A timely return

I’ve now been back in Benque for over a month, but it feels like it’s only been a week. I’ve never been so busy, but now it finally feels like life is settling back down.

Christmas break was a great time of relaxation with my family, a snowboard, and a few friends. I refused to bring my math book with me to the States and not once did I open a lesson planning document. I had time to rest and think about my time in Belize so far. I recognized several changes that needed to be made for this semester, and they’re well in place thanks to Grace! After reflecting on some of the things that I needed to do this semester, I realized that I would not be able to do it without some great financial help, so I started a fundraising campaign through letters. It has been very successful thanks to some wonderful friends and family! Because of the great help that I have received thus far, Lucia (one of my co-volunteers) and I were able to provide an overnight retreat for 25 Handmaidens last weekend.

The Handmaidens are girls from Mount Carmel High School whose mission it is to have a personal encounter with Christ, to pray for the school that everyone might have the same experience, and mostly to imitate Mary’s fiat (Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done to me according to your word” Luke 1:38). The retreat is somewhat of a secret for the girls who are initiated into the group (That kind of makes it sound exclusive, but it’s not that at all! We even have some Handmaidens who are not Catholic!), so I can’t spill too many details about it. What I can tell you is that 25 students, 3 teachers and a SOLT Sister went to Nabitunich (a retreat center near a Mayan ruin that is owned by one of the teacher’s brothers) overnight, during which people from Benque signed up for a specific hour to pray for the girls on retreat. After playing a couple of team building games, we prayed a walking Rosary to start the retreat, about which one girl reflected on when we started school again on Monday:

“There was this moment, it was a time when we went for a walk praying a Rosary. as I was walking I was thinking in all the problems that I have in my life and in all the struggles that I have to encounter everyday. I was the first one who came out of the house where we were in teh retreat. We went for that walking I was just thinking and thinking, I didn't know who was behind or beside me. My eyes and my mind were busy in another things. As I was walking, I noticed that I was at the very front of the crowd. In another words I was the leader. I turn my face back and I saw everyone following me. I didn't know that I was at the front. When I turn back I felt like, I don't know how to explain it. But it was a special feeling. I saw everyone following at me and I put my eyes in heaven and I say, 'God, who I am? Why is this people following me? Why me? Why all of a sudden I noticed that I am a leader?' There were lots of questions in my mind. I continue with the eyes on the sky after saying this words. Suddenly I saw a big light. It was a very beautiful light and from that light a white beautiful bird descended. I don't know if anyone else noticed that, but I do noticed it. I turn my eyes to my Rosary and I continued praying and I continued walking. But this time it was not only walking. I felt somebody beside me. Somebody which I didn't saw. But I knew that somebody was walking with beside me, leading all the crowd. It was awesome feeling that sensation. My heart was pumping peacefully. My eyes were full of tears and my hands were sweating. I continued walking until we arrived to the house where we were staying. I didn't tell nobody about this. Not for shame, but I wanted to conserve that moment fust for me. Now I share it in this paper hoping that the people who read it believe me and not laugh about it." (Taken directly from a religion class reflection paper)

Lucia gave a talk on what it means to be a Handmaiden after which we broke up into small groups. My group of 8 girls was very open and honest. Almost immediately the tears started flowing from many of the girls. It was beautiful. They were able to share their reasons for being on the retreat and how they wanted their lives to change.

Lucia and I had been running around like chickens with our heads cut off for the whole week prior to the retreat and went into the retreat with about 3 hours of sleep each. On the way there, the things that were coming out of our mouths were COMPLETE nonsense. After laughing at a couple of the ridiculous things that weren’t meant to be said, we realized that the whole retreat was going to be given by the Holy Spirit- because obviously we weren’t capable of making sense out of anything! It was a great reminder that through our weakness, Christ alone brings us strength. This is what I relied on when giving my talk.

