Day 7

The second day of school, which was Tuesday March 23rd, was about the same as Monday, all of the students were taking their exams. However, I helped grade many of the exams and the material is about the same that I had learned at my charter school. I am not sure how it compares to the regular public schools in NC but the information was very detailed. I found out that they have some of the same subjects that we have but then a few additional ones such as, ethics, learning potential, and HFLE. Their ethic exam dealt with more safety type questions, such as bike safety and all. HFLE is like their health course. For the HFLE exam it was mainly dealing with male and female reproduction systems. I found this very interesting because I never had a course in this it was always just slide into biology. Last, Learning Potential, I found this one very interesting because we do not really have a course equivalent to this one in the states. The exam questions all dealt with a word that represented a group of something. For example, " what is a group of sheep called?" When grading the test I realized that though their is more information the class still has some of the same problems that we have in America, not enough studying. There were not many A's if even one and most of the grades were in the 70s. However, unlike Bradley Creek and Rachel Freeman the grading scale down here is on a ten point scale, similar to that of high school and college. So there are some similarities between the school system here and the one in North Carolina.

Day 6

Today was our first day in the schools. It was a nice walk to the school and once we got here we realized that we can leave a little later in the mornings. Everyone is on Belizean time so we were kind of early. The school is very laid back and everyone is so willing to help you. When we got here we got our assignments to which grade level we will have. I have standard 5 and 6 which is like 6th to 8th grade. The students age range is 11-14 and I only have nine of them. I have three that are in standard 6 and six that are in standard 5. The students here are so loving and nice. They like to run up to you and give you hugs. For this week they are doing their examinations so there is not much teaching. The time that they took their exams allowed me to get to know my teacher a little bit more. She is my age and has been teaching for almost three years now. I found out that she has a lot of responsibilites within the school. Her lesson plans are very similar to mine along with her objectives. I found out that because of her lesson plans she is the one who helps the other teachers with theirs and make sure they are doing them correctly. Overall it was a very laid back and interesting day.

Day 4 and Day 5

Day 4 was a lot like Friday mainly laid around by the pool and went to the beach. We went to this place on the beach that had a variety of T-shirts that visitors to the island have signed and left. It was really interesting because we found once that was from Carolina Beach and had the last name of one of my students from Wilmington. For the rest of Saturday we just enjoyed the time off and relaxed.

Day 5 was a very productive day. A group of us went to get breakfast then went snorkeling. A few days prior, at Lola's Pub, we met a guy name Lou. He offered to take us out on his boat to go snorkeling for a very discounted price. So after eating that morning we went to go rent our equipment and meet Lou. After spending way too much time at the rental place trying on each pair of fins they had, Lou just came and picked us up on his boat.

The travel to our snorkeling spot was great, we got to see the other side of the island and the bright blue water. We thought we found the head bangers house, which was this guy named matt that we met at Legends that Friday. We took a picture of the house so we could email him and ask him.

When snorkeling we got to see a lot of different fish and the reef. Also on our travels we spotted a stingray which was huge. It was amazing. After snorkeling for a few hours we went conch fishing so that we could taste conch ceviche. I felt bad for the little guys. They were being plucked from the ocean and beaten out of their shells. However, it was a very interesting experience to see the process of getting and cooking conch. After going snorkeling, seeing the lagoon, hanging out with Lou's family and eating conch we headed back to Pedro's. On our way we found out that the whole country had a power outage. So for about six hours there was no power. Needless to say we did not shower and we felt gross. With the whole island being out of power for that long and that being the first time they had ever experienced something like that I was a little nervous. It got dark very quickly. However, the power did come back on that night around nine which was great because I was getting a little worried about not being able to shower for school the next morning. Over all it was a pretty productive day.

Day 3

Well by Friday my side of the hall had hot water because we asked Walter to fix it. All I did that day was lay by the pool and enjoyed the weather. Something that I have learned down here is that I have no concept of time and it always seems later than it really is. Friday was a pretty much lazy day which consisted of naps, pop tarts, and laying by the pool. However we did check out the local places to go in San Pedro. Our group that night made a visit to a place called Legends. It is a bar and food place out in the middle of no where. Apparently it is about a five mile walk from Pedro's Inn. That night we ate at a great place called Lola's Pub, then we got ice cream. Once eating we set out on our journey to Legends. This was by far the longest walk I have ever made. Once crossing the bridge everything was dark and creepy. There were only a few people out and some golf cart riders. Luckily we made it there safely, thanks to our compainion that we recruited on the way, Fido. Fido was the dog that had no ears that started following us and stayed with us pretty much for the rest of the night.

That night at Legends was so much fun! Everyone was there, even our friends from Texas, Australia, and other countries. There was a band that played all night and everyone was so friendly. By the end of the night I was exhausted. Luckily I was one of the few that had to make that hike back to Pedro's, I caught a ride on a golf cart.

Day 2

Day 2 of the field experience we were going out to see the schools and meet the staff. I found that with the time difference and just getting use to day light savings time that I was up at 4:30 Belizean time. Any how after waking up earlier and showering, which was cold again we set off as a group to find food. We ended up eating at a resturant called Georges, it was simply delicious. After eating we traveled down to Ambroguis Cayes Elementary school. It was such a cute school house. It was yellow and had a little playground and everything. The principle was super nice along with the rest of her staff. The class sizes were really small, there was even one that had just two students in it. The next school we visited was the high school. This was very interesting because there were more students then I had expected. The gym was very neat because it was outside and was an open building with a roof on it. The staff was very friendly as well as the students. The last school we went to for the day was the other elementary school. This one was very different from the first one. The playground had a fence around it with barb wire at the top. The building had an opening in the middle where you could look up at the second level and see all of the classrooms. At this school the students get an hour for lunch where as the other school gets half days on Fridays.

Once finishing our tour of the schools we headed back to Pedro's Inn to lay out by the pool. Out by the pool we say our friends, Travis from Texas and Glynn from Australia, we learned a lot about them and how they had been traveling around different countries for a while. I found it very interesting how so many different people end up in San Pedro. That night we just hung out at Pedro's by the pool chit chating with our new friends and swimming (just Brittany and me).

Day 1

Well the first day in Belize was spent traveling to Belize. The flights were not bad just long and tiring. Once arriving in Belize City we had to go through customs and everything and catch our flight to San Pedro. So the flight from San Pedro was interesting because the plane was so small and the landing strip was very short, there was no rooms for errors. When flying on the puddle jumper we were able to see many of the islands and the beautiful blue water.





Once landing in San Pedro's airport, which is not the typical airport, we gathered our belongings and caught a cab to Pedro's Inn. On our cab ride over we were able to see some of the streets in San Pedro. The streets were very different from the US. There were few cars, some bikers, and many golf car riders. There are not any traffic lights 0r very many traffic signs. The cars move very fast down the streets which are sand and cobblestone in some places. There were quite a few pedestrians walking on the side of the road and many stray dogs accompying them. The children just come and go as they please which was very interesting to me because sometimes I could not figure out who the parents were.





So the place we are staying is called Pedro's Inn which has a very laid back atmoshpere. The rooms have two beds, one tv, a sink (not in the bath room) and a bath room in it. However, the cold water knob is acutally the hot water, but in our room neither knob got warm. Showering in cold water is not that bad especially when you are hot. Tolits down here are very interesting because you can not flush the tolit paper so this is an interesting aspect you have to get used to.



After dropping off our stuff we ventured around exploring the island of San Pedro. We ended up stopping for food. I quickly learned that there are not many vegaterian options and that they give you a lot of food. The first place we ate at was great.