So I have now been back in Canada for about three weeks and everything is pretty well back to normal except for my eating habits. I didn’t have much culture shock at all, I now appreciate things that I took for granted before a lot more. I really enjoyed my time there, it was a great experience. If I had to do it all over again, I would go for sure. Memories that will always stay with me are the church services, the children from the King’s Children’s home, the children from the learning center in Unitedville, living in a house with 20 other people, seeing the sugar cane cutters in Corozal. There are so many things that I will never forget and stories that I will tell for a long time to come. I see the videos of the trip and wish I was back there. It was a great mission experience as well as a great way to spend a semester of school. This trip has been a totally new learning experience, and I learned a lot more than what I could have in a classroom.
I thank everyone who has supported me in this adventure. Each team member is home again safely, and we appreciated your prayer support.
Benjamin
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Saturday, May 5, 2007
Update 9
Hey everyone, it has been a long time since I last wrote so I thought it was about time that I wrote to you again. So we are now just finishing up our last week of break before heading into our third placements. This time our break has been filled with relaxing instead of work and we are now ready and re-energized to go back for another round of placements.
On our break we did lots of fun things, it was mostly our “March break” that we didn’t get in March, so we spent it doing day trips and just relaxing on base. We were able to go out to Caye Caulker twice on this break, where we just swam, shopped, and snorkeled. Snorkeling was awesome. I was able to swim with moray eels, stingrays, nurse sharks and barracudas. I also touched the stingrays and the nurse sharks. We fed the barracuda only inches from our faces, that was a little bit more frightening when you can see their long sharp teeth. We went to a local resort to swim a few times, as well as going to a waterfall in San Ignacio to jump off cliffs and go on the rope swing.
Last weekend was the National Agricultural Fair of Belize. The main attraction to this fair is the National Rodeo, which we had the privilege to watch, and the opportunity to watch two of our team members ride in. Liesl and Meghan both were able to ride and compete in the National Rodeo. Meghan was able to show her horse in the English jumping as well as compete in the western events and Liesl was competed in all the western events. Liesl was able to place second in the arena race and from that able to take home one hundred dollars in prize money. It was awesome to be able to see our team members riding and doing so well in the National Rodeo.
A sad part of this break was watching Laura go home. She was to be unable to finish her Independent Learning Course here in Belize because of shipping delays and needed to head home. She left after completing two months of this journey with us and there is now a hole to fill in her place. She was a spiritual leader while she was here, and continues to be a role model for the team. We are excited to be reunited with the entire team together in the two weeks that we will have after we get home completing this coop.
My third placement will be In His Will Ministries, and I will be going there with Stanley, Rachelle, and Lauren. It is owned by a Canadian family of missionaries that run a library and learning centre for the kids of the surrounding neighborhood to come to study and be tutored. So I will mostly be working with the kids in the learning centre, tutoring and helping them to study. I am really looking forward to the opportunity to go there. The first week of the third placement will be spent on base because the missionary family is in Guatemala. Stanley and I will be gutting out one of the dorms here on the base for the first three days, and I am hoping to be able to spend the last two days at the King’s Children’s home where I spent my first placement. I would like to get a chance to see the children one more time and be able to say goodbye.
That is all i have to say for now..
Benjamin
On our break we did lots of fun things, it was mostly our “March break” that we didn’t get in March, so we spent it doing day trips and just relaxing on base. We were able to go out to Caye Caulker twice on this break, where we just swam, shopped, and snorkeled. Snorkeling was awesome. I was able to swim with moray eels, stingrays, nurse sharks and barracudas. I also touched the stingrays and the nurse sharks. We fed the barracuda only inches from our faces, that was a little bit more frightening when you can see their long sharp teeth. We went to a local resort to swim a few times, as well as going to a waterfall in San Ignacio to jump off cliffs and go on the rope swing.
Last weekend was the National Agricultural Fair of Belize. The main attraction to this fair is the National Rodeo, which we had the privilege to watch, and the opportunity to watch two of our team members ride in. Liesl and Meghan both were able to ride and compete in the National Rodeo. Meghan was able to show her horse in the English jumping as well as compete in the western events and Liesl was competed in all the western events. Liesl was able to place second in the arena race and from that able to take home one hundred dollars in prize money. It was awesome to be able to see our team members riding and doing so well in the National Rodeo.
A sad part of this break was watching Laura go home. She was to be unable to finish her Independent Learning Course here in Belize because of shipping delays and needed to head home. She left after completing two months of this journey with us and there is now a hole to fill in her place. She was a spiritual leader while she was here, and continues to be a role model for the team. We are excited to be reunited with the entire team together in the two weeks that we will have after we get home completing this coop.
My third placement will be In His Will Ministries, and I will be going there with Stanley, Rachelle, and Lauren. It is owned by a Canadian family of missionaries that run a library and learning centre for the kids of the surrounding neighborhood to come to study and be tutored. So I will mostly be working with the kids in the learning centre, tutoring and helping them to study. I am really looking forward to the opportunity to go there. The first week of the third placement will be spent on base because the missionary family is in Guatemala. Stanley and I will be gutting out one of the dorms here on the base for the first three days, and I am hoping to be able to spend the last two days at the King’s Children’s home where I spent my first placement. I would like to get a chance to see the children one more time and be able to say goodbye.
That is all i have to say for now..
Benjamin
Friday, April 20, 2007
Update 8
I am now into my second week at my second placement, and over halfway done this trip. I am still working at the La Loma Luz Adventist hospital in Santa Elena, but now we are not doing maintenance.