I had never given a talk in my life, but I felt called to give one on purity- not chastity, but purity. The day before the retreat, I was talking with Mary, the other teacher going on the retreat, about what her talk was going to be on and realized that ours were very similar. I had less than 24 hours to come up with a new talk. In those 24 hours, Lucia and I had about 1,000,001 things to do, and my talk was not near the top of my list. Driving to the retreat I realized that I had almost nothing prepared for my talk except for my revised topic- Beauty. We gave the girls some time of prayer and reflection at the beginning of the retreat to think about what they wanted to get out of it. During these 20 minutes, I was able to prep my talk. I took my Bible (which I barely brought with me) and lyrics that I had copied the day before of a song by Danielle Rose called “Defining Beauty.” With these two things and the song on my computer, in 20 minutes, God created a talk. Now, many of you know that I am not the most articulate or eloquent speaker, but while I was giving this talk, the words flowed. Metaphors came that helped to clarify the meaning. If none of the girls understood a word I said, I at least was reminded what happens when I let go of myself and let God work through me. Nothing that I said was of me.

Some of the girls wanted to share their stories, so we had some group sharing. Through these stories and throughout the retreat, I began to feel the real hurt and pain of many of these girls. Many of the girls have broken families for many different reasons, but they each have been hurt through them. This is something that some of the girls spoke to me about on the retreat. They came to realize that even though a girl may be smiling and may not share it, just about every girl has felt some pain in their life.

Father John was supposed to come for adoration, benediction and the induction ceremony, but his nephew broke his arm badly, so he was caught up in Belize City for the night. Thank God for Sister Catherine who came for the exposition. I can’t say a whole lot about the time in adoration or the ceremony, but at end, we had 20 new Handmaidens (5 were inducted last year)!! I was so beautiful for them to make such honest promises devoting themselves to Christ in a new way.

After the ceremony, we all got comfy in our pajamas and Mary gave her talk on what it means to be a daughter of God/chastity. She was in the middle of a great story when one of the girls leaned over to me and pointing said, “Miss, there’s a rat over there.” I looked in the direction her hand was pointing and saw nothing, but then all of a sudden, a tiny field mouse starts hopping (the floor was very slippery for its little paws) around the room. Needless to say, the girls jumped up and started screaming and running around the room. It was so funny!! I almost felt bad for this little mouse. One of the brave new Handmaidens got a pillow and started chasing it, trying to sweep it out of the house. It took about 5 minutes for the mouse to evade Irma by diving into many of the girl’s personal belongings, but finally, Irma won. It took another 5 minutes to calm everyone down so that we could listen to the rest of Mary’s talk, but when she started again, the girls were entranced with the things she had to say.

After the last talk, the girls were free to do whatever their little hearts pleased as long as they stayed in the room we were all sleeping in. Some girls swear that they saw La Llorona (a Latin legend) and because of that, some girls almost begged to pray a rosary. Praying a Rosary at 1am is very difficult, I found. I stayed up playing games and talking with many of the girls until about 2:30am. Somehow, at about 6:30am, some of the girls felt that they were well rested and started telling jokes that woke the rest of us up. 3 hours of sleep again. We found another “rat” in the morning, and after shooing it out, we cleaned up and got ready to walk 1.5 miles to Mass back in Benque with all of our bags. Some girls complained (probably because they were so cranky due to lack of sleep), but finally got over it. We made it to Mass with perfect timing and afterward, we made the Handmaiden promise in front of the tabernacle, said the Magnificat, and received individual blessings from Father Mark. Some of the parents and relatives were there in witness and support, which was very powerful for some of the girls.

Afterward, the Knights of the Immaculate (the guy’s version of the Handmaidens) threw us a congratulatory surprise party with party poppers, confetti, signs and cake! It was so great! This also meant a lot to the girls to know that they were supported by their peers.

On this retreat, Lucia and I were able to see that there is so much hurt and pain in these girls. We know that an overnight healing is not practical (unless by the grace of God), so now we know what the rest of this year can be devoted to. We now have a better direction with this group of girls.

I would like to give a special thank you to all of you who financially helped with this retreat and those of you who have devoted yourself to praying for the Handmaidens. You made this retreat possible and a great success. You have contributed to the growth of these girls. You have brought souls to Christ. You have provided an opportunity for girls to have a personal encounter with Christ. In this, you share in the mission of the Handmaidens. Thank you.

