I Can't Belize It's Over

I've been back in the United States for three days, and it's been an interesting adjustment. I forgot how fast-paced and serious life is here. Today I picked up my distinction cord and Office of International Programs stole, and it's pretty insane I will be graduating college in three days.

Being back, it's almost hard to believe I've been gone at all. I've got the same obligations as before. I've got to interview for jobs (I'm a real teacher now...woo!) and start my summer job (so excited!!). I have to clean my house and do laundry. I have to finish up graduation paperwork and licensure forms. Have I even been away?

I have been away, though, and it was such an amazing experience. Personally, I'm surprised how smoothly it went. This was my first time out of the country, as well as my first time really immersing myself in a new culture. I feel like I completed both successfully. I made new friends (love you girls!), taught new students (miss you guys!), and tried new things. Will I go back to Belize some day? Absolutely.

The purpose of this blog was to keep you all at home informed about what Belize is like and what I did while I was there. I also wrote weekly posts to my class in Wilmington (titled Dear Wilmington Friends, if you weren't aware) to teach them even more about Belize. It's been fun, everyone. Thanks for keeping up with my adventures. Here's the last purpose of my blog--a message to future cohorts traveling to San Pedro:

Go out of your comfort zone as much as possible. Keep your phones at a distance, and don't use the TVs in your hotel rooms. Learn how to live without technology both in the classroom and in your daily life, because that's the reality there. Listen to everyone (your students, your parents, your fellow teacher candidates), so that you can really soak up all that this experience has to offer you. You will love it!

The Only Thing

I like playing on the trampoline

I like eating ice cream

I like hearing music

I like almost everything

It makes me happy

I like puppies

I like dogs

I like chihuahuas 

I like almost everything

The only thing that I want to do,

I want to finally do a snowman

That's the only thing

-An original poem by Brisa

Diving Into My Last Week

This was the catchy post title I thought to use Monday night after the night dive (which was so awesome, by the way!). Then I came home and went to bed, and next thing I knew, it was Thursday evening.

I still want to use the title, though, so here's a recap of how I dove into my last week in Belize.

On Monday, I spent the school day doing my usual 1:1 and small group lessons, as well as distributing my American students' letters and bracelets. My Belizean students reciprocated the gesture, making their own cards and jewelry for my friends in Wilmington. Monday evening, half the group and I went night diving at Hol Chan. What a unique experience that was. We saw three eels, lots of big fish (eating smaller fish...), an octopus, two sleeping sea turtles, and many sleepy stingrays, camoflauged by the sand on the ocean floor. We saw huge crab and lobster, too.

On Tuesday, all the special education majors, Tori, Stephanie, and the professors took a trip to Belize City to visit Stella Maris and the Inspiration Center. I'm so glad I was able to make the trip--something that Megan and I had wanted to do a few weeks prior.

First we visited Stella Maris, a government-run school for students with special needs. I was a little conservative in my expectations for the school, I have to admit; full-seclusion is a sensitive and controversial topic. Based on the lack of special education services on Ambergris Caye, I wondered about the condition of the school and the services available. My first impression of the school was based on these murals and paintings around the school:

Beautiful, right? And the positivity didn't stop there. We toured each class in the school, from Infant I to Post-Primary. The instruction was functionally-based--pretty similar to what I would do in a functional academics classroom. The classes contained students with mixed abilities and disabilities, from Down syndrome to cerebral palsy, intellectual disability (which they categorized as "slower") to autism spectrum disorder. They have a special class designated for autism for the younger grades, and their teacher explained how they have created instructional programs for life skills like dressing and undressing before and after swim lessons. How functional! The school had so many extra features: a garden, a tilapia farm, a swimming pool, a ball court, a physical therapist, and a resource/library room (ran by a Stella Maris graduate):

After a quick lunch, we taxied to the Inspiration Center. I knew this was a resource center, but I didn't know much about it otherwise. It turns out the Inspiration Center has been open for about two weeks. They currently provide physical and occupational therapy, and they will soon be getting a speech and language pathologist. They also have a small clinic and a social worker. One thing I loved about the center is that the vision for the future of the center is very apparent. The center includes space for a daycare, a computer lab, a multi-purpose room (eventually to be used for an after-school program), and a reading room. Furthermore, the center was so clean and well-kept, and it was extremely accessible. Every door in the center was extra-wide, accomodating for wheelchairs, and each room had a sign outside the door in English and Braille. I am really excited to see how the center evolves in the next several years. Little fact: the Inspiration Center is maintained primarily through donations. I think it would be amazing for future UNCW cohorts to fundraise for both Stella Maris and the Inspiration Center.

