play harder!

Weekends are the best, always. Xunachinuch is some ruins pretty close to where we live and super inexpensive to visit which is nice. Its small though especially in comparison to Tikal. We took this tiny wooden "ferry" across the river and then hiked a mile to get the ruins there is a couple temples. The main one that you can climb up to the top where the view is absolutely incredible you could see Guatemala because we are so close to the boarder. And then right were the bus stop is there is all these little shops HELP International actually put up a map there to help increase tourism and help the town.

 Only four of us went to Xunantunich, Vanessa 27 just graduated from University of Chicago with her MBA, Andi 18 just finished her first year of college at a JC in California, Jeff 19 who also just finished his first year of college and then myself who just graduated high school!

 Restored side of the temple, what it should have looked like.

 All of us at the top....










..........View from the top!

The next weekend was my birthday weekend!! Best 18th birthday ever we went to Placencia, just one of the beaches here in Belize, which is home to the Guinness Book of world records smallest main street in the world. Traveling there though was a battle, it is a fight to get on the bus and it took about four hours but the beach was beautiful and our hotel was literally right in the sand. It was super laid back we kayaked one day, where I of course despite the lack of waves still managed to get completely wipe out and end up with the kayak on top of me. One night we learned to salsa dance it was great to celebrate my birthday on the beach with great new friends. And it was so nice to have hot water at the hotel, I forgot how much I like hot showers.

At dinner for my birthday! The whole restaurant sang to me and I got free cake! It was the best. In the picture starting on the left is Taylor, me, Hilary, Heather, Bri, Andi, Jez and then Jasmine. 

 Waiting at the bus stop in the middle of no where.

 We woke up one morning and watched the sunrise this was right outside our hotel room.









More sunrise and wave...

                                                       




                                                               Passed out on the bus

 Waiting for the bus, it was a bus war, literally.

 The whole group!

Andi giving me a birthday tackle! This was right outside our hotel

Dinner one night with Bri and Andi.

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.

 Me teaching my class, they are all pretty good and all so desperate to please you "miss, miss!!" its the cutest thing ever.

 Kids showing off their muscles at the park during sports camp.

  Moses! He is two and the cutest thing ever.

Me, Bri, Jaz and Jez playing with the kids some more and making sure the random dog dosnt eat there shoes.

On the jungle, or the kingdom as they call it.

Moses, again, cutest baby ever

Random sampling of pictures

 belize money!

 Girls working hard in class

some of the nicer houses

I have a ton more I just forgot my flash drive, smooth I know

lime trees and ukulele's

Over the weekend we had some locals that were taking us around, the girls name was Rosie and she was maybe five feet tall.  We hiked into this jungle ranch and watch a cock fight, no joke, they also got us coconuts from trees and macheted them open so we could drink the coconut water, we also ate avocados off the trees which was so good. And then we went swimming in the river since it was so hot.  So this week has been a little slow just because we are in between projects, so I have been walking around and sweating my head off and going to a lot of meetings. We are working with this high school and will start building a wheel chair ramp next week and painting their desks. I also have been going to this old peoples home and we did a Meals on Wheels type of thing one day, and then the next day I was helping out with the physical therapy and helping them walk. And then I also learned how to take blood pressure the nurse was like take blood pressure! And taught me how, so I learned how but it was a little nerve racking, cause I didn't want to mess it up! We went to the school some more to help out with the kids, but since they are done with the exams the teachers have basically stopped showing up, or they see that we are their and they leave, and then the kids go insane. But you are probably what the significance of the title. Well theres a lime tree in our backyard and I pretty much put lime on everything, and I learned how to play the ukulele! Cause one of the girls brought one and taught me, so that has been fun I only know like one and half song. Oh the power went out the other night OH MY GOSH talk about being hot...even one of the locals we work with, his name is Richard he helps us out a lot and will drive by our house a lot to make sure we are safe, commented on how hot it got. You know its bad when the locals say something. We also attempted to make brownies, which was interesting.

 just walking around, more pictures to come!!

