Tuesday, March 17, 2009

A Little Bit of Everything....

Our day started in much the same way, with the six of us heading to different sites. After getting back from the hospital last night, Tim asked if there was anyone with medical knowledge who could go with him to the hospital to talk to Moises' doctor's and social workers to learn more about his condition. Jerry, Scot, and Jennifer all volunteered, so they spent the morning at the hospital. The reason Moises needs to be transported to the United States is because he needs an operation to reattach his liver to his intestines, and to repair the perforations in his intestines (not to mention the fact that he is missing an entire meter of his bowel). The biggest reason we need to get him to the States is because he is receiving NO nutrition right now, and there is neither the funding nor the medical personnel to do that. We are still searching for ways to get Moises to the States as soon as possible.

Stacy started her day at Stella Mae's, a school for special needs children.



Sophie and Michelle started their day at the burial grounds lifting cinder blocks to continue forming the base of the new classrooms, moving scrap wood, and playing with kids.





We then all gathered at the burial grounds for another homemade (delicious) lunch.

Jerry made a new friend at lunch, Jocelle. After lunch we realized that most of us had one thing in common, our legs were either sun burnt or scraped for one reason or another - all part of a hard days work (and obviously not applying sunscreen evenly - but we're working on getting better at that). After lunch, Scot, Jerry, and Stacy took a turn laying cinder blocks and spreading mortar in between the blocks.




Sophie, Jennifer, and Michelle headed out to a local children's home to distribute fish (the fish that Scot and Jerry caught yesterday).







We spent quite a bit of time at the children's home after dropping off the fish, and in many ways it was a very frustrating experience. There are several children's homes in Belize that are very well run, but this one is government run, very corrupt, and the children live in terrible conditions. We don't have time tonight to get into all the details, but in the picture you can see two buildings. Those two buildings make up the entire facility where the 55 kids eat, sleep, play, and study. It was crowded, poorly maintained, and the workers were apathetic towards the kids. Some of the kids clung to us and didn't want to see us go while others were terrified of people because they had such little contact with adults.

One of the local boys, a kid nicknamed Pops has become an apprentice to Kenny and was helping out at our work site today. Scot got to know him fairly well throughout the day and learned a lot about him and his family. The picture above is of Pops, and the picture below is of the house where he lives with his family. We're not sure how many of his brothers and sisters are still living at home, but we do know that he has 6 brothers and 5 sisters (so even if a few are gone, that's still quite a bit of people living in a small space!). Pops was a very hard worker and a great person to have on the work site.

At the end of the day we all pretty worn out and tired and ready for showers, but then....someone brought out the soccer ball and a game started. Somehow it became girls vs. guys, but the only girls playing were Sophie and Michelle, and there were a few guys from Lubbock and a few neighborhood boys (a total of six guys in all) playing, so it wasn't really a fair game - but we had a TON of fun! It was a great way to end a hard day of work.


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