Emily in Belize!

Bak tu deh States!

2010-06-30T12:19:00.000-07:00

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

Randomness

2010-06-24T11:41:00.000-07:00

*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! :)

Yay for mosquito nets!

2010-06-15T14:11:00.000-07:00

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! :)

One more cute pic

2010-06-12T14:19:00.000-07:00

Pics to go w/ last post

2010-06-12T14:02:00.000-07:00

Quickly...

2010-06-08T14:15:00.000-07:00

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!

Getting carpet burn can be fun...

2010-05-29T13:51:00.000-07:00

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!

Taking stock

2010-05-20T14:18:00.000-07:00

I had a pretty clear idea of who I am before I came into Peace Corps, and I must say I've reacted just as expected. I had stress breakdowns during training, I freaked out about living w/ large families w/ multiple children for 4 months, I doubted my abilities in the beginning before rising to the challenge. All of this I was sure was going to happen, and I was sure I could weather it. I wouldn't have joined Peace Corps if I was unsure how I would react.

But I also am big enough to admit when I'm in over my head, when I've reached a point beyond my capabilities. And I'm there. Don't freak out - I'm not quitting, I'm not leaving Belize, I'm not even leaving my site or my assignment. But things HAVE to change. I'm currently in charge every morning of a low functioning Down Syndrome boy w/ autistic tendencies. And not only is he, the other students, and myself being injured daily by him (I have a dark purple, painful bruise on my knee right now, as a matter of fact), but neither he nor the other students are learning anything the entire time he's in the classroom. It's pandemonium, and although it's unofficially my job to keep him in check, there's simply nothing I can do when the other students are in the classroom. He wants nothing to do with me, he runs away from me and throws at me anything he can get his hands on (and in a special ed classroom w/ 16 students it's a mess and nothing is out of reach), and the other students egg him on, saying things they know will set him off, encouraging him to chase and hit them and throw things, and there's nothing I can do about it. At this point I'm simply allowing whatever interactions with the other children they put up with, and when he's moved on from that to another activity I attempt to integrate myself into it, if he'll allow me. He's learning nothing but how to improve his aim, and even the socialization benefits of being with other special education children isn't present, when his behavior is like this. And the kicker is he's great when the other students are not there. When it's just us, he pays attention to me - although his attention span is only about 10-15 seconds per activity - and he allows me to engage him. There's no extra space at school where we could be sequestered, and I'm on the verge of talking his mother into bringing him to my house several mornings a week instead of school so he and I can actually work on things - like counting to 3 and his name and certainly his behavior, which goes unchecked currently, and I'm in no position at school to do anything about that other than to say a completely ignored "No, Max". I'm at the end of my rope, and if the talk I plan on having w/ the teacher doesn't resolve something I could very possibly wind up working more with the local Ministry of Education special ed officer rather than w/ this school specifically, b/c I just don't think I can handle this anymore. At this point I'm just hoping I can survive til school's out June 25th.

And in other news, if anyone finds my ex-boyfriend Brandon's marbles, please return them b/c he's clearly lost them. In the meantime, if you, like myself, my friend Grace, and now even my mother, receive an email from him, please know it's sure to be immature and very inappropriate and should be deleted without being read. Thanks for helping me in cutting off ALL direct and indirect contact, and prayers about my school situation improving are greatly appreciated!

I never...

2010-05-09T08:09:00.001-07:00

Before Peace Corps in Belize I'd never:
~had 6 roaches on my bedroom wall at once
~had a rat in my room
~been hailed by name by people I've never met, who know all about me
~lived as a minority
~paid $12 for a box of Honey Nut Cheerios
~eaten a rodent (gibnut) or a lizard (iguana AND iguana eggs)
~been given macaroni and cheese for breakfast, regularly
~slept under a mosquito net or NEEDED a mosquito net, indoors
~ridden a bike 4 miles to use a cell phone
~used a cell phone WHILE riding a bike
~gone days without a lick of makeup and weeks without looking in a mirror
~gotten a haircut while standing up in someone's bedroom and with regular kitchen scissors
~been so excited to see a McDonald's (I love Mexico!)
~abhorred and loved cold showers
~taken a bucket bath with water heated on my stove
~taken 2 showers a day, every day
~urinated outside - and twice in one evening!
~had an address with no numbers or a street name
~seen a tarantula not in a cage
~seen a scorpion - much less 5, and in my house!
~hitch hiked, and been completely comfortable doing so

Many more firsts to come, I'm sure!

And P.S. - Happy Mother's Day to my mom and to all my mother stand-in's over the years!

Death - just a part of life

2010-05-01T17:22:00.000-07:00

It kinda creeps me out how casually death is taken here. It IS just a part of life, after all, but I suppose being from the States has made me more sensitive to it b/c we can prevent it, at least for a while, maybe??? "Where's Max?" "Oh, he died last month, here's the new puppy we got the next day." I asked what happened, they didn't know, maybe heat stroke. Would make sense, considering his life consists of a chain connected to the fence and a bowl of water and scraps 2 times a day. But really, it could've been any number of parasites or diseases that caused his death. And it's not just the pets. A 5 month old in my village died 2 weeks ago and people discussed it very matter-of-factly. I expected sympathetic tones, something in the way of "it's so awful, I feel so bad for that family...." Nope. Not from anyone who talked about it. Again, they didn't know what had happened. I can't help but think that if that mother had had access to prenatal care and the baby was given all the medical attention it would have received had it been born in the US that it might've lived. I used to hear the child screaming in the night; my landlady said the same thing and ventured that it must've had something wrong w/ it that caused it pain, which the mom didn't know what to do about. Even the siblings continued on like nothing had happened, didn't seem sad or upset, just running around the area w/ friends like always. This was a bit of a wake up call for me.

Cheerier topics... Let's see there's the weather... It is unlike any heat I've ever known. It boils you from the inside out - you can actually FEEL it happening, I swear. Worse than Louisiana in July after a hurricane has knocked out power... Worse than training dogs outdoors in August in Central Florida... It's in the 90's, w/ the heat index in the 100's. Maybe it's the same humidity level, but there's no A/C here, no reprieve whatsoever. You're just completely soaked all day and all night - even if you buy an extra fan and have 2 blowing full speed directly on you. I hate the feeling of a drop of sweat sliding down my back - HATE it. I look like an idiot swatting my back every 4 seconds but that's what I do to avoid feeling it drip down to my butt. You know how unfun wearing wet underwear and bras is?? VERY! I've forgotten what it feels like to have dry undergarments... A cold shower feels great - until exactly 2 seconds after you turn it off. When you towel off, it's 98% sweat. And you should try getting dressed when your entire body is dripping; it's not so easy. Clothes tend to not sit just right and there's just nothing you can do about it... Ahh, the heat. Gotta love it. At least I'm not expounding on the exact opposite problem - you know they wanted to send me to Ukraine or some such place, right? I said heck no - I'd be ET'ing (early terminating) the day the first snow hit! Bring on the sweat before the freeze, I say!

Let's see, what else... Oh! I must say, I believe Belize is very good for my self esteem and self image. All American women should spend some time down here - it gives you a spirit boost! One slightly overweight PCV got the other day "Hey there, I like fat gyals!" Although it creeps me out when men "greet" (catcall) me w/ "Hey Baby", I do like hearing "Hey Beautiful" or "Hey Lovely". You just can't help but feel like maybe you're actually beautiful and lovely! The lack of sweets I'm used to has forced me to become creative and I MAY have overdone the sugar cookie dough... I eat it all the time. Like, daily. It's just so easy to make, especially if you realize that without an oven to actually make cookies w/ you don't need the egg (use milk instead), baking soda, vanilla extract, or baking powder. Then it's just flour, butter, sugar, and a bit of milk. So easy. And so tasty!!! I just can't stop... That plus the heat forbidding any unnecessary movement has equaled to me adding 4 pounds. And that was like 2 weeks ago. It might be a pound or two higher now. Oops. But even though I'm now 4 pounds away from being heavier than I've ever been, I don't feel bad about myself. Usually I'd be very upset and feel hideous. But Belizean men love a woman w/ curves - I could pack on another 20 pounds before anyone would dream of saying I'm anything other than gorgeous. It makes a girl feel good! I admit it's not healthy, and I'll eventually have to force myself to stop buying sugar by the pounds to avoid making more and more and more cookie dough - but until then I'm enjoying it and not even feeling guilty. Quite a change!

Okay that's all for now. I had much more, but seem to have lost (or had stolen along w/ the money out of my wallet at school last week) the notebook I keep in my purse that had notes on it to blog about. More next time!

A newbie and a night crawler

2010-04-24T10:31:00.001-07:00

Where oh where shall I start??? I guess I'll start w/ last weekend. PC shipped the newbies (trainees) off to current volunteers' houses for the weekend, and I had Kim grace my humble abode w/ her presence. It started off a bit iffy... I was planning on being on the side of the road to wave down her bus at 8:15 when it usually passes. Instead I get a call at 7:30 that she's here and doesn't see me... Well, I walked outside and she was nowhere to be found. I finally realized she'd been dropped off at the wrong school and I walked down to retrieve my terrified trainee. She'd already made a new friend, a girl I don't know, but who of course knows me and was walking her towards my house. There are some perks to being known by everyone when you know no one! We talked til late, and were by the road by 9:30 the next morning to head into town. At 10:30 I realized we'd somehow missed the 10 bus and that the next one wasn't til 12:15. We were back by the road at 12, and this bus was super late - arriving at 12:45. So I made the poor girl stand on the side of the hot hot road for almost 2 hours for a 10 minute bus ride... In town we did my shopping, I showed her around, and we did internet for a few minutes until I looked at my watch and realized it was 2 on the nose - and if we missed the 2 bus the next one wasn't til 4. We ran out of the internet cafe - but "di bos dun pass aaready". Rather than make the poor girl wait another two hours, we took a taxi to my village. Then she settled into my hammock and started reading Twilight, which she had previously resisted. I now proudly claim getting 9 people hooked on the series, 7 since I got to Belize! My copies are looking pretty worn already, and they're only 7 months old - well loved, they are! It'll be nice to actually have everyone through the series so I can have my books back; I haven't had more than 2 of the 4 books in my possession since I got in country in August. I'm excited to eventually get them all back and be able to read them myself! :) Sunday we didn't have much to do, so we hung around my place, walked around the village a bit, chatted w/ neighbors and my landlady... And she finished Twilight, promptly requesting to watch the movie, followed by the New Moon movie (Grace had the book), then she took the Eclipse book home w/ her. Kim came to school w/ me Monday morning, met my kids and my teacher and principal, then was headed back to her training site.

That night I was somewhat sleeping (the fan is on full speed 2 feet from my bed, blowing straight on me, where I lie w/ no covers, and I'm still lying there sweating) at 2:30 when I felt a pain on my foot, by my ankle. I reflexively brushed at it w/ my other foot, but I was still 1/2 way asleep and couldn't tell you if my foot made contact w/ anything as it brushed the sting spot. I frantically fumbled for my flashlight by my bed but once found, couldn't see a/thg. I scanned the floor, found n/thg, so cautiously walked across the floor to turn on the light. Still didn't see a bee or wasp or a/thg, so I just popped some benadryl and emptied my pitifully tiny ice tray into a hand towel and iced the sting that felt somewhat worse than a bee sting, for some reason. It hurt too bad to consider trying to go back to sleep, so I just sat there w/ ice on it, reading til about 6. And about half an hour after I was stung, a SCORPION goes skittering across my floor from under my comforter which stays on my floor during the night. I leapt up and smashed that little bugger to smithereens, seething and pissed and freaked out. About another 1/2 hour later I noticed my lips were tingly. Then they went numb. Then my tongue when tingly. Then it went numb. And this thing stung my foot! What if it'd got me close to my heart or my head?? I read my book and paid attention to my mouth, ready to call s/o asap if I started having the slightest trouble breathing or a/thg worrisome like that, but nothing ever happened, besides the numbness and tingles. I finally went back to sleep at 6, w/ my foot propped up on a pillow and the ice balanced precariously atop it, and tried to rest w/o moving. At 8 I texted the PCMO (medical officer - aka Nurse Jackie!) and she said to keep benadrylling and icing. The sting site hurt the whole day, but when I woke up Wed. a.m. everything was back to normal. Now I really HAVE to find some way to hang my mosquito net from my concrete walls and ceiling! Especially since I returned from 4 days in Belmopan last night to find ANOTHER scorpion climbing the wall in the spare bedroom (he's also now very dead). It's a freakin infestation! That makes 4 now... I'll keep you all updated on the scorpion madness - hopefully I get this taken care of very soon!

Hello beautiful blue water!

2010-04-15T14:39:00.000-07:00

Okay, I've got like 20 minutes til the bus comes, let's see if I can do it. I'm not betting on it... Oh well, I'll just get the bus an hour after it if necessary - b/c I know you've all been waiting for part two of the faaaabulous vacation! After our 2 glorious nights at the Cave's Branch jungle lodge, we were up at 5 a.m. Monday morning to get a ride from the lodge down to the highway at 6. I knew there was a bus coming by around 6:30 and we didn't want to risk it being early and missing it. However, as soon as we'd gotten there, a different bus came barreling around the curve and I jumped out to flag it down just in time. :) A snoozeful ride of an hour and a half and we were in exciting Belize City - murder capital of the world, in case you didn't know... But not to worry, all (well, most) of the violence is in the south side of the city, where volunteers and tourists don't go, and it's between the Bloods and the Crypts gangs, so we were in no danger. But try explaining the logic of that to my family... They were still nervous! After a completely uneventful taxi ride to the dock where the boat was waiting to take us to our island paradise, we found ourselves w/ an hour to kill - the boat also takes the tiny island's workers every morning, and they weren't going to arrive til 9. So we went to the Radisson Hotel (yes, a real Radisson, just like the States' Radissons!) across the street and ate a yummy breakfast - I even had real milk, it was delicious! I've gotten used to the powder milk you mix w/ water and the box milk that doesn't require refrigeration, but I really miss regular milk s/times...

Anyway, back on topic! During our 30 minute boat ride to Spanish Lookout Caye (pronounced "key") we spotted dolphins and a manatee, and all thoroughly enjoyed just being on a boat out on the water. We're a water family, and since we sold our fishing camp a few years after my grandfather passed away none of us has been out on the water nearly enough for our tastes. And can I tell you - the water here is the most incredible, deep blue color you've ever seen! And it's mixed in w/ the emerald greens, and the blue greens, as the depths vary. Visual heaven, I tell you. You can see the ocean floor just as clearly at 10 feet as at 50...

We arrived and were given welcome drinks, w/ a kick if you asked for it! There's 3 kinds of rum you'll find in Belize, and they were using one of the two that I abhor, so I drank mine as just a fruity concoction. :) Our bags were carried for us to our little cabin on the water and I fell in love! We got two, which shared a dock, so Mom and Mama were in one and Elizabeth, Grant, and I were in the other. They're on stilts, literally IN THE WATER. Grant and I immediately threw on our swim suits and jumped off our front porch into the water and snorkeled around - apparently there were really cool things to see if you were willing to swim under the house, but I wasn't, so I missed out on that. I happily cruised around in front, then swam around behind the houses, up to the private beach, then eventually chilled in a shaded hammock on the beach, while Grant continued to explore in the water and Eliz, Mom, and Mama walked around the island. The whole island is owned by one man and is just for Hugh Perry's Dive Connection guests, so there's one dive shop, one restaurant, and some staff houses in the back. That's it. Oh, there's also a lagoon in the back where some cruise ship people come on cruise days...

Wait, I'm getting my timing confused! The swimming and stuff was later on, in the afternoon. As soon as we got to our cottages we changed to swimsuits and went back to the main dock b/c our half day of snorkeling was that first day! Okay, I've got my bearings now, sorry bout that! So we rushed back to the dock, got fins and signed waivers, then hopped aboard the same boat, and five minutes later we were on Turneffe Atoll, a popular nearby reef dive and snorkel spot. They took us to the shallower part, naturally, since we were snorkeling rather than diving. Grant had never been snorkeling, so he especially enjoyed it. It was just as beautiful as you're imagining it was, I promise! Just pretty reef to see though, and some cool fish. Oh, wait, Grant and Mom said they'd seen a sea turtle. I missed that one. :( We saw some squid swimming though. It was funny, the guide was pointing right at all 5 of them and I'm like, "I don't see them!" The problem was I've only ever seen squid as fishing bait - I'd never seen one alive and swimming and it looked just like a regular old fish; I had to look close to realize their back did have the little tentacle things! Mom and I never get tired in the water; we would've been happy to stay there another 2-3 hours, but eventually Mama, Grant, and Eliz were tired and we all headed back to the boat. They climbed aboard and I dove down a bit to see what our captain was doing in scuba gear underneath the boat. After about ten seconds of me just hanging out down there watching him, he stretched out his extra regulator to me and allowed me to buddy breathe and watch him work. I even helped him a bit as he was putting new metal something or others onto the underside of the boat - cool!

On the ride back in, we hungrily munched on the delicious fresh pineapple and the chips and salsa, until they sliced up and dumped in the animal that had until very recently been living peacefully inside the conch shell the guide allowed my mother to take as a souvenir. That slowed down the chips and salsa eating - for the others, at least. I ate it anyway, and the raw slimy bits were disguised by salsa, so it was hardly even noticeable! Grant tried it; I'm proud of him - he's the pickiest eater! The boat captain discovered I live here in Belize and told me he has family down in the Toledo District where I live. He hasn't been down this way in a long time and is overdue for a visit, he thinks - would I mind hanging out w/ him this weekend - and do I have an extra room he could stay in?? Hmmm, tempting, but I avoided Biggie's (yes, that's his real nickname, and justly deserved) offer as best I could. He knew the name of my village at this point, and since I'm "di onlee lee white gyal" living there, he could've found my place quite easily... Thankfully, he didn't show up on my doorstep last weekend. :)

Back on the island we were treated to a delicious lunch, which we scarfed, then the others walked around while Grant and I swam around the house (ha, that sounds funny, "swam around the house"!). After dinner that night we watched 2012 on my computer - well, Mom and Mama did. Eliz, Grant, and I all passed out w/i the first 10 minutes. I always sleep so well after a day in the water - it was blissful! I didn't even mind sharing the bed w/ Elizabeth, I was out cold and didn't move a muscle all night, I bet. Tuesday morning we had breakfast then were geared up for scuba!!!!!! The others all had to take an intro to scuba thing since they're not certified, so they went to watch the instructional video while I waited w/ Mama (she didn't dive, just rode around w/ us) and the 9 tourists who'd arrived on the island the night before. They were from Greece and had been diving all over the world - and they looked from mid 30's to mid 50's! Mom was like, "I want whatever job they have that lets them afford to travel and dive all over!"

We left off and about 20 minutes later we were at another dive spot and I was in the water - my first time in 2 years!!! I was beyond myself excited... The others waited on the boat while the certified divers were down for an hour - the deepest I went was 98 feet, my deepest dive so far. You wouldn't believe how crystal clear the water was - I could look up and see the surface like it was 10 feet above my head. We saw gorgeous coral of every color and so many weird looking fish and several 1.5 foot long lobsters (not exaggerating!) and a green moray eel that stopped and looked at us for like a minute before swimming into a hole in some nearby coral, and tiny fish that live in little holes they burrowed into the sand that will swim backwards into the hole if you get close to them - it was amazing! Just like diving the Great Barrier Reef was back when I was 17! And now I've dived the 1st and 2nd largest coral reefs in the world - I should just keep going down the list and dive them all! After an hour we surfaced and climbed aboard the boat. During our surface interval - we had to stay above water for an hour before our next dive to let some of the nitrogen evaporate out of our bodies - we went to a shallower part for the intro to scuba-ers to practice the basics in 10 feet of water. Then we went back to another section of the reef so the certified divers could go to the 60 foot part and the intro-ers could go to a 40 foot part and we ogled more gorgeous, amazing sights.

Some of you might know that I perforated my right inner ear membrane getting my certification a couple years ago. Although I lost a tiny bit of hearing (only very high frequencies, so I don't notice it), and have the constant ringing in that ear (tetonis, I think it's called?), I'm otherwise fine. I didn't have any problem the first dive, but the second one, about 30 minutes in, my right ear wouldn't equalize and slowly the pain escalated... I kept going up a few feet and trying again to equalize w/ less pressure on it, like you're supposed to, but it wasn't helping. So by the time I was at 25 feet and the rest were at 60 I was just hanging around, waiting for one of the guides to notice me up there so I could give the diver-in-distress signal and get him to come up to help me. It hurt too much to go back down to get their attention, so I was waiting around for several minutes before one of them noticed me. After "talking" about it for a minute, he okayed me to surface and go back to the boat, but when I got to 15 feet for my 3 minute safety stop my ear finally equalized, so I cautiously descended some more, equalizing as I went, but again it stopped allowing me to equalize after about 10 feet, so I went back up to redo my safety stop, then surfaced and made my way to the boat. The others were up within 5 minutes, so at least I didn't miss too much. The intro group had just gotten back to the boat and were glowing w/ their excitement, and my ear was fine as soon as I was up, so we all chatted happily on the ride in. A success, all in all, I have to say! And now I know, I'm good for 1 dive, and to take it easy on a second dive - it was the second dive that perforated my eardrum or whatever the first time too... That won't stop me from diving more while I'm here though - I can't wait to dive the Blue Hole next!

That night we finished the movie - it was too long to finish the night before - crashed hard, and woke up early to enjoy every minute on the island before getting the boat to the mainland at 12:30. We got to the airport, and Mom was wonderful enough to pay for me to take the little plane from there to PG so I was home in one hour flat rather than 6.5 hours on a bus - and that was w/ the plane making 3 stops on the way down! We said our goodbyes, Grant walked me to the spot where only passengers could go, and after a final hug I was off! I thoroughly enjoyed Belize from the air, especially since it got me home so fast! I landed in PG before they even boarded their plane bound for Houston. A short bus ride to my village a bit later, and I was home; it was a fabulous trip and I only wish it could've been longer! Oh, and one extra bonus - when I got home I looked at my phone and was astonished to discover I had full cell service! They must've boosted the signal or put up another tower somewhere over Easter - so feel free to call me anytime now! If you don't have the number email me for it, I don't want to post it here where anyone could see it. But I'd love to hear from you if you wanna drop me a line! So that was my trip, I hope your Easters were all good, although I know they couldn't have topped mine!! :)

Family visit!!

2010-04-10T12:00:00.000-07:00

So last Friday my mother, grandmother, brother, and sister showed up for an eventful Easter weekend in Belize, and we had the best time! Their puddle jumper flight from Belize City to Punta Gorda got in at 1:30, and around 1 I walked to my host mom's house and begged her to drive me to the airport b/c no buses had come by in the last hour that I'd been waiting at the side of the road... I completely forgot it was Holy Friday, everything's closed, fewer buses, no taxis... Thankfully she stopped by a friend's house and talked a taxi driver w/ a van into meeting me at the airport in a bit to drive us around. Good thing she did or we'd've been hiking it w/ all our luggage all over PG b/c it was a ghost town - no taxis anywhere! Anyway, so they arrived, lots of hugs and pictures, and Mr. Hines drove us to the Seafront Inn where Elizabeth and Mom wanted to stay so they could have A/C and a hot shower. We just dropped off their luggage, then all went to my village where we spent the afternoon and evening. We walked to my school and my host family's house, and chatted w/ my landlady for a while. Then we did laundry so they could see what all that entails (Grant was hilarious - "Emmy, I am NOT washing your bras, you come do this part"), and chatted and just hung out for a while. I showed them how I make garnaches, my favorite Belizean food, and after dinner my neighbor, who has a car, drove Eliz and Mom into town to their posh hotel. Mama hit the sack, w/ my sole fan blowing on her, and Grant and I watched The Blind Side on my computer and caught up on the school and love life bit that I've been missing out on. Then Grant sacked out in the hammock (but woke up on the floor the next morning), and I sweated to death w/o my fan and w/ the bugs eating me alive and didn't sleep much.

Saturday Mama, Grant, and I caught a market bus heading into town and met up w/ Eliz and Mom at the Seafront Inn and had breakfast, then walked to the bus terminal in town and left Grant w/ the bags while the rest of us checked out the market. Then Grant, Eliz, and I went to my internet place for some A/C and facebook updating, then we were on the bus from 10 a.m. til 2:45. Could've been rough, but there happened to be 3 PCV's from Guatemala sitting behind me so we chatted about Belize and Guat and PC in general for the first 2 hours, til they got off and I directed them towards their next destination, so that was pretty cool. We got to the beautiful Cave's Branch Jungle Lodge and marveled at the pool and trees taller than any building and all the birds and monkeys and flowers everywhere, and settled into our jungle cabana, which was amazingly awesome, then hit the pool, hot tub, and waterfall w/ our fruity drinks for some relaxation time (Grant had a sprite, I introduced the others to a Belizean favorite, pantyrippas). There were no electrical outlets in our room so my laptop couldn't provide movie entertainment, and we ended up playing cards. My mother, the eternal cheat, couldn't even keep her mouth in control, prompting the oddball-quote-of-the-trip. My grandmother - "She BIT me!!!" Me - "Mom, there's no biting in Spoons! Now apologize to your mother!" The runner up oddball-quote-of-the-trip was from Grant - "I'll take your picture in the shower later, okay Emmy?" There was an exotic outdoor shower that I enjoyed steaming hot water from in my swimsuit and tried to get Grant to get my camera to record the moment of my first hot shower in a while, and outdoors, no less. He couldn't find my camera though, prompting the bizarre, incestuous comment that we both had a good laugh about!

The food was delicious and I ate copious amounts until my stomach was about to burst. Mashed potatoes and ribs, my goooosh, how I missed you.... Easter Sunday we went cave tubing in freezing water, but the caves were simply indescribable. We climbed all up in them to great heights and looked over cliffs, turned off the headlamps and sat in complete darkness for a minute, looked at ancient Mayan artifacts and carvings in the walls, and generally were stupefied by the beauty of the glowing walls that looked like diamonds were embedded in them. The most breathtaking view, though, was after being in the dark for 4 hours (we ate lunch in there), approaching the entrance on our tubes and seeing the gorgeous forest from afar. I only wish I had a waterproof camera I'd been able to bring. Eliz did bring hers in a waterproof bag, so she got some that I'll hopefully be able to steal via facebook.

