Still Striking...

Well, we are now in our 5th official day of the
strike, and our 2nd day of being on illegal strike.
Apparently teachers have the right to strike for three
days, and after that it's against the law. I keep
expecting police to come to the school and arrest us
all, but nothing that exciting looks likely to happen.
The teachers are the only union still on strike, and
only the government run schools are in session right
now. Water went out for a few hours last Thursday,
and power for a shorter time, but it wasn't a big
deal. So who knows what is going to happen here- the
government can't budge, because it has no other source
of income other then taxes at this point, and the
teachers have made it a matter of principle not to
budge. So we are all sitting here in Benque, getting
a little stir crazy, and praying that our students
aren't getting in too much trouble with all their time
off. I can tell I've become a true teacher, because
my reaction to the strike has been, if I had known the
kids would have all this time off, I would have
assigned more homework...

Belize on Strike

The country of Belize is on strike today. The Government is raising taxes, and the people can't afford it, so they all are on strike. The teachers are striking too, so no school today and tomorrow. We don't have water, and supposedly the electricity will go off too, but it hasn't yet. From what I have gathered, the situation is pretty messy. The government is very corrupt, and has sold pretty much everything in Belize that can be sold to private investors. The highways, borders, even the Mayan ruins have all been sold. They've run out of things to sell, so they're taxing the people. Needless to say, everyone is pretty upset. Some of the Belizian teachers are going to a protest tomorrow at the capital, but the principal requested that none of the volunteers go. I wouldn't anyways- I don't trust large crowds of angry people. No one is really sure what the solution to this problem is, because the government needs to get money somehow. Hopefully, it won't last too long, or I'll have to start making trips to the river for water. We filled up our washing machine and sinks, but that probably will only last three days at the most. The most we've been out of water here has been a day, so this should be interesting! On a lighter note, I woke up this morning to a parrot yelling Mama and Hello, and then imitating a deep laugh. He was sitting in my neighbor's palm tree. I think it would be funny if he learned to call our cat.... :)

Wide Open Spaces

This last Saturday one of the other teachers and
myself went to a Belizian teacher's farm to go
horseback riding. We had heard he would be busy that
day, and offered to come another time, but he said we
were going to help him with his chores. So I spent
Saturday herding cattle on a horse! I felt very much
like a cowgirl. We rode across a river and through
some jungle, herded cows into a pen, and then helped
as he injected them with worm meds. I got to fill
syringes and inject the calves. Then we rode to
another part of the farm and herded cows accross the
farm, which was hard because the cows kept scattering.
We were on the horses for about 3 1/2 hours. I'm a
little sore today! The farm is around 300 acres, and
is gorgeous. It is such a wonderful break from the
noise and bad smells of Benque. Hopefully, now that
I'm an experienced cowgirl, I'll be able to go again
:)

A Day in the Life of a Bio Teacher.....

So these last couple of days have been stretching my former standards of what is and is not acceptable in life. Yesterday, there was a commotion in class, and when I asked what was going on, my boys pointed out a medium-sized tarantula on the ceiling. By medium sized, I mean about 2.5 inches long. My response? I calmly said, "well, I'm sure you've all had tarantulas in your houses before," and then went on teaching, ignoring the comments like, "but they jump, miss!" I finished class, and then had a small, girly freak out session in the teacher's lounge, out of sight of my boys. One of the guy teachers got it out with a broom after school. Then, last night on of the seminarians asked me if I wanted a pigeon that had gotten in the church. It had a broken wing or something, and I think he thought I might be able to help it. (I seem to have gotten that reputation). Anyways, I was quite excited, because my boys have been having a lot of trouble with the digestive system, and I was unable to locate anything acceptable to dissect up to that point. So I got the pigeon, still alive. Father Dan said his opinion of me shot way up when he found out I was going to dissect the pigeon, not heal it. Anyways, I didn't actually have to kill or dissect the pigeon on my own. One of the Belizian teachers used to teach Biology, so he killed it and did most of the dissection. The boys seemed to like it, and I definitely learned a lot. And it wasn't quite as gory as I was expecting it to be. Some of the teachers still can't believe that we killed a pigeon, but it's not like we can order preserved frogs from some company, so you work with what you can get :)

