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Easter Camp & Volunteering

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This past week after we returned from San Ignacio we had to complete our service hours by volunteering for whatever we were interested in the most. Last week we helped paint one of the primary schools on the island, the second week we were here I helped out with a creative writing short story and poetry writing workshop for secondary students at the library and this last week we helped organize and facilitate an Easter Break camp with some little kiddos. It was a BLAST. We hosted it from Wednesday through Friday. It is very refreshing hanging out with little kids who are so quick to love you and want to be by your side no matter what, teenagers are totally the opposite. Suffice to say, it was a nice change of pace. I have also been spending half my days for the last five days at a coffee bar in town to use their WiFi and complete all of my graduate work. It has been a great experience completing research, papers, reflections, data collection here on the island instead of back home in...
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Adventures Inland 2

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Saturday was the day we adventured on our own and a group of us decided to go to some ruins about 8 miles from San Ignacio. We took a bus to a ferry and took it about 20 yards across the river. The most beautiful green, blue, teal river I have ever seen. Then we walked one mile uphill to the ruins, which were incredible. They were my favorite ruins that we saw. We climbed to the top of every single one and took in the views of the valley and mountain range around us. We could easily see San Ignacio in the distance and Guatemala was a short distance to the west. The foliage around the ruins was beautiful, trees, flowers, and all sorts of greenery. This adventure was so meaningful to me and I shared it with some incredible women pictured below in our favorite tea joint in town. Our relationship has grown so much in a short time. You share a lot with people when you're in a foreign place, it gets real honest real fast.  After the ruins we strolled around the market. It was an inc...
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Adventures Inland

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We traveled to Belize City on Thursday on a water taxi that took about one and a half hours. It flies through the water but I am not sure how many miles we have to go to get to the city. Probably 15 to 20. We walked through the city blocks upon arrival and made our way to the bus station. It was bedlam. We had to forcefully shove ourselves onto the bus, all 14 of us made it on one bus thank goodness. Our first stop was the zoo about midway between Belize City and San Ignacio which was our ending destination. Belize is 64 miles from the Guatemalan border in the west to Ambergris Caye which is the island that San Pedro is on. But bus rides always take longer than expected so we made it to the zoo in a little over an hour.  Once in the zoo we saw so many incredible animals, birds, reptiles, felines, and rodents. It was incredible to see all of the native animals to Belize, the majority of the animals are being kept in captivity because they had injuries or traumatic experiences t...
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Half-Way

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We are half-way through our journey, 14 days left to be exact. This time in two weeks I will be mid-flight between Miami and Wilmington. I have done a lot of reflecting over the last few days what with my last day of teaching yesterday and the transition into counting down the days before I leave. I have many tasks to complete before I leave but I truly have plenty of time. I am enjoying each day with a consistent routine of meditation that has been incredibly therapeutic. This routine keeps me grounded and helps me remain self-aware. The last day of school yesterday was bitter sweet. I taught my last lesson of the semester. My students and teacher bid me farewell and wished me good luck in the future. I still have several loose ends to tie up upon my return after break at the high school so I will be able to lay eyes on some of them again in a few weeks. Many students shared with me their desire to have me take over their classroom. I took final pictures of some of my classes and a ...
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Week of April 3rd-7th

This last week of teaching has been very satisfying. My relationship with many of the students is a lot better than I ever thought they would be when starting out. They enjoy my presence in the classroom and they also seem to be learning fairly well, especially having experienced this quick transition having a stranger take over teaching. I have learned how patient I have come to be through teaching over the last few months. Being in Belize has really given me a lesson in harnessing my confidence and jumping in head first. Not knowing who I would be teaching, what specific content I would be teaching, how many students I would have and what the teacher would expect from me, I truly believe I have done my best. I have a newfound security in my abilities as a teacher. My experience had home was very precise and planned every week, while you never know what you may get in the classroom day to day, for the most part at home it was predictable. Here in San Pedro, my experience has been the ...
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March 30-April 2

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I had a great end to the week. We had an assembly with skits and performances given by the students. I finished my first set of lessons on Friday and am planning a review for my students for next week before their tests prior to Easter/Spring Break. I have one more full week of teaching. I actually have today off because of testing that is being done at the high school. I have gotten good feedback from my teacher. I told him that one of my main goals teaching here was to be able to manage the students on my own, as a new teacher that is a great challenge. At the end of the week he told me that he thought I had accomplished that goal already because he is able to leave me alone with them and I can handle them just fine. In fact I feel so much more confident with managing the classes than I did at first in North Carolina. But I believe that truly has come from experience and practice. I believe the challenges I had at home with classroom management has prepared me for teaching here in Be...
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Happy Hump Day!

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This week has been great so far. I have been continuing my routine of waking up to watch the sunrise, meditate and reflect. I did sleep in on Tuesday and I might tomorrow only because we do not have to be at school until 9am instead of 7:50. It is Drug Awareness Week at the school and we are promoting the phrase, "Put a Cap on Drugs". We have little red ribbons to wear, we had a school assembly, door decorating contest, skits, presentations and tomorrow is a short marathon run in the morning tomorrow. I have attached some photos of some of the festivities. I have been teaching my lessons this week and I have started to get to know each of the classes more personally. The students are really enjoying my presence I believe. They have been pretty receptive to my teaching and hopefully when they are assessed Friday and Tuesday of next week I will know how much they have really learned. There is no school on Monday due to testing of the primary school students who are using the ...
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