Another week gone by!

Well what a week! So many good things starting and so many great experiences so far. Its hard to put into words the happiness, and gratitude I feel for being here and I feel so vague sometimes about how much these people mean to me and such but I truly do love them and every project I am working on. Beginning with Tuesday I went to Cornerstone to help prepare lunches for the Children at Santa Elena and spend time with one of my favorite ladies I have met here Ms. Martha. Gosh she cracks me up and when I come back some day I am definitely staying with her at her house. Everyone needs someone like her in your life. She has so much character and cares about me and the other volunteers and just has her act together and is always so helpful. Then I went to Seeds of Life (which is a Pregnancy Resource Center) with Randy to see what we can help out with there and got some leads to help with marketing and their website  and creating awareness to woman who need help with family planning and pregnancy. Then VOLLEYBALL started! I was super pumped that Bernard told me I could be the head coach for the St. Andrews Girls Team (5th & 6th graders) because they need good training if they want to make it  to Nationals and Win. I knew that the girls were pretty good from watching them the week prior but wasn't sure about their technical skills. Practice was good and the girls seemed to respect me for the most part, but it was hard to get drills going because they only have 2 volleyballs to practice with, and then the boys are all playing basketball on the other side of the court and its just super distracting. With those challenges we made it work and continue to make it work since then.                                                            
                                
Wednesday we went cost shopping for the Juice Bar & Bike Rental business we are wanting to start here at the bottom of the hotel we are living in. The place is dead so we are trying to bring traffic back here and make it alive again. We spent about 2 hours going from different stores comparing prices on freezers, blenders, chairs, decor, and everything you need to start a business. The difficulty we are now facing with starting this is finding a local that is reliable and has the skills to manage the business once we leave. The few people we have had in mind have been flaky on meetings and such so now we are more skeptical about getting this going, but we are hopeful that we will get referred to someone or find someone that we can count on to make this successful. After that I had volleyball again and really am trying to get the girls to use proper forms and techniques and eventually get a real volley going of a pass, set, and hit. It's a long shot but maybe by next week they will have it. That night we attempted to go to Chicken Bingo again but they were not doing it because of the rain. Lame. So by default we got ice cream at our favorite place and then got called out for being Mormon by tourists (who are mormon) on Burns Avenue from our modest dress. Chatted with them for a bit about BYU-Hawaii and played the "do you know this person game".

Thursday morning Brad and I input all the numbers for the cost shopping we did and did some number crunching. Then Danielle and I were off to Belmopan to help out with the Special Ed Olympic practices at Garden City School. We got picked up from the bus station by Autumn and once arriving to the school and walking into the classroom and seeing the children and their sweet spirits I immediately felt at home. One girl Anika was so excited she started signing, "my name is A N I K A" and I completely surprised her by signing back, "Nice to meet you, my name is T R E L L A N Y" the look on her face was priceless. There were 5 of them total and they all were so welcoming and excited to play. We went outside and did some races, softball throws, and relays and pretty much just helped the kids with their physical activity for the day. Autumn is really wanting to improve the special olympics program throughout the country of Belize and is making good progress, but she is leaving in July so they challenging part is getting someone local who has the same passion to continue with it once she leaves. Afterwards we chatted in the classroom with the teacher and asked what some of the difficulties she has with parents and special needs children and why there are not more enrolled in school. She said that most parents here are ashamed of their child with a disability and believe it is a curse or punishment from who knows who. As sad as it is they end up just locking them up in their basements or attics and do not let them out of their house. I felt sick after hearing that. That is just so wrong. The 5 lucky children that were at the school fortunately have progressive thinking parents who are not ashamed to enroll them in school, and know that it is for their good and that their children are not an embarrassment to them. Belize needs a lot of help in this department and think it would be great to hold seminars and informational courses for parents with special needs children and how they are not a punishment and etc.

After that we went to meet with Omar who works for GoJoven which is a youth leadership company and they put on seminars and workshops and camps for the youth to learn how to be leaders, have effective communication, and all sorts of different topics. He asked us to help him with researching for videos that relate to the topics, drafting newsletters to send out to all the kids in their database, and office work stuff. Then we were off to the orphanage and this time we played kickball with an empty plastic juice container. Yeah that went well... haha then continued to play and read to the children and they got a hold of my phone for the last half hour and once they find games on that, it is near impossible to get the phone back until you are actually leaving.



The bus ride back to San Ignacio I recognized a little boy about 11 years old, that I saw on my first day from Belize City to San Ignacio and he has a limp and a paralyzed hand but has the BIGGEST smile on his face. Instantly I thought he was just the cutest and wished I could work with him in some area. But that day passed and then I saw him again on the bus to head home thursday and was seriously so happy to see him! I don't know why but this boy is just so happy and literally beaming with light. He was at the front of the bus and I was in the middle so I couldn't talk to him at all. The last 10 minutes of the ride I look forward down the aisle and see him staring at me. So I casually wave at him and he blushes and waves back. Then from there we made silly faces at each other and played peek-a-boo for those next 10 minutes. I watched him get off the bus at the same stop I was getting off at and was sad I couldn't say goodbye or catch his name. But was grateful for the little fun we had on the bus. Once I got off I saw him there waiting for Danielle and I and he just gave me the biggest hug ever and looked up and me with his big ol grin. I don't know how I didn't cry when this was happening because he was the definition of unconditional love. This little boy didn't know me at all and just loved me because I gave him the time of day. So we come to find out he goes to school in Belize City  everyday which is about 2 1/2 hours away. So every thursday when I catch the 5:45 bus from Belmopan I should be able to see this new friend of mine :) Friday morning was slow because the school we wanted to paint was closed... typical Belizian schools always having a day off for the most random reasons. We did more Juice Bar business plan stuff then it was time for the Police Cadets after school program that Randy and Kyle & Daniellle are in charge of. I tagged along for this and we played freeze tag, and ameba tag then it started pouring rain on us! We all ran to take cover under the ramada and shortly after heard the loudest thunder of my life. I swear the lightening before it hit right by us. The kids were not even phased by it since it is a pretty normal thing around here and they were out playing in the rain again. We did Ninja, Swedish Twister, and peppering with a volleyball. Once the rain lightened up we played a quick soccer match on a basketball court that was WET and that made things difficult, but the kids are so naturally talented and very good at Futbol. That night we went to dinner at Arb's to support them for their last time being open. So sad to see them go out of business already! They only opened like 2 months ago but did not have very good advertising and not many people knew about them to eat there :( We are bummed we didn't get here in time to help them at the beginning and to get more people here. After that we got Ice Cream (almost a daily occurrence) and came across two groups of very attractive white men. Naturally Kristina and I went to talk to them to see where they were from and invite them to Soul Project for Open Mic Night. First group was four men with fantastic accents and they were from South Africa! How cool is that? Three of the four were seriously beautiful and we just wanted to spend all night hearing them talk. We told them to party with us later at the Soul Project, then we ran into another group and they had 4 men and 1 lady. 2 guys were from Denmark, 1 from England, and 1 from New Zealand along with the girl. We made small talk with them and invited them to the later party as well. We cleaned up and then headed to the Soul Project and two of the South African men actually showed up and Randy serenaded us all with his ukulele and voice then Kyle joined in on the bongo and I jumped in there and pretended I knew what I was doing. It was good fun and the owners loved that someone actually was performing for the night.                

                 
After that we called it a night because saturday was going to be a long day! Next post will be all about that fun adventure to the ATM caves :) Well as you can see that was a fun hard working week with a lot that got accomplished! Time for bed now! Peace.