For Love of Running and Other Things

"Daniel, why are there so few Standard VI girls that want to go to high school?"

Henry has a way of asking me questions that require a much longer answer than I suspect he wants. Though the answer can be traced back through generations of change that has taken place among the Mayan people, I suffice it to say that their parents just don't really want them going to high school. They'd rather that their daughters stayed at home, learn how to manage the house while the father is at the farm, and get ready to become wives and mothers.  He seemed satisfied with the answer and we continued our walk from the school.  Though a relatively straight forward answer, this isn't an attribute of village life that I particularly care for - and I was happy to hear that Henry agreed.

Henry

"That's stupid.  Girls should still go to high school.  They should be able to learn how to work and help bring money into the house."  Right you are, my boy, right you are.

Answering this, however, was significantly easier to answer than his, "How does someone get AIDS?" question.  It's a touchy topic to explain to a 14 year old boy.

This question, though asked at random, is a fairly hot topic in the village.  There is a definite divide among families as to whether to send their daughters to high school.  In fact, even sending males to high school is something that only became popular over the past decade or so.  Nowadays, 75% or more of males in my village go to high school whereas females that go on to high school is only around 25%.  This divide is due mostly to the reasons listed above: fathers would rather their daughter stay at home so that she can learn skills that will make her a good wife.  With that being said, I can safely say that female empowerment, especially at the primary school level, is something that I wish I could have touched on more (though, I feel like the Student Leader program could open the door to this if another volunteer is to be placed in my site when I'm gone).

Alas, as my old youth leader used to say, "If ifs and buts were candies and nuts, we'd all be throwing parties."  With just two months left of service, starting a girls empowerment or leadership group is just something that I can't do, especially with all of the other projects that I have going on.  One of these projects, however, does attempt to break this gender divide in an alternative fashion: BRO Club. The thinking goes that if we can convince boys to think like Henry and recognize that by giving girls an education and more freedom, as well as treating them with the respect they deserve, we can improve society as a whole.

This topic is something that I'm hoping to cover with the boys either in the next month or during the BRO Camp that will be taking place at the end of June.  For the camp, my work partner, Mr. Coc, and I will be taking 10 boys to Belize District for a week to learn about this and other topics that pertain to them and ensuring that they become strong leaders for their communities.

In order to get to camp, though, we needed to find the funds to pay for the boys travel, so my work partner and I decided that we would host a football marathon in the village.  The first step was to select the 10 boys that would be attending camp.  The boys had to be well behaved, good leaders, and show an interest in bettering themselves and their communities.  After selecting the boys, Mr. Coc and I had a meeting with the parents to ensure that they would be willing to cook for such an event. It we want to make money, we'll have to sell something.  Not only did the parents agree to cook, but they also committed to donating the corn masa that would be needed for the panades and tamales. This was a huge step.  Getting the parents involved and invested in the camp was almost a sure way of seeing how many students we would be taking with us to Belize.

It's not enough, however, for the parents to be committed.  We wanted to make sure that the boys were dedicated to going to camp as well.  Mr. Coc gave each of the boys a responsibility that they were in charge of during the marathon.  Some boys were responsible for picking up trash, others for setting the tables.  If one boys didn't help the others with a particular responsibility, then chances were he didn't receive any help for his responsibility.  A couple of the boys fell into this trap and really learned the importance of working as a team.  The fundraiser was a huge success and we were able to get enough money to go to camp twice!

Mr. Coc spoke to me the following day and informed me that he was 100% invested in the club following the fundraiser.  We had a meeting with the boys and had them elect two leaders.  I was very happy with the selection of leaders.  Both boys are most definitely leaders among their peers, but they also have a habit of leading in the wrong ways every now and then, particularly being disrespectful and not listening.  I really believe that putting these two boys in a position of leadership will put pressure on them to set a good example and be good leaders among the other boys.  We also had the boys come up with a pledge:

I pledge on my honor to uphold the objects of San Vicente BRO Club,

To use my head for clearer thinking,

My heart for greater trustworthiness,

My hands to larger service, 

And my health to better living for my club, my community, my country, and my world.

I think it's pretty solid, but that's just me.

Aside from BRO, I've also been extremely busy with helping to build latrines, planning a trip for the Student Leaders, lessons for the Pigs Dig project, school sports, and, as of yesterday, Close of Service documents.  Didn't someone say that the last three months were supposed to be easier?  Or am I just making that up?

The latrine project has been going well.  We bought more materials around the end of April/beginning of May, so people have been coming to me constantly in order to get the materials from the Community Center.  There are some days where a person will show up to my house at 5:30 in the morning asking for materials, and I'll be up doing work from that point until 7:00 at night. On days like these I'll probably have given out materials to build two or three toilets.

The project will be coming to an end on May 31.  I went around the village and informed the people that had come to the informational sessions that if they wanted to get their materials, they must dig their hole by that day.  Some time during the first week of June, I will be going into town with Ac Yuam to pick up materials for those toilets.  My goal is that by the end of June, we will have helped build 50 toilets in the village.

The pig project is also going very well.  We have given out the pigs to the seven students who are participating in the project.  The students have been doing a really good job taking care of the pigs and seemed really invested.  They have been attending the after school life-skills sessions as well as a session on financial management and pig rearing.  There are still a few more lessons that we need to have with them, but I anticipate that they will go smoothly.

Learning to give pigs injections

The Student Leader program at the school is also going well.  The students are planning and trip to Xunantunich, but in order to go, we had to do another fundraiser separate from the BRO Club football marathon.  Having two fundraisers in the same week turned out to be a little confusing for some of the parents, especially the ones that were helping with both fundraisers, but we managed. The Students Leader fundraiser was one Mother's Day.  The school hosted a Mother's Day event and the Student Leaders sold rice and beans, panades, tamales, bananas, and watermelon.  Our goal was to raise $300 so that we could charter the bus up to Xunantunich.  I'm happy to say that thanks to the hard work of the students and their parents, we were able to reach the goal!

