better but is still thin :(

School Happenings:

So all the kids in our school have snotty noses and colds; just like winter time in the states only, minus the whole winter thing. Greg met a couple that works with healthcare students from the States. The health workers came into Greg’s school and did lessons in Infant I and Infant II (kindergarten and 1^st grade) and did hand washing. They then came to my school in the afternoon and did hand washing with my Standard I&II class, then jeopardy (which the kids had never heard of) with Std. III &IV and Std. V &VI. It went very well overall, the health workers were a little confused when they were talking about nutrition and armadillo and iguana were given as meats (both are eaten regularly here). When they asked Std. V&VI students why they should eat breakfast one boy said, “to get fat miss.” Fat is a good thing here, a compliment as in, “oh miss you’ve gotten fat!” These health workers are students in the US and this was an elective class in international medicine. They come for one month and work mostly in clinics and go to schools twice a month.

Handwashing

Passing out germs

A germ!

Kevina's School:

The main building Infant II-Standard VI

So things at my school have been pretty busy. I taught a workshop on comprehension strategies my 2^nd week of officially being a volunteer. I learned a lot from it, and I have seen some of the ideas in the classrooms so I am happy. The good thing is that the workshop kind of let the teachers see that I am interested in teaching model lessons and helping however I can. I have taught 5 model lessons and teachers are requesting times for me to observe. Yay! I got a bouquet of flowers from Adelma in Standard I after I taught a writing lesson and a love letter from a boy in Standard II. I also got ‘stewed pumpkin’ from one of my teachers! It tasted like fall and I slowly savored a few morsels before carefully wrapping it back up to take home to Greg.

The love note, and my Good Readers poster for my workshop (doesn't my kid look mayan!)

I had a couple of super stress days where I started to freak out about assimilating and having so much to do and so little time. Greg is always there to calm me down and help me see the big picture (he has to remind me a lot that we’ll be here for two years). I am trying to be like Greg and relax. The kids are helping. Every break they come in and speak ketchi to me. They like to ask me my name, where I stay, if I have a husband, and if I have a little brother/sister (it’zin is both little brother and sister). I can answer all these questions now in ketchi and they have started giving me vocabulary lessons (I write them in a little ketchi pocket guide I made). I learned; Belom (husband), sak eb (white person), ill a quaran (look at this), nane’ (baby), and atz’oom (flower). So ketchi is back, watch out!

Houses behind the school

“It has zink!” those were the first words out of my mouth as I saw our future library today. They started putting on the zink roof! Mike, a RPCV from Hatie, came to check out the progress. He is going to report back to Cross International (who donated the money for the library) http://www.crossinternational.org/ . I am just so happy that there will be a place to start organizing our books…we don’t have too many but I hope to change that soon. I have 6 boxes in NC ready to go. Also, we are trying to become a community library under BNLS (Belize National Library Service) which would allow us to get funding and training for a community member to be our librarian and even get help organizing books!

The day before the zink went up!

My sweet new uniform!

Greg's School:

Greg has been learning how to do lots of IT stuff. He has almost brought our little computer back to life! He went to a neighboring village and got their internet up and running again. He will be going to try to fix the internet lab in Grace’s village next. There is a training for internet cafes with the EU people that Greg is going to that should help boost his skills even more.

Greg was substituting the other day for an upper division class. I nervously asked him how it went, and much to my delight he started laughing and told me about the joke he played on the kids. A teacher called him outside to announce the four little girls up for ‘queen.’ When he came back in he told them, “Class I have a really important announcement. Probably the most important announcement I have ever had to give a class…(all the kids were quiet and looking eagerly at him. “ Aliens have invaded the earth.” The kids all looked shocked and some even scared. Greg was laughing so hard he could barely get out, “just kidding.” It took five minutes for him to get himself back together enough to actually teach.

He is also working really hard with the school on their huge Bazaar that is in two weeks. This is a serious event….they usually raise around $30,000!! They went into town today to hand posters all over. They had to hand number 1300 tickets, and cut out a ton of raffle slips. There is an all day football marathon also with teams from all over Toledo! There is a bar, games of ‘chances’ and a whole lot of food!

The poster on our host mom's shop door and Greg's school from the computer lab

Greg's library

Greg told me about the interesting method used for punishment at his school. When a kid gets sent to the principal’s office, the principal just points to the machete and says, ‘go chop.’ They just chop the field (which can always use chopping) until the principal tells them to stop. Greg also told me about two cows that love to hang out in the field at the school. He was teaching one day, and the class was all looking out the window. He was about to tell the all to pay attention, that is until he saw what they were looking at. Running past the windows were the two cows, followed closely behind by the principal… wielding a large stick wildly at them. He couldn’t think about reprimanding the students because he was left staring, open mouthed too.

