Home Sweet Home: Bienvenido al USA!

This is coming at you straight from the comfort of my American home! Today marks my third day of being in a world where hot showers exist and tarantulas do not, where I can make phone calls and wear sweatshirts, where a salad means a big pile of crisp green stuff with veggies and dressing and not potato salad, a world where I don't have to eat stew chicken with rice and beans for 3 whole weeks if I don't want to. And trust me, I don't have a particular desire for it. 

But to answer the question that I've been asked at least a million times: yes, I am excited to be home. Of course if I was hating it after being here barely 3 days, I think I would have bigger issues. In all seriousness though, I am loving every minute of it. As I've said before, my whole being was desperately crying out for a break, for time to step back and truly reflect on what the heck just happened for the past 4 months of my life. I'm not sure I have a definitive answer and that's ok. I probably won't have one even when June rolls around. What I do know is that my mind seems to be in this dualistic/Jekyll and Hyde state where I'm loving home and everyone and everything that comes with it, but at the same time I miss my Belizean family and I especially miss my kids. But there is a bit of comfort in the startling reality that 3 weeks is going to fly. I can't wait to be back with them though that's partially because I'm worried about the trouble they're getting into. And yet as I'm sitting in Florida of all places, bundled up, and still freezing, I can't imagine taking one more cold shower. Yuck. I can't think about cold showers right now. 

To distract my mind and my numb toes from the horrible thought of leaving hot water, I suppose I'll share a little about the rest of finals week and coming home. I must warn you though, there was nothing terribly exciting. But I don't really think anything in this blog is terribly exciting, so if you've even gotten this far in the crazy adventure of my life, then you must have some remote interest in hearing about these things. 

After Tuesday, I only had 2 more exams to proctor, one on Wednesday and one on Thursday, so I was able to knock out the rest of my grading/recording and finish the math exams. It also gave me ample time to hangout with students which is always my favorite. One of these afternoon hangout sessions manifested itself in the library when I went to visit Kelley and within 2 seconds there was a swarm of boys in there just to be there. What were they doing you ask? Making bead bracelets of course. 

Crafternoon with Ms. Kelley. They were occupied with beads for at least 30 minutes during which Kelley and I each received our own bracelets complete with backward letters and everything.

I do have one funny story from Thursday. I was proctoring my last exam for 4th Formers and everyone in the class had finished and left after the first hour/hour and 15 minutes except for 2 students. They were there forever. And it's a good thing I love both of them because I just wanted to yell, "Ian!!! Write your essay! What have you been doing for the past hour and a half???" Well with about 15 minutes left in the exam time, the second to last student left, but then returned about 1 minute later. So I walk to the door wondering why he would returned to the room he just spent almost 2 hours in and he goes, "Miss, boogie is in the chapel." Now I just stared at him wondering if finals had just gotten to his poor little mind and also realizing I didn't open the chapel that morning, but finally after a few silent seconds of staring at each other I say slightly annoyed and exasperated, "Juan. What is a boogie." "The dog, Miss. It's in the chapel." "There's a dog in the chapel?" "Yes." "So...can you get it out?" "No, Miss. The door is locked." "So you're telling me that the dog is locked in the chapel." "Yes, Miss." I burst out laughing. I also sent Juan downstairs to get my keys only to discover that they were upstairs in the classroom with me, but eventually he and another students managed to rescue the stupid dog out of the chapel while I'm just cracking up as poor Ian is trying to finish his exam so that we can both get out of there. Dogs locked in chapels, TIB.

Then Friday came, the day of freedom and packing and last minute desperate pleas to my students to be safe and make good choices over break. It was the least stressful packing I've ever endured in my life and trust me, I hate packing, I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. But this was great! Kelley and I turned up the music and freaked out about all the good and bad things about going home. But we got it done and then we were able to hang out with people and even see some of our students at the basketball court that night. 