Aside from these two fundraisers that were used as a way to raise money for the different clubs that I had helped start in the village, I was a part of another fundraiser, this one just for the school.  It was a barbecue that required I wake up at 1:00 AM to help.  I decided that it would be good if I went out and helped support the school by helping cook, but I still don't think I've recovered from the lack of sleep...

Barbecue fundraiser

Sports have also been going really well at the school, and San Vicente R.C. School is proving to be one of the premier boys sports programs in the district of Toledo.  In December, the boys made it to Nationals for volleyball and got second.  The boys also got second at district for football in the Bishop's Cup and will be going back to district for football to participate in the Sports Council's tournament.  If they are able to win district for Sports Council, they will get to make another trip to nationals.

The boys seemed to really enjoy Bishop's Cup District, not necessarily because of the football (they weren't too happy to have gotten second), but because of the girls.  As I've said the boys have gone out of the village a few times, but I have never seem them interact with girls from different villages before.  It was hilarious to watch 13 and 14 year old boys just giggling in the middle of a conversation with these girls. Henry's laugh is particularly giggly, and the boys told me that one of the girls had grabbed his butt and he just started giggling.  One of the girls (the same one, I presume) also took one of his cleats from him.  Ten minutes before the game, he came to the coach with only the remaining cleat on and a smile on his face and said that one of the girls had stolen his shoe.  As you can imagine, the coach didn't find it as funny as Henry did.  I'm happy to say he got it back before the game.  Even during the championship game, as the girls' bus was leaving, they all started cheering for the boys team.  The timing was pretty poor as it was during a corner kick, but Henry forgot all about the game and looked over at the coach and I and started giggling some more, not even paying attention to the fact that the other team had just kicked the corner.  After the boys got second, the coach and I decided that the boys wouldn't be allowed to talk to girls next time; it made them all lose their focus, despite how funny it was to watch.

The most recent sporting even was softball.  Going into the softball seasons, I didn't expect much from our boys.  This was the first year that they had played, and they had no idea what the rules were.  Going into zone, we didn't practice too much, either.  I was so focused on track and field that I figured the boys would lose zone and then keep practicing for track.  I was, however, incorrect.  The boys went onto win zone, so the teachers at the school and I decided that we would really start to practice with the boys and at least make sure that they knew the rules; we didn't want them to embarrass themselves at district.  Turned out, though, that knowing the basic rules was all you really needed to win district.  The boys won the district tournament getting two triple plays on pop flies in the district championship.  They were going to Nationals for a sport for the second time in the year!!

Boys before the game

The day before Nationals was fairly uneventful.  We had one last practice with the boys after school just to go over any last minute rule reminders.  Around 8:30 that night, I was getting ready for bed when the man driving the charter arrived at my house.  The plan had been to leave the village at 3:00 AM, but now he was telling me that we needed to leave at 2:30... This may not seem like a huge change, but all week, the coach had been telling the boys to be at the school at 2:45.  With the change of plans, though, if they were to listen to that, they would have been left.  Because of the change, I had to go around to all 10 houses and inform the boys that we would be leaving earlier.  This meant waking up all of their families.  Peace Corps teaches us to be flexible, so I took a deep breath and go over it, but having to run this little errand for the driver who decided last minute to change his plans cost me an hour and a half of sleep.. Not that anyone's counting.

I'm happy to say that all of the boys made it the next morning and were on the bus up to Belize. Unfortunately, once we arrived, we realized that just knowing the basic rules may have worked for district, but it would not work for Nationals. There were all sorts of weird softball rules that the coach and I had never heard of.  The boys ended up getting last, but they were happy to have gone and at least represented Toledo.

Despite the fact that the boys didn't perform as well as anyone would have liked, there were still a lot of memories made, both by the boys and myself.  At one point, I had just gotten back from the bathroom and got some water out of the water fountain.  When I reached the place we were sitting, the boys asked for my water.  Obviously, I said no; there was free water right down the stairs.  Well, at this, all the boys jumped up and went to look for this water.  They were gone for about 5 minutes before they started yelling for me.

"There's no free water here!!"

"Of course there is."

I pointed to the water fountain.  At this, they all started touching it and pushing down on the spout to no avail.  Finally, after giving them a second to explore, I told one of the boys to put his face down toward the spout and I pushed the button to release the water.  All the boys laughed as it shot him in the ear.  It was crazy to see just how disconnected they are from modern technology.  I don't realize it too often in the village.  Most people have cell phones and use internet.  It seemed only natural they would know what a water fountain was.  It was really cool to see their fascination at something that so many people consider everyday.

Trying to turn this thing on

Aside from the water fountain incident, the boys had also been distracted by something from the moment that they had entered the stadium; however, this time, as opposed to the girls at Bishop's Cup District Championships.  The complex where softball was taking place consisted of two fields: the one where the two games were taking place and another that was surrounded by a 400m track.  The first thing the boys noticed when we entered the stadium, wasn't the softball field but the track.  I was obviously very pleased about this.  They had a bye for the first round and wanted to go to the track. The coach and I, though, decided that it would be better if they waited until after they had finished playing.  Little did we know that would only be two games.

Since the softball tournament had ended so quickly for our team, they immediately wanted to go check out the track.  By this time, it was about 3:30, so high school teams were starting to show up when we got there.  The boys did a few laps on the track.  They were overwhelmed by how much bigger it was than the little makeshift 200m track that they had been practicing on, but it was better for them to see it now than on the day of track nationals (that is, assuming they make it).  I got to teach them about staggered starts and the different pacing strategies for a 400m track compared to a 200m track.  It was awesome!