Another night of delicious food and the others went w/o me on a jungle night hike looking for bugs and animals that don't come out during the day. I stayed behind and enjoyed a bit of quiet time, playing Text Twist and listening to Ayleron, just like I do at home when I'm enjoying the solitude. It was quite nice! And after that I didn't feel the need to have some alone time, so I consider that a huge success, considering I've not had 24 hour company since I got here, or at least since I moved into my own place in December. Anyway, they had a great time, I enjoyed the peace and quiet, more out of control card games, then we went back to sleep w/ the sounds of the jungle humming and creaking us to sleep. Best sleep I've ever had w/o a noise maker, I'll tell you that! :)

More later but out of time for now. I'll give you the island escape part of the trip next time I'm at the internet, I promise! Hope you all had a great Easter - I know I did!!!

Not the newbies anymore!

2010-03-31T11:05:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! So the next group of Belize Peace Corps Trainees arrived last week and they seem awesome! A new group arrives every year, but now they're switching the incoming group from August to March, so for this year only, there's an overlap of 6 months and we have 3 different groups in country at the same time. The next 38 PCT's flew in last Thursday and about 55 of the current 70 volunteers showed up at the airport to welcome them properly. It was fun being on the other side of things - being settled and comfortable, rather than excited and nervous. We gathered on the welcoming deck and cheered and screamed and generally made as much noise as possible as they disembarked the plane and walked across the tarmac into the airport. Then we went downstairs and set ourselves up outside the airport exit for when they made it through customs and got luggage and whatnot, and cheered and screamed some more every time one of them came outside. Some unsuspecting tourists accidentally received a very enthusiastic welcome to Belize, until we realized they weren't one of "us"; that was funny. :) As they came out Ashley and Julie and I were like "that ones gonna get sunburned a lot", "that ones probably gonna lose weight", "that one looks really cool", etc. It took 2 buses to get us all back to Belmopan, and I happened to climb on the bus w/ all the newcomers before we realized it was full, so I stood in the aisles w/ about 15 other current volunteers, slowly turning in a small circle and talking w/ whoever happened to be seated near me. After a while an older gentleman in the new group said he'd been sitting all day and wanted to stand and practically forced me to take his seat. I tried to refuse, saying it's the last time you'll be on an air-conditioned bus for 2 years, take full advantage, but he was insistent. So I came to be sitting next to Heather for the remainder of the ride and answered about 1500 questions and asked her a few of my own. She seems really nice, as they all do, and it was a nice ride.

We arrived at the Belmopan hotel to a catered dinner that was delicious and I sat w/ my good friends Alyson and Clifton, and "Matt w/ the hat" sat w/ us. (There are 2 Matts in the incoming group, so the hat was a way of distinguishing them apart for us veterans.) He seems really cool too, and again, lots of questions from him and the other new people at the other end of the table. I totally remember being in their shoes wanting to know everything that's going to happen in the next 8 months right then. It's hard not to be super inquisitive, b/c PC gives you so little info before you get here, so you're just bursting w/ excitement and have no idea what happens next and are dying for any info you can get... It's so much more relaxing being on the other end of it! I'm happy to answer as many questions as they can throw at me and it helps me try to remember all their names too.

After dinner the newbies were taken to the Garden City hotel (sadly, the Belmopan hotel was just for dinner), and the rest of us were left to walk wherever our next destination was. Alyson and Clifton and I went to the bank b/c I was down to like $4, and then headed to the office for some internet and to grab our stuff we'd left there when going to the airport, then made our way back to the hotel to hang out. Lots of alcohol, lots of pictures, lots of futilely trying to remember names, lots of re-introductions. A good time was had by all! A group of us headed over to the house of a current volunteer who lives in Belmopan, and hung out there for a while. A taxi came to take everyone back to the hotel at like 2 a.m., but I didn't know this until I walked out the front door and saw it driving away. So I ended up staying in Andy's spare room on a mattress on the floor. Just like at home! :) The next day everyone who'd stayed there took showers and departed for various destinations at various times, until Andy and I headed to the PC HQ. I did my taxes, uploaded pictures, filled out my volunteer report (biannual and no fun at all!), and basically did everything I'd been needing lots of uninterrupted internet time to complete.

I was going to get the 5 p.m. bus home, but around 4 p.m. I didn't feel like it so I ended up staying another night. I got PC to put me up in the Gar Den b/c technically I was there so I could do my report, which they will pay for you to come up and spend the night to do. So I had an extra night getting to know the new group! I convinced about 7 of them to let me introduce them to the best Belize food in the city and we all walked to Callahan's and everyone ate to their heart's content for a grant total of $36. I love cheap delicious garnaches and burritos!!! Back at the hotel I walked around until I found someone in their room and invited myself to hang out. Spent about an hour talking w/ Chris and I think her name was Laura??? Then it was bedtime for everyone. They'd had their first full day of training and I'd had like 5 hours of sleep the night before so everyone was in bed by 10:30. Next day I was at the office, doing more internet, watching tv, and then got the 5 p.m. express and was home by 9 - good trip! And the next one will be even better - Mom, Mama, Grant, and Elizabeth get here in 2 days!!! I'll let you know all about our fun adventures next week. Happy Easter everyone!!

Video links

2010-03-23T13:01:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, I finally was able to upload the videos I've had on my camera since before Christmas. This one shows Max dancing and then I walk around the class and have all the kids introduce themselves to the camera - go meet my students! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeCiuqtWHG4

This one is during the class Christmas party as well - singing Christmas carols. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIWqHmCptnA&feature=channel

This is hilarious - I wish the camera hadn't run out of storage space! The kids are playing musical chairs. Read the caption to see how the game ended. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E03HNItx9rQ&feature=channel

There are others as well, like the jaguar in the zoo rolling on command, during our school field trip, and several of my class and other classes doing their presentations during the Christmas pageant. Go to other videos and scroll around, check out whatever looks interesting - I've got a ton on there by now!

Ummm...

2010-02-24T13:28:00.000-08:00

Yeah, so I'm trying to come up w/ stuff for this week's blog, and I'm drawing a blank. So I'll just ramble and I'm sure the words will find their way out of my fingertips and thus into your brain... Had our regional spelling bee this morning at my school, and I was asked to be the timekeeper. That was fun, and one of our students got second and so will represent us at the district competition in April... On Saturday I played chaperone to 8 Standard VI students at the district chess tournament, which was long and sometimes boring, but still fun. And being in my little special ed bubble, I see the other students around, but never learn their names, so it was nice to study their nametags for 6 hours and learn at least a few names fu de pikni dehn. Let's see, what else... Been picked up by strangers and given free rides a lot lately - it's so nice! And so unlike America, where they're certainly an axe murderer if they offer you a ride... The bus conductors and bus drivers are knowing me now, greeting me, and stopping the bus at my house w/o me telling them where I get off, which makes me feel more accepted than anything else - totally cool! And I've been invited to dinner at someone else's house, which will be nice when that happens. It's great to feel like I'm fitting in and making friends... I was asked for my phone number for the first time recently. I've been flirted w/ a million times by strangers who want to get to know me merely b/c of my skin color, but had always managed to work in the words "my boyfriend" before they got any ideas... This guy the other night was in a no mood to meander about - hi, I'm Tyron, what's you name, do you have a phone, can I have your number? I had to give him the patented PC half laugh and say "Mi no give mah numba to strange men ai jus meet!" Thankfully the bus pulled up right as I was saying "and besides, I don't think my boyfriend in the States would like it very much...", so it was a smile, nice to meet you, and climb on the bus away from the awkwardness. Ha, I even had one once tell me so what if you have a boyfriend in the States, you're here for 2 years, you might be married before you go back! I've also been encouraged to partake in dating Belizeans despite having a boyfriend, which leads to interesting discussions about monogomy, which is not really the rule down here, but rather is the exception... Ok, I guess that's all I've got for today. Maybe more later! Hope everyone up there is enjoying the cool and the Mardi Gras while I sweat it out down here!! :)

why I love bus conductors

2010-02-16T13:30:00.000-08:00

Okay, so there's the bus driver, who, naturally, drives the bus. It's their job to notice you on the side of the road and either stop at your flagging them down or avoid smashing into you as you enjoy your afternoon walk or bike ride. Then there's the bus conductor, who does everything else. They notify the driver if he doesn't see you, he keeps mental track of every person who gets on, gets off, where they got on, and remembers where everyone is going and makes sure the driver stops there for you. Every so often they stroll through the bus and collect money from all those that have gotten on in the last 10 miles or so since he last collected. Even this is a feat as often the bus is completely packed, w/ people blocking the aisles and he has to squeeze past people to get to the people in the back. If you have packages he gets them onto the bus and in an overhead compartment while you find a seat. If you have a big bag he stores it for you in the back or under the bus, according to where you're getting off. He has memorized what the cost is to get to every possible village from every possible village along the 6.5 hour / 200 mile journey they travel twice a day. And when there's no room to sit he gives up his little footstool he perches upon in the front of the bus to a woman standing in the aisles. If there appears to be no room to sit, he will look for children in a seat, ask them to "squinge op" to allow room for someone standing to sit beside them, or asks mothers to put them on their laps so s/o can sit w/ them. Or if a woman is standing in the aisle while holding a child, they politely find a young man to give up their seat so the mom can sit. They always smile, they are always cleanly and nicely dressed, they are always polite, and they often make your day! :)

AVC

2010-02-12T12:33:00.000-08:00

Not too much to report this week - I've been up here in Belmopan for the All Volunteer Conference all week. I was up in Belize last Wednesday and Thursday for doctor appointments, then went home for 2 days and came back up Sunday so I could watch the Superbowl w/ some fellow New Orleans Saints' fans. What a rush that game was!!!! I spent the night w/ those equally exubernt fans, then headed to the Garden City Hotel Monday morning, been in boring sessions all week, but was fed delicious breakfasts and lunches. :) Wednesday I led a session on basic pet care when you live in a village and can't get to a vet right away. You know, how to induce vomiting if needed, how to remove ticks, people food you should never feed your pet, stuff like that, nothing big. Thursday our counterparts traveled in and we each did a little presentation on things we're working on and things we intend to work on based on the Designing for Behavior Change workshop we had during our In Service Training in November. Other than that we just hung out together in the evenings, one night there was the yearly volunteer arm wrestling competition, we had a couple game nights that were fun, stuff like that. I spent one night in Belize City w/ another volunteer b/c we both had dr. appointments after the conference one evening, which was nice b/c we got to leave the conference a couple hours early. :) So Kristen and I spent our impromptu evening watching movies on tv and hanging out. Oh, and I bought $50 of credit on my phone during a double/triple/quadruple up event and I got $150 free credit! So I got to call Brandon and talk to him, which was immensely nice... The conference finished up at 10 this morning and most people are long gone, but I decided to take the Express bus South, which doesn't leave til 5 p.m. So I've been hanging out in the PCV lounge watching Eight Below and the CSI marathon and playing on the computer, chatting w/ volunteers as they wander in and out - it's actually been a pretty nice, relaxing day. All in all, it's been a good week, but I'm very ready to get home!

A few things I've learned...

2010-02-02T12:48:00.000-08:00

There are many things that you don't necessarily think of as not being available when money isn't available, and some that don't jump out at you but rather sneak up instead are (along w/ other random things I've picked up here and there):

~There's no trash pickup service - you figure out what to do w/ your own trash. Which means burning it. And burning trash (and you know some of the disgusting things that go in your trashcan) doesn't exactly smell like burning leaves, which might remind you of fall or something happy and peaceful...
~When you can't afford a table or chest of drawers (all my clothes are still in my propped open suitcase on the floor), you certainly aren't spending money on things like mirrors - which leads to the sudden realization it's been 4 days since you've seen your reflection, and ohmygoodness you really need to pluck your eyebrows NOW!
~There's no mall and no Claire's boutique like when we were little girls, ladies. Which is why one of my student's recently "pierced" (i.e. stabbed w/ what must have been a rusty nail or s/thg) ears looks like it's about 2 days away from gangrene and falling off...
~You're not going to waste money on little Styrofoam cartons, you simply get a little baggie and carefully place your eggs in it and hope you don't get bumped into before you get home. I managed to get home w/ all my eggs fully intact for the first time last week - I'll continue to buy one more egg than I need, however, as my "luck" (read - "clumsiness") might change back at any moment.
~Who's going to run an impound lot down here - NO ONE! That's why between PG and my village there's at least 40 trucks, cars, and buses abandoned along the side of the road at various places slowly becoming works of art as nature reclaims them. Attempting to guess how long each one has been sitting there by how extensive the leafy growth is has become a past time of mine...
~Just because a building is newly built, doesn't mean it was built well... After the first big storm in my new place last Thursday I skipped school Friday morning to spend the time cleaning out the water and picking up my drenched stuff. I'm lucky I didn't electrocute myself b/c my phone, cd player (NOT my ipod player, thank goodness!), noise maker and fan were all plugged into the surge protector that was lying in a 2" puddle next to my bed when I woke up. Most things were undamaged, once I dried them off, but my Bible, which I've made manymanymany notations in over the last 17 years was soaked and I about pitched a hissy fit! The pages dried and once unstuck from each other were basically okay, but all the writing is fuzzy, blurry, blue blobs... I needed a new Bible anyway, I guess.
~Just because you pay a landlord to rent out a place, doesn't mean when it leaks that your landlord will have any money to pay for repairs. I'm on my own for the time being - as it's rainy season for the next 10 months, I'm scrabbling trying to find ways to keep things off the floor but near at hand, as I use them daily and don't want them in the next room for safe keeping...
~When a sink is, apparently, mounted to the wall only by caulk, DON'T LEAN ON IT! Even tapping my toothbrush against the basin after brushing my teeth makes it rock and I'm afraid it will plum fall right off the wall onto my toes one of these days. Of course, it didn't have this precarious nature until I stupidly leaned against it one day and felt it give a good bit - OOPS...
~When there's nothing to block the stray dogs from coming up the stairs to your front porch at night, come they will. And when one of the females happens to be in heat... It's mating season on your front porch! Which is why I'm up multiple times a night to fling open the door and scare the heck out of them to make them run off the porch so the squealing will stop - and which is also why my concrete porch is COVERED w/ red splotches. Lovely.
~And my latest discovery - when you have no oven, don't go ahead and use a pan on top of your single stove burner to attempt to make a muffin "cake". It doesn't work that way. You only fill your apt. w/ acrid black smoke and ruin your new pan on its first use...

I'm learning so much down here!!! :) I've also learned you can substitute 1/4 cup of milk for 1 egg if you're only going to use the brownie batter for eating, not for baking; to unfreeze an Ipod put it on a flat surface and hold down the enter and play button for several seconds - it will unfreeze but will reset your 25 most played songs playlist back a ways; when you make beans for the first time, you will not like them, and even the strays will avoid eating the pile you left out for them; also, you get salmonella poisoning from pieces of dirty eggshell dropping into your mix and eating it before cooking the germs out of it, not from eating the egg raw. Let the life lessons continue!!! :)

A Sunday service/ceremony - Belizean style

2010-01-26T14:05:00.000-08:00

Which means it was 3 1/2 hours long, basically... It was held in a sports complex, everyone on bleachers, and whoever was singing, talking, or doing anything stood under the baskeball goal w/ a microphone that worked about half the time. Lots of singing. Typical call to worship - you say this, we respond that, etc. Opening prayer. Welcome and roll call to make sure all the schools and congregations are present and accounted for. More songs. Another greeting, by 2 more people, each one about 10 minutes long saying the same thing we've heard from the previous greeters and welcomers. An Old Testament lesson - in English, then also in Spanish. A song from a school's choir. Then a New Testament lesson - first in Kriol, then in Maya. More singing from a different school. The message - about 30 minutes long. An offering, during which a school's dance crew entertained us by dancing to a popluar pop song that I found thoroughly funny to hear in a church service... "I Gotta Feeling" by Black Eyed Peas. Here's a link if you have no idea what song I'm talking about - just imagine listening to this at church next Sunday while watching kids jump and pump their fists and shimmy around... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19rG2CHvCQY&feature=fvst

The offering was taken by passing back and forth plastic bags, not just once but twice. Next was a blessing on the offering, a part of which was to be sent to a Haiti relief fund, I thought that was nice. Another song. Another prayer. Another dance - this one was awesome and to a great song, I really enjoyed this one. Then they sang the Lord's Prayer to a Carribean tune - even though I know the Lord's prayer pretty darn well, I could NOT figure out how to sing it to this tune and was lost! I stood there quietly for that part... :) Then they presented certificates to the school and students who had the best posters, banners, and poems, in 5 age groups, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place for each. That took like 45 minutes. Another prayer, another song, the benediction, then announcements. By now my butt is completely numb - and I have to use the bathroom.

This takes about forever b/c there's 3 stalls and 30 people ahead of me and for every one person that comes out, like, 3 kids skip me in line. I figure if I get left behind I can get a taxi to our final destination, whereas if these kids get left behind by their school they're kinda screwed, so I kept letting them in front of me. Of course, when I got out, my school had already been called to march in the parade and they were too far down the street for me to catch up. Plus I had my overnight bag w/ me and wasn't about to march 4 miles in noon, direct-sunlight heat w/ that thing. So I found the bus for a sister school of ours (our bus was MIA), and the teacher w/ a couple kids that couldn't march were in it and said to just ride w/ them. So I got out of marching, yay!

We rode to the end of the parade, picked up our kids and teachers sweating to death, rode to a nearby school where they fed us, then we headed home. Our bus ride was like 5 hours, and my Ipod made it about 3 hours... So by the time I reached home I was verrry ready for some peace and quiet! So that wraps up my Belize City trip. We had Monday off since we didn't get a weekend, and I didn't even leave the house, I just relaxed - it was great!

In Belize... Belize City, that is

2010-01-23T13:05:00.000-08:00

Wednesday and Thursday our principal was in Belize, where the rest of us joined her yesterday (Friday), so Tr. Terry took over her Standard V and VI classes, and the majority of our special ed kids were sent to their regular classes. I just had Max each morning, and had John and Keron in the afternoon, which was nice and relaxing. Painting and working on numbers, letters, and colors, as well as fine motor skills by playing solitaire on the computer, fun stuff. :) And in the mornings, Max is so much better behaved when others aren't around to egg him on or distract him, so we had a good couple of days too. And I kept the music on all day, which I love. I rotated through the cds Tr. Terry had hanging around and one had all these gospel songs I grew up singing and it made me really homesick for my church! Max listened to me bumbly sing along w/ Open the Eyes of my Heart, Sanctuary, Awesome God, Light the Fire, I will Worship You, You are Holy, and so many others - it was great!!

Yesterday we loaded up the bus w/ pikni and food and bags and headed up here to Belize for the Methodist School Conference this weekend. No one told me we'd be stopping at the Belize Zoo... I was wearing a skirt and sandals and now have huge red itchy welts covering my legs, like 30 of 'em! Stupid sand flies; I can't stop scratching! It was fun, though, I even saw several animals we'd somehow managed to miss when we went w/ all the Education PCV's back in training. And Junior the jaguar was going through his commands w/ the zookeeper, and we got to see him roll over and jump all over stuff on command - it was so cool! Tr. Nolbert and I were transfixed watching him til I turned to him and mentioned we hadn't heard pikni squeals in a while... They'd all left the zoo and were hanging out by the bus eating snacks and stuff; thankfully they hadn't left us! We made it into Belize a while later, which I was very grateful for b/c I'd been sharing my seat w/ a huge box of bananas and 2 buckets of sandwiches so I had no feet room (twisted into the aisle) and no back support (b/c I was twisted). We got everyone settled into the school classroom that was to be a dorm room for the night and all the kids and teachers moved the desks to the wall and found a spot to claim to put their sleeping bags and pillows on, then I got a taxi and came over to Pat and Keri's apartment.

Let me just say - Belize City PCV's have got it good up here! It looks just like an expensive American apartment, and it came fully furnished - like silverware, tv w/ cable, teapot - completely furnished! I'm using their computer right now, they have mirrors in the bathroom and a washer and dryer, and an oven, a hot water shower and everything! I love staying here! This morning I went to the doctor b/c PC wanted me to and I was already here in Belize so I didn't have to make a separate trip up here, then took a taxi to where sports day had already begun. I watched my school's kids mingling w/ other kids from all over the country, dancing, playing games, running races and sack races; we all had a great, sweaty time! I forgot to bring a hat, so I think I'm a bit pink, but tomorrow will be worse b/c we have to march, like, multiple miles in the heat after a morning service. Not sure why, but march we shall! Then we go to a local Methodist school (Christine's school, actually) for lunch and then head home (I feel like I live on a bus). I'll be staying w/ Christine in her apt. here tonight, and may be heading to a social w/ other teachers tonight, we'll see. Should be fun!

January's 1/2 over????

2010-01-19T12:43:00.000-08:00

I know, I know, I'm a big fat slacker... Sorry. But, hey, at least you didn't miss that much... Okay, what have you missed? Hmmm...

Well, school started back last Monday, and of course a recounting of Christmas stories was bound to happen. Not all the children got presents, but those that did were ridiculously excited that Santa brought them a single tiny matchbox car. Or a new bookbag - THAT was a serious celebration. I could feel my heart chipping off into little pieces as I imagined my students waking up on Christmas morning to no presents, or just one tiny one. My mind drifted over the traditional American Christmas morning scene, the extravaganza of presents, each bigger and more expensive than the one before it. An American child would scoff at getting a bookbag or new set of pencils as a present. That was definitely a you're-not-in-Kansas-anymore moment. Other than that, school swung back into normal mode. I was only there Monday and Tuesday last week, and am only there in the mornings on Tuesdays and Thursdays now, so really I was only there1 1/2 days. But they were enough to last me a week... Mainly b/c Tuesday morning Tr. Terry took Adrean into town to see the doctor b/c he wouldn't have gotten medical attention otherwise. That's not uncommon here. Teachers will take them to the doctor, buy the medicine, and everything, simply b/c the child will not be treated if they don't. Anyway, so they were in town, which left me to attend to the other 14 alone. And Max was there, and he's usually a one-on-one kinda handful. So it was a bit crazy, as you might imagine. It was a learning experience though, b/c I learned the pikni dehn are actually respsectful of me now, to a point. They're used to me being there, and although I don't discipline them, they see me as somewhat of an authority figure, and don't give me the trouble they used to, much to my delight and relief! There was never a time last Tues. when they were all behaving or on task, but I didn't feel exasperated or overwhelmed, and was very pleased w/ this revelation. :) Anyway, I picked a random kids' Bible lessons book and we did a morning devotional, and I led them in singing some of the songs that I've learned, while successfully avoiding the ones w/ lyrics I don't have down yet. "Father Abraham" is the best b/c they get to shake a body part as they sing it and getting them moving and singing in one is the best. Then those with work left from the day before worked on that (mostly), while the others were allowed to do s/thg quietly, so we ended up w/ some reading, some working puzzles, some fighting over the computer, and several making bead bracelets w/ me at the group table, with everyone helping watch over Max. There were a few moments of bedlam, but for the most part we survived unscathed.

Wednesday through Friday I was in Belmopan, working on the IRC once more. This beast just won't die! And we're still not done, we'll have to go do some more later as well, but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel, at least. This better be the best library/resource center in Peace Corps history by the time we're done w/ it! It was nice to be somewhere with internet and cell service for a few days though, b/c Brandon left for Arizona Thursday, so we got to IM Wednesday, and Thurs. and Fri. I called and talked to him briefly. Soooo excited he's out there, on his own, reaching for his dream - we should all be so lucky... Then again, he wasn't lucky, he made his own luck. I like nothing better than a go-getter, someone who has a dream and makes it happen! I also got to talk to Holly for a long time, for the first time since I got down here - I was so homesick for that thick Kentucky accent!! Made my day to get to talk to her. :) Took the bus back down Friday afternoon, opting for the regular bus that left at 4:30, but then watched the express bus that left at 5 pass us on the road, grrr... Got home 15 minutes later than if I'd waited that extra 1/2 hour for the express. Oh well. Saturday I took it easy, and Sunday I was by the roadside for 9:30, waiting for a bus, any bus, to come along and swoop me up so I could go grocery shopping and get some phone credit. After waiting over an hour, my landlady (who had passed me on the way to church and said nothing about my hopeless endeavor), coming back from church mentioned there wouldn't be a bus for another 2 1/2 hours, so I gave that up and rode my bike into town. NOTHING was open. Not A SINGLE store - even the Chinee shops were all closed. Most unusual. And yesterday I was at school for a staff meeting til after the buses stopped running... So, Sunday and yesterday I've lived on peanut butter, a can of corn, and dried cereal. Oh, and I made brownie batter and have been eating that raw, seeing as I have no oven to cook brownies in - I'm disgusting and I know this...

Which brings me to today! I got in bed last night at 10, tossed and turned til after 3, which has been the nightly ritual since I got my comfy new bed (my body is so used to the uncomfortable mattresses of Belize that it refuses to allow me to sleep on a comfortable mattress!) - thank goodness I got a wonderful, splendid, superfabulous Ipod player from my loving terrific mother for Christmas, or I'd've really lost my mind by now. The nights are the hardest. There's only one thing I miss from home - well, aside from Target and frozen tv dinners. Or should I say one person... And when you spend over 5 hours every night staring into the dark it's hard not to wallow... Wow, I got off track there. Anyway, so I didn't sleep much last night, and got up earlier than normal b/c the teachers were meeting again, before school, so I got there early, and tried to stay awake all morning. Thankfully it's Tuesday, so I had a half day and came into town for lunch, shopping, a package pickup (thanks Mom and Mama - I love my new sheets and stuff!), and internet. So now you're up to date. Well, on all the things you're privy to, anyway. A girl's gotta have her secrets, right? Now you're curious, I just know it. Oh well - maybe one day you'll get to know! ;) Hope you're all having a good 2010 so far!

New Year's extravaganza, part 2

2010-01-06T13:08:00.000-08:00

So snorkeling was the main reason I loved this New Year's Eve better than most, but the rest of the night was entertaining as well. I went to shower, but found myself 4th in line for the one bathroom the whole hostel shares, so wound up on the veranda chatting w/ the other hostel residents. 3 were from Finland, 3 from Canada, 2 from Sydney, Australia, and my roomie Carl is from Chicago. His story was actually the coolest, so I asked him a bunch of questions. He's 26 and is halfway through a 7 month tour of Central America on his motorcycle - alone! How brave! He starts a job in March or April or something, but wants to find s/o to keep his motorcycle down here for a year, then pick up his journey again next year and continue touring around. I'll bet he winds up w/ much cooler stories than I'll have after 2 years in the same place.

