Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Bak tu deh States!
So I've made a difficult decision, and am heading back to the States. Although I will always appreicate my time here in Belize, after careful thought for several weeks, I've decided the right choice for me is move back home. I told Peace Corps Monday, sold a bunch of my things to new volunteers just moving into their house that afternoon, said goodbyes to all my host family and friends in Forest Home Village, and PC sent a vehicle to pick me and my stuff up Tuesday. Yesterday afternoon, today, tomorrow, and Friday morning are nonstop craziness as all the million loose ends need to be tied up and it'll be a whirlwind getting it all taken care of, explaining my decision to 47 different people, writing up my final reports, seeing multiple doctors, and having a ton of tests done so I can be medically cleared. But I'm glad that now that the decision is made and PC informed, that it's moving so quickly. I'm ready to go home. I'm even looking forward to Baton Rouge. Crazy, I know, right? But it'll be great to see family and friends sooner than expected, and all the little things about being in the States are getting me more excited the closer it gets - like sleeping in a really comfortable bed again, eating my favorite foods, being able to go wherever I want whenever I want, calling friends and talking for hours or dropping in for a visit, and being able to drive my car are just a few of the things I'm eagerly anticipating... While saying goodbye to Belize is bittersweet, that flight home to Louisiana Friday morning will be, in it's own way, as exciting as the flight coming here was. I'm not entirely certain what my next move after that will be, but the chess game of my life has many strategic moves left, and I have several options I'm considering. With God's guidance, support from wonderful family and friends, and my heart to follow, I know whatever comes next will be the right thing. Thank you for all the support you've all shown me throughout this entire experience, and I look forward to seeing or talking to you sooooon! Love love love - Emily
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Randomness
*One volunteer told the story of the "village massacre". When it's so hot you think you might drown in your own sweat, the villagers without electricity drop everything and lie on the concrete kitchen floor, as it's the coolest place to be. Not knowing this was a common practice, she walked home for lunch one day and noticed every house she passed had people laid out on the floor, not moving, and frantically thought for a minute some horrible massacre had taken place!
*My teacher told the students they should do "on to" others as others do "on to" them
*There's no road rage here. Everyone just waits patiently. :)
*I take 2 showers a day - one to be fresh for the day, one to wash the day's dried sweat off me.
*A student came in our classroom with a hurt wrist and alcohol was poured on it to fix it. Another student came in with a twisted ankle, rapidly swelling. The alcohol came back out and was splashed on it. I tried to tell them we should elevate and ice it, keep off it for a while. Instead, they kept splashing alcohol on it and insisting he keep it moving and walking on it even though that made it hurt worse. Apparently rubbing alcohol fixes everything!
*We start every class day with the announcement that it's a "new brand" day!
*I often hear on the buses or on blaring stereos in town stores Dolly Parton, Gloria Estefan, Backstreet Boys and other boy bands. It's humorous and awesome to relive past music!
*You ask someone how they're doing and they'll give it to you straight. I often ask and get the reply "Bad, gyal, bad". I like that people actually want to hear and talk about how they really are rather than just giving the surface answer of "Fine!"
*I have to keep my matches to start my table top baby stove in a plastic bag or when it's really rainy and humid it ruins the striking side of the box and the whole box is ruined.
*Cereal is only sent to Belize if it is expired or about to be - and cereal has a shelf life of like 5 years or s/thg. I miss having non-stale cereal. Especially when you pay $10 for the box. At least I haven't encountered the experience of opening a box to find bugs already living inside the bag, which others have had happen!
*Bought a box of cake mix and got it home only to realize although the front was in English, the side was in Spanish and the back was in Chinese. And there were no helpful pictures for me to guess how many eggs and how much oil - it was a blind guess. And I guessed wrong... Yuck! Good thing I'm a master at sugar cookie dough! :)
*My teacher told the students they should do "on to" others as others do "on to" them
*There's no road rage here. Everyone just waits patiently. :)
*I take 2 showers a day - one to be fresh for the day, one to wash the day's dried sweat off me.
