Weekend Field Trip

Hi everyone,

So I have had a very busy 2 weeks. Today is a holiday, St. George’s Cayes Day, so I do not have to go to training. I spent a good chunk of the morning helping my host family make 100 tamales, which they plan on selling at the football game tonight. I finally was able to escape to my room to get some of my stuff done. So let me catch up all up on my recent adventures in Belize.

Most of the week was consumed by my very boring training stuff, but on Wednesday (9-04) we had to make a garden. Now in case I haven’t told you all this before, Belize is hot, very hot. Gardening is not exactly something I would have chosen but it is what it is. So…I sweated my butt off, in fact I didn’t even know it was possible to sweat as much as I did. Then that weekend we took a field trip to a bunch of places all over southern Belize.

On Saturday morning we all went to Punta Gorda for their market, which is absolutely amazing. The market was anything spectacular, but the town is beautiful. We wandered around for a bit, meet up with some other current volunteers, went shopping, and attended a workshop about art and crafts. It was a really good visit and I hope that I will be placed near PG, or at least be able to visit the market a few more times.

After the market we traveled to Barranco, which is a tiny Garifuna village of about 130 people. It was the most serene place I have been to thus far. I keep thinking about how lucky I am to be able to see and experience some of these places. I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

That night I spent the night in a Mayan Mopan village and ate dinner and breakfast with a family. In the village I was staying in, all the houses had thatch roofs and dirt floors, which is very common among the Mayans. We slept in a lodging center for tourists, which was pretty nice. The only problem was that we arrived when it was dark and the places didn’t have electricity so it was a little hard to get settled in. There were also outdoor latrines which are kind of scary at night time. We did have mosquito nets though so I wasn’t too worried about creepy crawly things in the middle of the night.

After breakfast we all headed to the Blue Creek Caves. It was about an hour hike to get to the caves, which at some points stopped being a hike and turned into rock climbing. To make matters worse all of the rocks are limestone, which are extremely slippery when wet. It was quite an adventure. Once we got there we were all in awe. As my one friend said, it looked like something from the Jungle Book.

We were all pretty exhausted from the Caves but we still had one more site to visit before we could head back home. Not too far away from the Caves was a Mayan Ruins site, which wasn’t exactly what I expected. I thought there would be these giant temples but the place we went to didn’t have anything like that. I didn’t realize how many different sites there are in Belize that has Mayan Ruins. I hope to one day visit them all. So that is about it folks. It was an wonderful, jammed packed weekend. Until next time!

Terra

MAYAN RUINS

BARRANCO

PICTURES OF PUNTA GORDA

Day on the water

Note: Blog was written on 8/31 but I couldn’t post it til today.

What an amazing day!! On Saturday my host family told me to invite all of the PCV (Peace Corps Volunteers) in my village to go fishing on Sunday. So on Sunday, three volunteers, my host family, and I went fishing in the Caribbean Sea. My host dad took us on a quick tour of the area where we found the coolest island ever!! It is the smallest island I have ever seen but we all fell in love with it. The island use to have a house on it but a hurricane Irene tore it down years ago. The man who owns it put it up for sale and let me tell you, if I had $20,000 lying around, it would be mine. He let us out of the boat so we could walk around and wade in the water. Isn’t it just gorgeous?? Are you all insanely jealous? The perks of being in the Peace Corps!!


After the island we went fishing where I caught one tiny fish and the others caught a few as well. Chris, (a PCV) did not catch any fish; he caught a sting ray, which my host brother promptly clubbed to death and put back into the water. We were out there until dark and then headed back towards home. Watching the sun set from the Caribbean Sea and then seeing the stars light up the sky was breathtaking. I couldn’t have asked for a better day.

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!