On the way back to San Pedro, Dr. Kubasko and I documented our twinning style:

Also, check out this puppy we rode with on the water taxi:

On Wednesday, we were back in the schools. Mr. Z from my class in Wilmington and I coordinated a Skype session with both sets of students. I gathered my Belizean students about twenty minutes before the session to show them the video my American students and I made. We then lets the students talk to each other on a video session for about 15 minutes. It was so great to see my students again; I really miss those kids! My students here seemed to really enjoy talking with the others, too:

Today (Thursday) was our last day at Isla Bonita. Today is Belize's Labor Day, so we have school off tomorrow. I tried to pull together all the work I've done here; one of the ways I did so was by giving Nayeli's teacher a low-tech communication device--just a flip book--for Nayeli to communicate with:

I made it using cardstock and crayons, then I laminated it, hole punched the corner, and tied the pages together with a ribbon. Unfortunately, Nayeli was absent today (as were many of my students), so I couldn't explain some of the picture symbols to her. On Wednesday, I did snap this photo of the two of us:

It was also my last day doing after-school tutoring with Brisa. I'm really going to miss her and her spunky personality:

One full day left. It will be spent doing work, packing, and relaxing too!! Any questions?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

The newt play the flute, the carp play the harp

This week has flown by. We arrived back in San Pedro late morning on Monday. On Tuesday, I did a 2-tank dive. One of the dives was to a site known as the Underwater Jesus (it's actually a statue of St. Peter).

I got to try out some tricks and skills:

...and take selfies:

But mostly I just lounged around:

On Wednesday, I did a 1-tank dive.

So fun! We're going again Saturday.

Today (Thursday) I spent my free hour kayaking in the ocean.

It hasn't been all fun and games, though. This week is dedicated to community service. Each of us needs to complete 20 hours of service in any shape or form. I'm doing a lot of tutoring:

...and I'm also creating a children's book with Lauren G. We are compiling an A-Z Belize Recipe Book. I'll give you more details later!

Dear Wilmington Friends,

Hello! I just finished my Spring Break here in Belize. Here are some of the things I did.

I visited a chocolate factory and learned how to make chocolate. Chocolate comes from a plant; this is what it looks like in the beginning...

You take out the beans inside and roast them. Then they look like this...

Can you believe that's chocolate?!

I went to the zoo! I saw all the animals we learned about in class. Can you tell what these are?

The tapir! I fed some leaves to a baby tapir...

This one is hard to tell. It's the howler monkey. 

Behind me is the scarlet macaw. Isn't it beautiful?

I saw other animals too. This is a black jaguar...

Here is a spotted jaguar...

Jaguars are really big cats. Here is another big cat called a puma...

The national bird in Belize is the keel-billed toucan. Look how colorful it is...

He was a very friendly little guy...

I found another bird that was colorful...

I loved seeing the animals at the Belize Zoo. After I went to the zoo, I visited a big cave called the ATM Cave. It was very dark; we had to wear flashlights on our heads so we could see. Here's a picture from another cave I went to...

Which picture is the inside of the cave, and which picture is the outside of the cave?

Next, I saw some Mayan ruins in Caracol. Mayans were people who lived a long, long time ago. They built all their houses out of rocks. We can still see their houses today...

No one lives there now, so we can look at them and even climb all the way to the top. Can you tell where I am?...

From the top, the Mayan ruins look beautiful.

Today I took a bus to a country next to Belize called Guatemala. Here I zip lined in the rain forest.

Zip lining is when you hook onto a big line called a cable and go zipping through the jungle! People do it for fun. I thought it was a blast.

Afterwards I ate lunch and shopped in a city called Flores. I had nachos for lunch and bought a gigantic water bottle...

Flores is an island, so we were surrounded by a lake...

While I was in Guatemala, I had three different kinds of dollars: money from the United States, money from Belize, and money from Guatemala...

Now I'm back in Belize. What did you guys do from Spring Break? (You can leave an answer in the comments!)

-Ms. Gibson

"Without chocolate, life is a mistake" Part 2

-Juan, Owner of Ixcacao Maya Belizean Chocolate Farm

Like I said, today was the chocolate farm. We'll get there.

