As part of my professional development, I lead an after school reading program with some of the younger students in the school. We meet every Tuesday and Thursday after school and have fun reading together. I have a great group of kids, and they are always pumped and raring to read. I’ve even had a few students join in who weren’t originally part of the program but wanted to join in on the reading fun we were having.

Birthday Secret Service Agents (March 27)
Melissio and I have been busy beavers all week planning some secret birthday celebrations for Trisha (I think that we had a little too much fun in the process). T-Bum has always wanted to try fishing here, but we have yet to get our acts together to give it a try, so we planted some fishing line and hooks for an after school adventure. We couldn’t seem to locate any actual bait, so a can of mystery meat it was. Who woulda thought the fish wouldn’t take our bait? Turns out they didn’t go for our attempt at using chewed bubble gum either. We were quite the sight throwing our fishing lines off a dock into the wind, and provided a few good laughs for some of the locals. I guess we wouldn’t be having a fish birthday dinner after all. It seemed like we had half the town in on our sneakiness, with the local taxi driver playing the role as a cake delivery service. We capped off the day with a surprise gathering with a group of our PG friends at one of our favourite watering holes.

Miss Sport
Another one of the school’s extracurricular activities held was a 'Miss Sport' competition. Five girls were selected from the upper division, each one representing their given house within the school. One of my student’s was thrilled to get the chance to compete. The girls took part in several events including: a short welcoming speech, demonstrating their favourite sport, showing off a talent, modeling, and answering a sport’s trivia question. Definitely not something that would likely take place at a school back home, but the students here were pretty pumped about it.

After quite the buildup, the Governor General of Belize visited our school for the induction of the school’s Boy and Girls Scouts. The Scouts had been busy all week practicing for their big day and looked quite sharp in their new uniforms that they had been saving for and fundraising to buy. I was impressed with how well behaved my students were, especially since they were standing in the heat for over 2 hours (all students and teachers for that matter, were later rewarded with the afternoon off). At home it seems as though you could sign your kid up for every after school activity you could possibly think of, but that is simply not the case here, so an organization such as the Scouts has a huge impact on these children. It seems as though few children here have something to provide them with a sense of belonging and give them something to be proud of. Boredom seems to be a key ingredient as to why so many youth get into trouble here. Definitely sheds new light as to the importance of extracurricular activities.

I guess it can’t all be roses. It seems as though we have gotten a little too comfortable here at times and have let our guard down a little too much. Unfortunately T-Bum and I had our bikes stolen while working out at the gym one evening. So we are left with only Melissio’s bike, which also happens to be the smallest! After having breakfast one morning in Caye Caulker, the four of us each chipped in what we owed for the bill. We had put the small pile of money in the middle of the table, with intentions to pay our server. Being the chatterboxes that we are, we were chatting away when our server came and asked us to pay our bill before leaving. We were all shocked by this as they money that was right under our noses was now missing. Someone had been bold enough to take the money right from under us, with all of us thinking that the other had paid our server. Lessons learned and let’s hope that’s the end of things going missing. If that’s the worst that happens, then I think we have been pretty lucky.

