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.