Thank You Church of the Incarnation for the New Library!

Part of what I am doing at Buena Vista Govt. School this year is getting the new library up and running.  The school had a beautiful library donated by The Church of the Incarnation out of Dallas, Texas.  The library now has lovely wooden shelves full of over 2500 books.  As a teacher who loves reading, I must say this is a huge blessing for me personally and of course for the school.

I wanted to share a photo from last week.  It is me reading to Standard 1 students who are around seven or eight years old.  I am reading a book that has pages that flip open to reveal animal's tails.  The pictures fill the pages and are very bright and colorful.

Most of these children do not have access to television and media like in the States.  They are not constantly inundated with commercials and outside influences that tell them they "must have" things like eight pairs of shoes, a new dress every holiday, five different kinds of cereal, McDonalds every week,  huge birthday parties, and everything they see on the shelves in Walmart.  Some of these kids have never had a birthday cake and most do not "have" Christmas.  

Look at how they react to the story book!  These kids have not spent hours in front of the television watching Dora or whatever the latest cartoon fad is.  They spend a lot of their time helping with siblings or working in the house or the fields or gathering wood.  When ever we ask them what they did over the weekend they always say "nothing".  The other day I asked the older kids if they had ever been to a public library and three students out of two classes raised their hands.  The following pictures are not posed, these guys do this every time they come into the library.

Thank you Church of the Incarnation in Dallas!!!  You have made a difference in  Buena Vista Government School in Belize.

Vicki Lucas

New School Year at Buena Vista!!

        

The 2014-15 school year has begun here in Belize.  We didn't start until September 1st, just like when I was a kid.  Of course, we won't be done until late June.  The buildings at the school survived the summer without damage.  The grounds were a little abused over the holiday but they are back in shape now.

This is Mr. Mefi, he is the Standard 5 teacher.
He is always trying to get me to have this whole Spanish
conversation, but it usually doesn't end well.
He is a lot of fun.

                                                                   

Mr. Mefi had all of his students sanding their own desks.
He wants them to take ownership of their classroom.

All of them worked hard!

Mrs. Betty in her room.  She is the Standard 6 teacher and the
principal of the school.

Dennis and Mr. Uck (pronounced ook).  Dennis has already started
repairing desks.

Mr. Uck's classroom.

Mr. Jimmy is Standard 1 this year.

It seems that I left out all the women teachers this time.  I will get some pictures of them soon.

This is Sulma, she graduated last year and is now attending
Cayo Christian Academy just down the road from us.  

Imelda Garcia and Lauren Campos.  Both of these young ladies go
to Eden High School.  Thank you to Greater Life Church for
making that possible.

Standard 6 is the last year of public school here in Belize.  After that any further education costs quite a bit of money.  Students are constantly looking for sponsors to help them get through high school.  Many times they can find sponsors to pay for tuition but they still need money for supplies, lunches and transportation costs.

On the back porch.

These are some more of our friends who come to visit at the house.  Ingris, Glendy and Herson.

The kids always love the binoculars!

Dennis and I are looking forward to our church team coming down in November.  We look forward to your company but will have much to do when you are here.

Love you guys! 

One Year Anniversary Celebration

To celebrate our one year anniversary here in Belize, Dennis and I took a little day-trip to Big Rock Falls in the Pine Ridge Mountains outside of San Ignacio.  We had recently heard about the falls from our friends Dee Dee and Charlie and they kind of told us how to get there.  There are not many road signs in Central America.  But we found a map on line and made our way there without any problems.  It was much closer than we thought and it was free!

It took us about an hour to get there on some very interesting gravel roads. We drove passed a place called Blancaneaux, which I guess is owned by Francis Ford Coppola. We were the only people there and it was wonderful.  The falls were spectacular and the water was beautiful and not very cold at all.  In these photos  I am about as far as I could go because the rocks were too slippery.  Right below the falls is a perfect round pool.  It almost looked man-made.

I really like this photo.  It should be in a brochure for Belize!

I thought that this looked like someone put this rock here.

Dennis likes this one because of how the lines work their way out
of the photo.  Also you can play "find Vicki".

This was only one set of steps out of about seven.  It was a little
rough getting back out.  I guess you can compare it to a trip down
to Fall Creek Falls in TN.

I can never jump in without holding my nose.
The water was perfect!

Yes that is Dennis jumping into the water!  It was the kind of place
that just asked you to take a swim.

It was a perfect get away and we hope to go back again some time.  If any of you wants to go we can take you!  We are very blessed and just happy to be here, and looking forward to another year!

We love you guys!

The Castillo's Visit

After having their children come to visit us numerous times we decided to invite Dora and Julio to come over and spend some down time with us.  They are always working and it was hard to get them over, but we are so glad we did.  

Dora taught me how to make homemade donuts!

Julio wanted to watch Thor while we cooked. On the floor are Christian and Alfredo, it was nap time.
Poor Julio was so tired that he slept through most of the movie along with the little ones.

This is Lucia the oldest daughter.

Dora and I relaxed with our delicious donuts on the back porch.
She actually smiles alot but she is not fond of having her picture taken.

We had a great visit and through the kids we chatted quite a bit with Dora and Julio.  He gave us a lot of advice on growing things here in Belize and she is always teaching me some sort of cooking.  They are just fun to hang around with.  It was a great visit!

Love you guys!