They then asked me to run a lap and see how fast I could do it.  I declined a few times, but in my head I knew it was only a matter of time.  Then one of the high school students asked me to race him. He said that he usually ran about a 60 second 400, so I figured what the heck.  I took off in the lead but that didn't last long.  By the 200m mark, I was dead.  In the end, the kid I was running against ran a 61 and I was at 63.  The boys were giving me shit for not winning, but, to be honest, I was pleased with the run.  In high school, I only ever hit 55.  I hadn't run much in the months leading up to what became known as "the race" (okay, maybe not really, sometimes I like to exaggerate the magnitude of situations), and I was running in khaki shorts and no shoes.  To run a 63 second 400 was better than I had expected.

Following the race, the boys continued to watch the high school students warm up some before starting their workout.  We boarded the bus as the sun was setting over Belize City.  The seven hour trip back to the village, as opposed to the trip out, was quite as the boys slept.  I closed my eyes to sleep with thoughts, not of the disappointment of getting last, running through my mind, but of the prided that I have in the boys who worked so hard to get their in the first place.  I only hope that they show this same passion and motivation to make it back out again for football, track and field, and even in life.

Feeling the Countdown

I was speaking to a member of staff recently when I was in Belmopan and he was telling me that blog posts usually fall off at about the 18 month mark.  I can officially attest to that.  It’s around that time where I really started getting on top of all of the projects that are going on in the village.  Latrines.  BRO.  Pigs.  Track.  When I have a chance to get into town, my only focus is on doing any work that I need to do to make sure that these projects get completed in the next… what month are we in? April?… to make sure that these projects get done in the next 4 months. 

Really, I’ve gotten to the point where going to town is a pain.  If it weren’t for these projects that I have going on that require internet, I don’t know if I would come into town at all.  Likewise, if it weren’t for these projects, there are days when I’m not so sure I would go back into the village.  It’s funny how quickly we can get accustomed to the small things that render us immobile.  Waking up in a soft bed using only the sunrise for an alarm clock.  The calming silence that follows a gust of wind through the cahun thatch.  The thought of having one more day to have one more beer on the beach with friends.   Receiving a smile from one of the kids that tells a story greater than words could ever express – a story of confidence and trust a year and a half in the making.

And in just four months, all of these draws, whether on the beach or on the farm, will become memories, screaming and protesting as I step onto a plane that will take me back to my past life.

Until that day, though, there is work to be done.  The latrine project continues to move on slowly but surely.  The Health Worker and I have finished education sessions for a second group of recipients that bring the total number of toilets to be constructed to around 60, essentially the entire village.  It’ll be great to see everyone with a toilet by the time I leave.  There’s still a lot of work to be done, though, before that can happen. 

I’ve also been working on a project called Pigs Dig Education in which my work partner and I will give female piglets to eight students interested in going to high school.  They are responsible for taking care of the pig and making sure that it gets pregnant.  Once it has babies, the students pass one female piglet down to the next group of participants.  They will sell the remaining pigs and use the money to help pay for high school.  This is a project that I really think can be successful, especially since my work partner seems very invested in the projected.  My hope is that whenever I go back to visit the village in however many years, the project will still be going strong. 

The "Pig" kids learned about financial management and spoke with their parents about costs for high school

I’m also continuing the Boys Reaching Out (BRO) Club.  Most of the boys in Standards IV-VI participate and are excited about the club.  It is, however, in a transition phase.  Before, we would always meet on Sundays, but this proved difficult for my work partners, so we are in the process of moving the club to weekdays after school.  It’s tough to make that transition now, though, since the pig project is taking up time after school to do life skills workshops for those participants, but by the end of the month we should have a solid, more legitimate BRO Club.  We will also be going to a nationwide BRO Camp at the end of June so the boys are already excited about that.  They just need to make sure that they attend a total of sixteen meetings to be eligible for the camp.

I’m also helping the school set up a trip for the student leaders.  They have been working very hard this year and the teachers and I agreed to work to help them go up to see Xunantunich sometime in June.  We are also planning on having them speak with the Mayan leaders in Toledo and representatives from the University of Belize.  My hope is that they will learn a lot about leadership and culture through this trip and will be motivated to continue their education past primary and high school. 

Isaac, one of the student leaders

Finally, I am continuing to help out with sports at the school.  Right now, the main focus for the kids is soccer.  Mine, however, is track and field.  Even though it’s still months away, I make sure that everyone knows how important it is to train for track.  It’s not like some sports where they can do some quick training and go out and compete.  For track, they’ll need months to train so that they can be at their best.  My hope is that we have at least 8 students participate at the district meet and that we can even take some of them up to nationals.  We shall see.

But that’s enough talk about work.  The past two months have also been a lot of fun!  For one thing, Nicole came and visited me again.  We started the week in Hopkins where we took things slow and relaxed with some of the other volunteers.  Nicole managed to get most of the way there by herself before I met her in Dangriga to catch a cab down to Hopkins.  I figured it’d be a good test to see how PC ready she is for the start of her service in Ecuador next month.  She passed the initial test in flying colors!  The next test for her, though, was going to be a bit more challenging.  We went into the village and spent two days there where I got to show her some of the work I’d been doing and also introduce her to the culture.  While there, she got to try “corn shakes” (her words, but really just lab, essentially corn drink) and “corn popsicles” (ducanu).  She wasn’t a huge fan of these, though, so that meant I got extras! Not a problem for me!  Following our time in the village, we went up to Caye Caulker to relax for a few days before she left back for the States.  Caulker was awesome! We met a lot of really cool people who were either just beginning a three month backpacking trip or just finishing it up.  It seemed like everyone there was backpacking around.  They convinced me to put it on my bucket list.  Overall, Nicole’s trip was a blast and she showed that she’s going to be a kick ass PCV in Ecuador!

