Internet???

Well, barring an act of God, it looks like the
internet at school will be down for some time. So
weekly trips to the Green Dragon, a nice little coffee
shop/internet place in Cayo, have become something of
a necessity--too bad :). They make really good
chocolate banana milkshakes. Tomorrow we are off to
Belize city to compete in the national nutrition
competition. It should be quite the experience. This
is an interesting tidbit of Belizian culture- there
are three girls on the nutrition team, but the
corporation who sponsors the competition chartered a
bus for the school, and told us we could take thirty
kids and three teachers to cheer for our team.
Belizians LOVE to cheer. The have festivals where
school kids compete by making up cheer routines (not
like cheer leading, just a lot of screaming). So
tomorrow we will be off! We will be joining teams
from across the country. Anyways, the rainy season
has finally started here (supposedly it has been the
rainy season all along, but it hasn't really been
raining). This adds a whole new dimension to
teaching-- try to teach a lesson when rain is POURING
down on the tin roof of your classroom. It just
doesn't work. Mostly, I have been lucky enough to
have a worksheet in reserve, so I just hand that out.
I am really enjoying my students- they are really
funny. My boys have a fascination with animal sounds.
2 weeks ago it was elephant noises, this week it is
turkey noises. They call themselves the turkey boys,
and the whole class makes turkey noises in unison when
the class ends. None of the teachers have figured out
why, but I find it funny, as long as they don't make
them when I'm teaching. They know better in my class,
but I think some of the other teachers have been
interrupted by a random turkey noise form time to
time. A couple of my students keep me constantly
amused by trying out pickup lines on me. They are
both about 4 feet tall, and look about 6 years old,
but they have plenty of self confidence. The problem
with the pickup lines is they translate horribly from
Spanish, so they say random things like " A
beautifully embroidered handkerchief fell down from
heaven, but you are even more beautiful." Apparently
this rhymes in Spanish. I laughed the first time one
of my boys said something like that to me, so now they
try to come up with creative new pick up lines (which
they call pick lines) to read to me, and then giggle
hysterically. Having an all boys class really brings
out the silly side of boys, because they don't have to
worry about impressing girls. Anyways, I've about hit
my time limit (at ten cents a minute), so that's it
for now!