The Heat has officially Arrived!!

So Yesterday was the official first day of the dry season! It is unbelievably hot. The average temperature for April is 110-120. Which is around 34 - 45. It in insanely warm. Anyways, a lot has happened since my last blog.

My new placement is at King's Children's Home Orphanage. I'm here with Elena Knibbe. It is a tough site to see. There are 55 kids here ranging from ages 0-15. We take the kids to the park, and painted their rooms and bunk beds. It is really sad to see all these children who either don't have parents or their parents cannot take care of them right now. Some of the kids are sexually abused as well.

There is a girl there, her name is Lisa and she is 23. She has volunteered at the orphanage for two months by herself. She has only been here a week. She is living with the owner of the orphanage and she is one scary woman, very intimidating. So Elena and I have made friends with Lisa and invited her over for the weekend. Since she is here by herself it's difficult to see touristy stuff. So I'm pretty sure she's going to come over every weekend now; we'd like that.

This weekend we went to a market early Saturday morning. It was actually a farmer's market, and it sucked. We left there and got some ice cream. After that we went to Banana Bank Lodge. It's a hidden hotel with a really nice pool. The best part of the day was Rule #3. NO T-SHIRTS OR SHORTS TO BE WORN IN THE POOL. This made us all jump and scream because we usually have to wear t-shirts and shorts over our bathing suits. Everyone ripped off their clothes and jumped in! It was a beautiful day and only a couple of us got sunburnt, but not badly.

After swimming we went and watched Liesl horseback ride. She horseback rides back home and is participating in the annual horse rodeo in Belize. We all hope she wins and are going to watch her Sunday April 29th!!!

-aislinnn

Belize it or not

We've been here a month! And it's been one amazing month too. There has been times of homesickness, but for the most part it's been an experience of a lifetime. We have done so many things, I've learned so much, and I've seen so many things that most people don't see in a lifetime.

Last week we went to Corozal, which is close to the Mexican border AND the ocean! We left bright and early on Wednesday morning for a 3 hour bus ride. We got to the ocean and had a nice picnic lunch. We spent the afternoon swimming in the ocean with salt water crocs and sharks. We didn't know this at the point, but even after we found this information, we still swam there.
After we swam we went to a person named Albert's house. He is a principle of a local school in Corozal. We ate hot dogs and cake for dinner then went to his school. We all set up our beds in 2 classrooms, girls upstairs and boys downstairs. We didn't have doors, only iron gates... so rats can still get through. We all made it through the night and painted the next day. The day before at the beach we met an American couple that just moved here to start up a library for the local children. Lindsay, Hannah, Amy, Lauren, and I went to their house to paint their living room. The rest of the people painted a school. That night we slept at the school again and painted the next day as well. On our way to the house we saw a couple sugar cane cutters working in the blistering sun. We turned around and bought a bunch of cokes and chips and went back and gave them to the sugar cane cutters. They were very dirty, old, and sweaty. They really enjoyed the cokes and we're really happy.
That night we went back to Albert's house and set up our beds on the roof! It was so much fun. We had amazing weather and we talked all night and woke up as SOON as the sun came up; 5:30AM. We went to the beach that day and drove home. We took a slight detour to Subway which we all enjoyed way too much. I think we all miss our fast food. We were all glad to be back home and had a good nights rest.

This week we are doing a VBS for the local kids here in Roaring Creek. The first day only around 25 kids showed up, but today there were double that. Each kid told one or two of their friends, it was amazing. We had a lot of fun today and so did the kids. I'm in charge of crafts and it was madness today but Rachel, Elena and I have it under control.

Peace all
xoxox
-Aislinnn

Living out of a Suitcase

This is my life, living out of a suitcase. The rooms are too small to have any drawers so we keep all our stuff in our suitcases under our beds. And every Sunday we pack up again and go to our placements only to find no drawers once again. Then Fridays we pack up again and go back to the base.

Aaanyways, my placement has been going really well. The people that we are staying with are really nice and the work is fairly easy. We spend our days raking leaves, doing laundry, cleaning, dishes, or baking.

This past weekend we went to the Blue Hole and a cave. The cave was so creepy and really dark. We only had 5 flashlights for 20 of us. We saw some neat Mayan stuff in the cave also and a lot of us went swimming in the dark too.