Nicole finding the babies in the village

After Nicole’s visit, things were pretty slow in the village until Easter weekend.  The Catholics in my village have a ritual of sorts that they perform every five or so years when the rats get bad at the farm and eat all the crop.  I just happened to be lucky enough that they performed the ritual while I was in the village.  On the Thursday before Easter, the men and boys from the village and I went out to go catch some rats.  The men started by standing in a large circle around an area of the farm and chopping toward the center.  As we would chop, all the rats would move to the center until there was nowhere else for them to go except out of the circle, where we had boys ready to jump on any rats that dared leave the sanctuary of the ever shrinking circle.  I nearly caught one rat, but only managed to throw it in the air where it fell into the hands of a waiting child.

Once we had corralled about 20 rats, we took them to the priest’s house where we prayed and gave them cacao drink and tortilla.  They stayed at the house until Easter Sunday, when the men and I took them to a cave that was about an hour and a half walk into the bush.  I had heard the cave was large, but I still wasn’t expecting it to be anything too much.  When we arrived, though, I realized I was wrong.  The cave was huge.  We went down for about five minutes, but they said it went down another two miles!  Going in was steep and the rock floor slippery.  For some reason they found it odd when I decided to slide down on my butt…

Jose at the mouth at the cave

After the five minute trip inside we were totally immersed in the darkness.  Only a faint light made its way to us from the distant mouth of the cave.  I was surprised to see a stone alter was still decorated from past rat offerings.  The men placed the rats inside a hole with an entire dead chicken and about 2 gallons of cacao drink.  The idea is that the rats are like prisoners serving time for their crime.  I was also told that they wouldn’t die.  I guess only the people who go out in the next five years will be able to say for sure.  Once the hole was covered by stones to keep the rats inside, a fire was lit on the alter and everyone got a candle and began to pray.  It was an awesome thing to see! Definitely an Easter I’ll never forget.  By the time we finished to pray and were out of the cave, the smoke from the fire had begun to fill the cave and all of us blew black snot out of our noses.  The people thought it was hilarious!  All in all, it made for an awesome Easter/birthday weekend!  I can only hope the last four months, continue on in the same direction.

Candles post prayer

Go Tigers!

“I hate the SEC.  Alabama football be damned.  Nick Saban needs to hurry up and retire. Dude’s getting old.”  These were some of the thoughts running through my head as I was watching the final seconds tick off the clock of the national championship game.  But even louder than these thoughts were the feelings of pride that I felt in being a Clemson Alumni.  Usually one to get angry after any Clemson loss, I was surprised to notice that where anger and loathing would have normally been, there was mostly pride and hope (and yes, still some anger).  During the national championship, I feel like the Tigers proved something to the national – they had arrived and were here to stay.  As the third youngest team in the FBS, no one had expected them to make it as far as they did.  Even during the game, everyone expected to see Clemson get trounced by Henry and Alabama’s elite defense, but I really believe that if it wasn’t for three major special teams blunders, Clemson would have won the game.  Get that fixed and Clemson, returning loads of starters and bringing in the seventh best recruiting class in the nation, not only has a chance to be right back in the national championship next year but in years to come as well.

Watching the game with the other team... Miraculously, we didn't kill each other 

When I made it back to the village, I let the kids know that Clemson, just like the San Vicente Volleyball team and, more recently, the Carolina Panthers, had finished second in the nation.  They had become slightly invested, possibly as a result of my constant updates to them as soon as I received my text updates from my dad during every game.  It could also come from the fact that approximately 75% of my t-shirts and even a pair of my shorts refer to Clemson in some way.  The conversations typically went something like this:

“Yeah, bwai, Clemson lost…”

“Huh?! Who beat them?”

“Alabama.”

“Oh, I hate them!”

I taught them well.

In January, school got back up and running.  The first order of business for the teachers was to find the two students and the alternate that would participate in the zone spelling bee.  The kids, remembering the blunder that was cucumber last year, told me that I was not allowed to be the pronouncer, so instead, I got assigned the role of time keeper.  I’m happy to say that one of the two students and the alternate are both student leaders!  It’s always great to see them doing big things!  In fact, the student leaders are currently fundraising like crazy to try and go on a trip up to Cayo.  We’re planning on going to Xunantunich and to visit some of the leaders of the country, but first they need to fundraise about $500 USD.  To do this, the girls have been making and selling bracelets to students, while the boys have been helping to sell popcorn.  They are also interested in starting movie nights at the school on Fridays and potentially even a football marathon.

 

BRO Club is also going well with the Standard IV-VI boys.  There aren’t a huge number of boys that come out (about 5 is normal) but they are dedicated.  They are especially looking forward to going to BRO Camp, a camp where all the BRO clubs from around the country get together for a week and do different activities as well as build friendships with other boys from different backgrounds.  I’ve also begun getting more help from my counterparts in this endeavor.  I’m going to continue to encourage them to come out and help with lessons over the next few months.  Hopefully, that way, once I’m gone, the BRO Club will still be strong. 

Sergio practicing football before BRO Club. One of the kids took the pic, hence the quality

The running club, probably the project I enjoy the most, is still going strong.  The numbers have dwindled some, but I had expected that.  Running isn’t necessarily something that youth naturally enjoy doing.  They’d rather be playing football or slinging birds.  Still, though, there’s a pretty solid group of about 10 boys that come to most of the practices. 

