A Day in the Life

Now that I’ve been here for a few weeks, I’m starting to settle into a daily, and even weekly, routine.  Anyone who knows me knows that I really enjoy having an organized schedule.  I’ll admit, it’s not a great thing to have, especially being a Peace Corps Trainee, but it’s helping to keep me sane while so many changes are occurring. 

Generally, the morning starts out around 6:45 when the kids get in a fight and the younger, Alvin, starts crying.  I’ll either lose all hope in going back to sleep and get out my Kindle, or I’ll stuff my ear plugs into my ears and hope beyond all hope that I can just get thirty extra minutes of sleep.  My family also has a radio that they played once early in my stay, but it died and they had lost the charger.  They asked if I had a charger that would work for it.  I said I may but that it was locked up at the Peace Corps office.  After that, I’d forgotten about it.  Unfortunately, my host family had not.  My host dad bought a charger for it while he was in Belize City the other day.  That night, instead of listening to my iPod while we played Uno, we listened to the ten songs that they have saved to the car on repeat.  My first inclination was to feel bad about not trying harder to get my charger from the Peace Corps office.  It was clear that they really liked the radio and had to pay a relatively large amount to get the charger.  It wasn’t until 5:30 the next morning when they were blaring the radio that I remembered why I had not wanted to give them the charger.  If that radio would have been playing every morning for the first four weeks of my stay here, I think I would have gone crazy. 

After I eventually roll out of bed, I’ll throw on my business casual and walk out to a breakfast that’s usually larger than I prefer first thing in the morning.  The breakfast size seems like a constant battle with my host mom.  I say that I don’t usually eat a large breakfast.  The next morning I get a small breakfast of oats or cereal (perfect for me).  A few days go by at which point she slowly starts to include a banana or some mango.  As the week goes along, breakfast gets larger and larger until finally I’m back where I started – just me and my pound of rice and beans.  I guess, though, too much food isn’t a bad problem to have.  Plus, it’s around this point that the day turns from a dreary, I-don’t-want-to-be-a-productive-member-of-society kind of day to the overarching feeling of I-am-the-luckiest-person-in-the-world.  Once I’ve eaten as much as I can, I give my host brothers a hug, tell them to be good and listen to their mom, and run out the door so as not to keep the other trainees in my neighborhood waiting for me for school. 

Peace Corps school is pretty much the equivalent of college except it’s eight hours a day and almost all of the information that we receive is going to be relevant for at least the next two years (and maybe the rest of my life).  We have just recently gotten into the health work that we will be doing.  The two main goals of PCBZ is maternal and child health (MNCH) and non-communicable diseases (NCDs).  We just worked our way out of having a health pregnancy and are starting to talk about child health.  When I’m not learning about health topics, I’m learning Q’eqchi, but I won’t get too much into that now.  I feel like I could write a whole post just on the language.

After school, I’ll get home and play soccer with my family or go on a run, weather permitting.  This, inevitably, leads to the bucket shower.  Over the course of the past month, I have developed a love/hate relationship with my showering area.  At first, the roof was about six inches shorter than I was, so I was more concerned about the pain in my lower back than how cold the water was.  It wasn’t until my host dad raised the roof that I began to actually feel the cold.  Since that point, I’ve realized there’s a perfect time for a bucket shower.  If I don’t get to the shower by that point I’m out of luck.  The perfect time is about seven minutes after exercising – too soon after, I’ll sweat for the rest of the day; too late and the shower is freezing. 

Pretty much every week day goes like this up to this point.  After dinner, though, things start to mix up some.  On Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, I play Uno with my host family and some other trainees that live in the neighborhood.  This is something that the kids really look forward to, so much so that I’ve started trying to use not playing as a form of punishment.  I noticed that the kids were constantly fighting and nothing was really being done about it.  Occasionally the parents would yell at them or threaten to spank them, but other than that, there’s not much that the parents can take away as an alternative form of punishment.  Because of this, I spoke to both of the parents and asked if taking away Uno would be good.  They both said yes.  A few days later Alvin was being very obnoxious and difficult, so I told him he couldn’t play Uno that night.  He proceeded to say he hated me and sneezed in my face.  It’s okay though, the next day he was on my team for Uno and things were back to normal.  There was another morning when I heard Alvin crying.  I walked out of my room and stared right at Adrian.  No words were spoken but he could see in my eyes that I knew he had done something to make his brother cry, and I could see in his eyes that he was terrified I was going to say something to his mom and take away Uno.  I don’t want to seem like a dictator to them, but it was getting to the point that I needed to become more of an authority figure to them, not just their personal playground.  This method seems to be working for now.