Fun Day Thursday

Well, Fun Day was exhausting as I expected. I am quasi part of student council. More like I’m one of the ones who will help on the day of, but I’m too busy to commit to anything beyond that. I was designated official MC of the day, which was fun, but confusing since I didn’t really know what was going on… All 400 students were split into ‘houses’ (really they were split into groups and were identified by t-shirt color) and each team chose a few members from their ‘house’ to participate in competitions for points. I was on the orange team and our shirt color was the WORST. It made us all look like pumpkins. The competitions were as follows:

Runathon (starting at 6:30am, whoever wanted could race from the school, to the border of Guatemala (~1.25miles) and back) Each person who completed the race would get 5 points for their team and winners would be given extra. I told some girls that I would walk it with them, but I literally was not aware of my alarm clock until about 6:40… oops… I felt so bad. I owe about 4 girls a coke or slushie or whatever they want. They were okay with the compromise.

House cheering contest (which whole team could cheer the loudest) Orange did not take a place.

Lime and bucket relay (kind of like running suicides, but each time you run to a line, you have to grab the lime that’s there and put it in the Styrofoam bowl at the starting point) Orange won 2nd place.

Slow bicycle race (opposite of a fast bicycle race) Orange did not place.

Tug-a-war (pretty self explanatory) This was the most pathetic event for our team. We had 1 larger student, but it seems that the ‘random’ draw was not so random, because we got all the shrimpy stick kids in the school! When watching the other teams compete, they at least all had some competition, but within one tug, our team was GONE!! It was kinda funny despite not winning any points for our team.

Ghost relay (a member from each team runs across the gym to their designated bowl that was filled with flour. Each time the reached the bowl, they could blow hard once. The objective was to be the first to blow all of the flour out of the bowl faster than the other teams.) This was really fun to watch! We won 2nd place for the boys and 3rd for the girls.

Trivia (a member from each ‘house’ takes a quiz in 3 minutes and tries to get the most correct) One of my 2nd form boys won the competition, but orange did not place.

Baby bottle drinking contest (who can drink out of a baby bottle the fastest) It was funny when the most macho guys in the school refused to do any other event but this one! Drinking from a baby bottle is a lot harder than one would think! For one round, it took about 5 minutes to finish… and there were two rounds (boys and girls). During the boys competition, a couple of the boys cheated when they bit on the nipple of the bottle. As MC I had to announce that it was not allowed, but it was hard to say in an appropriate way. If I were talking to mature adults, I would have said something like, “You cannot bite on the nipple. All you can do is suck,” but of course high schoolers would NOT be able to handle that! I said something like “you cannot bite on the bottle.” Something that could not be taken too wrongly. Orange won 1st place for the boys and no place for the girls.

Obstacle course (they had to start by doing quick feet through tires then somehow get around ropes that were tied between picnic tables, hop over 2 huge logs that were resting on the picnic table benches, then crawl under the football (soccer) nets) All of that was a lot harder than it seems! This was my favorite event to watch! It was frustrating, though, because my orange team kept the lead every time until they got stuck in the net. GAH!

Hotdog eating competition (whoever could eat 5 hotdogs the fastest) This was disgusting to watch, but so disgusting that you just couldn’t look away, and as photographer of the day, I had to document it. By the 5th hotdog, there were 2 boys who were neck and neck. They were both gagging and trying to choke down the dogs. OH GROSS! Just thinking about it makes me sick to my stomach. Our team member was so psyched about it, but when it came down to it, he was just not a fast eater! By the end, he said he was in it to enjoy the free food. Orange did not place.

Greasy pole (they greased a 40’ wooden pole with lard and put $50 at the top. Whoever could get it first could donate the money to the charity of their choice.) This was ridiculous! We had to cancel the event because of how dangerous it was! I don’t know who came up with the idea, but it was dumb! We started the competition then realized how dangerous it was after teams starting building pyramids with like 6 or 7 kids standing on top of each other. (4 on the bottom to build a base then they would stack up) RIDICULOUS! I don’t know what they did with the $50. I think I might suggest Ms. Shelby’s Travel Foundation… I hope they go for it!

