my students make me laugh...

Thanks for all the messages from the 8th graders at St. Francis! You're right-- the kids in Belize are very similiar to you all in a lot of ways, let me try and answer some of your questions:

They LOVE music, and they seem to know a lot of the music that we have in the States. They listen to a lot of Spanish music but we've also heard Linkin Park (I know I'm not spelling that right... feel free to laugh at me, I'm an adult now and I'm not supposed to be "in" with music that's cool, remember?). All the Belizians love Celine Dion and other really "Delilah" type music. The kids are pretty into all the movies, because so many are sold on the "black market" (that sounds so illicit, but remember the Caribean is all about Piracy, from the cable to the internet) here they tend to see things at home before they're even out of the theaters. For example, I don't know if "I Robot" is out on Home Video yet, but they just showed it as a fundraiser at school. They also love to dance, these kids have a sense of rhythm that's quite incredible. I don't think any of them are into ballet or tap, they are more into salsa and merengue (I don't think I spelled that right either). It's really fun to watch, the Belizean teachers are always trying to teach us how to dance and let me tell you us white folks are just not as good at it!

So, my students make me laugh and I have so share some more stories. My boy-crazy second form girls have it in their head that because of certain parts of the Old Testament, the Bible says it's ok to have five boyfriends (oh, don't worry, we are beginning the ten commandments with a LONG unit on chastity!). So, they wrote on the board, "the commandment says: have 5 boyfriends". When I walked into the classroom I didn't react, I just walked right up to the board like I was going to erase it. Instead, I picked up a piece of chalk and put a "1" in front of the 5 so that it read "15". That brought down the house with a round of "eeeeeeehs!".

My second form boys are all aspiring sound-effects artists. The noises that come out of their mouths are rarely human sounding. The other day their was a noise in the classroom and I couldn't put my finger on who was making it. I asked them and they said "it's a gecko, miss". I looked at them with a "please, I am not just another gringa and I know you all well enough to know that it's one of you..." and then I hear all these voices saying, "yes miss, a gecko... One fifteen minute call could save you money on insurance..." I totally lost it at that, I had no idea they were familiar with Geico comercials!

So, William Mendez, one of my biggest troublemakers and favorite students (it's funny, those charactersistics go hand in hand with the many of us here, we love the personalities in class!) brought a Goliath beetle in for his science class (he smuggled it over the border from Guatemala...). Now, I've been to a lot of science museums as a former homeschooler. However, I have NEVER seen a bug this big. It's body had the size and density of a baseball. It was incredible. It thudded around in the trash can it was in and looked like something out of an X-Files episode. I walked into the teachers room on Friday morning and let out a gasp (ok, a scream) when I saw it in the hands of one of the other teachers. Well, William was standing right there and I think my reaction definately made his day (so much for keeping my fear of bugs hidden from my students!). Later on in class, I was talking about dispositions and habits and he said to me, "miss, you have a disposition to be afraid of animals". I said, calmly, trying to save face, "what makes you think I'm afraid of animals?". "Because miss, you were afraid of the bug". I responded, "Oh, that. Well, actually, the only animals I'm afraid of are the thirty four in front of me right now". Well, that got a big "eeeeeeh" from the boys, and they told me I had to write lines for them that said, "I will not be chancey in class". That was the first time I got an "eeeh" from the boys, they really don't like sarcasm!

Have I mentioned the hair gel obsession? These kids SLICK their hair (or "hairs" as they call it) back, especially the boys. The kids actually think us Americans are kind of messy for not using hair gel and the boys finally told me why. Continuing our conversation about habits in class, I told the boys, "you all have a good habit of washing your hair and combing it every day" to which they said, "yes miss, you should to." "What do you mean?" I asked. "Miss, you should comb your hairs. You look like Bob Marley". As I mentioned, they're brutally honest about your appearance on any given day! I laughed at them and told them that I wasn't writing lines for them after they criticized my hair! So, when I went into my girls class, they actually had their gel out and were giving their hairs the mid-morning touch up. I asked them, "does it look like I don't comb my hair?". The brown-nosers all replied, "oh no miss, your hairs are beautiful!... But do you want some, miss?" (holding out the gel) I laughed at them, explaining that it wouldn't quite have the same effect in my very white frizzy hair as theirs! They said, "ok miss. Can we dye your hair red someday?" This isn't the first time they've asked to do my hair, they want to corn row it too... Oh, they're so funny!

One more story for all of my fellow Red. majors out there who know me and my "O.C.C." tendencies (that's obsessive compulsive Catechist). My Catechism (which is on it's last leg, the spine is breaking! I feel like a part of me is dying!) was on the bed and Anne, one of my housemates, commented on the reference tabs in them. Ali was there too and we began to talk about the Catechism test and all of the anxiety it caused us, and about my experiences of taking it orally and how nerve-wracking it is to have Prof. Morgan quizzing you about why you got something wrong and how important it is for you to teach it correctly... and Anne looked at me and said, "wow, no wonder you're so high-strung!". Ali got a big kick out of that... All I could think of was my paper bags!

Ok, this was a random posting, but I just had to share those stories. Thanks for all the continued prayers. I'm on my way to a retreat team prayer time right now, please keep the retreats that we're planning in your prayers. (Coincidentally, they're on prayer, so if anyone has any good skit/ activities on prayer let me know!).