Jan 11, 2008
Hola hola.
You have reached the home of what will hopefully be a periodic updating location for my experiences as an intern in Orange Walk, Belize.
The outline of life as I know of it at the moment is thus:
On Jan 22, I will arrive in Belize City and meet Nancy, my host, at the airport. Nancy is a USAMerican Deaf woman who uses ASL. She's been working in Orange Walk for a couple years now, since she was invited by a Belizian family to teach in the program for Deaf students at a local school where students are able to learn in a language-rich (eg, visual langauge) environment.
I will be living with Nancy and one of her students, Sulmi, which means lots of ASL practice for me:D. I'll be spending 2 days a week north of Orange Walk, in the Corozal district, interpreting for a couple Deaf students, as well as being an aide of sorts in a special ed classroom. Most of that work will involve interpreting between spoken Spanish and ASL--a great experience for me! The rest of the week, I will be observing in Nancy's classroom, interpreting parent-teacher conferences, and attending events at the Jesus Deaf Church with Nancy. I will also have the opportunity to visit the Deaf school in Belize City, keep warm in the Caribbean climate, and travel around a bit (hopefully with a couple friends who are considering coming to visit).
Internet access is available in a local internet cafe, but time is kind of expensive so my updates might be spotty. If you don't hear much from me, hit me up when I'm back in the country, on April 5. I'll be on campus again until the end of the semester doing Senior Seminar, and maybe for May term.
Have a great semester!!
