I forgot to write in the last blog what we did to them in their sleep! Well, Ariel and I stayed up much later than them waiting for a lizard. We basically sat quietly staring at the walls waiting for one to cross our path. We were ready with tools in hand to catch the first lizard we saw… it was just like a stake out. Eventually, we chased a lizard down and trapped him and then we held it up by its tail next to their faces while they slept and took pictures. We put these pictures in the Nicaragua initiation photo book only to be seen by Nicaraguan volunteers. They must look at everyone else’s photo before they get to their own.
…well, that was the story we told and, shockingly, they believed it. haha. No I did not spend hours of the night staking out a lizard… sleep is a precious commodity in Nicaragua! haha.
Kara and I flew into Belize city, grabbed a taxi to the ferry, and a ferry to the island. It’s all very easy to get around. Once we arrived to the island, we checked into our hotel, took amazing sandal-less showers for the first time since we left home and then set out to Estel’s, one of the best breakfast spots on the island. Walking down the beach to Estel’s was surreal. Were we really here? We ordered a huge breakfast including OJ and a strawberry-banana smoothie. We took one sip of the orange juice, which was freshly squeezed, and looked at each other like it was the best thing we had ever tasted in our lives. 
After a week of beans and rice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, we were sipping on freshly squeezed orange juice. After a moment we saw the waiter over our shoulders and when we turned to look we saw the most delicious amazing looking smoothies you have ever seen in your whole life. We cried out in the middle of the restaurant, “Ohhh Myyy Goshhh.” It was delicious… one of the best moments of the trip for sure.
Throughout the day the Belize volunteers started arriving on the island. Scott (my brother), Maria (sister-in-law), Dave and Kevin (friends), and Abby (Coach Abby you may know her as… who works with Kara and I at Champions Soccer). One more volunteer, Salif (from LTRC adult soccer), will be arriving on Tuesday.
We work with the kids during the week and the weekend when arrive is free time. All of the volunteers enjoyed the island. We had some good meals (the seafood is awesome), I had some good exercise, visited with some friends on the island, and then Sunday afternoon, Abby and I walked over to Lydia’s house. Lydia will be hosting Abby for her 3 months in Belize. This is the ideal situation for Abby. Lydia and her husband have 2 beautiful children (1 that is 6 and the other an infant) and Abby will have a room in the house with a twin bed, desk, and closet. It’s the perfect set up, very comfortable, and I love that Abby will be with a family. She will have a surrogate family during her trip!
It was great to catch up with Lydia and for Abby to meet the family but we also got to talk for a bit about our plans for a program in Belize. Lydia and her husband had so much good feedback that really helped us to tweak our plan so that it will function well in Belize. One of the important things they said was to under-promise to the locals. If you under-promise and exceed expectations it goes over very well. If you set expectations high and then come short, the locals will be very disappointed, again, by a foreign group trying to come in and help and not keep their word.
We all went to Fido’s, a great local restaurant with live music, for dinner and then called it an early night.
7:30am wake up call and we all took off for the school in our More Than Fútbol gear to see the kids. Once we arrived we pumped up all the soccer balls to get them ready for camp and then we went to each of the classrooms to introduce ourselves and invite the kids out to camp after school. This is one of the most fun parts of the week because we get to see a lot of familiar faces and we get to see the excitement of the kids that we are finally here for fútbol camp. The teachers tell us that they ask about it all the time and they have to say, “They will be here! They are coming in January!”
We gave a walking tour of San Mateo, the impoverished community where the majority of our kids live, to our volunteers. It’s amazing to see how much the community has improved in just 5 years since I have been here. There are a lot more filled in roads (rather than swamp with planks), there is electricity now running throughout San Mateo and a lot of people have even put up make-shift fences around their property.
Once we finished the tour, we had a couple hours of down time to get some food and then went back to the school to work with the kids. The first day is always always always the hardest day. We have a lot of rowdy kids and we have to set the rules and boundaries. The older kids tend to do better because they have been to camp before. The younger kids can be very wild and disruptive. Camp ended going very well for the first day and I continued to remind the coaches, “Monday and Tuesday are our tough days… they are our ‘setting boundaries’ days” but after that it typically improves. Tuesday is tough because a lot of kids that didn’t come to camp on Monday will have gotten permission from their parents to come on Tuesday so we will end up with a lot of new kids on Tuesday and then we have to reset all of the boundaries. 
During camp, Mr. Coba, the head sports guy at the school came back with another teacher, Ms. Virginia, to meet with me about the plans for the league. I was so happy to hear all of the progress that Mr. Coba had made since our last meeting on my last trip to Belize. With Abby’s help the league will be up and running in no time. We will have 6 boys teams and 4 girls teams from the school ages 11-13 playing in a small league. From that, we will select a leadership team that will undergo coach-training with Coach Abby. Those players will then coach 1 of 4 boys teams and 4 girls teams that are 7-9 years old. The idea is to create a system that teaches the older kids responsibility, how to set an example, how to lead, etc. This system also gets the younger players involved in soccer and teaches teamwork and gives them a mentor close in age. The school has 4 houses (kind of like Harry Potter)… Purple House, Red House, etc. So we will have a boys and girls team from each house for the little league. We have enough uniforms to outfit the older league and the leadership will get to have the nice jerseys and shorts that we brought down on our last trip. The leadership team will get to represent the school in a big tournament that is taking place on the island just after Easter. Mr. Coba and Ms. Virginia are on board and I felt so excited and proud of how much we accomplished on just the first day. I’m so excited that the Belizeans are on board with the plan and willing to work with us to move forward to create something wonderful for these kids. It is our hope that we set an amazing example of what this program can be at Holy Cross and then can introduce the model to the other schools on the island until we have the whole island involved! It is my hope that, over time, the leadership program, mentoring, and the positive values learned in this program will change the culture on the island to be one that is more united, supportive, and functional breaking down racial barriers and creating a cooperation in the community that is not currently present.
Luckily, the rain held out for us today because shortly after we arrived back it started raining and ended up raining VERY hard ALL night. I’m scared to see what the fields will look like. Hopefully, they dry out a bit before camp starts.
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