Hello families and friends!

Hello families and friends! We arrived safe and sound Saturday (after some passport excitement). We had a lovely dinner at cheers restaurant outside of Belize city - a ton of hummingbirds! - and made the 4+ hour drive to tranquility lodge. A few memorable moments from the day were stopping at the grocery store and everyone going to the "refreshments" section right away.... Seeing multiple rainbows from the plane ... And fitbits counting steps while we were sitting in the van because the roads are that bumpy!

Sunday we split up in to two groups...

Group 1- Ann, Scott, Rachael, Hannah, Elaine, Kim, Erika, Leah- we went to the Corazon Creek Technical High School graduation and saw the All Saints scholarship recipient Arnaldo Quib. He was so well spoken and had really grown compared to four years ago. We stopped at two graduation parties filled with Caldo, dancing, and mahmmy (spelling?) fruit. We saw the newly built church at Corazon Creek and delivered the altar cloths that Sister Rose's friend made, saw Concepcione's new baby, and also saw our favorite sales woman - Delfina!

Group 2- Christian, Sarah, Carolyn, Liz, Sandip - we visited some local spots including some Mayan ruins, the earth ship (a house made of all recyclables), went swimming (and diving!) in the swimming hole at Tranquility Lodge, and may or may not have had a special moment in the mud... Just a couple of pushes and we were free!

Monday we split in to three groups...

Group 1- Kim, Liz, Hannah and Rachael at Santa Cruz R.C. School - we focused on water lessons! We introduced the kids to Juan Pedro (a puppet!) that showed them proper hand washing techniques, we had the kids draw village maps to understand their village's source of water, and we learned the local term for using the restroom (imagine a room full of 6 year olds saying "sh*tting"!).

Group 2- Erika, Ann, Elaine and Carolyn at one of Pueblo Viejo's schools- we focused on art lessons- mainly edible art, yum!! We helped them learn their primary and secondary colors with an icing and cookie color wheel. We also helped them learn shapes with marshmallows and toothpicks. Infant 2 (6 and 7 year olds) sang us songs at the end of the day while the principal played the guitar - the principal wrote all of the songs and the words were all about the school.

Group 3- Christian, Sarah, Sandip, Scott and Leah - we dug holes. Oh and mixed some concrete. In 100 degree heat. And we survived. :) In all seriousness, we started the day with a wonderful welcoming from the San Marcos city council rep. We started building the playground from scratch which consisted of the locals weed eating the area, digging holes for three benches, filling them with concrete and cutting/tying rebar.

We ended with a nice dinner from the sisters of Nazareth and preparing for work day 2.





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