Saturday. What a long day. It started at 6 am Central Time and ended at 2 am Eastern Time and only a light 20 minute nap on a plane. I don't know how to describe saying goodbye to the other volunteers any other way besides strange. It certainly wasn't overly emotional, I wasn't happy to see them go, it was just "Oh we've seen each other all the dang time for 4 months and now we're parting ways. Hm." Joe, Kelley, Jack, Michael, and I were all on the same flight into Houston, so even though Joe had to split pretty quickly to catch his connecting flight, the rest of us were able to have dinner together. And let me tell you, Subway never tasted so good!

 Food that doesn't contain rice!

Michael: "We're way to excited about chips in this picture." It's the little things.

But just in case our dinner wasn't already awesome, they were putting out fresh cookies when a couple of them crumbled and broke from sheer freshness. So Kelley being Kelley asked if we could have them. Yep, we got free fresh Subway cookies.

Welcome to the USA!

And we all made it home safe and sound. I made it into my nice fluffy bed, I'm enjoying feeling clean, and slowly but surely I'm adjusting to life in the States. I really am looking forward to my break with its promise of many little adventures: a baby shower, family visits, friend visits, oh! and a trip to Disney!! Life is good. It is so very good. 

St. Maximilian Kolbe, pray for us.

Totus Tuus, Maria.

Finals

It's Finals Week here at Mount Carmel! Which means the students are running around with that feeling of craziness that comes 50% from finals and 50% realizing it's almost break. But, with no lessons to plan, this is the time when us teachers get to play! That is until the exams have to be graded. Oh wait! I already gave my final exam for my music classes, so I don't have any grading to do! Woo hoo! Yep, this is probably the lightest week I've had all semester and I almost feel kind of bad because as the finals are being taken, I see the stack of papers quickly climb on each teacher's desk. So I volunteered to help grade for some teachers. And by some I mean I'm helping Joe and any of the other volunteers if they want it. The exams that I'm helping Joe grade are being taken right now, so that means grading party tonight!! I'm actually pumped about it. It's multiple choice, I'll just put on some music or a movie and it'll be great!

Ok enough about my weird excitement to grade. Let me fill you in on my life. 

Like I said, the kids already had their music final. Eric, Monica, and I had a Christmas concert last Wednesday that counted as their final, and it was a circus which is exactly how I expected it to be. There are also a couple of Christmas songs that make me cringe now because I have painful memories of singing them over and over again with children that just can't sing to save their lives. Well it's over and done with. I don't have any pictures from it because I was a little busy running around organizing children, so that's a bit of a bummer. They looked so nice all dressed up! I was very, very relieved to have it over with though.

Friday was eventful because we had Fun Day which means the whole school was organized into different teams to compete in different games and activities all day. I think most of the kids had fun which is who it was for, so that's what counts. I personally would've rather just had the day off to sleep and be introverted, but what can you do. I got to watch futbolito games at the end of the day with some of the favorite kiddos and I talked to Katherine Furness, so the day was so very great.

That night we had our staff Christmas party, so we all got dressed up to celebrate the end of classes and go eat and drink with our colleagues. It was kind of funny because we were like, "wow, this is like when people go to an office Christmas party." We felt strangely grown up. 

Look! Missionaries can clean up real nice. We're missing Monica though because she was giving a final at the Junior College at that moment. 

Here is our department table! These are the people I see every single day. Me, Joey, Yuri, and Emmanuel.

Saturday was a typical Saturday spent going to Mass in the morning and then hanging out for most of the morning. Oh I remember what happened on Saturday! We were all invited to one of the teacher's house for her little 2 year old's birthday party. She's the Food Processing and Nutrition teacher, so the food was so stinkin good. Plus it was honestly the first time in a while that all of us were kinda forced to be having fun together and I really thought it was good for all of us, just being together. That night we went over to Brynne and Victor's for a Christmas party which meant it was our normal hanging out with them except their house was decorated and Christmas music was playing. It was so great!