Tuesday and Saturday have become established as movie nights.  Saturdays are the ones for the kids in the community.  We recently watched How to Train Your Dragon.  It was my second time seeing it and it is still one of my favorite movies.  If you haven’t seen it, I would highly recommend it.  I have also been told that I am Hiccup, the main character.  Tuesdays are a movie night for the family and my neighbors.  We recently finished the first three Star Wars movies (IV-VI), and I think my host family really enjoyed it.  I think The Princess Bride is next on the list. 

Every other Saturday, the trainees go on what we call a culture day.  This past culture day we all went out to Benque Viejo, a really cool Mestizo town.  We got to try and bunch of Mestizo foods and see some of the traditional dances.  After that, we went to an awesome Mayan ruin near the border with Guatemala, Xunantunich (X is pronounced ‘sh’).  It was incredible! It’s hard to believe that it was built hundreds of years ago.  It’s even harder to imagine thousands of people there for a ceremony or sacrifice.  It was awe inspiring.  I definitely will be going back sometime.

Sundays are my time to get together with my family.  The other trainees and I cooked them black bean burgers this past Sunday.  We also made some guacamole that they really enjoyed.  Overall, Sundays are a time to relax and hang out.  After lunch, we had another get together with the kids in the community and taught them about self-esteem.  This past Sunday, an incident occurred, so we were not able to hold our lessons on healthy living.  Everything is okay, though, and we should be back at it again this weekend.

I suppose that’s about it.  It may not seem like a lot, but it keeps me busy.  As a side note, I recently found a solution to the rats: his name is Tiger.  That’s right, I got a cat, two actually.  The first cat I got was borrowed from one of my teachers’ host family.  In Belize, it’s customary to put a cat in a bag when transporting it so that it can’t find its way back to its old home.  Then, when you bring it to the new house you circle it around the kitchen fire three times chanting, “A’an a’in aaochoch,” or, “This is your home.”  After performing this ritual with the first cat, we pulled it out the bag and it ran away… Fortunately, it made it back to its old house after four days.  Either way, after Moonshadow (the first cat) ran away, my host mom got lucky and found a woman who had kittens that she was giving away, so my host mom grabbed one.  Since it was orange, it only seemed appropriate that its name be Tiger.  Since he’s been in the house, the rats haven’t been an issue at all.  Judging by the poop, they’re still there, but at least they’re quiet.

Well I suppose that’s it.  Next time I post, I’ll probably know my permanent site.  Until then, all I’ll be doing is figuring out what sites I may be going to.  So far, I think it’ll be down south in the rural district of Toledo.  It’s going to be a blast! 

Keeping Busy

The past two weeks have been a whirlwind!  I moved in with a Q’eqchi family in Armenia on Wednesday the 2^nd.  Luckily they speak a lot of English so I am able to communicate with them as well as learn a lot of Q’eqchi.  The parents’ names are Martin and Victoria.  There are three kids: Edwin (13), Adrian (10), and Alvin (4).  Edwin is in the southern city of Punta Gorda with his grandpa, so I haven’t met him yet.  The other two kids are great, though.  They keep me busy constantly.  For instance, one morning, they woke me up fifteen minutes before my alarm clock.  When I told them I was going to sleep for a little longer, they decided to create a mound of buckets and peak over my wall to watch me sleep.  After that I decided that sleep was no longer an option, so I crawled out from under my mosquito net and opened the door, at which point Adrian asked, “We will play cards?”  Needless to say, no cards were played that morning, partially because I had school and partially because I was not very happy about losing fifteen critical minutes of sleep. I think he learned his lesson though because no one has woken me up early since, at least intentionally.  This is just a dramatic example, though, of how an average day is at home.  When I’m not in class, I’m constantly moving and entertaining the kids, something that is both loads of fun but exhausting at the same time.

The experience to this point has been just what I expected.  I live in a small wooden house with a thatched roof.  I don’t have electricity, and I get internet only once a week when we go into Belmopan.  At times it can get tough, but overall I’ve loved it!  My house is on a road with five other volunteers.  Two of them live with families that are relatives of my host mom.  Because of this, we are always getting together to hang out at the grandma’s house.  At nights, instead of watching the newest episode of the hit TV show, we play Uno and hang out under my solar light.  It’s crazy how much not having the option of television can bring families closer together.  Just observing the interactions of other families in the community, it’s crazy how much of a difference it makes not to have that amenity. I’ve heard stories of host kids that wake up and start watching TV right away.  Technology has become an addiction for those that have it.

