Good Morning Teacher Catty

First…I’ll start by saying how thankful I am to be feeling better! It was a rough weekend having the stomach flu, which is going around San Pedro. On Friday afternoon, a student threw up in the classroom, so I was lucky enough to clean up my first pile of vomit in Belize. It was all downhill from there…but I’ll spare everyone the details.

I did try to enjoy a few of the weekend activities. We spent Saturday at Palapa’s, a local restaurant on the end of a pier at the north end of the island. The restaurant is famous for the inner tubes tied to the dock so that visitors can float in the water for hours at a time without floating away into the Caribbean Sea. We also participated in a coconut toss, throwing coconuts off the top of the restaurant into the water, aiming for the target. It was a lot of fun! After another delicious breakfast at Sarah’s kitchen, I spent Sunday in the room trying to feel better. Unfortunately, by Sunday night, several others in our group had the stomach flu.

Monday was the beginning of my second week teaching. This week I am teaching language arts, math and social studies. I expected social studies to be difficult because I am teaching Belizean history. But after reading the textbook I am totally comfortable teaching about the early settlers of Belize…and it’s actually very interesting! So far, math has been my biggest challenge of teaching. Last week I started teaching division, which is extremely difficult to teach to students who do not know multiplication. I have tried re-teaching multiplication by using fun songs, games, flash cards, etc. but it doesn’t seem to be working. Multiplication is a foundational concept and it is discouraging for me to move on and teach division when I know the students are not prepared.

On a better note, I am in love with my students! Every day I smile and laugh non-stop because they are so fun to be around. And, they were so sweet when I was sick on Monday. I told them I wasn’t feeling well, so every time it got noisy in the classroom a student would yell “Quiet! The Miss is sick, Miss is sick!” They are so appreciative and thankful for everything I do, even something simple like giving them a small eraser or sticker. Their genuine gratefulness is inspirational. With only 9 students in my class, it has been easy to get close to the children.  I am already attached to each student and I cannot imagine saying goodbye in a few weeks!

More exciting happenings…

·         We found a grocery store to purchased cheap groceries. I no longer have to walk 2 miles for dinner! Luckily, one of the girls brought a hot plate so everyone has been cooking lots of macaroni and ramen noodles.

·         The heat is SO intense! Even walking or biking to school at 7:30 am is ridiculously hot. It gets warmer and warmer everyday so it will probably be unbearable by the time we leave.

·         I have some adorable videos of my kids! The internet is very unreliable and slow, so it takes forever to upload pictures/videos but I will post videos soon.

Thanks for reading!

Katy G