After that, we made our way to the Blue Hole. We had packed some sandwiches so we ate those at a picnic table and then went down to the water. The water was so blue/green! It was beautiful. There was only a couple of other people there, but it was alright. The water went really deep really fast and it was kinda chilly. The fish weren't afraid of you at all either, they swam right inbetween your legs, kinda scary.

After we left the Blue Hole we were on the bus on the way back and we saw a couple kids picking out of the garbage dump looking for some scraps. We stopped the bus and they came running up to us. We gave them the rest of our bread, peanut butter, and jam and they were so thrilled. It really felt good to do that.

On Sunday we had devotions in the morning and we went to a pastor's house at night because the church service had been cancelled. So we had the whole congregation plus all 20 of us in this small kitchen. The singing was very loud and there was LOTS of dancing. At the end the pastor called a couple people up to get rid of demons? He put his hand on their heads and they would come falling to the ground crying, I'm not sure what he was doing but it was weird. A couple of people from our group went up and he could tell what was bothering them exactly, it was really weird but a neat experience.

Overall, I'm learning a lot here. Everyday we learn something new even if it's just something small like the fact that oranges are juicier on the bottom because the juice runs down when they're hanging on the tree. I way rather learn by doing than be sitting in a classroom!

That's all for noww

-Aislinnn

The Cayes!!!

So.. today we went to the long awaited, Cayes. It was the most beautiful thing I've seen in a LONG time, possibly forever. So our day began at 5:30 in the morning, jumped into the freezing shower, and headed on the bus at 7:00. We drove for an hour and a half to the Caribbean Sea. Once there, we boarded 2 boats and drove 45 minutes to the South Key Island.

As soon as we got there, 8 of us went snorkeling. I've never been and it was so beautiful! Belize has the second largest coral reefs. (Australia is first) We did that for half an hour and then the next group went out. After that we hung out at the beach until lunch, ate lunch, and went back to the beach. We all went out there looking for an also long awaited tan... and boy did we get it. Actually, it's a burn, almost everyone got burnt. Laura and I are in so much pain. We are constantly putting on Aloe Vera and we can't decide if we're hot or cold. We have goosebumps but if you were to touch our skin it's soooo hot, kinda weird.

So that was our day, so amazing. I'm so excited to go again... 2 weeks! Hopefully, we'll put on sunscreen this time.
aislinnn

First Placement

So I'm here with Liesl at our first placement. We are with a Canadian family. They own a retreat kind of thing, so they have 3 cabanas and Liesl and I get our own!
It's super nice here, so beautiful! The family owns a Learning Centre in Unitedville, just a couple minutes away. Here they open the doors for any locals that need tutoring or just a place to do their homework. Liesl and I spend our nights in here from 4-8. In the mornings, we help out around their yard; cleaning the cabanas, raking leaves, or helping with dishes.
The weather has been fairly nice. The first couple days were really hot and sunny, but the past few days have been overcast and chilly. I'm not complaining though, anything's better than the snowstorms that are in Canada.
Love yaaa
aislinnn

From -10 to +40

So, we're finally here!!! 27 hours of traveling later.. and 41 hours of no sleep! March 1st began with a drive to Buffalo airport, then a 3 hour plane ride to Atlanta, and the a 3 hour plane ride to Cancun Mexico. After that, we got into a stinky hot bus and rode 12 hours to the YWAM base. We got to the Belize YWAM base at 3:00 in the morning. We unpacked quickly and went straight to sleep.
The next day was filled with orientations, rules, and such. Saturday we all packed into the bus again and went to our placements. On the way, we bought an above ground pool for the base and we'll set it up as soon as possible. It was 30$ Belizian per person, so that's not bad at all. Right now I'm at my placement with Liesl. Tomorrow we're going to start working at a Learning Centre and we will be here for the next three weeks. The family is super nice and they said we might go snorkelling. We went swimming today in a river and it was sooo refreshing!
Liesl and I get our own cabin here because the family has a resort kind of thing for other missionary groups, but there aren't any here right now, but there will be next week.
Today is Sunday and we spent the day at a Mennonite church. It was basically the same as a church back home, but the girls wore skirts and no earrings, I felt like quite the outsider.
All for now!
Aislinnn

So close.. yet so far away

These last couple weeks have been brutal! I think everyone just wants to leave nowwww, well I know I do...

-aislinnn