Sunday was a really special day because December 8 was the day for total consecration to Jesus through Mary. Some of us on staff here have been doing the 33 day preparation and Sunday was the day to actually consecrate! It's really quite beautiful and is something I could go on and on about, but it was a very grace filled day. That afternoon, Joe and I went to Cayo because we were supposed to be meeting up with Yuri to explore a bit, but we found out she had something come up after we had gotten on the bus. So Joe and I had a little adventure day in Cayo! And that's just always fun because it's always ridiculous. When we got back, some of us watched Elf because Monica had never seen it before. I know, we were shocked as well. But we amended the situation, so it's all ok. And that's pretty much the weekend I think. This week is just full of proctoring exams and getting ready to come back to the States. There's a lot more mental preparation in that than you think! It'll definitely be an adjustment to not being surrounded by Spanish, brown teenager, feeling clean, and just being in a 1st world country again. I'm so ready for the break though. I'm so exhausted from this semester that I can't even explain how exhausted I am. Please pray for me to make it to the end! And for my students. They get unmotivated so easily, if they get motivated at all. It's just that final push before break which is always the toughest. 

Well who knows! This might be the last update I post in Belize for a few weeks! What a very strange thought. 

St. Maximilian Kolbe, pray for us.

Totus Tuus, Maria.

Giving Thanks in Belize

Last week was Thanksgiving which isn't news to anyone reading this because if you're reading this, then you are probably in America where you had a nice normal holiday. What did we do in Belize? Well as a gift to us Americans, we had a half day (I say this tongue in cheek because it was more of a hassle than anything. If they really wanted to do something nice for us, they would've given us the day off). But that morning, it really felt like fall because it was absolutely freezing. I know, some of you are sitting amongst your snow and sweaters, scoffing at me for using the word freezing for Belize, but remember 2 things: 1) I'm from Florida and 2) I've been living in Belize. But that whole week and this week too, it's been about 60 when I wake up. And when all you have is 1 lighter sweatshirt and fleece blanket and no heat, you end up waking up every morning shivering. Anyway, the point of that is that it was actually really nice waking up on Thanksgiving and having the weather make it feel like it was fall somewhere in the world.

So school got out at 11:30 and we had staff Mass at 1:00 and Thanksgiving dinner/lunch at 2:00. Last year, as I think I've mentioned, they had barbeque chicken and rice and beans, so that's what I was expecting. What we actually got was turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, potatoes, and still rice and beans. Of course it all a Belizean twist to it meaning the cranberry sauce was canned or at least gelatinous, we had rice and beans but it was fancier and not black beans, and my personal favorite, they made mashed potatoes but had sweetened it with different spices. It wasn't until about halfway through the meal when Kelley said, "Oh my gosh. Do you know why these potatoes are sweetened? They wanted to make sweet potatoes." We died laughing!! They completely missed the mark mostly because they used regular potatoes, but the gesture was appreciated and they didn't taste too bad. We were so super happy to have real Thanksgiving food though, especially Kelley. All she wanted was turkey for Thanksgiving, so she was ecstatic upon eating it.

Joe and I showing off our yummy dinners

There was also American football! Though I was so exhausted from the field trip and our dumb dog that I went home and took a nap. That's how I celebrate Thanksgiving!

I did really enjoy the day, and the weather was perfect. Plus the next day was Friday and even though we had to come to school, it was ok because well, it was Friday. Plus I got to talk to my family since everyone was at my house for the holiday. And! It was a Friday with no retreat, no special things that I had to do, so I could actually sit at my desk, get things done, and just be. 

