Hanging Around Belize – Taking it Belizey

Weekend of June 25th, 2005

So this weekend we stayed in San Ignancio each night but took some crazy fun day trips. We wished we could have been at Kirsten and Eamon’s wedding in Boston though! I hope it was a blast!

Friday night we stayed in and played a crazy game of Spades with Jackie and Colin. Let’s just say after about say 6 hands, Jim and I were down by 500 points! We all know how Jim has a tendency to overbid J I am at fault too though. We are continuing the game this week because they are only at 410 now and we have finally broken BACK into positive points J

Saturday morning, we woke up early and took the local bus to the Belize Zoo. Again, the local bus was an adventure but we made it there in just about 2 hours (mind you it is only 30 miles from San Ignacio but the bus stops a ton and was pulled over and ticketed by the police for who knows what!). The zoo was amazing - it only contained animals local to Belize and those that were either rescued because they were injured or those born in the zoo. The TAPIR was the craziest animal - let's just say he had a HUGE male part - we all couldn't figure it out! The monkeys were everywhere and you could get really close to all the animals. Though, the animals that blew our minds were the jaguars. We could have literally stuck our hands out and pet these gorgeous animals we were so close to them. There were a few spotted ones and one black one. SO COOL! The zoo prides itself on keeping the animals in a very natural habitat so it wasn't like going to the American zoos with the animals all caged up.

From there, we hit up Old Belize - the worst $10 we have ever spent. It is supposed to be the museum and cultural center for Belize but it is FAR from anything impressive. It was a joke. We hung out at the man made lagoon there for a few hours until we got sick of the oil slick forming near us. Yes, it was pretty nasty. It was right outside of Belize City.

We waited and waited and waited for the local bus to come but it didn't. We were 65 miles from San Ignacio. After about an hour of waiting, a Ford Explorer pulls up and tells us he can get us to Belmopan which was at least a lot closer. So the 4 of us hop in (Jim, Colin and Jackie were there too) and inside the car are 4 men, all kinda partying it up. It was crazy to say the least. One guy pretty much owns 1/2 of Belize, another guy was a tourist friend from Florida, another was on the town council of Orange Walk (a city up North) and another was a tour guide. This was the most interesting ride we have taken in a long while. They were hilarious. We stopped at a local place on the way to Belmopan and got something to eat and drink. These guys were a riot. We finally arrived in Belmopan and then were able to catch a local bus to San Ignacio. Home sweet home.

We woke up again early on Sunday morning to get to a tour group by 7:15am. We went to see the cave ATM (Actun Tunichil Muknal) which was located about an hour or so from San Ignacio. After riding on a BUMPY road for about 30 minutes, we arrived at a small lot where we all got out. We put on our water shoes and proceeded to hike through the JUNGLE for 45 minutes, crossing 3 rivers by foot along the way. This hike alone was an adventure. Once we got to what they called "camp" (which was just a bunch of palm huts covering picnic tables) we ate an early lunch since we wouldn't be able to eat in the caves. From there, we hiked down to the entrance of the cave. This site was by far one of the most spectacular things I have ever seen in my life. Jungle forest surronding a cave opening with blue water flowing out of it. To get into the cave, we fastened our shirts to the top of our helmets and hopped into a 20 foot deep pool of cold, yes cold water. I never thought I would be cold in Belize but I was. We just wore our suits, our water shoes and shorts as we proceeded to go further into the cave, treking through water up to 6 feet deep the whole time. It was absolutely amazing. This is what we called a TRUE ADVENTURE. The formations weren't as impressive as they were at Carlsbad Caverns (where we stopped at in New Mexico on our cross country trip) but the water part was amazing. When we finally got to the "dry" part of the cave, we hiked up this 25 foot face and took off our water shoes and put on socks (which were kept in the dry bags along w/ our cameras) to view the rest of the cave. This part was amazing too. There were Mayan Pottery Ruins and SKELETONS everywhere!!! 14 total skeleton remains - mostly just a few bones and skulls but at the end there was one full skeleton remain - all of them were heavily crystallized but you could still see the shapes fully. Amazing - they estimate they were human sacrifices back in 800 AD. There was a National Geographic documentary done on this cave back in 1999 I think so if you are interested, check it out. We can't wait to see it when we get back to the states. This place KICKED BUTT - anyone coming to Belize that has an adventurous side has to check out ATM!

We didn't get back to San Ignacio until about 6pm. We were beat and passed out. What a fun and adventurous weekend!!!

Only 3 More Weeks of Work Left

Monday, June 20th
We have only 3 more weeks of work left because we are taking off a week early to travel :) Can't believe we leave in 4 weeks from TODAY! It has flown by!

Today we got into the office by 8:30 - we are definately some of the first volunteers to arrive since we have so much we are working on. We had a 2 hour HIV/AIDS meeting with everyone to plan out the next couple of weeks because we are beginning to plan the training to role out our program nation-wide. I had to leave a little early to work on the database I am developing because I wanted to get it to the Ministry of Health by the end of the day.

There were no kids at the lunch program today and we had our basic meal of beans, rice and split pea soup. We can't wait to get home and have some variety :)

After work, we went to Champions Sports Bar, yes, just like back in the US, and watched the Sox play the Indians since it was on ESPN2. GO SOX! They pulled off the win in the 9th. After, we met our friends Paul and Melissa for pizza at Yolis. This was the first time we had pizza, if you can believe it with Jim, in Belize. Now I know why we haven't, it sucked. It was no Victors to say the least.

Tuesday, June 21st
Today we did crossword puzzles with the kids at lunch - it was sad to see some of them couldn't do it without cheating completely. Even once I said the answer and SPELLED IT OUT, some of them had to look at their neighbors papers to write the answer in. I asked Miss Ger, our local mom, if she thought it was my American accent and she said some of the kids barely know their alphabet! These are kids aged 5 - 12! Crazy.

At night, Colin and I had a banana bread bake off. It is so cheap to make banana bread here - bananas are 10 for $0.50 and the other stuff is cheap too - so we make it all the time. I have to say mine won :) hehehhehe Jim went over to Paul's to get his ankle rubbed by a local massage guy. I met him over there and we watched the CRAZIEST PIRROTED COPY OF STAR WARS EVER!!! Maybe it was the way we watched it, with half the screen covered with paper towels because there was the start menu flashing there the whole time and #s flashing at the top the whole time, but we didn't really like Revenge of the Sith. Not to say Jim won't see it back in the US, but it wasn't as great as we had expected but it was an experiece to watch it at Paul's Belizian house which is basically a shack on stilts with no running water, no appliances etc. There is an outhouse down the stairs through the mass of weeds and trees. Crazy town.

