field trips

the reenactment of garifuna settlement day

the boat bringing in the students performing

me and the crab

me and daniel (not in my class but certainly my favorite)

the buses parking on the coast

my class on the beach

dangriga

this past week my class, as well as the other STD 5 classes, went on a field trip to dangriga.

the map to the right is a map of belize. the white lines are the major highways in belize, so as you can see the quickest way to get from orange walk (at the top) to dangriga (on the coast) is to go to belize city, then belmopan (the capital) and then to dangriga... making it about a 3.5 hour bus ride with bathroom breaks. i had my "emergency" kit ready with:

2 rolls of toilet paper (for when we stop and there isn't any in the stalls), pepto bismol, emetrol, tums, first aid kit, bug spray, sun block, gum, and deodorant. and while some of the items on the list may seem to be a bit silly to have been included, i would like to say that all of the items were used.

the trip and all its chaos

we had to meet at school at around 4am. i made powder buns (belizean type of roll) for everyone on my bus and had snacks, 60 bananas, 108 shilling waters (water that comes in a bag), and snack packs for the kids that told me needed some snacks for the bus. so needless to say, i got dropped off in the middle of the night at school with a TON of stuff. i reached to the school around 4:05 and there were probably 10 students and parents already waiting, but no fellow teachers had arrived yet. students started to flock around me as parents tried to decide if they should leave their children with me and the watchman for the school or wait for an actual teacher to come. most of them left within about 7 minutes of me arriving without the presence of another teacher. i had my check list of students and parents who would be going from my class as well as from the other teacher's class who would be sharing my bus.

4:30 (our stated time of departure via notes sent home to the parents) came quickly and we probably had about a little over half of the students. there were 2 teachers present at this time, myself and miss shenese, along with ms. debbie (the principal) and ms. perla. i would say that the majority of the students remaining arrived before 4:45, but still we did not have everyone. my class was all there apart from one student: tyron. tyron was the first person in my class to pay for his field trip and had been really excited about going on this field trip since we said that we were going so i started calling his mom. 1, 2, 3, 4 times.... no answer. i left messages. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 times.... what do i do? we had decided that we were leaving at 5:00am with or without the last 2 students that were remaining. and so i did it. i called a 10th time with no answer and crossed my fingers that tyron would come just in the nick of time. he didn't. first discouraging moment of the day.

we left school with 24 people represented from my class on board and accounted for, 1 no-show and 1 to be picked up about 10 minutes out of town at a bus stop. about 5 minutes into our trip we got a phone call saying that one of the students that we left had arrived and the principal would drive him to meet the bus. for a moment my heart leaped with joy that tyron had made it, only to be informed that it was not tyron but rather the only other student that we had left. what are the odds? i guess 50/50.

now if you had a group of students awake before the crack of dawn, sitting on a bus for a three hour (minimum) bus ride for a field trip, you may think that the kids would sleep for a good amount of time. and you would be wrong. so wrong. the kids on my bus were not only wide awake but as a constant reminder that they were awake and very aware of what was going on, they would let out a resounding "WOOOOOOOOOOOOO" whenever the song changed and it was, once again, a song that they loved. and they loved every song the whole entire way to dangriga.

without getting into too much detail, there were many kids who started crying cause they felt sick or had to go #2 and couldn't hold it any longer. and of course who else to go to in this moment of need but miss rachel. so i was overwhelmed with children who were homesick, car sick and had stomach pains from who knows what reason.

the school that was hosting the garifuna settlement day reenactment was right on the beach. literally. it was beautiful. but of course kids near water is an instantaneous urge to go swimming. i understand that need i think better than most. the nearer to water i get, the more insatiable the urge to swim... and the buses back up to park about 5 feet from the water. keeping the kids out of the water proved to be a constant battle that lasted the entire time we were there. and battling students is one thing, but battling parents of students is another game entirely. let's just say that some parents think that they have the right to do and say what they please. and at their house, they do... on a school trip, they don't.

the reenactment was beautiful. the boat came to shore from the sea just like when the garifuna people first came to belize and the kids got to dance and see the garifuna cultural display and eat food all morning.

on the way back we stopped at the blue hole. not to be confused with the blue hole that is off the coast and you can scuba dive into... the one on land. we also stopped in belmopan (the capital) and made only 2 emergency bathroom stops on the way home.