Day 33

I decided to give you a little update since it's been awhile since my last post. I won't be able to put up any pictures this time because I am at the school and their computers can't exactly handle pictures! I'll put some up next time.
Teaching was so much better last week, and it has continued this week. I have built some good relationships with my kids and they are no longer testing me to see how much they can get away with. I really enjoy teaching them, and I have gotten the chance to hang out with a few of them outside of school too, which is nice.
This weekend was 'Village Life' in Punta Gorda. Basically it is a celebration of all the different cultures here in PG. Friday night we went to a show where we watched a whole bunch of different cultural dances being done. Then Saturday Katie and I played in a volleyball tournament during the day, and the three of us went to a dance in the evening. Katie's parents are here visiting right now, so on Sunday we went to Placencia for the day. It was very hot, so we enjoyed spending the day on the first big beach that we've seen in Belize! It's about an hour and a half bus ride, and a ten minute fairy boat ride away, so I think we will be making more weekend trips out that way. We are hoping to go to Guatemala this coming weekend. My time is up, so that's all the updating I can do for now. I'll post more later:)

Day 23

We are moving into our third week of teaching on Monday, and hopefully it goes a little more smoothly than the second week! This practicum has definitely been testing my classroom management skills, as the kids here are used to their teachers using negative reinforcement and physical punishment as discipline tools. Getting my 33 little ones to respond to positive reinforcement is a little difficult. The teachers here have advised us that we should not smile or laugh with our students very much. I am finding this very hard. On the other hand, my teacher and I get along so great, and both the principals and the teachers have approached all three of us girls and congratulated us on our work so far. They said that they are shocked at how quickly we have adapted here. We do feel very comfortable in the school already, which is nice. At first the teachers were a bit hard to get to know, but we killed them with kindness! The principal has also asked me if two university of Belize students studying to be teachers could come in and observe one of my math classes. They will have to do a report on the methods that I use, and possibly take over a math class of mine in the future to put these methods to practice. I was shocked that I was asked, but was very happy too!

The picture above is one that Katie took of me doing some school planning in our kitchen (pretty nice floors eh). The one below left is the bathroom and the one on the right is the view that I have from my bed. I sleep in the living room on a single bed, and Melissa and Katie sleep in the bedroom in a single and double bed. We were actually shocked by how nice our apartment is. It's definitely the nicest place that we have seen in Punta Gorda. We lucked out! We've been taking in some of the local routines as well. We go to the market at 6:00am on Saturdays to get fruit and vegetables, and we went to a bar with a few friends last night who taught us how to dance to what they call 'punta rock'. Punta Gorda is also a very religious town, so we have been training our little Katie to be a good catholic:) She has already learned the our father and is working on the hail mary. She tries to fake it, but her kids see right through her. That's all for now. Thanks for all of your comments everyone. I like to hear your thoughts. I hope 2007 is being good to you!

Still updating you on our first week!

Our next adventure was a tour through an ancient Mayan Cave outside of San Ignacio. The picture to the left is our hike through the jungle to the cave. We had to cross through three rivers on our way. The cave itself has a river running through it and is 1500 feet underground. We spent over 3 hours in this cave with only headlamps for light. The cave remains at a constant temperature which is around 22 degrees celcius, despite what the weather may be like outside. It was beautiful inside. It was so high and had sparkly stalactites on the roof of it, as well as lots of bat caves! Once we climbed through the cave for about an hour, we came to a large chamber where there were hundreds of Mayan artifacts in their original spots. There were skeletons from human sacrifices, and lots of broken pottery. The Mayan's did rituals that included blood-letting and breaking pottery because they believed that when broken, the pots released the spirit of the person who created it. They also believed that being sacrificed was an honour because once dead, the person got to join God instead of leading their hard life on earth. For example, if two men both wanted to marry Katie, they would have a competition for her. The one that won the competition would be sacrificed because he got to go to heaven and be with many Katie's, whereas

the one that lost got to stay on earth and live with Katie. That's just a little tid bit of history for

you! The picture to the left is an example of the pottery that we saw up in the cave.

The day after our cave tour we packed up and moved to a different hostel that was about a half hour 4X4 trip into the jungle. It was the coolest place that I have ever been! The picture below does not do it justice, but it can give you an idea. (The one on the left was the luxurious bathroom.) The family who runs this 'farm' as they call it make everything that they eat, and they know all of the plants in the jungle that they can use for spices, tea, birth control, snake anti-venom, and a malaria cure. There is also a vine that they can use to catch fish because it has spikes coming out of it that are so strong that they could withstand the weight of a large fish! They built all of their houses by themselves, and were so welcoming. They caught a wild rat in the jungle which they cooked up and let us eat. It was very good! They also took us on an unreal waterfall hike, as well as a horseback ride through the jungle. The waterfalls there are so high, and grippy due to limestone deposit that we could actually walk up and down them with bare feet. It was crazy; we felt like spiderman!

We were lucky enough to find this farm, and one of the gentlemen in the family even drove us four hours to Punta Gorda on Saturday January 6th, so that we could get there in time to teach on the 8th. Teaching has been interesting so far. It's definitely different than home, but I feel like we're adapting ok so far. This week was mostly observation and many unplanned teaching instances, but this week we will begin teaching our required amounts, so we will be prepared! We are excited and ready for the challenge. I will update you more on Punta Gorda life and teaching later. :)

So we left Caye Caulker on December 2nd, and took a water taxi with 3 guys that we met in our hostel, to Belize City. From there we bused to San Ignacio where our first stop was two ancient Mayan ruins sites. They are still excavating many of the sites, and archaeologists still cannot figure out what caused the downfall of their civilization. The structures are amazing, and so hard to comprehend how people thousands of years ago could construct such things. This specific site is a Mayan city called Xunantunich (the X is pronounced like a Z). The view was amazing. The second site we went to (below) did not include views like this, but it was more interesting because it was a maze of rooms, staircases, and hallways all made out of stone.

It also had a drainage system

which I found so interesting. It was more like a city and if it hadn't rained and made things so slippery I probably would have suggested an intense game of hide and seek. Just kidding! These sites are purely educational;)

1st Days in Belize

Sorry for the wait, but I am finally figuring out this blog stuff! So Katie, Melissa, and I arrived in Belize on December 29th, and took a small flight over to Caye Caulker which is an island north east of Belize City. We got there at night only to find that our reservation for our hostel did not go through. We were homeless for the first time, and had no choice but to sleep in hammocks outside of the hostel. This seemed a little scary at first, as we had landed on the island at night and did not know how safe it was. We slept with our important information and money with us, and everything was fine until a rain storm came up. We ended up sleeping on the kitchen floor, and were able to get beds the next day. Even though Caye Caulker is very touristy, we had a great time meeting so many people from all over the globe, and hanging out with a few locals that showed us the ropes. We went sailing and scuba diving, got to swim with sharks and rays, and took in some of the local food and night life. We were also lucky enough to get to play with some of the children around the island. This was a good preview of what we were going to experience in the classroom. The kids here want everything. They ask for your hats, cards, and balls, and are so cute that it's hard to say no.

We went sailing off of Caye Caulker one day, which was a first for all three of us. It was a gorgeous day and a first experience for all of us. Our Captain was great and stopped to let us snorkel in 3 different spots. He also dove to the bottom and grabbed 4 or 5 conch which we ate raw mixed in salsa on our way home.