At the end of the day winners were announced and out of 8 teams, orange came in 6th place. A pretty big accomplishment for my shrimpy team of twigs!

While there were breaks between the games, I did jump rope with some students (the kind where lots of people jump into a long rope), which was fun! We linked arms and then all jumped in at the same time. We only succeeded once at it. We used the rope that was used for tug a war, so it was really thick. One guy jumped in just a second too late and was tripped by the rope- it took him out by the feet and he went DOWN! It was so funny! He had a good sense of humor, so he took it pretty lightly.

During lunch, I hung out with my 2nd form girls and taught them a couple of games. The one they liked the best was ninja! I thought they would think it was silly, but they were totally into it- even some of the ‘popular’ girls who care a lot about how they look! It was so fun!

Tomorrow (well, today (it’s 1am (after Fun Day, I came home at about 4 and took about a 5 hour nap, so I’m not too tired now))) begins exams. I get to proctor a 2nd form English exam. I am so excited to walk around a classroom for 2 hours to make sure no one is cheating.

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…Not.

Here are a few of the 277 pictures I took from today:


Me with my some of my 2nd form girls at lunch.


The baby boys.


This is at the part where I started gagging.


Green team tug-a-war.


Two students about to begin the obstacle course.

Flores is where my heart longs to be

This past weekend, 4 volunteers and I made the 2 hour chicken bus trip to Flores, Guatemala. Brynne, Dave, Sean and Betsy dove into Guatemala and rocked the karaoke bar, put the "happy" in happy hour, bartered down the prices of dozens of pairs of earrings and entertained the fish in the lake.

Due to "volunteer's day," we got a half day on Thursday and Friday off. By 10am, we were in a taxi to the border of Guate where we could take a 12 passenger non-stop van for Flores for 30 Quetzales. (exchange rate is about 1USD: 7.5Quetzales) The funny thing about a non-stop van is that it stops for every person who needs a ride along the way. At one point, I counted 20 people in our 12 passenger van. I've heard horror stories where there wasn't enough room in the van, so a paying passanger had to hold onto the outside ladder for about 45 minutes. Side note: we also stopped when our van got a flat tire.

It was a relaxing weekend filled with sleep, books and good company. On the way back, we stopped in Melchor, Guatemala to visit one of our students who has been in and our of the hospital for the past week. Luisfredy Contreras was in a motorcycle accident (Motorcycle is the main mode of transportation in Guatemala, especially Melchor)last year and has been in a brace and on crutches since. Last week, his leg got infected (I don't know the medical terminology) and he pretty much went into shock. As he was rushed off campus and into surgery, the whole school stopped to pray a Rosary for him. He's now at home, but not doing so well. He'll get more test results this week. Please keep him in your prayers. We were so fortunate to go to his home and visit with him. As we ate a 5 course meal that his mom whipped up for us, he told us about how lonely and scared he had been while at home all alone and how Christ is really the only one getting him through this time. He is such an inspiration to me and the rest of the volunteers. Please, please pray for Luisfredy.

We're now back in Benque gearing up for our last week of teaching. Next week will be review week, and the following is exam week. Where has the time gone? Oh that's right, into grading over 3,000 assignments, quizzes and tests, planning, and teaching. That's not an exaggeration.

Here are a few photos from the weekend:


Betsy, Luisfredy and Brynne at his house.


Brynne, Sean and me in a tuktuk (Guatemalen taxi) on our way back to Melchor.


Dave and I drinking mojitos and watching the sunset.


The group at dinner, minus Betsy who was taking the picture.


Dave, Betsy and Sean jumping of the pier into the lake that surrounds Flores.

I saw my first Belizean butterflies today and they were beautiful!

Well first and foremost, my stapler is broken. This was no ordinary stapler. Twas coveted by all outside the math department. It had a power force that could staple 20 sheets at a time. It will be greatly missed. (I'll probably end up trying to return it to WalMart over Christmas break...Think they'll let it fly?)