This Saturday I had an interesting experience- a bunch of us went to one of the Belizian teacher's farm and picked coffee beans. They grow on large, tall bushes- like 10 to 15 feet high. The beans are actually red berries about the size of a gumball- we have to shuck the berry skins to get the actual bean. Then we have to peel the outer skin off, dry them, and roast them. I don't know why they don't call them coffee berries, because they acutely are berry seeds. Anyways, apparently you can roast coffee beans in a popcorn maker- who knew? I don't plan on becoming a coffee drinker, but it might be cool to taste coffee we made ourselves.
A few Franciscan people are in town today- it's been really fun having them. It's also weird, seeing other Franciscan people here. They are on a mission trip here, but they were mostly based in Belmopan, which is about an hour from here. Joe Kim, who went to Ecuador last year with me, is here, which was a fun surprise. They have been sitting in on classes and shadowing Miriam at the clinic, so they'll get a good idea of what life is like here.
I put up links to Alison's and Ali's blogs, in case anyone wants a different view of Belize. They are both Religion teachers here, and fellow Franciscan grads.

Spring Cleaning...?

The weather here feels so much like early June that I've been seized by the desire to clean.  So I am having my misbehaving students stay after and clean my classroom!  It seems to be a better deterrent then demerits- the threat of cleaning combined with a new seating arrangement lead to a surprisingly quiet class today.  It makes me feel very accomplished when my class is relatively behaved :)  We have a new teacher (another Alison- that makes three) who is a fellow bio major.  She took over my freshman science class, so now I only teach two classes.  It has been Fabulous!! The difference between teaching two and three classes is enormous.  I finally have time to relax once in a while, and don't feel continuously stressed.  I am devoting way more time to my biology classes, and I think it really makes a difference in how well I teach the boys.  Plus, I am more patient with their craziness.  I think my former class will really benefit, too, because Ali is very sweet and the girls really need that attention.  So overall, it has been a good couple of days!  Last night we watched a pirated version of Ocean's 12.  People kept walking in front of the camera.  One guy stood there with his bag of popcorn for a minute.  It was really funny.  I thought it added a lot to the movie! 

Back in Benque!!

I arrived in Benque Sunday night, and my mood was immediately brightened by the gorgeous weather we are having- sunny, 80 degrees with a nice cool breeze.  I admit I was leaning toward grumpy after two days of riding buses, but how can you be in a bad mood in such good weather?  The bus ride actually wasn't that bad- our longest stretch was from Mexico City to the Mexico-Belize border.  That was 19 hours, but I slept a lot of it.  Mexico city was a lot of fun.  We actually had a harder time with the language then I expected, because hardly anyone spoke English, and between the three of us we spoke maybe 50 words of Spanish.  We did a lot of shrugging and giggling.  People were really nice, but they must have thought we were idiots.  Here's one of my less bright moments:

 

waiter, to Cathleen: (in Spanish) Do you want your receipt?

Cathleen, smiling with no idea what he said: Que?

waiter, patiently: (in Spanish) Do you want your receipt?

Cathleen, enthusiastically: I'm from America!

 

Yes, I thought he was asking me where I was from, and didn't realize what he was really asking until he ran after me, waving the receipt.  Oops.

So here are some random things about Mexico City:

-Most of the city is sinking- you can actually see buildings that are crooked.  We stayed by the Basilica, and when you look down the aisle, the side chapels slope away from you.

-You can get pretty much any movie for 10 pesos, which is a little less then a dollar.  We got Ocean's 12 and Bridget Jone's Diary 2.  Blatently pirated (as in a film of the movie screen) but fun.

-The city is massive.  When you are flying in, all you can see is city, from horizon to horizon.

-The Metro system is massive, too- 11 lines.  We rode 9 of them in the 4 days we were there! It only costs 20cents (US), and that is unlimited rides until you exit.  Of course, sometimes you are so packed in you don't need to hold on to a pole, because you can't move anyways.

-The Tilma is big.  You ride by it on a moving sidewalk.  There are tons of massive roses growing all around the shrine. 

 

Lots more stuff, which I can't remember now, so I'll write more later.  Happy New Year!