After I finally showered, I wandered around the island until I found a group of PCV's at a restaurant, which is how I decided what to eat for dinner that night. After food, came drinks, at the other hostel, which was really more of a cheapish hotel - it was really nice! All they had, as usual, was rum and mixers, so I went and bought my own vodka and juice to mix it with - only the second time I've bought alcohol down here; I figured it was a fitting occasion for a drink! We went to a bar, where I saw a guy scramble up a little makeshift "ladder" (holes dug into the wood for foot holes) to a little ledge that 's even w/ the roof next to the balcony we were already on. You KNOW I had to follow! Turns out the guy up there was Scott, one of the Canadians from my hostel I'd met earlier. If I held onto him for balance and raised on my tiptoes I could see over the roof all the way to the water! In all other directions I could see as far as my eyes would let me - what an amazing view! I carefully climbed back down and mingled for a bit, then realized most people were gone - presumably to the only other bar on the island. I found Kevin still there, but he didn't want to leave, so I walked alone to the other bar, by way of the moonlit beach, at 11:15 p.m. on New Year's Eve, and marveled at how I'd found myself right there right then. How magical...

At the other bar the rest were all going full force on the dance floor, so I joined in, and we bumped and jived until the countdown started. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing which unattached PCV's made mad dashes across the dance floor when the countdown began, hehe. Then it was midnight, happy new year yells, sweaty cheek kisses all around, and then more dancing, til Grace needed some water so I walked w/ her back to the hostel. She got some water, I got more to drink, then we just sat there, too lazy to walk back. For some reason I became obsessed w/ talking to John Scott, who I haven't heard a lick from since I got down here, but the phone lines were, predictably, completely tied up, though I tried for half an hour. Tried to call Brandon as well, tried to text several people - nothing. (I was receiving "Happy New Year!" texts as late as 2 days later - ones that had been sent at midnight from people who did manage to get through... The service is pretty iffy down here, even when it's not overloaded.) While we chilled on the couch, people trickled in and out, and eventually Grace and I just went back to our hostel and collapsed into bed.

I woke up the next morning to an empty room - Grace and Megan had caught an early boat to Belize to try to get home before 9p.m... I got up, gathered my stuff, and hung out at the other hostel til we all got the noon boat to the mainland. The ride was dry, but the sky looked pretty darn scary... As soon as we arrived the clouds opened up. We sloshed to a restaurant and ate lunch while waiting it out. Which is where The Creepy stepped in. At lunch I was at a table w/ Taylor, Lilly, and Amy, so it was 4 American girls sitting together, not very inconspicuous... As I moved around to sit down, getting up when we were leaving, trying to pay and get the heck outta there, etc., I was asked for my phone number, asked to go home w/ one skeezy looking guy who just loves to get to know foreigners, and was asked to dance by 2 others. But that's not the worst of it! While we were eating a man wanders up to our table, and during the whole exchange I'm about to describe, doesn't speak one word to us... He meanders over to our table, then just stands there staring at Taylor (our resident model, she's gorgeous), until she finally looks up at him and says, "What?" He bends his arms at the elbows and shimmies his hips side to side, I guess asking her to dance w/ him (all restaurants have super loud music booming non-stop, this one entertained us w/ YMCA, Girls just wanna have fun, and Michael Jackson). She said no thanks, then he looked Lilly in the eyes and pointed to her. She also said no, so he gestured to me, and I of course refused him, then he looked to Amy, who refused as well. Finally he looks back at Taylor, undeterred, and decides to show her just exactly what she's missing. He pulls up his dirty shirt and pauses w/ it just over his beer gut. I'm thinking, "Really?!?! He thinks this is a selling point???" But he just continues rising his shirt til it's pulled all the way up. Then he licks one finger on each hand and rubs his nipples! We all sat there w/ shocked expressions, and I'm about 2 seconds away from punching this guys beer belly clear through to his spine, when one of the guys working at the restaurant comes over and shoos him away. Good thing too, I'm not sure what would've happened otherwise is the best way to get integrated into the Belizean community, as we're supposed to be doing... We paid, amid more "invitations", and got the heck outta dodge.

We made it (via taxi, thankfully) to the bus terminal and waited, watching the rain, until the last bus heading South for the day - only 3 James buses, which run north to down south and PG were running for the holiday - arrived and we scrambled on. There was barely enough room for us, which led me to think when we arrived in Belmopan in an hour, the insanity would probably escalate as more people tried to fit on... I was not disappointed. First, I'm sitting there in my seat, scared to get off to use the bathroom b/c I see the crowd waiting to scramble onto the bus, which already is short on seats. And people are even more harried than normal b/c it IS the last bus for the day, and it's a holiday, and people want to get home. So the regular pushing and shoving begins, more intensified than normal... Next thing I know there's screaming, people trying like hell to get out of the way in the cramped aisle, and I literally see tufts of hair flying! In the sailor's cursing and top-of-your-voice screeching that followed as two women we forcefully dragged from the bus, I gathered that the Belizean woman who beat the white girl to the point of needing medical attention was the ex-girlfriend of the white lady's current boyfriend. Not sure if a snide comment was made or not towards the ex as instigation, but not necessarily, b/c I've noticed just seeing the current flame of a woman's ex will generally be enough to start a scuffle down here...

That drama begins to deescalate about 10 minutes later, and the fact that there's still a packed-to-the-brim bus sitting in the terminal, running late already, becomes the next problem. If there's one place you need to worry about not being allowed onto a bus b/c it's full, it's the Belmopan bus terminal. They're strict in the capital city! 2 to a seat, no more, and no one standing in the aisles. This is usually skirted by the excess passengers getting off the bus and running around the corner to where the bus passes after leaving the terminal compound and they'll just pick them up there. I've even employed this practice myself multiple times, without problem. Well, with emotions already running high, people were refusing left and right to even get off the bus. I've never heard such language in my life! Sexual favors were promised in explicit detail, curse words used in combinations that made me blush, beatings were promised in explicit detail... It was pure madness. All that screaming and pleading went on for about 15 minutes until those that did have a seat were so mad at being made late and possibly missing connecting buses into their villages that they started shoving those in the aisles off the bus. One man was very unhappy about this, to put it mildly. The police were threatened to be called, and he said bring it on. The government was verbally ripped to shreds. The threats and taunts were at a maximum. Finally, one woman in a seat told him to take her seat so he could be sitting, the bus could go, and she'd catch it at the corner. We were finally on our way. But then the bus flew right past all those that had disembarked and were waiting around the corner to get back on. Those on the bus yelled at and berated the driver until he stopped, another block up, but the reason he passed them quickly became clear. The terminal authority had followed our bus, to make sure just such a skirting of rules didn't happen this holiday... While he yelled at the driver for stopping, those that had been passed ran up and climbed on the bus through the back. The authority took another verbal beating while getting them off the bus a second time. Then the lady who gave up her seat wanted it back b/c she'd given it thinking she'd catch it at the corner, and she had pikni to get home to and "**** this and **** that, I want my *******ing seat back!" Which the jerk was, of course, unwilling to relinquish... That whole tirade finally ended w/ the woman stalking off the bus, proclaiming it was bound to crash anyway and she didn't WANT to be on it anyway!!! An older white man made some comment about the craziness and he was immediately pounced on and berated and called every derogatory white person or old person name one could think of, and I found myself a little bit afraid being white and on this bus was now not the best idea... But eventually the bus started moving again. There were numerous jeers and taunts and promises to hunt loudmouths down yelled out the window at those who'd put up a fuss as we pulled away from those stuck in Belmopan for the night. So that was our lively Belmopan stop - 45 minutes longer than it should've been, which did indeed mean those trying to get to their villages via another bus were too late to their stop to catch it and were stranded in a nearby city for the night anyway...

But at least I made it home! After being haggled for a bit by two boisterous, drunk, obnoxious guys I managed to finally ward them off and put in my headphones to drown out their loud annoying behavior until I got home. But not before hedging repeatedly around their questions about where I live... I eventually told them "I'm in PG most of the time", but then one of them was still on the bus when I got off, and he eyed me as I got off in front of my house, which makes me a bit uneasy, him knowing where I live. But not nearly as uneasy as what happened next... It's after 9 by now, I've been traveling for over 9 hours, I'm exhausted and hungry, but when I got off (along w/ a creepy man who full out stared at me every time the lights came on in the bus, and I'm not sure but don't think he knew my neighbors, which leads me to believe he was getting off b/c he saw me getting off there alone...) the girls who live under me, and my neighbors were all standing right there by the side of the road. So I called out Happy New Year to everyone and was waving and being nice and friendly. Then my neighbor came over w/ his arms outstretched in front of him. I thought, "Oh, a new year's hug, how nice!" Well, when I leaned in to hug him my stomach hit his hands, which immediately triggered in my mind that he was actually drunkenly asking me to dance w/ him. Ugh. Well, I started pulling away as soon as I realized my one way hug was a mistake, but by then he'd snaked his arms around me and wasn't letting go. I gave a half laugh and said "okay, that's enough", but he still wasn't loosening his arms, but in fact, holding me tighter. I repeated "That's enough!" Nothing. After what felt like a minute but was probably a second and a half, I forcefully shoved him off of me and jogged to the stairs without looking back. AWKWARD! I haven't seen him since, but he no longer gets the time of day from me, I've decided.

And THAT was my eventful New Year's Eve and Day. So much adventure I don't know what to do w/ it. I didn't leave my apt. for the next 3 days - I just enjoyed the solitude. :) Hope you all had a great holiday, avoided getting mauled by your neighbors, and are all jealous you didn't spend it petting sharks in the Caribbean!

BEST NEW YEAR'S EVE EVER!

2010-01-04T12:35:00.000-08:00

And most uncomfortable New Year's DAY ever... Let me explain - but this will take several blog updates, b/c you must hear it in detail to fully appreciate the fun and the awkwardness!! :)

Wednesday, Jan. 30th, I took the 6a.m. express bus, which many other beach-bound PCV's were on as well, up to Belize, where we walked across the city, lugging our heavy bags, in the rain. Super fun. Got to the boat, was buying our tickets, when I found out there was no bank on Caye Caulker... So I made a mad dash back across town to the bank and back, right as everyone was lining up to get on the water taxi. A mere 45 minutes later we were basking in the sun, stepping off the boat onto the pure white sand and reveling in the crystal clear water that appeared green or blue, depending on how deep it was. We checked into a couple hostels, and I ended up in a dorm room w/ Grace and Megan, and we had a 4th roommate, who was never in the room, as far as I saw, but his name was Carl. We walked the beach, met up w/ the others already there, got a late lunch (traveling there took 8 hours, start to finish), signed up for snorkeling the next day, and just hung around.

I had only slept for 1 hour the night before, and didn't sleep on the bus like usual, so I was exhausted, and opted for bed when the rest were hitting the karaoke bar at 10:30 that night. Therefore, I was refreshed and happy when I awoke the next day ready for a fun-filled day on a boat, while the others were hung over and nauseated. :) Only one actually got sick, but everyone else looked pretty green... There were 18 of us total, and we had an awesome day, once the boat stopped moving and they all felt better. At our first destination we discovered my mask and fins had been loaded onto the other boat. Never daunted, I dove right in and frolicked without any gear, happy as a clam, just soooo excited just to be in the water. For the last 10 minutes or so, the captain gave me his free diving mask, w/ no nose rubber part, just a big oval that covers your whole face. A little cumbersome b/c my face is much smaller than his, but the view was amazing, much more sparklingly clear than regular masks. The water and fish and coral were all just so beautiful! I hung around Megan a lot b/c she'd never been snorkeling and couldn't figure out her mask and kept breathing through her nose and kicked w/ her fins by bending at the knee, thus expending much more energy than just slowly moving your whole leg up and down, etc. So I helped her out and gave her tips til she got used to the gear. That was Coral Gardens.

Once we got moving again we went to the other boat and they threw my stuff to our boat, along w/ someone else's fins, one of which landed in the water and quickly floated and started sinking a ways behind the boat. Without thinking I dove straight in and rescued it, for which Captain Amado was grateful. After this he took a liking to me, in a protege kind of way. I stood on the back of the sailboat (my first time on one!) w/ him and we talked about scuba diving, Belize, Nicaragua where he's from, and spear fishing, which he does and which sounds sooo exotic and hard. At stop 2, he and the deckhand, Rastaman, threw fish in the water by the boat and the sharks and rays came flying to us! No one was too eager to get in the water after watching them thrash about the side of the boat in their feeding frenzy, but I was undeterred, naturally! I hopped in, and Amado took some pictures of me w/ the nurse sharks swirling around me. I touched many of them (their tails only - I'm not stupid!), and they felt so coarse and smooth at the same time, it was very cool. That stop we stayed at for another hour or so, and Amado gave me a fish w/ the head pulled off and I held it wrapped in my hand w/ the open part sticking out the top and little electric blue fish the size of my hands came and pecked at the fish guts spilling out the top. I've got lots of tiny lacerations on my fist from their teeth missing the mark in their rush to get at the food! Rastaman got in the water and held a manta ray and we all got to pet the fin, also very cool! I sooo enjoyed just being in the beautiful, beautiful water and feeling the cool water rush over my body. I love nothing more than being in the water... There was an even more gorgeous view everywhere I turned under the water, so awesome! I was always the first in the water, and the last out, and everyone started calling me a fish. They were all getting tired and sore and the next day they all complained about aching muscles, but I felt neither the slightest bit weary of swimming or any soreness the next day. Maybe I am part fish! I've always said I'd want to be a dolphin if I could... :)

On the way to the last stop Amado told me to steer the boat while he helped Rastaman w/ the sails, and when he came back told me to stick by him in the water on the next stop so he could see me swim. When we got there, Rastaman took 1/2 and the rest went w/ Amado and our guides took us through a channel in the reef, and it was the first stop where there was any depth. I was tantalized by the sand 20-30 feet below us; it was beckoning to me. The first time I spotted divers lazily floating along the bottom I was so jealous! But it will be me soon, I vow this... Amado, with his mask sans snorkel that I'd borrowed earlier, kept diving down halfway to look at cool things in the coral up close. I asked if I could dive down a bit as well, and he said sure. No one else seemed to want to, but I repeatedly dove down a bit here and a bit there to get better views of things lower down. I kept my hand on my nose and cleared my ears frequently, and had no problem - maybe my ear won't give me any more problems! We followed our guide around a while, then came to a spot where he pointed out a small underwater cave about 25 feet down. He swiftly dove down and through it, then invited anyone else who wanted to, to have a hand at it. I, of course, wasn't going to pass up this opportunity! I'm the only one, out of both groups, actually, who managed it, but most didn't even try it. It was a skinny little thing, and I passed right over a huge long eel settled on the bottom, and little fishies were hiding in the coral on either side of me. :) I hadn't even caught my breath after rocketing back up to the surface from that when Amado sent me to the bottom. "Just touch it and come back up", he said, like it's nothing. It was over 30' to the bottom! I wasn't sure why he was asking me to do this, or why he'd said he wanted to see me swim, but I was in the mood to impress, so I did it. I gasped for a full minute after coming up, but Amado said I'd passed his little test, and I could be a spear fisher if I wanted. I just needed to slow my descent a bit so as not to scare the fish... Cool!! When we'd talked earlier about spear fishing versus rod fishing I hadn't thought I'd be able to do that, but Amado says if our little Peace Corps group comes back to Caye Caulker during our 2 years, he'd try to find time to let me try my hand at spear fishing. How awesome is that!? That last stop was my favorite, I just loved the depth and getting to dive down a bit...

On the way home, Amado told me to point the boat towards that little island way in the distance, which I did. Then he left! He went to help Rastaman prepare the rum punch for everyone, which they all enjoyed tremendously. I steered the boat the whole way home. At one point Amado came up and said he gets one of his passengers to drive the boat in every day, and he'd never seen someone who'd never been on a sailboat hop in and first time, steer it in a perfectly straight course, other than himself. I'm a natural, apparently. I wasn't too surprised, it was just like steering any boat w/ a rudder determining the course - and the boat meandered so slowly, I could almost close my eyes and pretend I was in Grand Isle steering The Turtle w/ it's tiny rudder motor, to the marina for a candy bar... :) *bittersweet sigh*

At one point we passed a boat when we were near the end of our mixers supply, and we all jumped and waved and yelled and got them to stop. We asked for juice or s/thg to mix our rum w/ and said we'd share our alcohol if they wanted. The response was, "We're a CHURCH GROUP!!!" Haha, ooops! But their captain threw us 3 fantas so we had a nice fruity concoction to down on our way in. I only had 1, but of course the others were considering this a warm up for later that night (New Year's Eve, baby!!!) and enjoyed themselves generously. When we docked, Amado and Rastaman came w/ us to a bar right on the beach there and everyone had beers together. I thanked them for the super fabulous day, then left them all to their celebratory beers and headed back for a shower...

This is where I must leave you for the time being, as the post office parcel area closes at 4 and I'm waiting on a very special package that will surely arrive any day now!!! More tomorrow, hopefully.... :)

Christmas in Belize

2009-12-29T07:21:00.000-08:00

I went to Belmopan last Mon. through Wed. to work on the IRC (resource library for PCV's), which we made a lot of progress in, but still have much work left to do before the construction can begin. We're cataloguing every book and figuring out what's old and outdated, what we can keep and get rid of, what we need to order newer publications of, etc. Then they'll be knocking down the wall separating the IRC and the PCV lounge to make it one big room, for several reasons I won't bore you with, but it'll be much better in the long run. Just lots of tedious work in the meantime. I was a bit worried about taking the 5:00 express bus South on the day before Christmas Eve, but we needed the whole last day in the IRC, so I just crossed my fingers and went for it. Turns out, I was right to be worried! The bus, coming from Belize, was completely full before it even reached Belmopan, and only 5 people got off in BMP, while about 10 of us wanted on... So I was stuck w/ the regular bus, but it only goes the 2 hours to Dangriga at that time of day, so the Express bus got to Dangriga ahead of us (b/c it doesn't stop, whereas the regular stops for everyone wanting to get on and will let anyone off at any place), and then it parked and waited for us to get there after it. Not that there was any more room on it in Dangriga... But they couldn't turn us away, so we stood in the aisles. As seats became available, the unscrupulous people shoved and pushed to reach them first, which I'm uncomfortable doing, so I stood until one became available and there was no one to try to beat me to it - which took 2 hours. My feet and back were killing me! Walking for 2 hours straight, no problem, but standing still for 2 hours - that hurts!

Made it home for 9:15, went to bed shortly afterwards, then woke up on Christmas Eve going, "now what?" With nothing special to do, I took a broom to my apartment, and swept til my hands were blistered and I was dripping sweat from every pore in my body. It needs a good mopping, but I haven't bought the cleaner yet, so that'll be done later. It looks much better though, without the piles of dust, nails, bits of concrete and other grossness that was just hanging around the floor which hadn't been cleaned since the construction of the building was finished. Tried to take a refreshingly cool shower after being so hot, but the water was gone (they turn the water off during mid day most days - it can be quite frustrating), so I cooled off while waiting for it to come back on, then took a freezing shower and spent the rest of the night working the Holly and Summer puzzle and reading. I was supposed to ride my bike into town to sleep at a PCV's house who was hosting a bunch of people, but I was feeling lazy when I was supposed to leave, and then it was dark and the opportunity had passed. Not the best decision, as it turns out; the night was pretty lonely. I spent some time missing the holiday traditions I knew were going on at home without me, then spent a while feeling sorry for all those who have no traditions or family to spend the holidays with, and I felt blessed to know that this will likely be the only Christmas in my life that I'm alone.

Christmas morning I woke up lazily at 10, rode into town to get cell reception, got pissed b/c none of my calls would go through, and then it finally worked. Talked to Mom and Mama $32 worth, then called Brandon, but only talked to him for MAYBE 2 minutes before my cell died. :( Rode home, spent the day reading, doing whatever, nothing special. Wasn't sad at all like Christmas Eve though, so that's good. I walked over to my host family's house but only one person was there, so I left the kids' gifts there and went back home. Pretty quiet holiday!

Since then I've been in the house most of the time, whiling away the hours, and usually only leaving the house to go jogging or ride my bike, since I'm forcing myself to get back into some kind of shape. Lost a turtle for a while, that was interesting. I let them crawl around the apartment so they have some kind of stimulation and one found a good hiding spot for a while last night. Thankfully I found him after a 2nd thorough searching of the apartment. Today everything's back open (was closed for Boxing Day observance yesterday), and I have errands to run, so I'm in PG this morning, hiding out in the computer lab, waiting til the rain stops so I can walk around and get stuff done. And tomorrow I'm on a bus at 6 a.m. heading to Caye Caulker til New Year's Day! A bunch of PCV's are going the tourist route for New Year's and I'm super excited! I haven't been to any of the cayes (pronounced keys) yet - it should be beautiful and very fun!

So that's all my news for now... I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas holiday and have a blessed New Year!! Miss you all!

Cranky day turns GREAT!

2009-12-20T12:34:00.000-08:00

So, after typing up my blog last time I went out to wait for the only bus that leaves PG after 5 p.m. - the 9 p.m. bus. I waited 45 minutes before admitting I was stranded. I texted my host mom and she texted back to get a taxi. Well, there are no taxis just lounging around at 10 p.m., and it didn't sound like she was willing to come pick me up, so I asked a PCV who lives in town if I could stay w/ her. She said yes, but already had 2 other girls in her spare bedroom, so that left me on the concrete floor in the living room in a sleeping bag, using Misty's pants rolled up as a pillow. That is, until a roach was discovered crawling around... Then I dragged the getup into the hammock and proceeded to have one of the most uncomfortable nights ever. I didn't eat concrete in the middle of the night, like I was afraid would happen, but in order to avoid that, I didn't move a muscle all night. Nor did I sleep. So we all went for breakfast the next morning, then I got a bus back to my village, threw the things I'd bought the day before down, and crawled into bed w/ my sleep mask over my eyes. Woke up at 2:30, showered, brushed my teeth (felt so nice!), then headed over to my apt. to see how it was all coming.

Surprise - it's ready!! She'd been telling me "Sat., it'll be ready Sat." but I've heard that at least half a dozen times already, so I didn't believe her until it came true. I raced home and started throwing stuff into bags and made several trips w/ stuff on my back and bags swinging from the handlebars until one trip I arrived at the house and Melanie had come home. She offered to bring heavy stuff in the car, so I got my microwave and a suitcase full of random stuff over there, then spent the next 7 hours nesting. It was great! I froze to death last night, but not having a comforter, there's not much I can do. I'll have the rest of my clothes w/ me tonight after we bring the last of my stuff (including the turtles), so I'll sleep in sweatpants and a sweatshirt and be snug as a bug in a rug. I did manage to misplace my cell phone and Ipod chargers, so those will both die soon and be dead until I can get my hands on more chargers, but other than that it's been great! The landlady, Mrs. Judy, sent the girls upstairs last night w/ fresh, hot flour tortillas and stew beans, along w/ a bottle of yummy Belizean orange lemonade, so I had a delicious hot meal for dinner, which was much appreciated! AND, I got a text last night from the lady who runs the Belmopan Humane Society, and she just rescued a 1.5 year old male rottweiler - just what I'm looking for, and right as I move into my own place so I'm able to get a dog. This could be perfect! I'm going up to Belmopan tomorrow morning for the 3 day marathon library fixing up thing, so I'll be able to meet him while I'm there. I'll let y'all know how it goes!

Best cardio workout ever!

2009-12-18T18:08:00.000-08:00

But let me back up a bit first. The Christmas pagaent at school was fun, and I got lots of good pictures and videos of various pikni and their classes singing, signing, doing skits, reenacting the first Christmas, and more. But youtube has resolutely refused to upload anything, both yesterday and today, and having tried on 4 different computers. At least the pictures uploaded to kodakgallery today, b/c they wouldn't upload yesterday either. You'll get those later though. The computers have been acting up all day yesterday and today (I've been in here 4 hours each day), but they better straighten out soon b/c my camera is full! I have to upload the videos to free up space before I can take more!

Thursday was class party day, and there were fun games, such as musical chairs, dance contests, a popular game w/ marbles kids play a lot here, and lots of good food! Around 1:30, once it was clear only madness and mayhem would reign for the rest of the afternoon, I left early... Carrying turtles. Our special ed class has pet turtles, and apparently they're on the 14th, 15th, and 16th turtles in their short 3 year history. The problem is that over every break (3 weeks for Christmas, 2 weeks for Easter, and 2 months for summer) they're always left alone in the classroom. No food, no fresh water. Hmm, imagine that, they die. No one seems to think this is in the least bit inhumane or even plain not nice. So I politely told them I was taking them home for the holidays - I'm sure they'll love it w/ me! They'll get fed regularly, and have clean water all the time, and I plan on having outings playing in the yard so they're free of their tiny rectangle for little bits of time. :) So I carryed them home, but only 2 of them made it there. The reason for this is that one of them, the one a student found and brought in 2 weeks ago, has taken to biting chunks out of the other two whenever he feels like it. This is not okay w/ me. So I decided to free him. The pikni can complain about it later, I don't care. But the original 2 are much happier since I freed them of their attacker, I've already noticed. One already tried a new escape by climbing onto my purse, though, which I had carelessly left leaning against their container, but I learned my lesson fast. They're captive once more, which I feel bad about b/c they obviously want to find an escape route, but I'm pretty sure the class would revolt if I freed all of their captive animals....

Then last night, the teachers all got together at a delicious restaurant in town for a Christmas dinner/goodbye dinner for teacher Elon - the one who was our tour guide at the shrimp farm. He's going to work at an organic farm near this resort near our village, so won't be coming back to school after the break. We don't know who his replacement will be, the ministry of education picks them out up in Belize and just lets us know whenever they feel like it, I guess. I'm sad to see him go though, b/c he and Tr. Ellia are my two favorites. They're the most engaging, always seeking me out to talk to and saying hello in the mornings and including me in conversations whenever we're all together. He lives w/ his wife and kids just up the road though, so I'm sure I'll still run into him and his family now and then. After a HUGE delicious dinner of ham, turkey, stuffing, rolls, salad, potato salad, rice and beans, and pasta, he and another teacher who has a vehicle dropped people off, whoever was on their way home. Since I'm just up the road from Tr. Elon, he drove me home, which was cool b/c I got to talk to him more about what he'll be doing. He told me about Machaca Hills Rainforest Canopy Resort, which is owned by the people that own the organic farm he'll be working on, and he pointed it out to me on the ride home. Which brings me to this morning...