So far, the only major problem I’ve run into are the other inhabitants of the house: rats.  Rats are one of those creatures that I used to defend in a sense.  I always felt that they were a little misunderstood.  This feeling began to change around my third night in Armenia.  For those that don’t know, rats love thatch roofs.  They also prefer to come out at night.  This wouldn’t be an issue if I didn’t enjoy sleeping at night.  The first night I heard them was a shock.  My room isn’t very big so when they move, it sounds like they’re crawling on my mosquito net or under my bed.  There have even been times when I’ve felt them running at the foot of my bed or on the wall behind my head.  They leave their poop everywhere and even gnawed on one of my hats some.  For about 3 or 4 days, lack of sleep was killing me.  Last Wednesday, I was able to get some ear plugs from the nurse.  This helped immensely as far as sleep is concerned.  The poop, however, still exists.  Rat poison was the next alternative.  They ate it but still didn’t die.  I’ve brought up getting a cat with my host family and they seem to not mind the idea, but I just feel like that’s a lot of responsibility.  The most recent approach that my host dad has devised to rid the home of rats is to stay up late in the dark with a pellet gun.  If you give the rats about five minutes, they start to come out.  Then you shine a light and shoot the rat.  It’s the more aggressive approach to getting rid of rats but it has been surprisingly effective.  It’s an unfortunate situation, but he’s gotten five so far and I’ve been able to sleep.

Outside of the rats, though, it really has been incredible here.  I can only hope that I’m as lucky when I get to my permanent site.  The first Saturday in Armenia, a fellow volunteer, my host dad, and I went out to a Mennonite village called Springfield.  It was an incredible trip.  We walked about four miles to get there, but the final destination was totally worth it.  It was beautiful and completely different than anything I had ever seen before.  I’m living without electricity and was still stunned by the seclusion that they live in.  Our final destination was the saw mill.  Here, they sit a 10 year old in the middle of a group of horses.  His job is to get the horses to run in a circle which, in turn, moves a saw.  When I say saw, I’m talking about a high powered saw that cut through four trees simultaneously, not just some dinky horse-powered saw.  The whole set up was an engineering spectacle. 

The trip back home was also exciting.  It involved many different modes of transportation. First there was hitchhiking the horse and buggy…

Then there was hitchhiking the rusty truck…

Then there was trudging through a jungle that didn’t really have a path…

It was so sick! Definitely what I thought I was going to be doing when I signed up for the Peace Corps.  Later that day, we had our first movie night.  It was a huge hit! We watched Finding Nemo.  There were about 40 kids there from the community, much more than we expected to have for our first event.  The next day, my host family and the other volunteers that live on my street got together for a big family (all of our families are related).  It was great to hang out and have that time to get to know the families.  After we finished eating, we played soccer for about two hours. 

Last week was not much different than my first few days in the community.  I spent a lot of time in class and trying to get to know my host family better.  I also began to develop a daily routine.  I get home form class and then go on a run or hang out with the kids some playing soccer.  Then my host family and I get together and have dinner.  After that, the other volunteers on the street come over and we study some Q’eqchi and play Uno with my host family.  It’s nice to have that family bounding time. 

One of the main aspects of last week was that we were having Teamwork Week.  On Thursday, our cohort had its first literacy night.  Some of the girls in our group read the Bearenstein Bears to a group of about 30 kids.  The main goal of the night was to have the kids in the library so that they could read some if they wanted to, but not many of us, including myself, thought that would really happen.  To our surprise, the night was a huge success!  We had to force the kids to leave because we had to close up the library.  They were so excited to read or have someone read to them.  It was awesome!  On Saturday, we had our weekly movie night where we continued the theme of the week and watched Lego Movie.  My host brother asked me to sing the “Everything is awesome” song to him afterward because he couldn’t really understand it at the time (his English isn’t great).  Since that point, though, he and everyone else in my family have been singing the song.  It’s pretty funny.  Then on Sunday, we had a teamwork gameday/info session for the kids.  We had the same group of about 40 kids show up, so that was great.  We taught them with a short lesson in the beginning, and then played a few games to have them implement what they learned.  In the end, one of our volunteers asked, “So what did you learn from today?” One of the girls who was very shy and had been quite throughout the day raised her hand and said, “When we work as a team, we can do anything.” That about summed it up.  We couldn’t really say anything to top that, so we moved to the bonfire that we had made and roasted some marshmallows with the kids.  The week was a hit!

