What is now my life

Note: I wrote this on 8/29 but couldn’t post it until today.

I have been with my host family for 3 nights now and I am quite comfortable with them. Their family kind of reminds me of my family so it was easy to feel at home. The past three days have been filled with training. The first half of the day is language and culture class where we learn Kriol. Our teacher, Mrs. L is a super sweet woman and I love her! We have class in her ice cream/internet café/gym, which is quite possibly the best combination I have ever seen. I can go online whenever I need to; however, I plan on trying to limit my internet usage because it makes me homesick. We break for dinner (what we call lunch) around 11:30 or noon and come back at either 1pm or 1:30pm. The reason for the variation is because Mrs. L wants us to have a long dinner but Scott wants us back at 1pm. Scott is our Youth Technical Trainer and trumps Mrs. L but what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. By the way, in Belize both breakfast and dinner is called tea and lunch is called dinner. Just a fun fact for everyone.

The second half of the day is technical training where we gain the knowledge and skills necessary to work with the community and specifically youth. During these sessions, the other group of youth volunteers, who live in a different village, join us. Some days in the near future, my group will have to go to their site for training. We rotate every other time or something like that. That is basically it for training. It lasts until 5pm and then we are free for the rest of the evening. However, it gets dark around 6:30pm so we basically can’t do much. I go home and have tea with my family, hang out for a while and then go to bed. A pretty simple life and I am enjoying it.
Tonight was Friday night so my host mom, host sister, and myself went to watch the local football (soccer) game. I ran into two volunteers so I chatted with them through most of the game. It was fun and relaxing. Apparently the football games are the place to be on Friday nights. During the weeknights nothing really happens so it was nice to go out for a change. This weekend I plan on sleeping in (at least until 9am) and then organize my room. I am tired of living out of a suitcase.

I want to give everyone a description of the food I’ve been eating lately. I live with a fisherman so the family eats fish AT LEAST once a day, more often two. I was really nervous about eating fish but the way they prepare it is delicious. I have eaten something else which is native to Belize. It is called a Gibnot which was nicknamed the Royal Rat because the Queen of England ate it when she was visiting Belize. Apparently is the rat is super size and very expensive, costing over $10 a pound. My host mom told me after dinner what I had eaten; she is a very smart lady. If she had told me the meat was rat meat I would have freaked out. As it turns out, the Gibnot is very good and ended up having that for tea later.

Also, they eat tortillas with every single meal, which are made from scratch and are way better than any store bought tortilla! They are really big on carbs here, so there are always tortillas, bread, and rice and beans. They are not so big on vegetables. One day my host mom asked me if I wanted vegetables for dinner and then had to send someone out for a special trip to get them. They came back with a cucumber and tomato, which I had to eat most of because no one else wanted any. Fruit isn’t too big around here either; however my family has a mango tree in the back yard so we do eat those. They also have a coconut tree, watermelon, and a number of other native fruits bushes which I don’t know how to spell. Okay that’s it, just a quick run down of the food. I never know how to end these things. Bye. Soyta layta pipl!