First Vacation!

Right before I posted my last blog post, I had just finished up an excellent vacation with two of my good friends, Annie and Nicole.  Though they were only here for a few days, we had a blast! So much so that Nicole forced me to make this a separate blog post.  

I met them at the airport on Thursday where we quickly caught up before jumping in a taxi and making our way to the Belize City bus terminal.  We got lucky and had an awesome cab driver along the way.  He told us about the different events that'd be going on in the city and pointed out some upcoming projects that the city was working on.  I felt like it was a good introduction to the city for the girls (and for myself, having never been before).  It worked out even better that we got to the terminal at the same time as a bus heading down to Placencia, where we would be staying the next three nights.  

The bus trip was relatively uneventful except for we got warm sweet bun... You can't really beat warm sweet bun on a bus ride with friends.

After what was an extremely long bus ride down to Placencia, we dropped off our stuff and went out to meet some other volunteers at one of the local bars.  It was like two separate worlds were colliding. Thus far during service, I've had my Peace Corps world and my not Peace Corps world.  It wasn't until that moment at the Tipsy Tuna that they both collided and, with the exception of all the embarrassing stories that were told of me, it was awesome!  I really need to commend the girls, too.  I think when it was all said and done they'd been up for 23 hours or something crazy like that.  Despite that fact, they were up and at it early the next morning.

After getting some breakfast and sending off some of the volunteers, Nicole, Annie, the remaining volunteers, and I went out to the beach for the rest of the day.  The whole weekend was a pretty overcast, but there were times that were sunny during the day.  It was honestly the best day we could have had at the beach, so we made the most of it.  For lunch, we went down to this tiny restaurant off the dock to get some authentic Belizean food.  The food was great and the owner was amazing.  She conveyed everything that one would attribute to a Belizean: welcoming, kind, and carefree.  That afternoon, we spent some time jumping off a pear out into the sea until it was finally time to send off two more Peace Corps friends and start getting ready for dinner.

With the weather being a little iffy, we weren't really sure what we were going to do for dinner. One of the options was this restaurant called Tranquilo, which was supposed to be incredible, but it is on a dock off an island, so if the weather wasn't great, there was a chance it could be kind of an uncomfortable dinner. We decided to risk it, though, and it ended up being a great bet.  While we were waiting for the water taxi that would take us out to the restaurant, a couple just married came out, the bride still in her wedding dress.  You can imagine it was a little awkward when we showed up and employees began asking us if we were with the wedding party, but we handled it.  Overall, it was an incredible meal, especially the lionfish that I tried from Nicole's plate.  If you're ever in Placencia, I would highly recommend it, especially if you time it right for sunset.  

Or if you prefer the version with the manatee trying to drink my beer, there it is... 

The next day was rainy again, but Nicole and Annie were able to get out and see some manatees.  Other than that, though, most of the time was spent inside resting and getting ready for "The Fight of the Millennium" that would be later that night between Pacquiao and Mayweather.  After the fight, Nicole and I had some drinks on the beach and talked about all the reasons that she should join Peace Corps! We'll see if I was convincing enough.  Only time can tell.

The next day started early with a pretty rough bus ride into Armenia to see my host family from the village.  I couldn't let Nicole and Annie leave without getting to experience some of the Mayan culture.  It was great to see my first Belizean home again.  They are doing great! The youngest is doing really well in school and was at the top of his Infant I class.  He was speaking to me in English and everything, something that the Infants at my site struggle with.  Though the menu changed last minute and we had rice and beans instead of caldo, Nicole and Annie still got to experience some of the culture, such as playing Uno in a thatch house (alright, maybe minus the Uno).  Annie even used a latrine.  Nicole and I were both very proud. 

Time in the village was short lived, though, and as soon as lunch was over, we were on our way to Belmopan to stay with my embassy family, where Annie was back in her element. 

And then, just like that, the next morning came, and it was time to head back into Belize City to find the girls a taxi driver that would get them back to the airport safely.  Though short lived, I don't think it could have been a better trip.  There were drinks, karaoke, and sweet buns the size of a human head.  There were manatees, thatched homes, and pit latrines.  There were friendships formed, stories told about past lives, and memories that I'll take with me forever, and for all of these things, I am most grateful.  Thanks Annie and Nicole for coming down and sharing a part of my life that I won't be able to share with many people in the States once I return.  I had a great time!

Finding Grass

The past few weeks have been the busiest of service so far.  There are times that I find myself thinking that there’s too much to get done in the limited electricity setting that I find myself living in, yet somehow I’m still able to complete (most of) the work I have planned while at the same time managing to enjoy myself and my community. 