San Pedro Visit
A fellow intern from the U of L has been completing her internship in San Pedro, Belize. We were lucky enough to get the chance to visit Laurie’s school and see how her experience in San Pedro compares to ours in PG. We started our ‘business’ trip with a visit back to Caye Caulker. My friend Steph met us there as she has come to Belize for a month to see the sights and visit. It was a little weird returning to where we spent our first few days in Belize, but it was good to see some familiar faces of some of the locals we had met there. We made sure to visit our favourite spots, one of which is the highest point on the island and the chairs are hanging swings. We then caught the water taxi over to the island called Ambergris Caye, where San Pedro is located. We couldn’t believe our eyes when we stepped off the boat as San Pedro is very touristy and quite developed in comparison to the rest of Belize. We went on a bit of a shopping spree, as San Pedro had many things that just aren’t available in PG. Bathing suites for example are nowhere to be found in PG as locals simply swim in their clothes. Another one of the differences was that almost everyone in San Pedro gets around via golf cart. We were shocked at the prices, as most places are geared towards American tourists. The hostel we stayed at reminded us all out of something from a horror movie and was next to the airport’s landing strip. It did the trick for a cheap place to stay and ended up being right next to the Laurie’s school. Island Academy is a private school started by a wealthy American woman who didn’t agree with teachers disciplining her children with corporal punishment in. It is the only school of its kind in the country and we had actually walked by it on several occasions before we realized that it was in fact a school. The vast majority of the students are those of North American families living in Belize, although there are a few of the wealthier Belizean children enrolled. All but two of the teachers are North American, and have dream class sizes of no more than 15 students. The school was a tight knit community of only 80 students, with a morning greeting and meeting held each morning under the school’s palapa. I got quite the chuckle out of the morning’s warning of not to play under the coconut trees as the coconuts had been falling off, and apparently more people die from falling coconuts than shark bites.
I don’t think Laurie’s and our experiences could be more polar opposites. Thanks for a great experience Laurie!

Food Fair
It was the town’s Food Fair on Friday, which was held at the local high school’s football field. It basically consisted of various food and educational booths. I was blown away with the variety of Belizean foods available and was continually turning to my students and teacher mentor to tell me what each strange looking item was. My kids seemed to enjoy the fieldtrip, although it was HOT that day (especially when my students decided it would be fun to run part of the way there).

Happy Birthday To Me
We kicked off my birthday weekend (which just happened to fall on a long weekend) by hitting up a local basketball game on Friday night. It was the league finals and was quite an exciting game with a controversial call with a second to go resulting in overtime. At the beginning of the game we had wondered about the police presence, but we could definitely understand why by the end of the game as the crowd was quite rowdy. On Saturday morning we treated ourselves by flying to our favourite get away spot - Placencia (a 15 minute flight over the bus is definitely the way to go!). The beach was flooded with children flying their kites, with one kid having to scale a palm tree to retrieve his kite. T-Bum and Melissio spoiled me on my birthday and got me a massage (and I thought I couldn’t get anymore relaxed in Belize). The local volleyball crew has it figured out that we come every two weeks and were waiting for us to get a game going. I was feeling like a princess after my massage, so I took the liberty of pulling up a beach chair, had a few birthday beverages and assumed the role of official game referee (although I don’t think I ever actually knew the score). We discovered the world’s greatest burger (sorry you Alberta beef lovers) and danced the night away to a live band playing outside next to the beach. We couldn’t resist flying home again on Monday, and felt like millionaires as we had the whole plane to ourselves. Melissio sat in the co-pilot’s chair and it didn’t take long before the captain was letting her steer the plane (yet another appropriate time for the ‘only in Belize’). I don’t think birthday weekends get much better.

St. Benedict
We spent Friday at St. Benedict school, which is a located on the outskirts of town. The school is only 4 classrooms from pre-school to grade one. The kids were adorable to say the least and we spent the majority of the morning reading (it seems as though we are always armed with Robert Munsch books) and playing with them. The students have started a garden and were excited to show us their work. We couldn’t get over how hot it was and we all got burnt in the little time we spend not in the shade. It was amazing to me how attached little kids become to their teachers, especially since we were only there one day. Although I had a great day and the kids were cuties, it definitely made be realize that teaching that age group is not for me.

The view from up here

The owner of the internet place we go to shared these photos with us that are taken of Punta Gorda from a tower in the town. I thought they were kinda neat so thought that I would post them.