To try and make running more exciting for the boys, I’ve planned a track meet every month until June, when district and nationals will take place.  We had our first meet in January, and it went pretty well until the men’s football team showed up.  Then, all the boys cared about was playing goalitos in a far off corner of the field.  Still, though, the meet was a good starting point and gave me ideas as to which boys will be more distance focused and which boys are sprinters.  The next meet is scheduled for mid-February. 

Workouts are also set to begin this week, so I’m hoping the boys find that more exciting than just running down the road and back.  The only downside to this running club is that sustainability is going to be difficult; however, I’ve begun talking with a teacher who seems interested in joining the club.  This would be a huge step toward a more sustainable running club. 

After each run for the past few weeks, we’ve been doing strides on the field.  Typically, football practice for the men in the village is also beginning around this time.  When the men see me striding with the boys, they decide they want to race me.  They trot over and say, “Let’s go. Make I race you,” and, being pretty competitive, I oblige.  This has happened on a few separate occasions and, though I’m not the fastest person in the world, I do have long legs, something many Q’eqchi people lack.  This has proven to be a major advantage as I’ve managed to win every race, even if it’s after a 6 mile run.

While I was getting back in the routine of going to school, my host nephew was falling out of it.  Manuel is my extremely bright host nephew who is now in high school, but for the first few days of school in January, he wasn’t going.  He told me that he had dropped out.  This, naturally, caused me an overwhelming amount of anxiety.  On the third day of the ordeal, I finally spoke to him.  I didn’t try to hide the fact that I was extremely disappointed.  The kid has loads of potential and I hated to see him waste it.  I told him that he had potential to do big things but that he was wasting his talents.  I also stopped letting him use any of my electronics, telling him that without an education, he wouldn’t be able to afford such devices.  I think this was the kicker.  Next day, he was back at school, and I’m happy to see he hasn’t missed a day since.

Aside from the work at the school, I am still involved in the village.  The latrine project has been going well.  I believe that three or four new toilets have been constructed over the past month.  It’s a slow process, but the number of people with access to a toilet continues to move upward.  Hopefully, by the end of March, the first group of ~30 will be finished constructing their latrines.  More lessons are scheduled for February for the next group of ~30.  My goal is that by the time I leave, everyone not only has access to a latrine, but they know why it’s so important to use one.

Oh, and I adopted a dog. Meet Pishwit!

So, with nothing much else going on in my life, there’s only one thing left to say: Go Tigers!

Another Happy New Year

Happy (belated) New Year from Toledo, Belize! For the holidays, I decided to take some time out of the village to get away, relax, WATCH CLEMSON FOOTBALL! and, yes, catch up on all the blog posts and other work that I’ve been needing to get done on my computer.  As far as blog posts are concerned, I feel like every time I finish one, I have two more to do, so sorry that this one may seem a little outdated.  Anyway, taking my New Year mini vacation gave me a chance to think back on all that 2015 had to offer.  It’s crazy for me to think that just a year ago, I was still a novice PCV getting to know my site, nervous at the thought of what the next year had to offer. 

Over the past year, and in particular, the past few months, one of my main focuses has been on providing latrines for the people in the village.  As of now, the Community Health Worker (CHW) and I have educated 34 people, not including the students, on the prevention and management of diarrheal disease.  Twenty nine of these people have also received education on how to build and maintain latrines, with 20 of them getting materials for their latrines and materials for the other nine on the way.  So far, nine families have completed building their latrines and the next 20 should have theirs built within the next month or two.  I’m also excited to say that the village leaders, CHW, and I have plans to continue this project for the rest of the villagers who don’t have latrines or who need them renovated.  Thanks to the help of my church back in the States, Trinity Episcopal Pinopolis, as well as Dr. Gibbs and Potties for the People, the funds for this project have not only been met but have been exceeded! None of the work that I have done with toilets would have been possible without these two groups.

Building latrines has not only been great for the villagers, but it has also allowed me to work with many of the villagers and build relationships that may not have existed before.  One of the people that is receiving materials for a latrine is a single mother of five.  Since there’s no husband around to help dig the hole, I’ve been able to work with the oldest son on getting this done.  One of the age groups that I haven’t been able to bond with as much is the high school aged kids, so it’s nice to have this opportunity.  Unfortunately, I found out after the fact, my hands are still very q’un (soft) so after the first day of digging, I came back with 12 blisters that had been ripped open.  It made it difficult to hold anything for about two days after that.  I decided that the next time we dug, I should be in charge of a different tool.  This seemed to work much better. 

When I’m not working on latrines, I feel like I’m doing something with the boys from the village.  The boys club that I’ve gotten started is going well.  I’m finally starting to get a consistent group coming out.  This means that it’s time to start getting some of my work partners from the school out to the meetings.  One of the difficulties so far with these meetings is that I’m good friends with almost all of the boys, so they always want to play around, even when I’m trying to give a lesson, say, on self-esteem.  For the lesson, I introduced the topic and then gave the boys a sheet of paper and told them to draw a picture of themselves and write ten things that they’re good at or that they like about themselves.  I clearly hadn’t put enough thought into this.  Do you know what happens when you give adolescent boys paper and pencils?  They draw penises on everything.  I’m hoping that having a work partner present will help to alleviate, or at least minimize, problems like this.

In early December, I ran a half marathon in Placencia.  Since it had rained a month and a half before hand, I didn’t train too much going into the race.  I just wanted to run about a 1:30 (which I did) in order to hopefully win the race (which I did not).  I was still happy to finish third and get a trophy that I could give to the school to add to its ever increasing trophy collection (yeah, we have some athletes).  I also figure maybe this will give the school something to remember me by.