Wednesday, June 22nd
YEAH! We hit up Sandy Bay again after work today and I mastered the Rope Swing and jumped off a 25 foot rock face. It is so fun to have all of this in our town. I guess we don't have hte options of other things to do at night as we do in the US but this river is awesome! jim and i attempted to swim back into town instead of take the hike in the jungle and it was HARD to say the least. We were beat by the time we made it back to the Big Bridge. At least we got some cardio! After that work out, Jim proceeded to go hit the basketball court with the local guys. His ankle is much better.

Thursday, June 23rd
I am almost finished with our database and we are FINALLY finished with the forms and training manual for our program. We just got the final manual from the press, called "Children Have Rights and Needs: Community Based Solutions", and it looks great. Jim and I are using our 'business' skills to help the Cornerstone Foundation founder, Pam, with the budgets and staff schedule for our program. We are rolling out training of all community nurse aids and community information centers in each of the 6 districts and that requires a ton of planning and financial rework. At least it's good to know we can be of help!

We have been working late days (meaning 5 or 6pm) with Pam to get all this done. We really want to make sure this program succeeds after we leave. We are lucky that we have involved the other volunteer Libby and she is super smart and motivated and should be a great person to take over. She is trying to stay in Belize through December which would be great because our Grant with UNICEF runs through December. After Decemebre, we are relying on the community to supply the help.

Thursday night we went to our friend Melissa's focus group on Gender in Belize. It is amazing how different it is than Jim and I's views on Gender. The local women WANT a man to be a provider and judge them on what car they drive etc. Most local women just stay at home and care to the house and their many children. Just different I guess.

Friday, June 24th
We were up SO late last night counseling our friends Paul and Melissa (somehow people come to us with their problems) so we are just going to crash after work today and play cards with Colin and Jackie. We are going to the Belize Zoo and the Old Belize Museum tomorrow and to the cave ATM on Sunday (I can't spell out what it stands for but it's this killer cave you hike through and canoe through). Can't wait for some R&R - yes - some of you might laugh but we are working hard down here :)

The rest of our weekend

Once we got back to Santa Elena, we showered up and went to the Greenhouse (where the other volunteers live) to see what they were up to that night and the next day. Then we went to Hannahs, which our peace corps buddy Dominic, swears by. I am now a fan like he is! We had the most amazing dinner we have had since being in Belize! Jim's eggplant with tomatoes, basil, cheese and jerk spice on them were to die for! After dinner, we just crashed since we had been up since 4:15am.

Sunday morning, I made the traditional flap jacks that they have here. Mine turned out EXACTLY like Rhode Island dough boys so Jobby was in heaven. Then we hit up this area called Sandy Bay - which is definately misnamed. There is no sand and it's not a bay. It is just this crazy hike through the jungle to get up river from Santa Elena and San Ignacio to another part of the Macal River where there is a rope swing and some crazy high rocks to jump off of. We went with our friends Lyndsay (from the UK), Libby (from NYC who went to ND) , Illana (from Santa Cruz) and Anastasia (from Canada) . Lyndsay and Libby were the only two that exceled at the rope swing. We hung out there for awhile and then went to the outside market to get some fruit and veggies for the week. We made it our goal to go back to Sandy Bay soon to get better at this swing!

Sunday night, we went to our friend Amanda's place who works for Pro Belize and is from Texas for a going away party for our friend Sarah from Denmark. She has this great place in San Ignacio with a crazy roof deck that has a great view of the city. San Ignacio is really hilly like San Francisco so it's a nice reminder of home! It was a fun mellow party minus the fact that I got no less than 50 bug bites all over my legs! I thought I was immune to them by now !

Flores & Tikal Guatemala

On Friday, June 17th we headed to Flores, Guatemala with Jackie and Colin. After we had a pretty lame volunteer meeting at lunch, we took a crazy collectivo taxi from San Ignacio to the border town of Benque 11 miles away. This taxi was interesting in itself - it had a HUGE bullet hole in the front windshield that the driver had just fixed up with scotch tape! We got there safe and sound and crossed the border after paying the hefty departure tax in Belize. It is amazing how things change so quickly. Suddenly EVERYONE is speaking Spanish! Good thing we had Colin with us because he speaks it very well. Our classes here haven't paid off as much as we thought they would :)

Once we got into Guatemala, by crossing over the river, we searched for a collectivo mini bus to get us to Flores where we were going to spend the night. We found one and all got seats. Now I am talking about pretty much vans the size of those old VW ones that hippies used. On the 2 hour ride to Flores, we managed to squeeze 22 people in the van! It was insane and very cramped. When we were about 10 miles from Flores, our van got a flat tire and we all had to get out while they put on the 'spare' which was pretty flat as well. Guatemala is a beautiful country though!

We got to Flores which is a tiny island in a lake. It reminded us a lot more of a European city beause it had tiny cobblestone streets. We stayed at a beautiful hotel right on the lake side called Casado de la Isle which had a great pool. It was only $38 US too which was great since it was so nice! We went for a quick swim and then watched the sunset over another tiny island in the lake and enjoyed some of the GREAT Guatemalan beers. Such a nice change from the 2 beer selection in Belize - Belikin Beer and Belikin Stout. We went to dinner at La Luna which was awesome - such great decoration and so cheap! From there, we went up to the main plaza and enjoyed some coconut icecream cones and watched the local boys play pick up soccer on the basketball court. After all that, we enjoyed another swim in the pool and then crashed at 11pm since we had to get up at 4:15am to go to Tikal.

When we got up so early in the am, our wonderful hotel had no running water! Now all of you know how hard it is to wake Jim up in the morning - try 4:15am with NO SHOWER. Needless to say, we were sleepy. Good thing it was raining when we got outside and got a shower there. The collectivo bus was supposed to be there at 5am but it didn't get there till 5:30am. We were at Tikal by 6:30am. They say to get to the ruins early to enjoy the wildlife and avoid the crowds. The wildlife was one of the best parts of Tikal for me. We saw monkeys, parrots, tuacans, turkeys and tons of other crazy birds and insects. Tikal was amazing. Even though it was slightly raining, we were pretty protected under the rainforest cover. Tikal has some amazing temples you can hike up (on these crazy sketch wooden ladders) and enjoy some amazing views of the tops of the temples jetting out from the canopy of the rainforest. Jim and I hiked up El Mundo Perdido, all 72 massive stone steps, and enjoyed one of the best views I have ever seen. It was worth the trek up there! We enjoyed a little picnic up there as it had stopped raining and enjoyed watching all the parrots chase each other below us.

