Can you BELIZE we are done our second week??

Wow! We can’t believe another week has passed already. We are all adapting well to all of our schools and to Orange Walk. We have absolutely loved getting to know our students even better and forming stronger connections with all of them. From assemblies, playing football (soccer) with the kids, outings with teachers, and lunch time break bonding with the kids, it’s been an incredible week. One highlight from this week was discovering a dinner spot that is just around the corner from where we are staying, called Susy’s. We love how authentic and real it is! We all love the quesadillas, tacos, panuchos, tostados and haraches. We also got homemade ice cream from a local shop that we enjoyed. This weekend we were also able to visit the old Mayan Ruins of Lamanai, which means, “submerged crocodile”. We learned so much about these ancient temples from our tour guide. We started the tour off by boat, heading through the river up to the reserve. There were 4 different temples/sites that we could see and climb up. It was a great day of cultural learning, as well as discovering our surrounding here in Belize. And now here are specific updates from each teaching pair!Ali and Emma: We had a great week in the class! Our lessons were bullying, puberty and sexual health, which we think are all super important. The kids had so many questions and were starting to participate even more in our activities. The start of the week the school had an assembly, which we were able to attend! We were also given the opportunity to introduce ourselves in front of the whole school. This week also marked the start of us going to the preschool that is right beside Carmelita Government School and we hangout with the kids there during one of our breaks, which we really enjoy. During our lunch break, we have been consistently bringing our football with us and have noticed more and more kids stay over the break and come back early in order to play and hangout with us! Overall, we had a great week and are looking forward to next week!Josh and Brittany: We had an awesome second week teaching at Trial Farm government school. The students and teachers are very friendly, which made us feel welcomed and at home. We quickly got used to the variety of classroom settings and the schedule at the school. We finished teaching peer influence and then taught bullying and mental health to the standard 4’s, 5’s, and 6’s. The students loved the activities we did for the bullying lesson and mental health lesson. On Friday, the standard 5’s were on a field trip and the rest of the school had a half day so we spent the rest of the day exploring Orange Walk and trying new Belizean food like Garnachas and Tostados. We can’t believe we only have one more week left with the students. They are all amazing and we’ve made so many strong bonds. We’re so excited to have one more week with them!Siobhan and Vivian: After Vivian’s arrival in Orange Walk on Monday, we had our first official day of teaching together on Tuesday, teaching drugs and substance abuse! This week we also had the opportunity to begin teaching the 2 Standard 6 classes at San Jose Government school now that they are done their final standardized exam. This made for a very busy, but amazing week in the classroom! We had a busy day on Wednesday with 6 classes, once again ending by sitting in on the after school program known as Girls Leading Our World (GLOW). That day, we taught several topics including self- esteem and sexual responsibility. On Thursday, we had the opportunity to watch the Mother’s Day Presentation at San Jose, with several of our students performing various songs and dances. We finished the afternoon with 3 classes at San Jose on puberty and sexual responsibility before heading home on the bus. On Friday, the majority of the students at San Pablo were away on a school trip, so we planned to combine all the St. 4-6 students that remained for a lesson on role models and goal setting. During our lunch break, 2 teachers at this school offered to show us a river close by which separates Belize from Mexico! We are very fortunate to be working in such a kind, and amazing community. We finished the day with 2 classes on goal setting and self- esteem respectively. During break, our St. 5 students began teaching us some common Spanish words and phrases, as they know we are trying to learn! After another long week completed, we are both eager to see what our last week brings us, and sad to say goodbye to our students here in Orange Walk!