*A student came in our classroom with a hurt wrist and alcohol was poured on it to fix it. Another student came in with a twisted ankle, rapidly swelling. The alcohol came back out and was splashed on it. I tried to tell them we should elevate and ice it, keep off it for a while. Instead, they kept splashing alcohol on it and insisting he keep it moving and walking on it even though that made it hurt worse. Apparently rubbing alcohol fixes everything!
*We start every class day with the announcement that it's a "new brand" day!
*I often hear on the buses or on blaring stereos in town stores Dolly Parton, Gloria Estefan, Backstreet Boys and other boy bands. It's humorous and awesome to relive past music!
*You ask someone how they're doing and they'll give it to you straight. I often ask and get the reply "Bad, gyal, bad". I like that people actually want to hear and talk about how they really are rather than just giving the surface answer of "Fine!"
*I have to keep my matches to start my table top baby stove in a plastic bag or when it's really rainy and humid it ruins the striking side of the box and the whole box is ruined.
*Cereal is only sent to Belize if it is expired or about to be - and cereal has a shelf life of like 5 years or s/thg. I miss having non-stale cereal. Especially when you pay $10 for the box. At least I haven't encountered the experience of opening a box to find bugs already living inside the bag, which others have had happen!
*Bought a box of cake mix and got it home only to realize although the front was in English, the side was in Spanish and the back was in Chinese. And there were no helpful pictures for me to guess how many eggs and how much oil - it was a blind guess. And I guessed wrong... Yuck! Good thing I'm a master at sugar cookie dough! :)
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Yay for mosquito nets!
I FINALLLLLLY have a mosquito net over my bed!!! It took so long b/c I had to find someone with a drill that could make holes in my concrete ceiling to hang it. I've gotten 4 different people to promise to help me w/ this task, but with Belizeans, telling you they'll be somewhere at a set time doesn't actually mean they'll be there... Anyway, I'm sooooo excited! No more scorpion stings while I sleep, no more waking up with a dozen new bites every morning, no more waking up at 2 a.m. and finding a huge roach on my hand inches from my face then playing hide 'n' seek w/ it in my pillows, with the resulting roach guts and dirty shoe prints on my pillows and sheets! Wahoo!! I have a picture of Mark drilling the holes for me as 5 neighbor kids crowd in my bedroom doorway to watch, and one of the beautiful result after I heaved and sweated the mattress back into place and tucked it all in nice and tight, but it's not currently allowing me to upload pics... If I don't get this to work you'll eventually see them in a kodakgallery album instead! :)
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Quickly...
I talked to Tr. Terry and Mrs. Jennifer (Max's mom) and I'm going to be going to his house to work with him 2 days a week, and he'll come to school the other 3 mornings so he's still getting the socializing aspect of school. We'll see how this turns out...
We were talking about families the other day in school and each student got the chance to tell us everyone who lived in their house. Most Belizean families have cousins, aunts, uncles, or grandparents living w/ them, so this was informational to me, at least, who doesn't yet know everyone's everything in the whole village, like everyone else does. But Tr. Terry and I both got a surprise when Crisbell answered! He named everyone in his family, but didn't mention his father. When asked about it by Tr. Terry he replied, "Oh no, no. Daddy can't live with us anymore because he hates grandma." Ahhh, out of the mouths of babes... Tr. Terry and I couldn't contain the laughter at his completely honest answer!
I spent Sunday evening on my back porch, enjoying the never-gets-old view of my mountain and jungle in my back yard, watching the hummingbirds flit from tree to tree, while hacking open and thoroughly enjoying a yummy pineapple one of my students showed up in my doorway with as a completely wonderful surprise. Life in Belize sure has its incredibly peaceful moments. :)
More later - hope you're enjoying the beginning of your hurricane season. Pray w/ me we all have another uneventful year!