Ok the next exciting thing that happened was the Regional Basketball game on Saturday. It was an all day affair that took place in Belmopan. It was a boys and girls tournament, 4 teams each, so they day started with a girls game, then the boys, another girls, and the other boys. We were the 4th game, so we had a long morning of just waiting and watching. But we won our game which meant we went to the finals in the afternoon. Unfortunately, the other team was making all of their shots, the refs were making unfair calls against us, and our team gets attitude real quick so they just got into the mindset that everyone was out to get them. In the second half, most of our boys were able to shake it off and shape up, but it was too little too late. We ended up getting 2nd Place though and when we got on the bus, the boys had recovered and were their regular loud crazy selves. Here are just a couple pictures from the day.

Naturally they had to find a random assortment of strange accessories because that's just what they do. Julio, Ethan, Nasser in the back, and Travis.

A pretty sweet shot of Charles, one of our 4th Formers. Kelley was our photographer.

Team pic after receiving their trophy and their medals.

Sunday had 2 doses of goodness. One was Brynne and Victor's daughter was baptized! No more pagan baby! It was right after Mass and was a really nice, small Baptism and we got cake afterwards. At about 2, most of us headed to Melchor for a few hours because there was an old volunteer visiting this weekend. We just hung out at the park with a ton of students and it's always so fun to have such a variety of them around. I really do just love hanging with the students, and it sounds super lame until you think about that they like hanging out with us. It makes me feel better about spending my free time with teenagers. 

Well I think that's Sunday. I can't tell if I got everything or am just forgetting little things here and there. What else? Oh, Joe and I finished our book! Now just to clarify, Joe and I are not writing a book. We were reading a book, but we just finished the very last of it yesterday which was our big reminder that we're going home in just 11 days. That. Is. Nuts. Though I'm very much looking forward to not being feasted on by bugs.

Ok I think that's it. Short and sweet. 

St. Maximilian Kolbe, pray for us.

Totus Tuus, Maria.

Placencia with the Boys

Who in their right mind would volunteer to wake up at 4:30 in the morning to get on a bus with 47 teenage boys and spend the next 15 hours with them? This girl. This was exactly how I spent my Wednesday. And it was perfect.

This all started Sunday at the youth thing when a couple of the 2^nd Form boys asked Kelley and I if we were going on the trip with them. We had no idea what they were talking about. It turns out they were going to Placencia for a dual Science and Social Studies trip and as soon as it was clear that our favorite students were going to the beach for the day, we thought oh yeah we have to go! Aside from just wanting to go the beach and be with our favorites, on a practical note we know that you can never have too many chaperones and Kelley and I each have a good solid relationship with most of those boys. And not to sound arrogant or conceited but we were the only Americans who went, and frankly if we didn’t go, I don’t know who would’ve actually chaperoned the kids. We were the ones who did bag checks, we were the ones keeping kids under control on the bus, we were the ones trying to keep the group of us together. But I can honestly say it was one of the best days I’ve had this entire semester. Those boys are crazy, but they are some of the funniest and most enjoyable group of kids I’ve ever encountered. Ok where to begin…

Well they were absolutely wound up as soon as they stepped onto the bus. Thankfully I was too, so instead of wanting to kill them, I was able to enjoy how ridiculous they are with their tons and tons of food. Pretty much all we did the whole day was sit on a bus and eat, and we ate everything from chips to granola bars to weird cookie marshmallow things to cheese dip. We also got offered hot dogs, but we passed on those. Goodness, I can’t even remember all the antics that went on during that bus ride, I can just remember laughing and laughing for the whole 3 hour ride down there. I also can’t believe it’s only 3 hours one way, it seems much longer. The ride down was broken up a little though because maybe about 45 minutes/an hour before we got to Placencia, we stopped at a Mayan museum that’s right off the highway. This was part of the Social Studies part of the field trip. Of course when I say museum I mean the Belizean definition of a Mayan museum which was a rather large thatched roof hut thing. The presenter man is 100% Mayan and pretty much runs the place single handedly, so he was incredibly informative and was quite pleasant to listen to. However I missed most of what he said because we had children going outside and kicking around coconuts and throwing them around (towards the thatched hut. Not smart) and no adult had gone out with them. Really what happened was Kelley and I ended up outside with about half the boys while the quiet good kids stayed inside actually listening to the presentation. We got to try roasted cacao beans which are totally disgusting by the way and this is coming from a girl who likes bitter chocolate! Some of the kids also tried the small chile peppers, but they, being the funny protective students that they are, wouldn’t let me try it because “it’s too spicy, Miss!” Well after a few Mayan chocolate samples and many of the kids clamoring for Kelley and me to buy them chocolate bars, we got back on the bus to finish our trip. But not before one of the students became my cousin: we told them all we would only buy chocolate for our families and one of them who is so shy and sweet comes up to me and says, “Miss, I’m your family.” So of course I say, “Oh really? And how exactly are we related?” Long story short, we decided we (meaning Kelley, the student, and I) were cousins. I still didn’t buy him chocolate, but now I call him primo and he calls me prima. I love it.