After the Half Marathon

Anyway, the boys saw this trophy and decided that they wanted to start running, too, so we put together a track team at the school that will hopefully be able to go into PG again to compete for a chance to go to nationals in June.  Anyone who knows me well knows that when it comes to running, I can get pretty intense as well as a bit obsessive.  Now that I’m coaching the team, I have begun to project this onto the boys.  Obviously, like anyone who is coaching a team, I want to develop winners, but I also want them to enjoy it.  Since I’ve been able to develop a relationship with the boys, I can use this to determine who I should push harder and who I should ease up on.  I know which boys may quit if they get discouraged, so I’m constantly encouraging them to continue even if the workout seems a little difficult. 

Aside from work, I’m continuing to integrate with my family and other villagers.  I have gone out twice to plant, once with my host brother-in-law, once with the chairman.  I’m happy to say it is now something that I can do, though not necessarily very well or very fast.  Hopefully, though, I will continue to improve over the course of the next few months.  I have also gone out with my host dad to burn his field.  Before planting beans, you burn the field, making it much easier to plant and better for the beans to grow.  The hike out was awesome, and it was great to spend time with my host dad!

Planting with the Chairman

The hike out to the farm with my host dad

Burning the field also allowed me to experience a tradition that I hadn’t seen among the Q’eqchi people before.  When my host dad and I first arrived at the field.  I heard him yelling something, but I assumed that he was calling either my host brother/health worker or one of the workers.  He did this over and over again, though, and no one ever came.  I finally asked who he was calling because it seemed clear to me that whoever it was wasn’t hearing him.  It turns out, though, that he wasn’t calling anyone.  He was, in fact, calling the wind.  The thinking is that the more you call the wind, the harder it blows. The harder it blows, the better and faster the fire burns.  I thought that was a really cool tradition that some of the elders in the village still hold on to.  

Burning

Sometimes, though, I think my host family is getting a little too used to me.  My host nephew usually watches me eat over my shoulder and then as soon as I finish, he attacks anything I leave behind.  Well, one day, I had some cucumber, and he asked if he could have a slice, to which I obliged.  Then he asked for a second and third, so on and so forth.  You know, you give a mouse a cookie… Around number eight, I look at him and say, “Okay, last one!”  I need my vegetables, too!  For some reason, though, he asked for number nine.  This time, I responded, maybe a little harsher than I intended, “No, bwai!”  Yeah, that’s some of my “Kriol.” It comes out a little when I’m angry (and also after I’ve had a few drinks I think I can talk Kriol, but really I’m pretty sure I just sound ridiculous). 

Well, after this, he was a little hurt.  He looked at me with these big, brown, puppy dog eyes and goes, “But I just want to grow big like you…”  How can you say no to that?

“Okay, take three.”

Holidays in the village are always a little bizarre mostly because I know what I would be doing in the States more or less, and it is nothing at all like I do in the village.  For example, on Christmas Eve, instead of relaxing and feeling the excitement of the holidays, I went to each of the churches and watched as they slaughtered four pigs.  Instead of going to a nice candlelit midnight service and singing Silent Night and other Christmas hymns, I sat home and watched Les Mis on my computer with my host nephew.  I had just finished the book so I wanted to know how the movie compared.  Don’t worry, though, the church is right beside my house, so I was able to fully appreciate the (very loud) Q’eqchi/Spanish songs they sang that I personally did not find very peaceful.  I was also able to catch some of what the pastor was yelling to the congregation.  Afterward, instead of opening family gifts as I would have done in the States, I was with the villagers from the Baptist church as they ate piping hot caldo pork at 1:00 AM following their five hour service.  All in all, though, it was nice to relax and hang around the villagers.

I decided not to spend New Year in the village, however.  For starters, Clemson was playing in the Orange Bowl for a chance to go to the National Championship.  I wasn’t going to miss that!  What an awesome game, too! I’ll admit, I was a little nervous after OU’s quick score to start the game, but the boys turned it around and locked in on defense.  After a mediocre first half, it was good to see the Tigers come out ready to win the second half.  For the National Championship, I obviously came into town to watch. Couldn't miss that! Though the outcome was a little disappointing, I was still really proud of how the team played.  It was one of the best National Championship games of the last 15 years and Clemson made it as the third youngest team in the country!  Also, if you take away the two major special teams miscues, Clemson could have been leading late and possibly won.  I can't wait to see what next year has in store, and I'm excited to be in the States so that I can really follow what's going on!

Aside from watching football during my New Year holiday, I’ve had a lot of time to just relax and reflect.  My friends and I decided to stay at a sustainable farm instead of in town.  This has given me even more time to disconnect and clear my mind before heading back to site.  Little did I know that in a year, I would have the opportunity to provide latrines for the village, work on a farm, help guide the students in a direction that will hopefully allow for them to be successful adults, and feel like I was a part of the village that I have grown to love.  Yes, 2015 has been a year that I will never forget, and here’s to hoping that 2016 brings even more unexpected, life changing events! So with that, I say cheers and happy (belated) New Year!

The Boys Who Played without Shoes

Last year, I think it was around November or December 2014, the boys from the village were in the district volleyball championship, up against the team from San Marcos.  To win would allow them the chance to play in the National Tournament, so nerves were high.  In the first game, the boys had taken the lead and were up 22-19 when these nerves began to affect their play.  They gave up six straight points and lost the game.  The same thing happened in the second game with the boys blowing another late lead.  Obviously, they were upset after losing district.  It had been right there for them to take, but they let it slide right through their fingers.  This loss, though, would turn out to be fuel for what would be a phenomenal 2015 season. 

Since volleyball is the first competition of the year that the students play in, as soon as school opens, the volleyball nets go up.  From the start of the year, we knew they were going to be good.  They’d only lost three players from the previous year and almost all of the current starters were in Standard VI, the oldest students.   For Independence Day, the boys played against some of the 18-25 year olds from the village.  They went 9-1 with the last lose coming during their final game and after hours of playing. 

