Sunday, March 22nd

We have coffee available each morning at the Inn. This saves the students and me a little bit of money each day. Many of us enjoy the coffee by the pool under the increasingly hot sun…and it gets hot quick!

The NCAA basketball games begin at 10:00 AM here and luckily we have a TV to watch…or at least get updates.

I had a great breakfast…pancakes with fresh bananas baked in with tomato juice…yummy!

Many students decided to snorkel on Sunday afternoon off the dock in front of the resort hotel Ramon’s. The pier extends around 200 yards from the beach. A few students have bought a basic mask and snorkel for $12.00 in the local gift shops. This is pretty cheap for San Pedro Island. Many of us were able to see grouper, yellow fin snapper, parrotfish, red snapper and silk snapper to name a few of the fish.

We celebrated Kristen Brenton’s 22nd birthday at a restaurant on the water called the Blue Water Grill. While the restaurant was expensive, even by our standards, the food was delicious. The flavor and the spices added to each of dishes are really different from many restaurants in the states. Sometimes it doesn’t matter what food you are eating because the spices and sauces create such incredible flavor. I had conch and shrimp ceviche for an appetizer and Thai beef salad…spicy and sharp to the taste. And, Bellikan Beer is the beverage of choice for many folks on the island. But, we won’t be having too many of these type of evenings…too expensive when there is other good food on the island.

Some students went for ice cream late while the others went home to prepare lesson plans for their first day in schools. It seems that all are a bit nervous because few know what to expect. Tomorrow should be an exciting day for everyone!

Saturday, March 21st

We decided to pursue a recommendation of a teacher in one of the schools and eat at a small restaurant called Papouses. Again, the restaurant is like walking into someone’s kitchen, except one wall is missing…the wall to the road. A real nondescript store that you’d never notice unless you were really looking for it. There had maybe three tables in one small room (like a tiny waiting room), and all eight of us seemed to take up almost the entire space. Most of the food is cooked on the side of the road (more like an alley) on ‘makeshift’ grills. I made the wonderful mistake of ordering a shrimp burrito. All of the other students had received their meals and even finished their dinners before I had a chance to even see my food. When the server/cook/hostess (she performed all the culinary functions!) brought my meal, I had never seen a burrito so large in my life. It could’ve fed a family of four. We all laughed, but it was really good food. John, Kristen, and Amanda helped me finish my meal!

What a morning! Kristen Trotter, Will Fassbender, John Derian, and I met the Dean of San Pedro Junior College, Gustavo Ellis, the San Pedro High School vocational teacher, Alberto, and the Chairwoman of the School Board’s husband, Mr. Guerrero. The rest of the student group will fish next weekend. We all arrived at 7:00 AM and went off to the back bay on the other side of San Pedro island. We were all excited to see a different side of the island.

El Capitan Guerrero is acting president of the local Lion’s Club in San Pedro town, and is perhaps the most influential man in town. He also is the oldest fishing guide on the island, and we are told, the best! We soon will see. We left the dock in a 25 foot skiff. Mr Guerrero caught live bait (sardines) first using a cast net. “Just look for the birds,” he says. Sure enough, there was a huge school of sardines in around 4 feet of water. And the birds were wading and roosting from their morning meal. We drove south with our bait, parallel to coast but inside the barrier reef. The reef is a short ½ mile from the coast. You can see the waves break over it from the shoreline. We turned West, away from the ocean, and coasted through mangrove forests. I am acutely aware of the trash on the shore. It seems like there is more garbage than one would usually see on Masonboro Island.

The fishing trip began well…we caught mangrove snapper, silk snapper, yellowtail snapper, and some small groupers. All told we reeled in 95 fish over the course of two hours. We were now prepared for dinner. Kristen caught the most fish as she is quite the fisherwoman! And john soon found out how long it takes to clean 95 fish! We cleaned the fish at the dock while large rays, bonefish, and pelicans swam around eating the tasty morsels.

More importantly, we all had the opportunity to talk about collaborations, partnerships, past failed efforts with American schools, and future efforts that would work best. I am now aware that a process exists for placing students in Belizean schools. Dean Gustavo talked to me about the Consortium for Belize Educational Cooperation (COBEC) and the positive influence the group is having. I hope to be at the conference on July 30th at Armstrong Atlantic State University in Savannah Georgia. The opportunity to talk and share stories was so valuable! I learned more on this fishing trip about the process of schooling and collaboration than I did researching the field experience for the past two years.