The Enemy God
We were up bright an early on Saturday (I don’t think we have yet to sleep in here) to meet up with the film crew currently making a movie here called The Enemy God. The film is set in a jungle village (built set) and the cast is made up almost entirely of local actors. We had originally met the crew on a day trip to an island and they came to find us earlier this week to invite us to come check out the set and give make-up some extra hands as they are understaffed for the task at hand. Trisha and Melissa were right in their element as they are both drama majors, and I must admit I was a little worried as to how much help I would actually be. It didn’t take long for T-Bum and Mel Jam to be putting on wigs and doing body paint. I soon took on the role of making the actors look dirty, some may refer to it as the process of 'dirtification'. That’s right, they had me putting on fake dirt, making it look as real as possible. Not as simple of a task as one might think (or at least I like to think I had an important job, haha). There were at least four different shades of dirt, and I had to do my best at making it look real for the camera. Although the actors are darker skinned, some still had differing skin tones where their clothes would usually cover them, so I did my best to make it look one uniform colour. I had to get close to the actors in a hurry as they are all in traditional tribal attire (which my friends isn’t much). I think I was so covered in ‘dirt’ by the end that I would have fit right in with the actors. We were impressed with some of the tricks used to give the illusion of facial piercings, mainly hidden magnets. Although it was good to experience, it is definitely not as glamorous as people think and there was some obvious drama between those making the film.

Bugs, Bugs, Bugs
I think we have faired fairly well dealing with some the critters here. We’ve had to kill a few giant cockroaches (one in the kitchen and one in our clothes pile). But this morning we awoke to find a scorpion in our shower! Yikes! Let’s hope it’s the last one we have.

The teacher Trisha is paired with (Annie) had us over for her birthday dinner on Friday night. We had a fantastic traditional East Indian dish for dinner, followed by a Belizean dessert known as black cake. The cake was good, but quite filling as Trisha and I shared a piece (and we’re not light eaters!). Annie’s husband is a teacher at the high school and had some of his fellow colleagues over for dinner, so it was great to meet some of them. Annie has two adorable daughters, one of which I could have spent all night playing with. After dinner we headed over to the town’s football (our soccer) field to take in our first game. Football is definitely the sport of choice here, and most games are played at night as it is too hot to play in the day. Different districts and towns have separate teams in the leagues and it seems as though there are quite the revelries between the two. Unfortunately the PG team lost.

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. So on Thursday Trisha, Aaron and I thought we would try our luck singing karaoke (poor Melissa had planning to do). We were a little shy at first, but T-Bum kick started things with a little Shinia Twain (Aaron followed suit shortly). Before the night was out, T-Bum had done her best impressions of Mariah, Madonna, Ace of Base, and you guessed it – Celine! I didn’t want them to look bad, so I decided to lay off the solos, although Aaron and I did bust out The Gambler by Mr. Kenny Rogers.

Monday brought a new student to my classroom, which puts the count to 39! (25 of which are boys). This student doesn’t speak any English and the principal had originally thought that he had never been to school before, but I was pleasantly surprised when he could write down what was written on the chalkboard (although I am sure he has no clue what he is writing). The weather has gone from hot to hotter and we are told the dry season is setting in. It definitely gets toasty while teaching and the headband has jumped drastically on my list of favourite inventions. I had a great Phys-Ed lesson on Wednesday afternoon and taught my students a new game. They seemed to love it and I was surprised with how long they played for considering the temperature. A friend that we met and traveled with our first week in Belize has made his way to PG after traveling around Guatemala. It’s nice to see a familiar face and hard to believe that our first week here already seems so long ago. He has excited about traveling Guatemala for our Easter break. Friday afternoon was the school’s running race, and it was yet another cooker (surprise surprise). And as if the sun wasn’t hot enough to run in, many of the students were barefoot on the scorching pavement. We played the roll of finish line judges and handed out the ribbons. The first photo above is 2 of by boy's looking pretty 'cool' after school was let out. We have noticed the heat taking a toll on our bodies, and find ourselves going to bed earlier and earlier. I remember when we first arrived we thought those crazy Belizeans sure do go to bed early and are up so early. It seems as though they were onto something and we have joined them.