The latrine project that I am working on with my community work partner is finally beginning to take shape.  I am continuing to make house visits around the village asking the villagers who attended the diarrheal disease lessons how to prevent and manage diarrhea as well as when it is important to go to the hospital with diarrhea.  Naturally, this has led to an improvement in my Q’eqchi, especially when it comes to talking about poop.  I may not know much conversational Q’eqchi, but I could go on for days when talking about diarrhea.

We have also been able to get in contact with a group in the States that is willing to collect donations from the U.S. and wire them into an account that will be made up of community members who have been involved in the project.  My work partner and I will begin identifying people during the next month that we think would be able to support the group, which will ultimately be used for any community development projects that have been identified by the villagers.  To help in understanding how to set up a project of this magnitude, I was able to take a trip out to another volunteer’s site who is also working on a latrine project.  I was able to get information from her about building latrines, how to set up and run a village-based group, people to contact about fundraising, and where to find the best deals for supplies in town.  It was incredibly helpful!

Once the group has been registered as an official group, we will begin to ask for donations from the States.  Ideally, we will be able to come up with an Adopt-a-Family type situation where families in the States will get information on a family that they’ve decided to “adopt.”  Of course this will all take place with the families’ consent.  This way people who decide to donate can have a connection with the families in the village that lack toilets.  More information about this to come!

Aside from the latrine project, my work partner and I are also making headway on the health fair.  We finally have an agenda, a list of invitees, and a budget.  Right now all that’s left to do is get a set date, which I’m pushing to be June 4, but we shall see.  If all of the presenters can come, I think it has potential to be very successful.  For now, I’m just going to continue giving lessons at the school about Non-Communicable Diseases so that the kids can help present information to the villagers at the fair.

Things at site aren’t all about work, though.  Most of the time I’m hanging out with people in the village watching movies on my computer, helping them with household chores, or even just talking.  At one point, I went to go help one of the kids in the village throw beans.  What happens is that when the farmers gather their beans, there tends to be a lot of dried grass and dirt.  Throwing them with bowls helps to clean out some of that dust.  Naturally, never having done this before, my first few throws were terrible… I completely missed the tarp a few times and other times, I wouldn’t throw them high enough to allow the wind to blow out the dust.  It was at this point that the 13 year old corrected my technique, and by the time I finished I was a pro.  The whole experience was just one of those reminders that I don’t, in fact, know everything, and that there are even times when a 13 year old can teach me something.

At another point in time, I was hanging out after school with some of the kids.  I was on my way home when I grabbed my book bag off the ground and stopped to talk with some of the teachers and students.  It was then that I felt something crawling on my chest.  Unfortunately, my first reaction was to grab and throw it, not flick it.  It turns out that if you try and grab and throw a scorpion, you get stung and it’s not like a bee sting.  It’s a full out sting that put me in more pain than I’d been in in a while.  My hand swelled up and there was a tingling sensation all the way up my arm and even into my mouth and lips.  It was crazy! The pain lasted a few days, but things are all good now, thankfully.

Of all the things that have happened in the past month, though, one thing in particular stands out to me as a real “lesson learned” moment.  There had been a bulldozer in the village that was charging people absurd fees to level out certain things like plots of land or the road that leads out to the farms which will just become uneven again as soon as the first rains come and the horses begin to walk the road.  On top of the price, the bulldozer was getting rid of grass from the village and leaving plots of dust in its place.  This is what really frustrated me about its presence.  All I wanted was my grassy yard back!

Just days after the bulldozer left, it began to rain more than it had at any other point during the dry season.  We had a week straight of rain, and all the dust turned into mud.  I had to start wearing my boots around the village and needed to focus on every step that I took in an effort not to fall.  What did I do about this? I complained about it: to the teachers, the kids, the host family, everyone!  To me, it was the bulldozer’s fault, so I continued to complain about that to everyone.  Essentially, I was full of negativity during that week of rain (now, admittedly, over a problem that is pretty minuscule in the grand scheme of things).

During the few days of rain, I began reading a book called The Tao of Pooh which considered the different types of people and how they relate to Taoist principles by looking at characters from Winnie the Pooh.  One of the ideas that the book presents is the importance of looking at potentially negative situations but seeing the good that can come from them and knowing that whatever happened occurred for a reason.  Literally within a day of reading this, I stepped outside and saw in the mud something I hadn’t seen since the bulldozer left: grass.  Had it not been for the rain, there would have been no grass. 

This made a profound impact on me.  It taught me to acknowledge the negative but also know that it did happen for a reason.  There will be times at site when something bad happens (probably it’ll be bigger than just losing some grass), but I’m going to need to take that negative and make it into something better, either through my actions or, more simply, my observations.  There was nothing I could have done about the rain, but I was able to notice that something good did come from all that rain and mud.  Because I was focused on finding the good from the not so good, I was able to find a positive – I was able to find grass.