So today is the first of 3 weeks of free days for me. I slept late - til 9 a.m., can you believe that's late for me now??? Ate some cereal, did the laundry (only getting into the ants once!), then hit the road on my bike, ready to sweat. I rode the 3 miles to the base of the mountain the resort is on, then discarded my bike against a tree and hoofed it up the very steep incline straight up the side of the mountain to the resort at the top. Dripping sweat and red faced, I walked into the main room of most gorgeous place I've seen in Belize. It's the perfect rainforest getaway! Uber expensive, and equally lavish, I toured the place w/ the lady at the front desk and was shown a room, my eyes oogling at every turn. Each of the 12 separate little lodges have an unobstructed view of the rainforest they're suspended in, including a bathroom w/ a shower that's the size of my current bedroom, w/ a glass wall in the shower looking straight into the forest as well. Did I mention the in-shower stone bench and multiple shower heads to caress you from every angle??? Uh, yeah!!! Then I walked down the 365 steps to the boat house where a boat will take you around to PG so you don't have to go via the road if you don't want to. By now my legs are quivering every time I stop moving... Rested there about 10 minutes, then climbed the 365 steps back up to the resort (stopping for a break every 50 steps, lest I DIE!). Got some figures from the front desk lady about when it's the cheapest and some prices, b/c I'm totally staying there one night while I'm here! I'll treat Brandon and myself to a lavish, lap of luxury evening when he comes to visit. :) I walked back down to my bike; even going downhill my legs were shaking! On the ride home I realized, "I'm on a dirt road w/ only 2 houses on it for the next 2 miles, why not get some sun?" So I hiked up my shirt sleeves and my shorts as high as they'd go b/c I've noticed I'm definitely getting darker on my face, forearms, and lower legs from being in the sun a lot, but the parts that don't see the sun are as pale as ever. I did have to hurriedly hike my shorts back down to cover my pasty thighs when a car passed me once, though. :)~ Made it home, went straight to take a gloriously (for once) freezing shower, then lay on my bed and gave my legs a much deserved break! I love being able to take a mid-day nap if I should so choose... These next 3 weeks will be relaxing, for sure! :)

Ralph returns, dumdumdum

2009-12-15T11:37:00.000-08:00

Got home Saturday after typing that pity party in the bitter barn blog, to family drama insane enough to warrant a trip to the Jerry Springer show, w/ plotlines befitting a soap opera. Lots ot trauma, turmoil, and yelling in the house. I went and stayed in my room the rest of the day. That night at 1 a.m. a drunk man came up onto our porch and ranted and raved until Mrs. Joann threatened to call the police. I just love that my room, which is directly on the porch, has a door that won't lock. The whole village knows I live in that room of that house, and I was just waiting for him to stumble in. Thank God, he didn't, and eventually went away. Half an hour later, my little friend Ralph made a return visit (is it bad that I've named the rat?). He scurried down the wall, under my bed, and set up shop. I plugged in the light and read Jaws - admittedly not the best book when you're already jumping at every sound - until he skittered back up the wall by my pillows and out by the roof again. Then I banged on the wall until Mrs. Ana let me in and I stayed on the couch in the living room all night, NOT sleeping. I just sat there, listening to the rats scurrying around in the kitchen and the next room. At one point Mrs. Flo came out, took one look at me, and said, "Rat in your room?" I nodded and she said "I've got lots in mine" and held her hands about 7 inches apart. I said, "How do you SLEEP???" She half shrugged and said, "I'm not." By 5:30 the whole house was up and the blender was going full force, making food to sell at the futbol tournament later that day, so I just got up.

Rode my bike into town and called Mom and woke her up at 7:30 to talk me down, and she basically said I needed to sleep, b/c the rest wouldn't be as bad once I wasn't sleep deprived. She was right, and so I rode my bike back home and, hoping I was at least safe in the daylight, slept from 10-12:15. Then I put up the mosquito net PC gave us that I never used b/c mosquitoes aren't a huge problem in my room. I feel like that flimsy barrier between me and big fat Ralphie gives me an added layer of protection, at least mentally. I've managed to sleep the last 2 nights, relatively well.

School is gearing up to shut down. Tomorrow we only have regular classes in the morning, then have our Christmas pageant in the afternoon. And Thursday we have our class parties - that should be a blast. The kids have been practicing their songs and the older girls are going to sign along w/ Silent Night, it should be nice as well. Then, as of Friday, we're out until Jan. 11th. A 3 week break! And the high schools are out for a whole month, they sure love that. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do w/ all my free time, but I'm going to get started on the Punta Gorda Humane Society during the break, I know that. And I'll be in Belmopan working more on the library this Monday through Wednesday. And I'll hopefully be in my apartment sometime this year, so I can be blissfully alone as much as I want. :)

No plans for Christmas, they don't do much in the way of traditions here, just go to midnight mass at the Catholic church on Christmas Eve. Maybe I'll see if some other nearby PCV's are getting together or anything, just to not spend the day alone, we'll see. It doesn't even feel like Christmas, w/ few houses having money to put up lights, and no one really buys presents for people, and it being 90+ degrees and all. Should be a pretty quiet event! I pray you're all doing well this holiday season and have a very Merry Christmas! I'm sure you'll hear from me before the actual holiday, but you never know. Love and miss you all!!

Sanity - it's all relative

2009-12-12T10:29:00.000-08:00

Let's see, since my last post, which was Monday the 7th, NOT Thursday the 3rd, like blogspot says, I've been moving and shaking like normal. I find it laughable that I said many hands should make light work about the library project. That Monday morning each of us 6 volunteers took one of the 9 bookcases and wrote down all the pertinent info on each and every book. At the end of Monday we were all a little delirious and hadn't even gotten 1/2 through our bookcase. So we stayed overnight and worked on it more the next day as well - still only barely got through my bookcase, and the others hadn't yet, so there's more yet to be done. I just got an email about us going back for 3 more days in a week or so to work on it more.

Amy, who also lives far away from Belmopan in Toledo as well, and I took the 5 o'clock express bus going south and almost made it there, when the bus died. We stood on the side of the road for a while waiting for a regular bus to pass by and pick us all up. Finally home, at 9:30, I collapsed into bed and went to school the next day even though I was feeling bad, which had started at noon the day before. I was dragging and felt like I was gonna be sick, so I left at 2:30. Thursday I left at lunch, and Friday I didn't go in at all. I'm feeling better now, thankfully, and never actually got sick, just felt bad the whole time and had a 101 fever for a while. Good news is I saved money on food and probably lost a pound b/c I didn't eat much for a couple of days there. :)

In other news, the windows, tub, and toilet FINALLY arrived for my soon-to-be apartment - only to discover the windows don't fit and the tub will take a while to hook up. And so the waiting game begins all over again. I think I might just lose that weak hold on my sanity after all. I, Emily Herrod, have many talents as well as many faults, and have learned much about myself in the last 10 years of living on my own. One thing I have learned is that I am not made to live with more than one or maybe two other people for any length of time. I lived w/ one of my best friends Cara-Lyn and her husband and son for 5 months a while ago, but that doesn't count b/c it was as comfortable as living w/ family. In general, I don't need more than one roommate to feel like I'm crowded... I also don't do well w/ feeling homeless and displaced, which has been my constant state for 4 months now. The this-is-Peace-Corps-life and it's-only-a-matter-of-time-before-I-get-my-own-place-anyway optimism is wavering, and in its place is the much less fun to peruse thought of I'm-losing-my-mind. Other PCV's have been in their own place for almost a month, some longer than that, while I continue to wait. And wait. And wait. And wait some more. It's gotten to where every little thing makes me crazy. The rats tap dancing over my head and squeaking soooo loudly all night every night 3 feet above my head. The tv and radio both blaring from 5:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. (how do they listen to both at once anyway?) The sheer noise factor of living w/ 7 people, 3 of them children (and one of them a 1.5 year old, who, naturally, cries and screams a lot), in a small space. And the lack of escape possibilities, other than on my bike. I want my car, dammit. I want to drive far and fast. Driving has been my therapy since I was 15, and that's taken away, along w/ the ability to call and talk to friends who've helped me through tough patches before. I can't just call Summer or Holly (who pulled me through a 7 month mini-depression a while back) for hour long talks about whatever's bothering me, or dial up Matt (who's plugged along through various tough spots) for 5 minute chats multiple times a day like I'm used to. Instead I manage to dump it all on Mom and Brandon, mostly Brandon, through texting their email addresses. My craziness is supposed to spread out among my friends and family and it's being doused squarely upon 2 people's shoulders. Not fair for them, but it's my only option really. I thank God they're both so supportive.

Deep breaths. One day at a time. No, scratch that, one hour at a time. Pray. Ipod, lots of Ipod and earplugs. Optimism. Just keep telling myself it will work out soon. Just don't know how much longer I'll be able to keep believing myself. Pretty soon I'll realize myself for the liar this situation is making me out to be.

Ahhh, the Peace Corps roller coaster. It was promised and expected and still sucks as much as if I didn't know it was coming.

RATS - literally AND figuratively!

2009-12-03T15:32:00.000-08:00

Monday after the funeral and my super long blogging session in town, I got home and found a huge rat on my bed! He ran across my pillows, clambered up the wall, and squeezed out a tiny space between the zinc and the wall. EWWW... Creepy, but at least it's gone. Yeah, well, then a smaller rat popped up as well, and this one couldn't find the escape route - he disappeared under my bed, and although we searched for him for a while, he never resurfaced. Which means I slept very uneasily that night. And every night since I can hear them louder than usual squeaking at the top of their voices and scratching along the zinc over my head all night long. I can even hear it through my ear plugs, it's so annoying.

But something to be endured, b/c my apt. I'm going to rent is still not completed. The landlady ordered the windows, tub, and toilet a month ago and is still waiting for them to be delivered so she can have them installed. She's been told by at least 4 people to call the truck company EVERY DAY until they deliver it, but she still only checks in w/ them once or twice a week, and they always tell her "maybe next Wed.", b/c they only deliver down South on Wednesdays. It is extemely frustrating, and expensive as well, b/c I'm paying rent to my host family to stay w/ them while I wait and it's more than 3 times more expensive than my own place will be. I finally had to talk to them about it and ask if I could buy and cook my own food and pay them less b/c otherwise I won't have any money left when I DO move in to buy a fridge, washer, etc.

In the meantime, I'm going to school every day except I'm now leaving at lunch on Tues. and Th. to work on my secondary project, which I've decided will be to get a humane society going in Punta Gorda. And this weekend I went up to Belize to shop for cheaper appliances, walked 10 miles in the 90 degree sweltering heat hefting my really heavy bag around for 4 hours - only to discover the prices I found down in PG were actually better!!! Paid to ride the bus up, spent my weekend doing that, my shoulders are positively aching and my face and arms are sunburned, for nothing. But at least I got to stay w/ Christine and see her - plus I broke down and finally watched New Moon on her bootlegged version. I WILL see it in a theater eventually though! Belize was going to get it, but it hasn't yet and I can't afford a trip to Mexico right now, so it'll have to wait. Yesterday I came to Belmopan, where I am now, and stayed w/ Heather, where we watched her bootlegged version of The Ugly Truth (another reason to have a computer down here - watch movies!), and played w/ her puppy Trafford. I slept on the floor for the first time, as she doesn't have a spare bed yet, and things like a bed frame for her room, a spare bed, and table and chairs all come as the money allows. And now I'm here at the PC HQ preparing to help inventory and catalogue all the books in the PCV library and resource center so we can reorganize the space. Should be an all day ordeal, but we have several people who volunteered to be on this committee, so many hands should make light work. :) Heading back South this afternoon, to be back at school in the a.m. I'm off to charge my iPod while we work!

A 2nd Thanksgivings, a vacation, and a funeral

2009-11-30T17:30:00.000-08:00

After I told you about the all PC Thanksgiving dinner, several people did in fact show up for game night, and we had a hilarious and very fun 2 hours playing Apples to Apples, and Bananagrams. Some people use the adjectives you collect in Apples to Apples and say they describe you - if so I'm upbeat and ritzy. :) Back at Garden City the rest of the people too full to walk from the hotel to the PC HQ for games were living it up on the 3rd floor, and we got back just in time for the mustache competitions. The guys have been growing mustaches for the last month to raise money for a local organization and those that competed were met w/ a number of tasks/competitions to participate in to come to a final best "stache" award. The 'stache bash contained, among others, a mustache single hair follicle strength test, absorbency test, general desirability test, etc. There were intricate rules devised to decide who won what. The strength test was the funniest, where they attached a cup to a single strand of mustache hair and then poured bottlecapfuls of water into the cup to see whose hair could hold the most water weight before pulling the hair out. I happened to film the one that ended up winning, with 5 capfuls, and if you'd like to see how this works, wander over to youtube.com and search for eherrod's videos. It's pretty hilarious.

The next day was the actual Thanksgiving holiday and PCV's scattered to the four corners for various celebrations. Not really having anywhere else to go and not wanting to go home yet, I ended up staying in Belmopan and had dinner at Bryan and Marla's house (Bryan being the current Country Director stand-in, APCD for the Youth and BizOrg programs stand-in, and Program and Training Manager, and general swellest person you could ever hope to meet), who generously opened their doors and their tables to PCV's who had nowhere else to spend the holiday. About a dozen of us showed up and we were there from 1-7. It was like a real Thanksgiving, in a house, w/ the Macy's Parade on the tv, 2 dogs and 2 cats wandering around getting so much attention we wore them out, delicious smells whipping through the house, and general hanging out and having a good cozy old time. It was a spectacularly wonderful day. I called random PCV's who live in Belmopan trying to find a place to sleep and Heather said even though she had headed to Cayo I could get her keys from her neighbor and stay in her bed. That meant I got to play w/ her adorable puppy all night! He was SUCH a lover, and we're good pals now. :)

Friday morning I got the express bus at 6:30 and headed south, almost to PG, but disembarked instead in Independence and hiked a ways w/ my huge bag to the water taxi called the Hokey Pokey. That dropped me off at Placencia, a gorgeous tourist destination, and I had a taxi take me to a hostel other PCV's have stayed at very cheap. My friends Alyson and Clifton had gone home the day before and were going to meet me there that night. I spent all day walking the beach, or just standing in the water or sitting on the edge of the beach, watching the gorgeous blue/green water hit the beach over and over again. It was very relaxing and allowed much meditation time. I missed Brandon a lot. I also slept in the hammock at the hostel facing the water for a couple hours. Around 7:30 I finally hear from Clifton and he says they checked into a more expensive hotel on their own. Okayyyy, well, I've been in this place all day and can't leave now w/o paying for a day's stay anyway, so I ended up staying there alone, and paying the rate myself since I was now not splitting it 3 ways. Plus the next night I stayed at their place, which was a lot more than I thought I'd be spending, but I was in a bind and it was that or stay alone at the crappy place... So I bit the bullet and spent a lot of extra money. What else could I do?

We ate good food every time we got a meal, which leads me to believe there are no bad places to eat on Placencia. :) We spent all day Saturday walking the island (well, peninsula) back and forth comparing prices in every store. They bought some stuff for their place, and Alyson got a bag, and we both ended up getting hammocks. We met the 2 guys that had been in their little inn the night before but they hadn't met then. Andy and Pete are med students in London and part of their curriculum is to spend 6 weeks in a hospital anywhere in the world. They chose Belize, and after doing the hospital part, they're given a couple weeks to travel and be tourists, so that's how they wound up on Placencia. They were really cool and funny, and we had a great time hanging out w/ them. We all went swimming on the beach, but it was 5 by the time we thought of this and it was dark at 5:30, so we weren't in the water long... They came to dinner w/ us and we all went to a live music show at a bar and it was dreadfully AWFUL music, but so much fun. Except when a hammered guy badgered Andy for several minutes to give him the last 3 sips of his beer. Andy had to physically push his drink to the other side of the table to keep this guy from just grabbing it! Belizeans, I swear. No qualms about asking you for something of yours, no matter what it is! Anyway, I learned that dessert is called pudding, and they don't have a name for what we call pudding. Don't even try to understand Brits' differences between jam, jelly, preserves, and marmalade; it's ridiculous! They don't have icing in tubes or cans over there, they make their own icing every time they make a cake. And their pronunciations of many words are downright hilarious! Like aluminum - al-oo-men-eeyum. And they say potaaaahhhhhto, but tomayyyyto. We had a grand ole time w/ these guys, I'm so glad we met them! We're all friends on facebook now so we can all keep in touch on each others' journeys.

They were lamenting the difficulty in keeping in touch w/ their girlfriends, and I was like, don't get me started! I can send my boyfriend a text message from my phone to his email address but not to his phone, and he can text me from his phone, but no one can text my phone from their email except my mom, and now s/thg weird's going on and I can't even call the States if I want to. Basically Brandon and I talk through me texting his email, him replying from his phone via a text to my phone, and we instant message chat online whenever I get to a computer. This is accomplished by my posting something to Brandon's facebook page which then sends a text to his phone saying someone posted s/thg and when he sees that it's me, he knows to sign on so we can IM. Communication should not be this complicated in the information age!

The guys left early Sunday morning for the next leg of their journey, so we stayed up til 1 the night before hanging out in the cute common area of the four bedroom guest house this couple rents out. Andy played his Garifuna drum for us - check it out on youtube as well. :) The next morning Alyson, Clifton, and I went back to the same place we'd eaten the day before b/c we were so excited to find American breakfast options. I got french toast again, and then Alyson and I shared a second order b/c we were both still hungry. Later we ate at the gelato place for the 4th time - sooo delicious! We walked around some more and stumbled upon a shop we'd missed the day before and I found THE Emily hammock - Mardi Gras colors! I simply HAD to buy it. So now I've got 2 overpriced (tourist trap, remember?) hammocks - I'm praying I can get a PCV to buy the 1st one off me, but we'll see. I might end up w/ 2 hammocks! I headed for the Hokey Pokey at 12:30 and was at the bus stop in Independence by 12:45, the bus came at 1:30, then parked half way down the street so the driver and conductor could get some food, and we didn't actually leave the city til 2:10. I was home by 3:45, and had a full evening getting unpacked, eating, and filling everyone in on my adventures, plus cleaning out all the drawers, all my clothes, and my comforter, all of which were covered in gecko poop from me not having been there for the last week to clean it daily.

Today I went to school at 9, like normal, only to find it empty... Hmmm. I missed s/thg for sure. Turns out 2 of the teachers' (siblings) father had died on Saturday, so the school was closed so everyone could go to the funeral. Which I was expected to attend, at noon.... I rode my bike into town and got a package from the post office, had a very short time on the computer, then rode back home sweating to death. By the time I got home at 11:35 I had 25 minutes to shower, dress, and walk to the school so the bus could pick us up to go to the little village 1/2 an hour away for the funeral. No lunch for me! The funeral was long but nice. I noticed in the bulletin it said special item by my school, but didn't think anything of it til my principal leaned over and handed me an open hymn book and said we're singing this next. Sure enough, 30 seconds later the teachers all stood up and walked to the front, so I followed, and we sang a hymn, and Tr. Charlotte recited a poem as well. First time I've been IN a funeral for someone I've never met before....

I don't generally like funerals much. Death in general is tough for me, especially recently. I've only been to a couple funerals, and the last one was traumatic and was over 10 years ago. I spent the whole 2 hours fighting tears, especially after I made the mistake of reading a poem (posted at the end of the blog) written in the back of the program that made me think of Netty, who I've been doing better about lately. After the ceremony we walked to the grave site and after more songs and Bible verses they lowered the casket into the ground and during more recitations men shoveled the dirt into the grave. I'm used to the actual covering of the casket being done after we all leave the graveyard... The thump, thump, thump of the dirt hitting the wood was spooky and I keep hearing it in my head. The poor widow was beside herself, as were most of the daughters. Afterwards, back at the house, they handed out plates of food to everyone, which I gladly accepted and scarfed down - it was after 4 by now and all I'd eaten was 2 pieces of toast at 7:30 a.m. Then the bumpy bus ride back to paved roads and eventually back into town and it's all over. Except it's still on my mind. Everyone spoke so lovingly of Abraham, "Ham" that I wish I'd known him. It makes me want to go personally knock on everyone's door and introduce myself and make them all be my friends so I can KNOW everyone, and not miss anything. There's an opportunity for growth and new friendships everywhere you turn, if only you can overcome the pretense of privacy and proper behavior of keeping to yourself, and instead just start a conversation with a stranger. Peace Corps told me to come here and INTEGRATE and if it took a funeral to make me want to do it, so be it. I won't let another "Ham" go by without my knowing him.

In case you wanted to hear it, here's the poem, author unknown: They say memories are golden, well maybe that is true. I never wanted memories, I only wanted you. A million times I needed you, a million times I cried. If love alone could have saved you, you never would have died. In life I loved you dearly, in death I love you still. In my heart you hold a place no one could ever fill. If tears could build a stairway and heartache make a lane, I'd walk the path to heaven and bring you back again. Our family chain is broken, and nothing seems the same. But as God calls us one by one, the chain will link again.

Thanksgiving w/ my PC family

2009-11-25T16:35:00.000-08:00

Monday morning I caught the early express bus up to Belmopan and about halfway through I turned to my seat mate, who I had noticed earlier studying his Bible, and asked if he'd like to hear one of my favorite songs, saying I thought he would enjoy it. He looked a bit surprised, as this was the first we had spoken since I'd sat down next to him 2 hours earlier, but nodded and took the earpieces I was offering him. He listened to "There's a Reason" by MercyMe about 4 or 5 times (I had been listening to it on repeat) before taking out the earpieces and returning him. He asked if I was a Christian and I said yes, and asked how he liked the song. He said he really enjoyed it, especially since the opening line is "Now's the time, let the redeemed celebrate," and the name of his church was The Redeemer. We chatted for a bit and it turns out he's the pastor at this church in PG, but lives in Belmopan and goes down South every week to do his sermons on Sundays. He took my name, email, and number, and I promised to check it out sometime soon and am excited to do so. He sent me a text later on saying he was glad to have met me and hopes to see me at his church, signed your friend Pastor Michael. I though that was very sweet!

A while later, I got to Belmopan and had about 2 hours to kill before meeting my friend Emily, a.k.a. Big Em (she's like 6'3" or s/thg) for lunch. I bought padded envelopes to mail things in and packed them full of Christmas presents for family back home. Nothing big or fancy, obviously, but I wanted them to have some piece of me while I'm so far away for the holidays... I went to the post office and got those mailed, then went back to the restaurant and waited for Emily. She arrived w/ her mother, who lives just outside of Belmopan, whom she was here visiting, and we had a great lunch. Her mother even treated us, which was very generous and much appreciated. It was so exciting to see someone I knew from back home! Plus I got to see very recent pictures of Cara-Lyn, Jordan, and fast-growing Myla, b/c Big Em had visited them just last week. :)

I goofed around the rest of the day, wasn't feeling well (had a slight fever and bad cold/flu-like symptoms since Sunday), so I went to bed early. Woke up feeling worse and the shower was ice cold, when I was already freezing, and it was the most miserable thing ever. I simply could NOT force my body under the water. I stood at the back of the shower and flipped my hair upside down and just washed my hair and face. Yesterday was a chock full day of learning about behavior change and other super fun Peace Corps objectives like outcome indexes and behavior statements and presentations we're expected to do at the next In Service Training Feb. 8-12 (you heard the sarcasm in there, right?). I was feeling completely awful and barely took in what they were busy trying to drill into us. Luckily, Nurse Jackie had a minute to talk to me and came back w/ meds for me, so the last hour of the day was a huge improvement over the majority of it. Again, had a quick dinner and got ready for bed, ignoring the partying and room hopping the rest were up to. My good friend Alyson came by and we ended up talking about a bunch of stuff for quite a while, and when she left around 11, I went to bed.

Today's session was quick, mostly announcements and stuff, and updates on various committees and things we can get involved in if we choose. Then we were free to go and cook our various parts of tonight's Thanksgiving dinner. I first met up w/ a PC staff member's wife who works with the Belmopan Humane Society and she took me to see the facility and then dropped me at the owner's house, who took me to a foster family's house to meet the dog they're currently trying to get adopted. It's very different from the states, it's a super small scale operation. They don't take dogs that are stray or anything, they only take in ones that need rehabilitation and the get them healthy and adoptable and find homes for them. They only have 3 foster families, so they never have more than 3 dogs in their care at any one time. The one that's been looking for the perfect home since July 1 is Gypsy and she's a doll. If I didn't have my heart set on a male rottweiler I would've agreed to take her in a heartbeat. I chatted w/ her foster mom about her and observed her w/ their pet dog, then took her for a short walk around the block. She was a bit anxious that every single house we passed had a violently barking dog going nuts at the sight of us, but other than that she seemed fine. She seems smart and I think she'd be easy to train; she doesn't shy away from people or kids, which most dogs here do, b/c the accepted way to keep dogs away from you is to throw rocks at them. She's a goofball at heart, and I think we'd be an excellent match! I told the foster mom and the human society lady I really liked her, but I'd keep looking for a bit longer for a male rottweiler-type dog with the right temperament, but that if one just right didn't turn up, I'd definitely let them know and would love to take Gypsy.

After that I went to PC HQ and checked email for a few minutes, then headed over to a PC staff's house to help the cooking that had already started. Our group was in charge of making 10 loaves of bread, 3 types of potatoes, and multiple appetizers. Much prep work had begun last night, and I was in shift 2 so we popped things in the oven and made the devilled eggs and other things. We got it all done and PC cars had been shuttling people and food from various cooking houses all afternoon, so we finally all made it back to ground zero, and the array of food was spectacular! We all looked at it hungrily while waiting for the last groups to arrive, then we had a few minutes of Bryan (acting CD since Steve is now in PC Washington) bringing us together and reminding us why we're here and people were welcome to mention things they were thankful for. We then stuffed our faces in true Thanksgiving style and I thoroughly enjoyed the best Thanksgiving meal I've ever had. There was just such a wide array of food, and it was ALL fabulous! Especially the desserts, which you know I helped myself to multiple times. I was in heaven. Everyone enjoyed the great food and company and we had a wonderful afternoon.

I came back to PC HQ with a few others to clean all the dishes, and others were supposed to arrive for game night, but as it's still mostly empty here, I'm assuming most were too full and lazy to walk over here after being dropped off at the hotel and are probably all drinking and partying it up back there. I'm on my way back in a few minutes and will hang out for a tiny bit, then hit the sack, b/c I'm catching an early express bus South w/ Alyson and Clifton, and we're going to Placencia for the day before heading back to our sites. I want to check out the humane society they have there, as it's much closer to PG and would be easier to get a dog home from there. Plus I'm anxious to get to see the pretty island side of Belize that everyone pictures when they think of Belize! It'll be a fun day, then I'll head home and have a few days to detox before heading back to school on Monday.