This week we have been given the opportunity to work inside the hospital, and to shadow some of the doctors, lab technicians, and pharmacists that work here. Today, in the morning, I worked with the x-ray technician, who also takes the vital signs of all the patients that come into the hospital. Midway through the morning I began shadowing the pharmacist and she gave me access to the hospital’s entire inventory list. I watched her as she ordered new medicines and as she filled prescriptions for the patients. Nathan worked all day with Steve, the x-ray technician, and he was actually taking the x-rays by the end. During the morning while I was with the pharmacist Poppy, a boy from the King’s Children’s Home, came by to get his elbow x-rayed. I had the pleasure of reading the x-ray and help him. His elbow did turn out to be broken, apparently it happened when a team came down and took them to the park that I used to take the kids to every day and he fell off the top of the monkey bars. So now that we had determined that he had a broken elbow he needed to be casted. So I now had the opportunity to help put on his cast. They still use the paper Mache like casts here, so it was pretty messy. The entire time I was helping them out Poppy kept smiling and saying, “Your Ben!” I was glad that the children still remembered me.
On Monday, on the way back to drop everyone off to their placements we stopped off at the orphanage so that Laura could do some filming. This gave me some time to go into the home and say hello to the cooks and some of the kids that were home. I got to see Amelia again, and she still remembered me.
So throughout this week Nathan and I are being given the chance to work inside the hospital shadowing different people. On Wednesday we were supposed to watch a surgery which was postponed until May, so we will be unable to see it. I was able to shadow a doctor during one morning, but most of the week was spent helping with the vital signs and x-ray technician.
Looking back on this placement I enjoyed it a lot. This was the placement that I really wanted to do, and I have now been able to complete it. These two weeks have flown by; we are now more than halfway through our trip, with somewhere around 40 days left to go. We now head into another break from placements, where we are all living and working together.
thats all for now
This week we have been given the opportunity to work inside the hospital, and to shadow some of the doctors, lab technicians, and pharmacists that work here. Today, in the morning, I worked with the x-ray technician, who also takes the vital signs of all the patients that come into the hospital. Midway through the morning I began shadowing the pharmacist and she gave me access to the hospital’s entire inventory list. I watched her as she ordered new medicines and as she filled prescriptions for the patients. Nathan worked all day with Steve, the x-ray technician, and he was actually taking the x-rays by the end. During the morning while I was with the pharmacist Poppy, a boy from the King’s Children’s Home, came by to get his elbow x-rayed. I had the pleasure of reading the x-ray and help him. His elbow did turn out to be broken, apparently it happened when a team came down and took them to the park that I used to take the kids to every day and he fell off the top of the monkey bars. So now that we had determined that he had a broken elbow he needed to be casted. So I now had the opportunity to help put on his cast. They still use the paper Mache like casts here, so it was pretty messy. The entire time I was helping them out Poppy kept smiling and saying, “Your Ben!” I was glad that the children still remembered me.
On Monday, on the way back to drop everyone off to their placements we stopped off at the orphanage so that Laura could do some filming. This gave me some time to go into the home and say hello to the cooks and some of the kids that were home. I got to see Amelia again, and she still remembered me.
So throughout this week Nathan and I are being given the chance to work inside the hospital shadowing different people. On Wednesday we were supposed to watch a surgery which was postponed until May, so we will be unable to see it. I was able to shadow a doctor during one morning, but most of the week was spent helping with the vital signs and x-ray technician.
Looking back on this placement I enjoyed it a lot. This was the placement that I really wanted to do, and I have now been able to complete it. These two weeks have flown by; we are now more than halfway through our trip, with somewhere around 40 days left to go. We now head into another break from placements, where we are all living and working together.
thats all for now
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Update 7
Hey everyone thought I would write you an email. I am now into my first week of my second placement, which is at La Loma Luz hospital.
I am only two days into this placement now, and it is pretty good so far. Mostly I just work in maintenance. We do tasks such as paint houses, wash cars, and clean up sheds. We are hopefully going to have the opportunity to sit in on some surgeries in our time here. Some of my scholastic tasks are to look into the medicinal inventory of the hospital, and possibly do some lab work, and talking to the hospital director it seems as if these things will be possible. At the hospital all the trucks are standard shifts and Nathan is beginning to teach me how to drive them.
This is my first time living off the YWAM base; I am living with a host family in Santa Elena. Santa Elena is right next to San Ignacio, and is where the hospital is located. Our home is now a ten minute walk away from the hospital, which we walk both ways every day. I am living here with Nathan Lamont, a student from TDCH. We have our own guest house, and live very comfortably.
This placement will only be for two weeks, because we worked during our two week break making this a shortened placement. We are able to walk to and from the store down the road if we need to, which is more freedom here than in roaring creek.
After work the one day, we went with a couple of guys from work to swim at a waterfall. At the base of the waterfall the water was about ten feet deep, and the height of the waterfall was about thirty feet. We jumped into the water from the top, and we also swung from a rope swing hanging from a tree over the water. This spot was very beautiful, the water was clean, and it wasn’t very busy.
So far this placement has been good and I hope it continues this way. I am excited to be able to experience some of the work indoors in the hospital, and to watch some surgeries. I am enjoying living off the base and living with Nathan. I will write again later.
bye
I am only two days into this placement now, and it is pretty good so far. Mostly I just work in maintenance. We do tasks such as paint houses, wash cars, and clean up sheds. We are hopefully going to have the opportunity to sit in on some surgeries in our time here. Some of my scholastic tasks are to look into the medicinal inventory of the hospital, and possibly do some lab work, and talking to the hospital director it seems as if these things will be possible. At the hospital all the trucks are standard shifts and Nathan is beginning to teach me how to drive them.