Ok so finally we get to Placencia and the only thing scheduled is later in the afternoon a lady from the tourism bureau is talking to the students to give them the answers for the worksheet they had. What did we do in the meantime? Played on the beach and ate lunch. I’m telling you, all we did was eat! But I’m just going to let the pictures do the talking.

 These are from the museum:

 Our guide. Everything there is handmade.

 Some students standing outside of the chocolate factory. It was nothing like Willy Wonka's.

 This is a super great candid photo of Juan Carlos, Manfredy, and Edwin!

 This is Christian who is my favorite student. He always looks mad like he hates the world until all of a sudden he gets this huge smile that just takes up his whole face. 

Ok beach pictures!

 Some of the "cool kids" of 2nd Form: Christian, Orvic, Rahim, Ellsworth, Jonathan, and Juan Carlos

 Yay for being at the beach! And calling it work!

 Some of our quieter sweeter boys. Except Jerson who really isn't quiet: Gian, Jerson, Johnny, and Darwin

These 3! They used to drive me absolutely nuts in the beginning of the year because they always goof off and don't really stop. But with a little perseverance, we are at the point where I love them and they are always sure to say hi to me: Istvan, Alberto, and Rafael.

 Here is a progression of pictures. It started out with Kelley and I wanting to take a picture together with a couple of students jumping in.

 Then we saw more coming and called them over.

 And this is how our picture of 2 white girls ended up being

This is Nigel. Being a kid.

Kelley with Manfredy and Lulvin, the two that threw her into the ocean

Manfredy with his stack of starfish that he was so very proud of

 Here they all are!

You know what it was that actually made the day so great? Because all of these boys never get the chance to be boys. They all have so many adult responsibilities, have problems that a high school student shouldn't have, and Wednesday was a day when they could run into the waves as fast as they could and do flips off each others shoulders and just be. It was so very beautiful to watch. It's days like Wednesday that just make me absolutely love my life.

St. Maximilian Kolbe, pray for us.

Totus Tuus, Maria.

Better Late than Never, right?

I'm only a little behind, yes? I promise I've been trying to post this for 2 days. To make up for it, here is a pretty picture walking home from school I took earlier this month:

I’m going to be honest with you, today did not start great. At all. There wasn’t anything particularly horrifying that happened, but it’s hard to start your day off right when your stupid dog wakes you up between 5:30-5:40 every morning for the second week in a row and then you’re stuck lying in bed for another 20-30 minutes just waiting for your alarm to go off which is now too loud because you’re not dead asleep and then it scares you and nobody likes waking up that way.

Have I mentioned I’m not a morning person?

