Santa Elena

These past two days have been eventful so I've been a bit preoccupied and didn't update the blog. Thats if anyone is actually reading these still, in which case, thanks. So as I may have written before I'm working a lot with a battered women's shelter called Cornerstone. Not all the women are abused but a majority are and it allows the women come and learn new skills and empower them to make changes in their lives. If there is one thing I learned from the most recent semester at school, is that the number one reason for poverty is because of the low status of women. And there is plenty of poverty to go around here.

Cornerstone not only helps women but they also provide amazing services to children. Which leads to what I've been doing these past two days. In the morning I've been going to Cornerstone to help prepare meals for the children and other people that are in need. So yesterday, me and Trellany went and met Miss Marta and Sofia two of the staff at Cornerstone. Both women are hardworking and have caring hearts. Miss Marta did a ton of cooking even before we got there in the morning but she still had plenty of work for us. We cut up a lot of plantains and boiled them, then prepped the bowls we'd use for the food. It was close to 60 bowls that we filled with rice, cut hot dogs in gravy, and a piece of plantain. (Plantains are in almost every meal here)

When we got all the meals ready to go we met Stanley. He's a local that used to live in LA for a time before he got deported back to Belize. We went with Stanley to deliver the foods to different schools and homes in his truck. Our last stop was a school in Santa Elena, the twin city of San Ignacio that's right across the river. We stopped and got the lunches out for the children when we were greeted by the lunch bell and hundreds of children of all ages came running out of the classes. Some of the kids started lining up by Stanley and signed their name for the lunch. Stanley told us that there were selected children on the program for Cornerstone to bring them lunches. Most of the kids come from from really hard backgrounds and definitely have it rough.

The kids were great. There were 52 of them and every one of them wanted to know who we were. Trellany played some little cup game, which most of the girls enjoyed. I watched two little boys take turns punching each other in the face, some of the hits looked like they would have hurt but it didn't phase them. I would have never known that these kids had it rough. All they did was smile and were just so thankful for what they were being given.

Feeding the children

After the lunch the children all said goodbye and gave high-fives. We then drove back to Cornerstone and cleaned up the bowls from lunch. When we were done Trell and I met with the manager Rita about the computer class I'd be teaching. She didn't have anyone for us on Tuesday but promised we'd have people to teach on Thursday.

Around 5 on Tuesday we finally got our first rainstorm/thunderstorm. Holy cow was it loud. It was almost equivalent to the ones back home in AZ but the part that made it loud was that it echoed off our metal roof. Very fun even though it lasted 30 mins. More when the rainy season comes I guess.

Wednesday morning was a repeat of Tuesday. Helped out at Cornerstone this time with Danielle and Kim. Although they were downstairs helping the women do baking. I was upstairs helping Marta and Sofia. Kim and Danielle came with me and Stanley on the deliveries though and we all had fun again at Santa Elena school with the kids.

In the afternoon Kim and I went to meet with the head of the Department of Labor to help teach people how to do resumés and interview for jobs. Surprisingly, the head didn't have anyone for us to teach and was sort of confused by the whole ordeal. I tried to explain what we'd be doing but she seemed out of it. Maybe it was the heat. I managed to have her commit to have us come every other wednesday to do the resumés with people and she said she'd get back to us when she had more info on who was coming.  Which means we'll be waiting a while.