This is my first time living off the YWAM base; I am living with a host family in Santa Elena. Santa Elena is right next to San Ignacio, and is where the hospital is located. Our home is now a ten minute walk away from the hospital, which we walk both ways every day. I am living here with Nathan Lamont, a student from TDCH. We have our own guest house, and live very comfortably.
This placement will only be for two weeks, because we worked during our two week break making this a shortened placement. We are able to walk to and from the store down the road if we need to, which is more freedom here than in roaring creek.
After work the one day, we went with a couple of guys from work to swim at a waterfall. At the base of the waterfall the water was about ten feet deep, and the height of the waterfall was about thirty feet. We jumped into the water from the top, and we also swung from a rope swing hanging from a tree over the water. This spot was very beautiful, the water was clean, and it wasn’t very busy.
So far this placement has been good and I hope it continues this way. I am excited to be able to experience some of the work indoors in the hospital, and to watch some surgeries. I am enjoying living off the base and living with Nathan. I will write again later.
bye
Sunday, April 1, 2007
Update 6
The last week has been crazy, it has been our break week, and so 21 people have been living together instead of the normal 10 on base. For the first couple of days, we did work on the base and we set up for the VBS camp that we will be running this week. From Wednesday to Saturday we were off on a road trip.
I will start off by telling you about the first couple days and preparations for VBS. They were a little bit discouraging because this was supposed to be our two week break, and now we were doing base work such as raking leaves, digging holes, sweeping, and bleaching walls in around 5 buildings. We had to cobweb the ceilings in these buildings as well, which was basically sweeping the ceiling. With some complaining we got this done.
Corozel, what a great time we spent there. We were there to be near the beach, but also our main purpose was to paint a house at a school, tear down another building, and dig a trench for the school. When we arrived we met a family that had just moved down there, they sold everything because they felt God calling them to start a small seminary school. Mr. Kamphuis asked them if there was any way that we would be able to bless them, and they said that their house hadn’t been painted in the two months they had lived there so far, and that would be a great help. So there was another side project and we had a team of girls to go there and help them with that. Albert Zantingh, our contact in Corozel, told Mr. Kamphuis that he didn’t think that we would be able to finish the three jobs he had for us, but at least it would be a start. Not only did we finish those three jobs, but on the house that we tore down the back half we repainted the remaining house, and painted the house of the people we met there.
We also went to the mayan temples that were nearby to Corozel, this was our trip home as well. It was amazing to see these temples; we also swam in the water nearby. After seeing these temples we were off to Belize City. Why? To go to the only subway in all of Belize, yes, subway. It was about a 1.5 hour detour, but it was worth it. I tell you a sub never tasted so good. Sitting there eating subway made me and a couple others realize that at home we take EVERYTHING for granted. Honestly though, we really do.
During our time in Corozel we passed sugar cane fields many times. In those fields are the cane cutters, working long hard days to fill the trucks which can hold about 15 tons of cane. They are paid about 6 Belizean dollars per ton, and that works out to about $90 Belize, which is split amongst the workers. One Belizean dollar is equal to fifty cents American, so these workers are extremely underpaid. We have sugar in everything, and we complain when prices are raised. We bought these workers a drink, as well as brought them pancakes from our breakfast, from the little we gave them they were so thankful. These men were Christians, and they needed to be. The ages of these men were 52, 68, 71, and 82. If you ask me they do more work in one day than any of the students from either of the high schools we attend. They are covered in soot from when they burn the remaining foliage out of the cane field. We also took up a free will offering from the team, and we were able to raise $312 Belize for these men to split. They then prayed for us and we in turn prayed for them. Just seeing these elderly men that should have been retired working in such hard conditions was enough for me. That made us realize that we take way too much for granted.
We then came home from our tiring road trip, exhausted but fulfilled. We did the jobs we came to do, and we went above and beyond what they asked of us. I know that I learned a lot on this little four day trip. That is all I have to say for now, but we are all doing good here, hope all is well at home.
I will start off by telling you about the first couple days and preparations for VBS. They were a little bit discouraging because this was supposed to be our two week break, and now we were doing base work such as raking leaves, digging holes, sweeping, and bleaching walls in around 5 buildings. We had to cobweb the ceilings in these buildings as well, which was basically sweeping the ceiling. With some complaining we got this done.
Corozel, what a great time we spent there. We were there to be near the beach, but also our main purpose was to paint a house at a school, tear down another building, and dig a trench for the school. When we arrived we met a family that had just moved down there, they sold everything because they felt God calling them to start a small seminary school. Mr. Kamphuis asked them if there was any way that we would be able to bless them, and they said that their house hadn’t been painted in the two months they had lived there so far, and that would be a great help. So there was another side project and we had a team of girls to go there and help them with that. Albert Zantingh, our contact in Corozel, told Mr. Kamphuis that he didn’t think that we would be able to finish the three jobs he had for us, but at least it would be a start. Not only did we finish those three jobs, but on the house that we tore down the back half we repainted the remaining house, and painted the house of the people we met there.
We also went to the mayan temples that were nearby to Corozel, this was our trip home as well. It was amazing to see these temples; we also swam in the water nearby. After seeing these temples we were off to Belize City. Why? To go to the only subway in all of Belize, yes, subway. It was about a 1.5 hour detour, but it was worth it. I tell you a sub never tasted so good. Sitting there eating subway made me and a couple others realize that at home we take EVERYTHING for granted. Honestly though, we really do.