Once we got back to Flores after Tikal around 2pm, we decided we would head back to Belize because we didn't want to pay for another hotel and we wanted to be able to relax on Sunday. Jim and I showered in Jackie and Colin's rooms and then took off on our journey. Of course walking in the heat was made better by another $0.75 US massive coconut ice cream cone :) We had to hike way into the neighboring town of Santa Elena to track down a collectivo to the Border town of Malchor. It was crazy. We went into the center of town. Let's just say I think Flores was a diamond in the ruff. There were so many people, selling everything in every language! They wouldn't take no as an answer very well. We finally squeezed ourself into a collectivo and had to deal with some crazy people on the 2 hour trip back to Belize. We were so happy to get out of the cramped collectivo.

It very easy to cross back into Belize and we caught a taxi with exactly the $11 Belizian dollars we had left back to our house. It was nice to be home :) Guatemala is a beautiful country but there is so much trash everyywhere. People just don't respect their country. I want to say to them HELLO, tourism is your major revenue source and if you keep trashing your country, no one will want to come. Tikal was graffitted everywhere too which took away from some of it as well. It was fun though! We will hopefully get pictures online soon!

Thursday, June 16th

Last night we stayed up pretty late with our roommates enjoying the local rums at home J They have this great dark rum called One Barrel – it is so cheap and almost tastes like butterscotch. We will bring some home for people to try. They also have a great coconut rum – combined with pineapple juice, it is amazing J

Today I spent most of the day typing up notes from the meetings we were at. We are making so much progress on our program and it is amazing to realize how many children and families we are going to be helping nation wide.

We made mobiles with the lunch program children today. It was amazing to see them so happy and be able to hang something in their rooms at home. It sucked though because in the middle of making them outside, a huge storm rolled in and the construction paper starting flying everywhere! Everything is harder sometimes in Belize J We are really going to miss these kids when we leave. Spending an hour every day with them, we have really gotten to know them. Jim knows the boys better and I tend to know the girls better. They just love having older figures that talk to them and hang out.

TGIT – almost Friday and we are headed to Guatemala tomorrow!

Outlaws :) or trying to be

Wednesday, June 15th
So our 30 day visas ended today and we had just assumed we could go to Guatemala this coming weekend and be fine. We get to the office and tell people what’s up and they all freak out saying we have to go to the Capital, Belmopan, and get our volunteer visas today before we get into trouble. Lovely, we have to head back to our favorite city. We took the 10:15am express bus (hey jammed Bob Marley the whole time on the bus which was awesome) and got to the immigration office by 11:15. It is amazing how slow people work here. They took our documents after some waiting in line and told us to come back at 2pm. We went to eat lunch and then hit up our favorite internet café across from the bus station. We go back to the immigration office (where they have HALF NAKED WOMEN AS THEIR SCREENSAVERS!!!!) and ask for our documents. Of course they weren’t ready. We saw many ‘sketchy’ foreigners asking for citizenship. We ran into our friend Melissa there too (you can’t go anywhere in Belize without seeing someone you know since it is such a small country) which made it more fun waiting. We finally got out of there around 3pm with our volunteer visas extended. Back to San Ignacio – yippee!

HIV/AIDS Orphans & Vulnerable Children - Project #1

A bit late, but better than never. Here is an update on the volunteer work that we've been doing here. I've got a lot of catching up to do, but I've got a lot of handwritten notes, and I'll try to bring you all up to speed. The fun stuff is great and all, but Carla and I are doing some really good work down here too, that should have a really lasting impact.

Some of you may find this a bit boring (especially the details about people and meetings), but these notes are for Carla and I too, and I want to make sure I get all the gritty details. Besides, I'm working to see if I can get some credit at Duke for this stuff. The first couple of posts will no doubt be a bit top-heavy since I'm introducing a lot of people who are involved throughout and I want to give you an idea of who they are up front.

Anyway, here goes...

TUESDAY - May 16th, 2005
We arrived in Belize on Monday, settled into our house, and showed up at the Cornerstone Office on Tuesday, eager to get started with a project. I really wanted to do a HIV/AIDS project and Carla wanted to do something with either HIV/AIDS or the Environment. We both wanted to help with the kids program too. It was difficult to get started though, since we couldn't get much help from the Cornerstone Staff. They were all very busy preparing for a conference which was coming up in Belize City on Thursday. The conference was part of a joint initiative led by UNICEF and Cornerstone to support the "Protection and Care of HIV/AIDS Orphans and Vulnerable Children and Their Families" What a great opportunity!

The trouble was, it was so late in the process that nobody wanted our help. This was understandable, since it would take precious time to get us up to speed, but both Carla and I offered our assistance anyway (even if it was just to get coffee for people or register attendees as they arrived). We still didn't get much of a response.

We were persistent though, and on Wednesday, we simply informed the Cornerstone Staff that we were taking the bus to Belize City on Thursday and asked for the address so we could attend. At this point, they got the message, gave us the address, and said it would be great if we could come help out.


THURSDAY - May 18th, 2005
We got up wicked early to catch the 5:45 AM Express Bus to Belize City. This was our first experience on the bus, and it was wonderful. Nice, Air Conditioned and Fast. We arrived in Belize City at 8:30 and walked across town to the Radisson Fort George Hotel where the conference was being held. When we walked into the lobby we noticed a big sign promoting the Belize Audubon Society Bird-Watchers Conference. Nowhere was there a sign promoting the UNICEF-Cornerstone Event. We took this as a bad sign, but after a few moments talking with the Front Desk, we were directed to another building next door where the meeting room was.

The conference room looked like a standard American hotel conference room, nothing special. Carla and I set to work hanging up posters and signs on the walls for breakout sessions later in the day. The volunteer who was the lead organizer of the conference was a girl named Victoria. She was a fellow American Gringo (from Miami) but was previously employed by UNICEF in another Central American country and seemed to have control of things. The volunteers here at Cornerstone fall into two categories: People interested in accomplishing something that will help the people of Belize in some way, and people interested in taking a 3 month vacation, supported by money from either their parents or their universities. Victoria was one of the former.

Anna Silva, Cornerstone's Director, acted as MC for the conference. Anna is a rather soft-spoken Hispanic woman in her early 40s who started out as Cornerstone's Secretary 5 years ago. She is very nice, but not as Type-A as we would expect the head of the organization to be. The conference kicked off with a rousing version of the Belize National Anthem and State Prayer followed by a welcome delivered by Roy Bowen and Juan Fernando Aguirre from UNICEF.

