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!