I hope you all have a wonderful and very blessed Thanksgiving and take the time to take stock of your lives and give thanks for your blessings. I know what and who I'm especially thankful for this year! It's been an eventful year and I'm sure the next won't disappoint either!

Field trip!

2009-11-21T12:41:00.000-08:00

A quick note - another reason to dislike doing laundry here; if you're naturally an unobservant person, it's quite possible you will step in fire ants while hanging your clothes on the line. TWICE, if you're me! :)~

Thursday there was no school, as it was Garifuna Settlement Day. I tried to catch a bus into town for the festivities, but after standing by the side of the road in front of our house for an hour and a half, I gave up and stalked angrily into my room. My funk from the previous days caught up to me, and I allowed myself to pout for the majority of the day, with it only worsening when I found out I no longer had someone to go to Mexico with this weekend to see New Moon, therefore, no trip. I thought of going alone, but my host family was not in favor of the idea, so I decided not to. I've been sooo looking forward to this and have been waiting for this movie since I found out they were going to make it over a year ago! I WILL go see it, I'll just have to wait, something I've never been particularly great at... Ugh, patience...

Yesterday I awoke at 4:30 to be ready and standing by the street for 5:30. I was picked up, then we got the rest of the kids along the way and were on the road by 6, ready for a fun filled and action packed day! It was mostly the older students going, along w/ all the teachers, but there were several younger kids as well, and some parents too. One of my special ed kids came, as a reward from Tr. Terry for behaving better in class lately. My seat mates became Courtney, one of our preschoolers, and her mother. She is sweet and adorable and chubby! The only chubby kid I've seen here; after watching her put away the candy and treats throughout the day I know why! :) We drove for over an hour, then stopped at a shrimp farm, where we toured the whole place and learned a lot - like that shrimp are attracked to light, and when there's a storm the shrimp will jump out of the water in the direction of the lightening and often beach themselves on the bank. Huh, who knew!?

When we first arrived we were greeted by 4 dogs running alongside the bus, wagging vehemently, and barking hellos. When we stopped, one stood at the bottom of the bus steps for a minute wagging as hard as possible, then thought maybe he should come get us since we weren't rushing off to greet him! Poor thing looked sad when they closed the bus door shooing him back off the first step. Once someone came to tell us where to go, we followed them and parked by the office. It was 3 stories, and we went up a swirly staircase the kids thought was awesome, and stood on the roof to gaze around us. The mountains in the distance were gorgeous, and you could see for miles up there. When we came back down the welcoming party had caught up and were waiting for some love. When I get the pictures posted you'll notice my right pant leg is wet from hip to knee - there was a huge fresh-from-the-pond rottweiler who hurtled himself at me in an enthusiastic greeting. My knee to his chest hurt his feelings though, and he didn't let me pet him after that. The others quickly learned to keep "all 4 on the floor" and were well loved on. I had Leonel take my camera so he could get a shot of me w/ them and I didn't get my camera back for the next 20 minutes. He had a great time showing off all the pictures in my camera to the group of kids who clustered around him to see if they were in any pictures. One of our teachers had worked on a shrimp farm for 7 years before becoming a teacher, so he was our unofficial tour guide, teaching everyone what everything was and how it worked. He used a cast net to catch 2 ice chests full of shrimp for us to take home. I wanted so bad to have a hand at the cast net - I haven't thrown one since I was 15, and wanted to see if my hands automatically remembered the technique from years of throwing it into the Gulf at our fishing camp growing up...

Back on the bus, we rode for several more hours, made a stop for bathroom breaks and snack purchasing, then made it to the Mennonite village of Spanish Lookout in the Cayo District around noon. We ate at the only restaurant big enough for all of us, then went to the chicken plant, where I was glad to drop the kids off to watch how the poor animals were slaughtered, while the teachers went to shop. Soon I stepped into a huge warehouse w/ rows and rows of things to buy! It was like being transported into a US store! Well, sort of. I thought of buying stuff I'll need when I get my own place, like a mac and cheese pot, and a toaster, but the teachers said the prices were higher than in Belize, and I should wait to buy stuff up there. I did spot brownie mix and bought that, though! I also got some Bubbalicious gum (the kids saw it and were like, "that gum looks weird!"), and a book of Sudoku puzzles (my birthday package from Summer and Holly had a puzzles and mind games book in it and it got me re-hooked on Sudoku!).

Once we got the kids back, we went to the dairy processing plant, where I thoroughly enjoyed a double scoop of ice cream that actually tasted like ice cream, and learnd all about the dairy products they make and ship to the rest of Belize (I'm talking about the country this time, not Belize City - I know, it gets confusing). Then we headed to Cayo (I'm talking about the city this time, not Cayo District). By now it's already 3:45, and I'm starting to wonder just how late we'll be arriving home tonight - it's usually a 5-6 hour bus ride back down to PG... The teachers were dropped off at an area w/ lots of shops and the kids went to play in the nearby park.

I knew Cayo from when I lived in Georgeville (between Spanish Lookout and Cayo, which is also called San Ignacio, if you remember me referring to it as that), so I was fine w/ breaking away from the pack and going where I really wanted to go. Back to that restaurant w/ the stone carvings I took a picture of before, you remember? They had sold the one I wanted, but I found another one I really loved, maybe even more than the original - it's a map of Belize, w/ the districts marked, as well as the different popular Mayan ruins noted. It was expensive, but I decided it was my Christmas present to myself and it's something I'll cherish for the rest of my life, so it seemed worth it. Plus it was $60 and I had $60.75 in my wallet - it seemed meant to be! (No tax here - awesome!) We recollected, gathered up the kids, and were heading out of San Ignacio at 5 p.m. I texted Melanie letting her know that "Wi jus di leave San Ig. Ai gwain reach bak layt!" Then we got to the next town over, which is really just another part of San Ignacio, called Santa Elena, and then we stopped for the kids to get to do a little shopping at A&R, a nice big (and air conditioned!) store w/ tons of arts and crafts and practical shopping needs. Principal Florence told the kids they had 10 minutes. An hour and 15 minutes later we were back on the road, after swarming a street vendor who made burritos, tacos, and garnaches (my favorite!) for us. By now, I'm realizing that I will, in fact, be starving by the time we get home and I should've save some money for dinner! I only had 75 cents left, but the beauty of street vendors is you get good, hot food, and a small serving is usually only a dollar. I bummed a shilling off another teacher and had a delicious (but tiny) burrito for dinner. That and the bubbalicious I'd bought earlier. :)

The best part of this stop, however, was not the food - it was the 4 legged best friend I made! It seemed perfect that this day of fun should begin and end w/ dogs... While the kids were whiling away the time in A&R, I (having no money and therefore no intention of going in a store where I'd inevitably see s/thg I would want) hung out by the bus. I turned around to find this incredibly happy huge brown and white dog gazing longingly at me. I of course went right up and stuck my hand through the gate, once I was sure he was friendly, and made that dog's week, maybe made his month! We spent the next 1/2 hour w/ his front paws on my chest, arm, or perched on part of the gate, w/ his mouth latched onto my arm or hand. He loved to mouth me, but he never put so much as an ounce of pressure on my skin... My entire arm, from shirt sleeve, to my fingernails were covered in slobber! I even took my ring off my thumb for fear w/ the saliva and him mouthing my hand it would slip off and go "down the hatch", never to be seen again. Anyway, we both just had the best old time loving on each other! One by one the kids would wander out from the store and catch site of him on my chest w/ my arm or hand in his mouth and freak out that I was being attacked. The pervasive fear of dogs here is disheartening - only one or two would even touch him, for fear of being bitten, even though they could see if he was going to bite, my arm would've gotten it by now. I also learned during this experience that Tr. Terry is afraid of dogs. This should make me trying to use a pet as a therapy dog in the classroom interesting...

Back on the bus, we left Santa Elena after 6, got to Belmopan half an hour later and instead of passing through, turned towards town, much to everyone's dismay. We were already going to be getting home sooo late! A gas stop, more junk food for the kids, and we were back on the road at 7:30. With a 4 hour drive ahead of us... I asked one of the teachers what time the parents had been expecting their children to arrive back at home. She shrugged, said there was no set time (of course - so Belizean!), and that she assumed they were probably expecting them at 7:30 or 8. Alarmed, I asked if we should try to get in touch w/ them so they wouldn't worry, to which I received weird looks and a no. Things like this are not a worry here.

Somehow the bus arrived in under 3 hours. I have no idea how fast we were going, but I probably don't want to know. I jammed along happily to Avril (haven't listened to that girl belt it out in a long time - forgot how catchy the tunes are!) and Augustana, pausing the tunes only twice. The first was when the lights blinded me by flipping on unexpectedly, and I took out my earphones to find at least 5 teachers on their feet, yelling towards the back of the bus. Turns out several boys were caught teefing the shrimp, and they'd also spilled some on the floor and it was apparently already stinking. I was glad to be towards the front of the bus! The other time I took off my music was to hear what people were saying about why we might've stopped. As we crept forward, we passed by the flashing police light and the people standing in the dark staring at the side of the road and I caught a glimpse of something sticking up at a weird angle from the grass. I was about to really freak out (internally, so as not to scare the children), thinking it was a foot, when I realized it was actually part of a mangled handlebar. Not much better. I stifled a gasp, said a prayer for the biker and his family, and tried to not wonder if he'd survived the accident or not. Just last week I'd stayed a bit too late at the internet cafe in town and ended up riding my bike home in the dark. With no lights on the highway it's terrifyingly pitch black - there was no moonlight to help or anything. The edge of the road can drop off very suddenly, so to avoid falling off it and popping a tire or falling off my bike (which I managed to do anyway, but when I was almost at a standstill), I rode closer to the center of the road. I could hear cars coming and see headlights from far away, so I wasn't worried about one surprising me and hitting me, but still. It's so dangerous being on the road at night, and I hope to not do that again...

We dropped each kid off at their house so no one was walking in the dark, and I finally made it home at 10:30. I dropped everything, changed into pj's, took out my contacts, and collapsed into bed. My teeth were coated w/ sugar and in dire need of a good brushing but I just couldn't make myself care enough. I woke up today and got laundry done (there was a lot - I'd been putting it off), and headed into town, ready for some picture uploading and IM'ing w/ Brandon (if I post something on his facebook page it sends a text to his phone so he knows to get online to chat w/ me). I arrived at the cafe and got all settled, only to remember I had not a dime on me! I loaded back up, rode to the bank, and finally got back here so I can actually pay the guys when I leave today. Good news, I'm uploading the LAST of my pictures as we speak, up through the field trip yesterday! It'll take me a while to get them all arranged and captioned, and I'm sure I'll have taken more by the time I get that done and sent out to you, but there's a light at the end of the tunnel, at least! Wahoo!

A seed of doubt

2009-11-18T18:11:00.000-08:00

Harvest Celebration on Sunday went well, although fewer than half the kids showed up. My special ed kids that did show up did fine, and Shanique did her signing "dance" by herself b/c the other two girls didn't come. I was so proud of her for doing it on her own - she came up to me afterwards asking for a high five. If you want to see videos of Harvest go to youtube.com and find eherrod's videos. There's a lot of videos I've uploaded from my arrival up til today, but they're each only a minute or less long, so it won't take time to see them all.

My week since then has been hard... Each day Teacher Terry has left the classroom for a while and each time, within minutes of her leaving it's complete chaos. They know I won't hit them so they're not scared of me and know if I say to sit back down and do their work and they don't, the only consequence they listen to won't follow the refusal to do as told. So within minutes only the older kids are seated, the rest are running around, often out the classroom, screaming, and one has taken up a new game of hitting me or poking my butt then running squealing with laughter. He's very sly about it so I don't see it coming and he runs off so fast I can't grab him if I try. And there's no way I'm going to play into exactly what he wants and chase him down. During training, Peace Corps drilled into us classroom management and how to deal w/ everything, but they're ALL geared towards traditional children. You simply can't threaten a special education child with copying the rules as punishment. They can't write. I have no clue how to handle this. When it's me and one kid, even one like Max who is our most severe and who has become wholly my charge when he's in class, I can handle myself. I just have no experience being in charge of 12 children who can't stay still or quiet if their very lives depended on it. One day I sent Keron, one of the older boys to find Tr. Terry, and if he couldn't figure out where she'd gone, to get Principal Florence out of her classroom and get her in there NOW. Tr. Terry reappeared very shortly thereafter and took care of that situation immediately, but it's right back to chaos as soon as she leaves again. I'm going to have to talk to her and explain what happens every time she leaves and ask for help, b/c this can't continue. I've been very near tears every day this week, and by the time I get home I'm completely DONE, useless for anything other than hiding in my room and listening to my Ipod. Since today was the 3rd day in a row that my "today will be better!" optimism has been shattered, a seed of doubt has nestled its way into my brain. Do I really think I can handle this? For 2 years?! Will I really learn what I need to do differently and get a handle on the situation? Am I patient enough for this?? Like I said, one on one, no matter how difficult, I can figure out what to do; many on one, I'm not so sure. Have I gotten in over my head here? What if it gets so I don't think I CAN handle it - what then? I'm sure not leaving - what would I do instead??

I'm not at this point yet, and I don't want any of you to freak out reading this, I just want to be honest about how it's going. There are highs and lows, of course, and big victories and huge pitfalls, and I'm praying that this is just a rough patch... It didn't help that homesickness hit me for the first time Tuesday morning. I think it's because I was listening to cds that made me think of certain people the night before. I woke up w/ a sadness it took me several hours to pinpoint as homesickness. Oddly enough, it was picturing myself driving my car through Metairie that made me realize what was going on. I was like, "Woah, I miss that. THAT'S what this is, I'm homesick."

Three months in - here's what I miss (in no particular order): showing up at Matt's work and making him ignore his work to hang out w/ me for 1/2 an hour; showing up at John Scott's and spending hours watching movies or choosing music for a new "John Scott cd" (I have 19 cds from him - my favorite music I own by far); Mr. Gatti's pizza; Jordan's kisses and hearing him say, "Emmy!!!!" when I walk in the door; Brandon, of course, everything about Brandon, and all that having your special someone nearby entails; raiding Mom's fridge only to discover the only things edible in there are ice cream and a jar of mustard; eating dinner with Mama; taking Grant driving and generally hanging out with my "baby" brother (who I can't BELIEVE is in high school now... and w/ a 3.85 GPA!); driving in the middle of the night, going nowhere; being able to call Holly and Summer for an hour long talk whenever I feel like it; my comfy bed - I haven't slept on a non-awful mattress since I got here); the ease of shopping or picking up ready to eat food; going to the movies several times a month; Brandon; Target!; internet access whenever I want, without riding a bike for 4 miles to get to it; lounging on Matt's couch w/ Cali on my stomach; my church - both my Orlando one and my B.R. one - the sermons here are an hour long, and the most monotonous and boring things ever, there's no way I'm going to be able to force myself to go to church while I'm here, reading my Bible nightly will be it for me, I'm afraid; juicy, meaty hamburgers; Brandon, did I mention him yet?; washing machines and dryers; and lastly, the ease of mailing something or receiving mail.

The list of things I DON'T miss to come next time.... like Christmas ad bombardment, I don't miss tv at all....

School and bike riding adventures!

2009-11-14T11:00:00.000-08:00

Hello again! Let's see, what happened this week... Sunday night I was bitten by a botfly in 5 places on my ankles and feet. It itched, but everything itches here so I didn't think anything of it. Monday morning I woke up and both feet were red, swollen, itchy, and painful, I guess just b/c there were so many bites so close together or something, I don't know. I went to school, but sat all morning w/ my feet elevated b/c it hurt to stand or walk, so I didn't go back after lunch. I took 2 Benadryl, slept for 3 hours, and awoke to them no different. The next morning it was more of the same so I didn't go to school. I literally got out of bed 2 times that whole day, at 1:30 and at 6:30, to eat something and use the bathroom. Staying off my feet worked, b/c I was back to normal Wednesday morning.

This weekend is our school's Harvest Celebration, so we spent 2 hours every morning in the chapel, each class going through their presentations, and can I TELL you how utterly impossible it is to keep 12 special education children still and quiet for 2 hours??? Who's grand idea was this??? They were, in no particular order: standing on the pews, sitting up on the backs of the pews, crawling under the pews, climbing over the pews, playing w/ the light switch on the back wall, kicking/pinching/pulling hair/poking and otherwise torturing each other, biting me, spinning in circles in the aisle, yelling randomly, talking loudly, singing random songs at the top of their voice in the middle of presentations, eating oranges they'd hidden in their pockets and throwing the peel on the floor, thwacking a smuggled in ruler against the pew seat, along w/ poking others with it, and numerous other mischievous things to pass the time... And I didn't blame them one bit - even I was going stir crazy! And those benches are hard as rock and ramrod straight, none too comfy... Whew! I was pooped before we even got to lunch! And Friday was skewed b/c over half the teachers happened to be out for various reasons, and there was an induction of new Brownie girls into the local chapter. I chased around and entertained Max, our 7 year old w/ Down's and severe Autistic tendencies while Teacher Terry did the Brownie stuff - the rest of our kids were unsupervised, but I guess they did fine! I didn't hear any screaming, at least, so that's a good sign. :) We had lots of brownies and chocolate cake after the ceremony, which was a special treat for me - there's no brownie mix down here, so no brownies (my FAVORITE sweet) unless I get a homemade recipe from someone and attempt to make it myself... After that we went to the chapel again, but I pleaded to keep Max out, and kept him in the room alone w/ me until his mom came to get him at 11:30. He had a GREAT day, and was in a good mood, and for the first time ever didn't bite me or throw anything at me the whole day - yay! Little victories! I thanked him as he was leaving and said, "I NEEDED a good day from you, thank you, Max!" Then I went to the chapel and was given the Standard II kids to watch over - every teacher that was present was watching at least 2 classes all day Friday. The girls in Standard II (almost equivalent to 3rd grade) especially have taken a liking to me, and there were 3 girls that clung to my side in the pews. They like to pet my hair b/c it's so soft, and they rubbed their little fingers up and down my light skinned arms, it was so cute. It also feels good to have physical contact! Their little hugs light up my day b/c otherwise it's a no touching atmosphere for me here, all Belizeans so careful to not upset me or send the wrong message so there's no touching, not even a casual arm touch or pat on the back. After lunch I was in my special ed classroom w/ Tr. Terry when the prinicipal came and asked if I'd watch Infant I for the afternoon, which thankfully was only until 2:30 for them b/c they're like kindergarteners in the States. I read them a story, squeezed as many enthusiastic comprehension questions out of it as I could think of, then we sang the alphabet song, then I sang the alphabet song backwards, impressing them all - kudos to Elizabeth for teaching me this neat kid-entrancing trick! I wrote A,B,and C on the board, then we thought up things that started w/ those letters and drew pictures of them in their little books. Well, those that have books and pencils did, anyway. It's always sad to see those children who can't afford the little writing pads or a pencil (or just forgot it that day) sitting there while others do their assignment. It happens in all grade levels and in all schools, and although we try to provide books for them or pencils, we run out too! And it comes from teachers' own pockets to give these extras anyway, so we can't just keep giving them away... Anyway, after that, out came the government provided Language Arts workbooks, so everyone had one to work in, and that took us to the end of their day. I must've heard "Miss Emleee! Miss Emlee! Miss Emlee!" over 200 times in that hour and a half. I must've said "Go bak to your seat and QUIETLY raise your hand and I'll come to you" over 100 times. I probably begged Kenton to climb out from under the table at least 2 dozen times. And I'm sure I allowed, one at a time!, each kid to go to the bathroom at least once. It was barely contained chaos, but it somehow worked, and I made it to 2:30 with only 2 of the 30 kids crying. I hope to not be a substitute very often though!

So that was my work week. Other than that it entailed lots of bike riding. I rode my bike the 4 miles into town several times, for different reasons. Once was to go to the post office to pick up a package the slip given to me promised had arrived. When they couldn't find it, they looked it up in the big book and discovered it'd been given to me last week, they just accidentally sent me the slip after the fact, oops. Another time I came to use the computer to let other PCV's know of a trip to Chetumal, Mexico I'm planning to go see "New Moon" (I'M SOOO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!) , and that visit to town concluded w/ me riding all 4 miles back home in the driving rain, garnering a pleasant wave from a Peace Corps vehicle that happened to pass by. They're just lucky they were heading in the other direction or I would've made them stop and give me a lift, dripping wet and all, somehow shoving my huge wet bike into the backseat. That ride I also wore out my poor legs, b/c contrary to your childhood memories, riding a bike is not done leisurely when it's a form of transportation - it's hard work! Especially when you're pushing it twice as hard as normal to get home and get dry faster. My thighs were shaking by the time I huffed and puffed into my driveway and sloshed into the kitchen where my family could only sympathetically laugh. And today was another funny experience. I'm getting involved with the Belize Special Olympics and today we had a fundraiser in town and I wanted to help man the booth (yummy cakes, powder buns, and chocolate cupcakes!). I didn't want to wear casual shorts, so I donned my long flowy white skirt and a blue polo to look nice. It wasn't until I was about 100 yards down the road that I looked down and noticed my skirt flapping alongside the back bike wheel. I could just picture the thing wrapping up in the spokes, sending me plunging headfirst to the pavement - NOT good. So I pulled over and got a hairband from my purse and stood there gathering up my skirt between my legs to tie it up to prevent this. Ohmygoodness, you should've seen the looks I garnered from a truckbed full of Belizeans flying past!!! I'm sure I looked crazy! Not to mention I already get weird stares for wearing a helmet like some paranoid idiot... So now I've gathered it up and have a huge ball of fluffy white skirt bobbing along between my thighs. Getting back on the bike was quite an ordeal, as I now couldn't separate my legs very far from each other, which was further complicated by the fact that I bought a boy bike w/ the bar in front b/c the only girl bike available was PINK - and you KNOW I ain't riding that thing around! (Mine is a stylish seafoam green, by the way) I managed to get on the bike by making sure NO ONE was within seeing distance and hiking my skirt up to my waist, then pulling it back down once my leg was on the other side. Now to ride it, hmmmm... Actually riding it was easy enough, the problem was that w/ each push of the pedal that leg's white white skin was exposed up to my little hotpants everyone here wears underneath skirts, called tights. I rode most of the way w/ one hand on the handlebars, one hand alternately pulling down the skirt on each leg to almost reach my knees. I still received more whistles and catcalls than usual, although not too many more. Once I reached the park where everyone brings their stuff to sell on Saturday mornings I hopped down and undid my little contraption before swinging my leg over the side, but even that got me lots of weird stares, seeing as how at this point I was in a very crowded area. Oh well, I made it and I didn't have any accidents that could've torn my skirt right off my waist or effectively neutralized the usefullness of my cheapest mode of transportation, so I consider it a success. Going home should be fraught with adventure as well - wish me luck!

(A post script for you - THANK GOODNESS for auto-saving by blogspot.com! The guy next to me, thinking my modem went to his computer, turned my computer off while I was proofreading this mini-novel of mine - I about choked! By the time it had rebooted and I'd relogged in, I'd convinced myself you weren't getting a blog today b/c I was NOT going to retype all that! Lucky for us all, it saved it under my drafts, whew!!)

All I want for Christmas

2009-11-09T17:30:00.000-08:00

I've already received messages from several of you wanting to know what I want you to send me for Christmas, so I feel it's necessary to address this now, rather than wait til December as I had planned...

ALL I want for Christmas is donations made to Canine Companions for Independence's Southeast Region in loving memory of Tinette "Netty" Herrod.

I want for nothing, and need nothing, despite my mentions of desiring to please my sweet tooth. Belize may be a developing country, but they've (and now I've) learned to do without or to make do with a similar version... It's expensive to mail things here, and while I wholeheartedly appreciate everything everyone sends me, I truly don't want anyone to send me anything for Christmas. I honestly believe the money you'll save on buying, packaging, and mailing me anything would be 100 times better spent helping out those individuals with physical and developmental disabilities which CCI caters to. And in Netty's honorable memory... Nothing would make me happier.

Following is their mailing address. Every little bit helps so if it's not a big donation, even $5 is better than nothing. Thank you all in advance and I wish everyone a very merry holiday season!

Canine Companions for Independence
Southeast Region
8150 Clarcona Ocoee Road
Orlando, FL 32818

A heart divided

2009-11-08T09:00:00.000-08:00

I'm torn between missing Louis and loving riding "pahn di bos"! My car, named for 2 important-to-me guys with that middle name (well, basically), is sorely missed, as I'm not allowed to drive ANY motor vehicle for the duration of my time in Belize. As many of you know, I LOVE to drive, anywhere, and for any length of time. I'd willingly run errands just to get to drive, and often would drive deep into LA and MS backwoods in the middle of the night just to mellow out and zone out, and to enjoy belting out my favorite songs at the top of my lungs or, conversely, have a quiet, heartfelt conversation with God, or sometimes, my grandfather. It was often a kind of therapy for me... But, I've recently learned to also thoroughly enjoy being a passenger. Especially since I now have Belizean beauty rushing past my window every moment of the journey. The bus rides are so relaxing and contemplative, it's hard to have a care in the world when the lush green mountains and beautiful rushing rivers are flowing by just outside of the vehicle... Let me quantify this, however. The early morning, late afternoon, breezy and cool, and non-crowded bus rides are the ones I'm speaking of. The middle of the sweaty, sweaty, HOT day bus rides, when you're standing in the aisles, crowded in on all sides by other sweaty, often smelly people, bus rides are not quite so magical. But the good ones make up for it. :) Then there's the long distance bus rides, an entirely different animal... The Express bus is a glorious thing. It's like a charter bus in the U.S. Roomy, comfortable seats, air conditioned to the point of needing to carry a warm blanket with me every ride, and it doesn't stop except at the designated 4 terminals between Punta Gorda and Belize, therefore getting you to your destination in a mere 5 hours. These leave at the ungodly hour of 5 a.m. or 6 a.m., depending on where you're starting from... The alternative is taking the regular bus, which leaves almost every hour, on the hour. These are the buses you'd take to go short distances, say, up to 3-4 hours. They stop every what seems like 100 yards to alternately pick up or drop off people as they please. These are nice when you want to catch a bus or be dropped off directly in front of your house or the store you went to town to visit. They are not, however, desirable when you're traveling a long way. Like, PG to Belize, for instance. The seats are uncomfortable and smooshed, the ride is much bumpier, the bus more packed and therefore smellier when it's midday and the sun is beating down, and it takes what feels like FOREVER to get where you're going...

