As the school year wound down in June, kids’ energy levels seemed to rise by the day.  What better way to release some of that energy than a field trip?!  Since field trips were designated for Fridays, and I didn’t have to teach on Fridays, I was available to help chaperone, and I was lucky enough to be invited to go on 2 trips.

            The first trip was with the Infant II and Standard I classes (age 5-7).  Our itinerary took us first to the Belize Zoo, then to the airport, and lastly to the Maya Ruins of Altun Ha, and our transportation was a chartered bus (read: old dilapidated school bus).  In sharp contrast to most field trips in the States, almost every single kid had a parent/guardian come along.  We were somewhere around 36 kids and 32 moms, dads, aunts, sisters, cousins, and next door neighbors.  The 3 teachers, myself included, were assigned to watch one of the remaining kids whose parent couldn’t attend.  My little charge for the day was a kid I taught in reading—Leroy.  Although I had been to all three places before, it was a fun and new experience to see it thru the eyes of these kids.  I mean, the last time I was at the airport, I was bawling my eyes out at the sight of Nick’s plane leaving.  These kids’ eyes were larger than baseballs at the sight of planes coming and leaving, accompanied by exclamations of “Bwai!!!”  Thankfully Leroy was extremely well behaved, even if he did make me climb up all the Maya Ruins, and some twice. 

            The real cultural difference for me came at lunch time.  Everyone was told to bring their own lunch.  So the day before, I went to town and bought all the necessities for a great bag lunch—pita bread, ham, cheese, chips, apples and cookies.  When we stopped at a park to eat, I noticed that everyone else seemed to have brought immensely larger amounts of food than myself.  As people began unloading their coolers, I saw that they had all brought rice and beans, stew chicken or fried chicken, and they pulled out their coleslaw or potato salad.  This was no brown bag lunch.  Several parents offered me some of theirs, unbelieving that I could be satisfied with a sandwich.  One wise crack mom shamed me because of my “gringa food.”  I admit that I was slightly embarrassed that I had committed a cultural faux pas. 

            Fast forward to the very next week—Field Trip #2 with the Standard 5 and 6 classes (ages 11-13) to Mountain Pine Ridge.  In the days leading up to the trip, the Std 5 teacher, Blanca, told me that she wanted one of the moms to make tamales for the teachers to take for lunch.  A day later, one of the students said her mom was indeed going to make tamales for us—how many did I want?  I gratefully accepted two, thinking this was my chance to socially redeem myself.  I would not be brought down by an American sandwich again.  We loaded the bus at 6am, stopped first at the museum in Belize City, then headed west to Mountain Pine Ridge.  After our first stop at Rio Frio Cave, the idea of lunch was thrown around.  I began looking for a suitable picnicking spot.  But as I climbed on the bus to get my food, I saw that everyone had begun eating on the bus already—and what did most of them have?!  None other than sandwiches and chips!!  Everyone was eager to get to our next destination, Five Sisters Falls, and were content with eating as we drove.  And why not?  Sandwiches are great finger food.  Tamales however, are eaten with a fork and knife, and can be quite messy.  So here I was, surrounded by clean sandwich eaters, trying not to spill my plate of tamales all over as we drive down steep, unpaved roads in a chartered bus (again read: old dilapidated school bus—maybe even the one you rode as a kid).  The only redeeming part was that Blanca had to eat tamales that way too. Next time, I think I’ll take two lunches, just in case.