We were talking about families the other day in school and each student got the chance to tell us everyone who lived in their house. Most Belizean families have cousins, aunts, uncles, or grandparents living w/ them, so this was informational to me, at least, who doesn't yet know everyone's everything in the whole village, like everyone else does. But Tr. Terry and I both got a surprise when Crisbell answered! He named everyone in his family, but didn't mention his father. When asked about it by Tr. Terry he replied, "Oh no, no. Daddy can't live with us anymore because he hates grandma." Ahhh, out of the mouths of babes... Tr. Terry and I couldn't contain the laughter at his completely honest answer!
I spent Sunday evening on my back porch, enjoying the never-gets-old view of my mountain and jungle in my back yard, watching the hummingbirds flit from tree to tree, while hacking open and thoroughly enjoying a yummy pineapple one of my students showed up in my doorway with as a completely wonderful surprise. Life in Belize sure has its incredibly peaceful moments. :)
More later - hope you're enjoying the beginning of your hurricane season. Pray w/ me we all have another uneventful year!
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Getting carpet burn can be fun...
When you get it participating in a limbo competition! Okay, let me back up a bit... Tuesday the majority of our special ed kids were mainstreamed into their traditional classes and I had Max almost to myself. It was a WONDERFUL day! We had a great time, his behavior and attitude were good, we worked on several things, and with me as his only source of interaction he focused on me and allowed me to engage him a lot. It was a much needed reprieve. And I have you and your prayers to thank for it! I still haven't had the opportunity to talk w/ Tr. Terry about options for improving my morning time w/ Max but am now glad I haven't yet. I came up to Belmopan Thursday for the new trainees' swearing in ceremony yesterday, and over the last couple of days have spoken with several PCV's and a couple PC staff members about my situation and now have a few ideas to bring to the table during that talk w/ Tr. Terry. I'll let you know how things are going as they develop in that area.
In the meantime, I'm enjoying the time I get to spend w/ my fellow volunteers, all 102 of them! I haven't been sleeping much lately (stupid insomnia!), so opted for an early bedtime Thursday, armed w/ Ambien from Nurse Jackie, rather than going out on the town with the rest, but yesterday made up for it! There are so many of us now that it takes the 2 biggest hotels in BMP plus the local volunteers putting up a few extras in their spare bedrooms to fit us all in the capital city. I got stuck in the hotel that's way in BFE and not near anything, but at least Kristen and I got the best room in the hotel - we had a tv AND an A/C; jackpot!! The ceremony started at 10 yesterday morning at the Governor General's house, where our own swearing in was held 7 months ago, and it was a nice ceremony. The newbies even had an impromptu group hug after their elected spokesperson gave his thank you speech. :) After lunch and mingling they bussed the brand new volunteers to the Garden City hotel and brought the current PCV's to the office for a meeting. We discussed things that needed to be discussed, but it was also a convenient way to explain to Washington the need to pay for all PCV's to be bussed into BMP and given per diem money for 2 days. Not all posts find a way to include current volunteers into incoming volunteers' swearing ins, and we're very blessed to have such a supportive staff here in Belize!
After our meeting most went to the 1st years vs. 2nd years futbol game, but I went back to the hotel to rest, still exhausted b/c apparently Ambien doesn't work on me the way it does everyone else. I got more sleep than my normal 4 hours, but still not enough, so I chilled for a couple hours. We had dinner at the U.S. Ambassador's house again, and were again treated to a wonderful dinner with fabulous hosts, and I again enjoyed Champ the yellow lab's company. :) Everyone went to the Garden City hotel for the obligatory party afterwards and we all had a great time. Which is where my rug burn on my knee comes in! This time around I participated in the competitions and made it to the last 5 or 6 out of the 30+ in the limbo competition, and although I received a couple of nice complements on my derriere, I did not make it to the final 3 in the best tush competition. :)~ Around midnight I rounded up a few other El Rey hotel stayers and convinced one of my favorite BMP taxi drivers to get out of bed and come drive us to the other side of the city to our hotel.
