La Isla Bonita: beaches, retreats and... chicken drops?

Ah... I think the feeling of heaven must be akin to being in the town of San Pedro when the sun is beating down in the middle of the day and walking into a swank internet cafe and getting the computer directly under the air conditioning where your body temperature proceeds to drop so low that your brain wonders if, after all these weeks of living in a heat index of over 100, you've suddenly died or have given your body to some cyrogenics experiment (cyrogenics? Did I spell that right?). Well, this is where I am. As luck would have it, while the rest of my fellow teachers are returning home to Benque I'm hanging out on the Cayes for one more night to visit my aunt and uncle who are flying onto Ambergris Caye, San Pedro in about two hours. Definately a fun-maker, all made possible by the fact that as of Friday, my two fourth form classes are over because they have to spend the next two weeks learning how to walk across a stage for graduation and I'm left teaching one class leaving me with more time to spend on the beach... Of, the difficult life of a volunteer!

So, in all seriousness, the past few days have been some of the finest that volunteering in Belize has to offer. I've been "on the road" since last Thursday (yes, all the clothes in my backpack smell like seaweed...)! Ali Robezolli and I left with a fellow teacher on Thursday morning to speak in Belize City Elementary school. We spoke about chastity and dating to a group of eigth graders and it went very well. We were welcomed very warmly there and spoke to a class of girls for about an hour, talking about God's plan for love, marriage and chastity. It was a lot of fun to speak to younger girls and after the talk they all came up to us and asked questions like, "how can you tell if a boy really likes you?" and giggled a lot. They were wicked sharp kids too, it was crazy we walked into the room and they all shot out of their desks, stood up and said, "Good afternoon miss..." before they learned our names. They were so receptive to what we had to say which was good because we asked them what they had after our talk and they said, "sex ed." for which they were switching back into their co-ed classes (what's wrong with this picture, I ask?).

Anyways, after the talk at Belize Elementary Ali and I hopped on a water taxi and went out to San Pedro for a retreat we were leading on Friday. We spent all of Thursday evening getting ready, making icebreakers and songsheets and trying to learn their names from a list we had. We were excited, it was an optional retreat but over half of the class of forty students were signed up to attend. We were also a little nervous, we weren't sure what kind of students we'd find out on San Pedro. Well, these kids were awesome. They've had very little religious ed. in their school and there's no youth group, so our focus was basic evangelization. Ali and I gave talks on God's love, holiness and how sin separates us from God. The hardest thing to see was the looks on their faces when we were talking about the effect of sin-- you could just see how much they needed to hear what we were saying earlier than the present. It's amazing how transparent teenager's expressions are! Anyways, it was great to watch the kid's expressions when they were playing the games we planned for them! They all got so into our little icebreakers, one of the activities we had them do was fold up a sheet and balance as many people as possible on it and all the guys were getting on each others shoulders! Ali brought her guitar and we taught them a few Praise and Worship songs which they sang (even the boys!) and the day closed with mass with Fr. Dan. The only sad part about the retreat was that of the group of about twenty two, only one student recieved communion. It's a problem in Benque, but it appears to be worse on San Pedro. They're Catholic, but they know when they're not in a state of grace and we weren't able to offer confession because Fr. Dan couldn't come out until the end of the retreat. It's heart wrenching to see so many kids so young not go to communion.

After the retreat Ali and I went to a bar on the beach and enjoyed some a-typical company-- a group of little boys who were selling bracelets. Our new friends: Arnoldo, Ebsen, Rodolfo and Aron approached us about buying bracelets and although we didn't buy anything, we offered them some of our nachos and talked to them for about an hour. They asked us where we lived and we told them we were teachers in Benque. Ebsen squinted up at us and said, "teachers? Well, nice teachers." They told us about how they make the bracelets and sell them every day, so that they can put money towards their education. They all ranged in age from about seven to thirteen. They kept us entertained for a while, some of their stories were sad like the fact that their friend who they call "Garbage" got his name from the fact that he likes to sort through garbage for stuff and doesn't go to school (this boy couldn't be older than ten years) and then the highlight of the conversation which occured when one of them said, "oh, we have to go the the chicken drop tonight!". Now, Ali has given me exclusive blogging rights to this story, so I'm going to tell it as it happened, but let me preface it with the disclaimer that the word "shit" isn't vulgar in Creole (our students at school routinely inform us that they have to go to the bathroom for that reason. The first time your student tells you this you want to pass out and then you get used to it...) Anyways, I asked these kids what a "chicken drop " was and they said, "oh, you havn't gone? the Americans all like them... You go and there's a square with numbers on it and the chicken's walking around on it. If the chicken shits on your number, you win $100. But... " (they add seriously) "You gotta clean it up yourself. They don't clean the chicken shit up for you... but if you just won $100 so you pay someone to do it, sometimes we do it when they pay us!". Try to imagine being told this by a little Belizean kid... It was the funniest thing I had heard all day! As Ali said later on, can you imagine the fact that a bunch of people must have been sitting around trying to think of how to make money and then someone saying, "I know! Let's sell squares on a board and then set a chicken loose on it, and whichever number he drops on, they'll win!" to which everyone would say, "but who wants to clean that up?" and them replying, "well that's the best part! We'll make them do it!

Eventually our little friends left to go sell more bracelets, and when we went into the bar to pay our tab some drunk gringo slurring his speach said to us, "you finally get your little orphans to live you alone? Why don't you take them home, wash them up and put them in school?" I gave him a look that I typically reserve for students acting up during mass out of arm's length and in need of having their blood frozen in their veins... and muttered something about them already being in school... Had he not been drunk I would have liked to have gone on... but it would've been a waste of words. Ali and I discussed later that it's a sad day when people are too wrapped up in themselves to see how precious these little ones are. I mean, they're just kids! Scrawny, disheveled, hungry and trying to make some money for their school supplies and people treat them like they're not human. It was a startling revelation to make on the beach. Anyways, later the kids saw us sitting on the dock and said, "we thought you were other white girls to sell bracelets too! but you're friends!" and they talked to us until it grew really dark out. When they left, they asked us for hugs. It was the highlight of my time in San Pedro, I've seen them several times since then and they've always said "hi".

On Saturday morning a whole group of teachers from Mt. Carmel showed up in San Pedro and the rest of the weekend was focused on having fun. It's been a great time, but after tonight I'll be excited to get back to Benque, the "real world" where my students are preparing for graduation and the teachers are preparing to go home!