Its only been a couple days

and it feels like I have been here for so long! So when I arrived we waited in the airport for a while and the country directors (people in charge of us) kept commenting on how nice the AC was, I kind of blew it off but it was not a joke...the house we live in is literally a sauna and AC is non existent here and I feel like I never stop sweating, but I know I will get used to it and at least we have an actual house. Most of the people live in little structures of cinder block and tin and everything is up on stilts because of the flooding. Coming here and seeing all of this is incredibly eye opening, and all the people are so nice. At night a couple of us will do Insanity to work out and I know that's challenging the structural integrity of the house given the rotting wooden floors that already have holes in them....but the house is safe! There is bars on all the windows and big fence and gate. As the country directors told us on the first night "dont tell anyone where we live...except everyone knows the house of 18 americans" it is a small little town it has a more Rastafarian/Caribbean feel then latino. They rather speak english then spanish and they speak a lot of creole and will mix it with english and its impossible to understand. I got here on Thursday night and so friday we went and worked in the school, it was incredible how many of the kids couldn't even read. We helped grade paper and read the exams to the kids. The kids will get out of school soon and one of the projects we are going to do is a reading camp and computer camp. We get the weekends off so we went swimming in a river and drank coconut water out of coconuts and have just been hanging out and playing cards. The food is all delicious, every frozen pineapple? Try it, it is so good. Sleeping is probably the hardest we all sleep on these little foam pads on the floor and dont forget to put on your 40% deet bug spray before you go to bed! But it has been so much, and I have been loving every minute of it, I cant wait for this week to work with the peeople more! Still havent figured out how to post pictures :( hasta luego!!

Is this real life?

So I graduated..yeah weird..walking in hearing the music playing looking around to the sobbing mothers and my 600 fellow classmates and it just hit me. That was it. That part of my life is truly over and there is no going back to it. As exciting and happy the hwhole thing was, it also was a rude awkaning to the fact that everything is going to change, exspecially since im leaving, as my friends plan their summers by the beach and around work scheduales I'm off to another country! And that I could not be more exctied about it. It's hard to picture my summer otherwise now, as sad at it is to leave my friends behind for the summer, this wil by far top any Carolina beach trip or a day in the sun lifeguarding. Graduation was awesome, it was such a good feeling and so nice to have my family here. However everything moved incredibly fast graduated moneday and had Tuesday and wedensday to pull together the last minute things. And well actuall put stuff in my suitcase as opposed to the large pile on my floor. I registered for classes at 2 in the morning today and now am about to board my flight to Belize!! Adios amigos the next post will be over the border!! Sorry this post is rushed and if there is spelling or grammer errors...I Havnt found the spell check feature on my phone and it's hard to see the whole screen. Love Alyssa

Once upon a time...

Hi I am Alyssa I hope everyone reading knows me but since I started it with once upon a time I figured there should be a minor introduction. Sometimes I feel like life moves so fast and you reach an "important part" and think how did I get here?! I finished high school last week and graduate tomorrow which still seems unreal to me but I am definitely glad to be moving on. I am attending BYU-Provo in the fall. I have always been bad at journal writing, always getting excited to start one and then the excitement wears off along with the writing. To my moms dismay I have also been awful at taking pictures and documenting things. So in hopes to be able finally succeed in both these aspects I have started this blog, because there is T-4 days and I'll be headed off through customs and into a foreign land! As in Belize, San Ignacio de Cayo. I am going with a program called HELP International (here's the link to their website if you're curious http://help-international.org/) they go all around the world. I will be living there for 6 weeks, as of right now, I have a feeling I will not want to leave and I have the ability to extend the stay if I want. So basically I could not be more thrilled, I don't know anyone going, my flight is directly there and the country directors (the two girls in charge of us) will pick me up from the airport and take me to the house where the whole team lives. Which is around 25 college age kids. The program works in waves so the number of kids in the house varies, I'm on wave two which is June 14th-July 25th. I will be doing humanitarian work so everything from building gardens to teaching English classes. We get the weekends off for exploring and other fun adventures. And I will be lucky to be treated to the area cuisine by the in house chef who cooks dinners Mondays through Fridays. I am so thankful for my parents who have given me this incredible opportunity and to all my family for all the love and support they have shown over the years. So I hope all of you reading right now will continue to check back I hope to be able to update at least a couple times a week with what I'm working on and other experiences.