Melva Johnson, a UNICEF consultant, followed the welcome up with a presentation outlining the current impact of HIV/AIDS on Children in Belize. Melva is a tall Kriol (black) woman who is the primary UNICEF contact with Cornerstone. The presentation mostly consisted of statistics that served as a good background for understanding the current problem.

Dr. Paul Edwards, Director of the National Aids Program and Head of Epidemiology for the Belize Ministry of Health (MOH) came next. He was the most compelling public speaker, but his presentation seemed to veer a bit from the subject at hand, and focused mostly on drug therapy programs designed to prevent Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV/AIDS. I found out later that he was supposed to speak on a totally different topic, but either didn't get the memo, or ignored the request.

The morning session closed with a pair of personal experiences, the first from Dr. Victor Rosado who shared two stories about what children in HIV/AIDS infected families can expect (discrimination, neglect, abandonment, malnourishment, and worse). The most moving speaker of the morning however came from a Mother Infected with HIV. She courageously came forward to tell her story how she is struggling to support her children (she lost her job due to HIV discrimination) and how she worries about what will happen to her children after she dies (her husband has already died from an AIDS related illness). It was a tearful event.

Judith Apuche from the NCFC (an organization associated with Social Services, which is a division of the Ministry of Human Development) had the difficult task of not only following up the HIV Infected Mother, but also Lunch. On top of that, Social Services has a terrible reputation here in Belize. The general understanding is that they only get involved when things are terrible, and when they do, they only make things worse. This is a tough distinction to shake as they seem terribly underfunded (I'll get into that later) and have some of the toughest tasks to deal with (relocating abused children to foster homes or homelessness. Anyway, Judith's presentation focused on how rampant child abuse is in Belize (really terrible) and some of the challenges in dealing with it. She was ripped apart by several community nurses in the audience who shared stories of abused children being taken from their parents only to find their way back to the abusive situation weeks later. It was a tough crowd for her.

Following Judith was a woman named Miyuki Yamashita, from the Dangriga Aids Society. Dangriga is a town on the coast which has the highest incidence per person of HIV/AIDS infection in Belize. Miyuki's presentation focused on how a change in attitude was needed. Over the past few years, there had been such a focus on stopping the spread of AIDS that they demonized the disease, and people afflicted by it. The result was that while the HIV infection rate had slowed somewhat, discrimination was now rampant. The Dangriga Aids Society was trying to set up the first "Aids Friendly Town." This amounted to a mass marketing message educating the community that people can live and work with HIV and still contribute considerably to society. It was an interesting idea, but much too early to determine if it would make a difference.

Minerva Aponte Jolly and Lavern ____ from Cornerstone delivered the final presentation which began with an explanation of the UNICEF-Cornerstone partnership and project goals. Before I get to that though, let me tell you about Minerva and Lavern. Minerva is a extremely outspoken tall, grey-haired 50-year-old Puerto Rican (originally from NY) who moved down to Belize many years ago to raise her children away from the hustle and bustle of city life. She is a nurse by training, a health educator at present and a true hippy at heart. She is incredibly passionate about helping people in need which is inspiring to be around, but she can also be frustrating to work with, because she does consider much else.

Lavern is the head of the HIV/AIDS program here at Cornerstone. She is Kriol (black Carribean), in her mid-30s and even more soft-spoken than Anna is. She has been with Cornerstone for about 2 years now and is in charge of organizing activities for the short-term (3 week) volunteers. Now, on to the Project.

The goal of the UNICEF-Cornerstone partnership is to set-up a National Network to assist "HIV/AIDS Orphans, Vulnerable Children and Their Families" by providing physical and emotional support. The program actually started in late 2003 when UNICEF Regional (Central & South America and the Caribbean) put out a communication that they were accepting bids from country level UNICEF offices (UNICEF is incredibly bureaucratic) to specifically help HIV/AIDS Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC as UNICEF likes to call em). UNICEF Belize put a proposal in and was accepted and in 2004 started the program through a partnership with a Belizean Church Group to provide these services. After 1 year however, UNICEF decided that the church did not have the national reach or personnel to do the job. At that point, they switched to Cornerstone primarily because Melva Johnson had successfully worked with Cornerstone before, but ignoring the fact that Cornerstone was a regional NGO (really only did work around San Ignacio, and had not organized any national efforts before).

The Network was to be kick-started by a $50,000 grant from UNICEF which started in January and ran until December 2005 but was to be self-sustaining thereafter. Originally the plan had been for Cornerstone to identify the families at need and then give the money to Human Development to distribute the funds. They didn't think this was a good idea, for the reasons I mentioned above and were working on an alternative plan. The plan they came up with is as follows.

CNAs (Community Nurse Aides) receive training to help teach others how to care for HIV/AIDS infected family members. These CNAs are individuals with medical backgrounds, but no formal training. Some have cut their teeth in formerly war-torn Central American countries but some are originally from Belize. They generally have an interest in helping the community, and receive a $100 stipend from the MOH for their services (it's important to know that this is not a salary (or much money), and that these CNAs are volunteers, not employees).

As the CNAs teach, they also gather information on the needs of the family by filling out a questionairre which Cornerstone developed. Once a month, they bring this questionaire to the District HECOPAB (Health Education and Community Participation Bureau) Offices (when they pick up their stipend money). HECOPAB, as the name suggests, is part of the MOH and is responsible for educating the community about health related issues. The HECOPAB workers (who are sometimes, but not always trained nurses) would then make photocopies of the forms, pass them on to district charity co-ordinating commities called (CICs) who make more photocopies which they pass on to local charities (Rotary, Churches, etc.) who actually meet the needs of the families. The goods collected are then passed back through the chain with an equal number of photocopied forms on the way back. If I have not lost you with acronyms and details so far, you get a gold star!

Ok, so where was I? Ah yes, that was the final presentation of the day. We then broke up into three small workgroups to work on the project directly. This is when Carla and I really started to get involved. We sat at the "National" group which consisted of Dr. Edwards of MOH, Ava Pennill, Director of the Ministry of Human Development (MHD), Judith Apuche, the head of security for Peace Corps. Belize and Minerva.

The discussion started with a criticism of the project as it was currently designed. Everyone jumped on the fact that it was way to heavy in photocopies and there were many concerns about privacy and ensuring that nobody would take advantage of the system. They also wanted to know who this "CIC" would be and who would ultimately take ownership. This group was all too familiar with good-intentioned charity programs which fell apart because either nobody took ownership or because people took advantage of the system. They were not cynical, but they were realists. Just as the discussion started to devolve into a "Why this idea won't work" party Carla and I jumped in.

We basically said that we could take the lead on the work and use our background with computers, databases and analysis to create an online system to collect this information, to eliminate the photocopies, ensure confidentiality and prevent free-riding. The group stopped short of applause, but there were a few dropped-jaws and they were obviously very excited that we decided to visit Belize.

