We went to the high school around 10:30 AM to set-up. This time, we were located in a bigger, better room, with longer tables, and lots of chairs. The class was structures in a "U" shape.
We had a full class of high school girls. There was about 15 girls that was there.
For our session, we taught the girls how to make beads out of scrapbook paper. My colleague, Liss, talked about selling jewelry and making profit on online websites, like Ebay and Amazon.
The girls that I was with were such wonderful young ladies. They had big goals and dreams. They have hobbies like listening to music, shopping, and etc. It was great getting to meet them and learn more about each and every one of them.
The girls turned the beads to bracelets, rings, and necklaces. It was a easy breezy session for them.
Next, my colleagues and I had lunch: rice, beans, and stew chicken. It's a Belizean traditional food. So good!
At 6 PM we taught our last workshop. My Enactus team, one of the Education student, and the Biology professors joined us at our workshop. We came in early to set-up the workshop and at first we were scared that no one would showed up but within a second we had a full house!
I think we had a little over 30 people in attendance, our biggest group ever! Half of the group were college students who are take evening classes, so they attended our 7 PM workshop. The other half were locals. San Pedro High is a high school during day and in the evening, the school is San Pedro Junior College. I know, it's a weird combination but with the little space that the town has and the high demand in education, it seems reasonable.
Again, I was quite surprise of how many males we had. I say about half of the attendance were men.
The room eventually grew crowded and hot!
We had loads of supplies and since this was our last workshop we wanted to make sure that we got rid of everything. Everything! We don't want to carry anything back with us.
We taught the group how to make paper beads. As we near the end of our session, a lot of the college students left because they had to take their finals. It seems like all of them were doing presentations. I would do presentations any day over written finals!
All the locals stayed with us until the very end of the workshop. We taught them how to make dream catchers. Thank goodness my friend, Khanh, taught me how to make them before the session!
At this workshop, I connected with so many people. The locals really touched my heart.
These were the same women who came to our first workshop. They said that they really enjoyed the workshop. They even came back to show me their weave bracelet that I taught them in the first workshop and wanted me to help them finish it. It was so touching! They actually went home and worked on it.
Now this family really touched my heart. This is a dad and his two daughters (oldest on the left and youngest on the right) who attended our workshop. We had a chance to talk to the dad. The dad had a head injury on the job and now he can't do so much as he could before for his family. He wanted to thank us for coming to their country and for bringing an opportunity like this to San Pedro. He's glad that his daughters were able to learn so much from this workshop.
I didn't knew that our jewelry craft workshops would touch or help so many people. It was really touching hearing his story. His youngest daughter came to me asking how I made the hair piece accessory that was one of our examples that we passed out during our workshop. I showed her how to make one but I decided to just give her the accessory. She started crying, hugged me, and then kissed me on the cheek. It really meant a lot to her, that accessory. She loved it so much that she made a bracelet saying "I <3 Kristin." It was so sweet! I don't know what kind of life they have and it doesn't matter what social standard they have, because this little accessory meant the world to this little girl.
We probably only met these people but they touched our hearts. When we were saying goodbye to them they were all giving us hugs and kisses us on the cheeks. I have met so many people on this trip and it was nearing the end. I will remember everyone and all the experiences that I made in Belize.
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