During our time in Corozel we passed sugar cane fields many times. In those fields are the cane cutters, working long hard days to fill the trucks which can hold about 15 tons of cane. They are paid about 6 Belizean dollars per ton, and that works out to about $90 Belize, which is split amongst the workers. One Belizean dollar is equal to fifty cents American, so these workers are extremely underpaid. We have sugar in everything, and we complain when prices are raised. We bought these workers a drink, as well as brought them pancakes from our breakfast, from the little we gave them they were so thankful. These men were Christians, and they needed to be. The ages of these men were 52, 68, 71, and 82. If you ask me they do more work in one day than any of the students from either of the high schools we attend. They are covered in soot from when they burn the remaining foliage out of the cane field. We also took up a free will offering from the team, and we were able to raise $312 Belize for these men to split. They then prayed for us and we in turn prayed for them. Just seeing these elderly men that should have been retired working in such hard conditions was enough for me. That made us realize that we take way too much for granted.
We then came home from our tiring road trip, exhausted but fulfilled. We did the jobs we came to do, and we went above and beyond what they asked of us. I know that I learned a lot on this little four day trip. That is all I have to say for now, but we are all doing good here, hope all is well at home.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Update 5
Hey everyone, I haven’t sent out an email in quite some time now, but I have been really busy with lots of things. Weekly logs and other assignments for my co-op part of this trip. This week was the last week of my first placement. It was ok; I had to stay home on Thursday sick, with a bit of a stomach flu. Other than that I had a good week.
Friday was a difficult day saying goodbye to all those kids. I didn’t think I had gotten attached to too many of the kids, but saying goodbye wasn’t very fun. The leaders of the home thanked us and gave both me and Hannah a card. All of the children signed the card, so the card was pretty full of signatures. My time there was well spent, I really enjoyed it. I didn’t think that I had learned as much as I did, but talking with Mr. Kamphuis while trying to fix up my weekly log, I realized that I did encounter a lot of things that I learned to deal with. Some of the things were just being in a position of leadership to 20 young children while being at the park, and perseverance through the first couple of days when it was hard. A lot of the kids gave me hugs as I tried to leave the home on Friday.
Reyna, a girl I would play hop-scotch with, was apparently sad on Thursday when I stayed home sick. Again on Friday when I was saying goodbye, she was hard to find with a smile on her face like usual. She was so cute about it though, because she didn’t want me to see that she was sad, so I had to follow her around and grab her to get a second hug. I will miss seeing her everyday, though she did always beat me at hop-scotch. Amelia gave me a long hug too, I carried her around to say goodbye to some of the other kids while she was hugging me. I will miss those kids, but I will try to make my way out there again before I have to come home.
My next placement will be the hospital, which is in San Ignacio. I will be living off the base during my week, and I will be living with a host family and walking to the hospital everyday. I am pretty excited about this placement, because this is the one placement that I really wanted to be able to experience. Feeding into that excitement, were the girls who were there for the first placement. When they got back on Friday night, I was told that they were allowed to watch an eye surgery, neither of them did because they were grossed out, but I was totally stoked to see some of that. I thought that my mom would have been proud if I was able to see that, because I know that if she was able to she would have watched it. I will be living with another guy from the team, Nathan Lamont. He is from TDCH and is grade twelve. If I had to choose he is the one guy that I would want to live with from the team for three weeks, so I am pretty excited to be able to get to know him a lot better. He is probably my best male friend on this team, we connected right away at the TDCH&HDCH team meeting in at TDCH, and we were just right away friends.
So a couple of days ago, I had the revelation that I have not seen my house, or anyone that I would regularly see on a daily basis, in 25 days. I did not have this revelation in a time of homesickness, but in a time that I wondered why I wasn’t homesick at all. I finally came up with the reason that I am not homesick, and that is because I feel totally at home here. This really is my home away from home. I love it here, and I am ready to face my next 9 weeks here. I don’t know what is like at home, but here I really don’t get a lot of off time to just sit and think about what is going on at home to make me get homesick.
Seeing as this is starting to become a short novel, I am going to let you go. Hope this gets everyone up to date on what is going on here in Belize. Oh yeah, and one more thing, today it is 25 degrees Celsius here in Belmopan, and I believe that yesterday was warmer. Yesterday I spent the entire day in the pool, from about 9:30AM to about 4:30PM. In hindsight, I wish that I would have re-applied sunscreen, seeing as now I have a wicked sunburn. I just thought that I would let you know that it is really warm here.
Anyways now I am actually done, I will write again later.
Friday was a difficult day saying goodbye to all those kids. I didn’t think I had gotten attached to too many of the kids, but saying goodbye wasn’t very fun. The leaders of the home thanked us and gave both me and Hannah a card. All of the children signed the card, so the card was pretty full of signatures. My time there was well spent, I really enjoyed it. I didn’t think that I had learned as much as I did, but talking with Mr. Kamphuis while trying to fix up my weekly log, I realized that I did encounter a lot of things that I learned to deal with. Some of the things were just being in a position of leadership to 20 young children while being at the park, and perseverance through the first couple of days when it was hard. A lot of the kids gave me hugs as I tried to leave the home on Friday.
Reyna, a girl I would play hop-scotch with, was apparently sad on Thursday when I stayed home sick. Again on Friday when I was saying goodbye, she was hard to find with a smile on her face like usual. She was so cute about it though, because she didn’t want me to see that she was sad, so I had to follow her around and grab her to get a second hug. I will miss seeing her everyday, though she did always beat me at hop-scotch. Amelia gave me a long hug too, I carried her around to say goodbye to some of the other kids while she was hugging me. I will miss those kids, but I will try to make my way out there again before I have to come home.