The party reportedly continued til after 4 a.m., but I'm always glad to participate a little, then get to bed, so am happy to have had a shower and be happily snoozing (no ambien needed that night!) by 1 a.m. Which brings me up to today! My roomie had a prior engagement w/ her counterpart at an AIDS awareness fair in Belize City this a.m. so I had the place to myself when I woke up at a comfortable 10:30. Taxis are $5 a pop in BMP, no matter where you're going (unless it's the middle of the night - then it's double for getting your driver out of bed!), which is a luxury most PCV's do not partake in unless safety is an issue. So when I realized I needed to go to the Smart store and the PCHQ today, w/ my heavy bag in tow, I compromised w/ myself and agreed to pay for one taxi.
The last little bit to the PCHQ is a dirt road so I didn't want to drag my bag down it and decided to walk to the Smart store and then get a taxi from there to PC. So off I went, lugging my bag w/ 3 returned to me Twilight books (NOT light!), plus multiple huge jars of jelly I can't get in PG (also heavy!), plus all my regular stuff to Jack's Wireless. That was one heavy bag! I didn't realize just how far out El Rey is... Thirty dripping w/ sweat minutes later (which also covered a nice sized portion of dirt road and grassy field which I carried my suitcase through) I arrived at Jack's Wirelss only to find it closed! I cursed a bit. Thankfully no one was near me! I quickly hailed the first cab I saw and lamented not just skipping trying to get a new phone that will stay on unless I purposefully turn it off and just getting a cab straight to the office. Got a great workout though! :)
Oh, and here's another this-is-totally-Peace-Corps moment: I got to the office, borrowed money from a volunteer b/c my cabbie couldn't break my $20, dropped off my stuff, downed a liter of water, and cooled off enough to go back out to the super humid heat. I went to my favorite food shack for a great breakfast burrito and found the Spanish speaking owner there alone. Meaning her English speaking daughter wasn't there to translate. I got "burrito" understood, but didn't know how to describe the words breakfast or egg or chicken, all of which I attempted before calling a volunteer I'd seen in the office, telling him my order, then handing her the phone for him to place it for me en espanol. Isn't that handy? Then she handed me the remote to the tv and I watched 90210 while I waited.
Now I'm enjoying free computer time and waiting til it's close enough to 5 to head to the bus terminal for the express bus heading south. And crossing my fingers the Kendal bridge stays barely passable just long enough for my bus to cross it! It was flooded yesterday, open this morning, and will probably flood again w/ this afternoon's constant rain, I'm told. Oh well, if it goes out we'll turn around and go back to Dangriga, where I'll enjoy Alyson's FABULOUS cooking again and hang out w/ her and her husband Clifton for the night. We'll see!
In the meantime, I'm enjoying the time I get to spend w/ my fellow volunteers, all 102 of them! I haven't been sleeping much lately (stupid insomnia!), so opted for an early bedtime Thursday, armed w/ Ambien from Nurse Jackie, rather than going out on the town with the rest, but yesterday made up for it! There are so many of us now that it takes the 2 biggest hotels in BMP plus the local volunteers putting up a few extras in their spare bedrooms to fit us all in the capital city. I got stuck in the hotel that's way in BFE and not near anything, but at least Kristen and I got the best room in the hotel - we had a tv AND an A/C; jackpot!! The ceremony started at 10 yesterday morning at the Governor General's house, where our own swearing in was held 7 months ago, and it was a nice ceremony. The newbies even had an impromptu group hug after their elected spokesperson gave his thank you speech. :) After lunch and mingling they bussed the brand new volunteers to the Garden City hotel and brought the current PCV's to the office for a meeting. We discussed things that needed to be discussed, but it was also a convenient way to explain to Washington the need to pay for all PCV's to be bussed into BMP and given per diem money for 2 days. Not all posts find a way to include current volunteers into incoming volunteers' swearing ins, and we're very blessed to have such a supportive staff here in Belize!
