Sarah Hurt
A
warm breeze blows through my hair and music fills the air. As the salty aroma
fills my nostrils I feel like I'm in paradise. And I am, but I'm not. As
beautiful as Belize is, it is a completely different world than what I live in.
Not just the weather but the civilization, the food, the culture. I knew
that Belize wasn't a very affluent place but it is entirely different to know
something versus actually experiencing it. I couldn't believe people live
like this off of basically nothing. What was even harder to believe was how
happy the people all seem. I look around and I think "I want this place to
be the paradise that it should be."
I
knew this wouldn't be easy, and we certainly couldn't fix everything in the
short time we are here, but I was excited to be able to do as much as we
possibly could. The elementary schools was the best place to start because
although cliche, children are the future. I couldn't wait to start on the
school garden at Chan Chen because I wanted to do something that would really
make a difference. As of today we have spent 2 days at Chan Chen and the
progress is incredible! I have never been so hot, sweaty, or exhausted, but I
have never felt so good about a hard days work. I'm looking forward to see the
"finished" garden tomorrow and hopefully get to see the future
progress.
What
I am not looking forward to is going back to the food in the United States. I'm
not sure if being hot and tired makes everything tastes better, but the food
here has all been SO fabulous. All I want to do is fill my plate full of
veggies because they tastes so fresh. Tonight I had grilled fish and it was
some of the best fish I have ever tasted. Even the corn tortillas are better
here. I want to ask the cook how she makes them so that I can start making my
own!
I
feel so blessed to have had this opportunity and to get to spend the week in
this beautiful country and learn from all of the people who live here and from
all of the people in our group. I hope I am lucky enough to get to come here again
and to go other places around the world!
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| Sarah (right) and Lauren enjoying the beautiful, warm water. |
Adiya Jaffari
To
pick one day out of so many precious days to write about is very difficult. How
is one supposed to pinpoint one moment that was of impact when almost every
moment has that potential? Some impacts are immediate, while others take time.
From so many instances, from so many beautiful souls, I've chosen to tell my
story of one day and one such soul.
For
the last two days I've been helping the Literacy group, at Chan Chen school
with their Easter Camp activities. The children are phenomenal!
Each
one has so much to give and their eyes glow with life. When we first started,
the children were very shy and quiet but by the end they were literally
screaming at the top of their lungs. In order to get the students to become
more comfortable and relax a bit, we read an excerpt from a poem by reading it
as loud as we could and acting it out. We also taught the children about
rhyming and got them to come up with a list of things they love about their
school. We plan to then use those words and rhymes to develop a school song. It
was amazing to see how much the children had retained from the previous lesson.
In addition, they were also much more outgoing and comfortable around us; I was
spellbound to find myself clapping my hands to get their attention.
Working
with children so much and spending so much time with them has gotten me to
realize, even more, how truly pure and bright they are. Each one has their own
beauty and their own charisma. There is no doubt that every single child and
person has their personality and each is special in a unique and different way.
No matter who it is, there are always instances in which people just glow with
life. They have a spark within them, and it is up to them who they share that
with and when.
The
first time I saw this little boy, he was sitting in the literacy classroom
writing down words that rhyme and writing a poem with them. It was completely
different though. He was one of the students in one of the classrooms; he was
one of the many beautiful children of Belize. However, when I later saw him on
the soccer field he had come to life. He blew my mind at how great he had
mastered the sport at such a young age. Tricks that grown soccer players can't
attempt, he had learned at the age of thirteen. Seeing this, being a soccer
lover, I was drawn to him. We played the whole break time and just did tricks
and had lots of fun. There was no need to tell each other anything... about
anything. Just sharing our love for the sport brought us so close. He was then
very comfortable around me and we got introduced and chatted a bit.
From
then on we had just become so close. He had such a spark and it shined through
his dark eyes. He has so much love and is filled with life. Today, we came up
with a hand shake and I got to know a bit more of who he is. He was wearing a
couple of bracelets around his wrists and I complimented them. Later he handed
it to me as a gift. After the camp, he left and returned soon after and just
sat around, watching us. When we were painting a mural for the garden he joined
us and helped. He is a funny boy and splattered paint all over me.
The
thing that really stood out to me was what he said as we were finishing up the
mural. I was painting and he came up next to me and said, in a quiet voice,
"I'm gonna really miss you when you leave". It was so very sweet and
at that moment I realized that our trip was actually coming to an end. I
smiled, gave him a hug and said I will miss him as well when I leave.
Being
so absorbed in everything and just soaking up all of the moments around me has
taken so much of my energy and time that I have forgotten to count the days
until I go home. I have been so afraid of letting go of any moment that may
have true meaning to me. I've taken so much to living in the moment that I had
forgotten to look even a day ahead.
We
run through countless people in our lives. Some come and leave with time and
some touch us in ways that we don’t even understand ourselves. They grasp our
hearts and wrap around it, bring it to life with warmth.
Alex Grealish
The
chan chin today we started off our bus ride squishing 20 people into our
already hot and sweaty van and then off to our first day at spring camp
The
students trickled in and lined up for our 8:30 camp about 40 strong at 9ish and
split up to play soccer, red rover, all forms of tag and Simon (Kylie) says in
the physical education group, learning about poems, rhyming, reading, opening
up with shouting of the poems to get comfortable with their new teachers in the
literacy group, journal making, creating and decorating the the art group, and
expression of who they are inside, what makes them happy, and what makes up
their "plate" in the healthy lifestyles group.