My next placement will be the hospital, which is in San Ignacio. I will be living off the base during my week, and I will be living with a host family and walking to the hospital everyday. I am pretty excited about this placement, because this is the one placement that I really wanted to be able to experience. Feeding into that excitement, were the girls who were there for the first placement. When they got back on Friday night, I was told that they were allowed to watch an eye surgery, neither of them did because they were grossed out, but I was totally stoked to see some of that. I thought that my mom would have been proud if I was able to see that, because I know that if she was able to she would have watched it. I will be living with another guy from the team, Nathan Lamont. He is from TDCH and is grade twelve. If I had to choose he is the one guy that I would want to live with from the team for three weeks, so I am pretty excited to be able to get to know him a lot better. He is probably my best male friend on this team, we connected right away at the TDCH&HDCH team meeting in at TDCH, and we were just right away friends.
So a couple of days ago, I had the revelation that I have not seen my house, or anyone that I would regularly see on a daily basis, in 25 days. I did not have this revelation in a time of homesickness, but in a time that I wondered why I wasn’t homesick at all. I finally came up with the reason that I am not homesick, and that is because I feel totally at home here. This really is my home away from home. I love it here, and I am ready to face my next 9 weeks here. I don’t know what is like at home, but here I really don’t get a lot of off time to just sit and think about what is going on at home to make me get homesick.
Seeing as this is starting to become a short novel, I am going to let you go. Hope this gets everyone up to date on what is going on here in Belize. Oh yeah, and one more thing, today it is 25 degrees Celsius here in Belmopan, and I believe that yesterday was warmer. Yesterday I spent the entire day in the pool, from about 9:30AM to about 4:30PM. In hindsight, I wish that I would have re-applied sunscreen, seeing as now I have a wicked sunburn. I just thought that I would let you know that it is really warm here.
Anyways now I am actually done, I will write again later.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Update 4
So it has been a while since my last blog, so I have quite a bit to talk about. First I will talk about my placement.
For the past two and a half weeks I have been working at the Kings Children’s Home, which is an orphanage in Belmopan. It has been a good placement but I have a few concerns with way its run. My first concern is the way that it seems to be a daycare up until 2:30. Hannah and I take care of 4 four year olds and 3 of those kids have parents that work at the orphanage. It makes it a little bit hard to discipline the kids when they aren’t listening. Another problem with that is those kids with parents here are treated much better than the other child. They receive more candy if it is given out and they are not disciplined for things that the other one is. There are also three babies in the morning, if they have a dirty diaper, the staff won’t clean them up. The staff just lets them walk around with it on until we see it and clean him up. The staff that does the most work is the two cooks. They cook the meals and all the kids love them. The staff seems like they don’t do anything, for at least 5 hours during some days they will watch television in the back room. I guess that’s enough bad things to say, because there are also good parts about this placement.
The things that I really like about this placement are being able to hang out with some really cool kids. Some of these kids I will never forget, they have just had an impression on me that I love to see them. Amelia is one of those kids; she is two years old and extremely cute. She is just learning to speak and can already say my name. She has no problem when I want to hold her, she cries when I leave her with Hannah (only one time though). Kearra is another cutie, but she is only at the home for a couple of hours. Her mother works here and she attends school, she is only here after school. I like to take the kids to the park but this can be a hassle at times, and also picking up the kids is a task, but it is fun. When the kids get home from grade school, I often will play hop scotch with the little girls. Reyna, one of the girls I play with is certainly another fun part of the day. I also play little hand games that girls here play, called slide-slide. Marlon is in infant 2, so grade two back at home, and he is incredibly smart. He is always the first one of the kids here at the home in that grade that is done his homework. He is also one of the best kids in terms listening. The children are definitely the best part of this first placement.
Now I have to talk about our time at the blue hole. We rented a cave guide, Israel, and we walked a tour through a cave near the blue hole. When we were in the cave we were allowed to swim at a certain point. This was an adventure, it was so dark, and the depth fluctuated. After a cave tour we went swimming in the blue hole, this was the inland blue hole, so it was more or less just a giant deep swimming hole. We swam there for the afternoon. It was fun, but there was no jumping off the rocks around the sides, that would have made it awesome.
Well this is becoming a novel, so I am going to end this here. More to come later.
For the past two and a half weeks I have been working at the Kings Children’s Home, which is an orphanage in Belmopan. It has been a good placement but I have a few concerns with way its run. My first concern is the way that it seems to be a daycare up until 2:30. Hannah and I take care of 4 four year olds and 3 of those kids have parents that work at the orphanage. It makes it a little bit hard to discipline the kids when they aren’t listening. Another problem with that is those kids with parents here are treated much better than the other child. They receive more candy if it is given out and they are not disciplined for things that the other one is. There are also three babies in the morning, if they have a dirty diaper, the staff won’t clean them up. The staff just lets them walk around with it on until we see it and clean him up. The staff that does the most work is the two cooks. They cook the meals and all the kids love them. The staff seems like they don’t do anything, for at least 5 hours during some days they will watch television in the back room. I guess that’s enough bad things to say, because there are also good parts about this placement.
The things that I really like about this placement are being able to hang out with some really cool kids. Some of these kids I will never forget, they have just had an impression on me that I love to see them. Amelia is one of those kids; she is two years old and extremely cute. She is just learning to speak and can already say my name. She has no problem when I want to hold her, she cries when I leave her with Hannah (only one time though). Kearra is another cutie, but she is only at the home for a couple of hours. Her mother works here and she attends school, she is only here after school. I like to take the kids to the park but this can be a hassle at times, and also picking up the kids is a task, but it is fun. When the kids get home from grade school, I often will play hop scotch with the little girls. Reyna, one of the girls I play with is certainly another fun part of the day. I also play little hand games that girls here play, called slide-slide. Marlon is in infant 2, so grade two back at home, and he is incredibly smart. He is always the first one of the kids here at the home in that grade that is done his homework. He is also one of the best kids in terms listening. The children are definitely the best part of this first placement.