Aside from Peace Corps work and promoting teamwork, it was a great weekend with the host family.  On Friday night, my host dad bought a chicken to eat.  Unfortunately, it escaped during the night into the forest in the backyard.  On Saturday, everyone was on a manhunt to find that chicken.  In the process of hacking through the forest with machetes to find that chicken, my host parents found a cave.  It was a pretty tight squeeze, but once you got through that, it was super deep.  There were all kinds of bats and stuff.  It was so cool!  It was really smooth on the sides, so there is talk that it could be a Mayan tunnel but the skeptic in me thinks that it once had a water way running through it.  Either way, it’s still awesome!  After that, we went to my host dad’s farm.  On the way, we tried all sorts of fruits straight off the tree/bush.  We had cohun nut, crabble (which I think is crab apple), the heart of bird-of-paradise (we think that’s the name), and fresh sugar cane. It was a great weekend!

I think that about sums up the past two weeks. I know it was a ton, but internet is iffy so I can’t update the blog as often as I’d like... Sorry ‘bout it.

Settling In

Has it really only been a week? I feel like I've been here for months, but I've been far from disappointed. Belize is an amazing country!  Following my last post, I began my Pre-departure Training and met the rest of my cohort – BH2.  This just indicates that we are the second group to come into Belize focusing strictly on health (Belize Health).  The rest of the people in the group are all amazing!! We have all gotten really close during the past week.  I feel like I've known them for much longer than a week.

Pre-departure Training consisted of some basic safety training, but was mostly icebreakers to force all of us to speak to each other.  The next morning we were up and on our way to the airport.  Landing in Belize City was such a rush.  There was no turning back.  We were in it for real.  We were greeted by the staff and on our way to Belmopan, the capital city.  As soon as we got there, we began the introductions from the staff and to the site.  Belize is unlike any Latin American country I've ever been to.  For instance, in most other countries, the capital and other large cities are full of towering buildings and crowded streets; however, in Belize, the “urban hubs” are far more rural than these other countries.  To further this point, the tallest building in the country is a Mayan ruin, not a skyscraper.  In Belmopan, there are only 10,000 people.  If this is a big city, I can’t wait to see what a village is like.

This past week of training has been a lot of classes.  We've been learning mostly about staying safe and ways to mitigate dangerous situations.  Aside from that, we've had classes on our homestays and how the Peace Corps works toward development.  One of the classes that we've had is essentially a type of group therapy.  During these sessions, we are forced to remember why we came here and how to deal with the trying times. In one of these sessions, we were asked why we decided to join the Peace Corps.  I went with the usual "I like to help people" answer, but that wasn't enough for me this time.  I wanted to consider why I like to help people.  I came to the realization that I am very fortunate.  I've been given a lot in my life and had a lot of opportunities, but others aren't as fortunate as me.  They don't have the access to the amenities that I've had access to my whole life.  Because of this disparity, I believe that it's my duty as a person to help those that are less fortunate.

Outside of the classroom, the group went to a Mayan village on Saturday.  We walked around a cacao farm and saw how they turned it into chocolate.  Then we walked through a hut that was the Mayan museum.  It just had the usually setup of a Mayan home/kitchen.  We made some tortillas out of flour and water and learned a traditional Mayan dance.  We then went and visited a Mayan healer.  It was really cool!  The connection that the Maya have with nature is awesome!

Later today, we will be going to live with a host family for our Community Based Training (CBT) in the village of Armenia, only about 30 minutes outside of Belmopan down the Hummingbird Highway.  During this time, we will continue to take classes, but these will be more technical than the ones up to this point.  We will be learning more about how to lead a community health project as well as taking language classes.  We will be in Armenia until early September, when we will have our swearing in.  This is also an important time because the host family that we are placed with will determine the community we will be in for the next two years.

To determine our placement, we had an interview with the staff.  Before leaving the states, I was beginning to get in tuned with my Native American ancestry.  For this reason, I wanted to get placed in a Mayan community; however, during the first week, I was torn between wanting to learn Spanish or Q'eqchi (Ketchi).  To me, there are positives to both.  Spanish is a language that could be used back in the US.  That plus the fact that I already know a fair amount of Spanish made it a very appealing language to learn.  With the Maya, however, I would be living the Peace Corps experience.  I wouldn't have electricity or internet.  It would just be a very cool (and at times difficult) way to spend the next two years.  My mindset was that when I signed up for PC I was willing to go anywhere, not necessarily guaranteeing me Spanish.  I decided that I would continue with this idea and told the interviewers that I wanted Q'eqchi, and yesterday, I officially found out that I will in fact be living in a Mayan community for the next two years speaking Q'eqchi!! I couldn't be more excited to get started and learn some of the language!

That's about it for now! Gotta get back to class.  Thanks to everyone for all the support.  I lose instant access to internet later today, so if you don't hear from me as frequently, that's why.  And here's a pudgy baby just because.