Someone must have slipped something into my tortillas this week. On Monday, after a weekend of attending an all day meeting on co-management of a national park, I found myself teaching. In a classroom, all day, with 21 12-14 year olds in it. It gets better. I also did the same thing on Tuesday and Wednesday. Temporary insanity, you assume, or a was it a clever plan to get on the good side of the primary school in Blue Creek in order to secure the vacant teacher's house for my permanent residence.
Either way, I voluntarily agreed to take over the principals classes this week while he was at a workshop. If I ever had any delusions of being a teacher, this thoroughly dismissed them. It brought me back to the days when I had substitute teachers in school, because that is how I was treated. I was rarely listened to, got a tongue or two stuck out at me, and was challenged to lash them by one of the students. But other than that, it was fine. Or at least it was fine by me that I couldn't understand what they were saying to each other because it was all in Maya. It is too bad that they are not all that interested in learning, because the students are so far behind even other kids in Belize. So I stuck it out and tried to help the students who really wanted to learn, and there were a few.
Now the week is over, thank God, and I am on my way to Cayo to celebrate a truly American holiday. I am going as the Belizean tooth fairy, all I need now is a grill (if you don't know, don't ask).
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