Thanksgiving and Christmas

Obviously they do not celebrate Thanksgiving here. However we do have In-Service-Training (IST if you will) so that we will all be together for Thanksgiving…we will even have a Thanksgiving feast! This being my second favorite holiday (Halloween being the first) so I am glad there will be festivities. Also, for the last couple of days it has been down right cold. It's been cloudy and drizzly and it is such great weather to curl up under both the sheets and read. I have to wear pants and a jacket in the evenings!

Now Christmas is a whole other ballgame here. I have loved the absolute lack of advertisements and materialism here. We wrote stories and many of the kids chose to write about Christmas. Most wrote about having family over and eating good food (caldo and rice &beans). Only a few mentioned a gift (and it was one dress, or a piece of clothing usually). But, I see so many happy kids and I just wish I could show all the kids back home that you don’t need a play station, or a playroom of toys , or even two outfits to be happy. Which brings me to one last point while I’m on my soap box…I have not heard one kid say “I’m board.” The 3 months I’ve been here and never has it even been muttered! I love it! They’re always playing…good old fashion playing, and it makes me very happy deep down in my heart.

Chess

Greg and I and 4 other volunteers went to a chess training for coaches in town. It was insanely great! We learned all sorts of stuff, like did you know that on a pawn promotion you can get any piece you want EVEN if it hasn’t been captured. That’s right; you could have nine queens on the board! AND you can castle on either side! Changed my life. So we learned how to play using the clocks, which was extremely nerve wracking! We got free lunch and juice, yup a pretty fantastic time. After the training we got to hang out with a lot of volunteers who were in town for one reason or another. My friend even brought us huge slices of chocolate cake from the cake lady next to the park! Real chocolate cake (which I greedily scarfed down)!

We have been playing chess with Angel and the kids that stop by the shop on the board Greg’s mom sent us (Thanks mom!!!) and I think we’re getting better. Update: I lost to both the students I played today…guess I need a lot more practice.

Chess Coach Training!

My Standard V and VI kids at a chess tournament in town

Church:

Church in Belize, well Catholic Church, is very unique. It is of course the same catholic mass and we say the same prayers but there are differences. For instance kneeling. The only experiences I have had were at plush Catholic Churches where they have padded kneeling things… that fold up and down usually with the aid of some fancy metal hinge. Okay well here there are wooden benches for sitting and nailed to the bottom are two boards from both ends with another board nailed on top, ta-da, a kneeling bench for the row behind you! So when we went to a rosary service I became quite aquatinted with these platforms and I tried to hide my extreme discomfort. I shifted from knee to shin, to one knee than the other, while everyone remained calm and recited prayer after prayer. Greg said it was because I didn’t grow up catholic…I don’t know, I think he was pretending that his knees weren’t breaking.

We also went to a Friday mass at an unfinished house. We had it there and then because that was the time the priest could come, and that was an area without a church. All the people piled in, sat on small benches (remnants of the old school that once stood there), and we began. The priest recognized me from our school mass and gave Greg and I both parts in the reading. I really like the priest, he is very old, content, and brings the holy water in an old salad dressing bottle.

Other happenings:

1. Big Falls Warriors (the woman’s football team our host sister plays on) won their last game and will be going to the semi finals!

2. Healing The Children

-There are US doctors and surgeons in town and they are repairing cleft pallet/lips, putting tubes in ears, and doing general diagnostics and treatments.

-A volunteer in town told me about it, what a great organization!

-They took one boy from my village and I was sent to go check on him and make sure he is taking his medicine. He’s doing well.

-I am meeting with one of the ladies on Saturday to discuss ways to get the word out to the villages.

3. Mustaches for Kids Belize: Greg and several other volunteers have started a Belize chapter with proceeds going to Belize charities and non profits! Check out the link on the right for more info. The stash bash will be at the Thanksgiving IST.

4. New house: So we are switching our future house… if Peace Corps approves it, we will be moving into our very own THATCH HOUSE on November 22 in my little village! I cannot wait! It has a cement floor, one room, 3 doors, a latrine out back and it is on an orange plantation! They are even going to build us our own shower house! Luxury. I am very excited and our new landlord doesn’t speak much English so we really get to work on our Ketchi!

5. Happy First Birthday Aiden!! We love you!