Day 12: Bullies in Belize

Early morning at Reef adventures fizzled out fast. Engine problems prohibited us from going on our dive and snorkel today! Buuutt... it was very windy and they said visibility would be bad. In fact, someone canceled their trip while we were waiting. So we grabbed a bigger breakfast and hit the beach. I started reading "The Last Lecture" (very good so far) and worked on my tan :-)

After I grabbed a sandwich from the man in the hole in the wall (that's what they call him), it was time to head up to Holy Cross for the afternoon. When we arrived at Holy Cross there was an American singer of some kind performing for the kids. I've also noticed that there is a group of college students here tutoring kids and an older gentleman that comes to the school to help the kids prepare for the high school exam. He says that when he arrives the kids are no where near prepared to take the exam to be eligible to attend high school. Only 10% of the kids here will attend high school and out of those students, most of them cannot afford to continue their high school education. The teachers in Belize are only required to have a high school education so the level of education for the students is not where it should be. It's amazing, however, how much support this school has from many different volunteers and various groups coming in. We are here doing soccer camp, tutors are here helping the kids, a singer comes in to perform, all in the same week! When everyone does a little bit for these kids it all adds up to give them a much better school experience.

To begin today, we had 2 classes at once, Standard 3 and Standard 4 (5th and 6th grade). These kids were out of control. Running all over the place. As soon as you got a few to listen, others would act up, then you would settle them down and the originally good kids would act up. Finally, we stopped doing organized games and just played a big fun game of world cup. I felt bad for the kids who really wanted to play. The ones acting up were ruining it for the rest. They all did seem to have fun in the end. When I say act up, I saw a 11 year old boy pick up a 3 year old by the neck as if choking him. I told him to put him down immediately and then checked on the boy and all he kept doing was rubbing his neck. There were other kids picking on little kids and fighting each other. It was nothing dangerous to any of the adults but these kids are like survival of the fitest. There is no kind of discipline enforced and the teachers just walk by without addressing it. The sad part is that instead of being the fun coaches, we, at times, have turned into drill sargeants to keep the kids under control. These two classes were the first to be a problem for us.

The kids are clearly acting out for lack of attention. There is nothing organized for these kids, their parents are working, they have no money. They have nothing to do but create this survival of the fittest lifestyle. That is why our work here is so important. We've really brought some structure to their physical education and after school soccer teams. All they do after school is make the kids run and play adults vs. kids scrimmages or make the kids scrimmage. Not to be critical, but this is very evident. It's been great to introduce a lot of technical and tactical education for the kids after school, not only for their own benefit but also for the coaches. Although they may seem like they are not paying attention, I saw one of the coaches use one of our drills in his practice yesterday, so I know they are picking some things up. Hopefully, this helps the coaches to get some new training ideas for the kids!

The school soccer teams that we work with at 3:00 every day have really taken to us. They want to learn, they work hard, they are excited to see us every day and we've had a great time working with them. The boys are really intense and the girls are really focused yet playful. A joy to coach. Today we had a HUGE downpour right at the beginning of practice for 30 minutes. We were doing some springing relays with the kids (since the coach wants to make sure they run). It was soooo much fun running in the rain. The kids loved it, I loved it, it made the contest seem so intense!

Tomorrow we work with the 4 and 5 year olds and I am so excited! I have my music speakers that I use at soccer camp to play musical soccer balls! That's always a big hit! We also have the 8th graders again who are really good to work with- they are focused and want to learn. The major distraction is that school lets out at 2:15 and all the rush of kids out onto the field is very distracting. Kids and even teachers will literally walk through the middle of the field, the middle of a drill on their way out. Cars will even drive through the middle. It's absurd. So we will have that challenge with the 8th grade class tomorrow. The idea we came up with was instead of trying to work on skills or play a fun game we should just do a mini tournament. This way we only have 2 balls out instead of all 30 and that should help keep the other kids contained.
"My Secret Deli" is our new favorite spot to eat. They have these ginormous smoothies that come in these chalice like cups. Very cool. And good food of course.
Early morning again tomorrow. We've been assured that the boat is going to be working and we can go fishing tomorrow! I'm so excited! We are going to take everything we catch to Cruz at the town center for him to barbeque and sell to raise money for his son! (Maybe he'll cook us some too :-)