Which brings me to my trip to Belize for my doctor appointment on Thursday. I got the early express, and froze my happy butt off til I arrived in Belize at 11, then spent the next hour and a half walking around running errands. I asked where the nearest Atlantic Bank was and discovered it was on the dreaded South Side... The gang wars and general violence claim several lives a day down there and volunteers are forbidden to live down there and encouraged to not visit it if possible. So trudge along I do, with my surely-a-tourist look of my overnight bag and "express-bus blanket" slung over my shoulder. I was greeted by 3 cops at three different points of entry to the bank and had to state my reason for being there to each one before the corresponding locked door would buzz me in. Very reassuring. I spent several minutes explaining to the teller that PC had automatically set all PCV's up with an Atlantic account and I now live in PG where it's not available, and that I needed to transfer the money to my Scotia Bank account. I finally figured out the only way I could do this without a large fee was to do a regular withdrawal and personally walk my money to Scotia, 8 blocks away. PCV's are, by nature of the beast, broke, and unnaturally cheap so I opted for this. I then clutched every penny PC gave me for moving in to my soon to be new place and first month's rent tightly to my side as I trudged to the Scotia in the center (safer) part of town. I arrived, no one having glanced at me more than twice. Eyes forward and walk purposefully and most people leave you alone... One chore down, 2 to go.

I called Bryan at the PC HQ to inquire about the Hurricane Ida threat I'd received a text about while on the bus. If a hurricane or any severe weather or civil unrest or ANYTHING that could potentially harm PCV's occurs, they consolidate us all to Belmopan so if evacuation is necessary we'd all travel together. I, at this point, was seriously hoping the hurricane would not cause us all to converge on the Garden City Hotel the following day, b/c I, anticipating arriving home fresh off the 5 a.m. express the next morning, had not even brought a change of clothes! I figured I'd just be on a bus the next day and could shower and change once home. If consolidated for several days in Belmopan I wouldn't even have any extra clothes to change into... That could get smelly pretty fast. I spoke with Bryan several times throughout the day and eventually was told the 5 a.m. express bus to PG was out, to head to BMP instead, and plan on spending at least one night, whether everyone was consolidated or not. Bummer. In the meantime, get shopping done that can't be done anywhere else....

So off I went in search of knitting yarn. You know, the soft kind you might actually want to snuggle up in once made into a blanket. It doesn't exist here. There's just not enough demand for any sort of fabric that's of a high quality. I finally found, after trekking all over the city in the heat AND the rain, backtracking my course several times, some yellow and purple yarn that would suffice, but it's not ideal. My homemade goodies fashioned from a weaving board "teefed" from the school (with permission!) will be sub par, but still something to be proud of, seeing as my own two hands will make them! :)

I then finally submitted to hailing a taxi, which turned out to be a fabulous idea b/c the doctor's office was way far away and by then it wasn't just drizzling, it was pouring. Plus my cabbie was the kindest one so far. I thoroughly enjoyed chatting with the former architect whose son is in NY doing architecture as well, and tipped him when I left. (Tipping, for anything, is not customary here) My appointment was just like comparable ones in the U.S. except for the fact that there was no female nurse or assistant in the exam room during my female exam, a huge liability for harassment lawsuits in the States. But the doc was professional and very nice and all went well. After hand walking my own paperwork and lab sample to the lab in the next building over (weird), I was free to go. But where...

After hiking for a while in the pouring rain I ended up spending several hours at a local PCV's apartment catching up and enjoying her company. She's an older volunteer who I hadn't had much opportunity to hang out with and I'm glad I did. After Christine (who was in Georgeville with me for community based training, remember?) got home from her school, she and I met for dinner. PIZZA! I was thrilled!!! After a good chat with her about how everything's going I walked her home (it was dark by then, and even on the North Side, Belize isn't the best place after dark) and attempted to call a taxi to pick me up and bring me to the hotel. He wasn't available so Christine's host sister drove me, which was nice. And while waiting for her sister to get home so she could bring me, Cara-Lyn and Jordan called! It was the best surprise call I'd gotten since I got here! I miss them so much.... It was great to hear him and he sounded older and more mature already - it's only been 3 months! What'll it be like when I go home and he's 6 years old???? Anyway, at the hotel I thoroughly enjoyed having cable tv and a comfy bed to snuggle in. I watched 3 Grey's Anatomy episodes on various channels and got to watch some old Scrubs episodes as well. I was in heaven. A hot shower the next morning and I headed to the bus terminal to go to Belmopan on the 10 a.m. bus. Then I got a text from Bryan that the threat was passed and there was no need for me to go there. So, now I've missed the express, and am stuck with the regular bus. Oh well, it had to be done. Now that I know I have a day's worth of bus riding in front of me, what to do for food??? I walked to the daily market just outside of the terminal and bought 6 bananas for 75 cents, and ate one at every terminal, thus having an easy and healthy breakfast and lunch. So, over 7 hours later I arrived at home, safe and sound, albeit with a numb butt and feeling gross and sweaty.

I was home for an hour before Melanie and the girls and I headed into town for a fair/pageant held by the local college. Lots of dance/singing/and cultural flavor from the 6 main cultural backgrounds in Belize were shown and it was pretty cool. But the girls mostly loved the rides. They rode the kiddie round and round one, then Kaliah begged and begged and threw a fit until I agreed to take her on the huge ferris wheel. She's a chicken at heart, and I KNEW she would be terrified as soon as it started to move and of course I was right. Poor dear, she was shaking, sobbing, clutching my arm so hard I thought I'd lose circulation in my hand, and begging me to make it stop. I hid her face in my chest and rubbed her head and sang every song I could think of and prattled on about random things to distract her til it was over. When I started singing the states song she mentioned I'd already sang her that one. She enjoyed the alphabet song backwards though. :) Anyway, we survived, and once it stopped she pulled up her head and said, "Oh! It's over?" We made it home and crashed around 11.

I came into town yesterday to do some internet stuff but discovered 1/2 an hour in that LSU vs. ALA was televised after all! And it started in 20 minutes... No bus would leave for the next 50 minutes, so I started walking, too amped up to simply sit and wait for it to arrive. I'd been walking for less than 10 minutes when a drunk man on a bike came weaving up next to me. He seemed harmless, actually kinda funny as he assured me he liked his drink but that he "neva hurt nobody" and if he made me uncomfortable he'd leave. So I let him accompany me for the next mile and a half, til he spotted a friend driving by and flagged him down, saying they were headed my way and wouldn't mind giving me a ride. I took a calculated risk and took my first hitched ride (one of many, I hear, as it's a very common form of transportation by Toledo volunteers), and saved time, a buck, and made it home halfway through the first quarter! We won't discuss the rest of the game, but suffice it to say I'd rather see it than not get any LSU in my blood. I sure miss the fanfare of it all...

Anyway, that's my week since my Wednesday update. Oh, one more piece of good news - the girl who I was going to live with decided to keep renting her current place, so I'll have my 2 bedroom apt., furnished, and only $200/mo all to myself from the get-go. This is more perfect than I could've hoped for! And now, I'll leave you with a humorous mental image. Wednesday, after leaving here with 2 other PCV girls to get lunch, I was walking along in the pouring rain, attempting to balance my four big packages (one of which was chock full of books), my purse, and trying unsuccessfully to hold an umbrella over my head and bags. Do you have this picture in your head? Okay, so we're trudging along when we decided to cross the street. No, I didn't drop everything, although I very nearly did, more than once. Instead my wooden-bottomed "slippas" (flip flops) were very slick b/c of the rain and I slipped right out of my shoes, mid stride, while crossing the street. There were 8-10 little girls huddled together under an overhang that found this completely hilarious and laughed and laughed. I turned back to retrieve my shoes as a car came and after another 2 feet they slipped off again! By now the car is patiently waiting for me and the girls can hardly breathe they're laughing so hard. I shrugged and laughed with them and explained "they're very slippery!!" This just made them laugh even harder. I'm glad I'm so amusing to the youth of Belize... :-)

If you ask for it, they will mail it

2009-11-04T11:31:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone! I find myself, in the middle of the day, in the middle of the week, with internet access so thought I'd drop you a line. All the Toledo district PCV's came to PG this morning for a meeting with the chief of police for the district so we could meet him and learn about some stuff and know who to contact if anything happens. He seems like a superbly on top of things and straightlaced man, and I think he's a fabulous contact for us to have. Not that I'm expecting anything to happen. Toledo has the lowest crime rates of all of Belize. Really, everywhere is pretty safe except Belize City, so it's really nice down here. While in town I took advantage of being here when things are actually open to go to the bank and the post office - I had FOUR packages waiting for me. And they all had candy!! :) You guys have gone above and beyond with the candy requests. Every package I've received since I first posted wanting some has included goodies in it, and it's been great. The pikni and other PCV's have loved it almost as much as I have! So a big thanks to Mary Ann, Aunt Sally, Mama, and Mom for this week's goodies, it's much appreciated!! I've decided the month of November will be Hot Tamale month! If a package is being prepared to come my way already, throw a box or two of hot tamales in and I'll be set! :) And again, if you're planning something, even a letter, let me know and I'll give you my address down here. If it goes to PC HQ it'll still reach me though, don't worry, just will take a bit longer.

But my big news for today is that I found a place to live! YAY! I've been searching and stressing for a month now, and as always, God took care of it in His own way and time. He likes to swoop in with the solution when I'm wigging out. I really should've learned by now to not stress as much, and just wait patiently, but this lesson has eluded me... Anyway, over the weekend a man responsible for the pink house 2 over from my host family's house came and walked me through it and discussed fixing it up for me. It's 85 years old and needs a new floor, roof, kitchen, and has no toilet... It was kind of a dump, on top of that, theoretically due to the current resident not being too tidy, but you never know. So I was like, okay, fix it up according to PC standards (sturdy, no leaks, no open holes for bugs to climb in, screens, burglar bars, sturdy locks inside and out, well-lit, the works!) and you've got a definite resident with an assured rent coming in every month for 2 years. He says okay, he'll start finding people to do that. 2 days later he shows up saying he doesn't have the money to do the repairs and since PC won't give him the money to do it, it ain't gon hapn.... Back to the drawing board, and possibly living in another village... Then, miraculously, we become aware of a place a family member down the street is almost done building. I went to see the place and meet the lady and it's all but set in stone, since there's no legal paperwork involved in renting here, her saying it's mine is good enough for me! So here's the breakdown. The woman lives downstairs in this sturdy concrete house, and is almost finished building the upstairs to rent out. The stairs are outside, the place has a kitchen and bathroom, everything, so it's completely separate except for being situated on top of the lower house. It's a 2 bedroom apartment, all concrete, very safe and secure, in a safe area, and being upstairs the drunks are less likely to come bothering. The owner, Mrs. Judy has a neice that she's told could live there til she moves to the States in June, so I'll have a roommate for the first 7 months, but after that she won't rent out the other room, so I'll have a 2 bedroom place all to myself. And the best part is she's going to fully furnish the place, AND only charge me $200 a month! And the rent won't increase when the other girl leaves, either. This place is heaven! All I'll have to spend my move-in allowance on is a chest of drawers, and plates, and pots and pans and stuff. Mrs. Judy is going to give me a microwave, tv (and even run cable upstairs for free - holy cow!), bed, table and chairs, refrigerator, everything! And with such a low rent I'll be able to save enough money to travel around a bit. A lot of volunteers are planning trips to Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras, and other close places, so I hope to tag along! So that's my super exciting, weight off my shoulders news.

My funny anecdotes for the day: a village "post office" is merely a home where someone who picks up the mail for the village lives. You can go there and ask if they've gotten any for you. They don't sell anything, no envelopes, stamps, nothing, and will not bring letters to be mailed for you. You have to go into town (a long journey for some people!) just to mail a letter... I've been asked numerous times by Belizeans if I "consume alcohol". It's a regular question right up there with what's your name and where are you from. Just last week a woman I was standing near waiting for the bus struck up a conversation with me and this was one of the first questions out of her mouth. I asked her why and she shrugged, like why are you asking why I'm asking this, it's an obvious question??? Alcohol is such a big thing here and public drunkenness is quite common; along with drunken friends stumbling to your house for a visit - this happens a couple times a week and I usually go to my room til they leave b/c they can be very obnoxious and persistent in asking you to drink with them!... As I'm sure many of you know, bike riding is a very common form of transportation here. And I've learned that almost anything can be transported on one, including water jugs and multiple tiny children perched in various places. What still seems so funny to me, though, is seeing 4 year olds on adult bikes barely able to reach the pedals, and then grown men riding a pink child's bike. This is common, but still makes me chuckle. Use whatever's available, I guess! It also amuses me to see men and women all dressed up in fancy church clothes and such riding along. This will be me soon, when my commute to school will be a bit farther than I'm willing to walk when it's super hot outside. My school uniform is quite fancy looking and I'll be riding my bike (yes, WITH helmet, Cara-Lyn!) to school and back... The word for taking s/thg is teef. "She teef da fu mi pencil!" It's kinda funny sounding... Children you don't know (as well as ones you do know) will be walking along, see you have a half eaten anything in your hand and ask if they can have the rest. You have to say, no this is my apple, or I'm eating this cupcake, otherwise word quickly spreads you hand out free food and you're bombarded by hungry pikni. They also ask you for money a lot. It's hard, but you have to say no....

That's it for today. I'll be travelling the 6 hour bus ride up to Belize for a doctor's appointment tomorrow early in the a.m. and my appt. is at 1, so I won't be able to catch a bus back down. I'll stay the night in Belize, hopefully meet up with some PCV's up there for dinner or something, then head back down Friday. I have another PC meeting here in town Saturday, so if I have comp time I'll drop you a note then too! Hope you're all having a great week!

Have you hugged your washing machine today?

2009-10-31T11:29:00.000-07:00

I hate doing laundry now! Many of you know the household chores I've never minded doing are cleaning the kitchen and dishes, doing laundry, and vacuuming. Well, there's no carpet here, so no vacuuming. The kitchen and dishes I've not done b/c my host families won't let me touch it (it's been quite nice having meals ready to eat on the table for me and nothing to clean afterwards!). But the laundry process makes up for it. And I don't even have the beat-it-against-a-rock-in-the-nearest-river type laundry that many volunteers have... I'm lucky enough to live with a family that has a washer-type machine.

You drag the contraption outside and set it up on cinder blocks or some wood, plug it up somewhere, fill it up with water from the hose, and put your clothes, detergent, and fabric softener in (and if you forget or don't have the fabric softener, like I did at first, your clothes feel like dried straw!), then let the agitator tie all your socks, sleeves, bras, and underwear into tight knots. Once that's done you attempt to untangle them without ripping your clothes to shreds, take them out, and dunk and rub them one at a time in a bucket of clean water, then repeat this in a second bucket, then put them into the spinner part, wringing each piece of clothes out between each step. After the spinner gets the rest of the water out you hang them up on the line to dry. All of this is done in direct sunlight, the bending over makes your back hurt, and it takes about 45 minutes per load. And it's small, so it takes 2-3 loads to get your clothes done. It's tiring and annoying if you're spoiled and used to the ease of regular washers and dryers. But like I say, I've got it easy compared to the others, so I shouldn't even complain!

Other funny oddities/sights: no one tucks sheets into the beds here, I've noticed. Not sure of the reason for this but I make my bed before getting in it or the sheets are everywhere in no time... Men urinate everywhere here, whenever they feel like it. Out the back of a bus when it's in motion, against a building in town, or even just while walking down the street - okay, so the last one was my neighbor's little boy, but it was quite impressive to see him going WHILE walking. How did he not walk into the stream and get it all over himself? Oh, little Eduardo... Let's see, what else - oh, the baby fell into the rainwater barrel this morning. Ms. Anna fished her out about 1.6 seconds after she was in, but it was still scary. She came out blubbering and blinking, but didn't even cry. I think she was too shocked. Things like allowing the 1.5 year old to stand on a bucket peering into the water barrel and seeing the 5 year olds chopping the yard with machetes still makes me look twice... Used a public restroom the other day and found myself faced with a toilet with no seat and looking at a sign on the wall telling parents to not allow their children to stool on the floor... It's cool to see all the games kids come up with to play at recess when the only source of entertainment is a soccer ball. You get creative when there's no playground equipment around!... I've learned there are few pleasures in life like mastering the art of bucket bathing to the point of actually having enough warm water left over to dump over your head at the end - it's the most luxurious part of my day!... I've scoured the library at school (which at the moment is pretty unusable, but hopefully it will revert from storage into a working library at some point) and have found so many fun reads that take me straight back to my preteen years! The Indian and the Cupboard, The Boxcar Children, The Babysitter's Club, Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys... It's awesome! I'm reading like a book a day... And b/c my class does more than math and science since the goal is to have them able to contribute to society by the time they finish school, I'm learning to knit, weave, crochet, and other cool things.

The biggest issue I'm facing right now is trying to find housing. I'm good to move into my own place in 3 weeks, but there's nothing in my village. There's a house 2 down from my host family's that has 2 men living in it for free, that I'm trying to find out if I can rent, but it's not looking good. There's nothing available in the next village over either, so I'm looking to live closer to PG and ride the bus to school every day. We'll see how that works out. It'll be more expensive but what else can I do? I'm jealous of the volunteers who're getting the same or more money than I am based on where they live that're renting places for $150 a month or have free housing. I'll likely be paying $400 a month where I'll end up. Oh well, as long as I have enough to get by, I'm fine with it. I've heard of volunteers who've wound up saving 1-2 thousand USD over their time here by finding cheap places to rent, which is awesome. I'll have to see if what I can get will allow me to save some extra money for travelling or for when I go home, but I'm not thinking that will be the case.

School is going fine, frustrating and stressful at times, as working with children with disabilities can be. They're great kids though, and I love them all. I doubt I'll teach them 1/100th of what they'll teach me! I'm getting involved in other activities as well - I've taken over 1/2 the reading club. They're getting a chess club going and I'm helping them with that, and I've gone to one Special Olympics meeting and plan to help with some fundraisers and events they have coming up. Also, other volunteers who're nearby are recruiting help for stuff they're doing, like I'll be going up to Big Falls to help a volunteer up there go through and organize 5000 books they received to start up a school library, things like that. Plus we have meetings and doctors appointments PC has us going all over Belize for, so I'm here and there as well. Staying busy, and when I'm not doing any of that or at school, I'm watching Hannah Montana with Kaliah, playing with the baby (Kadija), playing cards with the 2 boys who live behind us but are at our house 24/7, or attempting to get my 15 year old host brother's attention for more than 15 seconds. He makes me miss Grant.... It's nice having so many kids around, but then I also find myself going to my room with my Ipod and book to hide sometimes.

I guess that's all for now, except to tell you to go to youtube and search for eherrod's videos to see all the ones I've uploaded. Enjoy!

SWEARING IN!!

2009-10-23T13:00:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! Been in Belmopan since Sunday night, had 3 more days of sessions and presentations and other training wrap up things, then yesterday was THE DAY. We got up and dressed in more fanciness and makeup than we have in the last 2 months since we got here, and were on a bus by 8:45. The ceremony started at 10, and the Governer General was there, although he didn't say a word, and basically just observed from his special table of honor place. The new US Ambassador to Belize (Obama's roommate in college and still close friend) Vinai Thumalapally was there and I got a picture with him. He said a great speech, and is incredibly excited about and supportive of the Peace Corps, and we're supremely blessed to have such an awesome man on our side. The ceremony was about 45 minutes long, perfect length, and appropriately moving and funny. Peter said a thank you speech in Kriol that was hilarious. Christine did a good one in Spanish, and Greg kicked butt at the K'ekchi speech. No one who didn't learn K'ekchi understood a single word but he sounded great. :) My special ed teacher I work with came up from PG for the ceremony, but I only spoke to her for 5 minutes, then she disappeared, I think to catch a 5 hour bus back south. I thought it was very sweet of her to come! We had lunch (TURKEY - not chicken, it was great!!!!), then headed back to the hotel.

In the couple hours' interim I went to the stationery store to buy padded envelopes to mail things home, then wandered around and asked at least 4 Belizeans where the post office was before finally finding the hidden building. Back at the hotel I had just enough time to peel off my wet sweaty clothes and change into futbal gear and head to the field to participate in the 2nd years' kicking the butts of the 1st years. I touched the ball exactly 2 times, but was quite proud that both times I passed it to another player (someone who's actually played soccer before) without dying. It was quite fun! Took a pitifully low pressured shower, as every shower in the hotel was dripping out water at the exact same time, and redressed for dinner.

Mr. Thumalapally and his wife graciously invited us to dinner at their mansion on the US Embassy grounds, which was so much fun. It was such a stark contrast to the rest of Belize, it was a little weird driving onto the grounds and seeing the huge American houses... Anyway, they are both very sweet and sincere people and I chatted with both several times. They were so hospitable, and we all had an awesome dinner and a fabulous time. Especially once Champ, their 12 year old yellow lab joined the party. The first lab I've seen here - I was in heaven! There were a couple photo slideshows of our training escapades, and a goodbye thing for our country director Steve Miller who leaves next month to work for Peace Corps in Washington DC. He's been a great asset to PCBZ, and we'll sure miss him! He's the big man in charge for us here, and we're all a little worried about who'll replace him next March b/c you either love or hate your CD, I hear... There were superlative awards, and I won, big surprise, "most likely to adopt the most animals". Other notable awards were Diarrhea Queen and King, most likely to get lost across the border, most likely to go into the bush and never be seen or heard from again, most likely to marry a local, etc. There were about 50 in total, so several people got more than one. It was a fabulous party and we all enjoyed the delicious food as well, especially the brownies!!!

Afterwards we partied back at the hotel and celebrated lavishly, but the only options for alcohol were rum and coke or Belikin beer, neither of which I can force myself to drink, so I stayed sober and responsible. I watched the limbo contest and enjoyed everyone's company, but once the best buns contest started, I retired to my room, being the biggest loser in the bunch, I'm sure. I somehow didn't think my boyfriend would appreciate my groping 25 mens's butts to vote on the best, or 25 men groping mine to determine whose was best, so I abstained from the competition. I apparently missed the best events of the night, but I'm feeling well and am well rested this morning, so don't regret my decision. It was still a completely amazing day and a wonderful and fun night, and I'm so glad to be an official Peace Corps Volunteer! YAY FOR US ALL!!! 40 swore in, let's hope 40 are present at close of service in 2 years! Here's to the grandest adventure of our lives!!!

Bad night

2009-10-20T08:52:00.001-07:00

Went to bed around 9:30. Around midnight I'm still wide awake so I get out my Ipod. Although I know what will happen, I put on THE song. Of course the tears start. Then I can't take it off repeat for the next 2 hours, so the tears continue. Our last night together plays like a broken record in my memory and at times it gets hard to breathe. Like I'm actually reliving the worst night of my life over and over and over again. The utter and complete devastation resurfaces, if only for a few hours. Like with my grandfather's death when I was 16, I try and try to focus on the happiest memories, all the tiny ones that made our relationship so special. And I do linger on these, momentarily. But the memories that are the strongest are the ones with the deepest emotions attached to it. Unfortunately, these tend to be the heart wrenching ones, which gut you from the inside out - the hospital ones, where he has tears slipping down his face from the pain and he begs you to leave the room b/c he doesn't want you to see him and remember him this way, or where you walk in and it looks like she's lying there dead already, tongue hanging out, then the blood seeping out of her, the labored breathing, and in one split-second instant your heart is irrevocably shattered...

My bachelor's degree forces me to admit what's going on here. In some ways I guess I'm a bit of a masochist, but really I just want to still feel connected. I think a part of me fears if I stop listening to her song I'll cry less and miss her less and less and I'll be letting her go. And I stubbornly revolt at the idea of letting her go. It's not like losing a pet; it's more like losing a best friend or a sibling. Someone who has intimately changed your life in so many intangible ways. She was a PART of ME, and that hole can't and won't be filled. I know I need to stop agonizing over this but I'm not completely convinced that this is preventing healing, not just yet. Maybe this is just my long-routed way of healing, I don't know. In the meantime I feel this need to blare that song and cry my eyes out once in a while and let the memories burn...

So around 2 I forced myself to allow the ipod to continue down the playlist, and a while later this little gem of a song came on. It's one of my favorites, and it was so poignant I couldn't help but smile. It could totally be the Peace Corps experience theme song as well. I could feel God rubbing my back and soothing my soul and encouraging me forward. I spent almost an hour this morning trying to find that song in an easy to reach place online so I could just paste a link for y'all to hear it. It's not a well known song, it's somewhat obscure, but here it is, so go listen to it and cheer on the song that was a comfort to me in the sleepless dark... I finally fell asleep around 4:30, then the alarm went off at 6, so I'm in glasses, and am bleary-eyed this morning, but surviving. Make sure you listen to the whole song. Copy and paste the link into your browser and enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKOupz_XlBQ&feature=fvw

And thanks for all the support you all give me daily in words, in packages and letter, and in prayers. They are all appreciated and I love you all dearly.

2009-10-17T13:32:00.000-07:00

Swearing in on Thursday!!

2009-10-17T13:22:00.000-07:00

I spent most of this week at school in other classrooms, getting to know the teachers and some of the students, so I'm not such an enigma walking around the campus. Already tons more students hail me as I walk by. Hailing is basically calling someone's name, getting their attention, etc. There's good hailing, i.e. "Miss! Miss! Gud maanin Miss Emily!!" and bad hailing, such as the grimy looking young man who walked towards me singing pretty woman, walking down the street, kind he'd like to meet, etc. Then he asked me wasn't I afraid to walk down the road alone? I scoffed at him and said I live here, this is my village, why would I be afraid. He looked shocked and properly scorned, and left me alone.

Let's see, this week's excitement mostly revolved around the black wasp that stung my lower lip at lunch on Thursday. My whole lip and right side of my cheek swelled up so splendidly I had to take pictures so you could laugh at me with me... I'll try to add it to this post, but this might not happen. I've got over 400 pictures uploaded so far, with about 300 and growing left. Whew. I've got to get the first set to you soon or I'll lose my mind. Forget trying to get them all together before sharing them. It'll already take forever for someone to see all the pictures. Simply too much has happened in the last 2 months! You should be grateful I'm not my friend Grace Boswell, however, she's taken over 5000 pictures already, she's obsessed with her camera! Those of you on facebook, have surely enjoyed seeing me in the background or with her in the pictures on her account. The rest of you will have to wait til I can get the others sent to you via kodakgallery.com. I'll try to do that today, but my computer time is running out. It sucks only having an hour every week to catch up on 20+ emails, facebook, and update my blog!

