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Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 190
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*****Please note I keep adding pictures to the album on this link.*****They keep gettin better!***** Here is the link to view some of the pics from our summer camp in Big Falls. http://www.shutterfly.com/osi.jsp?i=67b0de21b304bd9ce489¬ag=1 Also there are more links to come-> below [This message has been edited by sarahsmile (edited 08-19-2002).]
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Joined: Nov 2001
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the children are beautiful. can you update us on all of your accomplishments. gay
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 7,059
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Sarah, what joyeous children, with a million smiles. Summer camp sure looks like great fun. Sarah really has a great smile, hence your name.
Dare To Deviate
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Joined: Oct 2001
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I posted this before....here it is again...I will add more below.
The camp went nicely. We had lots of supplies and the kids enjoyed themselves. Our group suffered a bit since there were 18 of us including our invisible volunteer who we eventually discovered and named! That was amusing...we got all the way to Big Falls with head counts along the way and each time we came up with 18 people in our group! At the airport when we first checked all of our bags and tubs of supplies we could not figure why we were over by 1 tub! Finally, when we arrived in Big Falls at the Colemans, we were trying to see how many tubs had not arrived since Tropic air could only hold so many of our tubs per trip. In figuring this all out we took another head count and holy cow!...we were missing our 18th person but we were all there! SO we named that mysterious person, Laura! Not sure where that came from?! Our group was so diverse and so large it was a challenge not to get on each others nerves. Not to mention we were all struck by virus or some fecally-orally transmitted bacteria or something that kept us, all except for me and one other person, down with vomiting and diarrhea. I eliminated food and water as contaminants and learned some of the kids had been ill too. Again, not to mention that they were spraying poisons to kill the mosquitos because of a Dengue fever outbreak! When I spent the nights in the homes with the village families, the kids stayed up all night crying and tearing up their little faces that burned and itched from the poisons. Some had to stay home from camp they got so bad. Our other fight was those damn little bitting flies...I never could unsterstand the name they called them but everyone remarked how bad they were recently, I guess from all the rain?!?!
Another amusing point was how I had not gotten sick but had gotten one of these flies trapped in my boxer shorts..it must have been the night I slept on the floor in this one house. It must have gotten stuck in my shorts because the next day I was itching my waist band. I pulled my shorts down to see I was covered in bites all over my butt cheeks! Now that was amusing! Then I pulled out my snake bite kit which said it was good for fly bites...lol...I ended up with marks that looked like hickys or bruises all over my be-hind! Never the less I had a good time and got to see some pretty exciting things. I even got to meet two people from here, Quaxiru and Jim from Pier Lounge...Hi! Besides the camp we got to visit 2 water falls, one in Santa Cruz and one in Cockscomb. I went to a church service for a 1 year anniversary of a boy who died in the village last year while we were there. I went to service in San Felipe, beautiful area, for celebrating new musicians being inducted into the church. I am not religious but I enjoy the singing and music produced in the services. I also got comfortable and accepted offerings of Caldo, Potch, and other traditional meals. Yum! I went bathing in the river as usual and this time even washed clothes there too! I asked to borrow soap froam a litle grl bathing next to me...she went and got some and then watched with amazement...then she and her sister must have felt more comfortable because they moved closer down the rocks to me and began to play with me as we washed! They were all smiles then! I even got asked if I was looking for a husband...but I was not the only one who was asked that. I almost was convinced into staying...yeah, this time I really felt at home! At our festival I dressed as a clown and acted up...they love to see the way I clown myself! I even danced the Punta..as a clown and as myself...although I was much more comfortable as the clown!
We even went north to Blackman Eddy where there is a UB campus that we might start a second camp at next year as requested by one of our contacts. So we will be doing more fundraising efforts for that too!
I don't think I will go with our group next year but I will still be coordinating fundraising efforts and will be traveling on my own so that I can get more accomplished. Anyone interested in helping me raise funds is certainly welcome to contact me!
We are also trying to put together a foundation here in the states so that we can collect funds raised and so we will be able to transfer money between our Belizean contact's foundation and ours so as to award scholarships to Belizean students that complete our camp and show outstanding community commitment. Also to maybe make an exchange program for our college students and theirs. Lots of work, commitment and fundraising but I believe that it is so worth it!
These are all ideas that spawned from this year's trip!
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Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 2,364
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applause applause to you sarah
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Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 190
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OP
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Thanks for the applause!
Lets see there is so much to tell but I have been on this computer all day!
I do have something bothering me but I will put that under Other Parts of Belize. So please check there for that.
Unfortunately many of my $100 worth of pictures did not come out and if they did they were very dark. Thats what I get from using 13 disposable cameras, eh! I do have more pics from the north but I will get then loaded later...this hand scanning one at a time takes all day! So keep an eye out cuz those ones are good!
Let me give you all an idea of what activities we actually did at camp and maybe some of our group will send me more pics soon. Well thanks to so many of you who supported us, we had an abundance of supplies. We made tee shirts with puffy paints and marker, we planted seeds, measured plant growth, made graph charts to record data, did an exercise out in the field with stations that were spread out in scale of the alignement of the planets-that was a job!, ummm...made mini huricanes by connecting two 2L soda bottles together filled with water and glitter, looked through microscopes at slides of things like 32 and 73 hr chick embryo-euglena-paramesium-cells-lung tissue-muscle and others, made filters and filtered water, played the word hat game, math games, language arts games, mad libs stories, looked thu prisms made rainbows, learned about clouds and weather, and so much more. Then at the festival we made sock puppets, picture frames to go with the polaroid pictures that I was able to take of each camper, painted nails, and other out doors activities. Then finished off by handing out goodie bags and dancing, oh and clowning of course!
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Joined: Oct 2001
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OP
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Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 190
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Also keep checking the first link for more photos that I am adding as I scan them.
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Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 5,255
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i wear my t-shirt all the time
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Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 190
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Cool that is so great!, I got mine signed by all the kids only to have it rained on and find out the markers were not exactly water proof! S
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