All I can say is praise the Lord for headphones and a good playlist. It would’ve been no fun whatsoever trying to write this in a foul mood, especially since I have so many weekend events to fill you in on! Who knew life could be so exciting? (Warning: there may be traces of sarcasm laced throughout that last sentence)

I do believe the last time we left off, we were talking about the start of the weekend. Yes, I know that Friday was filled with a retreat, but I truly have no desire to talk about. I’m still rejoicing in the fact that it’s over, so all I’ll say about it is that we made it through, girls were crying during Adoration (trust me, for teenage girls that’s a good thing), and I think most of them had fun. Friday night was pretty chaotic and fun though. Jack’s business class put on a bazaar, but I feel bad for giving Jack my bad Friday luck because it started raining at about 4. The bazaar started at 4:30. So of course things had to be shuffled and shifted, but it worked out. There were a lot of kids there though including some of my favorites, and getting to hang out with them is always the best. Plus having so many kids at school, while it may be crazy for us teachers, it means that they’re staying out of trouble on a Friday night and some of those kids definitely would’ve gotten into trouble.

It was a pretty great Friday night despite my exhaustion. And it got even better when I got to talk to one of my littles in household, Hannah! Plus a few other household sisters popped in here and there. What a gift little Hannah is. It was just what I needed after an unbelievably long day/week. And the weekend was spent almost entirely at school as well: Saturday was pretty typical which means Kelley and I grabbed breakfast from the bakery (ham and cheese croissant things aka the best. We waited half an hour just to get them fresh and it was so worth it) and we went to school where we gave Joe his cinnamon roll and I cleaned off my desk and tried to get my life together. Oops, I almost forgot Saturday night! There are really only two things to mention: 1) Joe and I finished our book! Well sort of, we still have the epilogue to read, but we finished the last chapter. And then we had another realization of how close to the end of the semester we are. After that, there was Adoration from 8-midnight at the Church as a vigil for the feast of Christ the King on Sunday for people to come whenever throughout that time. It’s just always great when I can spend a long time with Jesus, especially in the midst of a super crazy weekend.

Sunday was much much busier. There was some youth day hosted and held by our school, well really by Benque, and so from 8 am to 4:30 pm, we listened to a lot of people talk in Spanish, heard a lot of stupid polka sounding songs in Spanish, and continually moved kids off the picnic tables and bleachers to sit in the seats that were set up. It was so exhausting and it was way too long of a day for teenagers (or anyone for that matter). A lot of our students left around 3 and I don’t blame them since that’s when it was scheduled to end and a lot of them had to get home. But there were some of them who stayed the entire time, including one of my favorites, so I was really impressed and proud of them for sticking it out. We were all super glad the day ended.

I don’t really remember Monday, so hopefully I’m not missing anything too eventful. Tuesday was also pretty average except after school when Kelley and I were baking cookies with students. It was so much fun! The kids are mystified by snickerdoodles and they are super easy to make here, so we made a triple batch, one for the kids and two for our Thanksgiving dinner.

Well I’m sufficiently behind in getting this dumb thing posted due to computer complications as well as being on a field trip for 15 hours yesterday (that’ll have its own post, trust me!), so let this be enough for now! You have the promise of the field trip with the 2^nd Form Boys for next time and depending on how our Thanksgiving dinner/lunch goes today, maybe that’ll be another post. I am just cranking these out! Or at least I will try to. So Happy Thanksgiving! Hopefully that’s a belated message because I am sure you have more exciting things to do today than wait for my late blog post. To help you get in the thankful spirit, let me encourage you to enjoy your leftovers. At least you have Thanksgiving leftovers and not whatever we’re going to end up eating today. Oh it will be such an experience!

St. Maximilian Kolbe, pray for us.

Totus Tuus, Maria.