Since my last post, many peculier things have happened. These include, but are not limited to: 1. Being told that I looked ugly.
2. Being told that I looked beautiful.
3. Having to climb through the windows of my classroom in a skirt because the lock on the door was broken.
4. Being given a love poem from a group of male students that I don't even teach.
5. Being told that my Spanish accent it funny.
6. Being told that my Spanish accent makes me sound like I've spoken it for my whole life.
7. Being denied access to the dance room for my Dance Club.
8. Giving guitar lessons.
9. Getting the soundtrack to seasons 1 and 2 of Glee on my computer.
10. Being granted "Volunteer's Day" for Thanksgiving, so now we get a 3.5 day weekend too! YAY!

It's so funny. Here, people will be extremely blunt and tell you exactly what they are thinking, which I appreciate, but if the great majority of Americans were to come down here, they'd be really offended by the things they hear here! For example, last week, the dean came to chat with me and started with, "Miss Shelby, you look like you just woke up an hour ago!" (Which was true...) I just laugh when I hear these things. They don't mean them in a rude way at all, they are simply pointing out the things the notice...without filtering it first. (Kael, if you're reading this, it's like they have No Filter Fridays 24/7/365!)

Since the last post, here are some hightlights: (everything is easier in bullet points)
1. My 2nd form students achieved an 85% average on test #2, which I am VERY happy about! It was not an easy test.
2. The batter life of my computer has completely died. I have to start it up everytime I unplug it. It's more of a portably desktop at this point, but we're still trucking along!
3. Halloween is celebrated on the 1st and 2nd of November here (2 nights!). The kids who dress up just like in the States travel from Chinese store to Chinese store saying "Trick or treat!" The don't go from house to house.
4. Sean's birthday was celebrated with 3 hours filled with games of Mafia. It got really intense. I was the worst narrarator EVER!! I messed up one of the games in about 10 different ways.
5. Dave, Brynne, Sean and I went to Melchor, Guatemala one Sunday to spend the day with some our students. I didn't actually teach any of them, so I didn't know them very well. It was good to get to know some students out of the classroom. Luisfredy, one of the students took us to his house where his parents prepared us a feast! It was delicious! We got a tour of the town; we went to the park; we went shopping at USA2, and we walked around the market. It was such a fun day!
6. We had a hurricane day, which meant no school. Benque is actually 2.5 hours inland, so we weren't really that threatened, but Belize city and other costal villages were. Benque is used as a relief shelter for those evacuated. We closed school for a day in case an evacuation was needed, but it wasn't. I spent the day playing ping pong with some of the Belizean teachers and Sean. We just relaxed at night and watched movies and danced.
7. I spent an evening at one of the Belizean teacher's houses chatting and getting to know them. We had the ever popular cheese dip and chips and some great rum and coke!
8. 8 of the volunteers went to San Pedro (yes, the one Madonna sings about) for the weekend. Betsy (one of the volunteers) has connections with the people who own one of the resorts there, so we got to stay at a really nice resort (even by American standards) for $25USD total for 2 nights! Here are some sub-highlights from this trip:
8a. Dave, Sean and I traveled together. We had to take a bus to Belize City then a water taxi from there to the island. Dave had been there before, so right when we got off the boat, Dave took us to this liquor store where they give away free samples. We got about 3 full free shots. I hadn't eaten anything all day. That's all I'll say.
8b. We went out to eat and got free ceviche and rum punch. It pays to go vacationing during the off-season. People are desperate for some business.
8c. Both nights we went to this bar called Fido's where they have live music and dancing. We got our groove on and even had a dance off with a group of people who were having a very casual wedding reception. Needless to say, WE WON.
8d. Some people went snorkling. I personally do NOT like snorking, so I went along for the free boat ride. They saw the 2nd largest reef in the world at the first stop and swam with nurse sharks at the 2nd. I was official photographer. It was great!
8e. Sean, Dave and I took the rest of our crew back to liquor store and everyone got more free samples and many people bought from the store. I was waiting while everyone purchased their Christmas gifts. The owner asked me if I got anything for myself and I said that I didn't want to buy anything for me, so he went to the shelf and pulled off a $40BZE of coconut cream rum (their best seller- it was sooooo good) and he just gave it to me. I still have some left in the fridge at home.
8f. Dave also wanted us to feed the tarpons (a fish). What you do is hold a small fish inbetween your pointer and middle finger with a flat palm facing the surface of the water. You hold it about 2 feet off the water. The tarpons jump out of the water and grab it from your hand! I freaked out when it jumped and dropped the fish. FAIL. Betsy decided she wanted to break the rules and she held the fist with ther pointer finger and thumb. When the tarpon jumped out of the water it bit her hand. I looked like she had a hicky on her hand for the next week or so. We called it a "fish-icky."
8g. My 2nd form girls wanted me to bring them sand back, but instead I spent a couple of very relaxing hours finding sea shells for them. They loved it.

