last few weeks...

so this blog is going to be a lot longer than the other one because i havent added anything in a long time. so anyways...on our break, after our first placement, we worked on the base and went to corozzal for a few days. we were suppose to work on a school doing some painting and stuff, but on our first day there, mr.k met an american couple that sold everything they owned and moved to belize to open a library and study center. they told mr.k that they were just painting their house so mr.k told them that we could help. our team of 17 was spilt into 4 groups. each group has a leader. im the leader of my team so i volunteered our team to paint the american couple's home. we did that for two days. we painted their main room in their house. it turned out really nice. we would get dropped off at their house in the morning, work til the afternoon and then we would walk to a beach that was down the street and meet our team there for swimming. at night we stayed at the highschool and slept in the hallway. our last night there was friday. we all slept on the roof on the zanting's house that night. the zanting's were cousins to emily's mom and the principal of the highschool, where the rest of the team worked. we left after breakfast and got home saturday night. the next week we ran a VBS on the base. ben, crystal and i were in charge of sports and games. it was really fun. we did VBS in the morning and then we had to work around the base for the rest of the day. in the afternoons we would go to Ian and Shenny's new house and work on it. the last day while we were working there, rach, liesl and i found a kitten there. we brought it back to the base that night and it is now our family pet. her name is Corey. we've had her for about 4 weeks now. friday we got the day off because it was good friday, so they took us to a resort for the day in belize city. it was really nice there. we went swimming and then we went to a restaurant for dinner. then sunday night we went to church. monday we were all dropped off at our new placements.
my new placement is in spanish lookout, a mennonite community. hannah and i live together with a couple named Frank and Bertha Barkman. they are an older couple. they have 6 daughters and a son that have all moved out. they also have 19 grand children. they have a chicken farm and they have some cows too. i work at Rose Glen School and hannah works at Jireh. they are both mennonite schools. we started on tuesday in the schools. i dont like it at all in the school. its terrible. i sit in the office all day and lamenate books by myself. when i get home from school i love it. Bertha makes the best food. we played phase10 with her one night. both wednesdays they took us to Cahal Pech, a resort in Cayo. it has three swimming pools and two of the pools have waterfalls going into them. its so nice there. they take us to the dairy to get ice cream a lot too. its the best ice cream in the country. tonight they brought us to Bertha's sister's house. there we drove their quad and went on the motorcycle. hannah and i drove the quad on the roads too so that was really cool. this past weekend i went to Hopkins with Laur and her parents. it was the most amazing place ive seen. there was two pools and one had a swim up bar. there was a hot tub and hammocks all along the beach. there was a beach with sand in the water and out of the water (thats not common here). it was really fun. we went to a kareoke bar the last night and then back to our placements monday morning. tomorrow night is friday. we're going home to the base. i loved my family that i stayed with but i really disliked the school i was in. im looking forward to the two week break and seeing my family :D.

first two and a half weeks

so we've been here for two and a half weeks. we spent 26.25 hours just getting here. they were the worst hours of the trip. when we finally made it to the base it was around 330 am, we were all tired and a little cranky.

the next few days we spent just getting to know our new home.we live in a house with 22 people. there are 4 bedrooms for the girls and two for the guys. we have one kitchen and 4 bathrooms. during the week there are only 13 of us living on the base in our house and the rest of the people go stay with families. as the placements change our houses will change too. its actually quite nice here during the week and we always look forward to seeing everyone again on the weekends. but by sunday night we're all ready to say goodbye again. it gets pretty crowded here with everyone home.

my first placement was at Belize Faith Missions, a grade school in Ontario, Belize. i was working in a prep class, which is a class for misbehaving students and students that just dont learn as quickly as the others do. i worked there for the first week with lauren and nick. on thursday of the week there, we had a really bad day. some of the students were making racist comments at us and the class didnt feel the need to listen to us at all. it was a rough start to the placement.

after that week, lauren and i started to work at Western Christian Academy, the high school right beside the grade school. everyday we teach two algebra classes and anything else that needs to be done. its been really good there and i hope that i can work there again for one of my other two placements.

the saturday after our first week, we went to the south water cayes for the day. it was so fun and it was soo nice there. that was such a hot day. when we got home that night everyone was tired and burnt from the sun. the next few days after that, rachel, lauren, aislin, laura, and i all got blisters. luckily i only got them on my chest but some people had them on their back and arms too. it was brutal and now we are all really cautious about the sun.

we went tarantula hunting the first weekend. we caught four tarantulas and a coral snake, so that was pretty sweet. this past saturday we were at the blue hole and we went in the caves. it was really cool and it was a pretty relaxing day.

i completely forgot to talk about the food here. lauren, nick and i eat at the high school every day and its always a piece of chicken with rice and beans/colslaw. i love the rice and beans and the chicken is also good but the colslaw is kinda nasty. at the base we eat normal food. so far we havent had anything to extreme.