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.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
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.
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