Now I have to talk about our time at the blue hole. We rented a cave guide, Israel, and we walked a tour through a cave near the blue hole. When we were in the cave we were allowed to swim at a certain point. This was an adventure, it was so dark, and the depth fluctuated. After a cave tour we went swimming in the blue hole, this was the inland blue hole, so it was more or less just a giant deep swimming hole. We swam there for the afternoon. It was fun, but there was no jumping off the rocks around the sides, that would have made it awesome.
Well this is becoming a novel, so I am going to end this here. More to come later.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Update 3
So its been a couple days since my last blog, not too much has gone down since the last one. Lots of work at the orphanage and such, I am in my second week there doing various jobs. Some of the things that I do there are things like play with the children, help out with homework, help out with laundry, and help out with making breads (tortillas and fried jacks)
Oh man, I love to help out making tortillas and fried jacks. We make them from scratch and they taste so good. When you flip the tortillas you use your fingers, not a spatula. Fried Jacks are basically deep fried tortilla like dough with a hole in the middle, I like to put sugar on it.
Today for lunch we had the normal, rice and beans, with fish on top. The fish was just thrown in the deep fryer whole, then when its done they cut it into sections. They were eating the heads and everything. They still had the eyes on the fish and the bones in them. I thought that was gross to an extreme measure.
I enjoy taking the kids to the park most days, recently its been to hot to take the kids to the park in the mid mornings, so we just take everyone to the park in the evening. It gets pretty hectic when we have about 25 kids at the park and just us two volunteers.
I would have to say that the worst part of working at the orphanage would have to be disciplining the kids. I hate it when they don’t listen, and then you have to send them home from the park. It just sucks watching them cry as they walk away, but you just can’t throw sand in other kids faces.
That’s all I can think of saying for now… I will add more later
Benjamin
Oh man, I love to help out making tortillas and fried jacks. We make them from scratch and they taste so good. When you flip the tortillas you use your fingers, not a spatula. Fried Jacks are basically deep fried tortilla like dough with a hole in the middle, I like to put sugar on it.
Today for lunch we had the normal, rice and beans, with fish on top. The fish was just thrown in the deep fryer whole, then when its done they cut it into sections. They were eating the heads and everything. They still had the eyes on the fish and the bones in them. I thought that was gross to an extreme measure.
I enjoy taking the kids to the park most days, recently its been to hot to take the kids to the park in the mid mornings, so we just take everyone to the park in the evening. It gets pretty hectic when we have about 25 kids at the park and just us two volunteers.
I would have to say that the worst part of working at the orphanage would have to be disciplining the kids. I hate it when they don’t listen, and then you have to send them home from the park. It just sucks watching them cry as they walk away, but you just can’t throw sand in other kids faces.
That’s all I can think of saying for now… I will add more later
Benjamin
Friday, March 9, 2007
Update 2
Man, the last few days have been absolutely crazy. Hannah Smele and myself have been helping out at Kings Children home, and its been nuts. The first day was awful, the staff didn’t talk to us, and we didn’t know what to do. Each day since from then it has gotten better. I hate the hours they want us to work though, 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM, when everybody else is done their placements at 4:30. It just is darker when we get back, and we are bushed from playing with these kids all day. The kids are very cute though (check out my pictures on Facebook). We have been taking the kids to the park to tire them out in the mornings now, which seems to be working quite well.
Then we have to eat their food! That’s an experience all on its own. The first days were rice and beans. It was the grossest beans I have ever eaten. I could only eat one third of the food they served me. Since the first day me and Hannah have been bringing granola bars, just in case of gross food. We also can walk to a store, called Brodies, to buy freezies, which are called “ideal’s” here.
Other things that we have done are, tarantula hunts, snake catching, and buying pools. My personal favorite was the tarantula hunt. We would walk along the path and flip over rocks in search of a tarantula. After a couple of rocks we found one. Lindsay caught it with her salad tongs. Later we caught three more, Lindsay caught three and I caught one of the four. Mine was humongous. Two escaped during the night, and mine killed the remaining one, which has now escaped.
I will be updating this blog again later…
Then we have to eat their food! That’s an experience all on its own. The first days were rice and beans. It was the grossest beans I have ever eaten. I could only eat one third of the food they served me. Since the first day me and Hannah have been bringing granola bars, just in case of gross food. We also can walk to a store, called Brodies, to buy freezies, which are called “ideal’s” here.
Other things that we have done are, tarantula hunts, snake catching, and buying pools. My personal favorite was the tarantula hunt. We would walk along the path and flip over rocks in search of a tarantula. After a couple of rocks we found one. Lindsay caught it with her salad tongs. Later we caught three more, Lindsay caught three and I caught one of the four. Mine was humongous. Two escaped during the night, and mine killed the remaining one, which has now escaped.
I will be updating this blog again later…
Saturday, March 3, 2007
Update 1
Hey everyone, so if you haven't figured it out from the title we did arrive safely. After 24 hours in transit we are here. We arrived on friday morning at 330 am, after leaving at 4:00 am from buffalo. and there is a 1 hour time difference, so your time we would have arrived at 430 am.
It was interesting traveling, i was lucky, for the first plane ride from Buffalo to Atlanta i didnt have a window seat. but it was ok, pretty well the whole ride was spent in the clouds, except when we first went above the clouds and the sun was there, and it was dark in buffalo, and then really bright when we came above the clouds. it was beautiful coming out and seeing the sun before any one below the clouds could see it.
Then we had a layover in Atlanta that was supposed to be two hours but we flew in late, and it ended up being more like an hour. so that was a perfect amount of time to use the restrooms eat lunch/breakfast, and talk a little bit.
