First Excursion

I guess I'll start off by giving everyone a way to view my pictures.  I haven't quite figured out how to add pictures yet...so I will just post the link.  I'm trying to add captions to all of the pictures, but it takes a very long time! The internet here is very temperamental as well!  http://belizepictureskristen.shutterfly.com/

Friday was an interesting day at the school.  The students that were on Drumline (I guess that is what they call it) had a parade.  The students did not get to watch it, but apparently they just walked around a couple of blocks playing.  While they were doing that I was in Teacher Hector's room playing with the students.  We played a racing spelling game.  One student who cannot spell very well and probably has a deficit of some sort, Tayza, read the words out loud.  I realized she could not even read many words though...so I whispered the words in her ear and pointed to the letters that made the different sounds.  She is one of the students I will be working with a lot after break!  We also played this game called silent ball.  You have to catch the ball and remain quiet...you can't make ANY noise at all.  We played heads down thumbs up, and we played 4 corners.  Even though it was a "free" day I feel the students were still learning how to follow directions by playing these games and they were also working on spelling with the one game. Around 10 AM we all headed to the beach.  It was crazy.  I didn't think it would be so much work at first but watching kids play and making sure no one gets hurt was almost intense.  I played in the water with the kids at first, but it was getting tough because I would have 4 students holding on to me at once...it wore me out!  But after all was said and done I had a great time.  I tried chicken cheviche....it was interesting.  Not as delicious as the shrimp cheviche though!  That night we had lasagna and it was delicious.

Saturday was a long and eventful day. I went snorkeling and it was honestly the most exciting thing I have EVER done.  So exciting that i want to change my major back to Marine Biology....but I'm not.  My pictures and tell the story of what I saw a lot better.  It was amazing.  We went to Hol Chan and we went to Shark Ray Alley.  That night we went to the Elementary School's beauty pageant.  It was pretty intense.  After being on a boat for 9 hours...then walking there we were exhausted.  The pageant lasted until 11:30 too.  It was called Miss Isla Bonita.  There were 4 contestants.  There were dances and a lot of run way walking with a fashion show.  It was definitely a one of a kind experience.

Sunday was a free day.  I was able to finally clean up the room a bit and fix up a clothes line in our room.  I'm happy about that so my clothes can finally dry.

Today (Monday) we have done some service work.  We are helping out with a Easter program at the school library.  One of my students was there, and another student that I pull out to work with was there as well.  It was a nice experience and we basically just told the story of Easter and did a few crafts.  We made Easter baskets and "stained glass" crosses (out of black construction paper).  I will be helping out with that for most of my hours I believe and I'm going to help make some lesson plans for some of the children's books that we brought down to Belize.  It should be a fun week of service work and helping the community.