Countdowns

There are little countdown apps for iPhones that allow you to have several countdowns going for various events like birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, concerts, etc. I've come to the conclusion though that such a tool would be completely excessive for me because anything I would be counting down to is constantly rolling around in my brain. This week, two of my countdowns concluded: one was the CXC Awards ceremony (more on that below) and the other, which is the most freeing and exciting to me, is that yesterday I had my last retreat. I can not tell you how relieved I am. Because while I've loved these retreats (though not the planning!) and I've formed a lot of my relationships with the students through these retreats, yesterday was the 2nd Form girls and boy, they...they are quite the group. There's a lot of them for starters, and most of them have a lot of problems like home life issues that run deep. But it's useless to complain about the many things that made it a stressful day. It should be enough for me that there were girls who had a fruitful day. Oh! But the best part of it was that it was the first time in the past 4 retreats that I woke up and it wasn't raining! I can't even express to you how much of a miracle it was. It's the little mercies we receive throughout the day.

What else am I counting down to? It feels like so many things, I just can't turn it off!
1. 5 days til Thanksgiving. We're having a half day so that the school can give us volunteers a "Thanksgiving." Yeah, I'll let you know what that looks like...
2. 1 week until our basketball regional tournament. So pumped!
3. 1 week and a day until Advent
4. Only 2 weeks until the music classes have their Christmas concert (which also counts as their final)
5. Also 2 weeks until our staff Christmas party. This also means that Finals Week is right after that.
6. 3 weeks from today I go back to the States. SO. WEIRD. And bittersweet. Don't get me wrong, I am more than ready for the break, but you just don't understand how hard it is to leave these little babies! I definitely have some mixed feelings.

Ok so this past week was just crazy. Monday was pretty ordinary (for Belize standards anyway), Tuesday was our holiday, Wednesday was a normal hectic pre-retreat day. Then Thursday was my second field trip! So in Belize, at the end of your 4th Form year, you can take the CXC Exam which is a standardized test for the Caribbean. Well Thursday they had the awards ceremony for this past year and 2 of our graduates were receiving awards. Our school was also asked to prepare a 5 minute musical piece which is how I got roped into this. What this meant is that at 7:30 Thursday morning, I piled into a van with Monica, 5 students, our 2 students getting awards, one of their parents, our vice principal, our principal, and our front desk man to go to Belmopan. Basically, we (being the students who missed school for the day by the way, Monica, and myself) took an hour and a half drive for a 5 minute performance. TIB. It was fun though because I was with some of my favorite students which made the boredom from the ridiculously long ceremony much more enjoyable. Once it had hit noon and we still had about 6 more pages of names to call to receive awards, the kids were getting hungry. Who am I kidding, I was hungry. I knew we brought lunch with us, so I went to our vice principal to ask her if we could just go eat outside and she was like, "Oh yes, we brought some burgers, they're in the van." This is where my American mind set my expectations way too high because I was like wow, burgers, that's pretty fancy for just this trip. Well we get out to the van to get our lunches and as I open the paper bag, I remember that in Belize burger is synonymous with sandwich. So what we actually had was a hamburger bun with cheese, raw onions, and (get this) one slice of baloney. Barf. Monica and I still talk about the humorous and traumatizing experience that it was. But again, the day was a lot of fun. Here is a picture with my little ones (see it's funny because they're mostly 3rd Formers and only one isn't 16).

This cracks me up so much because you would never know that these kids actually smile. Weirdos.

Oh my goodness, I think I'm too exhausted to say anything else. I feel somewhat sleep deprived since our dumb dog has decided to bark at every living thing throughout the night. This means that I've woken up at 4:30 or 5:30 every morning as well as more than a few times throughout the night. Thank you, Belle. Well, there's always the next update to look forward to! I guess all that can be said in any sort of conclusion is that I love whenever I get to hangout with my students which is all I did Thursday and Friday. It's those kinds of days that make it seem impossible to imagine I would be anywhere else right now.

St. Maximilian Kolbe, pray for us.

Totus Tuus, Maria.

No Time for Titles

I know, I know it’s not Tuesday. It’s not my fault though, we had a holiday. Belize really likes Tuesday holidays! We celebrated GarifunaSettlement Day. Something about Africans and Carib people arriving here in Belize I think? Yep, I’m that person, knowing nothing about the country I’m living in. Belize shouldn’t take it personally though, social studies/history was never something I particularly cared about. Anyway, the point of this is 1) to hopefully inform you (and myself) as to what exactly our holiday was yesterday and 2) explain why I didn’t post an update yesterday.