After our meeting most went to the 1st years vs. 2nd years futbol game, but I went back to the hotel to rest, still exhausted b/c apparently Ambien doesn't work on me the way it does everyone else. I got more sleep than my normal 4 hours, but still not enough, so I chilled for a couple hours. We had dinner at the U.S. Ambassador's house again, and were again treated to a wonderful dinner with fabulous hosts, and I again enjoyed Champ the yellow lab's company. :) Everyone went to the Garden City hotel for the obligatory party afterwards and we all had a great time. Which is where my rug burn on my knee comes in! This time around I participated in the competitions and made it to the last 5 or 6 out of the 30+ in the limbo competition, and although I received a couple of nice complements on my derriere, I did not make it to the final 3 in the best tush competition. :)~ Around midnight I rounded up a few other El Rey hotel stayers and convinced one of my favorite BMP taxi drivers to get out of bed and come drive us to the other side of the city to our hotel.
The party reportedly continued til after 4 a.m., but I'm always glad to participate a little, then get to bed, so am happy to have had a shower and be happily snoozing (no ambien needed that night!) by 1 a.m. Which brings me up to today! My roomie had a prior engagement w/ her counterpart at an AIDS awareness fair in Belize City this a.m. so I had the place to myself when I woke up at a comfortable 10:30. Taxis are $5 a pop in BMP, no matter where you're going (unless it's the middle of the night - then it's double for getting your driver out of bed!), which is a luxury most PCV's do not partake in unless safety is an issue. So when I realized I needed to go to the Smart store and the PCHQ today, w/ my heavy bag in tow, I compromised w/ myself and agreed to pay for one taxi.
The last little bit to the PCHQ is a dirt road so I didn't want to drag my bag down it and decided to walk to the Smart store and then get a taxi from there to PC. So off I went, lugging my bag w/ 3 returned to me Twilight books (NOT light!), plus multiple huge jars of jelly I can't get in PG (also heavy!), plus all my regular stuff to Jack's Wireless. That was one heavy bag! I didn't realize just how far out El Rey is... Thirty dripping w/ sweat minutes later (which also covered a nice sized portion of dirt road and grassy field which I carried my suitcase through) I arrived at Jack's Wirelss only to find it closed! I cursed a bit. Thankfully no one was near me! I quickly hailed the first cab I saw and lamented not just skipping trying to get a new phone that will stay on unless I purposefully turn it off and just getting a cab straight to the office. Got a great workout though! :)
Oh, and here's another this-is-totally-Peace-Corps moment: I got to the office, borrowed money from a volunteer b/c my cabbie couldn't break my $20, dropped off my stuff, downed a liter of water, and cooled off enough to go back out to the super humid heat. I went to my favorite food shack for a great breakfast burrito and found the Spanish speaking owner there alone. Meaning her English speaking daughter wasn't there to translate. I got "burrito" understood, but didn't know how to describe the words breakfast or egg or chicken, all of which I attempted before calling a volunteer I'd seen in the office, telling him my order, then handing her the phone for him to place it for me en espanol. Isn't that handy? Then she handed me the remote to the tv and I watched 90210 while I waited.
Now I'm enjoying free computer time and waiting til it's close enough to 5 to head to the bus terminal for the express bus heading south. And crossing my fingers the Kendal bridge stays barely passable just long enough for my bus to cross it! It was flooded yesterday, open this morning, and will probably flood again w/ this afternoon's constant rain, I'm told. Oh well, if it goes out we'll turn around and go back to Dangriga, where I'll enjoy Alyson's FABULOUS cooking again and hang out w/ her and her husband Clifton for the night. We'll see!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