Then from Atlanta to Cancun we had another 2hr 11min flight, this one .. i scored a window seat, and flying over florida into the gulf of mexico, there were no clouds. from my seat i could see everything. i was able to see the end of the united states and the beginning of cancun. it was amazing weather out
Then we arrived in cancun, and the airport there is absolutley insane,.. we had to go through customs first, and then immigration. everyone there speaks spanish and hardly any english. This is right around the time when Mr Kamphuis decided to leave the team and to go outdoors past the no reentry sign, so that was an experience. All the people are talking to us trying to get us to drive in their taxi service. there are literally hundreds of people outdoors and like 30 people indoors holding signs and yelling in spanish to get you to take their rides.
We then had to get onto a bus from the airport and drive into the inner city, we were just on public transit for this bus ride, it is cheaper than hamilton, and basically a Greyhound bus, only this one was a mercedes. It was crazy. so from the bus station we had to get onto our school bus for the rest of the journey . which we had to walk all our luggage about three blocks down for. lets just say people were really cranky. The streets were really busy, so there was no where to park the bus, and so that is why we had to walk three blocks.
Thats when the journey really started. We then had a twelve hour bus ride to get to belize. In the jungle the whole time. It was fairly insane. Sante (said Sont-eh) was our guide/ bus driver/ camp director. hes awesome. on this bus ride most people were trying to get some sleep.. Not me. i had about a two hour chat with sante about EVERYTHING!. from the native protest to "football" (soccer for those who are lost) and then i tried to sleep.. its kinda uncomfortable sleeping on all the luggage though.
We had to stop the bus at around 1 am to go through the Belizean Customs. We had to take all of our luggage out of the bus. walk it through another building and then load it all again. You could guess that by this time it was getting a little old loading and reloading the bus. but we did it. the rest of the bus ride was relatively uneventful. i got about one hour of sleep on the transit and about 6 hours when we got here. Oh except we stopped by the ocean at one point to put our feet in the ocean. it was very warm and nice.
Now to start on our time here. The first day was a tonne of meetings. Orientation and such. It is about 30 degrees at all times. except in the evenings and early mornings. which is about 23 degrees.
Our second day we spent driving to and seeing all of the placements that people will be at, as well as dropping people off who are staying off base a families homes. My first placement is at a local orphanage so i am staying on the base for the first three weeks. which is fine by me.
Well today we bought a pool. yes. a pool. It only cost us $500 american, so $25 a piece. yeah its a blow up. we can also swim in the river once the base staff uses their machetes to cut a pathway through the jungle. yeah you heard it right..
tomorrow we have church in the morning for 3 or 4 hours, and then at 1 we will be going to a resort to swim for a day before we start our placements on monday morning. Half of the team will not be there seeing as they are already at their placements. and tonight we are having a bonfire with Hot Dogs and such for dinner. so thats all night more updates to come
oh, and the showers are cold, all the water here is cold.
It was interesting traveling, i was lucky, for the first plane ride from Buffalo to Atlanta i didnt have a window seat. but it was ok, pretty well the whole ride was spent in the clouds, except when we first went above the clouds and the sun was there, and it was dark in buffalo, and then really bright when we came above the clouds. it was beautiful coming out and seeing the sun before any one below the clouds could see it.
Then we had a layover in Atlanta that was supposed to be two hours but we flew in late, and it ended up being more like an hour. so that was a perfect amount of time to use the restrooms eat lunch/breakfast, and talk a little bit.
Then from Atlanta to Cancun we had another 2hr 11min flight, this one .. i scored a window seat, and flying over florida into the gulf of mexico, there were no clouds. from my seat i could see everything. i was able to see the end of the united states and the beginning of cancun. it was amazing weather out
Then we arrived in cancun, and the airport there is absolutley insane,.. we had to go through customs first, and then immigration. everyone there speaks spanish and hardly any english. This is right around the time when Mr Kamphuis decided to leave the team and to go outdoors past the no reentry sign, so that was an experience. All the people are talking to us trying to get us to drive in their taxi service. there are literally hundreds of people outdoors and like 30 people indoors holding signs and yelling in spanish to get you to take their rides.
We then had to get onto a bus from the airport and drive into the inner city, we were just on public transit for this bus ride, it is cheaper than hamilton, and basically a Greyhound bus, only this one was a mercedes. It was crazy. so from the bus station we had to get onto our school bus for the rest of the journey . which we had to walk all our luggage about three blocks down for. lets just say people were really cranky. The streets were really busy, so there was no where to park the bus, and so that is why we had to walk three blocks.
Thats when the journey really started. We then had a twelve hour bus ride to get to belize. In the jungle the whole time. It was fairly insane. Sante (said Sont-eh) was our guide/ bus driver/ camp director. hes awesome. on this bus ride most people were trying to get some sleep.. Not me. i had about a two hour chat with sante about EVERYTHING!. from the native protest to "football" (soccer for those who are lost) and then i tried to sleep.. its kinda uncomfortable sleeping on all the luggage though.
We had to stop the bus at around 1 am to go through the Belizean Customs. We had to take all of our luggage out of the bus. walk it through another building and then load it all again. You could guess that by this time it was getting a little old loading and reloading the bus. but we did it. the rest of the bus ride was relatively uneventful. i got about one hour of sleep on the transit and about 6 hours when we got here. Oh except we stopped by the ocean at one point to put our feet in the ocean. it was very warm and nice.
Now to start on our time here. The first day was a tonne of meetings. Orientation and such. It is about 30 degrees at all times. except in the evenings and early mornings. which is about 23 degrees.
