Jumping through Belize: Work hard...

So better late then never right? I was just keeping everyone in suspense this will be one of a few posts this one will be in regards to all the projects we have been doing. I have been really involved the past few works coordinating with one of the high schools and trying to see what we can do to help them out. We have so lovingly named them the green school, because the building is a lovely green and yellow color but for more professional reasons and due to the graveyard and shrine located by the basketball court it is actually called Saint Ignatius High School. We painted over 200 desks for them because of the graffiti we also will hopefully be starting on the wheel chair ramp for one of the bathrooms. We have all the materials we are just waiting on Richard our community partner to help us out. But everything runs on Belizian time here so 8 really means 8:30 and tomorrow means in a couple days, which is perfect for me since im usually incapable of getting anywhere on time, but not so perfect since we are trying to get stuff done.

The average class room at the high school, with the freshly painted desks, actually its one of the nicer rooms since the chalkboard dosnt have any holes.

Andi, Jeff and Leslie hard at work.

The basketball court and Saint Mary.

Andi with the desks!

But right now all of the team has been super busy with computer classes, sports camp and reading camps. I have been working at the reading camp where I teach a class of about 20 seven to eight year old kids. We work on sight words and sentence building and spelling and of course reading. Its difficult though because they are all at different levels. Some of them are clearly there because the parents just want them to be doing something, while others truly need help. So planning the lessons and putting together entertaining but educational things for them has been a huge learning experience since most of them have the attention span of a squirrel. But I have loved doing it and it has truly put me in awe of what teachers do and I am so grateful for all of the teachers I have had over the years. So I teach in the mornings and then in the afternoons a group of us gets on the bus to Belmopan which is the capital here in Belize, and let me tell you the bus is quite the experience every time you ride it. You are either in a near death experience with other cars or crammed up against 50 other people since there are basically no rules at all. But anyways we have always managed to make it to Belmopan in one piece where we then go and walk to Kings Orphanage where we have a sports camp. We take the kids to the park and play assorted games with them its always a lot of fun and they always have a lot of energy. Walking into the orphanage however is a hard slap in the face, there is so many kids everywhere and building is so tiny the hallway is only big enough for one person to walk through at a time and hopefully there will be more things we can do for them in the future.