The tone of the discussion immediately changed. Dr. Edwards volunteered the time of his technical team to help us develop the database and Ava Pennill offered to host the database on the computers at the MHD. We then started to discuss logistical details such as what questions should be asked on the CNA forms and where we could find donations. We felt really good about where this was going. We ran out of time before we could really finish the discussion, but we exchanged phone numbers and emails and agreed to meet a month later on June 14th to follow-up. On the bus ride home, I started to jot down notes on what they system would look like and what information we needed to collect. We were both really excited to have a project which we could apply our skills to and which would really make a difference. But that was just the beginning...

The rain is REALLY here

Tuesday, June 14th
SO IT FINALLY REALLY REALLY RAINED last night! We now know what they talk about for the rainy season. I was supposed to get up and try and run (yes for the first time since the marathon) with Jackie but it was monsooning out. It poured straight from 2am - 8am. It had cooled down so much I actually wore JEANS to work today!
Yesterday was a good but very busy day. Jim and I headed to Belize City at 7am with Anna and Lavern for a meeting at UNICEF. The meeting went EXTREMELY well and we have convinced all the district managers from the Ministry of Health to donate their data clerks time to enter the data collected in our program into an online database to track statistics and ease the whole program. After our meeting, we had a nice lunch of shake and bake chicken at a local cafe. Lavern had actually brought her very sick 1.5 year old son with us to Belize City. I guess he has been sick for so long and no one in Cayo knows what is wrong. We got to experience private health care here and it is still very interesting. Turns out the poor boy has pnemonia and needs surgery on his sinuses - reminds me of Katie Woehrles sinuses! At least she now knows what is wrong with him.
Today, Tuesday, we had a meeting at the local HECOPAB office which took all day. Though, we made a lot of progress. Not much else to report :) We have to head to either Guatamala by Thursday or to the Capital Belmopan since our 30 day visa is up! OOPPPS - we have been so busy we forgot about it - we will figure it out though!

Until later - we miss all you Americans!!!

Another week in Belize - Almost 1/2 way done!

Monday, June 6th
So it has been a year since we were married! YIPPPEEE :) hehhehe
Today we spent most of the day in the office - it is amazing how busy we are! We got approval to plan two meetings for next week so we are in super planning mode. It is amazing how much of a difference we are going to make for the 2 + months we will have been here.
We were supposed to have closed on our townhouse in Durham today but when my parents got there, things were kinda a mess so tomorrow - fingers crossed ;) We are just did some major laundry tonight - it's amazing how much laundry you get when you sweat through ALL your clothes everyday :)

Tuesday, June 7th
Tuesday was another productive day. Jobby and I made a lot of progress on the assesment forms we are working on and we also CLOSED ON OUR HOUSE! Thanks to Mom and Dad Gerster, we are now the proud owners of a townhouse in Durham :) Too bad it's not going to be used for another month and a half :)
Tuesday night was our friend Victoria's last night in Belize. She has been here for 4 months working on HIV/AIDS as well. She was the volunteer who organzed the big conference that actually got us interested in our work. We went to Nefrys, the favorite local bar, for her last night. There were some crazy local girls there hussling everyone at pool. Finally after about 10 games, Jim and Paul were able to beat them :) Melissa and I tried our hardest and fell one ball short.

Wednesday, June 8th
Today was our first day of MASSIVE thunderstorms. Welcome to the rainy season. We woke up to pounding our our tin roof and since the gutters are filled with stuff, water pouring down the side of the house, right outside our window. Walking around San Iganacio today was beautiful - things are getting greener and greener. I also think we are getting to know the area better so we are liking it more and more each day. You start to appreciate all the stray dogs everywhere rather than curse them for barking so much :)
Today I finished developing the first mock database for our project. We are definately making progress and staying busy which is good. Another new volunteer, Libby, who is unfortunately a Notre Dame grad, is starting to help us a lot too. Other than the ND fact, she is great ;) We had a meeting at the local HECOPAB offices to review our forms and got a lot of positive feedback. It is so amazing to realize what a different in local people's lives this program is going to have. It is a whole different world down here. When meeting with the nurses today, they told us of 'alternative' HIV/AIDS therapies. They told us about a man who was told he could ward off the disease if he laid in the meat of a dead cow for 3 days!!! This man took his life earngins and bought an ENTIRE cow and laid in the dead meat for 3 days. After 3 days, not only was he STILL HIV positive but he was malnurished, dehydrated and infested with flys and bugs from the rotting meat. CRAZY! They are also really into herbal remedies here and though they say it works for some things, it really doesn't help in the case of HIV/AIDS.
Tonight we went to Cafe Sol for dinner which is by far our favorite place to eat in San Ignacio thus far. We had a chicken parm sandwich with salad and though it was no LOWER chicken parm (all you BC girls know what I am talking about) it was great. I was also attacked by a MASSIVE MASSIVE beetle when we got home. I amazingly stayed somewhat calm while my lifesaving husband took 3 swings to hit the thing off. The wonders of living in the jungle :)

Thursday, June 9th
Happy Birthday Katie W! In honor of you I will write in Purple :)
Tonight Jobby, after a long day in the office, went to the local basketball court to play with the locals. Though he did great the first 4 games, he sprained his ankle in the last one :( I think he will be ok though! Healing thoughts for Jim's ankle everyone!!!

Friday, June 10th
Since Jim's ankle was hurt and he wanted to stay off it for a whole day, I went to work by myself this morning. It is amazing how much attention a white woman by herself gets. I really take for granted the times when Jim walks with me. Just having him by my side stops the hoots and hollars. I don't think the people are dangerous here, it just gets a little uncomfortable.
There was a lot of frustration at work today because the staff, Anna and Lavern specifically, are not up to speed on what we are doing and don't have the grasp of how it will help them yet. The founder of Cornerstone, Pam, spent some time with Anna and Lavern getting them up to speed and I think that helped. It is great that Pam is so supportive and sees what a difference Jim and I are making.
I had the lunch kids all by myself today because Colin and Jackie were in Belmopan. They are crazy when you are all by yourself! They are so cute but pains! We played pictionary but they all cheated like always. O well, you can't always change kids.
I spent the rest of the afternoon finally relaxing and enjoying some conversation. I went with Amber and Melissa to the local Mennonite Bakery for some fresh goodies. They really make some great baked goods, ice cream and cheeses :) It's funny to see the Mennonites traveling all aound on their horse and buggies :)

Saturday, June 11th
Last night we had Paul and Melissa over and we played 'Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus'. Yes, random I know but Melissa is doing a focus group to learn about gender roles in Belize (she is a Cultural Anthropology PHD student) and she wanted to practice the game. It was actually really entertaining and having Paul there to give the local Belizian response was really cool.
We spent all of today working in the office for our meeting on monday . We have to sell our program to the district managers for the Ministry of Health so they can convince their data clerks to enter the information this program collects into a database.
Though, we did unwind at night and went to Hodes for dessert and played basketball with some local kids :)

Sunday, June 12th
I spent the entire day today lounging by the pool at the San Ignacio Hotel to escape the heat while Jobby escaped it at the local internet cafe. Pretty chill Sunday to prepare for a week of work work work!