Anyway, tomorrow I journey back to Belmopan once more, for final sessions and group presentations, and whatnot, then we swear in on Thursday! The long awaited day is finally almost here!!! I'll give you the full details afterwards, but it should be quite a fancy ordeal, to be followed by quite a lot of well-deserved celebration as we spend our last time together as a group for a whlie. I'll try to keep you updated!

Ba-da-ba-ba-ba - I'm lovin it!

2009-10-10T09:55:00.000-07:00

Okay, so we're one week in. I've grown accustomed to the bucket bath thing, still don't like waking up 17 times a night as trucks pass or the rain pours down like fireworks outside my window (I still can't believe how loud it is!), have a bit of a routine in the making at school, and just adore my host family more every day. I'm usually exhausted and am in bed by 8:30 or 8, and get up around 7:15 (I loooove getting so much sleep!). My family has been uber-aware of my eating habits and endlessly question my likes and dislike and so my meals have been stress free as I always eat something I like, rather than forcing down weird things. I did eat gibnut one night, though, that was interesting... Look it up online - it's called the royal rat as well b/c they fed it to Queen Elizabeth once. Looking in the pot as it cooked, all I saw was naked rodent legs sticking up out of the top, it's long gangly toes and claws pointing at me... It turned out okay, though, just like eating any other kind of meat. Ate fried fish one day, totally swallowed a mouthful of cruchy bones - I felt like such an idiot, and my scraped raw throat wasn't pleased either. Other than that they've been giving me cornflakes and toast w/ peanut butter for breakfast, rice and beans for lunch, flour tortillas and chicken for dinner, plus I've had mac and cheese once, a burrito, a tamale, and we're making pancakes for breakfast in the morning; so I'm well cared for! :)

I usually have them boil a pot of water then I add cold water to it until I've got enough to last a whole bath, which usually tempers the temperature down to lukewarm. Pouring a little container of water over my head while trying to scrub out the shampoo with the other hand is a skill I'm still mastering, but it's improving. I bought material today in PG to bring to a neighbor who sews for the village and will have 2 teacher uniforms in a week or so, which I'm greatly looking forward to. Not only will I not stand out so much at school, but I won't have to figure out what clothes to wear each morning as well. I walk to school for 8:45, sign in, pick a different classroom to hang out in and chat with students until school starts. I also go into other classrooms on breaks to meet other children. I walk home for lunch, then back to school, often with 2 girls who live across the street from me, then get home from school around 4. Kaliah and I read to each other (she picks a new book each day, I read her a new chapter of The Indian in the Cupboard), then we play cards or do gymnastics in the front yard, often with other neighborhood kids. Dinner, tv, then writing in my journal and off to bed!

It's great so far, and I'm SUPER excited that they have a tv, AND CABLE, so I get to watch LSU vs. FLA tonight - yipeeee!!! Geaux tigers, and much love to you all!

1st few days

2009-10-07T16:16:00.000-07:00

Hi all!

So Sunday we drove down to PG and spent the night there; I roomed with Grace. :) Woke to Grace saying, "There's no water in the shower!" the next morning, then we went off to find water in other people's rooms. By the time I got back my room had been bombarded with everyone else's bags. Our room was the only one on the 1st floor, and so was designated the holding spot for luggage while we had our counterpart workshop that day. I had to dig out my pillow and clothes under several bags, then try to get dressed and ready while hopping over suitcases that were constantly being shoved into our tiny room - mass chaos! I managed to get packed and ready and out the door eventually. We walked to a close restaurant for breakfast, then headed to the local hall and spent the rest of the day meeting our counterparts!

The "current" went out and so we had 50 people crammed into a room with no fans - sweating profusely, it was difficult to pay attention. Once we found out who our counterpart was (mine is the school principal), we had some time to chat and ask questions, then went over lots of info. At lunch the children at the school next door took endless pleasure in showing off their tumbling skills for us; it was great! More rules and regulations and whatnot in the afternoon, then back to our hotel to grab our bags and head to our new homes for the next 2 years! Being very close to PG, I was the 1st to be dropped off, and fell immediately in love with my new host family!

Ms. Melanie is so sweet, as is her 8 year old daughter Kaliyeah, and 18 month old Kadeisha. Her mother and aunt and nephew also live there. My room is off of the porch and is just enough room for the bed and dresser. It's pretty cool in there, which is very nice. The tin roof is something to get used to, b/c when it rains lightly it's nice, but when it rains hard it's DEAFENINGLY LOUD! I had to put in my ear plugs to dull the noise enough to sleep. And we're right on the highway, so loud trucks heading to PG pass by a lot. Also, hearing the rats scamper and fight on the roof is weird, but usually only a couple times a night, just for a few minutes each time. The bathroom is outside, and the first night I went out to wash my face and brush my teeth before bed and it started pouring! I waited out there for about 10 minutes for it to slow enough to slosh back to the house! :)~ Bucket baths are something I'm definitely going to have to perfect, b/c as of now, I still run out of water before I'm fully rinsed, and my loofah is still soapy as well. Which isn't a big deal b/c I can clean it under the faucet, except when the water is out due to the storm, like it was this morning. It's sooo nice to have lukewarm water to pour over my head, much preferred than freezing water that falls out of a showerhead anyday! I'll have this bucket bath thing down pat before I move out, for sure.

I've been to school 2 days now, and it's an interesting experience! I know it will be a day-at-a-time type job. It's sure to be rewarding, but frustrating at times as well. There are b/tw 14-16 students in there a day, and although some are just slow learners who are there to be fed information at a slower pace, several have serious disabilities. One has Down's and several other disabilities as well. His attention span is about 15 seconds per activity. He throws things all the time, and hits and kicks when angry. I can handle this fine one on one, but there are 14 other students requiring personal attention as well. Another doesn't sit still long as well, and is difficult to keep on any one task for long. Several have mental retardation, and despite going over the number one in as many ways as I can think of, doesn't grasp the concept. I love these children already, they are all so sweet, but I'm not sure how to teach them. Complicating this is the fact that I've never been a teacher, and now I'm given reading workbooks and 6 children to teach on my own... And Peace Corps has given me a million and one ways to control a classroom and manage disruptive behavior, but none of these techniques work for children who don't understand consequences.

I'm prepared to learn much more from these wonderful kids than wisdom I can impart to them, and it will be a challenging and rewarding 2 years. Wish me luck!!

YAAAAAAYYYYYYY!!!!!

2009-10-03T11:28:00.000-07:00

I'm so happy! I got the villge I wanted!!! I'll be boarding a bus with 18 other volunteers whose homes for the next 2 years will be in the southern part of Belize on Sunday. Like I said before, I'll be in a village near PG, but I'm not supposed to post anywhere online the exact name of the village, so if you want my new address I'll email it to you personally once I find out what it is.

Right now, however, I am sooo happy for another reason as well! I've got a day off (I'd forgotten what that was until I got to sleep in today...) and I'm at PC HQ waiting to cheer on my Tigers!!!! I've been dyyyyying without getting to watch the games, and today is the first one that's televised, so I announced to the whole group yesterday that no one should plan on watching anything other than LSU football on the PCV lounge tv today. Hopefully I'll have a few join in the fun, but watching it alone is just fine with me. Plus everyone's out and about (oat and aboat, according to my dear Brandon, heehee) so I've got the computer to upload pictures while I'm lounging around screaming for the next few hours. :) Well, maybe inwardly cheering; my throat is sore from screaming last night. After we all got our assignments we decided some celebration was in order, so there was a bit of alcohol and merriment. It's so great to see how our group has come together. There are 40 of us, and the 60 year old married couple and mid-50 singles were out there right alongside the 20's and 30's. We all genuinely enjoy everyone's company, which I think is really rare. What a good group. :)

So we have today to do whatever, then tomorrow at 1 those of us heading down south leave, and we'll be at a hotel in PG tomorrow night. Monday morning we meet our counterparts, the people we'll be working closely with at our site, and then we're dropped off at our new host family's house and begin our 2 week visit! This Monday through the following Saturday we're in our site, learning everyone and where everything is, then we head back to Belmopan for a few more days of classes and fun skits and presentations of what we've been working on for the last month and a half, then we swear in on Thursday, October 22nd! Swearing in will be at the Ambassador's residence and both our host families are invited, as well as our counterparts, so they're expecting about 150 people to attend. Then we're official and on our own! Each little step towards that is so exciting and reinvigorating. Here we go!

"Cho! Dat dyaa!!!"

2009-10-01T13:19:00.000-07:00

Meaning, "Whoa! That's expensive!" I'm at an internet cafe in San Ignacio and it's $5 for an hour on the computer. Usually it's $3 for an hour, but it's air conditioned, and I have an hour to kill, pictures to upload, and didn't want to go shopping with the rest of the group, so here I am. It's our LAST day in Georgeville! :( I've loooved my host family so much, they've been great, and I'm really going to miss them. I'll definitely keep in touch and visit them when possible, but I'm also ready to move on. Find out where I'm going and get started! I feel like training is necessary and hugely helpful - I can't imagine getting in country and just being plopped down in a village and sent off on my own - but after being here for a month and a half I'm ready to get to my site and start working.

Tomorrow is going to be so exciting! And with us all learning where everyone is, I can start my list of who I want to visit. I definitely want to try to visit as many people in their sites as possible, to experience life here in the huge variety of ways people live. I think Grace or Amy will be in Santa Teresa, an hour and a half from anything, no running water or electricity, living in a thatched hut, and I will definitely visit whoever goes there at least once. I want to visit everywhere! Plus I plan on going diving soon, and hopefully multiple times while I'm here. One of the current volunteers is dating a local who is a SCUBA instructor, so I'll probably dive with him at least the first time or two. He's located on Tobacco Caye, off the coast of Dangriga, so whether I'm near PG or Belize, I won't be too far from there, maybe a 3 hour bus ride at the most. There are a few other certified divers in our group, so we'll probably try to make a trip of it and go together, so that'll be fun.

Ummm, what else? I'm killing time, waiting for the pictures to upload. And don't get too excited, b/c it takes about 30 minutes to upload 25 pictures and I have several hundred photos I've taken and you don't get to see any until they're all uploaded. So it'll be a while. Plus as soon as I get a couple up and deleted from my camera, I've taken another group of pictures - so maybe you'll never get to see them. Or when you do, it'll take about 3 hours to see them all! :) Well, one day. So, what else can I ramble about....

Belizean oddities, always a fun topic! Horses here are often wandering within 5 feet of the road on their little rope leash, and are mainly used in a lawn mowing capacity, as far as I can tell... I've already told you the used toilet paper goes in the trash next to the toilet, not in it, but I'm still getting used to it, so I'm bringing it up again... There are no enforced driving laws (licenses can be easily bought, with no test or training), and you just hold your breath as the bus careens past the slow car in front of it, while on a blind curve on the side of a cliff... You can get a full meal of orange fanta and garnaches for $2.50 (that's a full meal for $1.25 USD!) in one local place, go across the street and get the same meal for $15. You learn where the cheap places are in your area very quickly... Your mother can send you a package and it gets here over 2 weeks later, and your boyfriend can send you something and it arrives less than a week later (but he probably paid a lot more to get it here in time for your birthday)... The computer in the PC HQ can upload pictures much quicker than public computers, apparently. I'm STILL waiting, 40 minutes later, for 29 pictures to upload... If the bus is full and there are people standing in the aisles before the bus departs from the station, they make those standing get off, but if you run around the corner from the depot, the bus will pick you up a little bit down the street and you can then stand in the aisles til enough people get off for you to take their seat. It's not uncommon to stand during your ride and bump into people and squeeze past people trying to get off the bus... Macaroni and cheese is a common breakfast item, in my house at least - I'm in heaven!!... If you forget your umbrella one time out of 50, THAT'S when you're caught in a downpour... People greet every person they pass on the street. I love it. I say, "Gud maanin" at least 15 times during the 5 minute walk to the community center for class every day. If you pass a group of 4 people, you say gud maanin 4 times. :)... Even if you never were introduced to someone, they know your name and ALL about you! And the pikni (children) love to shout your name and wave, even if you're 2 streets away... The sky is twice as big here. It must be b/c my house is on the side of a mountain and I can see for miles, plus there's no buildings to mar the horizon... And you never knew there were so many stars up there!... You think radios overplaying songs is bad in the US - when a song gets big here, every house has it blaring at all hours, on repeat. All music is played loud enough for the neighborhood to enjoy it with you, and you prop open doors and windows to help this (as well as for the necessity of the glorious, glorious breeze)...

Okay, that's enough for now, even though the pictures are STILL not done! I have to leave for the bus depot, a 10 minute walk away, in about 15 minutes, so if they're not finished by then, I'm going to be pissed! Cross your fingers for me. I hope you enjoyed learning some of the things that make Belize so incredible!

Sooo ready for site assignment day!

2009-09-30T06:20:00.000-07:00

We had our thank you host family party on Sunday, that was fun. We all cooked all day, and I, of course, volunteered to be on brownie duty. 3 batches of brownies and 5 hours later, I came out hugely successful, through some kind of miracle. For starters, the oven was set in Celsius, which I have no idea how to convert, so I kinda put it in the middle and hoped for the best. And without an appropriate temperature I didn't know how long to leave them in there so I just took them out when they started to smell good. Then, there are no measuring cups to speak of in this country, so I said, hmm, that kinda looks like maybe 1/2 a cup of oil. It was probably closer to a cup, but they came out extra gooey and delicious, so I'm not complaning. There was only one mixing bowl and one cooking pot, so I had to wait for the current batch to cool off enough to get it out of the pot before pouring in the next batch, which I miscalculated at first and wound up with a pile of brownie blob, which I attempted to shape into semi-squarish figures but was unsuccessful. No one cared, however, and they were the hit of the party. We presented our families with certificates and hugs and appreciation and lots of good spaghetti, salad, chips and dip, brownies, and bread pudding.

Now I'm in full swing Senioritis mode! We find out on Friday where our site assignment is, and we're all on pins and needles! We've debated the topic endlessly, trying to figure out where we're all going, and I've got my list formulated in my head with one possible scenario, but there's really no telling. I think - read, HOPE AND PRAY - that I'll be heading down south Sunday afternoon to Punta Gorda. There's a little village close to PG which we visited and the school there had its own special education classroom that I completely fell in love with. Plus I'd be in a little village where I could get to know the whole community relatively easily, but still be a short bus ride away from a major city with all the ammeneties I might need. This would make shopping and internet access much easier. However, the other possibility is Belize City, b/c there's one school there we haven't visited and don't even know the name of, and it's possible it's the special ed school, the only one devoted to that purpose in the whole country. I DON'T WANT Belize City, the city is dangerous and dirty and creeps me out. It's where all the tourists go, too, so I'd be targeted even more than normal... I am TRYING to keep my head open to the possibility so if I get Belize (they don't call it Belize City here, just Belize) I'm not completely crushed, but y'all can probably guess how well that's going. The other things they have to take into account when placing volunteers besides their experience and preference is other volunteers. All medical worries HAVE to be in a major city so they're close to a hospital. Most asthmatics or those with allergies are in Punta Gorda, San Ignacio, Belmopan, Dangriga, or Belize. Then, married couples have to be somewhere where they can live in the same place and both commute to their respective sites, so they have to have two sites close to eachother, which narrows it down. You'd think this would make it easy for us to guess who's going where, but there are still numrous possibilities. Anyway, y'all probably know way more than you want to now about the site selection process, but it's constantly on our minds now so out it pours, from my head to yours.

Today we're heading into Belize for a teacher workshop at one of our future sites (my guess is Christine will be going to this school) to show them how to perform reading assessments on their students. I have learned so much in this training, having never been a teacher or taken any education classes before, that I want to go back to school after this to be a teacher! There are so many cool things! Of course, I now have like 5 different things I want to do after PC, and I'm sure my experiences here will lead to a ton of other things I'd like to do after I leave, but I have an appreciation for teaching now. Anyway, so we'll be in Belize all day, touring 2 schools which are possible site placements for our group, so that's always exciting. Wish us luck! You'll know where I'm going as soon as I get to a computer after finding out on Friday!

Not poison ivy after all!

2009-09-25T16:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was crazy. I woke up with more itchy red splotchy spots, on my thighs this time. Then during our morning session I developed tiny red dots all over my chest, back and arms. I was so miserable and itchy and freaking out, I started to cry. It was so embarrassing, but I couldn't help it, and everyone being so concerned made me more upset. So I came to Belmopan to see Jackie, and she gave me a Benadryl shot and started me on a high dose of Prednisone. I crashed on her comfy nurse bed for 3 hours and woke up with the little dots gone. I felt much better, and went back to Georgeville. Unfortunately I'd missed the teacher workshop we've been planning and the others in my group had to pick up my slack. I felt bad but they were fine with it, and I'd typed up my notes very neatly so it was easy for them to just jump in and say what I'd prepared.

Then we went to San Ignacio after class to get some ice cream and walk around and a little boy pick-pocketed me! He only got $5, but still. Whatever, it happens, and when you're a gringa you're a target. I guess I won't be putting money in my pockets anymore, only in zipped up bags or purses.

Today in Belmopan for our regular Friday meetings and Dr. Craig looked at all my various rashes and bumps and declared - not poison ivy, not a fungal infection - an allergic reaction to the anti-malaria pills we've been on for 5 weeks! It's very rare, and they took pictures and are documenting it and everything. But at least we know what's going on, and once it's out of my system it'll start healing and I'll be just fine. :) Unfortunately, I take the pill on Friday mornings and I took it this a.m. before seeing the Dr., so it's going to get worse b/c I just pumped another 500 mg into my system. About this time next week it'll start working out of my system and it'll start to improve. I can't wait - I'm scratching all my skin off!

Got an AWESOME care package from Holly and Summer - LOVE YOU, MY GIRLS! - made my day! I got super soft toilet paper, 2 decks of cards, a huge bag of peanut M&M's, 2 boxes of sourpatch watermelons (my favorite!), a hand held tetris game, a Halloween mask, fun games and puzzles, a Peanuts puzzle that I can't wait to put together, and much, much more. Plus Mom's got 2 boxes of stuff I'd asked her to get and send to me that I can't find here or is too expensive, and Brandon's sending me another sweet package - I'm well cared for! Itchy, but very happy!

Itchy in paradise

2009-09-23T11:22:00.000-07:00

Who knew that Mango trees were next of kin to poison ivy? You should see the oozing welts - I look like I've got leprosy! Actually, it's getting better now, but it's been a week and is just now on the improving side. Then, the last 2 days I've had little itchy red areas on my other arm, and when we got to Belmopan this morning I saw the nurse and she thinks I've got a fungal infection. Plus I had a major allergy attack Sat. and Sun.... It's been an interesting week. And yesterday, today, and tomorrow are the presentations for all we've been working on for the last 4 weeks, so the stress is through the roof. Yesterday's 4 mini presentations went fine, and I went 1st today for our big presentation to everyone, which I think went fine even though I had no idea before I started preparing for today what homemade resources to make or how to use visual aids to teach reading! But it's been really interesting watching everyone else's presentations, b/c all the info I'm receiving will be useful: everything from setting up a school library to technology in the classroom to comprehension strategies for upper level students. Anyway, that's today. Then tomorrow we do a group workshop for 17 local teachers on classroom management, that should be fun and less nervewracking, b/c all 10 Education volunteers will be up there together, rather than just one at a time, like today.

Other than preparing for all this work, I've been enjoying the September Celebration! Saturday (the 19th) was Carnival, in Belize City, which is a big parade that looks a lot like Mardi Gras, but with less beads. Tons of dancing troups and skimpy shiny outfits and bits of candy thrown and a group of tumblers (obviously my favorite). It was fun, but this was during my allergy attack so I was miserable in the middle of my fun. Got lots of good pictures and video of the tumblers. Plus it was great to meet my family's other family in Belize City. My host mom has 5 sisters and 1 brother, and 3 of the sisters (plus neices and nephews) live in Belize City, so if and when I'm placed there - we find out next Friday!!!! - I'll already have a support system I can turn to if I need something. My whole family is so sweet and caring and I'm really going to miss all of them. 2 of my host sisters have birthdays in November so I'm already planning their gifts and cards to be sent from where I land by then.

Ummm, I guess that's all for now. I got birthday packages from Mom, Brandon, and Dad and Lisa, so that was great. Oh, and the weather is changing! It's actually cool enough at night to cover up with a thin sheet, and you don't wake up sweating! The downside is that my freezing showers are now downright frigid - NOT pleasant, especially when you're getting up and showering at 4:45 to be in Belmopan for 7, which we do 2-3 times a week. But you take the cold showers with the pleasant weather, I suppose. I just hope all the itching stops soon before I scrape off all my skin via my fingernails!!!

Send me letters, I've only gotten 2, both from Mom. Doesn't have to be fancy or about anything fun or exciting. Detail your day for me, whatever, I don't care, I just want mail! :)

Emily Herrod - PCV
Peace Corps Headquarters
P.O. Box 492
Belmopan
Belize
Central America

And to end on a happy note - I was on my own to find lunch today, so I bought a box of Frosted Flakes (but they're not called that here) and milk - best lunch since I've been here! Oh, how I've missed cereal!!! :)

Weekend with current PCV

2009-09-16T06:21:00.000-07:00

I was in Belmopan, so it wasn't new and exciting, but still fun! There were others that were staying with current PCV's there, so the 10 of us did a lot together. We had good food Friday night, a full (and super sweaty) day in Belize City, shopping Saturday. Lots of solicitations for food, money, dancing partners, and help for cancerous tumors. We were followed for 20 minutes by a man shouting random things at us. A girl's purse got stolen, ripped right out of her hand, but we chased the guy yelling and he dropped it, so we got it back. An eventful day! I bought myself cute shoes! :) Sunday we went to a local bird rescue, that was very fun, and the couple from Wales that runs it had 6 dogs, so I was in heaven! Amy got a cute picture of my with two dogs doing a "lap" from opposite sides on my legs, and the other 4 passed out around my feet, as I sat on a bench next to the duck pond.

My birthday included 2 cakes, presents, hugs, calls, texts, and great food! I love my host family!!! Thanks to all who contacted or attempted to contact me - I appreciate it! And if you didn't get a response from me, send me an email or something to let me know you tried, otherwise I won't know - my phone only lets me hear from some people for some reason.

Thanks again, I love and miss you all!!!

Love always,
Emily

Happy Birthday to me!

2009-09-16T06:19:00.000-07:00

Valleys and peaks

2009-09-13T17:09:00.000-07:00

Okay, people, here goes - hope you got about an hour to kill to read all this! So much has gone on since I was last able to post anything that I don't even feel like putting forth the brain power to remember what all has happened. So, instead, I will open my handy dandy journal from Aunt Fran and Uncle Buck and just type the last several entries out for you to read straight from the horse's mouth, with minor editing. Keep in mind the title of this blog, and that although there have been ups and downs, it's all been part of the journey, and I'm happy as a clam right now! With no further ado, here it is...

7:36 pm Tuesday 9-8-09
OMG! Toledo was AMAZING! Words are so ineffectual. Even the pictures won't even do justice to the picturesque beauty my lowly eyes beheld. At one point we were in a village called Santa Teresa, over an hour from any sort of civilization, no electricity or running water to speak of, thatch houses, the works. As basic as it gets. I fell in love! We all did, it had such a charm to it... And the principal at that school was so welcoming and so excited we were there - it was great. But I'm getting way ahead of myself... We piled all 10 of us Education PCT's into the van, Stanley our fearless driver at the helm of the ship, w/ Ginnie (our technical trainer), Sharmaine (our Language and Culture Facilitator), and Carmelina (the Maya Mopan group's K'ekchi LCF) in the other car, and rode out of Belmopan. We passed through Armenia and waved at that group's community center where they were in class, unawares we were whizzing by and waving. Then the road got hilly and curvy and breathtaking mountains were on either side of us, giant living, breathing green walls, surrounding us. We all snapped picture after picture as each gorgeous view presented itself... We laughed so much our stomachs and cheeks were hurting... The Maya Mopan group sang I've got the Joy Joy Joy Joy down in my heart in K'ekchi, along with every other K'ekchi song with a familiar tune in their language workbook... I listened to old school John Scott music and discovered my ipod has games on it and played lots of Solitaire... We stopped at a gas station, paid $1 to use the bathroom and stocked up on candy bars, chips, and ice cream bars... And finally we arrived! Punta Gorda is a beach town and gorgeous! Once settled into our hotel rooms we went on the roof and took tons of pictures. I got one on the timer setting so we all ran and were able to get in the picture - it's off center and my hair blew in my face as it went off, but everyone else looks great! We goofed off and hung out in the other girls' room and braided each other's hair, then it was time for dinner. There was a lot of American food, so I got a hot dog, french fries, and a vanilla shake - Yum! By the end of the meal we were struggling to stay awake, and we all crashed as soon as we got back to the hotel. Grace and I talked about boys in the darkened room til the rain started pouring down at 9pm sharp, and then we fell asleep almost instantly. The AC unit shut off every 2 hours and the sudden silence always woke me. So I happened to be up every 2 hours to turn it back on and noticed each time "Wow, it's still raining really hard!" but didn't give it much thought aside from that. Well, come 7 a.m. we all were noticing the rain and marvelling at how long it had been raining. I took a glorious hot shower! Then the power went out. Then we heard the bridge that gets us home was flooded, along with several others we were planning to use to get to our sites. Uh oh! We ate breakfast at an outdoor place so no electricity didn't matter, then we hit the road. We took different routes and crossed several "bridges" that were covered with debris and had water that had just receded enough to allow passage - but the water was only 2-3 inches from the tires! Breathtaking picture after breathtaking picture. School after school, village after village. Bumpy dirt road after bumpy dirt road, we arrived at more and more remote communities and toured their schools. The differences in space and resources and student/teacher ratio was interesting. The more remote and rustic villages were K'ekchi so we Kriol-learners knew we wouldn't likely be in the thatch houses nearby, but still sooo cool to see how and where these kids lived out their lives, many directly next to a towering green mountain. We went to 2 Kriol schools, one of which I loooooved, which had it's own special ed class with an outgoing teacher who lit up the room. I want to go there! She wasn't preparing to retire though, so I knew I wasn't her PCV. :( By the time we were ready to head home at 4:30 after a tour of a Maya museum (way cool) and the Dangriga Education Resource Center, we were told the Middlesex Bridge was open, and had been since 4. We got to the only bridge that could take us home at 5:30, and promptly stopped behind the other 30+ cars, trucks, and buses already waiting. And we sat and waited and waited and waited and waited. We walked to the front of the line to gawk at the mud-covered bridge (and got cat calls and whistles left and right) and watched the trucks working on it (who had been non-stop working on it since 6am!) and passed the time any way we could think of until we finally started moving at 7. We tried to convince the powers that be that we should turn around and have a campout at Sharmaine's parents' house about 20 minutes back, but no such luck in extending our adventure. We got going and were streaking through the darkness when Alyson and Kevina announced they needed to pee NOW! We pulled off on the side of the road and we ran behind a nearby abandoned building - them to potty in private and me to stargaze with NO lights to ruin the absolutely indescribable sight of the uninhibited heavens. And there were so many lightning bugs I couldn't count them if I had all day - at least 100 in the small space b/tw the building and the bush. I think those 30 seconds might've been the most memorable of the whole trip. Totally worth the creepy red-circle-with-red-dot-centered bites I got all over my arms and legs. :) We finally arrived in Belmopan 13 hours after climbing in the van that a.m., and after the last hour of me hugging myself with "The Crow and the Butterfly" blaring on my ipod with me wishing my arms were Brandon's b/c he's my own personal space heater and the van was freezing! We dropped off Alyson and the Maya Mopan people crowded into Ginnie's PC SUV and Stanley brought us the rest of the way to our little Georgeville. (We partially filled up the van - $138 for 16 gallons!) We crawled into bed, too exhausted to eat, as soon as we got home, at 8:45. What an amazing trip! I can hardly believe we managed to cram so many sights and memories into such a small amount of time. Now I'm even more excited to go to a current PCV's site for the weekend - I hope I'm in a super remote, old-timey village in the middle of nowhere!

