Day 11: First Full Day With the Kids in Belize!

Justin's alarm went off and I woke up, tried to wake Justin up, took a shower, tried to wake Justin up, got dressed, and then shook Justin awake! Justin usually works a late shift so, needless to say, he is not a morning person. Once we finally got underway we grabbed some breakfast and then met Kathy and Liza to gather all of the gear and grab a taxi to take it to school.
We arrived to the school around 9:00 and then started unpacking and sorting all of the gear. We ended up with 150 shirts, 125 shorts, 100 backpacks, 51 pairs of shoes, a net for the goal, and some other miscellaneous items. It took us about an hour to get it all organized and then we packed it back up and put it into the storage closet for the Mr. Coba to go through and decide who would receive what. We did see some of the kids practicing today in some of the clothes that we brought. When we travel to Nicaragua and Belize, sometimes we have a plan for the clothes, like the League in Nicaragua and sometimes its merely to bring supplies and it is clear that the kids at Holy Cross can use some supplies.

We put the net up on the goal and once we finished preparing everything for the afternoon, we took a tour of the school by Lydia. Lydia showed us San Mateo, the community behind the school. Many of the houses were in the water on stilts that the community literally walked wooden planks to get to their homes and some even have to take boats. The country of Belize uses this part of the island as a landfill for the entire country. The people in San Mateo cover the trash with seedweed to help it decompose but for trash like plastic bottles that will take 10,000 years. Not only are they literally living in trash but they also have terrible septic systems so the water their houses are built over is teaming with dangerous bacteria.

Lydia told us the story of a student at the school 2 years ago that had an open cut on her leg and while playing on the bridge to her house she fell into the water. She didn't want to tell her parents about falling in because she didn't want to get in trouble. The cut on her leg got infected and she died. Apparently, these people are lost in Belize, a blind eye to the government and not even taken care of by their own people. This school was completely built by volunteers and completely relies on donations to continue functioning.
Once we received the tour we went back to grab some lunch before starting the afternoon.

When we returned back for our first afternoon PE class the kids were ready to go! We taught them 3 moves, how to pass, and how to shoot. The kids had a really great time. Lots of laughing, cheering for each other, and interest in working on new skills! They seem extremely excited to have us here making their PE classes new, different, and lot of fun! Next, we coached the school teams after school ended.

We started with the girls team and they were really intent on learning new skills and had a lot of fun playing new games. After working with the girls we taught the boys how to do 2v2 defending and attacking and then we did a big scrimmage adults vs. students. Everyone had a great time especially the students. Even though they were winning the whole game, we came back and won in the end. Now they want a rematch!

It's clear that the opportunity we have here, other than bring supplies, is to create good relationships with the kids, show we care, and have a lot of fun with them since the kids don't get a lot of sports instruction, physical activity, fun, or attention. There are no sports or youth programs here at all.

We were starved. We came straight back and showered and then headed to eat some of Cruz's yummy barbeque chicken. Cruz was excited to see us back. We were still a little hungry so we went to "Mojitos" and had an awesome lobster dinner. There is lobster here everywhere and they have such unique spices and sauces that the seafood is really really amazing. Over dinner we talked about how are first day went, what we could have done better, and preparation for tomorrow.
Tomorrow is a big day :-) We have a dive and snorkel trip in the morning to Shark Ray Alley and a couple of other sites and then we go straight to work with the kids at the school. It really is the ideal schedule. All of the sports are in the afternoon and the majority of dive trips are half day and you can even do half day fishing trips. So we are diving/snorkeling Tuesday and Thursday morning and Wednesday morning we are going deep sea fishing! What a trip!
Well, 7:30 wake up call so its time for this girl to go to bed! I hope everyone is enjoying the blog!
I'm so tired right now so I'll add all the great pictures from today tomorrow when I get some free time.
Good night!