Anniversary Weekend in Tobacco Caye

Friday, June 3rd, 2005
We spent the morning of the 3rd gathering all the necessary papers to apply for our volunteer visa and preparing for the meeting we had with the Ministry of Health. We had a great meeting w/ the Ministry of Health and gathered a lot of information for the project we are working on but unfortunately we missed the office for visas. They closed at 3pm! We asked what time they opened and they said officially 8:30am but no one would be in until 9:30am - talk about taking it Belizy. Slow lifestyle here!
We waited at the bus station in Belmopan after our meeting for 3 hours because there was a huge accident on one of the three roads in Belize. Lets just describe this bus station. There is only a few words - SKETCH, HOT.

That was Carla's lead in for this post. I'm picking it up from here. The accident was pretty bad, and was all over the national news. A guy on a motorcycle was speeding along when a pickup truck carrying people in the back had a tire blowout while going the other direction. The man on the bike literally exploded, body parts everywhere. A mother and her daughter in the truck died as well and her son is in critical condition. Normally I wouldn't mention the gorey details of something like this, but I found the news coverage of the accident to be incredible. Full color pictures and far more graphic accounts than mine were all over the papers. It seems that journalism is a no holds barred occupation here. A few days later I noticed that this quality didn't change much with the news. The three cover stories were about murders in Belize City (a Doctor who's BMW was shot up by 5 men with automatic weapons while he was driving home from work, a man who was "hacked in the face" several times with a machete while he was sleeping, and someone who was shot). All had rather graphic pictures as well. I think the news makes this country seem a bit more scary than it really is.

Anyway, when we finally got on the bus, the driver decided to make up time on the road South from Belmopan to Dangriga. This road is described in the guidebooks as a picturesque journey through rolling mountains and jungle. It was more like a roller coast ride through the backwoods in the dark. We finally arrived at Dangriga. Dangriga was not the most exciting city we've been too, in fact it looked more like an industrial center than a city. It's claim to fame (or rather infame if that is a word) is that has a horrible problem with HIV/AIDS. Something like 1 in 10 people are infected here. On the positive side, it is the pilot city for a UNICEF sponsered initiative to be the first "Aids Friendly City" The goal of the project is to eliminate HIV/AIDS discrimination, which is almost as bad as the disease here through a campaign of education and outreach. I'll mention more about this in our work update that I'm writing.

We decided to stay at the Chalinore Hotel. It was a nice enough place, but excessively expensive ($40 American). In the lobby, we saw a poster for Pizza, and decided to splurge, but they had just closed. We went to dinner next door and nothing much more exciting happened that night.

Saturday, June 4th, 2005,
We woke up and walked over to a small cafe right on the water where we were supposed to get a water taxi to Tobacco Caye. As we walked up, a large Kriol man with a mesh T-shirt, calling himself Cappy, asked if we wanted a ride to the Caye (remember, it's pronounced "Key"). We said sure and he said we could wait in the cafe until we had a few more people. We went inside and ordered "Fryjacks" These are in fact DOUGHBOYS!!! Wonderfully tasty, if a bit lighter and fluffier than usual this was a great breakfast. When Cappy was ready, we hopped in his little "Boston Whaler"type boat, and headed out. We shared the ride with a pair of Archeologists living in Cayo (the district we currently live in). They were taking a weekend off from their dig and decided to hit the Cayes. Andrew and Joe (a girl) were their names. Andrew was from L.A. and we poked fun at him for a while, as good Northern Californians should. Joe was from Vermont, but studying at Penn. The highlight of the trip for Carla though, was that she got to see a Bottle Nosed Dolphin (just like flipper) on the ride out. We both saw a splash in the water near the boat, and Carla immediately thought it was a dolphin. I didn't think so, but it turns out that her Dolphin Sense is quite strong, and she was right. She then proceeded to chat with this friendly marine mammal through a series of clicks and whistles until it was time to wave goodbye.

When we got to the island, we asked Cappy to come back for us at 2pm on Sunday. He said sure, and was off. We were planning to stay in "Overwater Bungaloes" on this island, just as we had in Bora Bora on our Honeymoon. When we got here though, we realized, that the author of the travel guide who said there were "Overwater Bungaloes" was really stretching his artistic license. There were a few wooden shacks, that were near the water. Perhaps, during a really high tide, or hurricane, these might have been "Over the Water" but they certainly weren't while we were there. So we decided to stay at the place that Cappy had suggested. A place called Gaviota's, run by a man named Norman. He was a very talkative guy, and told us all about how his place was one of the "Top 5 Most Eco-Friendly Resorts in the World" This was another case of artistic license, but not nearly as bad. The wooden rooms on stilts with a shared bathroom, certainly didn't qualify as a "resort" in my mind, but it was Eco Friendly (run entirely by solar power). Of couse, there wasn't much that had to run on the sun, as the only electrical items we saw were two hanging lights in the dining hall and the laptop computer Norman had just bought (which he asked me to help fix on Saturday night, and which almost got me in big trouble). After the previous weekend's experience however, we were more than happy to not have a bathroom directly attached to our living quarters, so this was fine.

The "resort" was an all inclusive deal, with three meals a day. The reason for this was less marketing package, and more reality. There were no other restaurants on the 5 acres of island we were staying on. Only about 3 other similar hotels (which is rather amazing considering by itself) There were two bars, but we didn't bother to try out either. The only source of freshwater on the island were raincatchers, and we showered with salt water from the ocean. It was a nice getaway though, and we spent most of our time lounging on hammocks, playing scrabble (I beat Carla the first game, but then she beat me the last two) and reading. Our three meals consisted of fish (sans-head but full of bones) then chicken (also full of bones) and finally breakfast burritos (full egg, but no bones). There was a nice place to go swimming/snorkling, but we decided to be frugal, and just swim about rather than rent a snorkel (we forgot ours at home). We had a nice couple of swims though, and even saw a family of flounder fish (just like we used to catch in RI on Uncle By's boat). While swimming we met a girl, who was also named Carla) and who worked at our hotel. She was one of 5 people working there, and it seemed odd that so many people worked at our hotel, when in fact, we really only saw one person doing any work at all.

