We have started to fall into a regular schedule, here in Belize. We begin waking up at around 5 am to the sweet melodies the dogs start barking and the noise of a work area behind us where people always seem to be dropping things or dragging around large pieces of sheet metal. We get up at around 7 am when the heat starts to permeate our blinds, and we begin the day with prayer and our own personal devotions. Breakfast follows and we head downstairs for a bowl of corn flakes and soy milk, usually with a delicious, locally grown orange on the side.
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| The dining area where we teach preschool and the kids eat. |
We get ready for the day and head out the door with our hands full of preschool supplies as we head over to them home at around 9 am. We round up the four kids we have a preschool: Erwin, Emmerson, Moses, and Rabonni, and have them all sit around a table to begin. We have worship, sing songs, work with numbers and letters, have them practice their writing writing, and have a craft. We end this at 11 am and head back to the house, drop off our items, and pick up our purses to head to the market (which is open Tuesday and Friday.) We always make sure to stop by the post office on our way there to check in with Mr. Aaron to see if we have received any mail. After biding farewell to Mr. Aaron, we head over to the market to pick up some fresh fruit or vegetables. This market truly is a gem for us because we can usually pick up 8 bananas, 10 oranges, 1 pound of tomatoes, and 1 pound of onions, each for about $1 Belize (which is 50 cents U.S.) After picking up everything we need at the market we head back to our house, which is about a 10 minute walk away, and fix ourselves lunch.
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| The front of the King's Children's Home. |
We have free time until about 2 pm which is when we head over to El Shaddai, which is the Elementary school the children attend, to walk home the younger students who get out at 2:30. Of course, this is directly during the hottest part of the day, so by the end of the 20 minute walk over to the school, we are absolutely drenched in sweat, and continue to be so as we walk back. We begin our tutoring students with our Infants (which are grades 1 and 2), I with Dion, until about 3:30 which is when the older Elementary and Middle school students arrive at home. We then end our tutoring with the Infants and begin work with the Standards 1-6 (this is equivalent to grades 2-8). I work with Standard 5, which consists of four boys: Keith, Joel, Wanige, and Calvin. After we get homework done we try to read a chapter from a certain book with each of them. This leads us to about 6 or 6:30 and so we put up a dot for those of them who finished their homework, and leave them to dinner, usually grabbing a piece of bread on our way out.
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| The play area outside. |
We walk back home and start our own dinner, which is mainly made up of homemade tortillas, homemade beans, rice, and coleslaw, that we put together to make burritos. When we finish dinner it is about 7:30, and so we head back over to the home and pick up a few kids to work on reading with for about an hour. We take them back after we have read, and come back, making sure to lock all five of the locks on our doors. We try and exercise a bit, dodge and sometimes kill cockroaches, and hop in the shower to wash off the day's grime and sweat. We turn up the fan to its highest mark, and lie in our beds, all sprawled out in an effort to lose as much body heat as possible. We turn off the lights and again fall asleep to the sweet, sweet sound of dog fights and cars zooming by.
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| The living room. |
This definitely represents a very standard day of our lives here. Yet I see each day in the possibilities that lie before us in the people we may meet or the events that may occur. Just seeing our "kids" everyday makes each day exciting and fun as we get to know each one more and more. Any day here in Belize is a good day indeed.
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| The basketball court outside. |
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| The library at KCH. |
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| My buddies Jaleel, Keith (from Standard 5), and a boy named Lucas, who was visiting. |
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| My buddy Gigi and myself. |
Does it feel like home there yet? I know it must seem monotonous at times, but before you know it your time there will be up and you will just have your memories--so make the best of them! I like tortillas and burritos, but everyday? Yeesh. :-)
ReplyDeleteHappy Birthday today. Wishing you the best and something different for dinner lol
Oh it really does feel like home here. I feel so welcomed by everyone here and that I am really a part of the family. It really never is monotonous! I mean we have our schedules, but you never know what is going to happen with 80+ young people! I love it! I will have to share my Belizean food with you when I get back, Kris :) Thank you for the Birthday wish!
ReplyDeleteGood morning how are you?
ReplyDeleteMy name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because trough them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately it’s impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this I would ask you one small favor:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Belize? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Belize in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Calle Valencia, 39
28903 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.
Finally I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours Sincerely
Emilio Fernandez