Throughout October, the male teachers and I went up against the boys at least once or twice a week.  The boys beat us nearly every time.  Now, I’m not saying that the teachers and I are great, but we could set and occasionally put down a nice spike.  Only thing was the boys could do this exact same thing, except without letting the ball ever touch the ground.  Not every boy could spike hard over the net, and maybe just one or two of them ever got to this point, but you could bet that they would never let the ball drop.  This was where they had the upper hand on the teachers and any other team that they played.

In the zone championships, the boys dominated the other three teams, not letting another team score more than 7 or 8 points.  Practice got a little more intense after that with practice occurring at least two times a week.  We figured the more the boys played, the better prepared they’d be for district.

 

When district came along about a week and a half later, the teachers and I turned into psychiatrists, trying to keep away all of the demons that had haunted the boys last year.  I was especially focused on being a calming voice during the matches.  I knew that if they boys got stressed or nervous, they would do the same thing that they had done the year before.

For the first match of the district tournament, the boys played, what I believe, was the second best team out there.  The boys won a tight first game only to lose by a larger margin in the second game.  You could tell that during that second game, nerves were high - spikes were going out of bounds, the boys were hesitant to go hard after the ball.  That sort of thing.  The boys began the final game of the match with the ball and our best server up to serve.  This boy was particularly prone to nerves, so the coaches and I were holding our breath on the sideline.  As soon as the boy knocked the first one over the net, though, we knew that we could relax.  He went on to serve 15 straight points and win the first round match!

Jose, the star server

The second match was a little less stressful and the boys won easily in two sets.  We were going to the finals for the second straight year!  As we watched the next match, it became evident that we would be going against San Marcos, the team that we had lost to the following year.  Instead of appearing nervous, the boys looked confident.  They had had all day to watch San Marcos play.  They knew their strengths and weaknesses and they knew which players to keep the ball away from.  San Marcos, however, had confidence in knowing that they would be playing the same team they had beat the previous year.  This knowledge, especially for primary school students, can add a lot of confidence. 

The mentality of both teams appeared early on.  San Marcos came out hot while the boys from my village seemed shaken.  The nerves of last year’s loss had surfaced again.  This was particularly evident in our strongest player, the one who had served 15 straight points earlier in the day.  He could not keep the ball in bounds.  Every time he’d hit it, it’d sore out of bounds.  The coaches decided to sit him for a bit and I went over and spoke to him to try and calm his nerves.  In his place, the coaches put in the smallest and youngest boy on the team.  I think he goes up to about my waste.  Everyone watching laughed.  We had just replaced our best player with this kid? San Marcos took notice and started targeting the boy, but every time they’d hit it to him, he would handle it.  The boys would go on to win the first game!

The second game was no less nerve wracking, however.  Again, we got down early, and the boys had to work on digging themselves out of a four or five point hole.  The coaches decided that if there was a time the star player was needed, it was then.  He completely turned the game around and brought the boys up 19-18, and it was his serve.  He bulleted the final six serves over the net.  The boys were district champions!! Next stop, Belize City for Nationals!

In the week and a half leading up to nationals, the teachers and I continued to play (and lose) to the students, usually two matches a day four days a week.  The day before nationals, the parents and players got together to do a prayer service.  The parents gathered around the students and prayed and the Catholic students lit their prayer candles and let them burn throughout the night.  Not only were the parents praying for a win, but also for a safe trip the following day.  We were going to the big city! By village standards, that’s a scary place.  As soon as the service was finished, everyone left to go get some sleep.  We would need it since we would be leaving at 2:30 in the morning so that we could get to the city by 9:00.

As soon as 2:30 struck, we were off!  In order to catch the bus that would take us up to the city, we had to ride in the back of a truck a ways.  Since I didn’t think it would be a great idea to sit on the side of the truck, I decided to take the bucket full of coffee.  Little did I know that it was scalding hot and had literally been boiling five minutes earlier.  As I sat down, I noticed that top was a little hot, but nothing I couldn’t handle.  It wasn’t until we got going up and down the hills leaving my village that I realized I had made a bad decision.  Have you ever had boiling coffee poured on your ass?  Neither have I, but I would imagine that the pain would be something close to what I experienced as nearly boiling coffee splashed up against me, with only a top separating us.  At one point, to try and escape the pain, I half sat on one of the kid’s knees.  He yelled and said, “Move Mr. Daniel! Your butt’s too hot!!”  Yeah, if only he knew how I was actually feeling.  Luckily, we had to make a quick stop and I put some clothes I had between myself and the seat.  This did the trick. 

The rest of the ride was incredible and far from anything that I would ever experience in the U.S.  First of all, we were riding in the back of a truck to get from point A to point B.  That would never happen as part of a school trip in the States and definitely could be considered unsafe for the students.  The drive itself, though, was amazing!  It was early in the morning and there were no clouds in the sky.  Even the moon was hiding.  For half the trip, the boys, teachers, and I just looked up at the stars.  I showed them the few constellations that I knew and we even saw about five or six shooting stars.  Every time, the boys were “Ooo” and “Aahh”.

As we approached the area the bus was supposed to pick us up, someone told us that a bus full of kids had just left the intersection… Great, the charter left us.  We sped down the road for about 15 minutes trying to catch it.  Once we caught sight of it, everyone started flashing their lights and their phones.  Anything to get the bus to stop! Finally, it pulled over and one of the teachers ran over to see if it was in fact our bus.  Turns out, it was a group of disabled children heading to the Special Olympics event also in Belize City.  I can only imagine what the reactions of the parents and children on the bus were as they watched this truck driving after them maniacally flashing its lights and doing everything to get it to stop only to turn around and drive off. 