Ok let’s see, what has happened in a week? It seems impossible that it’s only been a week since my last update. I thought for sure I went to Cayo 2 weekends ago, that Belle had her puppies 2 weeks ago, but as it turns out my time perception is just horribly askew.

The weekend was fairly uneventful in the best of ways. Friday night, Kelley made dinner for all of us again because her mother sent her a jar of homemade pesto. Now homemade pesto is a big deal no matter where you are, but it’s an even bigger deal being down here. We were all pumped! And of course it was mega delicious, completed with garlic bread, a salad, and of course some wine. The rest of the weekend I’m pretty sure was spent just hanging out as per usual. The fact that I can’t remember anything too exciting usually means that I was just a bum the whole time. In fact, Saturday was especially lazy because we’ve been having sunny wonderful weather which has been missing for quite some time now. So naturally I had to engage in one of my favorite activities: basking. Kelley and I set up our little folding chairs right outside our house which then caused much laughter and curious looks from Belizeans. Just a typical day!

Sunday we had a little bit of fun though because Kelley and I spent a few hours babysitting Joana and again the weather was spectacular! So we decided to take a walk around Benque after lunch and we stayed for a while at this little park down by the river.

Too cute for her own good.

 Sunday Fun Day!

Monday felt so difficult to get through simply because we knew we didn’t have to come to school the next day! It turned out fine though, especially since I had to sub for my favorite class, one of the 2^nd Form boys. However, it was for their Social Studies class and there was no work left for them. Again, Social Studies is not my thing, and I got asked to sub 3 minutes after class had started, so I was just scrambling for something to do with them. But surprisingly when I walked in there, they sat silently waiting for me to tell them what to do. And I mean silent. It was weird. Of course this was also after the usual, “Can we go outside?” “No” “Can we go to the bleachers?” “No” “Let’s go to the computer lab!” “No” etc. Finally I was struck with those rare moments of teacher brilliance and I decided they were going to write a letter to any teacher at MCHS telling them why they appreciate them. And they all groaned at first and I had to walk around to ensure that they actually took out a piece of paper and started, but after only a couple minutes they really got into it. Some of them were busting out their letter writing skills that they had worked on in English class, so I had questions like, “Miss! Is the address like this?” “Miss! Do I need to skip a line?” One of them asked me to proofread his. Hilarious. I told them to make them good though because they were going to be delivered to those teachers. And that was the best part I think. I collected all of them at the end of class and read through them and wow, let me tell you, if they weren’t my favorites already they definitely were after reading their letters. It totally made my day giving them to the teachers and seeing their faces just light up at it. I totally felt like Santa Claus! And the letters I got are going to be little treasures that I keep forever.

Tuesday was our holiday! But I still woke up at 6:15, though I forced myself to stay in bed until 6:45. It’s ridiculous I tell you, absolutely ridiculous. Thankfully that provided ample time for breakfast and coffee/tea with the housemates which is always the best way to start any lazy morning. The boys were playing all day in a futbolito tournament, so we spent the better part of the afternoon watching them get all the way to 2^nd place! All in all it was a good day off that went by way too quickly.

Ok well I have more adventures to document, but since I was so delayed in getting this update posted, I’ll save my other happenings for another day. Again, I apologize for being so late! I promise I’ve been trying to post this for 2 days now. I also feel super loved to be reprimanded by people for not posting on time :) So thank you!

Oh, it’s my very last retreat week! Praise the Lord! Please please please pray for the 2^nd Form Girls tomorrow! They need the prayers oh so badly. Thank you!

St. Maximilian Kolbe, pray for us.

Totus Tuus, Maria.