June 4th - First day at school!

June 4

Today marked the first day in our partnership with St. Matthews School. We began the day by packing our backpacks and getting in the bus slathered in sunscreen and bug spray. When we arrived, the first thing we noticed was the large truck loaded with books for the kids at St. Matthews. Our instructor, Juan, told us it was like our school library. The kids could check out a book and return it when the truck arrived again.

We unloaded from the bus and put our bags in the small pavilion next to the playground. We met our Belizean partners and played a name game with them. Then they returned to their class and we began our project. One group went to the Pre-school classes to interact with the students while the other painted the pavilion and the playground with a new coat. Eventually, our shift ended and we went to the courtyard with the couple hundred St. Matthews students for the assembly. We switched off singing our national anthems and school mottos. At the end there was a raffle in which a girl won a new bike.

Our groups switched jobs and we got back to work, but not before playing games with the Pre-school class at their recess. After a while, we met up with our middle school partners in their classroom and paired up for a science experiment to practice leadership. We built water filters out of simple household objects with our Belizean partners and tested them with dirty water. We said goodbye to our St. Matthews friends and boarded the bus.

By Max Moeller and Ben Goguen