That whole portion of the trip brought some interesting and very mixed emotions to mind.  My initially reaction was, “This is so awesome! Kids in the States don’t know what they’re missing out on!”  But then I began to consider, “What if something were to happen while we were driving and all of these kids were hurt, or worse.”  On the one hand, I was thinking how lucky the kids were to have such an experience that they will never forget.  That is probably something that will never happen again in their life, whereas in the States, students go on countless field trips where no trip in is any different than the other.  On the other hand, how unfortunate is it that there is such poor infrastructure in a country that students are potentially putting their lives at risk to go play in a national tournament.  These two conflicting ideas wrestled around in my head for the rest of the trip once we had finally caught the real bus up to Belize City.

The ride went pretty smoothly.  One of the boys puked literally five minutes before we arrived.  Did he tell anyone he was feeling sick? No.  Did he try and find a bag? No.  Did he try and hold it in until we arrived? No.  He just puked freely all around his seat while everyone else looked around in utter disgust.  We’ll have to work on that with him next time we make a long trip…

After the seven and a half hour trip, it only made sense for the Belize Sports Council to put us in the first game against the team from Cayo.  There were six teams there (one for each district), so the teams were divided into two divisions: North and South.  I’d be a liar if I said that I wasn’t nervous during the first game.  There I was shaking with nerves and telling the kids to calm down and just play hard.  “Take a deep breath and knock the ball over the net!”  Coming in, I was expecting our boys to be competitive, but, I mean, it was nationals.  They were up against the best of the best. 

I'm not lying when I say the boys are small

The first match, the boys were nervous, but they slowly started to calm down.  When they began, they were all wearing their big bulky shoes.  They call them tennis shoes, but these aren’t tennis shoes.  They’re a bunch of knock off Air Jordans that way about a pound each.  They serve the boys as athletic shoes as well as dress shoes for any special occasion.  Other than that, they wear knock off Crocs (that’s right, there is, in fact, such a thing as knock off Crocs).  The boys had never gotten used to playing in the shoes that they had, so they took them off and started playing in socks.  I mean, if you have one pair of shoes that are supposed to be dress shoes, why play volleyball in them?

The match was close at first, but once the boys moved their shoes, they started to relax and dominate like they had all season!  It was awesome! They were hitting there sets and the occasional spike always seemed to drop in there.  Cayo was tough, but they had nothing on San Vicente!  The boys were 1-0, all but guaranteeing them a spot in the semifinals.

 

The next match was the one that I was more worried about.  We were up against Stann Creek, and it was obvious just by looking at the S.C. team that they were no Cayo.  These boys were athletes and all of them about a head taller than any of our boys.  I had done the figuring beforehand, though.  We could lose this game, but as long as Stann Creek beat Cayo, we’d be in the semifinals for sure.  Not sure if you’d call that optimism necessarily, but what can I say, I call it like I see it. 

The game started, and again it was a close start, but then something crazy happened – the boys started winning.  And not just winning, but dominating in every facet of the game.  Stann Creek was a great team, but the boys played nearly flawless volleyball (by middle school standards).  Stann Creek would put down spikes and our boys would go and dig it out and knock it right back at them.  It was incredible!

I wasn’t the only one impressed either.  By this point in the day, people were starting to show up.  No one had expected the little team from poor Toledo to come in and dominate like they were.  The coaches from the rival teams were even talking.  I heard one coach mention, “Wow, those boys are good, even without shoes!”  The boys went on to win that match in two sets.  They finished group play 2-0 and as the top seed going into the semifinals! Whatever happened from then on, I was going to be fine.  The boys had completely exceeded my expectations.  From then on, I would be proud no matter if they finished first or fourth.

Getting prepped for the second game

Unfortunately, I had to go to meeting in Belmopan, so I wasn’t able to see the last two games that they played.  The first game was against one of the teams from the North. The boys dominated, winning it in two sets.  They were 3-0 and heading to the national championship game!!

The game was a rematch against Stann Creek, except this time, Stann Creek wasn’t messing around.  They came out ready to win.  The boys lost first set by a pretty large margin.  I think that nerves had something to do with it.  I only wish that I could have been there to try and calm them down.  Maybe we’d have done the breathing exercises I tried to teach them early.  I don’t know.  Anything to try and get them to relax and focus on the game.  For the second set, they made it close, but lost again.

When I heard the news, I was heartbroken for the boys.  They had put everything that they had into the season.  I knew that a lot of them were going to be really upset and I wasn’t sure how well the coaches would encourage them.  I wanted to tell them that they did incredible!! I mean, jeez, they were the second best team in the nation!! How awesome is that!  I don’t know if I have ever felt as proud in another group of individuals as I did when I found out they got second.  Yeah, it’s hard to lose the last game, but to be second in the nation is something that most people would love to have.  The heart that they showed to get there was incredible! They didn’t get as far as they did because they had the best equipment or the nicest court.  They practiced on a muddy, grassy field every day.  They got so far because they had heart and determination.  When everyone else laughed at their size or overlooked them because they figured that no one from Toledo had a chance, our boys showed up and dominated. They played determined to keep the ball from hitting the ground.  They played to prove that something good can and will come out of Toledo. 

I can only hope that they continue to take this same determination into life. That they show people that just because you’re raised in a place that may not have the amenities that much of the country has, that doesn’t mean you don’t have a chance.  For them to win in life, they’ll have to use the same heart and hard work that they showed during the entire volleyball season.  Even though they may not win everything, they’ll see that the hard work will always make them better. 

Next up: soccer followed by track and field.  I know the boys will work as hard as they can to reach the best of their abilities, even if it means playing barefoot or in socks.   With that hard work, I know that they’ll show everyone what all a little team from Toledo can do.