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Wednesday: The San Antonio School
A brief recap: Our group of 23 volunteers from Portland Community College (PCC), ranging in age from 39 to 72, had arrived in Belize on Saturday. We spent the next week working with a humanitarian organization, ProBelize, doing construction work at two sites in western Belize. In the village of Succotz we were building the foundation for the town's new library and in San Antonio we were fixing up an elementary school.
Each day our PCC leader, Cecelia, split us into two groups with each group working at one of the sites. She rotated the mix each day so that we worked with different PCC folks and to ensure that each of us visited both sites during the week.
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I had spent Monday and Tuesday building the foundation for the new library in Succotz and was scheduled to spend Wednesday and Thursday working in San Antonio, a 40-minute drive from San Ignacio down a bumpy, dirt road. Like Succotz, San Antonio is a rural village with a few thousand people, though with a stronger Mayan influence.
The San Antonio Pentecostal Elementary School has nine teachers and
230 children, and our goals there were to:
Our group had a lot to do, certainly, but the PCC folks who worked there on Monday and Tuesday had made good progress. Our work at San Antonio was a lot easier than at Succotz because we worked mostly in the shade and, even better, there was no tamping involved (hurray).
The best part about working at San Antonio, though, was that we got to meet and work with lots of local villagers. Ramon, a cheerful pastor, helped us each day and he and I became good friends. The school's superintendent, Apollonio, also pitched in as did the principal and several teachers. And Michael, the ProBelize construction manager, showed me how to use a air-compressor nail gun. I enjoyed using it so much that I spent the entire morning nailing everything that needed it – and several things that probably didn’t. I'm always gleefully dangerous when I have new toys, especially power tools.
The hardest task at San Antonio, by far, was mixing concrete for the new sidewalk. Mixing concrete, as I learned, is something of an art and each village in Belize apparently has their own particular method. But basically you open bags of sand and cement on the ground, mix it into a pile and crater it, then pour water into the crater. After the water soaks in for a few minutes, you mix it fast and have about 15 minutes to pour it before it starts to set. And by the way, don't breathe in the cement dust because it's extremely corrosive, as I learned the hard way. Cough, cough...
Things went well on Wednesday morning, though, and we got a lot done. At lunch, our happy but tired group pulled up seats used by the students – who were out of session that week on spring break – and sat outside on the veranda to eat, all feeling like kindergarteners sitting in our tiny chairs.
After lunch I saw Jean talking to a couple of teenage boys who had stopped by to watch us work, curious about all the activity and the white gringos who were buzzing in and out of the classrooms. They looked Hispanic so I was excited to finally use my high school Spanish (after 30 years) and blurted out, “Hola, coma estas? Me llamo Del. Como se llama?” But all they gave me was a blank stare. That's when Jean said, “Del, they don’t speak Spanish. They speak English.” I laughed and felt kind of stupid, but in Belize you can never tell what a person’s first (and maybe only) language is.
The boys were shy and soft-spoken and we talked for a while. They were brothers named Roberto and Bernardo and spoke Mayan at home but also knew English. The boys were in their early teens and had graduated from the elementary school the previous year, but their family couldn’t afford to send them to high school. I enjoyed getting to know them but was saddened to think that, even though they wanted to learn, they had received all the education they likely ever would. I was also saddened to see that Roberto had a severely malformed foot that was twisted completely back under itself, forcing him to limp painfully.
I watched them as they left and thought about their futures. You can’t help but be moved by seeing things like that. And in Belize, you see things like that quite often.
Above left: Task #1 at the San Antonio school was to build a sidewalk. The Monday/Tuesday crew had laid down rebar and put up the wooden forms. Our job was to mix and pour the cement. Above right: Task #2 at San Antonio was to stabilize the walls. Kate, Bruce, Roger, Tom and Joy are working on a partition frame.
Above left: The daily schedule for the second grade class. Above right: Villagers on horseback checking out our work.
Above left: Brothers Roberto and Bernardo stopped by to talk. Roberto had a severely clubbed foot and was unable to walk normally. Getting to know kids like this had a tremendous impact on me, and I can only wonder what their futures will hold. Above right: The school superintendent, Apollonio, showed us how to mix concrete for the sidewalk. Every village apparently has a different method. Mixing cement in the hot Belizean sun, as I learned, is awfully hard work.
Above left: Our sidewalk's first visitor was, um, a dog (note paw print). Joy is smoothing things over. Above right: Ramon Cantos, a cheerful pastor in the village who gave us a hand. As the diminutive Ramon introduced himself, he joked and said, "I'm Ramon, the tallest man in Belize." Ramon and I still keep in touch.
Above left: Have nail gun will travel. Using a nail gun is a lot faster than pounding in nails by hand – and as I learned, it's more fun, too. Above center: After getting back to Chiclero Camp Wednesday evening, I strolled into San Ignacio. This is Victoria Street near the ProBelize office. Above right: I bumped into my buddies, Coleen and Laurie, during my evening walk around town. Coleen's a nurse in Iowa and Laurie teaches deaf kids in New Mexico. Coleen is a real crack-up and a good pen-pal, too.
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