Our second day we spent driving to and seeing all of the placements that people will be at, as well as dropping people off who are staying off base a families homes. My first placement is at a local orphanage so i am staying on the base for the first three weeks. which is fine by me.
Well today we bought a pool. yes. a pool. It only cost us $500 american, so $25 a piece. yeah its a blow up. we can also swim in the river once the base staff uses their machetes to cut a pathway through the jungle. yeah you heard it right..
tomorrow we have church in the morning for 3 or 4 hours, and then at 1 we will be going to a resort to swim for a day before we start our placements on monday morning. Half of the team will not be there seeing as they are already at their placements. and tonight we are having a bonfire with Hot Dogs and such for dinner. so thats all night more updates to come
oh, and the showers are cold, all the water here is cold.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Last Days, and Lots of Goodbyes
Now that there is only one day and some hours before i leave i am beginning to say my goodbyes and packing up the last of my things. would say that the hardest thing would be saying goodbyes, even though trying to fit three months worth of things into two suitcases and my carry-ons is fairly difficult.
It seems now that more people want to talk to me because its something unusual, i say goodbye to people knowing that i won't see them again for three months! People that i normally see everyday i won't see again for another 3 months, one fourth of the year.
so i will post again later,
Benjamin van der Woerd
It seems now that more people want to talk to me because its something unusual, i say goodbye to people knowing that i won't see them again for three months! People that i normally see everyday i won't see again for another 3 months, one fourth of the year.
so i will post again later,
Benjamin van der Woerd
Saturday, February 24, 2007
short term placement
So, for two weeks between our retreat at arden and the time we leave we were required to have a short term co-op placement. My short term placement was at Dundas Calvin Christian School, where I worked as a teacher's assistant in Mr. Bezuyn's grade six class.
On the first day I just got thrown right into it, as for the first half of the day i had to mark speeches of children that i had barely even met. I didn't really know how hard to mark these speeches so for my grade most of them did extremely well.
I would definately say that i had forgotten how different grade school really was from high school. On the second day i was listening to my ipod at break where we weren't doing anything and i was told to take it off, i did. Two days later i was listening to my ipod again, this time it was at recess, and again i wasn't allowed to do that. So that was a shocker to me, i mean i though recess was our time.
Meghan van hoeve was also at DCCS with me, she got the good grades though, she taught grades one and three. During lunch and recess i would walk down to her classroom and just hang out with her for a bit. Repeated amounts of times were we asked if we were dating, they just don't understand that guys and girls can be friends without dating i guess. By the end of my time at DCCS i was also helping out with the grade one class on top of my grade six class. I would sit there and play the game "memory" with one of the students, AJ, and grudgingly i would have to say that he beat me. That child has an amazing memory for a grade one kid. He almost double the amount that i got. I would also sit in the hallway and the kids would read to me which was fun, because i remember doing exactly that when i was in grade one.
It is kind of weird being in the grade one class though, where i stand at 6 foot 1 inch and they mostly stand at about half that. I stood next to another student, Caleb, and he actually only came up to my waist.
One of the most fun times at the grade school was winter enrichments. I helped out with "outdoor adventures." Winter enrichments is where the students are designated an activity and every friday for the afternoon they go do these activities. So on the friday that i helped out with this we played outdoor games, which after the first game of capture the flag it ended up being a "lets tackle Mr. Ben game". I would like to state that they only got me down three times, one was by an adult, who only was able to take me down once with kids holding my legs. It was like an afternoon of snow wrestling grade six students. It was so much fun.
So i would like to thank Dundas Calvin Christian School for allowing me to do my short term placement there as well as the students i helped, and of course Mr. Bezuyn. I enjoyed my time there but now its time for me to take off, literally, to Belize.
Next blog from belize...
On the first day I just got thrown right into it, as for the first half of the day i had to mark speeches of children that i had barely even met. I didn't really know how hard to mark these speeches so for my grade most of them did extremely well.
I would definately say that i had forgotten how different grade school really was from high school. On the second day i was listening to my ipod at break where we weren't doing anything and i was told to take it off, i did. Two days later i was listening to my ipod again, this time it was at recess, and again i wasn't allowed to do that. So that was a shocker to me, i mean i though recess was our time.
Meghan van hoeve was also at DCCS with me, she got the good grades though, she taught grades one and three. During lunch and recess i would walk down to her classroom and just hang out with her for a bit. Repeated amounts of times were we asked if we were dating, they just don't understand that guys and girls can be friends without dating i guess. By the end of my time at DCCS i was also helping out with the grade one class on top of my grade six class. I would sit there and play the game "memory" with one of the students, AJ, and grudgingly i would have to say that he beat me. That child has an amazing memory for a grade one kid. He almost double the amount that i got. I would also sit in the hallway and the kids would read to me which was fun, because i remember doing exactly that when i was in grade one.
It is kind of weird being in the grade one class though, where i stand at 6 foot 1 inch and they mostly stand at about half that. I stood next to another student, Caleb, and he actually only came up to my waist.
One of the most fun times at the grade school was winter enrichments. I helped out with "outdoor adventures." Winter enrichments is where the students are designated an activity and every friday for the afternoon they go do these activities. So on the friday that i helped out with this we played outdoor games, which after the first game of capture the flag it ended up being a "lets tackle Mr. Ben game". I would like to state that they only got me down three times, one was by an adult, who only was able to take me down once with kids holding my legs. It was like an afternoon of snow wrestling grade six students. It was so much fun.
So i would like to thank Dundas Calvin Christian School for allowing me to do my short term placement there as well as the students i helped, and of course Mr. Bezuyn. I enjoyed my time there but now its time for me to take off, literally, to Belize.
Next blog from belize...
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