Today was amazing. Incredible. Phenomenal.
You’re welcome for not saying “un-Belize-able” again.
First off, we got to sleep in until almost 8 which was great (“look at that rhyming kids” –Milan. “We poets” –Rick). We all came downstairs in our Sunday best… except for Darius, who neglected to pack a belt. Unfortunately, his pants remained too big, and he had to improvise. For some reason, he decided a charging cord was the next best thing. Thankfully for the rest of us, Mr. Van Eerden had an extra belt that he let Darius use. Once that fiasco was sorted out, we had breakfast, which, for those of you that understand, was basically rollkuchen (…?), which was fantastic.
Once we had finished eating, a school bus pulled up and we all filed in for the drive to church. Looking out the windows, we noticed how calm the ocean was compared to the night before. That paired with the incredible turquoise colour made the scenery striking. After about a 20 minute drive, we arrived at church to a very warm welcome. Though the sermon was in Spanish, and despite the fact that half of us were still waking up, we enjoyed both the message and the worship. And OH MY there was an adooooooooorable little girl near the front who knew every word to every song and could be heard all the way in the back, and not only was she enthusiastic, but she also hit each note perfectly (“we were all shook” –Rick).
(Okay, snazzy. What’s next? –Milan)
Lunch was a lot earlier than anticipated. As in 10:45 in the morning. Congruent with nearly all previous meals, we had chicken and rice, though to be honest we’re not complaining because it’s delicious (“I’ve never had such good chicken and I live on a chicken farm” –Milan). Sadly, due to the early time and the fact that the portions are enormous, not even one person was able to finish. Our plans for the afternoon were to head to the beach, and we had the happy surprise of 11 students from the church accompanying us.
After an extremely bumpy bus ride involving high speeds, two hand-cranked ferry boat rides, and bare skin on ripped up seats, we arrived at the most beautiful beach most of us had ever seen. The water was so blue, and the sand was so soft, and the temperature was so perfect. We wasted no time in getting to the water. Once in the water, however, we realized that the sand was squishy. Not normal squishy, like really really squishy. It felt like walking on soggy, lukewarm mashed potatoes. With algae. Dispersed among the mashed potatoes were sharp rocks and other creatures that stirred in the water (“I stepped on a fish and I knew it was a fish because it went blulbulululub” [say the last word fast and you will get the joke] –Isabelle). Although these things were concerning, Cole seemed to thoroughly enjoy his newfound ability to dig a hole in the soft sand with his feet. In fact, he dug one so deep that when he stood in it, he was the same height as the shortest of the girls. We lounged, played volleyball, and got drinks at the restaurant.
We were reluctant to leave, but when the time came, we all piled back into the stinkin’ hot bus for the ride back. Though it was a long drive back, it felt short because of all the wonderful kids we got to meet. Some of the conversations we got to have were surprisingly insightful for such young people, but some of the children were simply delighted with the little things, like stealing our hats and sunglasses, putting them on backwards, and pretending to throw them out the window to get a reaction. Needless to say we were quite sad to leave them on the bus when we arrived at our hotel.
Dinner was already waiting for us, but this time, they let us serve ourselves, which was nice because most of us have been feeling guilty about all the food we have to throw away.
All in all, today was un-BELIZE-able.
Did you really BELIZE that you could make it through an entire BELIZE blog without any BELIZE jokes? Psych, you’ve been bamboozled!!!
Would you BELIZE us if we said we tried to hold off for as long as possible? And BELIZE us, it wasn’t easy.
-Milan, Isabelle, and Rick
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