While walking around, I found a coconut that had fallen from one of the trees and asked one of the guys who worked at our hotel, to show me how to open it up. It turns out that the round little brown coconuts that we see attached to palm trees in tropical pictures is a fake. When the coconut is in the tree, it is really a big (like a gallon milk jug) green acorn looking thing. You have to split this open to get the little brown nut inside. Then you have to split the brown nut open, to get to the milk and tasty flesh. I learned all about how to tell good coconuts from the bad ones and also the best way to open them up.

On Saturday night, we opened a bottle of wine that our roommates, Colin and Jackie, had bought us as a present and sat out under the stars. The sky was beautiful, since there was absolutely no light pollution from the island. We were relaxing quite nicely when a giant coconut fell from a nearby tree and landed only a few feet away. We had been warned not to sit under these trees and we were lucky one of us wasn't brained by it. We moved our chairs a bit closer to the surf and relaxed there until a couple of island dogs came to visit us. One of the dogs, who we had befriended during the day was quite persistent about coming into our cabin to go to bed with us. I had to walk him to the other side of the hotel and feed him a bit of toothpaste so I could sneak back to our room and close the door before he got his nose in.


Sunday, June 5th, 2005 - OUR ONE YEAR WEDDING ANNIVERSARY
We woke up in the morning, after a good night's sleep and continued to laze around and enjoy the island until Cappy arrived to pick us up. Cappy arrived early, and Andrew was late getting back from a Scuba trip he had taken, so we didn't end up leaving until about 2:30. By the time we left, Cappy had finished off what we guessed was about a half bottle of One Barrel Rum, a Belize specialty. He was obviously hammered as he powered us back to Dangriga. The seas were a bit choppy, and we lost one of the outboard engines on the way (I thought we were going to lose Cappy too, the way he was bobbing around in the back). When we got to the channel which led to the Cafe, where we were picked up, we realized it was now high tide, and a significant sandbar stood in our way. To compound matters, this was where all of Dangriga went on hot days to cool off, so there were probably about 200 people hanging around the entrance and swimming in the water nearby. This didn't stop Cappy though. He barrelled ahead at full speed, cutting back and forth between families floating in the water. Nobody seemed the least bit concerned however, so I presumed this was a regular occurance. Only when we got close to the sandbar did he slow down enough for his copilot to jump out, and pull us through the crowd. It was quite the site as 5 kids riding horses on the beach scampered by, and little kids climbed up on the boat to jump off the side.

After getting dropped off, we walked to the station, where we were miraculously right on time for a 3:30 pm Bus. The trip back to Belmopan was much more like the guidebook suggested as we slowly weaved through mountains and jungle villages at a more Leisurely pace.

When we got to Belmopan, we learned that the next local bus was leaving at 5:00 (about 10 minutes later). We bought tickets, but then ended up running into our buddy Paul / Austin who was coming back from work. Paul works as a Zip-Line operator at a place called Jaguar Park. His job is essentially to tie willing tourists to a wire which is stretched between platforms 40 feet off the ground in the jungle canopy and push them from platform to platform. He doesn't have to push much though, as the Zip-Lines move about as fast as they sound. Anyway, we decided to wait until the 6:30 Express Bus and went to grab beers at the local Chinese Restaurant. We had a nice long talk about Paul's life and then napped comfortably in the AC bus ride home.

It was a very nice, relaxing Anniversary all-in-all.

Week Between the Cayes (Caulker & Tobacco)

Hi Everyone,
Sorry we're getting a bit behind. I decided we needed to catch up so I am hiding out from the ridiculous heat in the Air Conditioned Internet Cafe here in town (where all the tourists are). Carla is up at one of the local hotels relaxing at the pool. I'll be joining her in a bit after I catch everyone up on our activities.

Monday May 30th.
So in the last post we were coming back from our cancelled meeting with the Ministry of Health in Belmopan. I think Carla was in a rush when she finished that last one, so let me add a few details. First of all, a little geography.

Belize is small (about the size of Rhode Island). The largest city is Belize City (known simply as Belize to the locals) which is the former capital. About 2 hours West of Belize City is the current Capital of Belmopan. The Capital was moved inland some years ago following a huge Hurricane which wrecked Belize City and ruined lots of important papers like land ownership documents, taxes, etc. Nobody lives in Belmopan. The Capital consists of a few government buildings spread around a small tarp-covered market. There is very little of interest here. We live in Santa Elena and Volunteer in San Ignacio. San Ignacio is the second largest city but immensely more livable than Belize City or Belmopan. It is mostly populated by middle class Belizeans with a few ex-Pats from the UK or US scattered about. San Ignacio and Santa Elena are split by a little river which is very nice to swim in (except when the locals are doing their laundry, washing their cars, or washing their animals upriver from you). San Ignacio is about 45 minutes West of Belmopan and about 30 minutes east of the Guatemala border. Ok enough geography, back to the story.

We caught the water taxi (small Boston Whaler type boat) back from Caye Caulker and tried to stop by the Ministry of Health to pick up some papers they were working on for us. The papers were not ready, but the 5 minutes it took us to wait there, made us miss the Express Bus to Belmopan. This is critical, because, while the Express Bus is slightly more expensive, it is an Air Conditioned bus like you would see in the US, and not very crowded. The Local Bus, is a converted Bluebird School Bus (yellow and everything) which is packed with people and their belongings. I have not seen farm animals on this bus yet, but it won't surprise me when I do. We were able to get on the local bus to Belize, and still arrive in time for our meeting with the Ministry of Health. The local bus was pretty bad, but we got a seat, and the windows provided enough breeze to avoid suffocation.

When we got to Belmopan however, we called our contact only to find out that our meeting for 12noon was cancelled. We went back to the Belmopan Station and bought a pair of local tickets home (the next Express Bus wasn't until 6:30pm). As we wait, the bus pulls up to the station. We already have tickets, so we assume we get on and wait fairly politely as people pack it in. As we watch, we notice that people are jockeying rather aggressively to get on. We also begin to notice that other people, who just bought tickets, are pushing past us. Trying to remain polite, we continue to wait patiently, but when it is almost our time to get on the driver yells down, get off to the last 3 people in the doorway. He then proceeds to begin backing out of the station. Two more people come running up, throw their bags through the window to friends in back, and grab the doorhandle as the bus takes off. We're at a loss for words.