5:15pm Wed. 9-9-09
How has today pissed off/disappointed me? Oh, let me count the ways:
1. As of 2 a.m. I was still awake, thanks to the incessantly barking dogs outside my window.
2. I awoke at 7 still very groggy from the 8 hour Benadryl I took 5 hours earlier.
3. I was given a breakfast I did not want to eat, so I went to class hungry.
4. I was late to class.
5. We observed teachers at the Georgeville School and the one I watched was very depressing. I won't discuss this further.
6. I'm leaving out of this post.
7. We had only 20 minutes to walk home, eat, clean our dishes, and run sweaty back to the community center. (Lunch was great though!)
8. I was still late getting back.
9. We were driven to San Ignacio for our afternoon lesson which was basically a boring way to completely waste an afternoon. At one point I left the building and stood outside for 20 minutes so as not to have an anneurysm or create a scene in class by screaming at the top of my lungs.
10. We received info about where we're going for our PCV visit this weekend. Everyone is jetting off to exotic corners of the country and deep into the unknown - and me? I'm staying in Belmopan, the one place in the whole country I already know.
11. The one thing we have planned to do this weekend is go to Blue Hole Park - the one place my group has already planned our only day off to visit, next weekend.
12. My pen died. **This had happened mid-sentence while complaining about number 11! :) **
13. We were given an hour after class to have fun/explore San Ignacio - the only thing I wanted to do was find an internet cafe, which I did, only to be told the internet was down.
14. I called Matt to vent and told him to call me back b/c my phone is almost out of $ - he never called me back.
15. I bought a chocolate milk to make myself feel better - and spilled it all over my pants.
16. I bought some starburst to make myself feel better - they were too melted to even unwrap and I couldn't eat them.
I did get a text from Brandon, though, that perked me up some - he got accepted to the music production school he wanted in Arizona! He starts in January; good for him! Other than that, though, I'm PISSED OFF and mad at the world!

9-10-09
Belizean oddities I've learned so far:
1. No public toilets (if you can find one) have toilet paper, soap, or towels. You learn to carry your own TP and hand sanitizer.
2. Gas stop restrooms might or might not have these things, but you'll be charged b/tw 50 cents and $2 to use it either way.
3. My favorite breakfast thus far was orange Fanta and macaroni and cheese, with a hard boiled egg on the side.
4. People will steal your bike and leave your electronics and cds/movies (so I've been warned).
5. Unless in a fancy hotel or the PC HQ, used TP goes in the wastebasket next to the toilet, NOT in the toilet.
6. Snickers will reform after being in the fridge for a while, M&M's are fine, but Starburst will never be edible in this country as you can not buy it unmelted and it does not re-solidify correctly in the fridge or freezer.
7. People think nothing of handing a 7 year old a machete and having them chop the trail we're walking. My 15 year old host brother Danny told me the violence here more likely involves chopping than shooting.
8. 3 year olds can sing and dance to the extremely provocative music videos people watch rather than movies or TV. :)~
9. The majority of standard 3 students (4th graders) can't read the sentece "The big boy can play."
10. People never honk their car horn in anger or impatience - you will hear toots frequently however b/c they honk and wave to every person they pass, whether on the road or in another car.
11. There are 10 times as emaciated stray dogs are there are cared-for pet dogs.
12. Cell phones are $30 USD, a gallon of gas is over $4 USD.
13. People watch the local and world news every night instead of reality TV shows - I'm loving that!

9:29 p.m. Th. 9-10-09
No class today b/c it's Battle of St. George's Caye Day here - yay! I played cards for hours with the pikni **local children**, and at one point my host sister Britney took the cards box and started drawing on it. When she gave it back it was covered in stars and she'd written on it "Britney Conorquie - Emily Conorquie. You are my big sister and I love you so much take care of your self. Britney Conorquie - Peter Conorquie **another Education volunteer who I share a host family with** We are the best and happiest family you guys could ever be with I love you guys so much you all are like my brother and sister I love being around you guys." Oh, be still my heart!

Okay! That's enough for now. This weekend in Belmopan has been awesome, but I'll save that for another day. I'm going to eat!!!

Headed down south

2009-09-06T11:10:00.000-07:00

In the capital city, passing through after we collect the other Education group from Maya Mopan, then hitting the road for Punta Gorda! The 10 Education volunteers, our technical trainer, both our language trainers, and 2 drivers will be taking a 4+ hour drive on bumpy roads to the Southernmost part of the country in just a bit. We'll settle into our hotel and have a fun night of planning out workshop for the teachers of Georgeville (can you hear my sarcasm), then hit the sack to prepare for a full day of bumpy roads and school tours! We're visiting 5, maybe more, schools, all in different villages, some in cities, so there'll be a wide range of sizes and amenities, such as chalk for the boards. I'm very excited and it should be a fun trip, despite the fact that several of our group get seriously car sick...

My foot is better today! Still painful to the touch and itchy, but a normal size and color, so that's good. And it doesn't hurt to walk on it either, a huge plus b/c we've been walking a lot this morning already and tomorrow should be a busy day as well.

Send me peanut M&M's! I've heard they make the hot and humid trip down here very easily and arrive unmelted! And it IS my birthday soon.... :)

I've been texting Brandon a lot, and Mom and Matt once or twice, been charged quite a bit from the Smart phone people, and discovered today not a single one has gone through. :( Won't be doing that anymore, at least until I have a chat with a Smart rep! But please text me - it makes my day when I get them!

Oww!

2009-09-04T06:57:00.000-07:00

Spider bites suck. It got me on both sides of my ankle, and for the last three days my right foot has been swollen, verrrry itchy, red and splotchy, and at times painful to walk on. Per Nurse Jackie I'm taking benadryl, icing it, and keeping it elevated. Don't worry everyone, I'll be good a new soon, it's already getting a bit better I think, I'm just complaining. On the upside my shower was noticeably colder this morning, which sucked, but the reason is because it was noticeably colder outside! We walked the 20 minutes from the bus stop here in Belmopan to the PC headquarters and only sweat a moderate amount instead of disgustingly dripping wet! That also might have been b/c I was hobbling along at a much slower pace than normal b/c my foot decided to hurt this morning. By the time we got to PC the sun was back to full force, but the first part of our walk was downright comfortable! :) Umm, what else... Whitney and I have branched out from just go fish to memory, and war, and 2 other games that have some kind of learning value to them, so I'm excited to be teaching her stuff that's working her mind and helping with her numbers and math skills. We went to visit a local school yesterday and that was interesting - hearing and seeing are two different things. Actually seeing 27 kids in a tiny classroom with nothing but tables and chairs and overwhelmed teachers (only a week into school), with kids reciting outloud things that were learned only by straight memorization was an eye opener. It makes me want to jump right in and offer different techniques that would make school more fun and more effective! Class everyday has been both informative and at times overwhelming. Having no background in education makes it difficult - most of the others have been teachers, so when we're given assignments on lesson planning and classrom management and reading assessment skills I have NO idea what's going on or where to start. My other education volunteers have been very helpful and supportive and are explaining lots of things to me, so that's great. All in all it's been a roller coaster, as PC promised it would be. I miss Netty on a daily basis, but it's only really gotten to me once, and I'm grateful I'm not all boo-hooey over the people I miss as well. I guess that's b/c I'm still able to text and call people if it's necessary, even if it is expensive. Which reminds me - Matt and Michael, I haven't heard from you two and I need to know what's going on! Let me know what you've been up to, and Michael, I want wedding plans and work updates. Love all of you - hope you're doing well. Shoot me emails, I want to hear from you! (And in case you want to send me a letter or package, the address is Emily Herrod-PCV, Peace Corps Headquarters, Belmopan, Belize, Central America - a letter needs a 98 cent stamp)

Georgeville update

2009-09-02T08:33:00.000-07:00

Hi all!

We woke up at 5 this morning to catch the already pretty full bus at 6am. We're in Belmopan, at the PC Headquarters today, with the other education volunteers that are in the village of Maya Mopan, learning K'ekchi - which sounds and looks like Chinese! We definitely lucked out, getting Kriol! It turns out it's not too terribly difficult to comprehend if you read it like it looks like it would sound, or if you're listening to someone speaking very slowly and clearly. If they talk normally to each other, it's impossible to follow. Reading and comprehending are one thing, being able to remember and repeat it back is another thing, but we're slowly learning one phrase at a time, such as "Ai da Emily, da weh yu nayh?" (I am Emily, what's your name?) My host family, or I should say Peter's and my host family, is fabulous! Peter stays in the front house, with our host dad, who is my host mother's father, and I stay with her in the back house, with the houses being separated by about 13 steps. In Peter's house it's Dad, Yolie, Peter, and Danny (14ish), and my house sleeps me, Ms. Jean, Brittney (16) and Whitney (7). But during the waking hours we're usually all hanging out in Peter's living room. It's a good thing Peter and I get along! There are some people in our group I would have a problem being in such close contact so many hours of the day... Plus we can complain to each other about missing our respective significant others.

A regular day for me, now that I've kinda settled into a routine, consists of: Mrs. Jean wakes me up when breakfast is ready around 6:55; Peter and I eat breakfast; I take a cold shower (it sucks every time); I get out of the shower and within about 15 seconds am coated with sticky sweat, making it hard to get my clothes on; Peter and I walk to our village's community center for 8; we have either language training or technical training in the morning; go home for lunch at 12; return to the community center for whatever kind of training we didn't have in the morning; sweat a lot despite the fan and having the windows and doors open; walk home around 5; hang out in Peter's living room or on the front stoop; eat between 6 & 7; hang out/read/watch tv/do homework in Peter's living room; go to my room in the back house for some alone time; go to bed between 9 & 10; fall asleep somewhere around midnight thanks to the constantly squaking rooster and barking dogs right outside my open window; wake up at least 4 times per night; get up in a soaked bed and feeling sticky all over; repeat. Today, however, we're in Belmopan and loving the AC!!!!

Random thoughts: Peter's house has electricty, mine has an extension cord running from his house into mine, so I have a light I can plug in and stretch into my room at night for reading or writing in my journal. Whitney (whose nickname is Cheddar) only speaks to me when she wants to play more go fish, which I play a lot now; otherwise she just smiles shyly at me. Danny and Brittney have more friends in our house than there must be in any other house in G-ville - we've always got a full living room or front stoop! Oops! Class is resuming - more on Friday!

Off to my homestay

2009-08-26T14:38:00.000-07:00

Alright everyone, this is where it REALLY begins! Tomorrow afternoon we are brought to our temporary villages and placed in the very capable hands of our host families, whom we've never met. I'll be in Georgeville, a small village, along with 5 other volunteers, about 45 minutes from here. There won't be access to the internet there, but I'll be traveling back here to Belmopan to the PC headquarters on Fridays, so I'll be sure to update my blog then. I might also take a bus into a nearby village that does have an internet cafe so maybe you'll hear from me in between Fridays as well, we'll see.

I'm sooo excited to meet my host family! It will have its own set of challenges, but mostly I hear fabulous things about them and they more often than not consider you a true part of the family. Most volunteers continue to eat at least one meal a week with their former host families and love them like they do their family back home. I'll be in Georgeville for the next 5 weeks, going to classes each day from 8-5, coming home for lunch. My host mom will cook all meals for me, but it's important they teach me as much as possible so when I'm on my own I know how to do everything for myself. Also this is an important way to learn the local language, which for me will be Kriol. It sounds like it would be similar to the Cajun Creole we have in southern Louisiana, but it's much more difficult to distinguish and comprehend! The families won't be speaking anything else to me - starting first thing tomorrow! I'll learn the art of body language very quickly, I'm sure! It will be frustrating at times, but I'll learn it the quickest that way. I'll learn how to wash my clothes, use a different toilet (I don't THINK I'll have an outhouse, or latrine as we call them here, but I'm not positive of that), hopefully learn how to cook some local meals, learn my way around the village, meet everyone I can, and participate in all the local customs and celebrations. September happens to be the big month of celebration in Belize because their Independence Day is Sept. 21st and they celebrate the whole month up to then.

Anyway, I'm very excited about this next step and will be sure to let you know how my family is, and what it's like sleeping under my PC-issued mosquito net, what language and technical training are like, and generally how I'm getting along down here. I'm only a tiny bit nervous and worried about the social blunders I'm sure to commit and I KNOW I'll make an idiot of myself with the language, but it's all part of the journey! Wish me luck!

phone number

2009-08-26T08:20:00.001-07:00

Be aware of international calling rates for your cell plan first!!!! But then, call me! Or text - it's all free for me! :)

011-501-668-5042

My assignment!!!

2009-08-25T14:25:00.000-07:00

I found out today what they have me slated to do! I'll be working closely with a special education teacher who's preparing to retire for the first year, then the second year I'll teach everything to the incoming, probably untrained, new teacher! So exciting to know what I'm going to do!!!! Plus I got my phone, so I can call and text (and receive your calls and texts for free) - what a great day!!!

A lot in a little time

2009-08-24T17:17:00.000-07:00

Okay, so we were at the day of staging, I believe. Lilly and I got breakfast, the guys kept sleeping. We eventually all got down to the orientation area and turned in filled out forms, and played get to know each other games. Then the real stuff started. Lots of info, lots of interactive skits, etc. They let us loose around 6:45 and I ended up at a sushi place for dinner with about 7 other people. The rest went for beers afterwards, I went to bed! I slept 9:45-12:15, then showered and headed downstairs. 41 people's luggage for 2 years took up the whole lobby! We got on the bus and arrived at the airport at 2:45, even though it doesn't open until 4. So we hung around until the madness of check in started. We made it to our gate with just enough time to grab a breakfast something or other from the only open stand - a pizza place. Flight one left on time at 6:05, and we arrived in Miami with just enough time to get to our next gate and call a few last minute goodbyes in. Once in Belize we were greeted by current PCV's and PC staff who were screaming and clapping and generally gave us a fabulous welcome! A group picture, then an hour bus ride later we stopped for lunch, which was delicious - beans and rice, chicken, and a plantain for dessert.

After lunch we headed to the PC headquarters here in the capital city of Belmopan. We were given just enough information to help us find food for dinner and were finally taken to the hotel. I got 2 1/2 hours of sleep, most had none, so we were going on 20 hours without rest or either like 36+ hours without it - we were pretty ragged! Since then we've had a few days of "school" going through protocol and other things from 7:30-5. For the weekend, we went to the Mayan ruins at Xunantunich (AMAZING!), received a Belizean culture presentation with singing, dance, and food, played kickball with locals, gone swimming in a river (I of course did flips off a nearby rock), eaten out a lot, listened to Roger play his guitar under the stars, and generally get into the Belizean swing of things. The big change up comes this Thursday when we each go to our CBT (community based training) sites, where we'll each be put up in a host family's home and will travel to training each day. There will be about 3-6 people per site, but each in a different home. Then all 41 of us will travel on Fridays to the PC headquarters again for group training as well. This will be for 5 weeks then we'll go to our permanent site after swearing in at the end of October.

On a side note, we're all going to write President Obama letters tonight and mail them tomorrow. He's a personal friend of the new Belize PC Director and talked so much about PC benefits and stuff, so we're hoping to talk him into coming down for our swearing in - it's a long shot, but what if it worked??? That would be sooooo cool!!! Cross your fingers or write him on our behalf.

I'm getting a cell phone tomorrow and all incoming texts and calls are free for me. So get skype and call me from your computer to my cell for 17 cents a minute and we can keep in touch easily! Or get on facebook or gmail and we can IM as well, set up times I'll try to be by a computer... We'll see. In the meantime, keep emailing and mailing me - I love to have messages waiting when I get to the internet!

first night in DC

2009-08-19T10:21:00.000-07:00

So I got to the airport, and an old friend Stewart picked me up and drove me to my hotel. We got Starbucks and had a nice albeit brief chat - it was good to see him! I waited for Zan, the girl who said she wasn't using her hotel room tonight b/c she had a friend in DC but she never showed so I called her and she'd already checked in and put her stuff in the room and headed back out. The front desk gave me a spare key and I settled in to relax. Then Kevin walked in - he's like hey I'm your roommate, or Zan's apparently. He dropped his stuff and headed out to a baseball game with a friend. Then I'm relaxing again and Adam walks in and is like hey you must be my roommate. By now we're all really confused and it turned out the front desk had canceled Zan's room (but still gave her and me a key to it) and given it to the guys. They graciously allowed me to crash with them anyway, and once Kevin got back from the game, he, Adam, another girl Lilly and I went out for drinks. We walked until we found a bar, and just hung out talking until they kicked us out at 2. We went back to the hotel but weren' t tired so we hung out some more until we started getting tired and crashed at 3:30. Lilly and I got up to go get breakfast at 10:30 and woke the guys up when we got back, then just lounged around, getting ready and filling out paperwork until now - and it's about time to meet up with PC for registration, so I'm gonna run. But it's super cool I've already got a core group of friends and am meeting more by the minute! There was a group going to Namibia and one going to Khazackstan (sp?) that I hung out with yesterday, they were cool too. This is going to be a cool adventure, with cool people - I'm so excited!

Off I go!

2009-08-18T06:26:00.000-07:00

So I had an epiphany this morning as I got ready to leave Holly's and head to the airport. As excited as I've been getting to this point, it's naturally been tinged with sadness. I feel like my goodbyes were all doors closing, and I hadn't yet been able to walk through the open door in front of me. I'm hoping now that the 1 year and 2 month process of getting to this moment has finally ended, I'll be able to prance happily through the open door just like I imagined. I have so many prayers and thoughts following me I'm not even worried about my adventure. Whatever happens, happens, and it'll be just fine. A 3am conversation last night boosted my spirits as well, and now I sail out the door (Holly's actual front door, not the metaphorical one) with a light and happy heart. :) And the funny thing is, although my facebook status yesterday said I was just realizing it was my last day where everybody knew my name and I might be singing the Cheers tune soon, I'm not even worried about that. I've met so many fellow volunteers on facebook these last 2 months, new friends are just waiting to meet me. I have 4 of their phone numbers in my phone so I can hang out tonight while we wait for the orientation to start tomorrow afternoon, and an old friend picking me up at the airport for coffee and a chat and a ride to my hotel. Even going into the unknown I feel fully prepared. So, let the journey begin!

Quick update

2009-08-15T15:30:00.000-07:00

I'm currently in Orlando, having a blast with all my CCI friends and family! The goodbyes in Louisiana were hard, especially with family, Michael, Cara-Lyn, and Brandon... Mom and her best friend Susan threw me a wonderful going away party last weekend and all my closest friends were there, which was important to me. Packing was a to-do for sure, and I thought I'd die when we finally figured out what to take and what to leave and then weighed the bags only to discover I needed to lose 40 pounds of it. Most of it went from checked baggage to my carry-on, which my shoulders were NOT happy about come lugging-it-through-the-airport-alone time. But I somehow managed to get both huge bags, my bookbag, purse, and 40 pound carry-on to the car rental place and loaded up, but rest assured I was a bit winded and sweaty by the time I was done! The reunions with Summer, Holly, Jen, Lori and the rest of my CCI family were great this morning at the SER graduation, and the ceremony was as moving as always, especially with Jen's promotion to full instructor to cheer about. Now we're back at Summer's where I stayed last night and will tonight as well (I'll be at Holly's tomorrow and Monday nights), getting ready for our girls' night out. We're going to eat at my favorite Orlando restaurant Antonio's with the richest fetuccini alfredo around, then heading to Howl at the Moon for some dueling piano action! Summer just popped in and said the bus is leaving in one minute, so I'm gonna run! Cross your fingers tropical storm Ana veers AWAY from Miami - right now it's slated to hit it Wednesday p.m., and our layover is there Thursday a.m... This could get interesting.

The craziness has begun

2009-07-28T08:47:00.000-07:00

Okay, so my last day at my job was last Wednesday, and it was accompanied with all the dinners, gifts, and hugs expected - everyone was very sweet and I'll miss my fellow receptionist girls dearly! But that means the next phase of Project Belize has begun - the insane amount of traveling and packing and preparation, the latter two of which I naturally put off as much as possible. Indeed, as I sit here I'm procrastinating packing up my New Orleans home to move to Baton Rouge for my final remaining weeks before liftoff, even though moving day is tomorrow and I have yet to sort or pack the very first thing... *Groan* I'll get it done, though, I always do.

But the traveling I HAVE started! Friday I hopped a plane to Atlanta and spent a wonderful weekend with my dad and stepmother, just hanging out and having a relaxing weekend. It was perfect and I'm going to miss them and especially their 3 dogs Sarah, Juli, and Gracie (whom I loved on especially hard this weekend, in the absence of an every day dog to kiss and snuggle. If you haven't heard, Netty got very sick 2 days after my last post and went downhill very fast after a week of not eating and running a million tests at the vet hospital, which could only determine she was in liver failure and developed pancreatitis, and no one knows why. It absolutely shattered my heart, but I had to put her to sleep a month ago today. At least I don't have to worry about her missing me and wondering why I left her while I'm gone... But it's hard for me to think about it so that's all I'll say for now....) While I won't see the pups for a couple years, the humans at least will be visiting me in country during my 2 year stint, so I'll see Dad and Lisa relatively soon. Yesterday morning I returned to a rainy New Orleans (and an awfully scary text message on my phone, but we won't get into that), spent some time with my dear friend Cara-Lyn who had a BEAUTIFUL baby girl last Tuesday (sooo glad I was off work that day and got to spend the day in the hospital waiting for and meeting her!), and spent the rest of yesterday avoiding packing, using the excuse that I don't have boxes. I'm an excellent excuse maker when it comes to avoiding undesirable tasks...

But I better get a move on because Grant and Mom are coming down from Baton Rouge with a U-Haul this afternoon and after a dinner with Stephenie and W.C. and vising with Cara-Lyn and baby Myla it's moving day first thing in the morning. Then I'll have a day to settle in to my grandmother's house in B.R. before Grant and I hit the road Friday for the 5 hour drive to Houston for our much-anticipated siblings weekend with Elizabeth! Schlitterbahn, here we come!! Grant and I head back as Eliz heads to work Monday morning, then I have 1 week and 3 days to do all my last minute things, like transfer my car title to my mother and figure out EXACTLY what's going and what won't fit in my limited luggage space, as well as about a dozen other things. Plus we're having a going-away party at the neighborhood pool next Saturday, my only B.R. weekend, so I've told all my friends to come in town (Michael, Brandon, Steph) and to take off work (Matt, John Scott) so we have a last crazy weekend together- maybe we'll go hiking in Tunica Hills like I've been meaning to do all year! Plus it's Matt's birthday on 8-8-09, so we have to celebrate him too. :)

It'll be a whirlwind couple of weeks, and that's not even counting leaving for Orlando Friday August 14th, lapping up as many memories and hugs as I can from my beloved Orlando girls before jetsetting it up to D.C. for Peace Corps Staging (orientation) Tuesday August 18th. I'm there doing D.C. stuff Tuesday, then Peace Corps stuff Wednesday, then Thursday morning at 6:05 a.m. my flight leaves for Belize! By then I'm sure I'll just be happy to be in one spot for an extended period of time - although my first 2 months in country I'll be bounced around quite a bit as well..... Oh well, I'm all for more excitement - this is going to be so much fun!

I'm definitely going!

2009-06-16T18:07:00.000-07:00

So, I got the official invite about a week and a half ago, and am still giddy with excitement - two whole years in Belize as a Peace Corps Volunteer! I couldn't have picked a more perfect place to go if I'd been able to choose my destination myself. I would've been happy to work as a special education teacher trainer anywhere, but that I get to do it in a beautiful country I've already visited and fallen in love with makes this adventure that much more exciting. I haven't stopped pinching myself since I found out - from hugging the mailman and bouncing around him squealing, to calling every person I care about to share the great news, I've spewed happiness for the last week straight. I'm planning out every minute from the day I quit my job (Wed. July 22nd) to the day I arrive in Miami for "staging" (orientation) on Wed. August 19th; my life is chock full. So much to do!

I've got more doctor visits to do, get to an optometrist for a final check up and get a 2nd pair of glasses (no contacts for the next 2 years), transfer the title of my car to my mother, visit all my family and friends, buy a whole new wardrobe, figure out how to get my four thick Twilight series books into my limited luggage space, figure out what should stay (cell phone will be residing in the States without me) and what should go (if there's the possibility of no electricity should I bring my Ipod?), and do stuff like renew my license so I can drive when I come home for 2 weeks for my best friend's wedding and figure out how to get an absentee ballot for voting. Plus there's things to think about like should I get insurance for my stuff while I'm there, what about life insurance, will my dog really be okay without me for TWO YEARS???

Despite the crazy hecticness that has surrounded my last week and a half as I come to the realization that this dream is really going to happen, I'm beside myself with anticipation and excitement, and would leave this week if they would let me. I'm upset I'll miss the fun planning stuff with my best friend as she plans her wedding, and I'm VERY worried about my dear Netty's health and well-being (that dog IS my heart!), and I know I'll miss my baby brother dearly (as well as the rest of my family, but he and I have become quite close lately), but I know this adventure will be the best one I've embarked upon yet and can't wait to see how I handle it and how it changes me. Wish me luck and I'll keep in touch as much as possible!