Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Arrival flight

Hello family and friends of Awty International School! The group has left Belize and are estimated to arrive into Houston airport 10 minutes early. They had a fantastic trip! Thank you for your continued support of the program. 

Wednesday, July 3rd US 1406 BZE – IAH  3:55PM – 7:32PM


Erin Lasky 

Director of Operations. 







Day 10 Ms Winegarden



Hello everyone,

We are wrapping up our final day here in Belize and I wanted to say a few thank yous before we go.

First, I want to thank all of the parents.  I want to thank you for helping Ms. Bastedo and I plan and organize this trip, for the hours you put in baking, volunteering, packing, and attending meetings.  And finally I want to thank you for trusting us with your wonderful children and allowing them to come on this amazing trip!

 I want to thank Ernesto, Arora, Julio, Liberato, and all of the wonderful families at Maya Center who welcomed us into their homes.  The students really loved the community and it was great to see all of the relationships that were formed and/or strengthened from last year. 

 I want to thank Mynor, our driver, and the rest of the staff at the Tropical Education Center.  The night tour of the zoo was a highlight as always.

I want to thank Jen and Sean from the Tobacco Caye Marine Center for putting up with us on the island, as we all tend to let loose a bit when we arrive :)  They showed us some amazing creatures in the sea and it was a special treat that they could join us on our trip to Xunatunich and to the zoo!

I want to thank Peter, our WLS instructor from Belize, who has so much knowledge about the living things around us here.  He took students birding, gave us a tour of Xunatinich, and even removed a few unwanted house guests from our rooms.  Peter was a dedicated instrucor who always had our safety in mind.

I want to thank Katherine, our other WLS intstructor for her kindness and her warm spirit.  She really made the students feel welcome and did a great job getting them to journal and perform the WLS activities.

I want to thank Ms. Bastedo, for being an amazing teacher and leader on this trip and during all of the preparation leading up to it.  I really appreciate having someone next to me who I can completely trust to get things done and I have heard from more than one person on this trip that we balance each other out well :)

Finally, I want to appreciate the students, who really did an amazing job this year.  Together we have worked hard, laughed, danced, built relationships, ate termites, and even cried, and I had such a great time doing it all.  I have really loved my time with all of you and will miss you dearly, and the tree was the greatest gift I could have hoped for, thank you from the bottom of my heart. 

We all are excited to get back and see everyone tonight, although it is a little bittersweet to leave such a beautiful place and such a great group!

-Ms Winegarden


Day 9 Eva and Alex W


By Eva and Alex


We left Tobacco Caye around 7, and everyone was sad to leave the tropical paradise. In addition to that, it was raining, and the seats of the boats got wet, which did little to lighten the mood. But, the weather did get better for the bus ride to Xunantunich and everyone was very excited to see the temple there (if a little tired).
Once we got there, Peter gave us a fantastic and in-depth tour of the site, and the view from the top of the tallest temple was fantastic; we could even see Guatemala!
After the tour, we went to a small souvenir market in the neighboring town and bought a few things, then we were on our way. Shortly before we arrived at our cabins, we went to a place called the Art Box, which had lots of beautiful art in it (surprise surprise). We got a couple of things there, and then arrived at our cabins, had dinner, and we went off to the Belize zoo for our night tour.



(this is Eva speaking) After we left for the zoo, it was a short 5 minute trip to get there. The Tour guides gave us a breif history about the zoo, split us into 2 groups (boys and girls) and we were off.
the first thing our group did was see the snakes.


We got to hold one (it wasnt as cold as i thought it would be...) Then we went to see the Tapirs. It was about the size of a minurature horse, and the guide said that it still wasnt done growing!
 After that, we went to see a couple of other animals. Soon after seeing the toucans, we came to the ocelots. It was so freaking cute!!! I wanted it as a pet after seeing it eat (omnomnom :3). Soon we came to an animal that all the returners were talking about: the Howler monkeys. OH. MY. GOSH. Those things sounded like demon spawn (it scared me so bad, epecially because we couldn't see them T^T). We then proceeded to look at different animals. Harpy Eagles, White tailed deer, and Magays. Those were all cool, but the most amazing one was the jaguar. The cutest animal besides the ocelot. He was so tame that the guide let us touch his paws while he was eating! (so soft :3).

Sadly, that was the end of the tour, and we went back to the Education center for the last thing of the day. (ok, i'm done typing, c'ya)

(Back to Alex)

The last thing of the day was the candlelight ceremony. We turned out the lights and passed around a candle. Whoever had the candle had to say something that stood out to them about the trip and a little bit about their growth over the course of the 10 days. Many tears were shed, mainly because we were saying goodbye to Ms. Winegarden. At the end of the ceremony we presented her with a certificate saying that we had planted a tree in her name at Awty. We did a little spider sniffing before bed, and then settled down to sleep before our last few hours in Belize.

Pictures for this blog will be coming soon, when we get a faster internet connection :)

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Day 8 Armando and Alex Pleczko

 Hello blog viewers!

Sorry that this post is a day late, we had some issues with the Internet in tobacco Caye. 

We had a great time snorkeling and we were able to a large variety of sea life in many different ocean environments.

We snorkeled in the beautiful coral reefs, both during the day and at night, and around the roots of the red mangrove trees.

 
A spotted eagle ray!

 




 A resting carribean reef octupus
 

A beautiful lionfish


A Moray eel with his friend a crab

 
Nick and Tyler enjoying their boat ride to the lovely Tobacco caye
Bernd getting off the boat and stepping onto tobacco caye for the first time

Thank you for your patience :)

Cheers,
Alex and Armando

Alex- shoutout to my family and my super amazing girlfriend!! Love you guys :3 

Armando- shoutout to my family miss you all and I'll see you all soon! :)