The bust station in Belmopan has become our arch-enemy. It is the Sith to our Jedi. No buses run on-time here because it is in the middle of the country, so all the buses have ample time to find a way to be late coming from the East or West. It is a fairly central location, because the road which extends to the Southern part of the country also leaves from Belmopan. We learned this while waiting for the next local bus.

We're told the next bus leaves in 1 hour, so when it arrives, we quickly jump on, before the push can begin. The bus takes off, and we think we're home free. That is until it turns in the wrong direction, East back to Belize City. Turns out this was the wrong bus, so we get off two stops later, and hike back to the station.

The correct bus ends up being 1 hour late, so we're waiting another hour at the station. There are a lot more people than the last bus waiting, so we're getting a bit worried. Determined not to miss this bus, we worked up a plan to get on. I will charge ahead with only my backpack and get on the bus to grab a seat and then take the bags from Carla once I'm on. Sounds foolproof, right?

The bus rolls up, and I am running alongside the door until it opens. About 5 other people manage to get slightly better position than I do, but I'm close to the door. The push begins! As I try to climb up, I feel a tug on my pack, and I hear Carla yelling. I turn to see that the bag of coconuts I had secured to my pack has been ripped off by rabid passengers behind me. It is now crowd surfing on people's shoulders. I turn in the bus doorway, grab the nuts, grab Carla's bag which she hands me, kick two people in the head to make some room, and climb on. (Ok, i didn't kick anyone in the head, but I wanted to). I get a seat up front, and watch as Carla tries to make her way on. I can see that she is taking vicious elbows from a couple of short fat, granny looking types, but she is slowly moving ahead. The most amazing part of this "Cultural Norm" is that it goes across age groups. The small children and old ladies push just as hard as the teenagers, if not harder. We finally get on, and limp home. That was by far, the worst day we've had yet.

The evening ended nicely though. We got back to our house and, Praise the Lord, the Red Sox game is on ESPN!!! This had been a great week, since we got to watch 2 of the three games against the Yankees over the weekend (Friday and Sunday) and now we were getting the games agains the 1st place Orioles. It could have ended better though, as the Sox lost 8-1. But that's ok, they had taken 2 of three from the Yankees over the weekend (I just wish I had gotten to see the 17-1 laugher on Saturday. I'm not sure who's doing the scheduling for ESPN, but they put on 4 Sox games in 6 days. I'm not complaining though, especially when I got to watch them come back and beat the Orioles on Tuesday night.

The week was otherwise un-eventful, just working on the volunteer project, until Thursday night. Thursday night I decided to go try to play basketball with Paul/Austin, the local guy who first introduced himself to us by playing his music WAY TOO LOUD. We've actually become pretty good friends since, and hang out with him and his girlfriend Melissa a lot. (Carla is at the pool with her right now). Anyway, this was the first time I had playedd hoops in a long time and my game showed. I think of my first 6 shots, 3 were airballs, two were bricks and then I finally got it to hit the rim. It was quite embarrassing, especially since Paul, who is 5-10, can dunk. We did ok in the bigger games though, but by the third game we were both dragging and Carla had arrived to watch with Melissa. We went back to the house, got cleaned up, and then went out for Annamalia's birthday. That was the week. Next stop, Tobacco Caye for the weekend to celebrate our 1 Year WeddingAnniversary!

Caye Caulker & The Week After

We woke up Friday morning (the day after the storm) and got a real good look at the damage. Then we started to clean up. I had actually started to hack up the trees and branches that fell in our yard the night before with my headlamp and a giant Machete that everyone seems to have down here. It is a lawnmower, coconut opener and zombie killer all wrapped up into one. Almost 1 Yard long, it has a razor sharp blade that can cut through branches 2 inches thick with one swing (really impressive). And it can even cut through limbs up to 6 inches thick with only a few swings. I think I'm going to bring one home. Anyway, as if you couldn't tell already, I enjoyed the cleanup effort. We live on a cliff, overlooking the river, and it's covered in brush, so everyone just throws their clippings over the side (the wood isn't useful for fires down here, since everything is 100+ degrees out anyway).
After a few calls from Carla, I went and got cleaned up, and we headed off to Belize City where we were meeting with the Director of Human Development, Ava Pennill, to discuss our volunteer project. Ava was a bit late, but that seems to be the norm down here (I fit in well). The meeting went well, and Ava was very supportive of our goals, and helped answer a number of our questions. Both of us have our work cut out for us though!
From our meeting, we ran out and were just able to catch the boat to Caye Caulker. We met Colin and Jackie there and chilled with them for the weekend. Caye Caulker is about a 45 minute boat ride from Belize City. It's a super small mellow island with not much more to do than snorkel, swim, scuba and drink. We went on an awesome sailing and snorkeling trip on Saturday. We stopped at 3 places to snorkel, the Coral Gardens, Shark/Ray Alley (where we swam with huge rays and nurse sharks), and Hol Chan Reserve Park (where we saw barracudas, eels, rays, squid and tons of fish). The trip was awesome minus the fact that Jackie got sea sick most of the time until her Dramamine kicked in. Good thing it kicked in just in time for all the Rum Punch the crew made! It was so nice to be on a boat all day and swimming in the beautiful Caribbean Sea.
We were able to catch some of the Sox/Yankees games while we were in Caye Caulker which made Jim so excited. We also met up with another volunteer from Pro Belize, Amanda, and hung out with her the last night we were there. They have the MOST UNREAL 3 story reggae bar there - with crazy swings and hammocks everywhere. They even played Lucky Dube, my second favorite Reggae artist. Though we loved the island and being close to the ocean, Caye Caulker has a LACK of fresh water and since we have a LACK of funds as well, the bathrooms at the places we stayed smelled like SEWER. It was pretty nasty. It was so nice to finally get home and take a shower. Though only problem with getting home was it took about 7 hours and was on hellishly hot US school buses with many fiesty Belizians. We were supposed to have a meeting in Belmopan on Monday with the AIDS Program Director at the Ministry of Health but unfortuantely when we got there, he was in Belize City - again typical of Belizian culture. So even though it was a long hot adventure getting home, it was worth it.
The rest of last week after we returned from Caye Caulker we spent a lot of time working on our volunteer work. Jobby is going to update that in another blog. There are a few more volunteers around so we are always busy either working or doing something. Thursday was Anna Malia's b day so we went to Erva's restaurant with about 15 other people for dinner and then out to Nefrys and the Stork Club (for Karaoke) to celebrate. It was a good time but made us tired for our trip to Belmopan on Friday - our previous meeting was rescheduled till then. I will write more about our meeting and our weekend trip for our Anniversary to Tobacco Caye in another blog :) Until then! Miss you all!