Great Job Everyone!

A Well Deserved Reward

We spent the day Saturday on Caue Caulker, a true tropical paradise where we snorkeled and explored the island together. 

Friday - History of Belize Day

On Friday, we traveled North to the Mayan temple site of Altun Ha, where we climbed the 1400 year old temple of the sun god. If you look very closely, you can see some of us at the top of this picture. After lunch, we traveled to a museum called "Old Belize." For dinner we all ate together at a seaside restaurant where we watched a beautiful, Orange full moon rise over the water. 

Thursday - Cultural Exchange (And, of Course, More Work)

We began the day by touring the beautiful campus of St. John's College - the Jesuit high school of Bellize. 

From there we went back to work - this time on the building we hope will house Hand in Hand offices, outreach, and day care/preschool for the next 100 years. 

At the end of the day, a group of Garinagu people from the South of Belize came to our back yard to teach us about Garinuga culture, and to dance!

A New Home

We had a full day Wednesday but the highlight was giving Ms. Thompson her new home! We finished building in near record time and held a ceremony that included prayer, singing and great thanks all around. 

Before hitting the job site, we had a great couple of hours at Hand in Hand Ministries' Outreach Center. The center is a day-care/preschool and also the home base for a pair of nurses who provide services for children infected with HIV. All of our fundraising gave us the chance to donate bookbags full of school supplies that the children will receive on graduation day. 

In the evening, we were welcomed by our brother Jesuit school students at St. John's College (a high school and junior college right down the street from us in Belize City). We look forward to shadowing them for an hour tomorrow morning. We'll be "Wildcats for an hour." It will almost like being "Eagles for a day" all over again. 

Build Day 2

As you can see, we have been hard at work on the house all day today, and as a result it is looking a lot more like a house! We're looking forward to tomorrow, when we will visit the day care in the morning, then it's back to work on the build site for the rest of the day. 

Build Day One!

We got off to a great start today! We loaded an entire house worth of lumber, connectors, fittings and everything else into a truck and we were off to the build site, about 20 miles North of Belize City. We laid the foundation, hammered together the floor joists, and built one eall. The panorama above begins with the owner's current home on the left and pans around to the hole that will be the pit toilet on the right. Humorous note: there is NOT a severed hand in front of the bus. That is just an optical illusion produced when someone steps into the picture while taking a panorama 😊

We Made It!

We have arrived in Belize City and we are all in great spirits, but ready for bed. We met our guide and Mentor James, learned a little about Hand in Hand Ministries, and took a walking tour of our neighborhood. The crabs and lizards that live in the sewers were a big hit. We ended the day with a rousing mass at St. Martin DePorres with Fr. Matt (a Jesuit) and a full congregation. At the end of mass, the president of St. John's College (the Jesuit high school of Belize) invited is to come and see their campus. That will be a great unexpected treat!