9. I've been invited to my first Quince Anos (a quincenera). It's this Thursday, which is also Thanksgiving, so I don't think I'll be able to go.
10. 8 of the volunteers went to Bullet Tree, which is a small village near Benque. One of the teachers in the math department, Mr. Mai, invited us to come swimming in the river with him and then a barbque after. We started at one bar, had a beer, then swam down the river, then got out at another bar, had another drink then got back in the river. We floated down to the rope swing and spent time there. I did the hardest back-flop ever. Talk about pain! It was convenient because the river does a curve around Bullet Tree, so we pretty much started at his house, and ended up back there. I can't wait to do it again!

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Gosh, I feel like so much has happened, but I can't remember it all. Life has been good. I'm still experiencing challenges as a teacher and as a friend, but God is getting me though. Pray for me that I can be still more faithful and still more devoted to this mission he has given to me. Peace and Love.

Just a couple pics from San Pedro:

One month later...

It’s a bit different waking up to fluttering of palm trees and the annoying beckoning of the roosters at 4am, but after 2 months of living here in Benque, none of this phases me. So many things that surprised me when I got here ages ago seem so natural to me now.

Here’s a short list of things that might surprise you about living here in Belize but are like second nature to me:

1. Students won’t know what you’re talking about if you ask them to take out a sheet of paper. You have to say, “Please take out a folder sheet.”
2. If you need them to take out another, you can’t say, “Please take out another.” You have to say, “Please take out a next folder sheet.”
3. You cannot reject anything that anyone offers you. They told me that when I first got here, but I didn’t really take it seriously, so I tried to say “no thanks” to a student who was offering me part of their lunch. Well, he was very hurt and kind of offended and I felt awful. Needless to say, since then I have had about 2 times as much as I would normally eat, plenty of escorts to walk me home, and about a billion shushies.
4. Shushies are a brand new thing down here this year and are a HUGE hit! They sell them at many of the Chinese stores (most of the businesses are run by the large Chinese population here in Benque) and students love to get one on their way home.
5. I have counted about 2 blonde people the whole time I have been here. Very different from Midwestern Kansas.
6. They refer to the teachers by their first name, so I am known at school as Miss Shelby.
7. The classrooms have a chalkboard and desks. The windows are wooden shutters that need to be opened in the morning and closed at the end of the day. There are no fans or a.c. It is hot while teaching, so sometimes on especially hot days, I will take my class out to the basketball court which has a tin roof for shade.
8. Instead of having the students rotate classes, it’s the teachers who move from class to class. We do not have our own classrooms. All of the teachers are in one large ‘teacher’s lounge’. Each of us gets a desk. If the students need us, they have to wait outside the lounge and call to us. They cannot come into the lounge. If they need help with something, we have to go find somewhere else to sit. Maybe at the picnic tables or at the basketball court. I do not like any of this at all. I would greatly prefer my own classroom.
9. Students sometimes take advantage of the fact that I don’t speak much Spanish, so that’s what they use to speak to each other when they have their little side conversations during my lessons. It pisses me off.
10. It’s the rainy season here. It rains probably about 3 times/week.
11. I walk to and from school and anywhere else I need to go in town. It’s about a 10 minute walk to school.
12. They have a class that teaches you how to play they recorder. They do not call it a recorder. They call it a flute. On these ‘flutes,’ they ALL know how to play Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On. They do not call it that. They call it Titanic. It is obnoxious.
13. For volleyball games, usually in the States, normal teams would get transportation to the schools. Not here. We have to walk to the schools if we’re playing away. We only play versus 2 different schools, but they are about a 30 minute walk away. We have to bring all of our equipment too.
14. It’s almost impolite to show up to anything on time. You have to live on ‘Belize time,’ which equals about 30 minutes or more late. I hope I can kick the habit when I return.
15. The male students, even the 14 year old ones think that they actually have a chance to marry the women volunteers. Ha!
16. I had not experienced air conditioning or a warm shower until a couple weekends ago when we (the volunteers) went on a mini vacation to Placencia on the coast. It was a magical.
17. Dogs like to have a barking competition every night at about 3am.
18. The roosters think that morning begins at about 4am. These aren’t just normal cock-a-doodle-dooing rooster either. When they cock-a-doodle-doo, it sounds like they are being tortured.
19. I have learned to drown out the sounds of the night with the wonderful fan in my room. At first I thought it was obnoxiously loud, but now I could not sleep without it.
20. I have something else in my body that presents its symptoms as blisters. They started on my legs then moved to my armpit then I got 2 on my face, then a couple on my hand. I haven’t been able to shave for about 3 weeks now because of how many there are. I fit in well with the unshaven Belizean ladies. I should have gone to the doctor a month ago, but I have just put it off. They finally just went away a couple of weeks ago. Praise the Lord!
21. Rice and beans is the main course of any meal and often the only course. As in white rice and black or kidney beans. I think I’ve started getting used to it and am beginning to like it now.
22. I do my laundry by hand and hang it on a line to dry.
23. Students sometimes come by the house to ask for help or if they have a question or whatever. They don’t knock on the door. They just shout your name outside until you come to answer.
24. My proper use of the English language is in a steep downward spiral.
25. In my classes, I have students with many different backgrounds. I have Creole, Mayan, Mestizo (Spanish and Mayan), Mexican, and many many Guatemalan students.
26. Benque is about a mile from the border of Guatemala, so about 30% of the students that come to Mount Carmel are Guatemalan. They come from a town called Melchor. (I have not been yet because the administration still has our passports to work out our temporary visas.)