We
snacked on bananas and shingling waters to hold us over until lunch when we
were delivered some delicious chicken, rice and beans, coleslaw, bread pudding
for dessert and then the rest of our team from Libertad soon after trying to
forget about the tarantula found on campus!
Once
the team was all back together and stuffed full we continued on the creation of
Chan chins garden. Today we finished clearing the garden space and removing
rocks along with relocating the soil into the flower beds which we had much
progress with today and finished building and painting over 7 benches made from
resources gathered around the school like the school chairs from a shed with
broken attached desks which were removed and secured together, reused doors cut
and legs attached. Tires were also gathered washed and painted today, all
assortments of Easterish colors, "mint green" "sky blue"
"peppy pink" and "mango squash orange". Our youth for the
future friend joined us as well today Ruffin it in the dirt and soil along side
us.
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| Brooke and Alex (right) drinking water inbetween classes. |
Michelle
McCowen
Our first day at the Easter Camp was split between two
elementary schools: one church-sponsored and named after the village in which
it resides, Libertad, and the other one, government-sponsored Chan Chen, just a
short drive from the town of Corozal. I was at Libertad today, leading the
Healthy lifestyles class, today’s theme being “Healthy Eating.” Tomorrow’s
focus will be on hygiene, and we will end the camp on the last day with healthy
relationships/self-image.
I was nervous to begin today’s camp, as this is my first
experience teaching, let alone my first experience teaching KIDS, let alone my
first experience teaching kids in another country! So, I may have been as
nervous as the first two adorable little girls that shyly walked up before camp
started, scrunching their heads down into their shoulders like turtles trying
to hide in their shells. They responded to our enthusiastic welcome with a
little hand-covered smile, and told us their names while looking down at their
toes. Zoiey and Jennifer ended up being two of the sweetest kids at the camp
that captured my heart. The shyness
level was unbelievably cute, and actually pretty common among the Belizean
children!
The next group that arrived was the 3 siblings that had been
hanging out on Saturday when we were “scoping out the site.” We had chatted
with them a little bit about their favorite games and subjects in school, and
Sue had won them over by introducing them to the magic of Angry Birds on her
iPad. The oldest one, 10 year old Antoine, stood out the most in my memory due
to his big, beautiful smile and love for books, his favorite, impressively,
being Moby Dick! Today, right when he saw me, he let out an excited “Michelle!”
and my heart just melted. I thought myself too boring for him to remember me,
let alone be excited and actually remember my name when he saw me 2 days
later!
Once things got started, the camp went by so fast! Three age
groups (1st&2nd, 3rd & 4th,
and 5th & 6th graders) rotated through four 45-minute
classes: Art, literacy, healthy activities (P.E.), and healthy lifestyles
(nutrition, hygiene, healthy relationships). The oldest group, like typical
junior high kids, were a stark contrast to the youngest ones, in that it was
more of a challenge to engage them. They’re at the “school isn’t cool” phase!
So you might guess that the youngest group were the most into our activities,
the most excited, and definitely my most favorite. I had the biggest smile
plastered across my face the entire time, even when trying to stifle the chaos
that ensued from their extreme excitement! They were so into every activity we
had planned, and so polite and sweet. They seriously the most precious kids, I
loved them so much!!
The second half of the day involved continuing our work on
the garden at Chan Chen. Once again, I was blown away by the progress our
incredible group was able to make in just a few hours. After the back breaking
tearing apart of old outhouses for recyclable building materials, shoveling
countless piles dirt, moving big rocks, and clearing areas for garden beds done
Sunday, it was nice to see the garden begin actually looking like a garden
today, and an exceptionally cute one to boot! With saws, hammers, drills,
happy-colored paints and brushes, we suddenly had a multitude of benches made
from the doors of the old outhouses, and tires to be used for planting beds,
all painted the most adorable array of pastels. Simultaneously, with the help
of our amazing Belizean Youth for the Future volunteers, there were suddenly
planting beds recycled from the tin roofs of the old outhouses, bent into big
rectangles, filled with dirt and ready for planting! Another bed was made from
stacked cement bricks recycled from the old, demolished outhouses, and a third
was made from stacking the huge rocks littered throughout the garden area and
the perimeter of the play yard. All of this, in addition to the white and light
turquoise painted compost bin we created yesterday, had made the garden really
start to look incredible.
Tomorrow is our last day of work on the garden, and we are
super pumped to put the finishing touches on the beds and finally be able to
start planting! We are so excited to see our baby completed and ready to go,
and hope that the school will love it as much as we do!
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| Michelle with her healthy lifestyles class. |
These last two days I've had the honor of interacting with the amazing children of Chan Chen Primary School. I've been the leader of the Physical Activities section of our day camp and it has been such a joy. I've had fellow classmate, Kelli Soll, helping lead with me as well as a Youth for the Future leader, LuLu, who I deeply appreciate for all the help she's contributed. Belize has standards rather than grades. Each standard brings something new to the field when I am interacting with them. These children are so full of life and excited to be attending this camp which makes it that much more fun. The first day of camp the children were quiet and timid. In our debriefing discussion after the day Jonie from Peacework told us to not be mislead and that the children will warm up starting day two. She wasn't kidding. The second day it was like I met completely different children. They were full of personality and character. They were laughing and had the biggest smiles on their faces. To see them having fun and enjoy the activities we had them doing was the most amazing feeling. Although I've only spent two days with these children I already feel myself becoming attached. I'll be sad to say good-bye but my hopes are that I leave them with memories they will never forget because I know I will never forget them and the impact they have made on me.
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| Kelli and Kylee (right) prepare for physical activities class. |
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