Wednesday in Punta Gorda is Market Day. As small a town as PG is, it's like the city here. All the farmers from nearby Mayan villages travel to PG to set up their market. People begin setting up around 3:30am! Last night, we planned to leave at 7 this morning to go check it out.

Well, it rained and thundered all night (the hardest rain I've ever experienced, no joke), and by morning, I felt no more rested than I did the evening before. I almost skipped out on the market to get another hour or two of sleep, but I reminded myself of one of my goals here in Belize (try everything...within reason), so at 6:50 I forced myself out of bed.

I'm super glad I went to the market. All the fresh veggies, fruits, and beans were beautiful. I bought nine apple bananas (Google) for $1 Bz. They are so good.

After some shopping, we headed back to our hotel, and a few minutes later, Juan and Abelina, the owners/operators of the chocolate farm, arrived. My first impression of them were that they were very kind people, taking the time to greet each of us individually.

A 15-passenger van transported us from our hotel to an archeological reserve. From there, Juan gave us a tour of several Mayan formations, explaining the uses of various plants along the way.

This tree is referred to by locals as the tourist tree:

(It's red and the bark peels off.)

If you stab this tree, sticky sap runs out of it that eventually hardens into a natural rubber: 

The ancient Mayans used the rubber to form the balls they'd use for sports.

Juan frequently talked about the fact that each living thing has a purpose on this earth, from the ants living near his banana plants to these two trees:

The sturdy, strong tree on the left will eventually die from suffocation, as the roots from the tree on the right wrap around the stronger one to use its support.

After the archeological part of the tour, we walked around the actual chocolate farm. Besides cocoa pods, Juan and Abelina had coffee plants (this is a coffee bean and its shell),

all-spice (smells like Christmas and numbs your tongue when you taste it),

jippi joppa (a type of palm shoot that's considered a delicacy...also used to weave baskets),

and banana trees.

The cocoa pods themselves were not what any of us pictured. You twist them off the tree, crack it open (not unlike Rafiki does with fruit in The Lion King), and inside is a brain-looking structure:

(Juan is laughing at our reactions.)

So, you pull out a little cocoa bean, which is covered in gooey slime, and you suck on it. It looks nasty, but it tastes like mangoes. You suck off all the slime, and behold, there is the cocoa bean.

The cocoa bean is chocolate, right? Wrong. The inside is purple...

From the farm, we drove to the production facility. Here you roast the beans at 350°F for 45 minutes (I think). But we didn't do this part of the chocolate making process. Instead, we ate the most amazing meal I've ever had, prepared by Abelina:

Picture vegetable rice, white rice, beans, plantains boiled in coconut water, chocolate chicken, chocolate curry pork, jippi joppa, fresh tomatoes, fresh cucumbers, and lime juice:

And pure hot cocoa:

I'm not kidding when I say it ranks in the top 5 meals I've ever had. Everything was organic and grown on their farm. We finished lunch with chocolate-covered bananas and a tray of chocolates to taste. Then we got back to work.

The next part of the process was shelling the beans. This was actually really difficult. The beans in their shells:

Hand-shelling the beans:

Once you shelled the beans, the picturesque, beautifully roasted cocoa bean was left:

Next you grind them. Of course you can do all these steps with machinery, but we did it the old fashioned Mayan way, using an old basalt slab:

I got a turn to try it:

You do this until the chocolate is melted into a shiny liquid: 

(At this stage, it still wasn't shiny enough yet.)

Add your desired amount of sugar (this is where you get the % cocoa), put it in a mold to cool, and voilà, you've got chocolate. I absolutely love that the only ingredients were the cocoa and some sugar.

That was about the end of the tour. We did go through an amazing "gift shop" (right by their machines in the kitchen) and left completely broke.

Juan also showed us a few heirloom instruments, like this xylophone:

I, of course, had to play a tune:

Finally, we got to play with some of the family pets. There was Truffle, the puppy, and Chocolate Pork, the pig:

What a sweetheart she was:

I just loved this experience, not only because I am addicted to chocolate. I loved Juan and Abelina's values. They believe that everything in life has a purpose and we (all living things) need to work together. They do organic because of this belief, not because it's trendy. They are very connected to their culture but are also willing to share everything they have.

Something else I've noticed about both them and Ronald, the Garifuna descendent, is that while they want to share their own culture, they're also open to learning about others' cultures as well. We have so much to learn from each other. I think the minute you stop listening is the minute you stop learning.

Overall, great time in PG. Tomorrow, we hit up the Cayo District. I'm stoked!