Well, there’s a “short” list of fun facts for you.

In other news, my classes are going very well. Mid-semester grades were due this past Friday and very few of my students are failing, which I am very happy about. Let me tell you, my class is not easy to pass, so the ones that are, are working very hard. The students who aren’t are the ones who have been very lazy in and out of class.

Volleyball ended on a low note. The team’s confidence was crushed when we lost to Mopan, the school that “always wins every sport.” We were a very talented team, even by American standards, but we lost in a mental game. Now I have unusual amounts of free time after school which will be soon filled with Dance Club. Signups were last week and continue through this week. I plan to have practice 2-3 times/week in which we will learn many different styles of dance. I’m very excited about it!

7 of the 11 volunteers went to Placencia over Columbus Day (referred to here as Pan American Day) weekend in celebration of Dave’s birthday. It was a very relaxing time laying on the beach, but it ended far too soon. FAR too soon. The 15 hours of travel over the weekend were made up for by a 3-story air-conditioned house with hot showers, cable, boating, biking and beaching.

There is much more to write about, but I have to go get ready for Mass. I slept in this morning and will go to Spanish Mass at 6:30pm.

I will try not to go another month without updating you all. Muchisimos amor.

Student Council Retreat:

The group out for Dave's birthday dinner:

Me and Jonathan on the water taxi:

An eventful end of the week

Since being here, I have not been as exhausted as have been this past week and espeicially this weekend! Spirit week just wore me down. It all turned out to be worth it and a ton of fun! Here are some pictures from Friday's Independence Day parade in which all the students in the school participated (even though Independence Day is actually on Wednesday):


Some of the Student Council members just helping to finish up the float. I think we were the only school that brought a float and so much school spirit! So Great!


The whole school celebrated a Mass before the parade, just like a regular Friday. Here are a couple of the musicians practicing before (Luis and Shamir).


Class 4C with their banner. Every class put a ton of time after school into creating a banner that represented the school pillars of Beauty, Truth, Goodness and Unity as well as the theme for the September celebrations of the year: Honoring our History, Celebrating our Culture, Uniting for Peace. Each class paraded their banner throughout the town for all of the onlookers. It was such a neat experience!


Class 2S, a class of all boys who put sooo much effort and skill into their banner. They were one of our winners for best banner, which they greatly deserved!


This is the banner that my homeroom (3C) did. I thought it was very creative!


Here is the Student Council Executive Board who all got to dress up culturally to ride on the float.


Lucia and I got in a last minute picture with the float before we started the parade.


Here we were just beginning the parade and some of the "lazy" boys wanted to ride in the back of the truck that pulled the float. Where they found that sign still remains a mystery...

And this is when the battery of my camera died. Silly me didn't think to charge it before the parade. Grr..



Yesterday, Saturday, I was invited home with a couple of my srudents, Maria and Olivia Pop. They live about 1.25 hours away from Benque in a little village called Valley of Peace. We went for their "brother's" 2nd birthday party. Here are some pictures from it:


Maria and I with Oscar.


Oscar with his pinata! I've been to a couple of birthday parties down here so far and they've all included a pinata!


They do pinatas justice down here! It took them a good 20 minutes to break the thing.


Olivia Pop chillin' in her hammock after dinner.


Oscar helping his "sister" to clean up. So cute!


The Pop family minus their father.



What a great weekend.

Spirit Week!

The pictures you saw beneath this post are from day 2 of Spirit Week. It's kind of like homecoming week in the states, but instead of leading up to a football game and halftime show, it instead leads to Belize's independence day on Friday.

They'd never had a spirit week here at Mount Carmel High School, but Lucia (see in picture below) and I are a part of the student council, which is sponsoring the week's events. Here is an overview of the weeks events:

Monday: Jingle contest. The winning jingle will be presented on Independence day for the whole town in the Cancha!

Tuesday: Red, White and Blue day. (See pictures in the last post) Students and staff alike were allowed a casual day, with some limitations. You had to have red, white and blue as the majority of your clothing color. You could paint your face and hair, so that was neat to see some of the students do that! On Monday, I had to go explain the rules to the 1st and 2nd form girl's classes just to make every single rule extremely clear (because we knew they'd try to push the limits)! When talking about face/body painting I was explaining that you could write things on your face such as "I love Belize!" and "MCHS rocks!" You could NOT, however, write things like "Justin Bieber is my husband" in red, white and blue. You COULD write things such as "I love Miss Shelby!" or "Math class is stupendous!" See picture below:



3 girls did it! BAHAHA! I was kidding and they probably shouldn't have done it, but they like to bend the rules. The girl next to me, Irma, won "best dressed" of the school for RWB day!
We also played some popular Spanish music in the gym during lunch, so that was fun!

Wednedsay: Today is class decorating day. The homerooms have to decorate their class with recycled materials to show their love for Belize and MCHS. This competition might have been changed to tomorrow...I couldn't go to the Stu.Co. meeting yesterday as I was busy with Handmaidens, Math tutoring and volleyball.

Thursday: Baking day. The homerooms get together and create an edible piece of art that also goes along the themes of Belize and MCHS. I had this great idea to have everyone in class make a batch of Rice Krispie treats, which we would use to create a model of the Myan ruins here in Belize. It would have been so great...if they knew what Rice Krispie treats were... They had also come up with another idea, before I presented mine, so they were partial to baking a cake and decorating it with a Belizean theme. I'm still excited to see it. I'll post pictures of the results next time!

Firday: NO SCHOOL! Indepence Day! Students will still meet for Mass at school, but then we'll all go to the parade (weather permitting). Homerooms will, throughout the week, create a banner that will be included in the town's parade. I'm pretty excited for it! This has been an MCHS tradition for years and I'm really excited to be a part of it. I hear the parade is going to be great too! Bands, dancers, people on stilts, junior army corps and such!

Classes and individuals earn points for their homerooms throughout the week and on Friday, we will announce the winning class who will receive a prize! (Don't know what that is either, but that doesn't stop the kids from having a good time with it!)